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Masters Of Time: Cosmology At The End Of Innocence
Masters of Time chronicles the sudden unraveling of modern cosmology from its heyday in the early 1980s, when the ultimate secret of the origin of the universe seemed all but in hand, to the confused scientific picture of the 1990s. By following each major theory from its origins to the point at which it is overtaken by contradictory or nonexistent evidence, Boslough offers the clearest explanation ever offered of what we know and still do not know about the origin and structure of the universe.
266 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1992
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About the author
John Boslough
16 books5 followersJohn Irvan Boslough was born June 18, 1942, in Charlotte, N.C., and later moved with his family to Denver. He graduated from East High School and earned a history of science degree at Princeton University. He worked as a logger, crab fisherman and construction worker in Alaska for two years.
He was editor of the Mountain Mail newspaper in Salida and worked at The Associated Press before joining The Post in 1974, where he worked until 1978. Part of his time with The Post he worked at the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau.
He married Susan Raehn on Sept. 23, 1989.
Boslough loved science and covered the subject for The Denver Post and for U.S. News and World Report.
His Stephen Hawking book, “Beyond the Black Hole — Stephen Hawking’s Universe,” was translated into 10 languages and has been used in high school and college science classes, said his brother, Jim Boslough of Billings, Mont.
With astrophysicist John C. Mather, Boslough co-wrote two books, one on cosmology and another about a scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe.
He was editor of the Mountain Mail newspaper in Salida and worked at The Associated Press before joining The Post in 1974, where he worked until 1978. Part of his time with The Post he worked at the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau.
He married Susan Raehn on Sept. 23, 1989.
Boslough loved science and covered the subject for The Denver Post and for U.S. News and World Report.
His Stephen Hawking book, “Beyond the Black Hole — Stephen Hawking’s Universe,” was translated into 10 languages and has been used in high school and college science classes, said his brother, Jim Boslough of Billings, Mont.
With astrophysicist John C. Mather, Boslough co-wrote two books, one on cosmology and another about a scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 16, 2025
Is the Big Bang a dud?
Boslough actually summarized the "plot" superbly in his own preface:
"This book is the story of what happened along the road to the big bang theory and how it may be a mere will-o'-the-wisp rather than a final destination. The book also seeks to raise a number of questions about the biggest sacred cow of all, the big bang."
MASTERS OF TIME is a thoroughly enjoyable read, appealing to both scientists and non-scientists alike, that succeeds on three separate levels. First, it is a well written history of the development of modern cosmological theory in the 20th century, replete with amusing anecdotes, heroes, villains and goats, false leads and both successful and dead end research. Second, it is a quality primer for the non-scientist on virtually any topic one could name in the field of cosmology - microwave radiation, quasars, pulsars, black holes, cosmic strings, inflation, the great attractor, baryonic matter, lumpy galactic super clusters - the list just goes on and on. Finally, it is a cautionary tale that, in the spirit of Kuhn's discussion of paradigm shifts, suggests the big bang as a theory just may be in a world of trouble - too many unexplained glitches and too many theories that are simply unobservable, untestable or unreproducible. As a specific example, Boslough criticizes Guth's model of inflation in the early universe:
"The reason for this apparent accuracy in explanatory power was of course simple: The inflationary theories had been created to do exactly this, explain the origin and evolution of the universe in terms that could stand up to observed detail. In the most simple terms, the theories had been constructed in such a way that they could not be disproved."
The problem with many of these models is that, while they explain observations with impeccable precision, they make no independent predictions that can be tested by further observation. We may or may not be in for the major paradigm shift that Kuhn predicts is on the way but I certainly agree with Boslough - skepticism and ongoing scrutiny of existing science is healthy. MASTERS OF TIME is a great read. Thanks, John Boslough!
Paul Weiss
Boslough actually summarized the "plot" superbly in his own preface:
"This book is the story of what happened along the road to the big bang theory and how it may be a mere will-o'-the-wisp rather than a final destination. The book also seeks to raise a number of questions about the biggest sacred cow of all, the big bang."
