by John Gribbin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2000
Close attention is required, but the fascinating story Gribbin has to tell is worth the effort.
How old is the universe? The answer (and the story of how the answer was determined) is the subject of this demanding but not overwhelming account of astronomers at work.
The prolific Gribbin (Almost Everyone's Guide to Science, 1999), an astrophysicist turned science popularizer, has a special interest in this question, for a project that he initiated at the University of Sussex contributed to the answer. He traces the search for the age of the universe from the early 17th century (when the Christian establishment pronounced 4004 b.c. to be the date of creation) through the ensuing encroachment of scientists into what had originally been the domain of theologians. He shows the difficulties faced by early geologists and physicists who grappled with the issue (Kelvin calculated the age of the sun at 20 million years, while shortly thereafter Rutherford estimated the age of the earth at not less than 500 million years) and outlines the work of the 20th-century astronomers who created the Hubble Space Telescope. The central character is Edwin Hubble, who built a cosmic distance ladder outward from the Milky Way to the globular clusters, the Magellanic Clouds, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Virgo cluster of galaxies. The subsequent controversy over the best estimate of the number known as Hubble's Constant (from which can be calculated the date of the Big Bang) is the topic of Gribbin's later chapters. He explains why one side in the debate argued for a value twice as large as the other side, the differences in the various measuring techniques employed to find the correct answer, and the technical advances that made such work possible. The absence of unnerving mathematical formulas and the use of everyday images—the movement of a swarm of bees, for example, or a person walking down an up escalator—to depict unfamiliar cosmic phenomena help smooth the way for the nonscientist reader.
Close attention is required, but the fascinating story Gribbin has to tell is worth the effort.Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-300-08346-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2000
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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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
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