Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life

The world ocean—from the equator to the polar latitudes—forms a single, sunlight-driven mechanism: a vast blue universe that covers most of the Earth. It is tied to a significant portion of world history, which people recall far less often than events on land. For millennia, oceanic phenomena have frightened and fascinated, seemed like the play of chance, a whim of fate, or the will of the gods. Yet in the 21st century, our dependence on this planetary “engine” remains colossal.

How is the ocean “machine” arranged, what makes it work, and in what way does it shape life on Earth—its living world, the weather, and also human history and culture? This book invites you on an exciting journey across the boundless expanses of the World Ocean: through history and culture, geography and the natural sciences, biology and anthropology. You will learn the key principles by which this gigantic natural mechanism operates, and you will peer into the hidden depths, where the ocean reveals itself not only as a system of currents and processes, but also as an environment teeming with rich life—from the surface down to the very seafloor. Observations gathered by Helen Cherksy over years of working at the forefront of marine science are transformed here into a captivating narrative that helps you understand, in a new way, what it means to live on the planet of the ocean.