The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis - Paperback

by Lucy Jago (Author)

Science, biography, and arctic exploration coverage in this extraordinary true story of the life and work of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, the troubled genius who solved the mysteries of one of nature's most spectacular displays.
Captivated by the otherworldly lights of the aurora borealis, Birkeland embarked on a lifelong quest to discover their cause. His pursuit took him to some of the most forbidding landscapes on earth, from the remote snowcapped mountains of Norway to the war-torn deserts of Africa. In the face of rebuke by the scientific establishment, sabotage by a jealous rival, and his own battles with depression and paranoia, Birkeland remained steadfast. Although ultimately vindicated, his theories were unheralded--and his hopes for the Nobel Prize scuttled--at the time of his suspicious death in 1917.
The Northern Lights offers a brilliant account of the physics behind the aurora borealis and a rare look inside the mind of one of history's most visionary scientists.

Front Jacket

Combining popular science, biography, and arctic adventure in a book that reads lika a cross between "Longitude, A Beautiful Mind, and "Into Thin Air, Lucy Jago presents a riveting acount of the life and work of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, the visioinary who solved the mysteries of the aurora borealis.
Here is the true story of an eccentric genius held captive by the allure of celestial splendor; of brushes with death on the remote snowcapped mountains of Norway and in the unforgiving, wartorn deserts of Africa; of the rival who cheated Birkeland of a Nobel Prize; and of the brilliant discoveries Birkeland made before his suspicious death in Japan in 1917. Meticulously researched and passionately wrought, The Northern Lights offers an enlightening account of the science behind one of nature's most spectacular displays and a revealing glimpse into the mind of one of history's most passionate and ill-fated scientists.

Author Biography

Lucy Jago is a former documentary producer for Channel 4 and the BBC. She has been awarded two academic scholarships and a Double First Class Honours Degree from King's College, University of Cambridge, and a master's degree from the Courtauld Institute, London. She lives in Dorset, England.