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William R. Corliss
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William R. Corliss (Books)

View count: 1
by William R. Corliss

Pages: 296
Publisher: Sourcebook Project
Year: 2003
ISBN: 0915554453
ISBN: 978-0915554454

Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

An Annotated Outline of 6,000 Entries

It should not surprise anyone that this Outline contains about 6,000 entries, all of which remain unexplained to my satisfaction, or which, at the very least, I find curious and engaging. My main objectives with this volume are these:

  • The compilation of a list of scientific phenomena worthy of further attention and research
  • The presentation of a "first look" a the entire spectrum of what I have found anomalous, provocative, and exciting in science
  • The provision, via a menu-type index, of a guide to my many already published Catalogs and Handbooks of anomalies and curiosities.

Major Paradigms Targeted

Anomalies exist only when they challenge paradigms and hypotheses. It is unavoidable, therefore, that some paradigms, widely considered to be fact, will be contradicted by many of the phenomena listed in this Outline. For example, the following paradigms that presently dominate scientific thinking are her considered to be at risk:

  • The expanding universe
  • The Big Bang origin of the universe
  • Neo-Darwinism (specifically, evolution via random mutation and natural selection)
  • That genomes are the complete blueprint for lifeforms
  • Plate tectonics/continental drift
  • Special and General Relativity

View count: 1
by William R. Corliss

Pages: 425
Publisher: Sourcebook Project
Year: 2001
ISBN: 0915554445
ISBN: 978-0915554447

Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • This volume is a major expansion of the first catalog in this series, Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights, first published in 1982. So much additional information on luminous phenomena has been collected, that this new edition is almost twice the size of the 1982, that a new title seems appropriate.
  • Dozens of new phenomena are recognized, and we have added a great many eye-witness account (mostly from science journals) of low-level auroras, ball lightning, earthquake lights, marine wheels, luminous phenomena above thunderclouds, and, especially, lengthy coverages of low-level nocturnal lights (Marfa, Brown Moutnain, Min Min, Nekha, Hessdalen, etc).
  • Topic covered include:
    • Aurora-like phenomena
    • Ball Lightning
    • Diffuse Electrical Discharge Phenomena
    • Lightning Anomalies
    • Low-Level Meteor-Like Luminous Phenomena
    • Nocturnal Lights
    • Marine Phosphorescent Displays

    View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 350
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1994
    ISBN: 0915554283
    ISBN: 978-0915554287

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

    "The primary intent of this book is entertainment.  Do not look for profundities!  All I claim here is an edited collection of naturally occurring anomalies and curiosities that I have winnowed mainly from scientific journals and magazines published between 1976 and 1993.  With this eclectic sampling I hope to demonstrate that nature is amusing, beguiling, sometimes bizarre, and, most important liberating.  "Liberating?"  Yes!  If there is anything profound between these covers, it is the influence of anomalies on the stability of stifling scientific paradigms." - From the Preface

    "If you have any interest in the unusual side of the physical world, you just HAVE to have this book! Dr. William Corliss has spent decades creating the "Sourcebook Project", a vast, multi-volume compilation of reports of unexplained phenomena taken from the pages of professional scientific literature. SCIENCE FRONTIERS is a sort of 'sampler,' it is the distilled cream of Dr. Corliss' bi-monthly anomalies newsletter, featuring hundreds and hundreds of illustrated mini-articles, all organized into chapters: Archeology, Astronomy, Biology, Geology, Geophysics, Psychology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Esoterica. Lewis Thomas said: "We do not understand much of anything, from the "big bang," all the way down to the particles in the atoms of a bacterial cell. We have a wilderness of mystery to make our way through in the centuries ahead." This book is an excellent demonstration of the wisdom in those words." Amazon customer


    View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 246
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1987
    ISBN: 0915554216
    ISBN: 978-0915554218

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Did the Big Bang really begin the existence of all we know? Do we honestly know how the stars (and our sun) work? Can we rely on Newton's Law of Gravitation? According to this volume the answer seems to be "Probably not ! "
  • Typical subjects covered:
    Optical bursters and flare stars * Estorical color change of Sirius * Infrared cirrus clouds * Quasar-galaxy associations * The red-shift controversy * Quantization of red shifts * The quasar energy paradox * Apparent faster-than-light velocities in quasars and galaxies * Evidence for universal rotation * Swiss cheese structure of universe * Is the "missing mass" really missing ? * Superluminous infrared galaxies * Shells around elliptical galaxies
  • Comments from reviews: "...it never fails to be interesting, challenging and stimulating", New Scientist

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 288
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1986
    ISBN: 0915554208
    ISBN: 978-0915554201

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Our sun, powerhouse of the Solar System and an enigma itself, is orbited by clouds of asteroids, comets, meteors and space dust These "minor objects" cause "major headaches" to astronomers searching for explanations.
  • Typical subjects covered:
    Solar svstem resonances * Bode's Law and other regularities * Blackness of comet nuclei * Cometary activity far from solar influences * Unidentified objects crossing sun * The 'missing' solar neutrinos * Pendulum phenomena during solar eclipses * Observations of Planet X * Meteorite geographical anomalies * Meteorites from the moon * Long fireball processions * Very long duration meteorites * Zodiacal light brightness changes * [Picture caption: One of the many possible modes of solar surface oscillation]
  • Comments from reviews: "It is an unusual book, nicely executed, and I recommend it highly", Icarus.

