Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes [Hardcover]

Arthur I. Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2005

In August 1930, on a voyage from Madras to London, a young Indian looked up at the stars and contemplated their fate. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar--Chandra, as he was called--calculated that certain stars would suffer a strange and violent death, collapsing to virtually nothing. This extraordinary claim, the first mathematical description of black holes, brought Chandra into direct conflict with Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the greatest astrophysicists of the day. Eddington ridiculed the young man's idea at a meeting of the Royal Astronomy Society in 1935, sending Chandra into an intellectual and emotional tailspin--and hindering the progress of astrophysics for nearly forty years.
Empire of the Stars is the dramatic story of this intellectual debate and its implications for twentieth-century science. Arthur I. Miller traces the idea of black holes from early notions of "dark stars" to the modern concepts of wormholes, quantum foam, and baby universes. In the process, he follows the rise of two great theories--relativity and quantum mechanics--that meet head on in black holes. Empire of the Stars provides a unique window into the remarkable quest to understand how stars are born, how they live, and, most portentously (for their fate is ultimately our own), how they die.
It is also the moving tale of one man's struggle against the establishment--an episode that sheds light on what science is, how it works, and where it can go wrong. Miller exposes the deep-seated prejudices that plague even the most rational minds. Indeed, it took the nuclear arms race to persuade scientists to revisit Chandra's work from the 1930s, for the core of a hydrogen bomb resembles nothing so much as an exploding star. Only then did physicists realize the relevance, truth, and importance of Chandra's work, which was finally awarded a Nobel Prize in 1983.
Set against the waning days of the British Empire and taking us right up to the present, this sweeping history examines the quest to understand one of the most forbidding phenomena in the universe, as well as the passions that fueled that quest over the course of a century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1935, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a young Indian astrophysicist studying at Cambridge, presented to the Royal Astronomical Society a radical new theory of what would later be called black holes. Cambridge's leading astrophysicist, Sir Arthur Eddington, who lorded over British scientific circles at the time, ridiculed Chandra's findings as "stellar buffoonery," and while Chandra later established himself at the University of Chicago and in 1980 received a Nobel Prize, this humiliation at Eddington's hands haunted him until his death in 1995. Miller's story is not only about Chandra's discovery but the end run that physicists made around it to confirm the existence of black holes, with both Eddington and Chandra disappearing for long stretches. Miller, a British historian of science (Einstein, Picasso), doesn't persuasively make his case that the course of 20th-century physics would have been significantly different if Chandra's findings hadn't been ignored, but he does paint vivid portraits of the scientists in this quest, the racism Chandra encountered at Cambridge, the internal battles between Eddington and other astrophysicists—into which Chandra inserted himself with his theory—and both the excitement and despair a brilliant scientist experienced. Astronomy buffs and readers fascinated by the history of science will find this a compelling read. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Nann du Sautoy, U.K. (Apr. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Scientific American

Miller, professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London, weaves two stories into one, making this scientific chronicle read like a novel. One story traces the steps whereby black holes came to be accepted in astrophysics as the way many stars end their lives. The other story describes the bitter relations between Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (universally known as Chandra), who in 1935 provided the first mathematical description of what later came to be called black holes, and Sir Arthur Eddington, the most prominent astrophysicist of the time. Chandra presented his theory at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in January 1935. He had discussed the theory with Eddington, who had flirted with the same idea, and supposed that Eddington would support him. Instead Eddington rose at the same meeting to declare that "there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way!" Eddington's stature was such that his view prevailed. "The encounter cast a shadow over both their lives," Miller writes, "and hindered progress in astrophysics for nearly half a century."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1St Edition edition (April 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061834151X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618341511
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sleepwalkers, June 7, 2005

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes (Hardcover)

This is a telling history of the discovery of black holes, starting with the work of Eddington and Chandrasekhar, and the conflict between the two, and the human side of the scientific cultural politics of research. Eddington's unexpected rejection of Chandra's paper was responsible in part for the long delay in the acceptance of these at first unacceptable consequences of Einsteinian cosmology.What is strange is that Eddington himself had stumbled on the idea in the twenties, but was unable to stomach the consequences of imploding stars vanishing into a singularity. In part the fact that this finding was inconsistent with his effort to produce a general theory, undermining his life work, was responsible for his opposition, but the result seems to have ended by discrediting him. The course of Chandara's career is a fascinating one, as is the portrait of an Indian scientist of great brilliance.

