fbarkalow's review against another edition
2.0
It was a bit too dense with details about the collaborations and especially the rivalries involved in the search for supernovae. The main point of the research was to see if certain types of supernovae could be used as "standard candles" for deriving values about the age of the universe and at what rate the expansion of the universe is slowing down. I only read about half of it for now and might return to it another time.
mikiher's review against another edition
4.0
A well written account of the recent developments in cosmology (inflation, accelerating universe, dark matter, dark energy). However, too much attention is given to the stories (and scientific gossip) behind the discoveries. I'm still looking for a more serious account of things. Still, the stories are indeed very entertaining and pretty amazing, and I found it more satisfying than Krauss's "A Universe From Nothing".
adambroud's review against another edition
1.0
I was pretty bummed out about this book. I actually only read half of it and decided to put it away which I never do with books. I love the science behind it and I was fascinated to learn how we know what we know about the universe. The blaring short comings of this book come from making an attempt of a story of how we've come to our knowledge. Scientists are given cliché descriptions, and antagonists are lackluster as they are just nameless scientists who say, "it can't be!" for a few pages before they recant their statements. The attempt at a story is poor and ultimately comes off as name dropping from the author, who is one of the scientists in the book. This book would have been much better with a more straight forward approach at the science or a more straight historical view at the progression of the science. Instead it is clunky and drab.
swetzel9's review against another edition
4.0
Does a really good job of not just explaining what Dark Matter is and why it matters, but also traces the history of the subject within astronomy. So in addition to the physics and science, you also get the scientists and the rivalries that have worked on the subject over the years.
snowbenton's review against another edition
2.0
This book is 4% science, 96% academic drama.
Panek is not a very skilled writer and his cast of characters is near indistinguishable from each other (with the exception of the fabulous Vera Rubin) which makes it impossible to care for the drama since I could barely keep track of which person was on which competing team. This was all the more frustrating since I didn't pick this up to read about people trying to out-publish each other; I wanted science.
Panek is not a very skilled writer and his cast of characters is near indistinguishable from each other (with the exception of the fabulous Vera Rubin) which makes it impossible to care for the drama since I could barely keep track of which person was on which competing team. This was all the more frustrating since I didn't pick this up to read about people trying to out-publish each other; I wanted science.
bjt1977's review against another edition
3.0
DNF. Interesting and well written, but it went too in depth to hold my attention. I put it down about 30% of the way through.
bakudreamer's review against another edition
2.0
Not helpful really. It's just the history of what lead up to the discoveries. You could read Ch. 1 and skip to Ch. 7.
kazalicious's review against another edition
3.0
I liked how they took you through the discovery of the cosmos and how we got to the point where discovering dark matter and dark energy was possible.