Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs Book Reviews

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Dinos.. Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs” combines stars, galaxies, comets, meteors, particle interactions, and of course dinosaurs. What could be better? The book is well written and totally fascinating. We know of the existence of dark matter by its effects on ordinary matter, in particular, through the rotational speed of galaxies, and also by its role in the gravitational lensing of light. Dark matter permeates the universe. There is five times as much dark matter as there is ordinary matter. We also think that the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago when a large meteoroid, e.g., comet or asteroid, crashed into the Earth.

Popular method.. Science popularizing books are normally to popularize what has been done or show the current progress of hard science.This book is to popularize a radical speculation in advance of the science. Is there value in that? Maybe, if the book were much shorter and just dealt directly with the speculation. So I guess my complaint is that the author should have written a short story and forgotten all the padding and fluff which, as I say, has been done much better by many others. Indeed, her attempt at metaphor falls flat and reveals a self-infatuation a little such as in her attempt to illustrate observational bias by using a picture of her on the set of "Big Bang Theory". It was a lame attempt,perhaps to connect to a younger audience but mostly showing me that she is enamored of her celebrity status. She drops names from time to time as well and whether justified or not, it just felt unseemly to me.

Speaking is great.. Noted theoretical and experimental physicist Lisa Randall offers a spellbinding account of her current research into dark matter and how it relates to other cutting-edge science in astrophysics and geology in her latest book, “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe”. This is a riveting exploration into how science is done, describing in ample detail not only her research, but also notable ones from paleontologists, planetary geologists, and other geologists pointing to the likely culprit for the terminal Cretaceous mass extinction (66 million years ago). The “Great Dying” that wiped out nearly two-thirds of Earth’s biota, not only the non-avian dinosaurs, but also other terrestrial organisms and those dwelling in the late Cretaceous oceans, ranging in size from relatively miniscule single-celled planktic foraminifera to titanic mososaurs resembling the one in the film “Jurassic World”. An extraterrestrial culprit, a comet, its motion disturbed enough by unseen dark matter, altering its remote Oort Cloud orbit into one spelling doomsday for much of Earth’s biota.

I liked this a lot. Lisa Randall’s book is an interesting, entertaining and fun journey of a speculative new scientific idea from its first inception through the scientific process to the proposal of experimental tests. It was impressive to see the scientific rigor that is applied to investigate all possible implications and all conceivable alternative explanations. Yet the book is much more than that as it explains the current understanding how the universe evolved, galaxies and stars formed and how all of this is connected to (and by) dark matter and ultimately our life here on earth. To me this was not just a book about the idea how dark matter could have contributed to the demise of the Dinosaurs, it is a detective story and a view into a scientific mind working through all aspects a new scientific theory. And it was actually fun to read. Many analogies and funny anecdotes made it easier (at least for me) to understand the science and there are also tons of fun facts about science and our society in general.

Sources are accurate.. HISTORY REVIEW: she reviews the past 100 years or so of Cosmology before getting down to her impetus for writing this book. I found the review superficial or uninspired, like something I might write myself from a survey of wikipedia sources, perhaps. I have read so many other far better treatments of the progress of discovery in Physics/Cosmology. This effort was so "vanilla" (best word for it) or worse, pedantic, that I skimmed over much of it since almost none of her recital captured my imagination. That's not to say I did not need a refresher but her attempt was lame. [E.g., I just read a very short review of the early evolution of the Universe by John Gribbin in "Before the Big Bang" - much more concise, hard-hitting, interesting and even refreshingly informative.

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