Is Einstein Still Right?
Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and the Quest to Verify Einstein's Greatest Creation
-
- € 25,99
-
- € 25,99
Publisher Description
Will and Yunes chronicle the latest scientific discoveries as they put Einstein's theory to the test in astonishing ways. They document the struggles to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics, dark matter, and the scientific process to seek a new understanding of the cosmos. Describes cutting-edge theoretical physics without equations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Physicists Will (Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics) and Yunes take readers on an intellectually challenging but invigorating tour of experiments involving Einstein's theory of general relativity. Despite the title's question mark, they write in the preface that "general relativity has passed every experimental test to which it has been subjected," so their concern is less with grappling with Einstein's theory itself than with explaining the various methods used to verify it. Some are familiar, such as black holes and gravitational waves, while others, like the "Shapiro time delay," a delay observed in radio waves traveling around the sun, or geodetic precession, the change in the axis of spin of a gyroscope traveling past a massive gravitational body, are less so. The authors put in yeomanlike work to explain each concept, and avoid using any mathematical formulas, other than the unavoidable E=mc . They also provide observations on the scientific process in general and on their own scientific careers (Yunes admits his initial inspiration came from reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation.) The topic will still stretch the comprehension of general readers, but for those able to soldier through, this will be a valuable treatise on a foundational topic in modern physics.
