AN HOUR OF PEACE OF MIND IN THE JOYS OF THE UNDISCOVERED: 1/8: The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter by Govert Schilling (Author), Avi Loeb (Foreword)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Universe-Hundred-Year-Search-Matter/dp/0674248996
In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos―some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.
1945 ROYAL OBSERVATORY, PART DESIGNED BY CHRISTOPHER WREN
Transcript
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| 0:40.0 | I welcome dark matter. |
| 0:43.0 | What we know and what we want to know. |
| 0:46.0 | A new book. |
| 0:47.0 | The Elephant in the Universe. |
| 0:49.0 | 100 years search for dark matter. |
| 0:51.0 | Gouverne Schilling is the author. |
| 0:53.0 | And we begin 100 years before this moment. |
| 0:58.0 | Jacobus Cornelius Coppton. |
| 1:02.0 | Born 1851 writes a paper in May of 1822 that is revelatory. |
| 1:09.0 | It's entitled First Attempt at a Theory of the Arrangement and Motion of the Siderial System. |
| 1:17.0 | That paper has in it this sentence. |
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