Customer Reviews

The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe

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This outstanding book reports on how cutting edge experimental physics is testing theories about dark energy, dark matter, inflation after the Big Bang, evidence of the Bang itself, multiverses, and the Higgs boson, to name a few. The author has trekked the globe to observe the various telescopes and particle colliders putting to the test the cosmological and quantum theories presently in vogue. Will string theory be verified? Will the graviton be found? Will better evidence confirm whether our universe's geometry is flat, saddle-shaped, or spherical?

To potentially answer such queries, The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe takes us first to Mount Wilson in California where "[t]he observatory [George] Hale built is called the birthplace of modern observational cosmology." Next, the author, journalist Anil Ananthaswamy, descends into the bowels of the Soudan Mine in Minnesota which now "hosts one of cosmology's most sensitive experiments: the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS)." Among the other sites he visits are the Siberian neutrino telescope at Lake Baikal, another neutrino array telescope at the South Pole, an antimatter balloon experiment in Antarctica, and the European CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Still another project isn't lashed to earth somewhere but has been sent out 900,000 miles into space. It's "the Planck satellite, the latest in a small but select group of pathbreaking space probes designed to map the cosmic microwave background." It was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in May, 2009. Of course, its scientists remain earthbound to monitor and analyze its anticipated wealth of relayed information.

Ananthaswamy skillfully integrates technical engineering details, clear background about the theories that might be verified and the human element. He interviews many of the people who brave often harsh, unforgiving climates and geography to build, operate, and interpret the minutely sensitive and calibrated instruments and their collected data.

In the epilogue Ananthaswamy journeys to Mount Saraswati in Tibet where the new Hanle Observatory is part of "an international collaboration called COSMOGRAIL (for COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses)." He notes there "I became aware of the deep silence enveloping me....It is abundantly clear, standing in Hanle, as it had been in places like the South Pole, Lake Baikal, Paranal, and the Karoo, that the natural calm of these places is what makes them ideal to cosmology. We need to protect them.... If we pollute them, we will destroy our best chance of deciphering our own beginnings, of understanding ourselves." Finding suitably remote, unspoiled locations on earth constantly becomes more difficult, but as THE EDGE OF PHYSICS so compellingly relates, we can still learn a great deal from telescopes and other instruments deployed here if we don't despoil the remaining wilds where they can be maximally effective.

This is a superb resource for anyone who eager learn about the current state of experimental physics, the technology required to carry out the research, the geography that best sustains various projects, the theories being tested, and the men and women who are on the front lines constantly evaluating, innovating, and stretching the boundaries of our knowledge about the cosmos.

The legendary advertisement that was supposed to have been placed in a London newspaper by Sir Ernest Shackleton reads: MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS. Whether true or not, it is this spirit that animates the physicists who strive to discover the secrets of our universe at some of the most inhospitable places on Earth, under harrowing conditions that would give pause to the most intrepid explorer. Anil Ananthaswamy follows them and provides us with a window into their world. The result is a fascinating book which frames the tenets of Physics in a manner that is accessible to practically anyone. More importantly, it frames those eternal questions that have piqued the interest of mankind since the development of cognizance: Why are we here? Where did we come from? What lies outside the Universe, are there any other "heres"? The questions themselves awaken a sense of awe, but it is even more interesting to look into the lives of those who did not stop there, but decided to do something about it. From the Fraunhofer lines in stellar spectra to Digital Optical Modules embedded in a cubic kilometer of ice beneath the Earth's South Pole, to the coldest place in the known universe (which, oddly enough, is in a tunnel underneath Geneva), it is heartening to hear the stories of seemingly ordinary people who are striving to do extraordinary things. The result is a stirring, awe-inspiring good read, which has a definite tendency to make you want to stand up and cheer. Luckily for me, this could be accomplished with the minimum of fuss from my favorite armchair.

April 15, 2010: Some reviewers have made a note of the fact that the book does not have any high-quality pictures. To access additional content, pictures, videos and other details can be found at the web site for this book, [..] plus the author's blog on his travels to remote parts of the planet. Check it out!

For years, physicists have been trying to unify the four (known) fundamental forces of nature: gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear and electromagnetic. In this book, the author attempts to tie together work being done in ten different locations across six continents, each of which may provide a piece to the puzzle. Dark matter/energy, the multiverse, string theory and other topics make an appearance; if your goal is to get a deep understanding of any of them, this is not the book for you. However, if the story behind the science, coupled with a history and sense of place plus a gentle introduction to physics involved is your goal, then this is the book you're looking for.

