Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean

In this evening lecture — part of the Wells Reserve's "Summer of Art & Science" — Jonathan White, author of Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, will take you on an enthralling journey into the surprising and poetic workings of the tide through photographs, stories and short readings.

Jonathan crisscrosses the globe while examining the many dimensions of tides, the science behind them, and how they influence culture. His twenty years of research took him to five continents where he saw the largest, fastest, scariest, and most amazing tides in the world.

With Lukasi Nappaaluk, an Inuit elder, he slithered through a hole in the arctic ice and gathered mussels in the dark cavities left behind by a dropping tide. In China, he witnessed the world's largest tidal bore, a 25-foot wave that charges up an eighty-mile river at twenty miles an hour.

At Mont St. Michel in France, he learned how the monks are inspired by the tide. And at the Royal Society of London, he researched how Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo de Vinci, Newton, Descartes, and many other noted thinkers had been captivated — and befuddled! — by the tide's mystery. Did you know that the book that led to Galileo's arrest for heresy was originally called The Flux and Reflux of the Tides?

Watch the trailer for Jonathan's book on YouTube.

This event is made possible with support from Save Our Shores Maine, a grassroots, volunteer organization whose mission is to educate the public to maintain and preserve Maine's coastal heritage.

This lecture is part of the Wells Reserve at Laudholm's 2017 Summer of Art & Science. Discover more at wellsreserve.org/art.