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The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe
The age of the universe has been one of the great scientific mysteries of our time. This engrossing book tells the story of how the mystery was recently solved. Written by a brilliant science writer who was involved, as a research astronomer, in the final breakthrough, the book provides details of the ongoing controversies among scientists as they groped their way to the truth?that the universe is between 13 and 16 billion years old, older by at least one billion years than the star systems it contains.
In clear, engaging language, Gribbin takes us through the history of cosmological discoveries, focusing in particular on the seventy years since the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe. He explains how conflicting views of the age of the universe and stars converged in the 1990s because scientists (including Gribbin) were able to use data from the Hubble Space Telescope that measured distances across the universe.
In clear, engaging language, Gribbin takes us through the history of cosmological discoveries, focusing in particular on the seventy years since the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe. He explains how conflicting views of the age of the universe and stars converged in the 1990s because scientists (including Gribbin) were able to use data from the Hubble Space Telescope that measured distances across the universe.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 1999
17 people are currently reading
439 people want to read
About the author
John Gribbin
386 books860 followersJohn R. Gribbin is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. His writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the origins of the universe, and biographies of famous scientists. He also writes science fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 27, 2015
انهيت قراءة هذا الكتاب فى نفس الساعة التي ظهرت فيها نتيجة امتحان مادةالفلك لدي
جيد جداٌ لا بأس بها ابداٌ
عموما الكتاب كان مراجعة رائعة للكثير من المفاهيم التي درستها فى مادة الفلك هذا الفصل الدراسي
جيد جداٌ لا بأس بها ابداٌ
عموما الكتاب كان مراجعة رائعة للكثير من المفاهيم التي درستها فى مادة الفلك هذا الفصل الدراسي
January 8, 2013
Not only is this a great resource for learning about the various methods applied throughout time to determine the age of the universe, it is also highly entertaining to learn about all the wonderful characters that have been involved; this appears to often be the case when dealing with physics and astronomy. Lots of quirky, brilliant people involved that make for good stories!
February 5, 2024
I was a little hesitant about moving this book into my currently reading pile, having picked it up at the same library sale as Parallel Worlds. This is, however, the exact opposite of that book. It’s focused on a specific question, and within that question focuses on a specific aspect of finding the answer.
The question is, when was the beginning of time, which is to say, when did the universe start, and the specific aspect was the Hubble Constant, which is (currently) inextricably linked with the size of the universe, or at least with distances.
This, plus the historical perspective, makes this not so much about the “birth of time” as about the evolution of our perception of a changing universe. For most of human history, of course, that there was a beginning to the universe was almost unquestioned. Whether pagan or Christian, someone created the universe, and there was a moment when that creation happened.
When scientists abandoned the Christian view of the universe and of time, scientists also threw out the idea that the universe had a beginning. The very idea was “repugnant” in the words of astronomer Arthur Eddington.
And yet the redshift of stars generally increasing the further out you went, and Einstein’s theory of relativity, both seemed to require an expansion, and an expansion tends to imply a start. The question then becomes, how much of an expansion is there?
Knowing that requires knowing how far apart things are today. We already know how fast they’re moving from the redshift. Combine velocity with distance and you can calculate how far in the past they would have been all in the same place if there was a beginning.
In that sense, this book could also be called “the birth of space”. Because even disregarding Einstein our sense of time is inextricably linked to our sense of space. Greater separation of objects allows for an older universe.
And despite abandoning the religious idea of a beginning, scientists found it very difficult to abandon the idea of a center and that the earth, or at least the solar system, or at least the Milky Way galaxy… was the center. This all tended to obscure just how vast the universe is.
Also, how empty. If all the “mass” of the universe were collected in one place with the density of an atomic nucleus, it would occupy a space only about 30 times the diameter of our own sun (note that Gribbin is unclear at that point whose estimate this is and/or whether it matches current estimates).
Which meant that once scientists began to accept that the universe had a beginning, the initial estimates were so ridiculously small that they were known to be ridiculous at the time. The universe couldn’t have had an age less than the age of the Earth, for example. But we were very sure (and, it turns out, mostly correct) about the age of the Earth because we understood radioactive dating. We could touch the Earth, get things from it, and measure their age.
So when the initial calculations put the age of the universe well under the age of the Earth, the first question was, why? What other techniques can we use to calibrate our sense of space and thus our sense of time?
None of this was easy; for one thing, it’s not just a matter of a linear calculation. Relativity means that the velocity wouldn’t have been constant from the beginning of time to now. But, in general, and compared to a hundred years ago when this book was written, we generally know those things. So the big question is, how far apart is everything?
The story of how we figured that out—if we have, there was still some question about it in 1999—is a tightly-focused fascinating collection of different kinds of research all aimed at determining the distance to things we can’t touch or even begin to touch, and often can barely see.
Also fascinating is the amount of guesswork involved in extra-solar astronomy. Experiments are very difficult when you can’t touch the objects of your investigation. Even calculating your possibility of error becomes extraordinarily subjective.
Even then, honest scientists came up with error bars that were, at least in retrospect (which is the only way we can read about them), patently ridiculous.