In each chapter, the author details:

- why a particular location was chosen e.g. very little radiation/cosmic rays reach the depth of the Soudan Mine.

- how the instruments at each location are constructed e.g. "drilling" holes at the South Pole with hot water

- what the instruments are doing e.g. detecting neutrinos coming from the center of our galaxy

- why the experiments are important e.g. trying to determine whether our universe is flat or has a negative/positive curvature

In addition, he provides a window into the extraordinary lives of the people building the instruments/running the experiments/analysing the results, people who have devoted years of their lives and/or endure extreme conditions in the pursuit of science. He also sprinkles a number of non-scientific stories and facts about the locations themselves (Lake Baikal has a surprise at the bottom of it courtesy of the Russo-Japanese War) into the mix.

While the chapters can feel a bit long winded and repetitive at times, the book as a whole provides an engaging, enlightening read, a great springboard, should you desire, from which to explore the science, the places and/or the history in more depth.

This book's title does not describe its contents. An accurate title for the book would have been "My Visits to Ten Sites Used for Astronomy and Physics Research." The subtitle hints at this, but only if you ignore that title.

The author doesn't cover the edge of physics. He journals his visits to ten sites that have advanced equipment for astronomy or physics. He tosses in a little physics background, mostly string theory and precious little else.

Unfortunately, Ananthaswamy works in journalism. So, he wrote a journal instead of a science book. This, despite a title that indicates the opposite. Today's "journalism" has an increasingly solid track record of agenda-driven, unbalanced writing. In keeping with this trend, Ananthaswamy wrote an unbalanced piece.

I've read a fair number of other books on physics (written by researchers, not journalists with zero bona-fides on the subject) and watched several videos geared toward the more curious segment of the public. So, I'm aware of the subject's landscape. Ananthaswamy doesn't seem to share this awareness. Instead, he seems fixated on string theory. It's as if he read some books on it and hasn't read anything else on physics. While string theory is fascinating and complex, Ananthaswamy:

1. Explains it superficially, at best.
2. Proceeds under the assumption it is "the" theory rather than one of several competing theories currently being explored.
3. Gives the impression that all of the current experimentation is based on string theory (it's not).

Balanced coverage of the leading theories that are on the edge of physics would have resulted in a much better book. To fit this in the same page count, the book would need to focus on the core topic without all of the off-topic material that should have been cut anyhow. In places, I wondered what the heck the author's ramblings had to do with the subject--and I'm still wondering.

One good approach in the editing process would have been to remove the string theory comments from the narrative and write an appendix summarizing the leading theories. Then, re-title the book so it reflects the content. This way, the title actually fits the book and if you're interested in the background science you can read an overview.

Some positives:

1. The book is extensively researched. Unlike the typical journalist author, Ananthaswamy used credible sources.

2. The copyrighter (Sara Lippincott) is astoundingly good. There are few errors in the book (well below normal).

3. It's a good read. The prose is smooth and clear (kudos to the editor, Amanda Cook, but she should have cut more material).

This book would make a nice introduction for someone newly interested in what's going on with the General Theory of Relativity today and what it's like to visit some of the sites where experiments and research are taking place. It does not take you to the edge of physics, though it does take you to some edgy places in remote, hostile locations.

This book consists of ten chapters, each of which is devoted to describing the author's visit to a particular research site. Chapter 8, for example, journals his visit to Antarctica.

The title and the marketing materials for the book rather hype the book in a direction it can't match. The book is an excellent examination of ten particular experiments or observatories at the edge of current physics and astronomy research. I can speak to the good coverage of BESS (balloon experiment being launched from McMurdo, Antarctica) and IceCube (neutrino experiment deep in the ice at the South Pole) from personal experience. The author well captures the oddness of working in Antarctica and the excitement of the projects.

The experiments covered are: 1. Mount Wilson Observatory above LA. 2. CDMS (dark matter experiment) in the Soudan Mine, northern Minnesota. 3. Lake Baikal (Russia) neutrino experiment. 4. European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes in Chile. 5. Mauna Kea Observatory (Hawaii) focused on the DEIMOS experiment. 6. The SKA (Square Kilometer Array) radio telescope in the Karoo Desert, South Africa. 7. BESS experiment flying out of McMurdo, Antarctica. 8. IceCube at the South Pole. 9. ATLAS detector at CERN's LHC. 10. Planck satellite for measuring the microwave background radiation.

