The Trouble With Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet

by Richard Panek

Overview

What is gravity? Nobody knows—and just about nobody knows that nobody knows. How something so pervasive can also be so mysterious, and how that mystery can be so wholly unrecognized outside the field of physics, is one of the greatest conundrums in modern science. But as award-winning author Richard Panek shows in this groundbreaking, mind-bending book, gravity is a cold case that’s beginning to heat up.

In The Trouble with Gravity, Panek invites the reader to experience this ubiquitous yet elusive force in a breathtakingly new way. Gravity, Panek explains, structures not only our bodies and our physical world, but also our minds and culture. From our very beginnings, humans’ conceptions of gravity have been inextricably bound to our understanding of existence itself. As we get closer and closer to solving the riddle of gravity, it is not only physics that is becoming clearer. We are also getting to know ourselves as never before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544568297
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/17/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	246
Sales rank:	467,582
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

RICHARD PANEK, a Guggenheim Fellow in science writing, is the author of The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, which won the American Institute of Physics communication award in 2012, and the co-author with Temple Grandin of The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, a New York Times bestseller. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2019

The latest from Panek (The 4% Universe) is one of the best of the postgravitational-waves-discovery physics books for fans of popular science. Undeterred by Nobelist Kip Thorne amusedly telling him that the question "What is Gravity?" is meaningless, Panek proceeds to explore attempts to find an answer to the question. Beginning with myths from around the world that all differentiate between "down" here where we live and "up" there where there are stars, Panek progresses through key philosophical and scientific points made by Aristotle, John Philoponus, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and more. His journey through time is written in a conversational style with clear explanations. For example, he describes Galileo's main experiment with gravity: rolling balls of differing weights down various inclines. Panek makes clear that our understanding of gravity, and of the universe itself, is rapidly accelerating: "Aristotle's universe lasted 2000 years. Newton's…200 years. Einstein's less than a decade." VERDICT Teen and adult readers interested in better understanding the force of gravity and gaining insight into humanity's expanding knowledge of the universe will find this highly recommended book to be both accessible and enjoyable.—Sara R. Tompson, Lawrence, KS

Library Journal