MASTERS OF TIME is a thoroughly enjoyable read, appealing to both scientists and non-scientists alike, that succeeds on three separate levels. First, it is a well written history of the development of modern cosmological theory in the 20th century, replete with amusing anecdotes, heroes, villains and goats, false leads and both successful and dead end research. Second, it is a quality primer for the non-scientist on virtually any topic one could name in the field of cosmology - microwave radiation, quasars, pulsars, black holes, cosmic strings, inflation, the great attractor, baryonic matter, lumpy galactic super clusters - the list just goes on and on. Finally, it is a cautionary tale that, in the spirit of Kuhn's discussion of paradigm shifts, suggests the big bang as a theory just may be in a world of trouble - too many unexplained glitches and too many theories that are simply unobservable, untestable or unreproducible. As a specific example, Boslough criticizes Guth's model of inflation in the early universe:
"The reason for this apparent accuracy in explanatory power was of course simple: The inflationary theories had been created to do exactly this, explain the origin and evolution of the universe in terms that could stand up to observed detail. In the most simple terms, the theories had been constructed in such a way that they could not be disproved."
The problem with many of these models is that, while they explain observations with impeccable precision, they make no independent predictions that can be tested by further observation. We may or may not be in for the major paradigm shift that Kuhn predicts is on the way but I certainly agree with Boslough - skepticism and ongoing scrutiny of existing science is healthy. MASTERS OF TIME is a great read. Thanks, John Boslough!
Paul Weiss
November 18, 2024
Regarding the state of current (1992) cosmology, Boslough is a skeptic. Many of the mathematical and theoretical speculations that are immune from empirical verification he says are far out, and he equates them as playing “fast and loose with the facts.”
Most significantly, Boslough questions cosmology’s prevailing big bang picture of the universe. Of these, he writes, “For the time being, the big bang remains a scientific paradigm wrapped inside a metaphor for biblical genesis, a compelling although simplistic pseudoscientific creation myth embodying a Judeo-Christian tradition of linear time that led to Western ideas about cultural and scientific progress and which ordained an absolute beginning.” Overall, Boslough concludes that “cosmology seemed to being less scientific” and it “being more like a medieval theology.”
It’s good to read about his skepticism, especially since much writing on cosmology strikes me as a lot of repeating of what others have said. It is like this bubble, working within an unchallenged paradigm. That’s a point that Boslough spends some time on this point.
Boslough questions the missing mass problem that led to the presumption that missing amounts of dark matter had to exist to keep galactic arms from spiraling into space. His discussion was unsatisfying. Boslough is looking at galactic rotation as an orbital system (like stars and their planets), whereas it seems that the arms are moving inward toward the center of the galaxy where its mass is most concentrated - the bulge and black hole, reflecting Einstein’s theory that movement toward the gravitational center is a geometric phenomenon. Dust and gas gather on the periphery but overall they move toward the center, increasingly becoming concentrated there. Seen this way, half of the movement inward is, per Newton’s first law, a body’s (inertial), straight-line movement curved inward, moving toward the gravitational center. Might this account for the galactic arms not spirling away from the galactic center? The movement of gas and dust is inward, not outward as the orbital model require because the gravitational mass at the center overpowers inertial movement that only wants to go straight.
Boslough doesn’t discuss the role of inertia in all of this per Newton’s first law of motion. It’s hard to understand gravity -gravitational effects - without looking at its flip side, inertial motion and the resistance to deviation from a body’s normative state (to stay in straight-line motion if in motion, to rest if at rest relative to other bodies).
At times, Boslough revitalizes Einstein’s belief that gravity is a geometric phenomenon, not a force per se, but he doesn't drive this point home. If gravity is not a force, but rather it is inertial movement in the presence of a larger gravitational mass, then this might explain why the effect to unite the three quantum forces with gravity is futile.
The term “fabric” of spacetime is used over and over, without definition. If it’s Einstein’s warped, geometric space, what is it exactly that warps? Fabric suggests a flat sheet with a large mass depressing it, as Boslough’s illustration has it, but is that an accurate way to visualize it? If there’s geometric warping of the fabric, it comes from around the gravitational mass, not just from the top of a flat sheet, moving down.
