The Elephant in the Universe

Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter

By: Govert Schilling

Narrated by: Joel Richards

When you train a telescope on outer space, you can see luminous galaxies, nebulae, stars, and planets. But if you add all that together, it constitutes only 15 percent of the matter in the universe. Despite decades of research, the nature of the remaining 85 percent is unknown. We call it dark matter.

In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature.

Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos-some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.

©2022 Govert Schilling; Foreword copyright 2022 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2022 Tantor

Good but way too long

Ton of filler. No reason. This should have been half the time. Would not remember spending a credit. Learned some stuff but whew. Happy when it was ver.

The author played a difficult hand well

It is hard to make a book about the search for dark matter both interesting to physics buffs and accessible to general readers. It is doubly so when everyone knows there is no pay off in the end: scientists have not yet deciphered the elusive something that is the subject of this book.

Despite the lack of a “It was Miss Scarlett with a gun in the study” ending (no fault of the author), I loved it. Every chapter showed the author’s gift for making original metaphors to explain complicated topics.

The narrator is perfect. His voice is smooth. He must speak several languages (or is convincing), and he sounds familiar with the material.

Well done!

the astronomers

this is the best book about dark matter that I have ever read. it's complete. and doesn't make promises. I liked the interviews with those astronomers who are involved and their stories. great job!