Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony: The Story of a Gamble, Two Black Holes, and a New Age of Astronomy by Marcia Bartusiak (PDF)

Description

An updated classic that recounts the long hunt for Einstein’s predicted gravitational waves—and celebrates their recent discovery In February 2016, astronomers announced that they had verified the last remaining prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity—vibrations in space-time, called gravitational waves. Humanity can now tune in to a cosmic orchestra. We have heard the chirp of two black holes dancing toward a violent union. We will hear the cymbal crashes from exploding stars, the periodic drumbeats from swiftly rotating pulsars, and maybe even the echoes from the Big Bang itself. Marcia Bartusiak was one of the first to report on the new generation of observatories, showing the motivations of the detectors’ creators and the gamble they made to prove Einstein right when all other attempts had failed. She traces the quest of astronomers to build the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, the most accurate measuring devices humans have created, and the discovery of gravitational waves, revealing the brilliance, personalities, and luck required to start a new age of astronomy.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “An important, multifaceted scientific story to tell—part theoretical physics, part astronomy, part experimental physics, part engineering. . . . Bartusiak is dream[y] in mood and . . . stately in tone.”—James Ryerson, New York Times Book ReviewIncluded on the 2017 Best Book List by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)”When a gravity wave is first detected, the reader of this book will feel like a participant in the great event.”—David Goodstein, New York Times Book Review for the previous edition, a Notable Book for 2000“If aliens came to Earth to measure our level of advancement, we could do no better than to show them LIGO, Earth’s first gravitational wave observatory, and to hand them a copy of this book to explain how we did it.”—Adam Riess, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2011“Bartusiak provides a fascinating description of how the LIGO Scientific Collaboration first observed the gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes. The observation is the first step in a new field of gravitational wave astronomy, and this book shows readers the evolution of that field from a new idea in 1915 to a measurement in 2015.”—Rai Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology”This book gives a splendid account of a century-long saga that culminated in spectacular confirmation of Einstein’s theory. Bartusiak’s account is fascinating–and a remarkable ‘case study’ in how science advances.”—Sir Martin Rees, author of Just Six Numbers About the Author Marcia Bartusiak is professor of the practice, graduate program in science writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the award‑winning author of six previous books, including most recently Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This was a well written and detailed history of the search for gravity waves.

⭐Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony is a most interesting and informative book. If interested in gravity waves and how they were founded, this is the book for you. Highly recommend.

⭐The book was exactly as described and delivered promptly. I couldn’t be happier.

⭐This book is about “gravity waves”. (As the author points out, they are more properly called “gravitational waves” but the more common term “gravity waves” is used in the book.) The title “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony” is a reference to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity’s predicting that large moving objects would create waves in spacetime, which are these “gravity waves”. The book is about the history and the technology of attempting to detect these gravity waves. Lo and Behold, some gravity waves were detected in 2015. If these waves were converted to audible sound, we humans would hear a “chirp” or a brief note (musical note, I mean), so in a sense these “sounds” could be Einstein’s “symphony.This is an excellent read. I predict that you will have a hard time putting the book down. Highly recommended.

⭐This book is beautifully written and makes a very timely topic (they just won the Noble Prize) understandable to all, without talking down to anyone. What the LIGO experiment did, and the level of technology is almost beyond belief. This is the next book to be read by our science book club in Jackson Hole. The very end is a little technical but it’s a great book. I recommend reading the book through the chapter on awards and then put it aside for a day or two. Savor the pleasure of a great story well told. Then read the more technical ending.After reading this book you will understand why they deserved to win the Nobel Prize just a year after their first publication. A very high recommendation in itself.

⭐I found this book to be overly detailed and focused too much on the obstacles the researchers faced as they struggled to raise money and build LIGO (but perhaps I’m more interested in results than in the process). Also, in many places this book duplicates the author’s much better book, Black Hole, which I strongly recommend. Marcia Bartusiak is an excellent science writer, well worth following.

⭐The book was well written and engaging. The history of gravitation is a fascinating subject, and much more will happen now that the psychological barrier of actually finding evidence of gravitational waves has been broken.

⭐This book is written very well and makes complex topics and ideas very understandable for all readers. The writing style is very cut and dry. The book is about many observatories around the world and how scientists have created them. The main goal the book sets up for the reader is to show the journey of how scientists detected gravitational waves for the first time. The most enjoyable part of the book for me is the in depth description of LIGO and how it helped to detect gravity for the first time. I would recommend this book to all science lovers and Einstein enthusiasts.

⭐The way in which this account of the discovery of gravitational waves unfolds is as gripping as any detective story. Rather like James Watson’s The Double Helix, the book manages not only to chart the evolution of an enormously important scientific discovery, but to combine the telling with a fascinating insight into the interplay of the big personalities of the scientists involved. Big ideas, big personalities. And I’ve not read a more accessible account of the implications of Einstein’s general relativity theories. Highly recommended as much for the human story as for the breathtaking science.

⭐The best book about gravitational waves, brought bang up to date with the LIGO discoveries.

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