Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe |  | Author: Evalyn Gates
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $8.35
as of 9/6/2010 06:49 CDT details
You Save: $8.60 (51%)
New (27) Used (9) from $7.31
Seller: books-from-the-basement
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 128647
Media: Paperback
Pages: 305
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0393338010
Dewey Decimal Number: 523
EAN: 9780393338010
ASIN: 0393338010
Publication Date: February 22, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780393338010 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
“Splendidly satisfying reading, designed for a nonspecialist audience.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Evalyn Gates, a talented astrophysicist, transports readers to the edge of contemporary science to explore the revolutionary tool—”Einstein’s telescope”—that is unlocking the secrets of the Universe. Einstein’s telescope, or gravitational lensing, is so-called for the way gravity causes space to distort and allow massive objects to act like “lenses,” amplifying and distorting the images of objects behind them. By allowing for the detection of mass where no light is found, scientists can map out the distribution of dark matter and come a step closer to teasing out the effects of dark energy on the Universe—which may forever upend long-held notions about where the Universe came from and where it is going. 8 pages of color; 40 b/w illustrations
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Great Book April 15, 2009
BlueBerry (Salt Lake City)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have found it to be one of the more readable books in the category of popular astrophysics. Evalyn Gates has succeeded in creating a fascinating literary exploration of the subject of the book - mainly a description of the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing and a detailed account of what how it can be used to gain insight into dark matter and subsequently the construction of the universe. I was peripherally aware of the concept of gravitational lensing, but now I have a much more vivid mental image of how the universe looks from a spacetime distortion stand point. Having read quite a few astrophysics and cosmology books, I especially appreciated the omission of a rehashing of the entire history of physics. The author includes only what is necessary for the understanding of the subjects. Additionally, there is no math, but there is an explanation of Einstein's equation of how the spacetime curvature relates to the distribution of matter and energy which will actually make you feel smarter. If you are considering buying this book, don't worry, you'll like it!
Don't be a WIMP!! Discover how astronomers find things they can't see! August 4, 2009
Stephen Pletko (London, Ontario, Canada)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
XXXXX
"What we have learned [about our Universe] is amazing. The Universe is 13.7 billion years old, it has a temperature of just under 3 degrees above absolute zero, and its spatial geometry is flat. The enormous expanse of space that we can see today, filled with hundreds of billions of galaxies, began as an intensely hot, almost infinitely dense soup of energy that has expanded and cooled since the beginning of time and space. Space itself is expanding in a great cosmic stretch that has recently begun to kick up a notch--the Universe is accelerating. And it is dark. The cosmic inventory is dominated by dark energy (72%) and dark matter (23%) [both of which we can't see]; normal matter, which comprises everything we [can see and] have ever been able to hold in our hands or examine with our instruments, comes in a distant third, contributing only about 5% of everything that is."
The above comes from the epilogue of this well-written, very informative book by Dr. Evalyn Gates, Assistant Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago.
So what is this book about? As might be deduced from the above quotation, it's about the dark side of the Universe--dark matter, dark energy, even black holes.
Dark matter is the hypothetical matter that holds the galaxies together. WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle), mentioned in this review's title, are one of the leading candidates for a type of dark matter. Dark energy is the hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the Universe. (A black hole in general relativity is a region of space in which the gravitational pull is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull. Black holes can't be seen directly.)
As mentioned, dark matter and dark energy can't be seen. How are astronomers to look for these things they can't see? That's where "Einstein's telescope" comes in.
Technically, Einstein's telescope is called "gravitational lensing." This book explains how it works. (Note that gravitational lensing is one of the predictions of physicist Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.)
Einstein's telescope or gravitational lensing can be used to solve the biggest mysteries of the Universe by using ordinary luminous matter to discover dark matter and its distribution (as well as other dark objects such as black holes and objects too far away to be seen by our best telescopes such as other Earths). This discovered dark matter itself can be used to probe for the imprint of dark energy (and the very structure of space and time).
The final chapter is a fantastic discussion of "gravity waves" (or gravitational waves). A gravity wave is a fluctuation in the curvature of space-time which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted again from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.
This book is quite accessible. No prior knowledge of science of any kind is assumed. Those with a science background will find that the first three chapters cover familiar ground.
Throughout the book are helpful black and white illustrations (pictures, graphs, etc.). As a bonus, there is a section of ten beautiful full-color photographs.
