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Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
A review of

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

Janna LevinKnopf • 2016

In Pursuit of LIGO

by David Meyer

Physics and astronomy professor Janna Levin, PhD provides a surprisingly gripping and suspenseful depiction of the scientific efforts to detect gravitational waves.

Theoretical physicist and professor in physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University Janna Levin, PhD relies on a playful, entertaining style to chronicle scientists’ conflicts, successes, failures, methods and discoveries. Levin’s heroes vest their hopes, careers and lives into pursuing possible phantoms – the gravitational waves from distant galaxies that Einstein predicted. Their quest engendered bitter rivalries, crushed dreams and broken hearts among elite scientists.

A Cosmic Haystack

When black holes collide, releasing more energy than a billion suns, they produce a slight ring made by gravitational waves, which travel through the cosmos. Almost undetectable, gravitational waves reveal the universe’s origins, eventual oblivion and perhaps rebirth.


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