On Space and Time (original) (raw)

Contemporary Physics, 2013

Abstract

‘dark’) members of the system. The reality turned out to be much richer than that. The term ‘dark matter’ is used literally to mean very-low luminosity objects and, as well as the expected non-baryonic dark matter, there is significant discussion of ‘stars of poor visibility’, compact objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes), neutrinos, comets, asteroids and extra-solar planets. In addition, there is a wealth of preparatory material covering topics as diverse as co-ordinate systems, cosmological models, early particle physics experimentation, particle physics, radioactive decay, symmetry laws and neutrino physics. The book is arranged in nine chapters plus an epilogue. Although there is some logic to the arrangement and content, it is sometimes not apparent at first sight. In the preface, we get a clue as to why this is the case when the author writes ‘Due to my on-and-off writing style and a continuous outpouring of cosmic events that required reporting, the project has been delayed much too much.’ The author has attempted to be all embracing in terms of her interests and parts of the book look to have grown organically with the inevitable race to keep up with everything. In the last respect, it should be noted that there is very little that goes beyond 2001 in any of the topics, which is a major disappointment in a book published in 2012. It is, however, understandable given the breadth of the task the author set herself and the sheer scale of the significant advances that have been made in almost every aspect of the subject matter. However, the book is still well worth a read, giving an in-depth insight into the status of ‘dark matter’ research in those early years. In the foreword (by Marvin Minsky), we find the following ‘While much of the text is for the math-loving scientists, other readers can just skip these technical parts ...’. There are indeed a number of sections with significant chunks of equation after equation. This reflects the author’s background in mathematics. At times it can be difficult to understand what message or conclusion the author is intending the reader to take from those sections as there is very little supporting summary text in those parts. In fact, even the more descriptive chapters often lack a ‘summary’ and the reader can be left just with a feeling that they have read a lot of interesting facts but are not getting the ‘big picture’. Each chapter comes with complete references and ‘comments’ which are information snippets relevant to the chapter but not woven into it. The Epilogue is a collection of 19 ‘latest news’ offerings and is rather limited. Finally, a comment on the myriad of issues which have hopefully been picked up in proof reading as the copy-reviewed was a ‘Galley Proof’. As an example, some figures had the wrong images, some figures were missing and some grey-scale figures had colours referred to in their captions. If thinking of buying a copy, a recommended quick check would be to compare Figures 1.2 and 1.5, as in the review copy they have the same image. References were quite extensive but not always presented to the same standard or format. Some equations did have errors.

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