Scientific Research, Books, Articles, Columns, Lectures and Photographs
Welcome Thanks for visiting. Please also visit www.sunandsky.org to see some of my science.
News Check out updated science data from Geronimo Creek Observatory (click "Science Data"). More updates will be added as time permits.
"Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere" will be published in a few months by the University of Hawaii Press. NOAA provided major assistance for this four-year project, which is about 550 pages and includes 110 color plates and 56 photographs. The catalog copy is at http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8614-9780824834319.aspx (works with Firefox).
Many updates and revisions have been addded to the site with more to come. People still ask about the Scientific American affair, which jump started my science career. Some skeptics and atheists are unhappy about this. Go here or click the Scientific American tab above for details. People also ask about my article on the controversial death wish lecture given by Prof. Eric Pianka. See my response under the Controversy header on the Biography page. Because of my advocacy of intelligent design, a skeptic objected to my selection by Discover Magazine as one of the "50 Best Brains in Science." Discover Magazine published his letter to the editor and defended my selection in an editorial note.
My new paper with by Dr. Lin Chambers (NASA LaRC) and Dr. David R. Brooks (IESRE) has been published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (October 2011) following revisions in response to three expert reviewers. The paper describes a new method of measuring total column water vapor using an infrared thermometer pointed at cloud-free zenith sky. The paper describes 25 months of data here (Texas) and 10 days at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory in June 2010. Abstract (with link to full PDF) is here.
In June 2011 I spent 13 days calibrating atmospheric instruments at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory. Sky conditions were not nearly as good as the excellent situation in 2010. This was my 20th year to calibrate at at MLO. For the second year I deployed USDA shadowband radiometers TX21, TX22 and TX31 at MLO during my stay. More to follow about these comparisons.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has written "Idea Man" (Penguin/Portfolio, 2011), the first half of which is the most significant account to date of the founding of Microsoft and its early days at MITS in Albuquerque. See my review in MAKE magazine here.
Scrolll down to see "The Sum of All Twilights," an animated gif of a total lunar eclipse.
My near daily measurements of the ozone layer, atmospheric optical depth, total column water vapor and direct UV-B will reach 22 years on 04 February 2012. See updated data charts on the Science Data page.
Check out LED Sun Photometry in Optics and Photonics News (vol. 20, pp. 32-38, 2009). This tells the story of LED sun photometers.
The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University published in True Maroon, its electronic magazine, "Curiosity in Motion," "Raising Science-Savvy Kids" and a video interview. Most of this is about the science my family has done. The cover photo shows a full sky view made by photographing an aluminized glass sphere.
Newest Photos Check out some of the fisheye sky photos at my observation site in South Texas from a series begun in 2000 (scroll down this page). See more photos on my Facebook page, including the Texas Academy of Science facebook page.
Newest Book (Update) Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere is now in production at the University of Hawaii Press. This 265,000-word book was written under contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from December 2006 to October 2008 and has been extensively revised and expanded following three rounds of reviews by a 25-member panel of scientists and former Mauna Loa Observatory staff and by two expert reviewers selected by the University of Hawaii Press. Dr. Robert Simpson, the founder of the original Mauna Loa Observatory, wrote the foreword. It is anticipated that the book will be published in late 2011. The preliminary back cover reads:
In 1948 Weather Bureau scientist Dr. Robert Simpson dreamed of an observatory atop the world’s largest mountain, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa. After a humble beginning in 1952 as a tiny weather station perched atop the world’s biggest mountain, science at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory began in earnest when a small concrete block building was dedicated a few thousand feet down the slope in 1956. During the half century since, the Mauna Loa Observatory has earned a reputation as one of the world’s leading scientific stations for monitoring the atmosphere. It’s measurements of carbon dioxide, the ozone layer and sunlight go back more than 50 years. This book is the story of how those and many other measurements were begun and the adventures of the men and women who made them possible.