One thinks of Koestler's _Sleepwalkers_, stepping backwards into a new discovery of black holes

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Astrophysics without the equations, July 8, 2005

By 

Alan Ross "weekly reader" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes (Hardcover)

"Empire of the Stars" is a stellar depiction of astrophysics and the astrophysicists who make sense of it all. Miller focuses on the personalities and foibles of the men and women scientists who have contributed to our understanding of stars. The author presents their research through anecdotes and scientific discussions in the context of historical events. This gives added relevancy and significance to their work. In effect, Miller's formula for storytelling delivers new dimensions to astrophysics in "book-spacetime."

The thrust of the book revolves around the scientific battle between Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra) and Sir Arthur Eddington over star collapse. Although it becomes apparent that Chandra's brilliant insight is correct, it is Chandra who becomes disillusioned and professionally detoured by the controversy. Chandra seeks refuge at Chicago where he flourishes in his research endeavors and is recognized as world-renowned scientist.

The book is a colorful exposition on the genesis of black-hole theory. Miller uses historical events and the scientists themselves to reveal the mysteries of the stars. This book is a supernova for those interested in a biography of Chandra and a history of astrophysics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative, entertaining, but marred by technical errors, January 5, 2008

By 

Michael A. Dubson "Michael Dubson" (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book and recommend it. It is a highly entertaining, informative, and well-researched book. If you've read Wali's bio "Chandra", you should read this book, which gives a somewhat darker view of Chandrasekhar the man. I particularly liked the detailed endnotes, which give many historical insights.

The villain in this story is Eddington, who did excellent work in his early career, but simply lost the power of rational argument in his old age. Like Linus Pauling, Eddington suffered from "great old man disease". (It only strikes males, perhaps because testosterone levels are involved.) The course of this disease is: tremendously successful early career causing self-confidence to morph into hubris, followed by the belief that one's intuition is so powerful that it cannot be wrong. In late stages, the disease causes the victim to attempt to alter experimental evidence to match beliefs.

I think the author exaggerates the importance of the Chandra-Eddington "debate" in 20th century physics, but that does not detract from the book's value.

Unfortunately, this book is marred many technical errors. Clearly, the author is not a scientist and the book was never edited by someone with a technical background. I list a few statements, some of which are wrong, and others are, as Wolfgang Pauli would say, "are not even wrong".

p.45 Referring to Sirius A, the brightest star in the sky: "The fact that it can be observed with a telescope shows how extraordinarily bright it is." Is this a typo? Did the author mean "without a telescope"? Doesn't matter, since the sentence makes no sense either way.

p.48,49. Explaining that Eddington incorrectly assumed that a star has a chemical composition similar to Earth's (rather than the Sun's actual compostion of 3/4 H, 1/4 He which gives it a molecular weight of 2) and so "Eddingtion adopted a mean molecular weight of 2.1." At first I assumed this was a typo, but the mistake is repeated throughout the text.

p.54. "Another mystery that Eddington wanted to crack was how a white dwarf could be so small yet so dense." Throughout, the author makes puzzling statements about density.

p.69. "... the electrical charge of the electron, which is 10^-10 in terms of size (measured in centimeters);...;the Planck constant, as measure of scale in the atomic world and smaller still, 10^-27; ..." Which is bigger: 20 pounds for 400 inches?

p.157 Referring to a teaspoonful of stellar matter: "The same tiny amount of neutron star matter would weigh a billion tons, probably enough to take it plunging through Earth." Yes, probably.

p.160. Kapitza is referred to as "a discoverer of superconductivity" (confusing superfluidity with superconductivity)

p.165 "Another question was whether fusion could be initiated by thermonuclear reactions." fusion is a thermonuclear reaction

Throughout, the author uses the word "dim" and it is never clear whether he intends the word to mean intrinsic luminosity, apparent brightness, surface brightness or what. This leads to very odd statements such as p.180 referring to a white dwarf, "It has burned up nearly all of its fuel, making it dim, but has undergone extreme contraction... making it hot." or p.221 "If Cygnus A were closer ... it would have a "luminosity" 10 million times that of the entire Milky Way."

The author reports all stellar distances in miles, never light-years, and he refuses to use scientific notation: p.221 Cygnus A is "4500 million trillion miles away"

p.225. Referring to Chandra's calculations of a supermassive stellar remnant in a quasar "it would have to collapse completely and would therefore cease to exist."

p.227 "its spin is the number of times it rotates per second". Confusing angular momentum and angular velocity.

p.225 Author explains that the Large Hadron Collider will be able to produce photons with a wavelength equal to the Planck length. I wish!

p.269, Referring to neutrinos: "They interact so weakly that they can fly through space for 3 trillion miles unhampered." Through space? Empty space? (As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up.)