(source)
|
Christophorus Buys Ballot
(10 Oct 1817 - 3 Feb 1890)
Dutch meteorologist who showed that northern hemisphere winds circulate counter-clockwise around low pressure areas and clockwise around high pressure areas, and that that the wind blows at right angles to the atmospheric pressure gradient.
|
Science Quotes by Christophorus Buys Ballot (1 quote)
Buys Ballot Law: Standing with back to the wind, the pressure to the left is lower than to the right in the Northern Hemisphere.
— Christophorus Buys Ballot
Slightly reworded from the Glossary of Meteorology online at the site of the American Meteorological Society. Various statements of this law are found in different sources.
See also:
- 10 Oct - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Buys Ballot's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