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 383
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1985
    ISBN: 915554194
    ISBN: 978-0915554195

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • From our own moon's cratered surface to the red, rock-strewn plains of Mars, the Solar System is a fertile field for scientific research. Despite centuries of observation, each new spacecraft and telescope provides us with new crops of anomalies [Picture caption: One drawing of the Venusian radial spoke system]
  • Typical subjects covered:
    The ashen light of Venus * The Martian 'pyramids' * Kinks in Saturn's rings * Continuing debate about the Voyager life-detection experiments * Neptune's mysterious ring * Evidence of water on Mars * The grooves on Phobos * The two faces of Mars * Lunar clouds, mists, "weather" * Ring of light around the new moon * Dark transits of Jovian satellites * Io's energetic volcanos * Jupiter as a "failed star" * Venus-earth resonance
  • Comments from reviews: "The author is to be commended for his brilliantly conceived and researched volume", Science Books.

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 244
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1984
    ISBN: 0915554127
    ISBN: 978-0915554126

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Most of us have seen rings around the moon, but what does it mean when such rings are not circular or are off-center? Neither are rainbows and mirages devoid of mysteries. And the Brocken Specter still startles Alpine climbers!
  • Typical subjects covered:
    Rainbows with offset white arcs * Sandbows * Offset and skewed halos * The Brocken Specter * The Alpine Glow * Unexplained features of the green flash at sunset *Fata Morgana * Telescopic mirages * Long-delayed radio echos * Eclipse shadow bands * Geomagnetic effects of meteors * Intersecting rainbows * The Krakatoa sunsets * Kaleidoscopic suns [Picture caption: Shadow of Adam's Peak with glory and radial rays]
  • Comments from reviews: "...all in all it's a fascinating book", Sky And Telescope. "...any student of the physical sciences will find it fascinating", Science Books.

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 202
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1983
    ISBN: 0915554100
    ISBN: 978-0915554102

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Here is our "weather' Catalog. As everyone knows, our atmosphere is full of tricks, chunks of ice fall from the sky, tornado funnels glow at night. The TV weathermen rarely mention these "idiosyncrasies". [Picture caption: Conical hailstones with fluted sides]
  • Typical subjects covered:
    Polar-aligned cloud rows * Ice fogs (the Pogonip) * Conical hail * Gelatinous meteors * Point rainfall * Unusual incendiary phenomena * Solar activity and thunderstorms * Tornados and their association with electricity * Multiwalled waterspouts * Explosive onset of whirlwinds * Dry fogs and dust fogs * Effect of the moon on rainfall * Ozone in hurricanes * Ice falls (hydrometeors)
  • Comments from reviews: "...can be recommended to every one who realizes that not everything in science has been properly explained", Weather

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 248
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1982
    ISBN: 915554097
    ISBN: 978-0915554096

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Nothing catches the human eye and imagination as quickly as a mysterious light. All down recorded history, scientists and laymen alike have been seeing strange lightning, sky flashes, and unaccountable luminous objects.
  • Typical subjects covered:
    Horizon-to-horizon sky flashes * Episodes of luminous mists * Mountain-top glows (Andes glow) * Earthquake lights * Ball lightning with tails * Rocket lighting * Lightning from a clear sky * Ghost lights; ignis fatuus * Darting streaks of light (sleeks) * The milky sea and light wheels * Radar-stimulated phosphorescence of the sea * Double ball lightning * Luminous phenomena in tornados * Black auroras * [Picture caption: Luminous display over Mt. Noroshi during earthquake swarm]
  • Comments from reviews "...the book is well-written and in places quite fascinating", Science Books.

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Pages: 710
    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1979
    ISBN: 0915554054
    ISBN: 978-0915554058

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com

  • Our Astronomy Handbook covers much the same ground as the three preceding Astronomy Catalogs, but in more detail. For example, the quotations are much more extensive.
  • Typical subjects covered:
    The lost satellite of Venus * Transient lunar phenomena * Ephemeral earth satellites * Venus' radial spoke system * Relativlty contradicted * Cosmological paradoxes * Changes in light's velocity * Vulcan; the intramercurial planet * Knots on Saturn's rings * Bright objects near the sun * The Sun's problematical "companion star" * "Sedimentary" meteorites * Life chemistry in outer space * Planet positions and sunspots

  • View count: 1
    by William R. Corliss

    Publisher: Sourcebook Project
    Year: 1974
    ISBN: 0960071253
    ISBN: 978-0960071258

    Websites: www.science-frontiers.com