SPACE ODDITIES

A leading experimental physicist and science presenter examines how new evidence is upsetting old scientific models, ideas, and precepts.

“Science does not progress in a straight line, running from ignorance to understanding,” writes Cliff, a particle physicist at Cambridge and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. “It is a messy business, full of false starts, wrong turns, and dead ends.” Without a doubt, the author has the credentials to explain how physicists are currently confronting a host of new puzzles. Over several decades, a sense of complacency had developed, but in the past few years, a series of anomalies have undermined the old certainties. Why, for example, are stars moving away faster than expected? Why do neutrinos refuse to behave as the theoretical models predict? What are the powerful pulses of energy that occasionally burst through the Antarctic ice? Cliff describes his treks around the world, visiting research facilities and interviewing some of the people hunting for answers. There’s an ongoing conflict between the theoreticians, who trust in complex mathematical models, and the observers, who focus on experiments and connections. Both sides show a sense of groping for new paradigms and a novel way of defining reality. One problem with the book is that, despite Cliff’s attempts to explain the issues in non-specialist terms, cosmology and particle physics are extremely complex areas, and some sections of the text are difficult to follow. Readers with a background in advanced physics will find plenty of the material fascinating, while general readers are in for a challenge. But Cliff’s optimism, light sense of humor, and enthusiasm for his subject shine through: “Nature does not yield its secrets easily; they must be fought for. But in the end…this winding road does inexorably lead to deeper understanding.”

An authoritative investigation of emerging scientific problems.