Gravity's shadow : the search for gravitational waves / Harry Collins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Collins, H. M. (Harry M.), 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gravitational waves--Research.

Gravitational waves.

Gravitational waves--Measurement.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (896 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation. When stars explode or collide, a portion of their mass becomes energy that disturbs the very fabric of the space-time continuum like ripples in a pond. But proving the existence of these waves has been difficult; the cosmic shudders are so weak that only the most sensitive instruments can be expected to observe them directly. Fifteen times during the last thirty years scientists have claimed to have detected gravitational waves, but so far none of those claims have survived the scrutiny of the scientific community. Gravity's Shadow chronicles the forty-year effort to detect gravitational waves, while exploring the meaning of scientific knowledge and the nature of expertise. Gravitational wave detection involves recording the collisions, explosions, and trembling of stars and black holes by evaluating the smallest changes ever measured. Because gravitational waves are so faint, their detection will come not in an exuberant moment of discovery but through a chain of inference; for forty years, scientists have debated whether there is anything to detect and whether it has yet been detected. Sociologist Harry Collins has been tracking the progress of this research since 1972, interviewing key scientists and delineating the social process of the science of gravitational waves. Engagingly written and authoritatively comprehensive, Gravity's Shadow explores the people, institutions, and government organizations involved in the detection of gravitational waves. This sociological history will prove essential not only to sociologists and historians of science but to scientists themselves.

Contents:

Gravity's Shadow

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Common Acronyms in Gravitational Wave Research

Introduction: Two Kinds of Space-Time

PART I. Á LA RECHERCHE DES ONDES PERDUES

Chapter 1. The Start of a New Science

Chapter 2. From Idea to Experiment

Chapter 3. What Are Gravitational Waves?

Chapter 4. The First Published Results

Chapter 5. The Reservoir of Doubt

Chapter 6. The First Experiments by Others

Chapter 7. Joe Weber's Findings Begin to Be Rejected in the Constitutive Forum

Chapter 8. Joe Weber Fights Back

Chapter 9. The Consensus Is Formed

Chapter 10. An Attempt to Break the Regress: The Calibration of Experiments

Chapter 11. Forgotten Waves

Chapter 12. How Waves Spread

PART II. TWO NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Chapter 13. The Start of Cryogenics

Chapter 14. NAUTILUS

Chapter 15. NAUTILUS, November 1996 to June 1998

Chapter 16. The Spheres

Chapter 17. The Start of Interferometry

Chapter 18. Caltech Enters the Game

PART III. BAR WARS

Chapter 19. The Science of the Life after Death of Room-Temperature Bars

Chapter 20. Scientific Institutions and Life after Death

Chapter 21. Room-Temperature Bars and the Policy Regress

Chapter 22. Scientific Cultures

Chapter 23. Resonant Technology and the National Science Foundation Review

Chapter 24. Ripples and Conferences

Chapter 25. Three More Conferences and a Funeral

Chapter 26. The Downtrodden Masses

Chapter 27. The Funding of LIGO and Its Consequences

PART IV. THE INTERFEROMETERS AND THE INTERFEROMETEERS-FROM SMALL SCIENCE TO BIG SCIENCE

Chapter 28. Moving Technology: What Is in a Large Interferometer?

Chapter 29. Moving Earth: The Sites

Chapter 30. Moving People: From Small Science to Big Science

Chapter 31. The Beginning of Coordinated Science

Chapter 32. The Drever Affair

Chapter 33. The End of the Skunk Works

Chapter 34. Regime 3: The Coordinators

Chapter 35. Mechanism versus Magic

Chapter 36. The 40-Meter Team versus the New Management, Continued

Chapter 37. Regime 4 (and 5): The Collaboration

PART V. BECOMING A NEW SCIENCE

Chapter 38. Pooling Data: Prospects and Problems

Chapter 39. International Collaboration among the Interferometer Groups

Chapter 40. When Is Science? The Meaning of Upper Limits

PART VI. SCIENCE, SCIENTISTS, AND SOCIOLOGY

Chapter 41. Coming On Air: The Study and Science

Chapter 42. Methodology as the Meeting of Two Cultures: The Study, Scientists, and the Public

Chapter 43. Final Reflections: The Study and Sociology

Chapter 44. Joe Weber: A Personal and Methodological Note

Coda: March-April 2004

Appendices

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 837-854) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612738371

9781282738379

1282738372

9780226113791

0226113795

OCLC:

655853434