Lightspeed: The Ghostly Aether and the Race to Measure the Speed of Light by John C. H. Spence (PDF)

Description

This book tells the human story of one of man’s greatest intellectual adventures – how it came to be understood that light travels at a finite speed, so that when we look up at the stars, we are looking back in time. And how the search for a God-given absolute frame of reference in the universe led most improbably to Einstein’s most famous equation E=mc2, which represents the energy that powers the stars and nuclear weapons. From the ancient Greeks measuring thesolar system, to the theory of relativity and satellite navigation, the book takes the reader on a gripping historical journey. We learn how Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter and used their eclipses as a global clock, allowing travellers to find their Longitude. And how Ole Roemer, noticing thatthe eclipses were a little late, used this to obtain the first measurement of the speed of light, which takes eight minutes to get to us from the sun. We move from the international collaborations to observe the Transits of Venus, including Cook’s voyage to Australia, to the achievements of Young and Fresnel, whose discoveries eventually taught us that light travels as a wave but arrives as a particle, and all the quantum weirdness which follows. In the nineteenth century, we find Faraday andMaxwell, struggling to understand how light can propagate through the vacuum of space unless it is filled with a ghostly vortex Aether foam. We follow the brilliantly gifted experimentalists Hertz, discoverer of radio, Michelson with his search for the Aether wind, and Foucault and Fizeau with theirspinning mirrors and lightbeams across the rooftops of Paris. Messaging faster than light using quantum entanglement, and the reality of the quantum world, conclude this saga.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐In this highly readable book John Spence, professor of physics at Arizona State University, describes the long history of the measurement of the speed of light, from ancient times to the present. There are many actors in this tale, each of whom contributed a little piece to the puzzle. The idea that it takes time for light to travel was in conflict with the notion of ‘immediate action at a distance’. So it was not just a matter of measuring the speed of light, but also of making the case for the idea that light travels at a finite (if very large) speed.Today, with technological advances happening in real time, we are used to thinking that progress happens fast, and that breakthroughs in knowledge happen everyday. ‘Lightspeed’ reminds us that the main building blocks of physics were developed not over days, weeks, or years, but over centuries. Not because people were more stupid in the past, but because answering the deepest questions requires that we abandon what we think we know, in favor of views that are strange and totally unfamiliar. And visionaries like Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, don’t fall like apples from a tree. That is as true today as it always was.’Lightspeed’ is not burdened by a lot of math, and Spence does a fine job at clearly explaining the underlying physical pictures. If you don’t understand a paragraph, it is ok to skip ahead. The main story is about the struggle to gain a specific piece of knowledge (the finite speed of light), and its implications for our understanding of our world and of the universe. It is foremost a human story, with a diverse and interesting cast of characters.Highly recommended!Rudolf Tromp

⭐Some great stories about Lord Kelvin, James Maxwell, David Hughes. Also a great description of Relitivity and Simultanaity. I love amature radio and the blow by blow about Hughes and Hertz experiments with radio. I was marveling at photos of the Hughes printing telegraph with a piano keyboard. David Hughes invented the word microphone and the carbon mic. What a great collection of physics winners! Mahalo Prof. John Spence. Good read and learning.

⭐Kindle version is simply scanned in pages from the physical book not actually converted to a kindle compatible format so it cannot reflow properly. Meaning it is pretty much unreadable on a actual kindle or phone app. Pretty lazy on the part of the publisher.

⭐Excellent book that puts the development of models of light propagation in context, I would strongly recommend it for physicists, historians of science and anyone interested in how science is “done”I really liked all those stories on all the key characters in the development of the Physics, with interesting little anecdotes. When we teach the subject we pretend that all their contributions were independent events, but what really comes across is how much communication there was between contemporary researchers, even if it was in the form of politely worded “snail mail” letters, rather than instant angry tweets.When I started the last chapter, my initial reaction was “What’s this doing here, we’ve arrived already with accurate measurements and relativity”. But then I realised it was the most important Chapter of the book, as it addressed the key question, what philosophers would call the ontological significance of a scientific theory or model. This is especially poignant in the case of Maxwell and electrodynamics, the elastic eather springs were the “training wheels”, discarded when the model had a life and self consistency of its own.

