| Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy | Paperbackby Dan Hooper (Author)
| List Price: | $14.99 | |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Harper Paperbacks | | Page Count: | 256 Pages | | Publication Date: | November 01, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 1,473,995st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Everyone knows that there are things no one can see, for example, the air you're breathing or a black hole, to be more exotic. But not everyone knows that what we can see makes up only 5 percent of the Universe. The rest is totally invisible to us. The invisible stuff comes in two varieties—dark matter and dark energy. One holds the Universe together while the other tears it apart. What these forces really are has been a mystery for as long as anyone has suspected they were there, but the latest discoveries of experimental physics have brought us closer to that knowledge. Particle physicist Dan Hooper takes his readers, with wit, grace, and a keen knack for explaining the toughest ideas science has to offer, on a quest few would ever have expected: to discover what makes up our dark cosmos. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 12 reviews)
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Outstanding Book by Leo (Orlando FL)  5 Stars
November 30, 2009
The author does a great job of making his subject matter easy to read. This book was an unexpected joy. As a History Channel buff this book was solid, if you are studying this material in depth then you probably already know a lot of this. It did not over complicate matters but provided good coverage of the material. Outstanding book.
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A good primer on a timely topic by Lavon C. Hall (South Dakota) 5 Stars
April 03, 2008
Written for anyone wanting to know what the hot topic in cosmology is all about. A good place to start.
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An excellent read for the non-scientist by Joe Minnock (Utah) 5 Stars
February 21, 2007
Dark Cosmos has an excellent narrative style and explains the concepts of dark matter in a very understandable fashion. It begins with the easier theories and then moves into string theory and other pretty advanced concepts. It's a great read even if there comes a point where it no longer makes sense to a non-physicist.
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A Simplified View of the Way we Understand the World by John Matlock (Winnemucca, NV) 5 Stars
February 05, 2007
This is the best book I've read on Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Not only does Dr. Hooper explain why these things are needed to explain how we think our Universe works, but as he writes you get some feeling of the awe and excitement that he feels about the subject. You get the feeling that he goes to work every day looking forward with great excitement to see what he might learn. And he is able to bring this excitement down to the printed page so that you too feel that we are on the brink of a big break through in our understanding of how the world works.
As an example. At one point he is making some projections about what might be discovered in the future.
About one paragraph he says: 'This paragraph is wild speculation.'
About the next paragraph he says: 'This paragraph is ridiculously wild speculation.
From there he goes on to the third paragraph, about which he says: 'What is the word that means more ridiculous than ridiculous?'
The only real problem about this book is that next week, or next year, or maybe 25 years from now there will come a breakthrough that will answer all of these questions. As Einstein took Newton's equasions and extended them into the very small and the very large, we are looking for the next 'Einstein' to take his work and extend it to cover what the experimental physicists and cosmologists are discovering.
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very well written by J. DeBord (Chicago, IL)  4 Stars
January 26, 2007
I am not a scientist. I have no training in modern cosmology or physics, and I read this book simply out of an interest in the subject. What struck me most, and what I least expected from a popular science book, was the prose. The subject itself is vastly intriguing, and Dr. Hooper does an excellent job of conveying this information. The only chapter that left me relatively baffled was the chapter on quantum physics, but (let's be honest) that's strange stuff and it is not the intent of this book to explain it. The thrust of this book is dark matter, and Dr. Hooper is an engaging and insightful authority. His book is full of information, but more importantly, it is a pleasure to read.
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Cutting-edge astrophysics that builds on Einstein's theories to find the unseen matter that fills the Universe. Dark energy. Dark matter. These strange and invisible substances don't just sound mysterious: their unexpected appearance in the cosmic census is upending long-held notions about the nature of the Universe. Astronomers have long known that the Universe...
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