The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything

by Marcus Chown

Overview

Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists.

Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And penetrating that enigma promises to answer the biggest questions in science: what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from?

Award-winning writer Marcus Chown takes us on an unforgettable journey from the recognition of the "force" of gravity in 1666 to the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015. And, as we stand on the brink of a seismic revolution in our worldview, he brings us up to speed on the greatest challenge ever to confront physics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681779034
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	12/11/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is currently cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist. He is the author of Solar System, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead, and The Magic Furnace. He lives in England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xiii

Foreword: Six things you may not know about gravity xv

Author's note xix

Part 1 Newton

1 The Moon is falling 3

How Newton found the first universal law - one that applies in all places and at all times

2 The last of the magicians 28

How Newton created a system of the world and found the key to understanding the Universe

3 Beware the tides of March 36

How Newton's theory of gravity is rich in consequences and can explain not only the motion of the planets but also the tides in the oceans

4 Map of the invisible world 68

How Newton's law of gravity not only explains what we see but also reveals what we cannot see

Part 2 Einstein

5 Catch me if you can 93

How Einstein realised that nothing can travel faster than light and that this is incompatible with Newton's law of gravity

6 Ode to a falling man 117

How Einstein realised that the 'force' of gravity is an illusion and all there really is is warped space-time

7 Where God divided by zero 152

How Einstein's theory of gravity predicts daft things at the 'singularity' of a black hole and how a deeper theory is needed that doesn't

Part 3 Beyond Einstein

8 A quantum of space-time 173

How quantum theory implies that space and time are doomed and must somehow emerge from something more fundamental

9 The undiscovered country 193

The struggle to find a deeper theory than Einstein's theory of gravity that will tell us why there is a Universe and where it came from

Notes 225

Index 257

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher

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.

Dallas Morning News [praise for Marcus Chown]

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

A pretty wonderful book.

Richard Dawkins

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

Delightful. Chown makes his discussion of bizarre phenomena, such as the way rotation actually distorts space intelligible and entertaining.

Wall Street Journal

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.

The Independent (UK) [praise for Marcus Chown]

Chown's book offers readers and their inner atoms an enjoyable introduction to that history.

Science [praise for Marcus Chown]

Delightful. Chown makes his discussion of bizarre phenomena, such as the way rotation actually distorts space intelligible and entertaining.

Wall Street Journal

A lucid history.

Booklist [praise for Marcus Chown]

Here we have a popular science approach to a heavy topic, and narrator Adjoa Andoh could hardly be better. Author Chown takes on the force of gravity, "the weakest force in the everyday world yet . . . the strongest force in the universe." Andoh approaches the material in a way that is very British: learned-sounding, expressive, and emotionally uplifting. She uses accents for variety, giving Einstein a German accent, for example. This is a fine history of gravitational science, pre- and post-quantum, with some speculation about future discoveries as we enter the further realm of dark matter and dark energy. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile

Here we have a popular science approach to a heavy topic, and narrator Adjoa Andoh could hardly be better. Author Chown takes on the force of gravity, "the weakest force in the everyday world yet . . . the strongest force in the universe." Andoh approaches the material in a way that is very British: learned-sounding, expressive, and emotionally uplifting. She uses accents for variety, giving Einstein a German accent, for example. This is a fine history of gravitational science, pre- and post-quantum, with some speculation about future discoveries as we enter the further realm of dark matter and dark energy. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile

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.

Kirkus Reviews