Ripples in Spacetime

Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future of Astronomy

By: Govert Schilling, Martin Rees

Narrated by: Joel Richards

Ripples in Spacetime is an engaging account of the international effort to complete Einstein's project, capture his elusive ripples, and launch an era of gravitational-wave astronomy that promises to explain, more vividly than ever before, our universe's structure and origin.

The quest for gravitational waves involved years of risky research and many personal and professional struggles that threatened to derail one of the world's largest scientific endeavors. Govert Schilling takes listeners to sites where these stories unfolded - including Japan's KAGRA detector, Chile's Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the South Pole's BICEP detectors, and the United States' LIGO labs. He explains the seeming impossibility of developing technologies sensitive enough to detect waves from two colliding black holes in the very distant universe, and describes the astounding precision of the LIGO detectors. Along the way, Schilling clarifies concepts such as general relativity, neutron stars, and the big bang using language that listeners with little scientific background can grasp.

©2017 Govert Schilling (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"An exciting history of the second great breakthrough of 21st-century physics." ( Kirkus, starred review)

Great overview, ear opener to gravitational wave

A metaphor given in the book is quite appropriate. A deaf jungle trekker suddenly hears--like our experience with gravitational wave. The story is well laid out, with background stretching back centuries. The LISA pathfinder section is a little confusing.

Find out what 10 to the negative 21 means

It's what it takes to detect a gravitational wave made by two black holes merging

Covers the field well

Author missed a Leiden connection. Joe Weber began his work on General Relativity there in 1955 1956 working with Wheeler at Institute Lorenz.

Reader mispronounced many words

OTW well done

easy to follow with no formal Physics education

This was an easy read with my lack of formal college classes on subject matter. I have been interested in astrophysics for years without the ability to take classes.
This book puts the subject into easy to understand relations all the while maintaining the fact we are talking about G waves. Sometimes the science could not be taken any lower, so the use of analogies was needed. These were well thought out and fun to think about.

Very incite full

I vaguely recall a bunch of this cosmos stuff, but wow. Better than that guy Hawkins book 🤔

Hard to follow in places.

Overall I got the gist of it, but there was still a significant portion of the book that I just had to take their word at it regarding the conclusions and predictions. Still worth listening to though.

basic info repeated

I ended up liking this book but the best gravity wave book hasn't been written yet.

Broad view history and research

Covers many aspects of past and current astronomical research on Einstein waves. Includes many asides.

Truly enriching!!

One of the best books on the subject of cosmology!! its makes the concepts very simple for understanding. story telling makes it highly engaging.

Great Listen

This was a interesting listen. It has a lot of science (up through early 2017) but it also has a lot on the people involved. If you like the hardcore science this might not be the best fit for you. Schilling and Rees seem to want to pay back anyone who helped them tour these various gravitational wave tracking facilities by mentioning each and talking about their first meeting. For me, the pace was good with signposting to tell you where in the book things had been discussed before. The narrator was excellent. Very clear.