Bill Bryson - A short history of nearly everything

Lowell, Percival

Lyell, Charles

Lyon, John

Mach, Ernst

MacPhee, Ross

Maddox, Brenda

Maes, Koen

magnetic field, reversal of Earth’s

Malthus, Thomas

mammals; protomammals, therapsids; surviving periods of extinction

mammoth

Manson, Iowa, impact

Mantell, Gideon Algernon,

Mantell, Walter

Map That Changed the World, The (Winchester)

maps and mapmaking,; contour lines; measuring the length of a degree; meridian, measurements of

Marat, Jean-Paul

Marburg fever

Marcy, Geoffrey

Margulis, Lynn

Mars: conditions on,; lack of liquid core; moons

Marsh, Bryan

Marsh, Othniel Charles

Marshall, Barry

Maskelyne, Nevil

Mason and Dixon line

Mason, George

Mason, John

Mathematical Climatology and the Astronomical Theory of Climactic Changes (Milankovitch)

Matthew, Patrick

Matthews, Drummond

Maxwell, James Clerk

Mayer, August

Mayr, Ernst

McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch

McGuire, Bill

McLaren, Dewey J.

McPhee, John

Medawar, Peter

Meinertzhagen, Richard

Mendel, Gregor

Mendeleyev, Dmitri Ivanovich

Mendes, J. C.

meningitis

Messinian Salinity Crisis

Meteor (film)

Meteor Crater, Arizona

meteorites; carbonaceous chondrites; Murchison, Australia; panspermia theory; Tagish Lake, Canada. See also asteroids

Michel, Helen

Michell, John

Michelson, Albert

Michelson-Morley experiment

microscope

Midgley, Thomas, Jr.

Miescher, Johann Friedrich

Milankovitch, Milutin; cycles

Milky Way

Miller, Stanley

Missing Links (Reader)

Mohorovii´c, Andrija

molecule

monitor lizards

Monod, Jacques

Moody, Plinus

Moon (Earth’s): birth of; distance from Earth, measuring; cratering rates; lack of liquid core; stability of Earth and

Morgan, Thomas Hunt

Morley, Edward

Morley, Lawrence

Moss Flora of Britain and Ireland (Smith)

mosses

Movius, Hallum

Mullis, Kary B.

Murchison, Roderick

Murray, John

museum, first public

Myers, Norman

Naked Earth: The New Geophysics (Vogel)

Natural History Museum, London

necrotizing fasciitis

Neptune; distance from Earth; moons

neutrino

neutron; activation analysis

neutron stars

New Horizons spacecraft

Newlands, John

Newton, Isaac; ether and ether drift; gravity and; laws of motion

Ngalli, Jillani

nitrogen: bacteria and; bends and; in human body; intoxication

nitric oxide

nitrous oxide (laughing gas)

Nobel Prize: Alvarez, Luis; Bohr, Niels; Chadwick, James; Crick, Watkins, and Wilson; Curie, Marie; delay in receiving; Einstein, Albert . ; geologists never win; Hoyle, Fred; Libby, Willard; Medawar, Peter; Morgan, Thomas Hunt; opposition to Avery’s; Pauling, Linus; Rutherford, Ernest; Sulston, John; Urey, Harold

noble gases,

North Star

Norton, Trevor

Norwood, Richard

Note on the Species of Living and Fossil Elephants (Cuvier)

Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson)

Nuland, Sherwin B.

numbers, very large

Nuttall, Thomas

oceans: abyssal plain; Alvin, explorations of; amphipods; Antarctic Circumpolar Current; Atlantic; Beebe and Barton, deep dives; bends; blue whale; carbon absorption and; coral reefs; currents; deepest free dive; depletion of fish in; drop of water, time to travel between oceans; exploration and investigation of; floor, exploration of; giant squid; Gulf Stream; guyots; human body and pressure; lack of underwater research; life, at great depths; Mariana Trench; mid-Atlantic rift; mountain range, most extensive on Earth; oceanography, discipline begun; Pacific; percentage of Earth’s water in; phytoplankton; Piccards, deep sea dives; pressure; radioactive waste dumped in; rising of; salinity of; sea level; seafloor spreading; seawater; sediment, where it goes; species of animals in; thermohaline circulation; undiscovered life in; vents, life near; vents, refreshing of seawater and

Oldham, R. D.

Olduvai Gorge (Great Rift Valley), Tanzania

On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (Gibbs)

On the Origin of Species (Darwin)

Oort cloud

Oort, Jan.

Oppenheimer, Robert

Öpik, Ernst

Organic Remains of a Former World Parkinson)

Orgel, Leslie

Ostro, Steven

Other Side of Everest, The (Dickinson)

Overbye, Dennis

Owen, Richard

oxygen: abundance; atomic weight; atmospheric, creation of; combustion and . ; discovery of; identification of; isotope geochemistry and; oxidation; size of creatures and

ozone; CFCs and

paleontology; Age of Dinosaurs; Age of Mammals; Age of Turtles; discovery of dinosaurs; discovery of mammoths; extinction of species; fossils; hunting for bones; iguanodon, discovery of tooth; Megalonyx; opponents to impact theory of extinction; plesiosaurus; pterodactyls; rivalry of Cope and Marsh; rivalry of Owen and Mantell; search for early humans; species, lifespan of. See also fossils; dinosaurs

Paley, William

Parkinson, James

Parkinson’s disease

particle detectors or accelerators; CERN’s; Supercollider

particle physics; discovery of new particles; ekpyrotic process; gravitons; M theory; Standard Model; superstring theory; tachyons. See also neutrino; quarks

Pasteur, Louis

Patterson, Clair

Pauli, Wolfgang

Pauling, Linus

Peale, Charles Willson

Pelizzari, Umberto

Pelletier, P. J.

Penzias, Arno

Perlmutter, Saul

Perutz, Max

phosphorus

photosynthesis

physics; divided between laws for subatomic world and universe at large; general theory of relativity; microphysics; matrix mechanics; particle; quantum leap; quantum mechanics; quantum theory; special theory of relativity; wave mechanics. See also Einstein, Albert; light; Newton, Isaac; Planck, Max; specific individuals

Piazzi, Giuseppi

Picard, Jean

Piccard, Auguste and Jacques

Pillmore, C. L.

Planck, Max

Planet X

planetesimals

plants: appearance of land; Banks and the Endeavor voyage; classification; classification disputes; cloud forests; collecting; identifying new; lichens; medicinal properties; mosses; names of; rain forests

plate tectonics; current effects; Denver, mystery; extinction events; fossils and; future outcomes; Holmes, continental drift theory; ice ages,; ocean floor; opponents to theory; Pangaea; seafloor spreading; subduction; Wegener and. See also earthquakes; volcanoes

Playfair, John

Plutinos

Pluto: characteristics; discovery of; distance from Earth; moon discovered; officially ruled a planet; size

plutoniu

Point Counter Point (Huxley)

Polaris

Pope, Alexander

Popper, Karl

Potting-Shed Papers, The (Elliott)

Priestly, Joseph

Principia (Newton)

Principles of Biology (Spencer)

Principles of Geology, The (Lyell)

Principles of Physical Geology (Holmes)

Prometheans in the Lab (McGrayne)

protein; DNA and creation of; human proteome; types in a cell

proton

Proxima Centauri

quantum leap

quantum mechanics

quantum theory; Exclusion Principle; spin

quarks

radio telescopes

radioactivity; dating of Earth’s age and; dump of wastes in the sea; Geiger counter; half-life; hazard of; as health product