Space Oddities
The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Experimental physicist at CERN and acclaimed science presenter Harry Cliff offers an eye-opening account of the inexplicable phenomena that science has only recently glimpsed, and that could transform our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality.
Something strange is going on in the cosmos. Scientists are uncovering a catalogue of weird phenomena that simply can’t be explained by our long-established theories of the universe. Particles with unbelievable energies are bursting from beneath the Antarctic ice. Unknown forces seem to be tugging on the basic building blocks of matter. Stars are flying away from us far faster than anyone can explain.
After decades of fruitless searching, could we finally be catching glimpses of a profound new view of our physical world? Or are we being fooled by cruel tricks of the data?
In Space Oddities, Harry Cliff, a physicist who does cutting-edge work on the Large Hadron Collider, provides a riveting look at the universe’s most confounding puzzles. In a journey that spans continents, from telescopes perched high above the Atacama Desert to the subterranean caverns of state-of-the-art particle colliders to balloons hovering over the frozen icesheets of the South Pole, he meets the men and women hunting for answers—who have staked their careers and reputations on the uncertain promise of new physics.
The result is a mind-expanding, of-the-moment look at the fields of physics and cosmology as they transform before us. With wonder, clarity, and a dose of humor, Cliff investigates the question: Are these anomalies accidents of nature, or could they be pointing us toward vast, hidden worlds?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This superb study by University of Cambridge particle physicist Cliff (How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch) examines contemporary physics' most intriguing mysteries through profiles of the scientists trying to solve them. Cliff details Italian physicist Linda Cremonesi's contributions to an Antarctic data collection project that in 2016 discovered unexpected cosmic rays ("charged particles like protons and nuclei") that appeared to travel upward from the ice, a finding some physicists speculate might result from a subatomic sterile neutrino particle, which can normally pass through matter, losing that ability while moving through the Earth and colliding with the ice on its way out. Cliff also examines Nobel Prize–winner Adam Riess's ongoing research attempting to resolve why direct and indirect measurements of how fast the universe is expanding don't match up, and physicist Chris Polly's efforts to determine whether the unusual magnetic properties of the muon ("an exotic, heavier cousin of the more familiar electron") are evidence of a quantum field that has yet to discovered. Cliff's lucid explanations do a remarkable job of making the complicated physics accessible and even exciting, and the focus on the scientists' stories ensconces the heady ideas in approachable, human narratives. This is a first-rate dispatch from the cutting edge of physics.