I didn’t understand how galactic light is measured to measure the outward expansion at increasing speed of space-time. Boslough’s graphic says that one side of the rotation emits a red shift whereas the other side emits a blue shift. When looking at the light of a galaxy, aren’t we seeing both longer and shorter waves, and not a unitary emission of light?
Finally, at the cosmological scale, aren't there two large dynamics at work, not just gravity’s backward movement toward a gravitational center. The flip side here is the explosive force of (overly) concentrated matter in a big bang scenario and it is this that creates inertial outward movement (and spin/rotation) that makes dark energy and its anti-gravitational properties unnecessary, especially with gravity’s reach lessening with distance as the inverse square law requires?
Most significantly, Boslough questions cosmology’s prevailing big bang picture of the universe. Of these, he writes, “For the time being, the big bang remains a scientific paradigm wrapped inside a metaphor for biblical genesis, a compelling although simplistic pseudoscientific creation myth embodying a Judeo-Christian tradition of linear time that led to Western ideas about cultural and scientific progress and which ordained an absolute beginning.” Overall, Boslough concludes that “cosmology seemed to being less scientific” and it “being more like a medieval theology.”
It’s good to read about his skepticism, especially since much writing on cosmology strikes me as a lot of repeating of what others have said. It is like this bubble, working within an unchallenged paradigm. That’s a point that Boslough spends some time on this point.
Boslough questions the missing mass problem that led to the presumption that missing amounts of dark matter had to exist to keep galactic arms from spiraling into space. His discussion was unsatisfying. Boslough is looking at galactic rotation as an orbital system (like stars and their planets), whereas it seems that the arms are moving inward toward the center of the galaxy where its mass is most concentrated - the bulge and black hole, reflecting Einstein’s theory that movement toward the gravitational center is a geometric phenomenon. Dust and gas gather on the periphery but overall they move toward the center, increasingly becoming concentrated there. Seen this way, half of the movement inward is, per Newton’s first law, a body’s (inertial), straight-line movement curved inward, moving toward the gravitational center. Might this account for the galactic arms not spirling away from the galactic center? The movement of gas and dust is inward, not outward as the orbital model require because the gravitational mass at the center overpowers inertial movement that only wants to go straight.
Boslough doesn’t discuss the role of inertia in all of this per Newton’s first law of motion. It’s hard to understand gravity -gravitational effects - without looking at its flip side, inertial motion and the resistance to deviation from a body’s normative state (to stay in straight-line motion if in motion, to rest if at rest relative to other bodies).
At times, Boslough revitalizes Einstein’s belief that gravity is a geometric phenomenon, not a force per se, but he doesn't drive this point home. If gravity is not a force, but rather it is inertial movement in the presence of a larger gravitational mass, then this might explain why the effect to unite the three quantum forces with gravity is futile.
The term “fabric” of spacetime is used over and over, without definition. If it’s Einstein’s warped, geometric space, what is it exactly that warps? Fabric suggests a flat sheet with a large mass depressing it, as Boslough’s illustration has it, but is that an accurate way to visualize it? If there’s geometric warping of the fabric, it comes from around the gravitational mass, not just from the top of a flat sheet, moving down.
I didn’t understand how galactic light is measured to measure the outward expansion at increasing speed of space-time. Boslough’s graphic says that one side of the rotation emits a red shift whereas the other side emits a blue shift. When looking at the light of a galaxy, aren’t we seeing both longer and shorter waves, and not a unitary emission of light?
Finally, at the cosmological scale, aren't there two large dynamics at work, not just gravity’s backward movement toward a gravitational center. The flip side here is the explosive force of (overly) concentrated matter in a big bang scenario and it is this that creates inertial outward movement (and spin/rotation) that makes dark energy and its anti-gravitational properties unnecessary, especially with gravity’s reach lessening with distance as the inverse square law requires?
January 24, 2016
Very good, clears up what other books clain to be current thoery, and this book is
about 13 years old, but still accurate
about 13 years old, but still accurate
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews