: Renaissance scientist Evangelista Torricelli, a disciple of Galileo, was the first to realize we live "submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air". To illustrate its mass, the air filling a space like Carnegie Hall weighs approximately 70,000 pounds .
Walker highlights the "wacky characters" behind these breakthroughs: Go to product viewer dialog for this item. An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other M...
25+ Copies Paperback An Ocean Of Air (Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere) by Gabrielle Walker, 9780156034142 25+ Copies Paperback An Ocean Of Air (Why
: William Ferrel, a self-taught 19th-century American farmer, used a pitchfork to carve equations into a barn door to explain why hurricanes move in circles and how heat flows from the equator to the poles. 9780156034142 : William Ferrel
The book details how humanity gradually understood the complex layers above our heads: