Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

by Janna Levin Narrated by Janna Levin

Overview

The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves-by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.


From the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the epic story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe.
*
Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole collision is an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe. The profusion of energy will emanate as waves in the shape of spacetime: gravitational waves. No telescope will ever record the event; instead, the only evidence would be the sound of spacetime ringing. In 1916, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, his top priority after he proposed his theory of curved spacetime. One century later, we are recording the first sounds from space, the soundtrack to accompany astronomy's silent movie.

In Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, Janna Levin recounts the fascinating story of the obsessions, the aspirations, and the trials of the scientists who embarked on an arduous, fifty-year endeavor to capture these elusive waves. An experimental ambition that began as an amusing thought experiment, a mad idea, became the object of fixation for the original architects-Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever. Striving to make the ambition a reality, the original three gradually accumulated an international team of hundreds. As this book was written, two massive instruments of remarkably delicate sensitivity were brought to advanced capability. As the book draws to a close, five decades after the experimental ambition began, the team races to intercept a wisp of a sound with two colossal machines, hoping to succeed in time for the centenary of Einstein's most radical idea. Janna Levin's absorbing account of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks in this unfolding story offers a portrait of modern science that is unlike anything we've seen before.

Editorial Reviews

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

At the dawn of creation and a billion light years away, a pair of black holes collided and created the barely perceptible sound of gravitational waves. How would scientists even begin to detect such an event? Distinguished theoretical astrophysicist and popular science author Janna Levin narrates her fascinating and detailed account of the construction and operation of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), at Caltech and MIT, with a voice of wonder, commitment and, at times, exasperation. Levin doesn’t shrink from discussing the handling of billion-dollar budgets while working with some of most brilliant and quirky scientists in the world. In the end, one can hear the pride in Levin’s voice as her team stands on the brink of witnessing one of the pillars of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. B.P. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Maria Popova

Taking on the simultaneous roles of expert scientist, journalist, historian and storyteller of uncommon enchantment, Levin delivers pure signal from cover to cover…Levin profiles the key figures…with Dostoyevskian insight into the often irrational human psychology animating this rigorous project of reason…[She] harmonizes science and life with remarkable virtuosity…As redemptive as the story of the countless trials and unlikely triumph may be, what makes the book most rewarding is Levin's exquisite prose, which bears the mark of a first-rate writer: an acute critical mind haloed with a generosity of spirit.

Publishers Weekly

03/14/2016
Following the detection of gravitational waves 100 years after Einstein predicted their existence, Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, goes behind the scenes for a chatty insider's look at the brilliant, eccentric people who continued the search for the elusive phenomenon. Much of the book is told through conversations with the major players involved with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), particularly Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss, along with an earlier researcher's taped interview with Ron Drever. The scientists' personalities are evident in their stories, which are interlaced with clear explanations of the science of black holes. As is often the case in cutting-edge science, clashes were inevitable. There was professional jealousy; there was selfless collaboration. And all the while, there was the possibility that it was a fool's dream. Levin delves into the backgrounds of numerous researchers, painting a sad picture of Joe Weber, a pioneer in the field who erred in his calculations and was left behind. Few of the interviewees mince words, offering unvarnished perspectives on the conflicts and obstacles as well as the camaraderie of those involved. Levin tells the story of this grand quest with the immediacy of a thriller and makes the fixations and foibles of its participants understandable. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

[A] storyteller of uncommon enchantment. . . . [Levin] harmonizes science and life with remarkable virtuosity.” —New York Times Book Review

“[An] astonishing story. . . . This is a splendid book that I recommend to anyone with an interest in how science works and in the power of human imagination and ability.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Poetic. . . . The reader can’t help sharing her surprises, her concerns, and her sympathies.” —The New York Review of Books
 
“Fun and insightful. . . . [A] quick, engaging read . . . with vividly described personalities and personality conflicts.” —Forbes 

“It is hard to imagine that a better narrative will ever be written about the behind-the-scenes heartbreak and hardship that goes with scientific discovery. Black Hole Blues is . . . a near-perfect balance of science, storytelling and insight. The prose is transparent and joyful.” —New Statesman (London)
 
“[Levin] explains in clear terms the scientific heart of this achievement and the deep and personal fascination that pursuing it has held for several generations of scientists. She also captures the cost of getting to this point, both financial—this is big science in its truest sense—and, in many cases, personal. . . . Illuminating.” —Nature
 
 “One of the most fascinating and beautifully written books I've ever read. . . . With a novelist's flair for unraveling the universal through the specific, [Levin] chronicles this particular scientific triumph in order to tell a larger story of the human spirit, its tenacious ingenuity in the face of myriad obstacles, and the somewhat mysterious, somewhat irrational animating force that compels scientists to devote their entire lives to exploits bedeviled by uncertainty, frequent failure, and meager public appreciation.” —Brain Pickings
 
“This is a popular science book that is very, very well written. . . . Levin has inverted the usual formula. . . . Levin starts from the humans and the story, and lets the science emerge until, finally, the science and the human become one. . . . Brilliant.” —The Sunday Times (London)
 
“She perfectly captures the fast-paced, forward-thinking, bureaucracy-averse atmosphere of a large-scale scientific experiment, but she also lays bare the decades of interpersonal strife that, at times, threatened to undermine the experiment's success. The author's portrait of these pioneers is especially engaging for her ability to contextualize humanness not just within the scope of the physical experiment, but in the face of such dizzying stakes—surely a Nobel is on the line and has been since the beginning.” —Kirkus (Starred Review)
 
“As compelling as a novel. . . . It’s punchy, witty, timely and deeply insightful; I haven’t read a better book on the realities of doing science.” —Michael Brooks, New Statesman (London) Books of the Year 2016
 
“A remarkable achievement that potentially opens up a whole new chapter in our understanding of the cosmos and, with perfect timing, Janna Levin’s elegant and lucid book is here to tell us how it was done.” —Mail on Sunday (London)
 
“Worthwhile reading for anyone considering a science career, or for those of us who love to learn how science frontiers are pushed forward.” —San Francisco Book Review
 
“Levin recounts the dramatic search over the last 50 years for these elusive waves, which are considered to be the holy grail of modern cosmology and the soundtrack of the universe. Levin is an accomplished astrophysicist and a colleague of the four scientists at the center of this book. It is a story that, until now, has been known only to those most involved with the project.” —NPR
 
“Lively, poignant, engaging. . . . A story worth telling.” —Science Magazine

Library Journal

04/15/2016
In this engaging narrative, Levin (physics & astronomy, Barnard Coll.; A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines) briefly summarizes the 100-year search for gravitational waves. Since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity predicted in 1916 that the collision of black holes could be detected by the energy produced, scientists have experimented with ways to capture energy that can only be heard. Levin tells the story of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the largest endeavor ever undertaken by the National Science Foundation, founded in the 1980s to detect and study gravitational waves. Interviews with students and colleagues reveal the decades of accomplishments and setbacks of an international cast of scientists and researchers. VERDICT This timely book enlarges the much-covered story of the proof of gravitational waves uncovered by LIGO in 2015. Levin relates a complicated subject conversationally in a way that will appeal to those interested in current events and scientific discovery.—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

