Here is an able summary of the growing body of evidence that Earth has sustained a number of collisions with various large objects from space. John Gribbin (In the Beginning, 1993, etc.) and his wife are a versatile British team of popular-science writers, and the story of asteroid collisions calls on their wide range of scientific knowledge. The discovery of high concentrations of the element iridium (rare on Earth, but common in meteors) in the geological strata marking the end of the Cretaceous Period led a team of chemists and geologists to the conclusion that a large meteor impact had occurred at that time, probably causing the death of the dinosaurs. This theory initially met with widespread skepticism, but the evidence for it has continued to accumulate. The authors summarize the Tunguska event, a probable meteor impact in Siberia in 1908, and another that took place in the same region in 1947. There have been a few spectacular near- misses—one fireball seen over Montana in 1972, another over the Pacific in 1994. Impact craters on the moon and other planets testify that over geological time spans these events are far from rare. And the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter made it abundantly clear how powerful such a collision would be. The volume of space around the Earth as well as beyond our solar system contains a large number of comets, meteors, and small asteroids. Large objects, the size of the dinosaur killer, seem to arrive with a periodicity on the order of 30 million years. The Gribbins also discuss the possibility of a periodic swarm of smaller objects every few thousand years, causing widespread damage and disrupting civilization. Finally, they discuss various plans being made to detect and possibly deflect an incoming object—concluding that such efforts are unlikely to be of value in the foreseeable future. A well-written and comprehensive discussion of a sobering but inevitably fascinating subject.
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14335-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science...
Bryson (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.), a man who knows how to track down an explanation and make it confess, asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.
As he once went about making English intelligible, Bryson now attempts the same with the great moments of science, both the ideas themselves and their genesis, to resounding success. Piqued by his own ignorance on these matters, he’s egged on even more so by the people who’ve figured out—or think they’ve figured out—such things as what is in the center of the Earth. So he goes exploring, in the library and in company with scientists at work today, to get a grip on a range of topics from subatomic particles to cosmology. The aim is to deliver reports on these subjects in terms anyone can understand, and for the most part, it works. The most difficult is the nonintuitive material—time as part of space, say, or proteins inventing themselves spontaneously, without direction—and the quantum leaps unusual minds have made: as J.B.S. Haldane once put it, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” Mostly, though, Bryson renders clear the evolution of continental drift, atomic structure, singularity, the extinction of the dinosaur, and a mighty host of other subjects in self-contained chapters that can be taken at a bite, rather than read wholesale. He delivers the human-interest angle on the scientists, and he keeps the reader laughing and willing to forge ahead, even over their heads: the human body, for instance, harboring enough energy “to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”
Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.Pub Date: May 6, 2003
ISBN: 0-7679-0817-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
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