«Өмір Сүретін Әлем»

Science series that ran in Life magazine from 1952 to 1954

The World We Live In appeared in the pages of LIFE magazine from December 8, 1952, to December 20, 1954. A science series, it comprised 13 parts published on an average of every eight weeks. Written by Lincoln Barnett, The World We Live In spanned a diverse range of topics concerning planet Earth and universe, and employed the talents of artists and photographers, including cameramen Alfred Eisenstaedt and Fritz Goro and artists Rudolph Zallinger and Chesley Bonestell. The parts were illustrated with art and photos, often presented in large gatefolds which showed two sides of a scenario.

The World We Live In was introduced to LIFE's readership as "the greatest series of science stories we have ever produced". It promised a "unified, understandable picture story of the planet Earth" authored by Lincoln Barnett, "one of the most literate authors in the field of science". The series itself started two issues later. Each part was assigned to a reporter, who was granted eight months to research the subject, organize the data, and oversee the photography and artwork. This opportunity to travel, learn, and explore on company expense was known informally as a "Luce fellowship". I. The Earth Is Born published Dec. 8, 1952. Illustrated by Chesley Bonestell, the first installment of the series covered the formation of the Earth, its composition, and its eventual demise. Contemporary principles of geology were also introduced. II. The Miracle Of the Sea published Feb. 9, 1953. The second part of the series discussed the geology and geography of the ocean, its, and its effect on coastlines. The first to include a gatefold, it featured a panoramic geological cross section of the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of North America. The part was given to science reporter Nancy Genet, who requested "a couple of hours" with oceanographer Maurice Ewing and ended up spending two weeks, a fact Ewing remembered years later. She also had the idea of representing the seafloor in panoramic view, and drafted the concept on a scotch taped "giant toilet paper roll" of paper 85 feet long. The final artwork was done by James Lewicki. Surface geology was the focus of the third part, which provided overviews of mountain formation and erosion. The geological formation of the New York area was included as a sample history. The gatefold showed forces of uplift in a bare landscape on one side, and the same landscape after the effects of erosion on the other side. IV. The Canopy Of Air published Jun. 8, 1953. Part 4 was the only issue not to be featured on the cover of LIFE; instead, the cover story was on Roy Campanella. The Canopy Of The Air featured clouds, air currents, chemical cycles, and other atmospheric phenomena. V. The Pageant Of Life published Sept. 7, 1953 After a discussion of evolution, the history of life on Earth is recounted, starting with single celled organisms and ending with the demise of the dinosaurs. For the gatefold, Rudolph Zallinger's Age of Reptiles mural was used; however, the version in The World We Live In was Zallinger's preliminary, detailed study. The actual mural in the Peabody Museum is significantly different. VI. The Age Of Mammals published Oct 19, 1953 Zallinger was commissioned to produce another panoramic mural, this time showcasing the evolution of mammals in North America across the Cenozoic, from small Paleocene animals to the woolly mammoth and Megatherium. The mural was eventually revised dramatically for the Peabody Museum, with several animals (such as the mammoth) revamped completely. VII. Creatures Of the Sea published Nov 30, 1953 After the physical properties of the ocean in part II, part VII introduced the organisms living in it. The gatefold showed the diversity of marine life on one side, and benthic organisms on the other. VIII. The Coral Reef published Feb 8, 1954. Types of coral reef, different species of coral, and the colorful denizens of the Great Barrier reef were present in this part. IX. The Land Of The Sun published Apr 5, 1954 Focusing on the Sonoran Desert, part IX explained the vicissitudes of life in the desert and the adaptations of desert animals. The gatefold, painted by James Perry Wilson of the American Museum of Natural History, showed the same desert scene by day and by night. A perfectionist, Wilson worked slowly and included as much detail as possible in the panoramas. He was unable to finish by the deadline, and some animals were painted by Robert Gartland. Both paintings were presented to the Peabody Museum in 1976 by Wilson's nephews. X. The Arctic Barrens published Jun 7, 1954. Life on the cold tundra was described in this installment, with a gatefold showing the seasonal transitions of the tundra. LIFE photographer Fritz Goro and reporter Jim Goode camped on the tundra for some seven weeks to obtain all the photos they needed, and by the end were reduced to living on macaroni. XI. The Rain Forest published Sep 20, 1954 The lush Amazon rainforest of Dutch Guiana was covered in part XI, with photos and several double page spreads and a gatefold painted by Zallinger illustrating life in the forest. Zallinger, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, and reporter David Bergamini spent two months in Surinam gathering data. XII. The Woods Of Home published Nov 8, 1954 Terrain more familiar to LIFE's readers was discussed here, as the effects of the seasons are observed in the changing woods. Artwork by Walter Linsenmaier depicted animals of forest and pond, as well as insects of the ground and the trees. The photographs were taken in Mettler's Woods, now the Hutcheson Memorial Forest. XIII. The Starry Universe published Dec 20, 1954 Part XIII closed the series on a suitably grand scale, with Bonestell's art depicting the stars and planets. The gatefold showed a scale depiction of the solar system on one side, and the Local Group on the other.

