Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Cosmos

by Iain Nicolson

Once we thought the universe was filled with shining stars, dust, planets, and galaxies. We now know that more than 98 percent of all matter in the universe is dark. It emits absolutely nothing yet bends space and time; keeps stars speeding around galaxies; and determines the fate of the universe. But dark matter is only part of the story. Scientists have recently discovered that the expansion of the universe is speeding up, driven by a mysterious commodity called dark energy. Depending on what dark matter and energy happen to be, our seemingly quiet universe could end its days in a Big Rip, tearing itself apart, or a Big Crunch, collapsing down to a universe the size of nothing, ready to be reincarnated in a Big Bang once again. For the general reader and armchair astronomer alike, Iain Nicolson’s fascinating account shows how our ideas about the nature and the content of the universe have developed. He highlights key discoveries, explains underlying concepts, and examines current thinking on dark matter and dark energy. He describes techniques that astronomers use to explore the remote recesses of the cosmos in their quest to understand its composition, evolution, and ultimate fate.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Physics

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2007

About the author

University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England, visiting fellow; contributor to television programming, including the British Broadcasting Corporation series The Sky at Night.

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

My knowledge of the subject is based on what I read as a kid and some college courses, so I was pretty outdated. This book is very thorough and while it is a bit outdated itself (the LHC wasn't finished at the time of writing), it provides a good series of explanations about the hypothesis of what is dark matter and dark energy and what does it imply for the universe. Still it is not an easy book to read, sometimes it is quite technical, worth it anyways.

[Marchesan Domenico · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is very well written, but it needs to be read with concentration and focus. There is a lot to learn here, starting from "basic" particle theory going to hypothesizes on dark matter and dark energy. Despite the edition of the book I read dated back in 2006, the dark matter and energy theory are pretty up to date with respect to the latest news in the field: unfortunately, progress in this research field seems to be laboriously slow:-)

[Bryan Higgs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in preparation for a presentation on Dark Matter and Dark Energy at my local public library, in parallel with another book on the same topic, The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality As mentioned in my review of that book, which was, IMHO, insufficiently detailed on the science and totally lacking in any diagrams or pictures, this book is at the opposite extreme. It has great color photographs and images, and lots of detail about the science and the experiments, both in progress and planned. As a result, I found it heavy going, especially towards the end -- the writing became rather dense, and didn't hold my attention.

However, on the whole, this was a pretty good book. Published in 2007, it is a little outdated and contains references to experiments and apparati (WMAP, LHC, Planck Telescope) that have already produced results, but that is the nature of hardcover book publishing.

Recommended!

[Hal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not quite what I was hoping it to be. The universe I find to be the most fascinating of subjects and I am always curious to know more on the subject. This book I thought would add to my knowledge and in a number of ways it did. The problem I had with it was that although presented in a coffee table format the narrative was often hard core technical astrophysics. The one great conclusion was of how little we really know about the great mysteries out there, dark matter and dark energy. There are many theories presented with accompanying technical analysis. I struggled to get through this and found myself eventually skimming and reading picture captions. The final chapter summary would have been sufficient it seems.

[Eppursimuov3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dark Side of the Universe by Iain Nicolson is another great book on cosmology that has all the nice full-color pictures and illustrations. It contains some of the latest updates on dark matter and dark energy, and has a bit more of an astronomical emphasis compared to other similar books