Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes

Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes

by Ron Cowen
Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes

Gravity's Century: From Einstein's Eclipse to Images of Black Holes

by Ron Cowen

Hardcover

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Overview

A sweeping account of the century of experimentation that confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity, bringing to life the science and scientists at the origins of relativity, the development of radio telescopes, the discovery of black holes and quasars, and the still unresolved place of gravity in quantum theory.

Albert Einstein did nothing of note on May 29, 1919, yet that is when he became immortal. On that day, astronomer Arthur Eddington and his team observed a solar eclipse and found something extraordinary: gravity bends light, just as Einstein predicted. The finding confirmed the theory of general relativity, fundamentally changing our understanding of space and time.

A century later, another group of astronomers is performing a similar experiment on a much larger scale. The Event Horizon Telescope, a globe-spanning array of radio dishes, is examining space surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As Ron Cowen recounts, the foremost goal of the experiment is to determine whether Einstein was right on the details. Gravity lies at the heart of what we don’t know about quantum mechanics, but tantalizing possibilities for deeper insight are offered by black holes. By observing starlight wrapping around Sagittarius A*, the telescope will not only provide the first direct view of an event horizon—a black hole’s point of no return—but will also enable scientists to test Einstein’s theory under the most extreme conditions.

Gravity’s Century shows how we got from the pivotal observations of the 1919 eclipse to the Event Horizon Telescope, and what is at stake today. Breaking down the physics in clear and approachable language, Cowen makes vivid how the quest to understand gravity is really the quest to comprehend the universe.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674974968
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 05/06/2019
Pages: 192
Sales rank: 1,036,272
Product dimensions: 5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ron Cowen has written for National Geographic, Nature, the New York Times, Science, Science News, Scientific American, and U.S. News & World Report, and is a guest commentator on NPR’s Science Friday. He has twice received both the American Institute of Physics’s Science Writing Award and the American Astronomical Society (Solar Physics Division)’s Popular Writing Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Genesis 7

Deeper Dive: Space and Time, a Perfect Union 19

Deeper Dive: Testing the Equivalence Principle before Einstein 21

2 From Turmoil to Triumph 25

Deeper Dive: Riemann's Work and the Metric Tensor 43

Deeper Dive: The Meaning of Einstein's Equation 45

3 Eddington on a Mission 47

Deeper Dive: A History of Light Bending 66

Deeper Dive: A Modern-Day Solar Eclipse 68

4 Expanding the Universe 69

5 Black Holes and Testing General Relativity 83

Deeper Dive: New Tests of Einstein's Theory 92

6 Quantum Gravity 99

Deeper Dive: Black Holes and the Information Paradox 114

7 Hearing Black Holes 121

Deeper Dive: LIGO and Beyond 135

Deeper Dive: Gravitational Waves Lost and Found 141

8 Imaging Black Holes 147

Deeper Dive: A History of Illustrating Black Holes 159

Source Notes 163

Further Reading 167

Acknowledgments 173

Index 175

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