The Lost Art of Finding Our Way
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Harvard Physics Professor John Edward Huth wrote this excellent book: The Lost Art of Finding Our Way, a few years ago and I have recommended it often since. For the interests of this group, Huth explores how people of the past knew how to observe myriad elements of their environment. In particular, he describes how clouds of various formations foretell weather in the chapter, “Red Sky at Night”, with the physics of clouds depicted graphically, and folk aphorisms that meld science and poetry. The pages on ancient navigation are particularly fascinating – I am intrigued by the Viking explorers’ sunstones – translucent crystals used for mapping when the sky was too overcast. And there are explanations of refraction, mirages, how the sun has already set when we still see it – and much more that leaves me humble with my lack of deeper knowledge of phenomena that occur all around me all the time, that our ancestors probably took for granted was common knowledge.
The book and several other articles about it are readily available through a quick search. I am reposting this as my first post a few weeks back has never appeared and I’m not adding any links as that may have been the problem? No marketing here – just a fan wanting to share. The book is over 500 pages so a great autumn read to sink into.
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Hi, Laurie (or perhaps Lost Laurie since there is already another Laurie) and welcome. Thank you for taking the time to bring Huth’s work to our attention. (And yes there was a time recently when the CAS Forum was tripping up over users’ usage of links – it has been relaxed somewhat since, so your links might work now if you give them a try).
It sounds fascinating and I suspect a double entendre in Finding Our Way, en route or in life. Therein lies the problem – finding the time in today’s frantic world of instant gratification, one reason we turn to the CAS (as per its manifesto).
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Mea culpa, sorry guys.
Laurie, this TV program this evening seems to me to be not unrelated to the lost art; art is arguably the expression of a single person, whereas the science of this program is the result of many. The program investigates the digitilisation of meteorology resulting in greater accuracy than even the skilled individual; agreed there is a difference between weather forecasting and wayfinding.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07f27j1
N.B. The abstract omits John Tyndall who around 1855 warned of coal burning producing CO2 and global warming; Edward Lorenz who discovered chaos theory and the butterfly effect; the double pendulum which simply demonstrates chaos.
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Thanks for the clarification, Laurence. And Hygge, it looks like the BBC will not let me watch that video, which I’ve encountered in the past when trying to catch their programming but as they say, it’s a rights issue. Others may enjoy it, I hope.
I just wanted to share that we have a unique geological spot here in my region, the vast White Sands gypsum fields, and it’s an area in which people can easily become disoriented when hiking among all the white hills, and that coupled with our desert heat can be very dangerous. But with great danger sometimes comes great beauty, as it does there. I just went to the park this evening and watched the moon rise above the dunes, it looked like a ripe peach, and they had a casual concert ongoing too. I snuck a link in there – you’ll note. If you ever find yourself in the southwest US, White Sands is not to be missed.
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I just stumbled across this book in a discount bookshop and thought it was worth the £3 for the 37 page section on Sky and Weather – on the first page it says ‘On a day with no clouds the sky is far from uniform;’
But fancy another book on wayfaring – its that London Bus Law in action
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/you-wait-ages-for-a-london-bus-then-20-come-along-a3245631.html
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