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A review by cade
Ripples in Spacetime: Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future of Astronomy by Govert Schilling
3.0
I am surprised there have not been more books like this popularizing gravitational waves since the announcement of the first detection by LIGO. This book scratches that itch, but it is a bit of a hodge-podge itself. I enjoyed reading the description of LIGO although you can find more detailed but still accessible information on LIGO operation/design online. I also appreciated the systematic run-down of proposed and in-progress gravitational wave detectors which facilitated the very interesting section on what sorts of science current and future gravitational wave detectors could investigate.
I think the author went too far afield a couple times. The history of the debate over gravitational waves going back to Einstein was fair game although it was not the most interesting part of the book. However, the chapter spend explaining stellar evolution leading to the formation of neutron stars was unnecessary and only tangentially relevant (yes, colliding neutron stars are a source of gravitational waves, but how they formed is moot). It is easy to see the author's passion for astronomy getting the best of his self-editorship here. Similarly, the author's life as a journalist induced him to describe the details of the public communications aspects of the first LIGO detection at a level of detail that is a bit tedious if you aren't a professional science communicator.
As with all books about the cutting edge, this book is already a bit out of date. The recent detection of the "kilonova" neutron star merger with rapid follow-up by more or less every telescope worth pointing is a harbinger of major developments in astronomy. This book discusses the possible detection of these events and considers at some length the potential significance of combining gravitational waves and traditional electromagnetic observations for "multi-messenger" astronomy. Although this section was somewhat out of date, it held up very well; the hypothetical predictions largely matched the actual detection event. Although I read the press coverage of the actual event, I still learned something more about what sort of discoveries this sort of event can facilitate.
I think the author went too far afield a couple times. The history of the debate over gravitational waves going back to Einstein was fair game although it was not the most interesting part of the book. However, the chapter spend explaining stellar evolution leading to the formation of neutron stars was unnecessary and only tangentially relevant (yes, colliding neutron stars are a source of gravitational waves, but how they formed is moot). It is easy to see the author's passion for astronomy getting the best of his self-editorship here. Similarly, the author's life as a journalist induced him to describe the details of the public communications aspects of the first LIGO detection at a level of detail that is a bit tedious if you aren't a professional science communicator.
As with all books about the cutting edge, this book is already a bit out of date. The recent detection of the "kilonova" neutron star merger with rapid follow-up by more or less every telescope worth pointing is a harbinger of major developments in astronomy. This book discusses the possible detection of these events and considers at some length the potential significance of combining gravitational waves and traditional electromagnetic observations for "multi-messenger" astronomy. Although this section was somewhat out of date, it held up very well; the hypothetical predictions largely matched the actual detection event. Although I read the press coverage of the actual event, I still learned something more about what sort of discoveries this sort of event can facilitate.