Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
Bernard Schutz
Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational
Waves. Daniel Kennefick. xiv + 319 pp. Princeton University Press, 2007.
$35.
Fifty years ago, theoretical physicists were in complete confusion and
disagreement over whether Einstein's gravitational waves were real, and if
so, what their nature was. Today, experimental physicists operate costly
gravitational-wave detectors paid for by sober funding agencies in many
countries; over the past 20 years, outlays have totaled perhaps half a
billion dollars, and a further two billion dollars of investment is
currently planned, much of which might be spent even before any waves have
been successfully detected.Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and
the Quest for Gravitational Waves, by physicist and historian Daniel
Kennefick, tells the fascinating story of how gravitational-wave theory,
which was a hive of controversy for many years, eventually became a dead
certainty.
Source: American Scientist
http://www.americanscientist.org/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/55511
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
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