Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist

Description

A new edition in the year of James Lovelock's 100th birthday With over fifty patents to his name and innumerable awards and accolades, James Lovelock is a distinguished and original thinker who has been widely recognized by the international scientific community. In this inspiring book, republished in the year of his 100th birthday, Lovelock tells his life story, from his first steps as a scientist to his work with organisations as diverse as NASA, Shell and the Marine Biological Association. Homage to Gaia describes the years of travel and work that led to his crucial scientific breakthroughs in environmental awareness, uncovering how CFCs impact on the ozone layer and creating the concept of Gaia, the theory that the Earth is a self-regulating system. Written in a sharp and energetic style, James Lovelock's book will entertain and inspire anyone interested in science or the creative spirit.

James Lovelock, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). His many books on the subject include Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979), The Revenge of Gaia (2006), The Vanishing Face of Gaia (2009) and A Rough Ride to the Future (2014). In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen, in 2005 Prospect magazine named him one of the world's top 100 public intellectuals, and in 2006 he received the Wollaston Medal, the highest Award of the UK Geological Society.

There is much more than science in this book ... This is ultimately an uplifting book about the way life ought to be, both at a personal and at a global level * Sunday Times * His 'Gaia hypothesis' is certainly heroic, with all the illusion-busting potential of Gallileo's or Einstein's theories * Independent * The scientist who, more than any other alive today, has changed the way we think of the earth and our place on it -- John Gray * New Statesman * Daring, exciting, original * Scientific American * Lovelock writes beautifully ... Only a genius thinks of the obvious, and Lovelock deserves to be described as a genius * New Scientist * The breath-taking sweep of his central idea - that the earth is a living, self-regulating organism - poses the most dramatic challenge to scientists, politicians, and environmentalists. -- Jonathon Porritt Lovelock will go down in history as the scientist who changed our view of the Earth -- John Gray a man as inventive and ingenious as he is lively and unorthodox * Scientific American *