Review by New York Times Review
Sometime later this year, if all goes well, the most ghostly image in the history of astronomy will be teased out of petabytes of data - data that was carefully collected in 2017 as it rained down on dozens of radio dishes across the globe. Doing the collecting is an international collaboration known as the Event Horizon Telescope, which will use this data to achieve a simple goal: to take a picture of a black hole. They may have already succeeded. The image could be hidden in the pile of 1,024 hard drives that the scientists of the E.H.T. - working at 30 different institutions in 12 countries - are analyzing as 1 write these words. The very idea of taking a picture of a black hole seems absurd, not just quixotic but outright impossible. Yet "Einstein's Shadow" is the story of people who worked to do it anyway and the challenges they faced along the way. ft's also about the discovery of the very existence of black holes - a rags-to-riches tale about an implausible idea that gradually came to be accepted as implacable fact. Now, black holes may point the way to a wholly new understanding of the most basic features of the world around us: space, time, matter and gravity. And if they manage to draw it out from their recorded signals, the E.H.T.'s picture of a black hole may play a crucial role in finding that new story. This is all explained expertly and clearly by Fletcher, an editor at Scientific American, who carries the reader along on a journey of scientific triumphs and bureaucratic nightmares, of abstruse physics and interpersonal politics, all the while conveying the visceral joy of research. His occasional missteps (dipping too far into organizational detail, veering into a distractingly conversational tone) are more than made up for by the strength of his writing. He has a knack for deft, accurate explanations that are quick to read and easy to understand, with memorably vivid language. His excellent prose and a powerful story fuel this shining quasar of a book. ADAM BECKER is an astrophysicist and the author of "What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
This engaging narrative follows an international team of scientists working together to take the first picture of a black hole, namely Sagittarius A*. Fletcher (Bottled Lightning , 2011) spent five years following one of the scientists, Shep Doeleman, and his team as they built a virtual radio observatory the size of Earth by assembling a worldwide network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope. Readers get a front-row seat to the action as Fletcher joins the team on their conferences and meetings and even to visit telescopes around the world for testing. The explanations of astrophysics topics are clear, and Doeleman's challenge is a compelling one: he is in a race to secure funding, get international cooperation from observatories around the world, and beat the clock, as there is only a small window (a few weeks in spring) when everything is aligned for the perfect shot and that's only if the weather cooperates at all of the sites. Captivating and informative, this text will appeal to those with an interest in the topic and to general readers alike.--Maren Ostergard Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fletcher (Bottled Lightning), Scientific American's chief features editor, falls short in his attempt to engage readers in the story of a group of astronomers, led by astrophysicist Shep Doeleman, "on a quest to take the first picture of a black hole" that began in 2012. Noting that "no one has ever gotten a direct look" at one, Fletcher makes plain the effort's value, citing how important it could be to reconciling Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. He starts intriguingly, by grounding the project in human vanity, recounting a discussion among astronomers working on the Event Horizon Telescope-an array of radio telescopes spread over several continents-that he realized was actually about "who gets their name on Nobel Prize." Unfortunately, despite the author's best efforts, making the phenomenon of black holes comprehensible proves an uphill battle. Unlike the best popular science books, this narrative doesn't make the scientific concepts sufficiently clear to the lay reader. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Fletcher (Bottled Lightning) guides readers through space and time, from a 1979 total solar eclipse in Washington State to the more current-day MIT Haystack Observatory, from remote telescopes around the world to the center of the Milky Way and back again. The common thread weaving years and places is astronomer Shep Doeleman, whose quest to see the event horizon of Sagittarius A*, the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, has spanned continents and decades of groundbreaking work. Through complex collaborations and the roller coaster of scientific funding, Doeleman pulled together scientists all over the world to build an Earth-sized radio telescope, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Fletcher's telling of the quest to gain access to and manage the telescopes making up the EHT has readers sharing in the anxiety of harsh weather events and equipment malfunctions but also in the jubilation of hard-won data. Fletcher manages to humanize a complicated scientific project while providing readers with a comprehensive guide to the cosmos. VERDICT Recommended for all readers interested in astronomy, general science, the nature of scientific collaboration, or humanity's search to understand the universe.-Melissa Engleman, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A veteran science journalist builds a fascinating narrative based on his exclusive access to a group of astronomers bent on photographing a black hole, a near-impossible feat of Nobel Prize proportions.For more than five years, Scientific American features editor Fletcher (Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy, 2011, etc.) followed astronomer Shep Doeleman and his team of intrepid scientists as they assembled the largest array of radio telescopes in the world, the Event Horizon Telescope, in the hope of imaging a black hole. The author excels at bringing to life not just the researchers and experimentalists, whose quirks and passions add much to the story, but the cutting-edge science driving their epic quest. Despite their ubiquity in popular culture, black holes have never been directly observed. A mountain of theoretical evidence posits that they exist in abundance in the universe. Most intriguing is that scientists are almost positive that a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* lies in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Getting a picture of Sagittarius A* is Doeleman's white whale. Not only would it be the first direct evidence of a black hole; it also may reveal long-sought-after secrets of the universemaybe even hint at a so-called "Theory of Everything." With stakes this high and writing this lucid, readers will be drawn into the narrative as easily as matter being drawn toward the event horizon itself. The hypotheses, experiments, team-building, and bureaucratic wrangling that Fletcher so beautifully describes perfectly encapsulate modern science, and it's a rare treat to have an insider's look at an ongoing endeavor this monumental. The author also includes a helpful guide to acronyms and abbreviations and a cast of characters.Supermassive black holes, a virtual telescope the size of the Earth, trailblazing astronomers who test the boundaries of modern sciencethis is scientific storytelling at its best. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
