Gravity's Arc: The Story of Gravity from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond

289 Pages·2006·0.87 MB·English

by  David Darling

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Gravity’s Arc
The Story of Gravity,
from Aristotle to Einstein
and Beyond
DAVID DARLING
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Gravity’s Arc
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Also by David Darling
Deep Time
Equations of Eternity
Soul Search
Zen Physics
The Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia
Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology
The Complete Book of Spaceflight
The Universal Book of Astronomy
The Universal Book of Mathematics
Teleportation: The Impossible Leap
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Gravity’s Arc
The Story of Gravity,
from Aristotle to Einstein
and Beyond
DAVID DARLING
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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To Jill, forever
Copyright © 2006 by David Darling. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Darling, David.
Gravity’s arc : the story of gravity from Aristotle to Einstein and beyond /
David Darling.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-471-71989-2 (cloth)
ISBN-10 0-471-71989-7 (cloth)
1. Gravitation—History. 2. General relativity (Physics)—History.
3. Physicists—Biography. I. Title.
QC178.D373 2006
531'.14—dc22
2005030772
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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The roots of the Academy of twelve olive groves,
millennia later—the olives—Newton’s laws;
today, the black olives, dark energy, in a hurry to arrive
beyond the barren terrain and isolated tranquility of spacetime.
—ANNA KANCHEVA, BULGARIAN POET
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Contents
Acknowledgments, ix
Prelude: The Weighting Game, 1
1 No Laughing Matter, 7
2 The Path of Dissent, 27
3 The Parabolic Man, 47
4 The Day the Sky Fell, 65
5 Escape from Earth, 91
6 One of Our Planets Is Missing, 121
7 When Gravity Became Geometry, 145
8 Alpha and Omega, 173
9 The Ripples of Space, 191
10 Disturbing News, 207
11 In the Dark, 221
12 All Together Now, 237
13 Engineers of the Continuum, 253
References, 267
Bibliography, 270
Index, 271
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Acknowledgments
Among those have who been kind enough to provide techni-
cal advice and information are Stuart Anderson, Sasha Buch-
man, Bill Folkner, Joshua Gilder, Gary Page, Michael Salamon,
Robert Soberman, and Robert Wald. Any errors that appear in
the book are, of course, my responsibility alone.
I’m once again very pleased to thank my outstanding edi-
tor, Stephen Power, and my production editor, Lisa Burstiner,
at John Wiley & Sons, and my wonderful agent, Patricia Van
der Leun.
Lastly and mostly, I’m grateful to my family for their love
and support.
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