THE EDGE OF PHYSICS by Anil Ananthaswamy is 300 pages long, with ten illustrations. The author is a journalist, and hence the book is part travelogue and part layperson's guide to science. The travelogue takes us deep into an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota, to a dry desert high in the Andes Mountains called Cerro Paranal, to a remote lake in Russia (world's deepest lake) called Lake Baikal, to Antarctica, to the top of the world's tallest mountain (measuring from its base, not measuring from ground level) in Hawaii, and elsewhere.

The book provides insights into various advances in physics, at a level similar to that found on the science page of a typical big-city newspaper, e.g., New York Times. We learn some of the early history of cosmology. For example, George Hale, former head of an observatory at Lake Geneva, WI, helped set up the observatory at Mount Wilson, CA, which included two daytime telescopes and two nighttime telescopes. We learn about spectrographs and about Fraunhofer lines, which are used to identify elements existing in stars, and we learn about red shifts and blue shifts (page 14). We learn that Vesto Slipher (don't blame me, I didn't name him) discovered that galaxies move away from us at a great rate, e.g., 1,100 km/sec. We learn the advantages of reflector telescopes over refractor telescopes (page 18). We learn about Henrietta Leavitt's discovery of Cepheid variables, and of her new method for calculating brightness of stars (p. 22), and about Hubble's famous 6-page paper from 1929, disclosing that the velocity of a galaxy is proportional to its distance from earth.

We learn about Fritz Zwicky's observation regarding the relation between galaxy speed and galaxy mass, his conclusion that there was an apparent missing mass, which eventually led to the discovery of dark matter. (p. 30). Three types of evidence for dark matter are described, deriving from (1) Velocity; (2) Temperature; and (3) Gravitational lensing. We also learn about the experiment in the iron mine used to detect one kind of dark matter, called Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) (p. 31-55). Unfortunately, as of the publication date of the book, this experiment failed to detect any WIMPs.

Neutrinos are disclosed on pages 56-80. We learn of 228 detectors in Lake Baikal, all submerged in the lake, and facing downwards for detecting neutrinos that have passed through the entire planet earth. The goal was to reduce background noise from muons. We learn that there are three types of neutrinos, electron neutrinos, tau neutrinos, and muon neutrinos. Neutrinos are produced by the sun, as well when dark-matter particles collide with each other (p. 60).

Then, we learn about the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Andes, which was used to gather light from stars that exploded with the universe was half as old as it is today. A goal of this work was to study dark energy (p. 81-108).

At times, the reader encounters gobs of narratives not having much to do with science. For example, pages 25-30 disclose sleeping quarters, lunches, birds, and gardens, at the observatory on Mount Wilson.

A fascinating story of fund-raising involves the Keck Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii. A problem was that Marion Hoffman wanted to donate $36 million, but she died before signing any papers. Originally, Howard Keck wanted to donate half the needed money, but when the Hoffman Foundation reneged, Keck decided to fund the entire effort. The advantage of the Keck Observatory telescopes, was their improved ability to measure velocity of galaxy's, thus enabling better calculations on dark matter (p. 109-134).

Criticisms. A criticism is that ink-pen diagrams would have been helpful to understand some of the equipment, for example, the difference between reflector and refractor telescopes (page 17). Also, the book should have done a better job at distinguishing "muon neutrinos" from "muons." It is not made clear if these are the same things, or different things. The book serves as a fine inspiration for delving into more detailed layperson's books on cosmology. The book was, for me, a pleasant diversion just like Time Magazine. After reading this book, I did the same thing with it that most people do with Time Magazine, after reading an issue of Time Magazine.

If you've been paying attention, you're aware that physics has reached a point where its insufficiencies are manifest. Peculiar notions abound: supersymmetry, string theory, dark energy--all largely untethered to verifiable observation. Some of these may be right and others may be wrong. Scientists and engineers are working hard to find signs of what's really going on.

In "The Edge of Physics", Anil Ananthaswamy doesn't take sides. His interest is in showing us the search: the people and the places all around the world. It's quite a tale, written in a clear style that will pull in readers of all sorts. A background in physics is not required: only an interest in science and understanding.

