The Chronologers' Quest The Search for the Age of the Earth Patrick Wyse Jackson Books
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The debate over the age of the Earth has been ongoing for over two thousand years, and has pitted physicists and astronomers against biologists, religious philosophers against geologists. The Chronologers' Quest tells the fascinating story of our attempts to determine the age of the Earth. This book investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth's age, from James Ussher and John Lightfoot examining biblical chronologies, Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin determining the length of time for the cooling of the Earth, to the more recent investigations of Arthur Holmes and Clair Patterson into radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites. An intriguing account of the measurement of geological time, The Chronologer's Quest will delight even readers with little scientific background.
The Chronologers' Quest The Search for the Age of the Earth Patrick Wyse Jackson Books
Should be titled "Biographies of early Western European Geologists"Strong British Isle influence in style of writing, & selection of men to include. E.g. p. 119 says: "in 1800 - new breed of geologists - then names 6 from the British Isles. I wonder if there were competent geologist in America, China, etc.
E.g. says that "the Scottish scientist John Logie Baird was the inventor of TV" Most people give the credit to Farnsworhth in America. And many more examples could be givien.
Does not explain in much detail how we determine the age of the earth NOW. Several Latin phrases given with no translation. There are not many of us today who are Latin current.
Interesting history, but has this limited view.
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The Chronologers' Quest The Search for the Age of the Earth Patrick Wyse Jackson Books Reviews
While this is not a really terrible book it is not very good. As a technical person, I was looking forward to learning about the history of dating the earth. It seems like there should be good yarn here, and I plowed through all of Jackson's leaden writing hoping he would finally tell it, but no such luck. I'm not sure if there is not enough material in this topic for a book, or Jackson just wasn't up to the job.
Jackson is an Irish geologist, and as another reviewer pointed out, much of the book is a series of thumbnail sketches of early (mostly English/Irish) geologists who began to think the earth had to be a lot older than the 6,000 years or so allowed by the theologians, but made no attempt to come up with a number.
Jackson covers early attempts at coming up with an actual age in years using rock falls, ocean salination, sediment build up, wearing down of mountains (Darwin), etc. This treatment seems a little thin, but adequate. At the end of the 19th century Kelvin, who was a thermal expert, did a serious calculation based on the time needed to cool the molten earth. Soon thereafter radioactivity was discovered, and over the years as radioactive decay chains came to be understood, several techniques comparing parent/daughter ratios were used to date rocks. Here is where the story should have gotten interesting, but here is where the book just runs out of steam.
I wanted to know about all these radioactive techniques, I wanted them explained, their advantages and disadvantages discussed, but Jackson is content to just list them, and about most he says nothing. In talking about "straight line" isochrons as the key to radioactive dating, he never shows one, instead he points (page 248) to fig 13.7 (also on the front cover of the book) as an example, but every line in that figure is curved!
At the end of the book it gets this bad --- The high point of earth dating in his view is the work of Patterson of CalTech in the 30's-50's. After Jackson has rambled on about what a great man Patterson was with his uranium-lead dating technique, Jackson throws in the off hand remark that Patterson's best date (4.5 billion years) confirmed what had been arrived at -- a year earlier -- by others using potassium-argon dating. That one sentence is his total coverage of potassium-argon dating, a major geological tool!
I found this book to be immensely helpful and just a little annoying. The helpful part is the explanation of how various people tried to determine the age of the Earth. The chapter on how ancient cultures viewed the Earth, its origins, and age could have been better, but the discussion of how efforts using the Bible as the definitive source of history is excellent, especially when encountering fundamentalist Christians who today still believe the Biblical account without having investigated the pitfalls of that source. Jackson then describes the qualitative methods to establish the geologic column, the various methods used to quantitatively estimate the the Earth's age based on the geologic record, and finally radiometric dating. Each of the methods addresses how, who, when, and the estimate (followed by criticism and support in their historical context)--while keeping the technical arguments accessible to the general audience. The comprehensive nature of this book far outweighs any of its shortcomings.
The annoying part is the extreme ethnocentrism of the author. With only a couple of exceptions, detailed (at times reaching the point of "why does anyone care about these details?") descriptions of the lives of the researchers are limited to Irish, English, and Scottish researchers. While some context of how people's backgrounds influenced their paths in their lives, Jackson does at times take this to extremes by overkill for some people and omission for others. And which is which is based on their country of origin. He must have had access to an encyclopedia or two and chose not to make the extra effort for balanced coverage.
This book offers a comprehensive and accessible review of the various techniques used to try and determine the age of the Earth, who tried them, and when. If half stars were available, I would ding this book a half star because of the annoying part, but the pluses far outweigh the slight negative. Buy, read, learn.
This book expound the fascinating history of how the real age of the Earth (and solar system) was discovered. This is one of the most important and meaningful achievements of modern science. Unfortunately, also, one of the least known story (who knows Claire Patterson?). Possibly because it contradicts, in a definitive way, the religious interpretation of reality.
Patrick Wyse Jackson exposes in very clear terms and engaging style this exciting adventure of modern time, which defines us all.
Should be titled "Biographies of early Western European Geologists"
Strong British Isle influence in style of writing, & selection of men to include. E.g. p. 119 says "in 1800 - new breed of geologists - then names 6 from the British Isles. I wonder if there were competent geologist in America, China, etc.
E.g. says that "the Scottish scientist John Logie Baird was the inventor of TV" Most people give the credit to Farnsworhth in America. And many more examples could be givien.
Does not explain in much detail how we determine the age of the earth NOW. Several Latin phrases given with no translation. There are not many of us today who are Latin current.
Interesting history, but has this limited view.
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