The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything

by Marcus Chown

Why the force that keeps our feet on the ground holds the key to understanding the nature of time and the origin of the universe.Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists. Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And penetrating that enigma promises to answer the biggest questions in what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from? Award-winning writer Marcus Chown takes us on an unforgettable journey from the recognition of the "force" of gravity in 1666 to the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015. And, as we stand on the brink of a seismic revolution in our worldview, he brings us up to speed on the greatest challenge ever to confront physics.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, History, Popular Science, Audiobook, History Of Science

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 7, 2017

About the author

Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is currently cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist. He is the author of the bestselling Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, The Never Ending Days of Being Dead and The Magic Furnace. He also wrote The Solar System, the bestselling app for iPad, which won the Future Book Award 2011. Marcus Chown has also written a work for children, Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil.

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly entertaining history of gravity, full of quite interesting anecdotes and the gradual unfolding of our understanding from Newton through Einstein through our quest to reconcile quantum mechanics with the one aspect we're most familiar with but which we understand the least.

From the first page to the last I was enraptured. It's a tour of the inverse square law, the connection between electromagnetism, light, and matter, right down to the physics that keep most theoreticians up late at night even now.

Humorous, insightful, and fairly comprehensive, it focuses on the subject well, describing the manner in which gravity functions and how it behaves. I'd recommend it absolutely as a beginner's book with a special delight for those of us enamored by the LAW. :)

I personally had a great time. Not much new, honestly, but it was a delight. :)

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marcus Chown is one of the UK's best writers on physics and astronomy - it's excellent to see him back on what he does best. Here we discover our gradual approach to understanding the nature of gravity - the 'ascent' of the title - which, though perhaps slightly overblown in the words 'the force that explains everything' (quantum physics does quite a lot too, for example), certainly makes us aware of the importance of this weakest of fundamental forces. Chown's approach to gravity is a game of three halves, as they say, broadly covering Newton, Einstein and where we go from general relativity.

As far as the first two sections go, with the exception of the 2015 gravitational waves detection, there's not much that's actually new - if you want a popular science exploration of these aspects of the topic with more depth there are good alternatives - but no one has covered the topic with such a light touch and joie de vivre as Chown.

Although Chown doesn't give us too much character detail on his two key figures, we get good mental sketches of them, enough to get a feel for what kind of personality produced the remarkable work that each was responsible for. There has been a lot written of late criticising science writers for putting too much focus on the 'heroic lone individual' in the history of science. And we certainly get a full power portrayal of this pair as solitary geniuses. But though you can quibble about how original calculus was or whether Einstein should have given more credit to others in his work on special relativity, it's hard to imagine two people in the history of science who more deserve this treatment - and it is far and above the best approach for the kind of storytelling that Chown excels at.

The third section has its highs and lows. It gives what I think is the best introduction to string theory at this basic descriptive level I've ever seen, going considerably beyond the basics of vibrating strings and rolled up dimensions. However, I was rather surprised at the total dismissal of string theory's main rival, loop quantum gravity, which literally only appears in an end note. In one sense this was refreshing. I had read so much pointing out the flaws in string theory and how it arguably wasn't even science because of its inability to make useful predictions that I had pretty much mentally dismissed it. It seemed very reasonable that the only thing that kept it alive was the large number of careers that had been dedicated to it. Chown, however, gives it a spirited defence which, while not necessarily clinching, certainly made it possible to understand why so many physicists found it attractive.

Overall, then, a very readable exploration of humanity's gradual realisation of what gravity was about with all of Chown's usual sparkle. It would have been good if we had seen a little more of the points where things aren't set in stone - for example the alternatives to dark matter or that elusive loop quantum gravity - but what we get is a delight.

[Bon Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent, phenomenal, mind blowing book. Who would have thought there's so much to be told about phenomenon that's basic postulate of existence and that we all take for granted? The whole day, I've been going through bookmarks to live through those serial brain orgasms again and I'm still not finished. My brain is in serial localized big-banging, die and be reborn mode. I mean, some of these things I knew, or I thought I knew. But, how many times you need to hear Einstein's theory to really comprehend it? Is there a point when there is enough? I don't think so, at least not for me. It's endlessly fascinating. And if and when I understand it completely, I still won't be able to comprehend how, and from where, did Einstein get these ideas from?

Now, about the execution of the book. Yes, it's basically compilation of what everyone else said about gravity. But such compilation about something that seems to be only one aspect of universe as we know it is actually almost an encyclopedia of everything we know about everything there is. That's how all-pervasive gravity is.

The material is presented in logical, historical order. And also, with lot of spirit and humor wherever it was possible. That is, if the pure mind boggling aspect of gravity isn't enough to lift your spirit out of seemingly ordinary everyday existence.

You'll learn a lot about things you don't maybe even think of as connected to that mysterious force giving you unwanted readings on your morning weight measurements. So it's also a book about time and its direction (ever wonder why we go from young to old, not vice versa), light, its nature and speed, origin and basic building blocks of universe and ever escaping answer to ultimate question:

Did God even had choice in creating the universe as we know it?

[Márcio · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5

This is a tour focused on the history of gravity, from Newton to today's theories that try to explain the universe we live in (String Theory, Holographic universe). Learning more about Newton and expanding my knowledge of Einstein's theories were some of the best parts of the book because the author did really center on the theme of gravity.

As a science book, it was very interesting, though not flawless in the way the author chose to express some of his thoughts. I wouldn't say that Newton and Einstein were wrong as Chown wrote down; when much, they were incorrect in aspects of their thoughts and work considering the state of the art of science in their respective times. Incorrect is a much fairer word to say so, mainly if you consider the sciences, which are always evolving. And Newtonian and Einstein's theories are still bedrocks of Physics.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the story goes, in 1666 Isaac Newton watched an apple fall from a tree, and it was this simple action that gave him the inspiration to develop the theory and the mathematics that was first published in 1687 in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) where he laid out the foundations of classical mechanics. These new laws meant that for the first time people could track the progress of the planets across the night sky, and Halley used the laws laid down by Newton to predict the elliptical path of the celestial object to predict the return of Comet, an event that he was never to see, but it carries his name to this day. They were used to predict the presence of a new planet, Neptune, the first to be discovered using these principles.

Variations in the path of Mercury, lead astronomers to search in vain for another planet amongst the inner planets, a subject covered very well in The Hunt for Vulcan by Thomas Levenson, but this was to show the limitations of Newton's laws.
These limitations were not addressed until a chap called Einstein who was unhappy with the anomalies that the current theory threw up. It took eight years for him to demonstrate that the concept of gravity as everyone understood it was better described mathematically as the curvature of space-time. The ten equations in his general theory of relativity can be distilled down into this elegant equation:



From this, all sorts of things can be deduced and predicted and it is only recently that one of those predictions was finally detected; gravitational waves. This final part of the books ventures into the strange, surreal and occasionally baffling world of string theory. The physicists working on this are trying to reconcile special relativity and quantum theory to one theory of everything and the current consensus is that the present theories, along with years of understanding will have to be totally re-written.

Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off ― Terry Pratchett

Chown has given us a well written and thankfully, given that this is a physics book, a comprehensible text on the history and the most recent developments in research into gravity.
He goes some way to answering the big questions; what is space? What is time? How did it start, but I can't help but have the feeling that the next breakthrough in this field will make Einstein's theory as irrelevant as he made Newton's work at the turn of the 20th Century.

[Paperclippe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am I gonna spend the last few minutes of 2019 bitching about a popular science book? You bet your gravitational ass I am.

Everything was all fine and well with this book up until page 200, when the author declared, "[...] there is only one candidate for a deeper theory [of gravity] that satisfies the constraints of both special relativity and quantum theory: 'string theory'."

