Birkeland's scientific career might have turned out differently had he not grown up in a country of mighty rivers. Electricity produced from Norway's hydropower plants was very cheap, and the process that Birkeland invented for synthesizing ammonia...

Alv Egeland teaches physics at the University of Oslo. Book Info:THE NORTHERN LIGHTS The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis Lucy Jago Publisher:New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001 297 pp., $24.00...

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Through the long dark winter that marked the end of the nineteenth century a small huddle of Norwegian scientists tended their instruments. Their huts were perched atop Norway's Finmark Mountains, to be as close as possible to the dancing lights...