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The
Biggest Bang: The Mystery of Gamma-Ray
Bursts, the Most Violent Explosions
in the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2002)
After 30 years of studying gamma-ray bursts, Jonathan Katz decided it was time to write a book about them. After all, the time was right, said Katz, Ph.D., professor of physics in Arts & Sciences. "The subject of gamma-ray bursts had come to a natural climax, which consisted of what in the book I call the 'Holy Grail' -- the discovery of visible light from a gamma-ray burst as it was happening," Katz said. "In addition, the most important satellite that was studying them, called the Gamma Ray Observatory, was de-orbited in June 2000. "The hardest problem had been solved, the great discovery had been made, and there wasn't going to be anything happening for a while because the chief source of information was dumped in the ocean, which meant it was really the right time to write about this." Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most impressive occurrences in the universe. They put out energy about 10 times that of the brightest supernovae, and at their peak, gamma-ray bursts are the brightest objects in space -- about 100,000 times brighter than an entire galaxy. But the problem in studying them is two-fold. First, they are very rare. And second, their peak lasts less than a minute. "Studying gamma-ray bursts is an extremely difficult thing to do because there are a couple per day in the universe, and they are very unpredictable, so you don't know where to point your telescope," Katz said. "The tricky problem isn't detecting them; they are very easy to detect. The tricky problem is finding out where they are in a hurry because they are very transient events, they last tens of seconds typically, sometimes less." In The Biggest Bang, Katz discusses just about everything about gamma-ray bursts, from their accidental discovery in 1960s (by a satellite designed to detect nuclear explosions in space) to the improvement in techniques and strategies over the years. But most importantly, he isn't writing for his fellow scientists and astronomers. Rather, he's writing for everyday people. "This is something of interest, I think, to laymen who have some interest in astronomy, or physics, or even cosmology, so all of these come together," Katz said. "It's a book for laymen. If you open it up you'll see that there isn't an equation in the book, and that's by design. "There's a proverb in the popular-science business that each equation you put in cuts your readership in half, so clearly you don't want to do that even once." -- Andy Clendennen |
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