Gravity: Cracking the Cosmic Code

by Nicholas Mee

Gravity: Cracking the Cosmic Code is the story of gravity and the heroic efforts to make sense of this mysterious feature of all our lives. The book takes a historical approach beginning with early attempts to understand astronomy leading up to Newton's theory of gravity and its publication in his masterpiece the Principia, the book that launched the modern scientific age. The book describes how Newton's theory ruled for over two hundred years until it was superseded by Einstein's very different theory based on the curvature of space and time. One mind-bending result of Einstein's theory is that there are regions of space that operate like one-way trapdoors from which nothing can escape, not even light. These objects are known as black holes. The book looks at their properties and the ideas of Stephen Hawking who showed that they might not be totally black after all. The puzzle that physicists now face is how to marry gravity and quantum mechanics. Many believe that success in this endeavour will bring about the ultimate Theory of Everything. The final chapter of the book presents the dramatic recent discovery of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

Genres: Science, Physics

404 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

Reviews

[Prasanth Kancharla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this after I enjoyed reading Nicholas Mee's other book, Higgs Force: Cosmic Symmetry Shattered. Nicholas mentions that he wrote Gravity as a supplement to Higgs Force where he discusses the other 3 known fundamental forces of nature.

The first half discusses the evolution of the theories starting from Kepler's laws to Newton to Einstien's General Theory of Relativity, the best theory of gravity so far. The second part focuses on theories that attempt to combine gravity with other forces and introduces string theory.

I really liked Nicholas Mee's organization of the topics and how he introduced various concepts like dark matter, string theory, inflation, etc. I found both Higgs Force and Gravity as the best storylines to revise the known concepts of physics today.

[Mike Harper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of this book, which was assigned reading for a course on Gravity. I thought it was a pretty good introduction to the subject, especially as it detailed the advances in thought about Gravity and the cosmos through some three millennia. The chapters dealing with general relativity and more recent advances were impenetrable, but that's mostly the fault of the esoteric subject matter.

[Julian Onions · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought it when the author caught me at a show! I learnt some things from it which I wasn't expecting.