Synopses & Reviews
Bestselling author of
Warped Passages and
Knocking on Heaven's Door and one of today's most influential and highly cited theo-retical physicists, Professor Lisa Randall once again effortlessly delivers fascinating science to the general reader. Weaving together the cosmos' his-tory and our own in an expanding intellectual adventure story,
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs takes us from the mysteries of dark matter and our cosmic environment to the conditions for life on Earth.
Sixty-six million years ago, an object the size of a city descended from space to crash into Earth, creating a cata-clysm that killed off the dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the other species on the planet. What was its origin? Randall proposes it was a comet that was dislodged from its orbit as the Solar System passed through a disk of dark matter that is embedded in the plane of the Milky Way. Her research challenges the usual assumptions about the simple nature of dark matter and demonstrates how scientists formulate and establish new ideas. In a sense, it might have been dark matter that killed the dinosaurs.
With her unique and wide-ranging perspective, Randall connects dark matter to the history of the world in the broadest terms. Bringing in pop culture and social and political viewpoints, she shares with us the latest findings—established and speculative—regarding dark matter, the cosmos, the galaxy, asteroids, comets, and impacts, as well as life's development and extinctions. Randall makes clear how connected the planet is to the makeup of the Universe, but also how fragile our place in the Universe, which evolved over billions of years, might be.
In this brilliant and fresh exploration of our cosmic environment, Professor Randall explains the underlying science of our world in the breathtaking tale of a Universe in which the small and the large, the visible and the hidden are intimately related. Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs illuminates the deep relationships that are critical to our world as well as the astonishing beauty of the structures and connections that surround us. It's impossible to read this book and look at either Earth or sky again in the same way.
Review
“The wonder and curiosity Lisa Randall so obviously feels about our world and the universe itself is evident on every page. [Randall] render[s] complex subject matter into a gripping page-turner that is impossible to put down. Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs is a fascinating, mind-expanding experience.” Augusten Burroughs, author of This is How and Running with Scissors
Review
“Lisa Randall has produced an intriguing, insightful book that brilliantly weaves together the disparate subjects of cosmology and biology. . . . A simple, elegant theory that finally makes sense of mass extinctions. A must read for anyone interested in the precariousness of life on earth.” Jack Horner, MacArthur Fellow and author of How To Build a Dinosaur
Review
Only Lisa Randall can take us on such a thrilling scientific journeyfrom dinosaurs to DNA to comets to dark matter and to past and future of our species. Randalls research is so thorough, the story so powerful, and her storytelling so compelling that I could not put this book down.” Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of Emperor of All Maladies
Review
“As strong in its poetic argument as it is in its speculative scientific argument, this book leads us pebble by pebble, step by step toward a sublime and unexpected vista. A book that should be required reading for those pursuing full citizenship in the universe.” Walter Kirn, author of Blood Will Out and Up In the Air
Review
“Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs is . . . a masterpiece of science writing: a detective story that illuminates the nature of scientific research while explaining how our very existence may be connected to unexpected properties of the dark matter that fills the universe.” Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at CalTech
Review
“A provocative and revealing account of how scientists like herself are uncovering deep connections between human existence and the wider universe. A terrific read.” Timothy Ferris, author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way and Seeing in the Dark
Review
“World-renowned physicist Lisa Randall brings a fresh twist to one of the worlds oldest murder mysteries, the death of the dinos. With lively writing and wonderfully accessible explanations, she now convincingly implicates a new suspect as ultimately responsible for the hit: a novel kind of dark matter.” Max Tegmark, physicist and author of Our Mathematical Universe
Synopsis
In this brilliant exploration of our cosmic environment, the renowned particle physicist and
New York Times bestselling author of
Warped Passages and
Knocking on Heavens Door uses her research into dark matter to illuminate the startling connections between the furthest reaches of space and life here on Earth.
Sixty-six million years ago, an object the size of a city descended from space to crash into Earth, creating a devastating cataclysm that killed off the dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the other species on the planet. What was its origin? In Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, Lisa Randall proposes it was a comet that was dislodged from its orbit as the Solar System passed through a disk of dark matter embedded in the Milky Way. In a sense, it might have been dark matter that killed the dinosaurs.
Working through the background and consequences of this proposal, Randall shares with us the latest findings—established and speculative—regarding the nature and role of dark matter and the origin of the Universe, our galaxy, our Solar System, and life, along with the process by which scientists explore new concepts. In Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, Randall tells a breathtaking story that weaves together the cosmos history and our own, illuminating the deep relationships that are critical to our world and the astonishing beauty inherent in the most familiar things.
About the Author
Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University, where she is the Frank J. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science and the author of the New York Times Notable Books Knocking on Heaven's Door and Warped Passages. Her work has set her among the most cited and influential theoretical physicists today, and she is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. When not solving the problems of the universe, Randall can be found rock climbing, skiing, or contributing to art-science connections. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.