Science at High Altitudes Research Stations in the Mountains

About this book

Language: English

The high mountain is a valuable natural laboratory for many categories of scientists: geologists, meteorologists, climatologists, biologists, botanists, zoologists, physicists, astronomers. Only in high mountains, in the last half century, astronomy and physics, the extremely large and the extremely small, were able to connect to such an extent that today it is almost impossible to talk about astronomy and cosmology without speaking simultaneously about physics and elementary particles.

Science at High Altitudes, entirely focused on research stations in the high mountains, both in Europe and the world, is full of fascinating topics. High altitude research stations mean all laboratories which are located at a minimum of 2,500 meters above sea level. Born in Europe in the late nineteenth century, at the dawn of modern science, now they're all over the world. The oldest European observatory, for example, is on the Pic du Midi (2,877 m.) built in 1878, and the highest laboratory in the world is on the Chacaltaya (La Paz) inaugurated in 1940 at 5,200 meters above sea level.

Science at High Altitudes, edited by Alba Zanini, also curator of Inventions Discoveries and Machines, in addition to speaking about the high mountain laboratories, focuses on the fascination that the high peaks have exercised on poets and artists, reconstructs the historical events of the early pioneers of scientific research at high altitude and devotes space to large underground laboratories such as that under the Gran Sasso in the Central Apennines, and the big experiments at high altitudes currently underway in Chile and Argentina.

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