JUNE 2016 - AudioFile

At the dawn of creation and a billion light years away, a pair of black holes collided and created the barely perceptible sound of gravitational waves. How would scientists even begin to detect such an event? Distinguished theoretical astrophysicist and popular science author Janna Levin narrates her fascinating and detailed account of the construction and operation of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), at Caltech and MIT, with a voice of wonder, commitment and, at times, exasperation. Levin doesn’t shrink from discussing the handling of billion-dollar budgets while working with some of most brilliant and quirky scientists in the world. In the end, one can hear the pride in Levin’s voice as her team stands on the brink of witnessing one of the pillars of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. B.P. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2016-03-01
On the 100th anniversary of Einstein's prediction that gravitational waves distort space-time, an acclaimed astrophysicist provides a thrilling insider's look at the extraordinary scientific team that devised and built the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which conducted the first experiment to ever observe gravitational waves. In Einstein's 1916 paper describing the general theory of relativity, he predicted that gravitational waves—such as those created when two black holes collide—would warp the fabric of space-time in predictable patterns. A century later, scientists at LIGO empirically verified his claim by detecting waves that have been "ringing" through space since the moment of collision over 1 billion years ago. Levin's (Physics and Astronomy/Barnard Coll.; A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, 2006, etc.) authoritative account of the brilliant physicists and engineers who envisioned such a remarkable experiment places readers right in the middle of the action, tracing LIGO's evolution from an inspired idea in the 1970s to the most expensive project in the history of the National Science Foundation. She perfectly captures the fast-paced, forward-thinking, bureaucracy-averse atmosphere of a large-scale scientific experiment, but she also lays bare the decades of interpersonal strife that, at times, threatened to undermine the experiment's success. The author's portrait of these pioneers is especially engaging for her ability to contextualize humanness not just within the scope of the physical experiment, but in the face of such dizzying stakes—surely a Nobel is on the line and has been since the beginning. Levin herself is also wondrously present in this narrative, nimbly guiding readers through scientific jargon and reminding us of the enormous profundity of modern physics. "A vestige of the noise of the [black hole] crash," she writes, "has been on its way to us since early multicelled organisms fossilized in supercontinents on a still dynamic Earth." A superb alignment of author and subject: Levin is among the best contemporary science writers, and LIGO is arguably the most compelling experiment on the planet.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171817176
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt
1

When Black Holes Collide

Somewhere in the universe two black holes collide—as heavy as stars, as small as cities, literally black (the complete absence of light) holes (empty hollows). Tethered by gravity, in their final seconds together the black holes course through thousands of revolutions about their eventual point of contact, churning up space and time until they crash and merge into one bigger black hole, an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe, outputting more than a trillion times the power of a billion Suns. The black holes collide in complete darkness. None of the energy exploding from the collision comes out as light. No telescope will ever see the event.

That profusion of energy emanates from the coalescing holes in a purely gravitational form, as waves in the shape of spacetime, as gravitational waves. An astronaut floating nearby would see nothing. But the space she occupied would ring, deforming her, squeezing then stretching. If close enough, her auditory mechanism could vibrate in response. She would hear the wave. In empty darkness, she could hear spacetime ring. (Barring death by black hole.) Gravitational waves are like sounds without a material medium. When black holes collide, they make a sound.

No human has ever heard the sound of a gravitational wave. No instrument has indisputably recorded one. Traveling from the impact as fast as light to the Earth could take a billion years, and by the time the gravitational wave gets from the black hole collision to this planet, the din of the crash is imperceptibly faint. Fainter than that. Quieter than can be described with conventional superlatives. By the time the gravitational wave gets here, the ringing of space will involve relative changes in distance the width of an atomic nucleus over a stretch comparable to the span of three Earths.

A campaign to record the skies began a half century ago. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-­Wave Observatory (LIGO) is to date the most expensive undertaking ever funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency that supports fundamental scientific research. There are two LIGO observatories, one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana. Each machine frames 4 square kilometers. With integrated costs exceeding a billion dollars and an international collaboration of hundreds of scientists and engineers, LIGO is the culmination of entire careers and decades of technological innovation.

The machines were taken offline over the past few years for an upgrade to their advanced detection capabilities. Everything was replaced but the nothing—the vacuum—one of the experimentalists told me. In the meantime, calculations and computations are under way in groups across the world to leverage predictions of the universe at its noisiest. Theorists take the intervening years to design data algorithms, to build data banks, to devise methods to extract the most from the instruments. Many scientists have invested their lives in the experimental goal to measure “a change in distance comparable to less than a human hair relative to 100 billion times the circumference of the world.”

In the hopefully plentiful years that follow a first detection, the aspiration is for Earth-­based observatories to record the sounds of cataclysmic astronomical events from many directions and from varied distances. Dead stars collide and old stars explode and the big bang happened. All kinds of high-­impact mayhem can ring spacetime. Over the lifetime of the observatories, scientists will reconstruct a clanging discordant score to accompany the silent movie humanity has compiled of the history of the universe from still images of the sky, a series of frozen snapshots captured over the past four hundred years since Galileo first pointed a crude telescope at the Sun.

