The Magicians
In his 14th book, Marcus Chown dramatises key discoveries in physics, explaining the science underpinning major revelations while incorporating fun, personal anecdotes about the key individuals involved.
From the link between electricity and magnetism to imaging the shadow of a black hole’s event horizon, Chown explores the timeline of many fascinating phenomena in the Universe, from their theoretical prediction to their eventual confirmation through experiments.
One such was towards the end of the 18th century, when William Herschel doubled the size of the Solar System via his accidental discovery of Uranus using his garden telescope in the UK city of Bath.
However, astronomers struggled to determine the orbit of the planet as it was never located where expected. In The Magicians we follow the story of French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier, who used mathematics to predict the existence of another planet, Neptune, which was causing Uranus to be in the ‘wrong’ place.
Moving to the modern era of astronomy, Chown explores the astonishing tale of how one prediction made by Einstein,
which confirmed another of his predictions,
was discovered by an instrument based upon yet another of his predictions. This may sound far-fetched, but it is the story of catching two black holes colliding and the subsequent release of gravitational waves. Predicted back in 1916 using his general theory of relativity, gravitational waves were described by Einstein as ripples in space and time, but he believed their detection would always be beyond our technological capabilities. It took almost 100 years but fortunately, in 2015, astronomers proved Einstein wrong on this last point and detected gravitational waves using laser-based gravitational wave observatories.
In line with previous publications, this book is thoroughly enjoyable
from start to finish
and is a delight to read. It is well-suited to someone new to
the field of physics
and astronomy, but with several items for further reading suggested at the end, I also believe it will enthuse an expert. The only downside, is that The Magicians
doesn’t highlight a diverse group of scientists – for example, there is little focus on female
figures – which is a shame. Nevertheless,
Marcus Chown has done it again; this book is highly recommended.
★★★★★