Book ID: CBB001213158

Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century (2013)

unapi

Collins, Harry M. (Author)


University of Chicago Press


Publication Date: 2013
Physical Details: 392 pp.; ill.
Language: English

Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog brings to life science's efforts to detect cosmic gravitational waves. These ripples in space-time are predicted by general relativity, and their discovery will not only demonstrate the truth of Einstein's theories but also transform astronomy. Although no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected, the previous five years have been an especially exciting period in the field. Here sociologist Harry Collins offers readers an unprecedented view of gravitational wave research and explains what it means for an analyst to do work of this kind. Collins was embedded with the gravitational wave physicists as they confronted two possible discoveries---Big Dog, fully analyzed in this volume for the first time, and the Equinox Event, which was first chronicled by Collins in Gravity's Ghost. Collins records the agonizing arguments that arose as the scientists worked out what they had seen and how to present it to the world, along the way demonstrating how even the most statistical of sciences rest on social and philosophical choices. Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog draws on nearly fifty years of fieldwork observing scientists at the American Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory and elsewhere around the world to offer an inspired commentary on the place of science in society today.

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Reviewed By

Review Agar, Jon (2015) Review of "Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 218-219). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001213158/

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Authors & Contributors
Schilling, Govert
Sauer, Tilman
Collins, Harry M.
Blum, Alexander S.
Kato, Susumu
Rocci, Alessio
Concepts
Physics
Gravitation
Relativity, general
Gravitational waves
Discovery in science
Astronomy
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
21st century
Early modern
Modern
Places
São Tomé and Príncipe
Brazil
Institutions
Harvard University
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