I follow this monumental experimental attempt to measure subtle shifts in the shape of spacetime in part as a scientist hoping to make a contribution to a monolithic field, in part as a neophyte hoping to understand an unfamiliar machine, in part as a writer hoping to document the first human-­procured records of bare black holes. As the global network of gravity observatories nears the final stretch of this race, it gets harder to turn attention away from the promise of discovery, although there are still those who vehemently doubt the prospects for success.

Under the gloom of a controversial beginning and the opposition of powerful scientists, grievous internal battles, and arduous technological dilemmas, LIGO recovered and grew, hitting projections and escalating in capability. Five decades after the experimental ambition began, we are on the eve of the crash of a colossal machine into a wisp of a sound. An idea sparked in the 1960s, a thought experiment, an amusing haiku, is now a thing of metal and glass. Advanced LIGO began to record the skies in the fall 2015, a century after Einstein published his mathematical description of gravitational waves. The instruments should reach optimum sensitivity within a year or two, maybe three. The early generation of machines proved the concept, but still success is never guaranteed. Nature doesn’t always comply. The advanced machines will lock on and tolerate adjustments and corrections and calibrations and wait for something extraordinary to happen, while the scientists push aside their doubts and press toward the finish.

As much as this book is a chronicle of gravitational waves—a sonic record of the history of the universe, a soundtrack to match the silent movie—it is a tribute to a quixotic, epic, harrowing experimental endeavor, a tribute to a fool’s ambition.

2

High Fidelity

At 6:00 pm the building is quiet for an MIT headquarters. I have to wait outside until a graduate student rolls up and pops off a bicycle to let me in the locked doors, carrying the bike with her up the stairs. “Rai’s office is straight down.” She points to the hall behind her and wheels away, one foot jumped into the stirrup of the pedal, the other hanging on the same side. She hops off again and is inhaled by a pale office door. Rai’s door looks exactly the same and I have the sense it would be easy to mistake offices, like mistaking hotel rooms.

Rainer Weiss waves me in. We skip conventional social openers and speak with familiarity, although this is our first meeting, as though we’ve known each other for as long as imaginable, the shared experience of our scientific community outweighing a shared hometown or even generation. We lean back in mismatched chairs, our feet propped up on a single stool.

“I started life with one ambition. I wanted to make music easier to hear. As a kid I was in the revolution of high fidelity. Because, look, I was a kid in around 1947. I built hi-­fis of the first kind. The immigrants that came to New York, most of them were very eager to listen to classical music.

“See that loudspeaker there? That came from a movie theater in Brooklyn. Behind the screen you had a matrix of those things. I had twenty of them. I lugged them all on the subway. They had a huge fire at the Brooklyn Paramount, and they were getting rid of them. So I had what were movie-­studio quality loudspeakers and I had this fantastic circuit that I was building and I had FM radio. And I would invite friends over to listen to the New York Philharmonic and it was unbelievable. You felt like you were in the theater. An unbelievable sound came out of those things.”

Rai gestures to the conical metal guts of a circa 1935 speaker. The raw frame has an exaggerated heft that design advances have banished but otherwise looks surprisingly technologically recent, more 1970s indulgence than 1930s necessity. The object fits in visually with the other metal frames from various apparatuses that are stashed around the hive of scientists attending to a gravitational instrument that first imposed itself as a compelling thought experiment in the 1960s. Although he would later find out he wasn’t the first, Rai dreamed up a device to record the sound of spacetime ringing. A paragon of scientific ambition, the experiment is now too colossal for this building or even for Cambridge, Massachusetts. An R&D laboratory to develop some of the machines’ components is housed in the basement of the building next door, while the fully integrated instruments are constructed on remote sites.

In 2005, Rai molted the venerable role of professor of physics at MIT so he could walk 4 kilometer cement tunnels, affix oscilloscopes to laser beam tubes, appraise 18,000 cubic meters of hard vacuum for leaks, and measure seismic vibrations in dank wasp-­infested enclosures. Rai seceded essentially for the privilege to reemerge as a student again but with the elevation of the august title offered the most admired retired—but active—faculty: professor emeritus.

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