Okay, first of all, that's not even true. Maybe you could say that string theory is the "best theory that satisfies yada yada yada," (wrong), but you cannot sit here and tell me that it is the only theory. In fact, the book I reviewed just before this one, Lost in Math had a list of about nine other theories that may or may not be the step beyond quantum mechanics that unify all four (three) forces of physics. And what kills me - what kills me - is that there is a footnote at the end of that quote up there that just physically hurt me to type out wherein the author specifically mentions loop quantum gravity, a not at all small potatoes rival theory to the horrible string abomination, which means that Chown is aware of other unifying theories of gravity and chooses to spew that string theory shite anyway. Fake news.

Two stars because the rest of the book is fine I guess whatever

[John Gribbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did a double review of two books for the Wall Street Journal, so posting it under both titles!

The Ascent of Gravity
Marcus Chown
Pegasus
On Gravity
A. Zee
Princeton

Gravity has become a hot topic in science, with the discovery of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space coming from colliding black holes and neutron stars. Both The Ascent of Gravity and On Gravity mention those discoveries, but neither book focuses on them. Rather, they provide the background to our understanding of this fundamental force of nature, a force which is the weakest one known but which paradoxically, because of its long range, is the most important one in the Universe at large.
The first person to appreciatee the literally universal importance of gravity was Robert Hooke, who realised that gravity is a universal force possessed by every object in the Universe, which attracts every other object. Hooke, a slightly older contemporary of Isaac Newton, was both an experimenter and observer, and a theorist. His insight about gravity came partly from his telescopic observations of the Moon. He studied lunar craters, and noticed that they are formed of nearly circular walls, around a shallow depression. They looked, in his words “as if the substance in the middle had been digg’d up, and thrown on either side.” So he carried out experiments, dropping bullets onto a mixture of water and pipe-clay, making miniature craters which, when illuminated from the side by a candle, looked just like lunar craters. He realised that the material thrown up from the centre of the craters of the Moon was pulled back down by the Moon’s own gravity, independent of the Earth’s gravity. He pointed out that apart from small irregularities like craters, the Moon is very round, so that “the outermost bounds. . . are equidistant from the Center of gravitation”, tugged towards the center by gravity, and concluding that it had “a gravitating principle as the Earth has.” This was published in 1665, when Newton was just completing his degree at the University of Cambridge. Hooke went on to suggest that planets are held in orbit by an attractive gravitational force from the Sun.
The two books considered here both fill in what has become known about gravity since Hooke’s day, but they are very different, both in approach and style. Marcus Chown is a science writer, and a very good one. He favours the historical approach, starting with Newton’s work on gravity and taking us through Albert Einstein’s contribution to the mysterious world beyond Einstein where physicists hope to find a theory that will explain gravity and quantum physics in one package. He eschews equations, but provides clear explanation with a useful guide to further reading at the end of each chapter. The result feels easy and natural, like the author talking to you, although I suspect it took a lot of hard work to produce that effect.
By contrast, A. Zee (who only uses the initial) is a professor of physics who has previously written an epic tome on gravity, and is now trying to “bridge the gap between popular books and textbooks.” He is only partially successful. Some of his attempts to be “popular” seem forced, as with sentences such as “Ah, the glory days of trial and error experimental physics!”, and the logical structure of his arguments is sometimes faulty, as when (in a book about gravity!) he tells us that “just about the only commonplace example of a force acting without contact is the refrigerator magnet.” He does provide equations, and diagrams, and is on secure footing there. But the sloppiness of his writing is highlighted by comparing his mention of the myth that Galileo dropped weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa with Chown’s. Chown correctly identifies this as a legend; Zee presents it as a fact “we all learned in school”. Maybe we did learn the story there, but it is definitely legend, not fact.
A particularly delightful feature of The Ascent of Gravity is the inclusion of several fictional vignettes in which the author imagines how the big ideas came to his protagonists – for example, a story of the young Einstein walking out with his girlfriend Marie Winteler under a moonlit sky, and having a sudden insight about the way light travels across space. Fantasy, but fun – and no real surprise that it should work so well, since Chown is also a successful writer of science fiction (on some of which, long ago, I collaborated with him). Chown’s great achievement is to make his discussion of such bizarre phenomena as the way rotation distorts space just about as intelligible and entertaining as the fantasy.
Zee’s great achievement is to provide the clearest explanation I have seen of the physical principle known as “action”, which among other things explains why light travels in straight lines – or, more accurately, why light travels along the path that takes least time. Action is arguably the most powerful tool in the physicist’s box of tricks. In Einstein’s own formulation of the general theory of relativity he required a set of ten equations to explain the interaction between matter and spacetime; but the whole thing can be described much more simply in terms of a single action. I was also particularly pleased to see Zee emphasising the point that Einstein did not prove that Newton was incorrect. Newton’s version of physics is perfectly adequate for things moving much more slowly than light in weak gravitational fields, and Einstein’s version includes Newtonian physics within itself. The famous headline in the London Times of 7 November 1919 proclaiming “Newtonian Ideas Overthrown” was just plain wrong. Science does not progress by revolutions, but by building, brick by brick, on what has gone before.
The latest brick in the edifice is, of course, the discovery of gravitational waves, and it is unfortunate that these books are unable to give much space to this. The Ascent of Gravity was written a little earlier than Zee’s book, and gives the discovery only passing mention. On Gravity was written, the author tells us, after the first detection was announced, but even so gives it a rather cursory mention. I was baffled by the fact that although Zee mentions plans for a gravitational wave detector to be built in India, he does not mention the one already built in Italy (and a curious footnote suggests that he is unaware of its existence). If you do want the full story of gravitational wave research, it is covered by Marcia Bartusiak in her excellent book Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony.
If you are looking for a good read and a chance to absorb painlessly some ideas about the force that controls the Universe, Marcus Chown is the man for you. If you think you already know a little bit about the topic, and are not afraid of a few equations, then On Gravity will take you deeper; if you are very brave, the Appendix will explain the meaning of curved spacetime. If I had a magic wand, I would wave it to put Zee’s diagrams into Chown’s book, and get the best of both worlds.

