Synopses & Reviews
In August 1930, on a voyage from Madras to London, a young Indian looked up at the stars and contemplated their fate. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra, as he was called) calculated that certain stars would suffer a most violent death, collapsing to virtually nothing. This extraordinary claim, the first mathematical description of black holes, rankled one of the greatest astrophysicists of the day, Sir Arthur Eddington, who in 1935 publicly ridiculed Chandra, sending him into an intellectual and emotional tailspin, and hindering the progress of astrophysics for nearly forty years.
Tracing the rise of two great theories, relativity and quantum mechanics, which meet head on in black holes, Empire of the Stars is the dramatic story of this intellectual feud and its implications for
twentieth-century science. Its also the moving tale of one mans struggle against the establishment and of the deep-seated prejudices that plague even rational minds. Indeed, it wasn't until the cold war that scientists realized the importance of Chandras work, which was finally awarded a Nobel Prize in 1983.
Set against the waning days of the British Empire, this sweeping history examines the quest to understand one of the most forbidding objects in the universe as well as the passions that fueled that quest over the course of a century.
Review
'\"Empire of the Stars dramatically succeeds in conveying the clash of scientific ideas and the personal conflicts underlying Chandrasekhar\'s remarkable anticipation of the existence of black holes in our universe. This is a story that needed to be told.\" --Roger Penrose, author of The Road to Reality and The Emperor\'s New Mind'
Review
'\"Arthur I. Miller, for so long the doyen of historians of modern science, has surpassed himself with this brilliant, elegantly written book. It is a profound story of friendship, disappointment and hope filled with truly remarkable characters; the narrative is also enormously broad in its scope, crossing continents and exploring questions at the heart of our understanding of the universe: What are black holes? Where do they come from? What do they mean?\" --David Bodanis, author of Electric Universe and E=mc2'
Review
"Impressively well researched account of a fascinating and complex relationship between two of the giants of 20th-century science." --Marcus Chown, New Scientist
Review
'\"Weaves two stories into one, making this scientific chronicle read like a novel.\" --Scientific American'
Review
"Empire of the Stars dramatically succeeds in conveying the clash of scientific ideas and the personal conflicts underlying Chandrasekhar's remarkable anticipation of the existence of black holes in our universe. This is a story that needed to be told." --Roger Penrose, author of The Road to Reality and The Emperor's New Mind
"Arthur I. Miller, for so long the doyen of historians of modern science, has surpassed himself with this brilliant, elegantly written book. It is a profound story of friendship, disappointment and hope filled with truly remarkable characters; the narrative is also enormously broad in its scope, crossing continents and exploring questions at the heart of our understanding of the universe: What are black holes? Where do they come from? What do they mean?" --David Bodanis, author of Electric Universe and E=mc2
"Impressively well researched account of a fascinating and complex relationship between two of the giants of 20th-century science." --Marcus Chown, New Scientist
"Cosmological politics makes for spellbinding dramas. . .page-turning." --George Johnson The New York Times Book Review
"Weaves two stories into one, making this scientific chronicle read like a novel." --Scientific American
"Lively and exciting. . .The book is so beautifully written that I read it in one sitting." --Thanu Padmanabhan Nature
"Impressively well researched account of a fascinating and complex relationship between two of the giants of 20th-century science." --Marcus Chown, New Scientist
Synopsis
In August 1930, on a voyage from Madras to London, a young Indian looked up at the stars and contemplated their fate. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar--Chandra, as he was called--calculated that certain stars would suffer a strange and violent death, collapsing to virtually nothing. This extraordinary claim, the first mathematical description of black holes, brought Chandra into direct conflict with Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the greatest astrophysicists of the day. Eddington ridiculed the young man's idea at a meeting of the Royal Astronomy Society in 1935, sending Chandra into an intellectual and emotional tailspin--and hindering the progress of astrophysics for nearly forty years.
Empire of the Stars is the dramatic story of this intellectual debate and its implications for twentieth-century science. Arthur I. Miller traces the idea of black holes from early notions of "dark stars" to the modern concepts of wormholes, quantum foam, and baby universes. In the process, he follows the rise of two great theories--relativity and quantum mechanics--that meet head on in black holes. Empire of the Stars provides a unique window into the remarkable quest to understand how stars are born, how they live, and, most portentously (for their fate is ultimately our own), how they die.
It is also the moving tale of one man's struggle against the establishment--an episode that sheds light on what science is, how it works, and where it can go wrong. Miller exposes the deep-seated prejudices that plague even the most rational minds. Indeed, it took the nuclear arms race to persuade scientists to revisit Chandra's work from the 1930s, for the core of a hydrogen bomb resembles nothing so much as an exploding star. Only then did physicists realize the relevance, truth, and importance of Chandra's work, which was finally awarded a Nobel Prize in 1983.
Set against the waning days of the British Empire and taking us right up to the present, this sweeping history examines the quest to understand one of the most forbidding phenomena in the universe, as well as the passions that fueled that quest over the course of a century.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments xi A Note on Chandraand#8217;s English xiv Prologue xv
PART I The Mystery of White Dwarfs 1 Fatal Collision 3 2 A Journey Between Two Worlds 15 3 Rival Giants of Astrophysics 33 4 Stellar Buffoonery 57 5 Into the Crucibles of Nature 73 6 Eddingtonand#8217;s Discontents 104 7 American Adventure 120 8 An Era Ends 139
PART II Stars and Bombs 9 How Stars Shine 153 10 Supernovae in the Heavens and on Earth 177 11 How the Unthinkable Became Thinkable 201
PA R T III What Happens When Stars Die 12 The Jaws of Darkness 217 13 Shuddering Before the Beautiful 233 14 Into a Black Hole 248
Appendix A: The Ongoing Tale of Sirius B 265 Appendix B: Updating the Supernova Story 268 Notes 275 Bibliography 313 Biographical Sketches 327 Glossary 335 Index 345