One of the more interesting chapters is one of the less consequential—at least according to Gribbin; and though he may have been being modest he doesn’t seem like that sort of person—measurements. Gribbin was part of this measurement, of whether or not the Milky Way galaxy was out of the ordinary compared with other spiral galaxies. This means we get to read about not just the results, but how the team was put together (based on a rote comment at a conference!), how it (slowly) started up, and how the saner heads in the group (not Gribbin, if his telling is correct) had to rein in the ones who wanted to go public before all of the observations were collated and the uncertainty calculated.
The book also contains some nice, and informative, photos of galaxies and gravitational lensing bound into the center.
The question is, when was the beginning of time, which is to say, when did the universe start, and the specific aspect was the Hubble Constant, which is (currently) inextricably linked with the size of the universe, or at least with distances.
This, plus the historical perspective, makes this not so much about the “birth of time” as about the evolution of our perception of a changing universe. For most of human history, of course, that there was a beginning to the universe was almost unquestioned. Whether pagan or Christian, someone created the universe, and there was a moment when that creation happened.
When scientists abandoned the Christian view of the universe and of time, scientists also threw out the idea that the universe had a beginning. The very idea was “repugnant” in the words of astronomer Arthur Eddington.
And yet the redshift of stars generally increasing the further out you went, and Einstein’s theory of relativity, both seemed to require an expansion, and an expansion tends to imply a start. The question then becomes, how much of an expansion is there?
Knowing that requires knowing how far apart things are today. We already know how fast they’re moving from the redshift. Combine velocity with distance and you can calculate how far in the past they would have been all in the same place if there was a beginning.
In that sense, this book could also be called “the birth of space”. Because even disregarding Einstein our sense of time is inextricably linked to our sense of space. Greater separation of objects allows for an older universe.
And despite abandoning the religious idea of a beginning, scientists found it very difficult to abandon the idea of a center and that the earth, or at least the solar system, or at least the Milky Way galaxy… was the center. This all tended to obscure just how vast the universe is.
Also, how empty. If all the “mass” of the universe were collected in one place with the density of an atomic nucleus, it would occupy a space only about 30 times the diameter of our own sun (note that Gribbin is unclear at that point whose estimate this is and/or whether it matches current estimates).
Which meant that once scientists began to accept that the universe had a beginning, the initial estimates were so ridiculously small that they were known to be ridiculous at the time. The universe couldn’t have had an age less than the age of the Earth, for example. But we were very sure (and, it turns out, mostly correct) about the age of the Earth because we understood radioactive dating. We could touch the Earth, get things from it, and measure their age.
So when the initial calculations put the age of the universe well under the age of the Earth, the first question was, why? What other techniques can we use to calibrate our sense of space and thus our sense of time?
None of this was easy; for one thing, it’s not just a matter of a linear calculation. Relativity means that the velocity wouldn’t have been constant from the beginning of time to now. But, in general, and compared to a hundred years ago when this book was written, we generally know those things. So the big question is, how far apart is everything?
The story of how we figured that out—if we have, there was still some question about it in 1999—is a tightly-focused fascinating collection of different kinds of research all aimed at determining the distance to things we can’t touch or even begin to touch, and often can barely see.
Also fascinating is the amount of guesswork involved in extra-solar astronomy. Experiments are very difficult when you can’t touch the objects of your investigation. Even calculating your possibility of error becomes extraordinarily subjective.
The uncertainties arise both from the acknowledged limitations of the theoretical side of the technique and from the difficulty of measuring the numbers of atoms involved precisely; these sorts of uncertainties will affect every estimate of the age of the Universe that we discuss in the rest of this book. Honest scientists always quote the results of their calculations with an estimate of the uncertainties in this way, and we will only be discussing the work of honest scientists.
Even then, honest scientists came up with error bars that were, at least in retrospect (which is the only way we can read about them), patently ridiculous.
One of the more interesting chapters is one of the less consequential—at least according to Gribbin; and though he may have been being modest he doesn’t seem like that sort of person—measurements. Gribbin was part of this measurement, of whether or not the Milky Way galaxy was out of the ordinary compared with other spiral galaxies. This means we get to read about not just the results, but how the team was put together (based on a rote comment at a conference!), how it (slowly) started up, and how the saner heads in the group (not Gribbin, if his telling is correct) had to rein in the ones who wanted to go public before all of the observations were collated and the uncertainty calculated.
The book also contains some nice, and informative, photos of galaxies and gravitational lensing bound into the center.
But it is the job of theorists to come up with models that match the observations, not the job of observers to bend their data to match the models…
May 27, 2014
I had no idea that Edwin Hubble was such an ego driven jerk. Funny how history tends to gloss over things like that.
May 8, 2023
definitely the best & clearest (and most humble) book on astrophysics i’ve yet read.
obviously dumbed down for the layman, and closer to “undergrad science major” level than “baby’s first” level. there aren’t many equations but there is plenty of explanation.
… also historical stuff.
obviously dumbed down for the layman, and closer to “undergrad science major” level than “baby’s first” level. there aren’t many equations but there is plenty of explanation.
… also historical stuff.