[Victoria Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a review but some kind of essay (based on the book)...

Gravitational waves are bombarding The Earth from all sides at all times. But you don’t know about it. Or maybe you know, but don’t care. Or simply – do not feel it. More likely.

Ray is going to ask you to stop for a moment today, and listen.

What can I say, folks…the book ‘The Ascent Of Gravity’ is FASCINATING! It is also The Science Book of the Year 2017. I picked it only because this is the book about ‘Gravity’. I believe if we’ll understand this amazing ‘force’ – we’ll understand everything:

How and most important why the world was created?
What is time?
What is space?
What is Universe?
Where did the Universe come from?
5 things you may not know about gravity

Gravity creates a force of attraction between you and the coins in your pocket. Between you and a person passing you on the street. You are connected (by gravity).
Gravity is so weak, that if you hold your hand out, the gravity of the whole Earth can not overcome the strength of your muscles.

The rest read on my BLOG - https://raynotbradbury.com/2018/07/12...

[John Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the first time I've read through to the end of a Marcus Chown and realised that, though there are some good stories and some nice linking of events and people, I'm not much better educated about the subject matter than when I started. Perhaps I should stop reading the author!

[David Wineberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ascent of Gravity is a treat. It tells the story of what we know about gravity, based on the two biggest investigators of it. Marcus Chown has written a lively, engaging and often funny history of the most basic of scientific puzzles, one we still don’t have a handle on.

The book divides into two eras: Newton’s and Einstein’s. They both changed civilization forever with profound, non-intuitive, dramatic and elegant solutions. Newton’s challenge was overcoming entrenched superstition. Einstein’s challenge was overcoming Newton.

Newton made the concept of gravity scientific and real. He developed the math (calculus) to prove it. His determination that planets orbited in ellipses – and that he could prove it for one and all – shook science to its foundations. He was a solitary person, unable to socialize, unable to manage other people (he might have been an autistic genius). He waited 20 years before releasing his initial findings. His own mind gave him all the satisfaction he needed in life.

Einstein imagined his way to universal truths, and then had to prove Newton’s formulas wrong. In their stead, he showed that space and time were the same thing, that mass and energy were the same thing, and that the universe operates in four dimensions, not three.

Like space and time, gravity and acceleration are one. In order to understand gravity, you need to understand the effect of mass and acceleration on bodies. In Einstein’s universe, everything is capable of producing gravity, and does. This too is non-intuitive, but plugs unknowns and answers questions up and down the line. But not all.

Einstein was all about symmetry and elegant solutions. His formulas meant matter tells space-time how to warp. And warped space-time tells matter how to move. It took a long time for the world to understand what he was saying, and much longer still to prove it for themselves. Chown says: “Physicists scrawl arcane mathematical equations across blackboards but it is an enormous leap of faith to believe that nature really obeys those equations. It invariably comes as massive shock when it turns out nature really does.”

I love the way Chown will lay out all the logic and evidence necessary to prove a point, then follow with a one-line paragraph: “But he was wrong,” or “Only it didn’t.” (All right. It also is because I do the same thing, but seeing someone else do it drives home how engrossing this can be.) He also peppers the deeply serious with quotes from the likes of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Dave Barry, releasing the pressure of absorbing the often non-intuitive. It makes for a delightful rollercoaster of a read.

Chown describes the usual conundrums of quantum physics, where physicists can’t get their minds around things being both particles and waves, or how certain subatomic particles exhibit different (seemingly bizarre) properties at the quantum level. Numerous physicists have cutely stated that if you claim to understand quantum physics you are either lying or wrong. But I have no problem seeing that waves contain particles, and waves break out particles as needed. Similarly for many of the properties of quanta, it is self-evident to me that subatomic particles have very different properties when in a state of decoherence than when they are part of something bigger (coherence), like an atom. As I have said elsewhere, decoherence makes the world go round.

If you think about ants, they live an entire lifetime in a year, and the passing of time means nothing. So with Man on the scale of the universe. Man invented time, but it has no standing in the universe. For the universe there is no ticking, just being. It is part and parcel of space. For Man, the ant of the universe, his biology tells him there is a timeline, a lifetime, a history and a hurry. But this has no basis in the physics of the universe. It took an Einstein to break free of Man’s prejudice. Associating time with space opens minds to workings at the universe level, instead of the ant level we live in. On the other hand, Einstein might be wrong. Newton was.

This is the fifth book on the history of physics that I have reviewed. They all tell the same story, obviously, but Chown has developed a new angle, using gravity to frame developments. It works well, at least until the final section, today, where physicists around the world are spending their lives trying to out-Einstein Einstein. Like his theories, they raise more questions than they answer. Unlike his theories, not a single one of the new crop has the slightest hint of proof to its credit. For the moment, Einstein rules.

David Wineberg

[Mr Shahabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should be named: a brief biography of Sir Isaac Newton instead of gravity.

[Vishy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Marcus Chown's collection of essays on science, 'Infinity in the Palm of your Hand'. So I thought I'll read this more famous book of his, 'The Ascent of Gravity'.

'The Ascent of Gravity' describes how the force of gravity was discovered and how the scientific idea of gravity has evolved across the years. The two main scientists associated with it, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, are featured in depth. Other scientists who played important parts in this adventure are also described. There are detailed explanations in the book on Newton's law of gravity, Einstein's Relativity theory, Quantum theory, String Theory and how it has tried to unify Relativity and Quantum theories. The recent detection of gravitational waves is also covered in the book.

So, the first question that needs to be asked is : how easy and accessible is the science described? I feel that the part which covers Newton is very accessible. I think everyone can understand it. There is a part about the moon's impact on the tides which goes on and on, which I found boring. But when the chapter shifted to the tides in Jupiter's moons, Io and Europa, I got very excited and continued reading. So when the action moves away from earth to outer space to some distant galaxies, the same thing becomes more exciting 😊 The Einstein part of the book and the String Theory part of the book is tricky. After explaining things in detail in the Newton part, the book suddenly starts using complex words in the next two parts which some readers might find a bit too much.

I have always been puzzled by gravity and the different ways in which it has been described. I was hoping that this book will give some definitive answers, but it didn't.

