The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe

by Timothy Ferris

For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. The Red Limit is the tale of this discovery, its ramifications, and the passionately competitive astronomers who charted the past, present, and future of the cosmos.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, Astronomy, History, Space, Audiobook

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 20, 1977

About the author

Timothy Ferris is the author of a dozen books (most recently The Science of Liberty), plus 200 articles and essays, and three documentary films—"The Creation of the Universe," “Life Beyond Earth,” and “Seeing in the Dark”—seen by over 20 million viewers.

Ferris produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization containing music and sounds of Earth launched aboard the twin Voyager interstellar spacecraft.

Called “the best popular science writer in the English language” by The Christian Science Monitor and “the best science writer of his generation” by The Washington Post, Ferris has received the American Institute of Physics prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor Ferris has taught in five disciplines at four universities. He is currently an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[William Hamman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this chiefly as a result of a misunderstanding. The date given on the BN website gives one the impression that the book was revised in 2009, but it was actually revised in 1983, and thus even as a layman's introduction to cosmology and the "red limit" it is unsuitable. Had I known that the actual revision date was 1983 (or had I been more diligent in checking) I wouldn't have bothered, because cosmology as Ferris described it in 1983 and cosmology as it is debated today are two very different things, and any book that doesn't mention dark matter, dark energy, or accelerated expansion is simply too out of date to bother with.

The Red Limit isn't unwelcome as a brief biography of Eddington, Shapley, Hubble, and some of the other leading lights of early 20th century science, and I wish the book had had more to say about them. Ferris is a good writer and I enjoy his writing voice, so the writing isn't the problem. The problem is that the basic landscape of cosmology has changed so much that this book feels antique, like one of those early "Here be monsters" maps of the world that doesn't include the Americas.

If you really like reading Timothy Ferris, it's worthwhile. If you really want to learn a little about modern cosmology, it isn't worth it - what little you learn from this book will have to be unlearned anyway, so you might as well skip it.

[Tom]

Mom gave me this book.
I'm currently reading it to my 5 year old son.
His choice, not mine. But, we are both enjoying it.

[Astroretro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to the history of Cosmology up to the early 1980's. Ferris takes us on a chronological journey through the development of the the field giving us a very personal perspective of each of the major contributors. He leaves the reader impressed by the great insights of each contributor but also presents their more human flaws and petty rivalries. Along the way we learn a great deal about the impressive explosion of knowledge in Astrophysics and Cosmology and the technological advances that came with them.

While some view this book as outdated, I would disagree. It is mostly a history of Cosmology up to 1983 and as such it is quite accurate. Obviously there have been many developments since then, but this book provides the foundation on which that later knowledge was built. In my view it provides an important historical context to our modern perspective of the cosmos. Knowing the many potentially good ideas that have already been proposed and refuted is just as important to scientific progress as knowing the good ideas that are currently accepted as the best explanation.

[Robert Stout · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Red Limit by Timothy Ferris is a book about astronomy and cosmology. The book is outdated, and it covers astronomy to about the 1970s. There is no new information within its pages and its more of a history book examining the scientist and discoveries they made. What follows are some of the general highlights of the book. Ferris covers the usual suspects such as Hubble, Slipher, Einstein, Shapley, Eddington and Friedmann. I found most of the book to be boring, however there are a few high points. For example, Ferris covers Olbert's Paradox. Why is the night sky dark if it is infinite, with a uniformity of stars? The paradox is answered by the fact that the universe is not infinitely old and that it is expanding.

The book also covers general information about star formation. Stars are formed out of hydrogen gas and dust. They ignite through fusion and convert hydrogen into helium. Stars can be broken up into two main catagories: population 1 stars which are yellow, white and young. And population 2 stars which are red and old. When stars die they collapse into white dwarfs or black holes.

During the 1960s there were competing models of the universe. Fred Hoyle argued that the cosmos is infinite in length and that new stars are continusly being formed. This model, known as the steady state model was a competing idea in the early 1960s. A second model, suggested by Gamov and Lemaitre argued that the universe began in an explosion and matter conglomerated together to form stars and galaxies. Fred Hoyle derisively called it, "the big bang". The big bang model stuck a dagger in the heart of the steady state idea when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the cosmic background radiation.

About two thirds through the book, Ferris ask a compelling question. What lies beyond the farthest star? The doppler shift that Hubble discovered is that the galaxies are shifted in the red and are traveling faster the further back in time you look. The motion of galaxies leads one to wonder about the shape of the universe. It may be open, which means the cosmos is flat, or it may be closed which means the shape is a spear and in either case the universe is expanding.

Red Limit touches tangentally on black holes with a very brief overview of quantum mechanics. The book explains that black holes are formed when super massive stars collapse into themselves. The first black hole discovered was Cygnus X-1 and now we know that most galaxies have them.

