The very first light : the true inside story of the scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe

著者

    • Mather, John C.
    • Boslough, John

書誌事項

The very first light : the true inside story of the scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe

John C. Mather and John Boslough

BasicBooks, c1996

1st ed

大学図書館所蔵 件 / 4

この図書・雑誌をさがす

注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-315) and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

The inside story behind one of the most important cosmological findings of our generation, the mapping of the cosmic background radiation, by the leader of the scientific team that made the discovery. . In this no-holds-barred account, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) projects originator and project scientist, John Mather, and science writer John Boslough provide the intimate and startling details of how big science is done today. They tell of the discovery of the cosmic background radiation and of the fifteen-year struggle to design, build, and launch the COBE satellite, including the unwelcome controversy when one team member breached the projects publication policy and stepped into the limelight alone. In 1990 and 1992, a NASA-led team of scientists from the COBE project changed the way we view the universe. They showed that the microwave radiation that fills the universe must have come from the Big Bang itselfeffectively proving this theory beyond any doubt. It was one of the greatest scientific findings of our generation, perhaps of all time. In this no-holds-barred account, COBEs originator and Project Scientist, John Mather, and science writer John Boslough provide the intimate and startling details of how big science is done today. They tell of the discovery of the cosmic background radiation and of the fifteen-year struggle to design, build and launch the COBE satellite, including the unwelcome controversy when one team member breached the projects publication policy and stepped into the limelight alone. The Very First Light presents a rarely seen inside account of the world of big science, where cooperation and competition battle for supremacy. At the height of the project, more than 1,500 scientists, engineers, designers, and support staff worked on the spacecraft. The project was especially difficult because two of the three instruments were cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero. When the Challenger exploded in 1986, the shuttle program was grounded indefinately, leaving the COBE with no route to space. The last available Delta rocket was approved for the mission, but now the team had to slash the spacecrafts five-ton weight in half. The story of this feat provides a remarkable behind-the-scenes look into the high-stakes, frenetic world of a big science project and NASA itself. The Very First Light is a portrait of science no serious reader will want to miss.

目次

  • A Day Without Yesterday
  • Better Is the Enemy
  • Scooped
  • The Remains of the First Day
  • The Day the Universe Changed
  • The Ballooning Universe
  • Tuolumne Nights
  • The Same, Only Different
  • The Law of Incidental Consequences
  • The New Aether Drift
  • Parallel Universes
  • Dueling Satellites
  • Mathematical Mythology
  • First Light
  • Day One
  • The Directorate
  • Skunkworks
  • Lost in Space
  • The Private Life of the Cosmic Background Radiation
  • The Cosmos After COBE
  • Epilogue.

「Nielsen BookData」 より

詳細情報

  • NII書誌ID(NCID)
    BA33196535
  • ISBN
    • 0465015751
  • LCCN
    96010781
  • 出版国コード
    us
  • タイトル言語コード
    eng
  • 本文言語コード
    eng
  • 出版地
    New York
  • ページ数/冊数
    xxi, 328 p.
  • 大きさ
    24 cm
  • 分類
  • 件名
ページトップへ