Big Bang [Hardcover]

With a PhD in particle physics and the easily digestible writing style, shared by his contemporaries Jon Krakauer and Nick Hornby, Simon Singh delivers once again. Having read and found "Fermat's Enigma" to be a thoroughly enjoyable and well researched book into the history of a seemingly simple equation (get that one too), I eagerly awaited the publication of this book. It makes for an excellent introduction into the world of cosmology. Singh relates the history of the subject from the early thinkers through to the current state of play - everyone from the "Cosmology Hall of Fame" is given a spot for their thoughts to be elucidated, how they affected the theories, how the modern folks are building on that knowledge, what questions remain unanswered, and what new questions are being promulgated. This is a worthy addition to the armchair and professional astronomer alike...worthy of a place alongside books by Hawking, Rees, Weinberg, Smoot and Gribben.

Who first looked up at the night sky wondering about those specks of light? Whoever and wherever that was, the quest for an answer has endured. Simon Singh traces the results of that search in very human terms. From early creation myths through the orbiting of machines that view the universe in selected frequencies, he explains how our knowledge of the cosmos has built and changed over four long centuries. Using an effective conversational style, he demonstrates how the slow accumulation of knowledge built our picture of the universe. With clarity came distance in our growing perception of the age and scope of the cosmos. After nearly fifteen billion years, the universe has had much time to expand. Whether that will long continue is one of the points of this excellent story.

Arranging his topics carefully, Singh ties concepts to their investigators. Early ideas were based on "common sense" and accepted authorities. Naked eye observation limited our ability to "see" the universe until the telescope was developed. "Decentralising" is an ongoing theme in this book as we learn how Western Europe came to understand the Earth was not the centre of things. Galileo's telescopic observations shifted that centre to the sun. When telescopes improved even the sun's location moved to the edge of the Milky Way. Singh demonstrates how each step was proposed, considered and contested, then accepted with additional data. With hindsight, the conclusions all appear obvious. At the time of each new concept's proposal, "established" views held sway until overwhelming evidence displaced them.

No proposal was so hotly disputed as the notion that the cosmos began as a tiny region which rapidly expanded - the Big Bang. Although first proposed in different terms by a Belgian priest, Georges Lemaitre, the idea of explosive beginnings of the universe were generally dismissed. The supporting evidence was lacking and other considerations impaired its acceptance. Not the least of these was the religious connotations arising from the idea of a "creation point". In fact, the term "Big Bang" was a derisive term applied to the concept by one of its greatest critics, Fred Hoyle. Hoyle, with a shifting squad of supporters, proposed a "Steady State" universe in which matter was continuously being created and annihilated. Singh uses a handy set of comparison charts to show how evidence and the issues are balanced in the two theories. Bound to both theses was the question of the universe's age.

In the years following World War II, however, technology generated by that conflict provided researchers with a fresh, if previously used, tool kit. Radio telescopy, a true product of "war surplus" equipment, led to new discoveries. Of the many findings, the one most damaging to Hoyle's Steady State universe came from two scientists trying to reduce static in transcontinental telephone calls. Singh's description of Penzias and Wilson combatting the homing, nesting and excretory habits of a pair of pigeons is typical of his conversational style. It's also a paean to the dedicated researchers who persevered to complete their task. Coupled with radio telescopy was the improvement in spectroscopy - the chemistry of stars. Contributing new information on stellar age had the bizarre impact of clarifying and obscuring the duration of the universe's existence.

Understanding the history of our learning the structure of the universe is one thing - grasping the physics and chemistry is quite another. Singh's great talent is being able to convey both with equal facility and clarity. He knows how to summarize without losing meaning. The "sketches" concluding each chapter are visual summaries that might have been his composing notes. The bibliography is useful, but with the number of books on the topics, it reflects necessarily limited choices. There are countless books on the history and physics of cosmology. Is this one preferable to most? Is it more important than the others? The answer to both questions is a vehement, if qualified, "Yes!". To someone new to the topic, Singh has provided an informative welcome. Does he justify his subtitle? That remains questionable, but it's clear he's correct in asserting "you need to know about it". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Simon Singh is an adept popular science writer. His first significant book was Fermat's Enigma which was an entertaining and informative chronicle of the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem. Then there was the Code Book which provided a nice history of cryptography. Now, in Big Bang, Singh deals with one of the biggest questions of them all: how did the universe begin?

Actually, for astronomy junkies - those who've read books like Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe or Hawkings's Brief History of Time - Big Bang is probably a little tame and won't offer much new insight. Singh's audience is the general reader, one who may understand what the Big Bang is but not how the concept was arrived at.

Singh starts with the ancient Greeks and the origins of science. Soon enough, we read of Copernicus and his revolutionary idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Through Galileo, Kepler, Newton and others, the design of the universe kept changing, sometimes radically (geocentric to heliocentric) and sometimes more subtly (circular orbits to elliptical ones). Then things began to move beyond the solar system to look at the Milky Way: did it contain all the stars in the universe or were there other galaxies as well? The determination that there were many galaxies and that they seemed to mostly receding from each other led to a somewhat startling idea: if the galaxies are moving away from each other, they must have been closer in the past and at some point, they were all in one place.

The Big Bang theory would have its fair share of opposition, most notably from Fred Hoyle; ironically, it was Hoyle who wound up coming up with the term "Big Bang." The icing on the theoretical cake, however, would come with the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, an actual remnant from the Big Bang.

While superficially a book about the Big Bang, what Singh actually is writing about is how scientific thought develops, how new ideas arise from old. The Big Bang, like evolution, quantum theory or many other concepts, was not just a wild idea unsupported by facts; instead, it is the end result of a series of logical conclusions. In an era when scientific thought is often questioned (look at topics like global warming or evolution), Big Bang shows that - while not perfect - science is often the most reasonable source for answers about the fundamental nature of both the universe and ourselves.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 93 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars