1.There is a website founded by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Cloud Appreciation Society Its aim is to foster the understanding and appreciation of clouds. Its manifesto states, that it was "founded on the belief that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them". With pictures of beautiful or unusual cloud formations from around the world, the site sets out to counter the fascism of blue-sky thinking. It has over 10,000 members worldwide and has received seven million visits in a month.
2. "Clouds are for dreamers, and their contemplation benefits the soul"- Cloud Appreciation Society.
3. Clouds in coat of arms symbolise mystery, some hidden truth.
4. A cloud is a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds.
5. How will you identify a cloud?
Step 1
Check the shape of the cloud. Stratus clouds stretch across low the sky horizontally. These form between layers of cool air and moist, warm air and may stretch for several miles across the sky.
Step 2
Observe fluffy-looking clouds. These clouds, called cumulus clouds—whose definition in Latin means pile or heap—look like great, fluffy piles of cotton. Cumulus clouds form when moist, warm air pushes upward. You see these clouds on sunny days.
Step 3
Watch for a vertical rise in a cloud. When these clouds are forced upward by air and contain a lot of water, they become very large. This type of cloud is known as cumulonimbus, or thunderhead. These clouds cause bad weather such as thunderstorms.
Step 4
Identify wispy clouds. These are cirrus clouds. Cirrus is the Latin word for tuft or curl of hair. Some people call these clouds horses' tails. These clouds can only form at high altitudes and consist of crystals of ice.
6. In dreams, clouds, when fluffy and white, signify inner peace, spiritual harmony and compassion. It is possible that some problem in your life is about to go away. But when they are dark and stormy, it could be an outcome of depression or anger. Your emotions are at the point of explosion. May be, you are confused.
7. Morning Glory is a meteorological phenomenon 600 miles long that rolls in from the sea to the coast of Queensland at certain times of the year. Glider pilots like to fly on top of it as though surfing a wave.
8. Denise Levertov's poem, "Clouds", starts with these lines
"The clouds as I see them, rising
urgently, roseate in the
mounting of somber power
surging in evening haste over
roofs and hermetic
grim walls"
and ends,
"Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,
clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning
into myself to see
the colors of truth
I watch the clouds as I see them
in pomp advancing, pursuing
the fallen sun."
9. The king of clouds is regarded as cumulonimbus, a formation so tall that its head hits the stratosphere and forms an anvil shape.
10. Then there are these Debris clouds- more than 300,000 objects in space, whizzing round the earth travelling at more than 17,000mph. Hazard to satellites, may be one day, they will make space flight impossible- covering earth in a mound of moving debris.
11. And what about Electron Cloud? Coined by Richard Feynman, this intuitive model provides a simplified way of visualizing an electron as a solution of the Schrödinger equation. It has something to do with the probability of finding an electron in a cloud of probability, which I suspect, is infinite. Because, we can not say with any certainty, where the electron actually is at any point in time, though we can describe where it ought to be. The cloud model is a kind of history which tells you where an electron has probably been and where it is likely to be going. But you can never be sure.
12. And can we forget the mushroom cloud? It is mushroom-shaped, and is condensed water vapor or debris resulting from a very large explosion. Though they are associated with nuclear explosions, any sufficiently large blast will uncork the mushroom.
13. And then, Cloud Cuckoo Land- an impossible state where everything is perfect. ("You're living in Cloud-cuckoo-land."). Its origin is said to be from the play, "The Birds" by Aristophanes: Pisthetairos ("Mr. Trusting") and Euelpides ("Mr. Hopeful"), tired of the Earth and Olympus, get together, and with some help from Tereus, decide to erect a perfect city between the clouds, to be named Cloud-Cuckoo-Land (Nephelokokkygia: Nephele- Cloud; Kokkux- Cuckooo).
14. Here's how Shakespeare handles the cloud- threatening, but powerless:
(King Henry VI, Part 3 . Act V. Scene III.)
"KING EDWARD.
Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
But in the midst of this bright-shining day
I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud
That will encounter with our glorious sun
Ere he attain his easeful western bed-
I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen
Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast
And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.
CLARENCE.
A little gale will soon disperse that cloud
And blow it to the source from whence it came;
Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,
For every cloud engenders not a storm."
15. Nephology is the science of clouds, and Luke Howard is the man who made it scientific. He classified clouds in four simple categories within the complexity of cloud forms.
Cumulus, Latin for 'heap';
Stratus, Latin for 'layer';
Cirrus, Latin for 'wispy curly hair'; and,
Nimbus, Latin for 'rain'.
And these basic forms are combined: cumulo nimbus or cirro stratus or whatever.
16. And finally, we might forget anything, but we should always keep in mind that Every cloud has a silver lining: It could have taken off from Milton's "Comus",
"Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?"
No comments:
Post a Comment