I have a question for you. I'll give you a long description first and then the question 😊

After reading this and other books, I've discovered that there are three descriptions of gravity.

1. Gravity was defined by Newton as a force between two bodies. He also gave a nice formula for calculating it. This formula has worked well for many centuries.

2. At the beginning of the 20th century, Einstein decided to muddy the waters a bit (or stir the pot, if you like that analogy better). He said that gravity is actually not a force. He said that the universe is made up of a fabric. He called this fabric spacetime. And things like the earth, the moon, the sun, the stars dent that fabric, they warp and curve it. This warping of the spacetime fabric makes the earth and other planets move, the way when we place a heavy ball on a flat sheet made of rubber, it creates a dent and makes the ball move. Einstein says that this is what we experience as gravity. So according to Einstein, gravity is not a force, it is not real, but it is just geometry. Einstein showed equations to prove that his concept worked.

3. In modern cutting edge physics, gravity is regarded as a field (like the electromagnetic field) which is composed of particles called gravitons which are responsible for the gravitational force we feel. This is still a theoretical concept. There is no evidence that gravitons exist.

Well, these are three different descriptions of the same thing – a thing that we feel everyday. They all can't be true, can they? 😊 Because, they are all so different! So, I did some digging and went and read parts of an actual college physics textbook. This is what it said –

"Should we attribute gravitation to the curvature of spacetime due to the presence of masses or to a force between masses? Or should we attribute it to the actions of a type of fundamental particle called a graviton as conjectured in some modern physics theories? We do not know."

Yes, I am not joking, this is what it said – this is a quote straight from the book! It seems that even scientists have no idea! They just use the particular concept which fits their current research!

When I think about it, I wonder whether this is a case of a few blind men touching an elephant and trying to find out what it is. Maybe gravity has revealed itself in different ways and maybe it is bigger than all of this and we haven't discovered the true essence of it yet.

Which of these three explanations do you like? Which one do you find the most convincing? Please do share.

I liked 'The Ascent of Gravity', but I loved Marcus Chown's 'Infinity in the Palm of your Hand' more. Have you read 'The Ascent of Gravity'? What do you think about it?

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Newton to Einstein to the present theories of cosmology. Chown takes us through a universe which shows itself to be a dichotomy of truths. Everyone knows that gravity is an attractive force..right? Well it appears that it also has a dark side which is helping the universe to expand and which may lead to a deeper theory of the universe. This is a great book for those like me who looked into space (pun intended) with glazed eyes in physics. For the first time i was engaged reading this book. It's enjoyable, informative and at times witty.

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book by UK author Marcus Chown does what a popular science book should - give a brief history, good examples and anecdotes, end notes for those who want more, sprinkle with humor and step out of the way. I just wish it had a few illustrations and a bibliography.

Starting with Newton then leading to Einstein, the first two parts of the book do an excellent job of describing not just where we are but why we wanted to go there. The third part explains some of the why (black holes) and then gives many of the options for where next, but also makes clear that we just don't know yet. I really appreciated the views of Nima Arkani-Hamed in this section.

This book doesn't delve into the math, but leaves enough bread crumbs for those who want to delve into that, physics, or even history. One minor quibble - we "build too many walls and not enough bridges" was said by Joseph Fort Newton, not Isaac. Chown does an excellent job of setting other historical myths in their place - though the occasional scene of fantasy revealed as "fun to imagine" wore a little thin.

Overall an excellent book on the subject, and a decent introduction to where we are now - or at least were in 2017 :)

[Dan Graser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gravity is one of those concepts everyone thinks they understand, only occasionally discovering that their notions of gravity are identical to those held in the time of Newton. Curiously enough, just as in every other area of scientific inquiry, there have been significant new discoveries and developments in our understanding of this force on huge and infinitesimally small scales.

Where this book succeeds is in providing the curious reader with a context to understand the current ways gravity is being studied. Beginning the the journey with Newton, venturing through Maxwell and Einstein and up to early developments of string theory, Chown writes very accessibly and vividly on the history of this study. Perhaps the primary disappointment is that there is little in the way of contemporary accounts of quantum gravity. He does a remarkable job setting the stage but once we get to the past couple decades the book ends abruptly which is a bit disappointing.