Forrest M. Mims III is a best selling electronics and science writer. He has calibrated many instruments of his own design at the Mauna Loa Observatory every year since 1992.
Newest YouTube Clips Check out my newest YouTubes, including a coral snake up close and a rat snake striking my camera (and hand!) after causing the hawk that captured it to crash 50 feet away from where I was standing. Also see more about Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory. Go to YouTube and enter "fmims" in the search box.
The ALTAIR 8800 Introduced the Personal Computer Era See the Biography page for a photo of my Albuquerque workbench where circuits were built that led to the founding of MITS, Inc., the company that introduced the Altair 8800 microcomputer in 1975. The Altair was conceived, designed and developed by Ed Roberts with help from William Yates. I wrote the operator's manual. (More photos of the workbench are at www.sunandsky.org until they can be moved here.)
Paul Allen and Bill Gates moved to Albuquerque to develop software for the MITS Altair. There they formed Microsoft. Allen and Gates are the principal funders of STARTUP: Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution, a permanent exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science that opened 18 November 2006. Minnie and I attended the STARTUP opening events and spent quality time with Ed Roberts, the former president of MITS. See photo of MITS founders Ed Roberts, Bob Zaller and me and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen here. Ed passed away in April 2010, and the STARTUP Gallery was dedicated in his memory in January 2011.
Science at Geronimo Creek Observatory See my hypothesis concerning the association of UV-B and avian influenza (bird flu) in Southeast Asia published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The Seguin USDA UV-B site will have 5 years of data in March 2009. My sun and sky observation site here at the field I call Geronimo Creek Observatory will have 20 years of data on 04 February 2010.
Daughter Sarah Mims was featured in a NASA exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Sarah won a 2005 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award for her discovery of living fungal spores and bacteria arriving in Texas from Yucatan. Sarah has also been featured in a NASA web site, various magazines and the book Makers.
My Radio Shack Sun & Sky Monitoring Station has now been used to monitor optical depth (haze), column water vapor and photosynthetic radiation at solar noon for more than 9 years. It has also been calibrated (Langley method) each year at the Mauna Loa Observatory. (A backup unit was calibrated at MLO in June 2010.) The results show that this simple instrument is highly stable. A scientific paper will be written about the design of the instrument and its results after 10 years of data have been acquired. Other Sites To learn more about how it is possible to do science with no academic training (my university degree is in government), see this essay in Science.
Rolex has begun a blog for laureates. Mine is here.
See my new YouTube clips. These are primitive, but they certainly affirm the science opportunities for this technology.
My weekly newspaper science column that has appeared in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise since 1999 now also appears each Monday on the science page of the San Antonio Express-News. The column also appears on the paper's web site. Please let your local paper know that the column is available for syndication.
'Country Scientist' starting column today in Express-News
FROM STAFF REPORTS
October 30, 2006
Forrest Mims III, an amateur scientist and author who has pointed out errors in NASA data and published scholarly papers in prestigious journals, begins writing a column today for the San Antonio Express-News. "The Country Scientist" will appear on the newspaper's Science page in the Business section every Monday and will explore how science intersects with everyday life.
"I approach science with the curiosity of a child," Mims said. "I live a constant science fair project."
Mims, 62, has no academic training in science but still has carved a career as a science author, lecturer and syndicated columnist. He has written instructional books on electronics and published papers and photographs in some 70 magazines and journals, including Nature, Science and Popular Mechanics. He is a writer and editor for the Society for Amateur Scientists.
In 1990, he used a $300 homemade instrument to detect a flaw in the way a NASA satellite was measuring deterioration of the ozone layer. The discovery "caused a big flap," he said, but ended up earning him an invitation to speak at the agency.
He said the incident proved to be his big break, winning him recognition as a serious scientist in professional circles. He later was given a Rolex Award for Enterprise for the instrument he built.
Mims is a Texas native who lived in many places during service with the Air Force. He returned to the San Antonio area in 1975 and has lived outside Seguin since 1985, regularly measuring the ozone layer, haze and ultraviolet rays from a field he calls Geronimo Creek Observatory.