The book's structure is unusual but becomes natural. The framework is a travelogue, taking us to the sites of important experiments. Some places are nice--neither Pasadena nor Geneva would be considered hard duty--but more are inhospitable. Old mines, frozen lakes, the South Pole and the Chilean desert are just a few of the places we visit. Considerable ingenuity and great physical risk are necessary to transport and build huge experiments in places where humankind is an afterthought. While we travel (much as we might read or daydream on a long flight), Ananathaswamy gives us the science and history of the particular field addressed by the location we're visiting. He provides some nice profiles of scientists and engineers along the way. It's clear that he feels that many of these seminal figures have been overlooked, and he's right. These scientists are a long way from the ivory-tower characters portrayed--if at all--in popular culture.

At the very end of the book, the author courteously provides concise descriptions of the "standard models" of particle physics and cosmology. These are the models that have been serviceable for decades but are known to be incomplete. At only two pages each, they're as good a description as I've seen.

On the day I received this book, I also saw news that one of the experiments described here (the Soudan mine in Minnesota) may have found evidence of the existence of dark matter. Exciting in itself, this news also shows how timely Ananthasway's book is. It's an engaging read about people, places and ideas. I can't recommend it too strongly.

I really have to simply reinforce the extremely positive comments that the prior reviewers have made here. The author is astounding in his ability to make the current cutting edge physics projects come to life, and even his historical comments are fascinating to read. This is a book about a subject or subjects that normally might be rather boring, but this is NOT a boring book, and in fact it is remarkably quite the opposite. Wow!

This is a very cool exploration of the world of experimental physicists. Wide and far, high and low. It's a novel way to examine modern physics, linked not by history or theory but by the extreme places where the experiments are being run. It's very readable, as you'd expect from an editor for New Scientist and National Geographic News, and for the same reasons it is a balanced review of current physics theory including dark matter, string theory, quantum gravity, and cosmology. It's a fun romp like a Nova special, but with the added depth and insight was get from a good read. A few more pictures would be good, but otherwise this book meets and exceeds its mission.

There are three things I look for in a good pop science book. I want to be informed, I want to be entertained and I don't want to be bewildered. My favorite science writers include Paul Davies, Michio Kaku and Brian Greene because they are generally enlightening and highly readable. Anil Ananthaswarmy is a writer with background in science but you can tell that writing is his primary skill. When I read the title I expected a book about the technological edges of physics but instead the book is about the extreme locations on the globe that scientists will journey to in order to pursue some of the grandest experiments ever undertaken. The subtitle of the book pretty much explains this as well as the product description so any misunderstanding was my own fault. Unlike the books by the authors above this book focuses on the moments when the chalkboard theories get put to the test, when the rubber meets the road.

The writer travels to some of the most unforgiving locations on the planet and thanks to some talented writing brings the reader along. From the frigged northern and southern poles to the barren lands of South Africa, from Lake Bailkal in Siberia to deep beneath the earth the author has to endure some of the most brutal conditions imaginable. What all of these locations have in common is their unique environmental conditions that assist with some of the most challenging searches ever undertaken. Most of the science here involves the quest for exotic particles including anti-matter, neutrinos, WIMP's and evidence for the existence of dark matter. I'm not going to pretend that I'm someone who is particularly interested in exotic particles, dark matter or the shape of the universe. I love physics but these topics have never really sparked my interest. However the focus of the book here isn't on the science, it's on the people and the amazing risks and sacrifices they are willing to take in the quest for knowledge. Anil tells of a group of explorers in Antarctica who died while trying to bring back geological samples. They were found frozen with 30 pounds of rocks. If they had simply ditched the rocks they may have made it but instead science took priority over life. The author is in no way advocating this behavior but it takes this kind of mindset to drive a person to locations where the temperature can drop 50 degrees below zero or into the deepest, darkest mines in search of a possibly non existent particle.

It was fascinating to read about the effort it took to transport massive telescope lenses into the most inaccessible places possible where any bump could damage millions of damage of equipment or digging out the mammoth caverns needed for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In the chapter on the LHC the author spends considerable amount of time on the colossal engineering feet involved in creating a collider that can create energies not seen since the early moments of the universe and temperatures colder than anything nature can produce. The people who take on these Herculean efforts are generally driven by nothing more than the unquenchable thirst for knowledge. The experiments are unprecedented and as such ingenuity is a must. Imagine trying to dig down several kilometers into the ice in the South Pole. The solution was to melt through the ice with an incredible blast of hot water literally possessing the power of a freight engine. You can think of it as like Mythbusters if Mythbusters had millions and sometimes billions of dollars to work with. Physics has been in the doldrums for decades and it's very likely that one of these remote places might well lead to the next big advance. Although this wasn't the book I was hoping for it's very well done and gives the reader a whole new glimpse into science. I'm giving this one top marks.