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A review by jenpaul13
Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by Janna Levin
4.0
The pursuit of scientific findings is rarely a straightforward endeavor, but the various personalities and intellects that combine and fight against funding struggles, and one another, to best reach discovery of gravitational waves as predicted by Einstein are laid out in Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by Janna Levin.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Black holes are a fascinating subject and the obsession to prove the existence of gravitational waves emanating from colliding black holes as theorized by Einstein is evident in the depiction of the dedicated scientists Levin provides readers; while focusing on scientific principles and concepts that can get to be complicated, the way that these are outlined for an everyday reader makes it accessible enough to grasp the necessary details to understand the underlying idea pursued and the science isn’t delved in to too deeply. The decades long range for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project helps to better contextualize the contemporary development of science and discovery that frequently is abbreviated to impossibly short durations in media portrayals. There’s a sense of going along on a hero’s journey with the ambitious way the featured scientists doggedly pursued proof of these waves through all the various setbacks they faced along the way. There were interviews used as a large portion of building out the interpersonal and interdepartmental politics behind the endeavor and Levin’s thoughts were also included, turning this seemingly journalistic effort of gathering an oral history toward the more personal; the human element of this was a good method to garner interest from everyday people in to the complexities and excitements present within the scientific discovery process.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Black holes are a fascinating subject and the obsession to prove the existence of gravitational waves emanating from colliding black holes as theorized by Einstein is evident in the depiction of the dedicated scientists Levin provides readers; while focusing on scientific principles and concepts that can get to be complicated, the way that these are outlined for an everyday reader makes it accessible enough to grasp the necessary details to understand the underlying idea pursued and the science isn’t delved in to too deeply. The decades long range for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project helps to better contextualize the contemporary development of science and discovery that frequently is abbreviated to impossibly short durations in media portrayals. There’s a sense of going along on a hero’s journey with the ambitious way the featured scientists doggedly pursued proof of these waves through all the various setbacks they faced along the way. There were interviews used as a large portion of building out the interpersonal and interdepartmental politics behind the endeavor and Levin’s thoughts were also included, turning this seemingly journalistic effort of gathering an oral history toward the more personal; the human element of this was a good method to garner interest from everyday people in to the complexities and excitements present within the scientific discovery process.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.