⭐John Spence’s ‘Light Speed,’ the story of how humans worked out that light travels with the finite velocity- it does not reach us from the stars instantaneously-is one of the most scholarly and intellectually impressive books that I have ever read. It starts with the likes of the phenomenal Dane, Roemer, and end with the extraordinary David Hughes, whose work on radio has been much neglected.Othe remarkable individuals, like the polymathic Arago in France, figure eminently in the compact narrative that bristles with excitement from beginning to end. This book is replete with erudition of the most engaging kind.

⭐I’ve always been fascinated by space and watch many programmes about it such as ‘The Planets’ (both the 1999 series and the 2019 version with Brian Cox); Discovery Channel’s™ ‘How The Universe Works’, and the long running ‘The Sky At Night’ amongst many others, so having the opportunity to read some background around the calculation of one of the fundamental constants in that field, the speed of light was quickly taken when offered under the Amazon Vine programme. “Lightspeed: The Ghostly Aether and the Race to Measure the Speed of Light” is a scholarly work by John C.H.Spence, Richard Snell Professor of Physics at Arizona State University and Director of Science at the National Science Foundation BioXFEL Science and Technology Center, that gives a detailed historical perspective of the discoveries that led to the calculation of the speed of light. Spence deals with discoveries in a chronological order beginning with ancient Greek thinkers such as Empedocles of Acragas, Euclid of Alexandria and Pythagoras; and drawing a line to Einstein’s famous E=mc². Along that journey he dips into calculus and trigonometry, sometimes explaining discoveries in great detail whilst describing how important these were.The title of the book refers to the medium light was thought to be carried by, an ‘Aether’ presumed to work in the same manner as a wind carrying light beams from their point of origin instantaneously. It was only in the 19th century that its existence came to be questioned seriously, but with no explanation of what replaced it. Experiments had been made to try and formulate a speed but were far out of the range of the instruments available, eventually calculated as 186,282 miles per second in the vacuum of space.Spence discusses the discovery that the Earth was not the centre of the universe and in fact orbited the Sun and the conclusive proof that led to this discovery. He discusses navigation and the invention and calculation of Latitude and Longitude separately, Newton’s discovery of Gravity and how Gallileo discovered Jupiter’s moons and used their transits as a global clock, and how the size of the cosmos and the distances between Earth, Moon and Sun were first established thanks to the transit of Venus.I particularly like that Spence investigates and credits some of the critical discoveries of lesser known, almost forgotten thinkers whose work is known of but lost or partially lost. He goes to some trouble to identify what they re known to have added to the debate, even if their methods or evidence may have gone astray. Spence doesn’t limit his review to Western culture either, with Islamic scholars such as Addallah ibn Sina (980-1073) acknowledged as an early believer in the finite speed of light. This shows the care by which Spence has constructed his narrative – whilst many famous names litter the work Spence has clearly done his homework to show how man’s insatiable curiosity to understand his surroundings was more widespread than just the names now revered.Spence is a storyteller above all, tracing a clear line through important stepping stones in the quest for knowledge about the nature of the universe and the Earth’s place amongst it. He tells how experimentation, observation and mathematical rigour were brought to bear on the big problems of the day, with some discoveries almost miraculous given the equipment available at the time. The dedication of the scientists involved shows the unquenchable thirst for knowledge, with Spence bringing out their discoveries and often their back stories too to great effect to set things in context. Although at times he deviates from an everyman telling of the process and discovery to explain in detail the technical aspects, often via formulas, even if the mathematics are out of a reader’s comprehension Spence includes frequent helpful diagrams, often culled from the original work to illustrate what he is talking about. Indeed as early as page 3 Spence comments that the mathematics “Are not essential to understanding our story”. The diagrams give an appreciation of the discovery for the non-mathematical reader, with Spence following the old edict ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, something I liked a lot in this book. I can’t claim that I understood the entirety of the algebraic notation, but the book performs a nice balancing act between genuinely informing those that do whilst using enough ‘everyman’ language to satisfy the needs of the general reader – a rare feat for a book about a complex subject from an academic publisher such as Oxford University Press™.Spence’s final chapter is a useful look forward to developments and thinking since Einstein and where the frontiers of science are pushing both theory and discovery. Spence looks forward to quantum reality and the possibility of things travelling faster than the speed of light. This is a scenario familiar through science fiction, not least the ‘Star Trek™’ universe, where travel to other stars across distances currently impossible within a lifetime might become a reality.Spence ends the book with some very useful appendices, most amusingly a bit of ‘light’ relief describing how to measure the speed of light with just a microwave oven and some pizza dough. There’s also the simplest, most accessible description of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity I’ve ever read.The general reader might think that many of these discoveries have no practical application – Spence proves categorically that we owe much of the modern world to the discoveries he details, from atomic clocks to GPS, to telecommunication to the coming world of driverless cars and nuclear fusion, and in the ability to send craft out into the cosmos to land on planets, asteroids and moons – and even leave our own solar system. Spence has written an accessible work that doesn’t talk down to the reader from lofty heights. He has an innate ability to weave a convincing narrative and to bring the reader along on a journey – and what a journey. For anyone with a fascination for the stars, a curiosity of our small blue planet’s place in a vast universe or simply up for reading a rattling tale of pushing the boundaries of knowledge onwards this is an inspiring place to start.

