# When Did People Discover The Cause of the Wind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915 "2012-06-12T14:17:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![UncleFred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f0a364/32.png) [@UncleFred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleFred)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/1 "2012-06-12T14:17:48Z")
We have info on when people figured out the world is round, and that the earth revolves around the sun. When did people start to figure out the cause(s) of the wind? ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/2 "2012-06-13T08:57:21Z")
It was soon after we began using the phrase “breaking wind”. After that, it was common knowledge that wind is caused by God farting. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/3 "2012-06-13T13:48:53Z")
Since wind is a function of differences in atmospheric pressure (right?), I decided to start there. Wikipedia says the [barometer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometer) was invented in 1643. The same article states: > [@](#): > > The concept that decreasing atmospheric pressure predicts stormy weather, postulated by Lucien Vidie, provides the theoretical basis for a weather prediction device called a “storm glass” or a “Goethe barometer” (named for Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the renowned German writer and polymath who developed a simple but effective weather ball barometer using the principles developed by Torricelli). I appears that Vidie was working on barometers around 1843. While I couldn’t find anything that directly mentioned wind, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was around that time that somebody noticed a correlation. WAG ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/4 "2012-06-13T15:50:09Z")
The wiki page on meteorology says " In 1686, Edmund Halley presented a systematic study of the trade winds and monsoons and identified solar heating as the cause of atmospheric motions." The whole history section is interesting there. It’s amazing what people understood even a couple thousand years ago. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/5 "2012-06-13T15:57:00Z")
I’m shocked and disappointed that the first reply to this thread was a fart joke. Thereby stealing the thunder of my “about 30 minutes after burritos were discovered” answer. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/6 "2012-06-13T15:59:29Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > The wiki page on meteorology says " In 1686, Edmund Halley presented a systematic study of the trade winds and monsoons and identified solar heating as the cause of atmospheric motions." The whole history section is interesting there. It’s amazing what people understood even a \*\*couple thousand \*\*years ago. Hundred? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/7 "2012-06-13T19:04:24Z")
The short answer to “what causes wind” is “differential solar heating”, and this fundamental was understood by the ancient Greeks, if not before. [Aristotle on wind](http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/meteorology.2.ii.html): > [@](#): > > Let us proceed to the theory of winds. Its basis is a distinction we have already made. We recognize two kinds of evaporation, one moist, the other dry. . . . (T)here is a great quantity of fire and heat in the earth, and the sun not only draws up the moisture that lies on the surface of it, but warms and dries the earth itself. Consequently, since there are two kinds of evaporation, as we have said, one like vapour, the other like smoke, both of them are necessarily generated. That in which moisture predominates is the source of rain, as we explained before, while the dry evaporation is the source and substance of all winds. This is an incomplete explanation, wrong in some particulars, but it gets the important part right–the Sun heats the ground and air, variably over days and years, and that generates wind. Any number of advances were necessary to flesh out the _mechanism_ by which temperature differences lead to wind–the notion that the earth was rotating instead of the sky (early 1600’s), an understanding of the behavior of gases (late 1600’s), and Newton’s theory of universal gravitation (1687). But the Greeks, I would argue, had the most important part right. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/8 "2012-06-13T19:23:51Z")
They asked [their dad](http://bucultureshock.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/calvin-and-hobbes-wind.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/9 "2012-06-13T19:41:11Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Hundred? 😉 I didn’t mean the wind, but other things that are on that page that people understood long ago. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-discover-the-cause-of-the-wind/624915/10 "2012-06-13T20:04:09Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > I’m shocked and disappointed that the first reply to this thread was a fart joke. > > Thereby stealing the thunder of my “about 30 minutes after burritos were discovered” answer. “Thunder.” Heh.