After its successful run at LIFE magazine, The World we Live in was released in book form in 1955, abridged in 1956 for younger readers by Jane Werner Watson, and re released in a three volume "Family Edition" in 1962. Some minor schematic diagrams were cut to better fit the format of the book. Some of Chesley Bonestell's art, notably the painting illustrating the end of the Earth, were removed, possibly because they were seen as dated by then. Jane Werner Watson's edition for young readers cropped many pictures or removed them altogether; for instance, the Paleocene landscape was removed, while the eroded geological panorama was relegated to the endpapers. This led to some odd situations, with some captions referring to animals that were cropped out of the picture.

Lincoln Barnett's style is populist rather than mathematical. Totally absent are the calculations and traditional proofs of geology and the other natural sciences. He does repeat or summarize some statistics derived from those sciences of the times, without much reference to the sources. His work is a selective summarization of some of the major scientific theories about "the world we live in," greatly enhanced by prize winning art and photography. Appealing to the public in general, rather than to any select scientific audience, his text can be criticized of being florid, sometimes to a ludicrous degree. As one reader put it, "[I] Enjoyed "Creatures of the Sea" most of all because of the way Lincoln Barnett slings the King's English around. While Nobel Prizer Sir Winston Churchill had an easier subject, he can't hold a candle to this guy Barnett". The rationale for mammalian dominance of the Earth from Ch. VI is only one example. "Indeed, it is probable that the mammals may have survived and succeeded to hegemony of the earth not in spite of but by reason of their very weakness and obscurity, their smallness in a world dominated by giants, their nakedness in a world of armor plate in particular, by their fear and sensitivity and awareness in a world of unperceiving, insensate, brainless brutes." There is also marked personification and some bias. Large prehistoric mammals, for instance, are variously described as being "awkward" or "witless". Tyrannosaurus rex in Ch. V does not escape this treatment either. "The apogee of development was attained with the creation of Tyrannosaurus rex, the mightiest and most fearsome flesh eater that ever terrorized the land. A towering agent of destruction, endowed with gigantic strength and power, Tyrannosaurus spanned 50 feet from nose to tail and carried his terrible head 18 to 20 feet above the ground. His hind legs were superbly muscled, from his thick thighs down to his three toed, cruelly taloned feet. His main weapon of attack was his murderous mouth which had a gape of incredible size and was armed with rows of six inch saberlike teeth." Finally, apparently as part of Barnett's effort to interest a wide audience, the text features quotations from non scientific literature, including the Judaeo Christian Bible. For example, each part includes such an independent quotation just below the title, as is often the practice in scientific works. Concerning the few Biblical quotes, one reader remarked that the "text was written as if the clergy were looking over Mr. Barnett's shoulder and crossing out anything that might be in conflict with the story of Adam and Eve". Whether the statement is to be judged true is a matter of opinion. Certainly, the Bible is not used as justification for any hypothesis in the entire work, which, unlike the Bible, portrays the evolution of the natural world in every part. Still, among the scientists, the purple prose does its job of conveying awe at the natural world. Paleontologist George Olshevsky described Lincoln Barnett's text as having "the grandeur of the universe contained in every word".

Much of The World we Live In is and always was intentionally out of date, due to differences between the latest theories of modern physics, which are mainly incomprehensible to the general public, and the more popular theories of classical physics. This dichotomy of theory developed in the 20th century and continues today. Faced with it, Barnett chose the more classical theories for his presentation. Barnett primarily offers the Newtonian universe. At the time of publication, his parts were up to date with contemporary theories on the natural world, but major scientific breakthroughs in astronomy, geology, and biology date the series. For instance, the sections on geology assume geophysical global cooling instead of plate tectonics to explain uplift. The paleontological parts (V and VI) are especially dated, considering the speed of new discoveries in the field and the Dinosaur Renaissance. The frontier of research had already dissociated itself from the Newtonian universe in Barnett's time, in favor of the Einsteinian. Writing in the mid 20th century, he was well aware of this development. He copes briefly with Einstein in the last few pages of the last part as a special topic, but for the most part modern cosmology, quantum mechanics, and advanced particle physics are beyond his chosen classical subject matter. For example, Newton's gravity prevails, but its equivalent relativistic curved space time is neglected. There is no force of gravity in the relativistic universe; however, it is acceptable to use the language of gravity with relativistic meanings. The sections on various biomes such as the desert, rainforest, and woodland, which depend on more immediate observation, are still more or less accurate as far as they go, which today is more limited in reach. They reflect the ecology of the time. Neither Barnett nor any other writer had any hint of the massive changes to the biomes caused by climate change, such as the rapid melting of the polar ice caps, the bleaching of most of the world's coral, and the threat to the atmosphere's ozone layer, narrowly placed in abeyance by world collaborative action.