⭐I gave this book to my hubby to read. He’s really into science, astronomy and maths and he’s an engineer by trade. He really enjoyed the book although he admitted it was quite heavy going. Basically it’s the story of how scientists learned to measure the speed of light. It documents experiments and mathematical equations that gradually advanced across the decades. There are sketches of the experiments and the mathematical equations are detailed along with how they were tested and proved new findings against beliefs held in at the time. My hubby said you do need a really good understanding of maths to fully appreciate the explanations within the book. He found it fascinating but had to re read several sections to get his head round some of the details. I read four pages and knew I couldn’t go any further. It was totally beyond me. I’m ok at maths but no expert and I knew this would go straight over my head. I’ve given it four stars based on my husband’s take on the book. If you have the right ‘mind’ for this and you are interested in how things have advanced in the measurement of the speed of light then give this a try. If you are like me then I just couldn’t get through it.

⭐This handy little book is certainly worth a read dealing as it does with one of the great stories of scientific discovery, the speed of light. It is historical and mentions all sorts of individuals I had never heard of but am now delighted to be acquainted with who beavered away at solving the great conundrum which led to further great discoveries. Appendix 4 is Einsteins theory of relativity, simplified and appendix 5 is how to measure the speed of light with a microwave oven and Pizza dough ( I have not tried it yet, but I will). This book is really well written, it flows very nicely, and has many diagrams, some with odd bits of colour thrown in for better reading and understanding. There is a bit of mathematics but not enough to seriously put you off. You really do not need very much in the way of mathematics to understand the story of the great discoveries around the speed of light. But for older eyes, I think you will struggle a little because the print is rather thin and doesn’t exactly leap off the page- younger eyes will have no problems. Recommended as a great exposition of the exciting scientific discoveries around the speed of light.

⭐I enjoyed reading this book. The race to measure the speed of light sounds like it might be dry and technical, but the author’s enthusiasm is infectious and the history captures so many events and tales at an almost dizzying pace, that it’s hard not to be swept along. The writing is pacey and concise. There is some mathematics, but not overly so, and the author does a good job of explaining in narrative, rather than mathematical notation.The subject has a surprisingly rich history, and there are many names and fascinating characters who you probably haven’t heard of before. At times I felt there was almost too much tell, and I wouldn’t have minded the text to be expanded, and slowed down, slightly.

⭐This is a really interesting book which details how scientists measured the speed of light, from early observations and experiments to the current day. It explains how the speed of light is the one constant in the universe. You do need to have a grasp of maths to fully appreciate the book. One criticism: the print is thin and small and I struggled to read it. Hence the four stars, otherwise I would have given the book five stars,

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