The Grip of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Laws of Motion and Gravitation [Hardcover]

Prabhakar Gondhalekar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0521803160 | ISBN-13: 978-0521803168

Gravity is one of the most inexplicable forces of nature, controlling everything, from the expansion of the Universe to the ebb and flow of ocean tides. The search for the laws of motion and gravitation began more than two thousand years ago, a quest that Prabhakar Gondhalekar recounts in The Grip of Gravity. Beginning with Aristotle and concluding with Planck, Gondhalekar outlines a 'genealogy' of gravity and lucidly explains how previous explanations have shaped the most recent development in the field, string theory. In this work, physicist and astronomer Gondhalekar describes experiments, both planned and proposed, and clearly explains natural phenomena like ocean tides, seasons, ice ages, the formation of planets, stars, and exotic objects like black holes and neutron stars, which are all controlled by gravity. Including anecdotes and thumb-nail sketches of the personalities involved, The Grip of Gravity provides an introduction to the foundation of modern physics and shows how the current developments in string theory may lead to a new and radical interpretation of gravity. Prabhakar Gondhalekar is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College, London. Until his retirement in 1998, he was the head of the Space Astronomy Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, where he had been a researcher for 18 years. His research has included a number of topics in galactic and extragalactic astronomy, with his major work focusing on the interstellar medium and active galactic nuclei. Gondhalekar has been awarded Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, and NATO Research Fellowships to do research in universities in the United States and Israel.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an interesting and comprehensive summary of the history of research on the gravitational force...This book has a clear structure and is easy to read." CHOICE

"It is an absorbing book, full of novel insights and packed with theoretical and experimental information that will hold (or rather grip) the attention of all readers interested in gravity." American Journal of Physics

"Prabhakar Gondhalekar traces the gradual unfolding of our understanding of the laws of motion and universal gravitation and the associated concepts of space, time, and relativity....Drawing on a vast body of knowledge, he also explains natural phenomena that are controlled by gravity-including ocean tides, ice ages, and black holes." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society

Book Description

This book tells the story of how we have arrived at our current understanding of the laws of motion and gravitation. It traces both the historical progress and explain s the central scientific ideas. Aimed at a 'non-technical' reader this book has an anecdotal approach with a number of thumb-nail sketches of the personalities involved. The book describes experiments to further understand gravity and natural phenomena in which it plays a central role, deepening our understanding and raising profound questions about the real nature of gravity which is still a mystery.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521803160
• ISBN-13: 978-0521803168
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,188,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The author weaves a tight fabric from many yarns., December 6, 2001

By 

Happily Retired (VFW) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grip of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Laws of Motion and Gravitation (Hardcover)

For me, a well-written science history contains three things. It establishes the context for the discoveries and developments. It accurately describes the relevant details of the experiments so that the results, interpretations and conclusions can be understood. Finally, it discusses the implications of the developments. The author accomplishes all three to my satisfaction in this book.
The story of gravity involves many subplots. Each part contributes a piece to the developing concept of gravity. The author skillfully weaves the pieces into a coherent story. Along the way he presents details that challenge common misconceptions about gravity, clarifies myths about the familiar personalities who have demystified aspects of gravity and introduces less familiar but influential contributors to our still-evolving understanding of gravity.
The book is comprehensive enough to satisfy my requirements for a well-written science history, but not so over-burdened with detail that it becomes cumbersome to follow the main plot. It reads like a suspense story for a reader who's interested in science history.

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping Gravity, August 21, 2010

By 

Stephen Hurrell (Near Liverpool, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Grip of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Laws of Motion and Gravitation (Hardcover)

Gravity is one of those fundamental forces that have engaged the brightest brains over centuries of scientific endeavor. The Grip of Gravity by Prabhakar Gondhalekar does a fine job of taking us through the history and development of scientific understanding about gravity, from Aristotle to the modern day, to clarify our present day ideas about what gravity actually is and how those ideas developed.

The book starts right at the origin of the quest to understand what gravity might be, over two thousand years ago, and then takes us through the experiments of Galileo and his thoughts on inertia. Then he describes how Newton reconciled gravity with the equivalence principle of inertia so he could produce his famous formulas that still enable the prediction of orbits of planets and how objects fall on the Earth.

Gondhalekar then takes us through the modern thinking of Einstein, with gravity being thought of as a distortion in the space-time continuum, to create gravitational wells that attract all mass to each other. It concludes with some of the latest thinking of the theory of gravity and how scientists are still trying to determine what might be the fundamental cause of gravity. Perhaps the answer will be the long awaited `Theory of Everything'.

I found Gondhalekar's book a fairly straightforward read until the introduction of string theory but I suspect I would start to struggle at that point no matter how good the writer. Gravity is a fundamental force of nature that we are still trying to understand but along the way Gondhalekar explores how gravity relates to the speed of light, the Hubble constant, dark matter and black holes.