Finally, my only minor problem with this book is that I would have appreciated in having all new terms introduced in the main narrative listed (with definitions) in a glossary.
In conclusion, this is an extraordinary and captivating book!! And don't worry! You don't have to be MACHO to read it. (MACHO stands for Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Object.)
(first published 2009; preface; acknowledgements; glossary of acronyms; 12 chapters; epilogue; main narrative 270 pages; notes; illustration acknowledgments; index; about the author)
<>
XXXXX
Outstanding popularization October 8, 2009
Jerome Beck (Santa Rosa, CA , USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As others have written this is an outstanding popular treatment of cosmology as of late 2008.
If you are interested in the cosmos you you live you will enjoy this book.
Also worth reading in a different vein is: "Death From the Skies."
A quick read that shows clearly why we have to overturn what we thought the Universe was made of December 14, 2009
Nova137
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Coming in at a reasonable 270 pages of main text, this very readable and thoroughly engaging book takes the reader from when cosmologists and astrophysicists "thought they were so close" to having it all figured out and yet showing us that as early as the 1930's theorists were postulating dark matter (as early as 1933 Zwicke called it "dunkle Materie"). But it wasn't until 1970 that a second observation of the speeds at which gas clouds were orbiting around the Andromeda Galaxy that put dark matter on the map for good.
It turns out the Universe is filled with the stuff. And by "stuff" they aren't even sure what it is made of, but WIMPs are the most likely candidate. To make matters worse, Dark Energy appears to exist as a negative pressure within the entire Universe acting as a sort of renewed "Inflation" that is speeding up the expansion against normal gravity's will.
How do we know all of this? Well, in the book, the author Evalyn Gates lays out the territory upon which these discoveries came to light. The territory is General Relativity and the famous first prediction it made, that light will be bent by the curvature of spacetime around a very massive gravitating body like the Sun - a method now affectionately known as "Einstein's Telescope". Today this confirmation of Einstein's grand vision of the cosmos is being utilized in ways that Einstein himself considered only hypothetical-gravitational lensing of distant objects by galactic glusters, single galaxies and even dark matter itself.
In a very simple and readable way, Dr. Gates takes the reader very carefully, but very swiftly, through 100 years of cosmology to the present making it understandable and interesting. The book never gets weighed down much in jargon and she keeps the examples light and refreshing using mundane and ordinary relationships to make simpler these complex concepts.
The book has an opening Glossary of Acronyms and extensive and helpful notes from each Chapter at the end of the book that the reader can refer to when he or she feels the need. I bought this book because it was published very recently, in February of 2009, and it has helped me round out my research on the subject of modern cosmology in my attempt to understand the challenges of the big-bang model.
I highly recommend this wonderful little book to all science enthusiasts and anyone else that might want to take a peek into our present understanding of just what the Universe is made of and how we are presently going about taking down the data needed to make the claims found in this book.
Buy it today.
A great book that all interested in knowing where we, the Humans, are must read.... May 25, 2009
Rao Addanki (Salem, MA USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Evalyn Gates has done a very commendable job in writing this book about Einstein's Telescope. She explains complex scientific concepts with simple analogies in a simple language. Evalyn combines theoretical concepts with associated experimental details and provides insights into how Gravitational Lensing is used as a powerful tool to study the origins and make up of the Universe. What adds to the greatness of this book is its lack of mathematical equations - except at two or three places in the main text. Though towards the end we note that the scientists do not yet know what constitutes 95% of the Universe, it is relieving to know they have great ideas to explore and another Einsteinian revolution may occur before we understand it all.
Two areas that are not clear:
Page 91 says "the Andromeda galaxy is zooming towards us" ...."on a course that may end in a spectacular collision with the Milky Way." As illustrated on Pages 62&63, if all Galaxies are moving away from each other, why would Andromeda move towards Milky Way and collide with it is not clear.
Pages 210&211 talk about positive and negative pressures. Radiation is said to have positive pressure[w=+1/3] and "would push out on the walls of the box" - meaning radiation seems to work against the Gravitational pull. However, Page 210 says "radiation slows the expansion even more effectively than pressureless matter does."- meaning radiation seems to contribute to the Gravitational pull.
Perhaps, these areas can be clarified in a later edition of the book.
I thoroughly enjoyed this great book and would recommend it to any one interested in knowing where we, the Humans, with all our 'power' and 'arrogance', live in what may possibly be a Multiverse- it will be a humbling experience.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
|
|
|
