Customer Reviews

The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (Princeton Science Library)

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...I have waited impatiently for this book, waited filled with questions that have not been answered by the press coverage on the Harvard supernova team's work. So much of the story is not sound-bite-able, but requires some exposition.

Closing the book, I feel like I've completed a 5 course Thanksgiving dinner. I feel great satisfaction. I still have lots of questions, but most of the remaining ones are for the theoretical physicists who are now working to explain what the Harvard team found. On behalf of the astronomers, Kirshner unhesitatingly gives up the family jewels in his book.

This is a two-part book. Part one, chapters 1 - 7, is a well-crafted primer on astronomy and physics, with an overview of the cosmological mass density problem that addresses the geometry of space-time and the ultimate fate of the universe.

The rest of the book covers the story of the Harvard high-z supernova research team and the remarkably creative and clever way they tried to solve the mass density problem.

I became a little restless reading chapters 1 - 7. I have spent years reading about and pondering the information in this part of the book, and I believe that some readers of "The Extravagant Universe" may have, too. A lot of good books have been written on various aspects of modern astronomy and physics and on the personalities who pushed us along toward our current understanding of where the universe came from and how it works. Most of these books delve more deeply into smaller chunks of the big picture. By contrast, Kirshner goes hard and fast, presenting the material in such a way as to be entertaining and comprehensible to a reader who has never read a book on astronomy, physics or cosmology.

It was probably a good idea to do this, as the overview is necessary if the average lay reader is to understand what the Harvard supernova team was doing, and why.

I had nothing to worry about, though, because turning the page and starting Chapter 8... well, let me make a Kirshner-style analogy here. You know the rush you feel when a roller coaster engages the clanking lift chain and begins ascending the first giant hill? That's what you experience when Kirshner begins telling his unique story. From Chapter 8 on, there is no messing around. Kirshner goes into fine and careful detail describing the Harvard CfA team's work applying supernova measurements to a solution for Omega. In the process, he conveys a picture of the tedium and exhausting commitment required to accomplish anything useful in astronomy.

"The Extravagant Universe" is a saga of hard work and hard thinking by a bunch of brilliant people. The story is fraught with as many difficulties and setbacks as Admiral Byrd faced in his winter alone in Antarctica, and it is filled with colorful and distinctive personalities, each of whose participation played a part in a true scientific triumph.

Kirshner is generous in giving credit to his many associates, but his folksy and self-deprecating style can't hide his central role in guiding and fault-checking the procedures employed to examine high-z supernovae and in applying a fierce questioning logic to interpreting the results. When it became clear that the Harvard team's findings were going to raise eyebrows (to put it terribly,
terribly mildly), he did a great job of conveying the predicament this put the team in - to what an extreme extent they had maneuvered themselves into a position to become either figures of historical importance in our understanding of the universe or, by one slip or lack of vigilance, becoming some of history's "village idiots" (a term Kirshner uses repeatedly and well.)

The coverage of the competing supernova team at Berkeley is a bit less than fraternal and compassionate. This is a big part of the story. There was a real horse race going on between the two teams, and Kirshner's account gives you some rich things to ponder in this regard. I had long wondered about the dynamics between the Harvard and Berkeley teams - were they working together, working against one another, or something in between? The answer is, they were not sabotaging one another or devoting a lot of time to spying, but they were in definite competition and hoping to reach a solid conclusion in time to scoop their opponents. They were approaching the problems in very different ways. There was a high priority on the part of the Harvard team to out-do the Berkeley team when it came to rigorous thinking and cleverness. The Berkeley group had the technology to find and measure more supernovae faster, so it fell to Harvard to maximize the accuracy of their measurements so that a smaller sampling could yield superior statistical accuracy.

They pulled this off and were able to get papers published first with more substantial claims and the facts to back them up. Kirshner's account makes the Berkeley team seem a little reckless and in a big hurry, and suggests that the Harvard team was ultimately able to out-think their opponents in a number of important ways.

