Non-Fiction
Book Details

A Light History of Hot Air PB

Peter Doherty

Nobel Prize-winner Peter Doherty's enthusiasm and curiosity about the world around him informs this atmospheric collection of stories on illumination, hot air and burning in all their guises.

About this Title

'extraordinary outpourings of a brilliant mind' --Launceston Examiner
'a very entertaining and informative memoir and an intriguing observation of human activity' --Australian Bookseller & Publisher

Now in paperback, and featuring cameos from Albert Einstein, Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens and Thomas the Tank Engine, among others, A Light History of Hot Air is an unmissable treat.

Nobel Prize-winner Peter Doherty's enthusiasm and curiosity about the world around him informs this atmospheric collection of stories on illumination, hot air and burning in all their guises. Written with great style and richly intimate with personal anecdotes, A Light History of Hot Air is concerned with the world and the simple beauty of science. Doherty shines a tangential light of insight that reveals his subjects in new and unexpected ways.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Floating in Air
Alphabet Soup
Life, Gas and Hydrocarbons
Soaring with the Eagles
Burnt by the Sun
Iron Horses and Balladeers
Hearth and Home
The Iceman Cometh
Night Lights
Imagining the Red Baron
Beacons
Tall Ships, Black Gangs, 'Bully' Wars
Firefighters
The Hot Air Diet
Becks and Bleak House
Political Hot Air
Flying the Concorde
Heating the Planet

Notes and selected references
Abbreviations, Terminology and Conversions
Acknowledgements
Index

About the Author

Peter Doherty AC was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with Swiss colleague, Rolf Zinkernagel, in 1996. He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and is the author of The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize: A Life in Science.

978-0-522-85523-4