From the Publisher
"A fine report on the latest piece of the puzzle that may, sooner or later, enable physicists to explain everything." --Kirkus Reviews
"Chown details nature's most familiar force in this sleek, well-paced account of gravity. Meticulously organized and researched." --Publishers Weekly
"Award-winning Chown offers nonscientists an easily digestible guidebook to everything currently known about gravity, while arguing that a better understanding of this ubiquitous force will help penetrate the deepest mysteries of our universe. In prose refreshingly free of formulas and jargon, Chown once again establishes himself as a first-rate popular-science writer." --Booklist
Dallas Morning News [praise for Marcus Chown]
In a series of artfully connected and well-crafted stories, Marcus Chown traces humanity's 2,500-year quest to understand the nature and origin of matter.
Booklist
Award-winning Chown offers nonscientists an easily digestible guidebook to everything currently known about gravity, while arguing that a better understanding of this ubiquitous force will help penetrate the deepest mysteries of our universe. In prose refreshingly free of formulas and jargon, Chown once again establishes himself as a first- rate popular-science writer.
Science [praise for Marcus Chown]
Chown's book offers readers and their inner atoms an enjoyable introduction to that history.
The Independent (UK) [praise for Marcus Chown]
Reading a well-written popular science book is one of the great pleasures of modern times, and this guided tour through life, the universe and everything affords that pleasure in abundance.
Richard Dawkins
A pretty wonderful book.
Wall Street Journal
Delightful. Chown makes his discussion of bizarre phenomena, such as the way rotation actually distorts space intelligible and entertaining.
Booklist
Award-winning Chown offers nonscientists an easily digestible guidebook to everything currently known about gravity, while arguing that a better understanding of this ubiquitous force will help penetrate the deepest mysteries of our universe. In prose refreshingly free of formulas and jargon, Chown once again establishes himself as a first- rate popular-science writer.
Wall Street Journal
Delightful. Chown makes his discussion of bizarre phenomena, such as the way rotation actually distorts space intelligible and entertaining.
Booklist [praise for Marcus Chown]
A lucid history.
Kirkus Reviews
2017-08-28
A fresh look at gravity and how "we are on the verge of a seismic shift in our view of reality, one more far-reaching in its consequences than any that has gone before."Gravity's strength is minuscule, yet it dominates the universe. Science writers have not ignored the subject, but the world-shaking 2015 discovery of gravitational waves is provoking a flurry of updates. New Scientist cosmology consultant Chown (What a Wonderful World: One Man's Attempt to Explain the Big Stuff, 2013, etc.) is early out of the gate, and readers searching for a lucid popular account would do well to start here. The author begins with Isaac Newton, who showed that gravity was a universal phenomenon whose actions could be calculated by anyone. However, he could not explain how it worked, and no one (Newton included) felt comfortable with one body influencing another magically across empty space. Einstein's theory of relativity eliminated magic by explaining that any mass warps space-time in its vicinity. Following Newton's laws, all bodies move in a straight line. They appear to bend when passing through warped space-time, but they are still following the straightest path. "Because that theory recognizes that gravity is nothing more than the curvature of space-time," writes Chown, "the quest to understand gravity has been transformed into a quest to understand the origin of space and time." Relativity theory predicts gravitational waves, but they are incredibly feeble. Einstein doubted humans could detect one, but success would reveal so much new knowledge that physicists could not resist trying. The author spends less time on the mechanics of gravity wave detection than the implications, concluding with discussions of string theory, quantum mechanics, black holes, dark matter, and the ongoing search for a deeper theory. This is de rigueur for popular books on cosmology, but Chown's effort is more comprehensible than most. A fine report on the latest piece of the puzzle that may, sooner or later, enable physicists to explain everything.