Reading about the competition between teams is a lesson in the virtues and benefits of squaring off in a potential winner/loser scenario. It brought out the best in a group of people who had a lot to offer in the first place.

Without violating Amazon review policy by giving away the "punch line" of this book, I can assure you that Kirshner does indeed spill the beans on the inside workings of a research team engaged in an extraordinarily ambitious scientific quest. The narrative is richly human. The author's wit, curiosity and zeal for discovery is contagious.

"The Extravagant Universe" and the research that it describes deserve that most carefully rationed of all accolades given in the scientific world: "nice work!"

In early 1998, scientist Robert Kirshner and his team published the astonishing claim that the universe's expansion was accelerating due to the power of dark energy. Subsequent research has not been able to disprove the results obtained by Kirshner's "high-z supernova search team." This book is Kirshner's discussion of that finding and its importance to cosmology.

The first half of the book is essentially a crash course in the basics of cosmology, with many anecdotes and background from earlier research since Einstein or even before. Kirshner's witty style keeps this section entertaining even for those familiar with the information. He compares several distance indicators, such as Cepheid variables, redshifts, and supernovae. We learn how supernovae can be used to measure distances to remote galaxies due to their incredible brightness. We also become familiar with the pitfalls of using supernovae as standard candles, because there are a few different types.

Then the author gets into the real purpose of his book: to describe his research team's methods, results, and road to success with the press. The subtitle of the book is somewhat misleading; it should have been something like "The Story of the High-Z Supernova Search Team". Though the information wasn't presented in quite the way I was expecting, Kirshner gets the job done. He patiently educates the layman reader in many aspects of astronomy and cosmology. Towards the end it becomes a race between two supernova search teams using different methods. Though I found this yarn interesting, I would have preferred a general discourse to the narrative presented here.

Overall, this book is probably one of the most well-written and absorbing reads on this specific subject. Science and astronomy buffs should enjoy it greatly.

Robert Kirshner's book, `The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Cosmos', is another in a series of interesting texts on cosmology written essentially for those who are science-illiterate, or at least only somewhat informed, and who wish to know some of the key insights and discoveries of our time regarding astronomy. Particularly at the end of this text, where Kirshner explains the importance of this kind of scientific research (why would the government or private agencies want to spend money on research that has little if anything to do with addressing the desires of humanity, encapsulated by Kirshner, as wanting to `rich, safe and immortal'?) for the average person - it is not just for intellectual fancy or whim, but the long-term implications of understanding the universe can affect our lives in ways we can't even contemplate today.

Kirshner's narrative looks at many of the key discoveries, controversies, and personalities of the field of astrophysics, theoretical physics and cosmology in the twentieth century. Kirshner lays the groundwork not with Einstein (as so many texts do) but rather goes behind Einstein to the earlier work of Gauss and Riemann, with mathematics that, at the time, would not have been considered useful in the ways Einstein's general relativity made it. Kirshner looks at observation (Hubble Telescope, observations of background radiation through various methods, etc.) as well as theoretical conjectures to show the strand of thinking from the early universal constructs to present day theories.

Kirshner traces the history of recent astronomy and cosmology through researchers in history such as Einstein and Hubble as well as persons he knows personally and professionally at work in the field today. Particularly in the last half-to-third of the book, where Kirshner brings in this personal level of acquaintance with the people involved, the science comes alive in a very human way. Kirshner is good at showing the limitations, as well - sometimes you just get lucky, or your gifts complement others. With regard to Hubble and Hale, for example, Kirshner recounts the evidence that they did not really understand Einstein's general relativity or the mathematics of his cosmological thinking; nonetheless, they continued their observational researches, and when Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, Kirshner states that you don't have to know all of the mathematical and technical details involved in science, but rather `you just have to face in the right direction and go forward' with those things that you can do!

Some of the key concepts Kirshner develops include the life-cycle of stars, the overall shape and structure of the universe, the idea of dark matter/dark energy that has gone unknown for so long, and the ideas of reaching back to the origins of the universe and drawing conclusions for the acceleration of the universal expansion. Kirshner does not develop the areas of planetary science or solar-system type ideas in this text except very peripherally - this is a book for grand topics on a cosmic scale indeed.