August 14, 2008
As far as accessibility, Gribbin isn't the best astronomy writer I've read. He seems to sacrifice clarity for conciseness, and there were many details that he seemed to breeze over so that I was confounded no matter how many times I re-read certain passages. Other details seem extraneous but are listed incessantly. For example, one of the key narratives of the book is the search for the Hubble Constant, a value given to the rate that the universe is expanding. Dozens of successive studies revised this number back and forth, and Gribbin lists the precise numbers each time it is revised, even if the change was only by a few points, the effect of which is dizzying.
On the whole, however, the implications of calculating the age of the universe as Gribbin describes are pretty mind-blowing. Just trying to comprehend the event indicated by the book's title, a beginning of time, is impossible for me. Concepts like an infinitely expanding universe, and whether the universe could snap back and collapse into itself; or what shape the universe might be---open or closed, are really interesting to think about.
Not for lack of trying, I don't feel Gribbin ever actually comes close to convincing me that astronomers have calculated a reasonable estimate for the age of the universe. For one, the final value still has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 billion years. And even that number was arrived to with such huge leaps of inference that what I carried away from reading the book was that the age of the universe is still very much a mystery.
On the whole, however, the implications of calculating the age of the universe as Gribbin describes are pretty mind-blowing. Just trying to comprehend the event indicated by the book's title, a beginning of time, is impossible for me. Concepts like an infinitely expanding universe, and whether the universe could snap back and collapse into itself; or what shape the universe might be---open or closed, are really interesting to think about.
Not for lack of trying, I don't feel Gribbin ever actually comes close to convincing me that astronomers have calculated a reasonable estimate for the age of the universe. For one, the final value still has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 billion years. And even that number was arrived to with such huge leaps of inference that what I carried away from reading the book was that the age of the universe is still very much a mystery.
January 18, 2010
I like this book b/c it offers not just the science behind dating the universe but also the personalities behind the science that dated the universe.
At the end, I felt it sort of sped up a bit too fast and got a bit too technical, but it was still a good read that my non-rocket-science brain was able to comprehend. If anything, it made me more curious and want to read more on the universe. Luckily,there is a bibliography of suggested reading in the back.
At the end, I felt it sort of sped up a bit too fast and got a bit too technical, but it was still a good read that my non-rocket-science brain was able to comprehend. If anything, it made me more curious and want to read more on the universe. Luckily,there is a bibliography of suggested reading in the back.
June 28, 2014
المعروف عن دراسة الفيزياء انها تراكمية و انك محتاج دائما لحد عنده فهم أعمق أو اللى بيسموها
big picture
علشان تقدر تربط كل التفاصيل الصغيرة ببعضا
الكتاب دا بيعمل دا بالظبط
بالمناسبة : المفترض انه كتاب لغير المختص ، لكن هيفوتك كتير فعلا لو انت ممعندكش أساسات من الفيزياء و الرياضة و الفيزياء الفلكية
طبعا (astrophysics & cosmology)
ملحوظة : النسخة العربية ترجمتها سيئة .. حاول مع النسخة الانجليزية لو ناوى
big picture
علشان تقدر تربط كل التفاصيل الصغيرة ببعضا
الكتاب دا بيعمل دا بالظبط
بالمناسبة : المفترض انه كتاب لغير المختص ، لكن هيفوتك كتير فعلا لو انت ممعندكش أساسات من الفيزياء و الرياضة و الفيزياء الفلكية
طبعا (astrophysics & cosmology)
ملحوظة : النسخة العربية ترجمتها سيئة .. حاول مع النسخة الانجليزية لو ناوى
September 7, 2016
How did cosmologists agree that the age if the universe is 13-16 billion years old? This book takes you on a journey from geology to cosmology and through the observations of the universe that caused scientists to keep pushing back the date when time began. Readable and accessible, this is a good purview of the history of scientific exploration and demonstrates science in action and shows how our models change to fit the evidence.
April 26, 2017
Informative, clear descriptive use of language, honest scientific debate. This book has it all and tells it all. Gribbin humbly and impartially presents all sides of the age of the universe debate, giving equal weight to all arguments leading us to where we are now...rather, then. In 1999. Although it can be dry at times, I recommend this one.
December 27, 2014
Gribbin does a fine job describing how astronomers over the last hundred years have progressively pushed our knowledge of the age of the universe deeper and deeper into the past. He gives details about the astronomers themselves, as well as their scientific efforts and findings. For a non-scientist who has an interest in cosmology and astronomy, this book is informative and a great read.
Read
February 4, 2009I read this book a few years ago, and it really showed me how in so many different ways astronomers have come to the same general conclusion about the age of the universe.
December 28, 2009
It explains in relatively easy ways how the age of the universe was derived.
January 6, 2018
A perfect scientific novel of facts. The book made my love for astrophysics stronger.
October 2, 2015
This is an accessible account of measuring the age of the universe. The author has a very easy and engaging writing style and thorough knowledge of the subject.
November 17, 2016
كتاب رائع يتحدث عن تاريخ كيفية حساب عمر الكون ونظرة العلماء له.
October 14, 2016
رحلة لأفاق الكون محورها العمر
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews