The Northern Lights Book

Fascinating biography of the 19th-early 20th century Norwegian physicist, Kristian Birkeland. The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, were a lifelong obsession. He spent years in researching them. Although his theories were considered wrong by fellow scientists at the time, or at least they were met with indifference, space exploration in the mid-sixties has vindicated him and he is receiving his proper place in the history of science. He was a workaholic and his marriage broke up. He was cheated out of the Nobel Prize. Later, when he might have gotten it with another man for their work on auroras, he had died, and the Nobel isn't awarded posthumously. He had a brilliant mind and was always coming up with new ideas: for instance, improvements on hearing aids, margarine from vegetable fat, caviar from cod roe, and most importantly a process for fertilizer production. He spent years in Egypt and the Sudan, studying the Zodiacal Light, another celestial phenomenon, possibly the Biblical "pillar of fire". He died under murky circumstances in Japan.

Well written, for the educated layperson. Highly recommended.