Finally, Red Limit covers quantum mechanics and discusses basic atom structures and briefly covers Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In other words, if you know the velocity of the particle you do not know its position. And if you know the position then its velocity is unknown.

There is nothing new under the sun with this book. There is no cutting science in it and it is seriously outdated. If you are interested in new discoveries, this book is not for you. However, if you are looking for a history of astronomy and the early decades of research then you might want to purchase it.

[John Min · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am such a fan of Timothy Ferris! I once met the man, although I didn't recognize the name at the time, but he came into my office and having noticed he was a science writer, I commented that one of my favorite science books was a compendium of different essays by various scientists, "The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics". He told me right then he was the editor of that book to my delight and surprise! I have read many of his other books with awe and wonder and finally made it to this book, which was a great lecture into the history of how we know what we know of our universe....how big everything is, how old, how fast, how far, etc. I will definitely read this one again and hope a lot more sticks in me brain.

Weeks after that meeting, I received a package in the mail and it was books by Timothy Ferris from Mr. Ferris. What a high that was. Thanks again Mr. Ferris for all your work in making such hard to understand 'stuff' accessible to lay folks. I'll always be a huge fan.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is the first full length popular science book I read as a teenager, everything else up to that point was in the form of young adult or Time/Life books. Was good to read it again as a yardstick against how far my further reading got to. He makes nodding references to some sophisticated branches of math that would take years of study to even begin to appreciate, and yet he never talks down to the reader like a Dummies book.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one of the finest books on Astronomy and Cosmology around

It's one that i would open up randomly for 15 minutes late at night and read 2-3 pages for an entire year, just for enjoyment

A wonderful bibliography in the First Edition, and beautiful exposition...

[Jewell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great non-fiction if you're interested in Cosmology or Astronomy. I also found it quite easy to read which isn't always the case with scientific non-fiction books. Very insightful and interesting look at the beginnings of cosmological theories.

[Glenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives you an appreciation of the universe !!

Gives you an appreciation of the wonders of the universe and the fact that you are even here and are part of it !!! So well written even complex ideas can be understood!!! Highly recommend!!!

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fun history of physics

This was a really fun journey through some of the most important theories of physics. The author does a great job explaining the theories and the disagreements among the great physicists. There’s still much to be discovered.

[Richard Gombert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be dry for some people.
However I found this to be a very good book and brings together in one narrative many people.

[David Hosier]

Nice short, engaging discussion of the history of estimates of the age of the universe, among other topics.

[Kayoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and interesting. Learned of many astronomers I had never heard of before. Makes me wonder how much has been discovered since this b00k was written.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ferris begins this book by writing, "In the time it takes to read this sentence, the Earth will glide 200 miles in its orbit around the sun, the sun 3,000 miles in its orbit around the center of our galaxy, and 350,000 miles of additional space will have opened up between our galaxy and those of the Hydra cluster as the universe goes on expanding." Later, Ferris ties the outer edges of space back to the earth: "Imagine light from a distant galaxy traveling a billion light-years and then encountering Earth. It rains down through the atmosphere, a sudden jolt after a billion years of tranquil voyaging, and is absorbed by our pastures and forests, snowscapes, rooftops and seas, a minute addition to the plus side of the planet's energy ledger." This book is a history of the astronomers, cosmologists and physicists over the last century or so who have pushed back the frontiers of what Ferris refers to as "lookback time."

While Ferris is excellent at translating complex ideas for the lay reader, there are central concepts that could benefit from more explanation. In a couple of places, Ferris is tantalizingly close to explaining how the speed of light squared relates to (Einstein's formula) energy and mass, but he comes up short. He writes that Einstein does away with Newton's notion of gravitational force because "the orbits (of planets) describe geodesics, paths of greatest efficiency, in space and time." This too could use more explanation. Ferris says that modern physics has moved beyond causation and force. He writes of the indeterminacy (uncertainty principle) that lies at the heart of quantum physics, yet does not show how this indeterminacy at the level of quanta applies to cosmic scales where gravitation is at work. He notes that the term "force," as in the four fundamental forces, has been replaced by "'interactions,' to use a more modern term," without making it clear how these terms differ from each other and why the latter is preferred over the former. All in all, however, this is an excellent story of modern cosmology.

[Dasun Pubudumal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of a compressed, more cohesive version of Ferris' The Coming of Age of Milky Way.

Coming of Age in the Milky Way

Written with such poetic elegance, Ferris carefully reconciles the discovery of the universe at its grandeur. The book is segregated into topics of cosmic significance, such as the creation, the expansion of the universe, lookback time etc. In contrast to a chronological approach, which Ferris adhered to in revealing the depths of Science in his previous book, he emphasises the divulgences of solutions for the depths of the most remote questions in discovering the universe.

