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A review by tachyondecay
A Crack In Everything by Marcus Chown
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
5.0
A few years ago, probably during lockdown, I watched the excellent Netflix documentary Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know about the Event Horizon Telescope and the effort to photograph the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy M87. Black holes have always captivated me ever since, as a wee lass, science and science fiction came on my radar. How could they not? So even though Marcus Chown is a new-to-me science writer, I was excited to read A Crack in Everything. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.
Chown follows a sensible, largely chronological path in telling the story of black holes. We begin on the front, during the First World War, with Karl Schwarzschild. From there we dance in the footsteps of Einstein, Chandrasekhar, Roy Kerr, and so many others. Chown touches on the theoretical physics and the experimental, on the astronomical and the metaphysical. Each step of the way, he grounds us by reminding us that black holes, mysterious though they may be, are simply one more interesting phenomenon in a cosmos replete with white dwarfs, neutron stars and pulsars, quasars (themselves powered by supermassive black holes), dust clouds, and more. We live in a universe of wonders, and A Crack in Everything showcases and celebrates this.
Each chapter has an evocative title and a tantalizing synopsis. The book’s dazzling narrative presentation is anchored in interviews Chown conducted with as many of the people involved as he could reach. This book is particularly timely in that some of them have since passed or will pass soon, given their age, and it’s so valuable to have that oral history of these discoveries from them.
I was not prepared for how lush and descriptive Chown’s writing would be. If you have been traumatized by physics textbooks, there’s no equations to be found here. More history than pop science, A Crack in Everything focuses less on the physics explanations and more on the human stories behind them. Though by no means a unique approach, it’s one I am coming to find increasingly valuable.
In particular, I appreciate how sensitive Chown is to the need to reverse the erasure of women from STEM history. (If you are curious, Cecilia Payne and Henrietta Leavitt, both important figures in this book, are featured prominently in The Glass Universe.) He introduces us to Louise Webster, one half, along with Paul Murdin, of the duo who linked the X-ray source in Cygnus to a black hole. Feryal Özel and Katie Boumann and others working on the Event Horizon Telescope. And shout-out to Sandra O’Neill, the undergrad student who discovered the second-ever pair of supermassive black holes left over from two galaxies colliding.
When it comes to what little actual science is here, I won’t pretend to understand all or even most of it. But I love learning how science is done, and Chown makes that incredibly accessible. This is a beautiful companion to the EHT documentary on Netflix, but the book is so much more than that. From Shwarzschild’s letters from the front to simultaneous discoveries around the world, science is often a story of communication and collaboration. Even as wars rage, scientists collaborate. Even as people are displaced, funding hard to find, scientists collaborate. A Crack in Everything is a great reminder that what we know comes down to the collective efforts of humanity, not just a couple of geniuses who eventually become household names.
Black holes are some of the most massive objects in the universe. Some of the biggest objects. And even some of the smallest, I guess, if they are microscopic. Whatever they are, whatever additional secrets these singularities hold … there is no questioning the effect they have on our imagination. For as long as we have been human, and perhaps a good deal longer, our species has looked up at the stars and wondered. That hasn’t changed—just the tools we use to do it. A Crack in Everything is a detailed and beautifully written book telling the story of one of the most enigmatic features of our universe. If you like science and science history, read this book.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Chown follows a sensible, largely chronological path in telling the story of black holes. We begin on the front, during the First World War, with Karl Schwarzschild. From there we dance in the footsteps of Einstein, Chandrasekhar, Roy Kerr, and so many others. Chown touches on the theoretical physics and the experimental, on the astronomical and the metaphysical. Each step of the way, he grounds us by reminding us that black holes, mysterious though they may be, are simply one more interesting phenomenon in a cosmos replete with white dwarfs, neutron stars and pulsars, quasars (themselves powered by supermassive black holes), dust clouds, and more. We live in a universe of wonders, and A Crack in Everything showcases and celebrates this.
Each chapter has an evocative title and a tantalizing synopsis. The book’s dazzling narrative presentation is anchored in interviews Chown conducted with as many of the people involved as he could reach. This book is particularly timely in that some of them have since passed or will pass soon, given their age, and it’s so valuable to have that oral history of these discoveries from them.
I was not prepared for how lush and descriptive Chown’s writing would be. If you have been traumatized by physics textbooks, there’s no equations to be found here. More history than pop science, A Crack in Everything focuses less on the physics explanations and more on the human stories behind them. Though by no means a unique approach, it’s one I am coming to find increasingly valuable.
In particular, I appreciate how sensitive Chown is to the need to reverse the erasure of women from STEM history. (If you are curious, Cecilia Payne and Henrietta Leavitt, both important figures in this book, are featured prominently in The Glass Universe.) He introduces us to Louise Webster, one half, along with Paul Murdin, of the duo who linked the X-ray source in Cygnus to a black hole. Feryal Özel and Katie Boumann and others working on the Event Horizon Telescope. And shout-out to Sandra O’Neill, the undergrad student who discovered the second-ever pair of supermassive black holes left over from two galaxies colliding.
When it comes to what little actual science is here, I won’t pretend to understand all or even most of it. But I love learning how science is done, and Chown makes that incredibly accessible. This is a beautiful companion to the EHT documentary on Netflix, but the book is so much more than that. From Shwarzschild’s letters from the front to simultaneous discoveries around the world, science is often a story of communication and collaboration. Even as wars rage, scientists collaborate. Even as people are displaced, funding hard to find, scientists collaborate. A Crack in Everything is a great reminder that what we know comes down to the collective efforts of humanity, not just a couple of geniuses who eventually become household names.
Black holes are some of the most massive objects in the universe. Some of the biggest objects. And even some of the smallest, I guess, if they are microscopic. Whatever they are, whatever additional secrets these singularities hold … there is no questioning the effect they have on our imagination. For as long as we have been human, and perhaps a good deal longer, our species has looked up at the stars and wondered. That hasn’t changed—just the tools we use to do it. A Crack in Everything is a detailed and beautifully written book telling the story of one of the most enigmatic features of our universe. If you like science and science history, read this book.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.