The book is very readable and accessible to any with an advanced high-school or undergraduate beginning ability in science. How could it not be, given an author whose mis-spent youth watching `Rocky and Bullwinkle' cartoons is confessed in the endnotes? There are technical terms, and (gasp!) even a few equations thrown in here and there, but understanding the narrative is not dependent upon being able to process the equations. There are colour plates in the centre, with other black-and-white photographs and images throughout. In keeping with the non-technical nature of the text, endnotes are kept to a minimum, and recommended readings are few.

An interesting text, and a very good subject.

The Extravagant Universe is an interesting read, taking you through the career of Professor Kirshner as well as an overview of the components of the universe and astronomy. Particularly interesting are the descriptions of how the researchers use supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe. Likewise, other scientific discussions, such as how the different elements in the universe were formed are well detailed.

However, I was hoping for a more detailed discussion of dark matter and a greater focus on the scientific concepts.

I would recommend this book if you're looking for a story of the evolution of a discovery and the twists and turns of the research behind it. If you're looking for a pure description of the theories discussed in The Extravagant Universe, this book may fall short.

Robert P. Kirshner's - The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos addresses no less of an issue than the beginning and the end of all things, i.e. the universe were we live. The essence of the book is to determine whether the universe is static, is expanding or is contracting. The book describes the efforts of Dr. Kirshner using astronomical observations of supernova explosions to answer this thorny question. The answer as presented in the book is a fitting corollary to a suspense or mystery novel, in spite that it was given away in the title. Readers familiar with the subject may find the antics of Dr. Kirshner and his associates either amusing or uninteresting, but they will not be able to avoid them, as the book is full of them. However, somewhere between reading about the amazing Danes and their astonishing capacity to acquire frequent flyer miles or the dietary habits of astronomers when working in the southern hemisphere, a fascinating account of astrophysics will emerge. Removed of the fluff of self-aggrandizement and false self-deprecation, which plagues many books about technical subjects written by very intelligent persons, the book is very informative and interesting. The paucity of hard data or hard reasoning to illustrate the discoveries depicted in the book is a major limitation, as many readers may resist accepting arguments instead of learning about the rationale for the interpretation. In fact, the vast amount of truly interesting information obviously known by the author cries for a more formal treatment of this subject to be shared with the readers. A wonderful contribution would have been to place in context the efforts of the great astronomers and astrophysicists mentioned in the book to establish the state of the universe, and the contribution that the study of supernova explosions provides to this subject. Instead, we learn about supernovas along with how brilliant such and such postdoc happens to be ("Kirshner Junior"), we see that old professors sometimes look silly, that teams of scientists have a predisposition to engage in outings in the woods while wearing t-shirts and looking overly competent and assured, etc., etc. It is only in the last few pages that a sympathetic (and moving) image of Dr. Kirshner emerges as he makes a passionate and inspired plea for the pursuit of knowledge and for our collective quest for understanding the universe as a paradigm for understanding ourselves as beings in a vast expanse of energy and matter. Overall, the book is an expanded version of a very good undergraduate course in astrophysics (which happens to be one of Dr. Kirshners' specialties). It will be read with great enjoyment and interest. Nonetheless, some readers will feel disappointed by a lost opportunity to learn even more details about the expanding universe, to learn what the relevant questions are, why it is important to answer them and the implications of the possible answers. At best the book will provide fascinating information about the universe; at worst nobody will be disappointed of learning of Dr. Kirshner's excellent adventure.

Professor Kirshner has provided a fascinating insight into the latest findings and conclusions associated with the investigation of the universe. Written in a non-technical way and sprinkled with humor, the average layman can understand the associated mathematics and physics. The Extravangant Universe will be a welcome addition to anyone interested in cosmology.