It describes the appealing discovery of laws of physics in the realm of the massive, and the realms of the very small. It is truly amazing how the collapse of the largest stars find meanings to the physics of the very small. The more indeterministic synergy between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics is of awe to the layman, as well as the well-renowned physicist. It is sort of amazing to know that the realm of the very small is probabilistic, indeterministic in nature, while the very large is governed by the cosmic laws, more predictable throughout.

Despite the physics of the cosmos, Ferris doesn't forget to emphasise the efforts of the ones who reveal the secrets of the universe - the deepest oceans of cognitive sweat.

[Todd Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Red Limit tells the story of the discoveries that led to our current understanding of the universe. In the past, our picture was one of a static universe containing only one galaxy (the Milky Way). Over time, scientific discoveries have shifted our view to a dynamic universe that began with the big bang, expanded to its present size, is filled with hundreds of billions of galaxies, and is continuing to expand at an ever increasing rate. Along with this understanding, humanities view of itself has had to shift from one in which the earth (and by association, humanity) was at its center, to one in which we are but a speck in an undistinguished arm of one of many billions of galaxies.

Ferris does a good job recounting this history of these discoveries including the many missteps that led to confusion and unproductive areas of research. The story also provides an instructive lesson regarding the way in which science really works. Although science is not always perfect and may not get the answer correct on the first try, it is our best method of obtaining true knowledge and over time, accumulates evidence so that an increasingly accurate picture of the universe is obtained.

The book is interesting and well researched, if a bit on the dry side.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when it was first published in the 80s and was fascinated, especially the history and squabbles of the Giants of Astronomy, cosmology and mathematics of the late 19th and early 20th century. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for 30 + years and I just decided to reread it. Still fascinating.

Although my college major was Astronomy and I initially was firmly in the Big Bang camp, My views have changed over the years. Halton Arp's theories and observational evidence have been completely ignored as well as others who have vary interesting takes on the redshift issue. For myself, I have a very hard time accepting the concept of "Space" expanding even when it is explained mathematically. Unless space is something it is simply the absence of anything. And there my mind begins to warp.

Great history of modern cosmology.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blurb - For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. The Red Limit is the tale of this discovery, its ramifications, and the passionately competitive astronomers who charted the past, present, and future of the cosmos.

Far more in depth than I thought it was going to be - I was looking for a light refresher and this wasn't it. Interesting though, Hubble's discoveries are always fab to revisit.

[Marc Huete · Rating 3 out of 5]

My major disappointment with this book is I was expecting a book on cosmology, but it's a book on history. If you're looking for a book that personalizes the characters involved in discoveries of space, this is probably what you want. Unfortunately, it seems just about every book written about space dedicates at least half its pages to reviewing this history, so if you've already done some reading on the topic, this is an old story to you. If you're looking on information on space or current research, this book is painfully skimpy. In style, it's akin to Carl Sagan, with less science and math.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are not a lot of Astronomy books that can survive a couple decades without feeling out of date. I just recently watched BBC Planets that came out in 1999, and there was a lot of date. Timothy though delves into the history of astronomical thinking, and where we have come up to the point when this was published which was 1977. At times it gets a bit dry when it delves into mathematical principles but that was a lot of astronomy is, but he keeps it interested in telling the stories of the lives of the Astronomers as well as their findings. A very useful book for cosmological enlightenment, as we are reminded that our understanding of the universe starts here on this planet.

[Valdimar Ágúst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book.
Ferris is a great writer and the prose is poetic and beautiful. I notice that people are giving it 3 star reviews because it is out of date. Well, it's over 30 years old, so no wonder it only encompasses the state of cosmology back then. Similar to Cosmos, the ideas that it describes are by no means out of date, even though a few things have been updated.

The history of cosmology up to 1980 is a complicated and interesting subject in itself and if you want to get up to date then just read some new book. Maybe Lawrence Krauss or Max Tegmark, to get the point of view of leading physicists who molded modern cosmology.

[Baal Of · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty decent overview of cosmology, but because the revision was in 1983, it is rather out of date. It is also marred by an ending that muddles the concept of faith, applying it in a sloppy and incorrect way to science. That said, the historical aspects were well done and nicely organized.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is already outdated, astronomy probably having advanced in the last 30-40 years,
some of it must still be true and this book is a delightful telling of the story of the universe,
and some of the cosmologist who spent there lives figuring it out. Good book.

[Gendou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good physics book! A bit heavy on cosmology. Towards the end, it get's a little bit far-out, but that's the 1970's for you.

[wally · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was okay. mileage varies among models.

[Ravi Warrier · Rating 3 out of 5]

A detailed chronology of finding the answers of how old and big is the Universe! A perfect history book for the science of cosmology (or a branch thereof).

[Jessica Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable but extremely outdated overview of the history of cosmology.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome insight into the breakthrough by Hubble and co...

[Christy Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview of modern (~1900 -1990) cosmology. Pretty easy read, even for people (like me) who have little background in physics and astronomy.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, read years ago. I think this might have been the inspiration of The Creation of the Universe PBS video.