Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind

by John Gribbin, Mary Gribbin

Examines the nature, origin, and dangers of comets and studies how asteroid and comet collisions with the Earth have shaped the course of human history

Genres: Astronomy, Science, Biology, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

John R. Gribbin is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. His writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the origins of the universe, and biographies of famous scientists. He also writes science fiction.

Reviews

[Les Hopper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mostly enjoyable read, even though it's now 25 years old and therefore the information within is either well known and/or a little dated. The only downside is that the second half of the book seems to drag on a bit, slightly labouring the point about the threat from space (by that point well evidenced) and not landing on a satisfactory conclusion due to the highly speculative nature of the proposed remediation. Still, worth a look and I'd pick up an updated version if it were ever published.

[Toon Verlinden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boek eerder schuin gelezen. Heeft relatief veel info gelijklopend met andere boeken uit die periode (dino's, tungunska, shoemaker-levy 9). Wel veel aandacht voor mogelijke link tussen impact en mythes/legenden. Leuk! Voelt ondertussen wel al out dated aan. Het domein heeft op twintig jaar een stevige verandering gezien natuurlijk.

[Winnifred · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Earth's history has been influenced by asteroids and comets hitting Earth. Also how both history and climate have been influenced by asteroids, meteors and diamond dust in the atmosphere have had severe impacts. We should be more worried about climate change caused by cooling caused by natural influences rather than man-made influences.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one a lot however I remember questioning some of the Gribbin's statistics.