Bob Kirshner's book summarizes the exciting recent discovery of the accelerating Universe. Although as a professional astronomer I am familiar with the topic I could not stop reading this book. This is one of those rare books which give the reader a detailed insight into the hard and competitive work of a scientist who is always in danger of making a fool out of himself or isolating himself by not agreeing with the standard paradigm while at the same time being driven by curiosity and the joy and satisfaction of a new discovery. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to understand how scientists work and why this job is so fascinating for us.

Most cosmologists long believed that the universe would expand at a decelerating rate. Contrary to this belief, two teams of astronomers independently announced in 1998 the observational results that indicated the accelerating expansion of the universe since about 5 billion years ago. One of the two teams was called the Supernova Cosmology Project and led by Saul Perlmutter of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and the other was the High-z Supernova Team led by Brian Schmidt of Mount Stromlo and Siding Springs Observatories in Australia and the author of this book, Robert Kirshner of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Before reading this book I already learned much about this astounding finding from the following books: Amir D. Aczel, "God's Equation" (1999); Donald Goldsmith, "The Runaway Universe (2000); and Mario Livio, "The Accelerating Universe" (2000). The person who read one or more of these books like me might think the earlier chapters of "The Extravagant Universe" not so attractively written. As distinct from the other authors, however, Kirshner includes some passages useful to students and young scientists. For example, he writes in chapter 4, "You don't always have to understand the details of the mathematics to contribute to the advance of science"; and in chapter 6 he heuristically discusses various possible sources of observational errors.

From chapter 9 on, the narrative becomes quite absorbing. We get such high excitement of the intellectual work leading to the discovery that can be conveyed only by the person who actually engaged in it. It is wonderful that mankind can learn something about the fate of the universe, though we do not yet know what dark energy, i.e., the source of acceleration, really is.

I like the last pages of this book, on which the author describes why cosmology is important to us. Decision makers of science policy should read these pages at least. All the readers who are interested in the wonders of nature and the universe will surely be interested in this book. Vividly describing scientists' life filled with collaboration, competition, annoyance, confidence, etc., this is a good book especially for young people.

"Extravagant Universe" is one of the best books on the market if you're looking to fathom the recent discoveries regarding the apparent acceleration of the universe's expansion. Kirshner is not just an outside observer but a direct participant in the science, so you get a perspective from someone "who was there." Kirshner explains robustly how a special class of star became recruited as a sort of measuring stick for studying apparent and actual brightnesses of distant supernovae, whose unexpected dimness provides strong evidence for an accelerating spacetime expansion. Moreover, Kirshner delves into the still impenetrable mystery of the so-called dark energy that seems to be driving the expansionary push. Perhaps the book's best asset is its relative modesty. While Kirshner does suggest some possible implications of the recent findings, he's careful not to go too far, noting the unanswered questions and the ease-- even probability-- that new data and interpretations may overthrow the current consensus altogether rather quickly. Such a perspective is often missing in much of the lay science literature and is a major failing of many books on the market. That Kirshner, who himself is on the leading edge of these discoveries, holds back in comparison, is a testament to his discipline as a scientist.

I bought this book to read during my vacation for the purpose of getting up to date on the topic of dark energy. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book for its detailed discussion of the topic of measuring the universe's expansion and its friendly, easy-to-read first hand account, the book fell far short on my expectation of learning more about dark energy itself. In retrospect, it appears that there simply is not enough known about this mysterious topic to publish anything more than what is discussed in Kirshner's otherwise excellent book. I felt I was right back in graduate school dealing with quirky fellow students and sometimes unethical professors as I read Kirshner's humorous and exciting account of his work in the field of astronomy and cosmology. Despite the book's shortcoming, Kirshner's historical account and detailed descriptions of his team's day-to-day activities were worth the read. I feel I gained a lot of insight on the background of the topic of dark energy.

All in all, this is a good book that certainly provides a nice historical overview on the topic of the discovery of dark energy. But, as other reviewers have mentioned, it is short on physics and, in particular, there is absolutely no speculation as to what dark energy is. Kirshner says this himself when he says repeatedly that he is an astronomer, not a physicist. I guess we'll have to wait for Kirshner's next book to learn more about the mechanics of dark energy.