Ripples on a Cosmic Sea: The Search for Gravitational Waves

by David G. Blair, Geoff McNamara

Most people live and work entirely oblivious to the fact that a myriad of ghostly ripples are passing through them all the time. Generated in the depths of space by colliding stars and black holes, exploding supernovas and quasars, these so-called gravitational waves are literally ripples in the fabric of space itself. Sweeping across the cosmos at the speed of light, they encode vital clues about the exotic systems that produced them. Predicted by Einstein over eighty years ago, but never detected in the laboratory, gravitational waves have proven elusive to scientists. In the first book for a general reader on these amazing waves, Blair and McNamara weave a thrilling tale about the race to build the first gravitational wave antenna—a challenge that has prompted physicists and astronomers to devise some of the most breathtaking technology the world has ever seen. What these scientists find will allow us to listen to the explosion of stars, the creation of black holes, even the sound of the Big Bang itself, and will undoubtedly chart a new course for astronomy in the coming millennium.

Genres: Science

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 6, 1997

About the author

Professor David Blair is a physicist at the University of Western Australia. His life long research interest has been gravity waves. He is the director of the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre (AIGRC).

Reviews

[Paul Quick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ripples are the gravitational waves(GW) as predicted by General Relativity Theory. The cosmic sea is space-time itself and the author adroitly described how it is bent by the gravitational force.
First, he explains how GR was proven (e.g. precession of mercury Perhelion, the geometry of the bending of spacetime).
Next, he deviates a little bit when he discusses dark matter and energy since they do not serve as sources of GW. he makes it clear that they have been experimentally found . However, if they exist then there is a plausible explanation for observations. However, until teh Scientific Method is fully applied the jury is still out on their existence.

He moves onto consider sources of GW: colliding black holes, universe's creation bang, binary sun systems involving neutron star, pulsars (fast rotating neutron star). In prep he brilliantly describe various star life-cycles of how you end up with a black hole or a netron star or a white dwarf.

He describes types of Pulsars and how a millisecond versus normal Pulsar is created (some academic therories are discussed).

Next he goes into great detail on how to build a GW detector and why it is still to be further developed. many factors abound in this: reducing noise interference, friction (lowering temp), cost, scale and the uncertainty principle normally applied at a quantum level is also in play here due to the sensitivity required to detect such a weak GW signal.

All in all , the author does a good job of explaining a very technical subject that is in a state of transistion. he lays all cards on the table and illuminates definitions, limitations, state-of-the-art and where he sees the end game.

[Eilidh Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information, while there is some physics, there is also a lot of history.