He is married to Minnie Chavez Mims, and they have three adult children. Copyright 2006San Antonio Express-News.
Scientific Research Geronimo Creek Observatory, ozone measurements, ultraviolet monitoring, smoke studies, haze measurements and biological studies.
Science Data Representative time series of some measurements made at Geronimo Creek Observatory since 1990, including the ozone layer, solar UV-B, aerosol optical thickness and total column water vapor.
UV-B Network Forrest M. Mims III is the site operator of the USDA UV-B monitoring site at Texas Lutheran University, Seguin, Texas.
Instruments TOPS and Microtops (total ozone), Sun photometers (haze), near-IR hygrometers (column water vapor), sunlight radiometers (UV-B and photosynthetic radiation). Also, eyeglass-mounted, near-infrared travel aid for the blind.
Publications Scientific and technical publications, books and magazine articles. More than 600 publications have been added to the list here and at www.sunandsky.org. More will be added when time permits.
Family Forrest & Minnie; Eric & Jane; Micheal, Vicki, Isabella, Lilly & Henry; and Sarah. Book Store Getting Started in Electronics ( more than 1.4 million sold) and the four collected volumes of the Mini-Notebook series are available from selected RadioShack stores and online at ForrestMims.com and Amazon.com. (search on Forrest Mims) or book stores. Please do not download pirated copies of my books. You may acquire a virus, trojan or worse from some pirate sites, and you will deprive my research of financial support.
Lab Kit Store The following Radio Shack lab kit is available from RadioShack (enter "Mims" in search window). "Electronics Learning Lab" (28-280). Complete analog and digital electronics lab kit with two 96-page manuals. The "Sun and Sky Monitoring Station" (28-281) is out of production. This kit is a four-channel Sun photometer and radiometer with a 3.5-digit readout, bubble level and compass. It includes a four-unit study course in highly illustrated 64-page manual. It sold for $29.99 new, and you might be able to find it at various Internet sale sites. This entire web site is copyright 2004-12. Click here to read permission policy. Last updated: 14 October 2012.
"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1:3). Sun and sky over Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory
Measuring smoke at Alta Floresta, Brazil. Photograph by Brad White.
RadioShack Sun & Sky Monitoring Station
THE SUM OF ALL TWILIGHTS. The total lunar eclipse of 27 October 2004 shows the coppery color of the eclipsed Moon caused by the passage of sunlight through the atmosphere around the entire Earth. Thus, the face of the eclipsed moon is illuminated by all the sunrises and sunsets occurring at the moment each exposure was made. See www.sunandsky.org for my twilight photos. (Pentax Optio 33WR with 2 sec exposures at 2 min intervals. Copyright 2004 by Forrest M. Mims III.)
Daily fisheye images of sky for Jan-Oct 2008 (from a series begun in 2000).
Asian dust layers over Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory on 21 May 2007. Copyright by Forrest M. Mims III.
The Mauna Loa Observatory lidar probes the stratosphere on 5 December 2006. Copyright by Forrest M. Mims III.
Salt crystals from the Pacific Ocean collected by Jim Scanlon and photographed by Forrest M. Mims III.
Cumulus clouds race south as a cool front slides under midlevel clouds moving north. Copyright by Forrest M. Mims III.
Close Call, a very close lightning bolt. Copyright by Forrest M. Mims III
The extraordinarily rare Texas star (Chorioactis geaster) is found only on the Japanese island Kyushu and in seven Texas counties--and at Geronimo Creek Observatory. Copyright by Forrest M. Mims III.
SAN ANTONIO CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
The San Antonio chapter of the American Chemical Society asked me to give the keynote talk at their student awards banquet on 21 May 2009. The event was held at the Farm to Market restaurant near downtown San Antonio. They recorded around two-thirds of the talk using a handheld video camera, and posted it in three segments on YouTube, which are linked below.
