What it says on the tin
Sep. 25th, 2018 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs - The astounding interconnectedness of the Universe, by Lisa Randall
I picked this up in the work book sale due to the clickbait title, but I assumed the subtitle would more accurately reflect somewhat more abstract content. In fact, the title can be taken at face value.
I'm not really sure of the merit of such a speculative book in the popular science arena. Although dark matter is widely accepted by scientists, there are multiple theories for what it is; none has yet been demonstrably successful and some are barely testable. The book quickly surveys the problem of apparently missing mass in the universe from visible observations and explains how dark matter, and dark energy (which is not explored further in the book), may solve this problem. The second part of the book focuses on the solar system, and in particular, bodies that come into close contact with the Earth, including collisions. It also introduces a history of mass extinction events in the fossil record of life and the research that led to the discovery of the Chicxulub crater, caused by the impact that triggered the K-Pg boundary and extinction of the dinosaurs. The final section explores some theories for the possible nature of dark matter, and how it might be detected. The author's own research into one of these theories, "partially interacting dark matter", yields a think dark matter disk in the galactic plane, whose gravitational interactions could produce an approximate periodicity for disrupting objects such as comets in the Oort cloud, thus sometimes causing them to come into closer solar orbits and potentially precipitating terrestrial mass extinction events.
I found the detailed description of the discovery of the Chicxulub crater clear and illuminating, and I also find the author's (brief) discussion of the possibility of different types of dark matter, with different interactions, creditable. But these are exceptions and the overall writing style didn't work well for me. I feel there is some good science in here, but it is very speculative and open to misunderstanding, and the explanations are often very chatty and not always convincing.
I picked this up in the work book sale due to the clickbait title, but I assumed the subtitle would more accurately reflect somewhat more abstract content. In fact, the title can be taken at face value.
I'm not really sure of the merit of such a speculative book in the popular science arena. Although dark matter is widely accepted by scientists, there are multiple theories for what it is; none has yet been demonstrably successful and some are barely testable. The book quickly surveys the problem of apparently missing mass in the universe from visible observations and explains how dark matter, and dark energy (which is not explored further in the book), may solve this problem. The second part of the book focuses on the solar system, and in particular, bodies that come into close contact with the Earth, including collisions. It also introduces a history of mass extinction events in the fossil record of life and the research that led to the discovery of the Chicxulub crater, caused by the impact that triggered the K-Pg boundary and extinction of the dinosaurs. The final section explores some theories for the possible nature of dark matter, and how it might be detected. The author's own research into one of these theories, "partially interacting dark matter", yields a think dark matter disk in the galactic plane, whose gravitational interactions could produce an approximate periodicity for disrupting objects such as comets in the Oort cloud, thus sometimes causing them to come into closer solar orbits and potentially precipitating terrestrial mass extinction events.
I found the detailed description of the discovery of the Chicxulub crater clear and illuminating, and I also find the author's (brief) discussion of the possibility of different types of dark matter, with different interactions, creditable. But these are exceptions and the overall writing style didn't work well for me. I feel there is some good science in here, but it is very speculative and open to misunderstanding, and the explanations are often very chatty and not always convincing.