However if this is a topic you're interested in and haven't thought about much beyond the very earliest theories then Marcus Chown has written a very eloquent introduction here.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chown writes about the most brilliant minds in science, especially Newton and Einstein. Those early sections of the book were interesting, reading about who these individuals were, and how they came to the discoveries they made.
The later sections, getting into string theory, quantum mechanics, Maxwell's equations, etc., went beyond my interest and comprehension levels, leaving me feeling like I did after reading a couple of Stephen Hawking's "simple" books about understanding the universe, trying to figure out what I just read.

[Cheleboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Más bien, son 4,75 estrellas. Un libro de divulgación científica muy ameno y revelador. ¡Viva Blackie! Los agujeros de gusano, la materia oscura, el ansiado gravitón... todo se sucede en sus páginas como los estribillos siguen a las estrofas en las canciones de ABBA. Me quedo con la tetradimensionalidad del universo, en la que todo existe simultáneamente: el pasado, el presente y el futuro (¡Laika y Bowie siguen aquí!). Como dijo el físico-químico inglés Michael Faraday, “nada es demasiado maravilloso para ser verdad”.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great description of the science/effects of classical gravity (tides, effects on planetary orbits, etc.) and the gravity of special relativity (slowing time, bending light, etc.) And it has a great chapter on the required properties of any theory that can unite special relativity and quantum theory.

[Victor Tanasa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Physicists scrawl arcane mathematical equations across blackboards but it is an enormous leap of faith to believe that nature really obeys these equations. It invariably comes at a massive shock when it turns out that nature really does."

Part biography, part physics lesson and part speculation about the future of this discipline.

As I knew the matters discussed in this book mostly superficially, it was really helpful for me, as it shows not only the conclusions but how they were reached. It also put things into perspective nicely.

Very recommended.

[Warren Wulff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good tour of physics from Newton to the present with gravity as a central theme. Good to read now, as it will no doubt quickly go out of date in later chapters as quantum and string theories continue to develop. Quantum theory is tough to understand, and this book does as good a job as could be reasonably expected without mathematics.

[Raj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and informative read. This book covers the subject of Gravity and beautifully transcends into the other theories and phenomenon that exist in the Universe, from- Gravity and Space-Time to Black Holes and Hawking Radiation, from Newton’s Theories to General Relativity and Quantum Theory. I suggest the reader to highlight and make notes in parallel to reading this book, who knows when what might come useful ;)

Cheers. Have a nice read y’all.

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Physics is crazy

[Juuso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minä lukemassa kirjaa

Klassinen fysiikka: juuri näin!
Suhteellisuusteoria: ooh, tajunnan räjäyttävää!
Kvanttiteoria: öö, okei...
Säieteoria, M-teoria: plim plom, setä puhuu hassuja

[Don Dunham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theory's of the Universe described in words. The best non-mathmatical explanation of the big theories of the Universe.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and engagingly written history of our understanding of gravity from Newton to today's current theories. We still don't quite understand gravity and that to me is really fascinating and why I picked this one up.

[Islomjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally speaking, "The Ascent of Gravity" is a quite interesting book, especially first part, when I was eager to read chapters by chapter. Marcus Chown put a clear target to explain gravity in terms of three historical periods of physics: Newton era, Einstein era and modern era. In each part, author revises history, gives some theoretical knowledge, errors that scientists encountered and theories and experiments that are being developed currently.

[Andrew Imrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I understand gravity a bit better - but not massively. I was expecting a clear explanation of gravity - one that would allow me to finally get to grips with something that has long interested me - but instead got more of the story of our understanding of gravity from Newton to the present day - with diversions on points of interest, such as how gravity affects other worlds in the solar system. Interesting enough, but not quite what I wanted. A big downside to the book is the lack of any graphs, charts or pictures at all - astonishing when you think how helpful they could be in making the idea of gravity clearer. I have no idea what the author (or publisher) were thinking, but it’s a huge mistake. The author also has the tendency to drop terms in such as electron with no explanation. Oh, and I barely understood anything in the last chapter when the author decided to bring in string theory in an effort to bring the story up to date. Overall, I think this book will leave you feeling vaguely unsatisfied. You won’t finish it with much more of an understanding of gravity than you had when starting the book.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This title is a bit misleading, because it seems to bit off and chew on quite a bit more than just gravity. It's a nice brief overview of the both the history and the current state of discoveries and thinking about large (and small)-scale physics, from Newton and his apple through quantum physics and string theory. I can't pretend to understand much of what was going on, and I got a bit lost toward the end. But it's a good overview.

It might have been aided by some illustrations or tables to help convey some of the ideas. There are many times that Chown asks the reader to imagine some device or scenario that would have been helped with an accompanying graphic. I did appreciate the choice to put "Further Reading" lists at the end of some of the chapters.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

The irreverent and informal writing style is grating and doesn't contribute anything (with the bizarre biographical vignettes being the worst). Concentrates on Newton and then rushes through modern physics in a couple of pages.

[Robert Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ascent of Gravity by Marcus Chown dives into the world of gravity and how it shapes the universe. There are six facts that you may not know about gravity.
1. Gravity creates a force of attraction between you and the coins in your pocket and the person next to you.
2. It is so weak, the gravitational pull of the whole Earth cannot overcome the strength in your muscles.
3. Despite its weakness it controls the large-scale evolution of the universe.
4. Everyone thinks it sucks, but in most of the universe it blows.
5. If it had not 'switched on' after the big bang time would not have a direction.
6. Gravity is key to understanding where the universe came from.

Gravity was discovered by Isaac Newton and his equations explains the motion of the planets that their orbits are ellipses and not circular. Chown explains how the sun and moon create tidal waves on Earth. But the Earth is not the only body influenced by gravity. Moonquakes are caused by the pull of the Earth. The Earth-Moon system is not the only bodies influenced by gravity. Jupiter pulls on Io creating lava flows of yellow sulfur. Io has over 400 volcanos on its surface that ejects over 10,000 million tons of matter over its surface. The dwarf planet Pluto is tidally locked with its moon Charon. Pluto is not considered to be a planet because its orbit crosses the path of Neptune. Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter, and it may have a water ocean under its ice. Enceladus is tidally locked to Saturn, and it may also have water under its surface.
Chown explains how Newtonian mechanics was used to discover the planets Uranus and Neptune. With the demotion of Pluto astronomers think that a nineth planet my exist deep within the Kuiper belt. It's so far out that this planet my take 15,000 years to complete an orbit around the sun.
Astronomers have been studying stars orbiting spiral galaxies. Stars are orbiting too fast and they should shoot off into space - but they don't. It is believed that dark matter is holding the stars in their orbits. We are only able to observe 5% of the universe. 25% of it is dark matter while the remaining 70% is dark energy which is pulling the galaxies apart.
In General Relativity, gravity bends space - time. The stronger the gravitational pull is the slower time moves. Matter tells space-time how to curve, and curved space-time tells matter how to move. Mercury's perihelion orbit is explained by the gravitational effects from the sun. This review is long so I will not cover black holes and the big bang both of which Chown discusses.
General Relativity examines the large-scale structure of the universe while quantum theory examines the microscopic world of atoms and subatomic particles. General Relativity gives precise predictions of the Cosmos while quantum theory is about randomness. The two theories are incompatible with each other. To unite these branches of physics scientist, need to find the graviton which is a part of string theory. String theory might be able to unite both Relativity and quantum mechanics but there are some problems with the theory. The first is that it is composed of 10 dimensions instead of the three that makes up the world. Secondly there are 10^500 combinations of dimensions that are possible. String theory has produced many solutions that are compatible with General Relativity and quantum theory. But which solution is the correct one? "Strings" has been called a bunch of solutions in search of a theory. Chown ends the book on an optimistic note that physics might be united by gravity. The book is well researched, and the notes are a joy to read.