Ripples in Spacetime Audiobook By Govert Schilling, Martin Rees cover art

Ripples in Spacetime

Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future of Astronomy

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Ripples in Spacetime

By: Govert Schilling, Martin Rees
Narrated by: Joel Richards
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.48

Buy for $21.48

Ripples in Spacetime is an engaging account of the international effort to complete Einstein's project, capture his elusive ripples, and launch an era of gravitational-wave astronomy that promises to explain, more vividly than ever before, our universe's structure and origin.

The quest for gravitational waves involved years of risky research and many personal and professional struggles that threatened to derail one of the world's largest scientific endeavors. Govert Schilling takes listeners to sites where these stories unfolded - including Japan's KAGRA detector, Chile's Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the South Pole's BICEP detectors, and the United States' LIGO labs. He explains the seeming impossibility of developing technologies sensitive enough to detect waves from two colliding black holes in the very distant universe, and describes the astounding precision of the LIGO detectors. Along the way, Schilling clarifies concepts such as general relativity, neutron stars, and the big bang using language that listeners with little scientific background can grasp.

©2017 Govert Schilling (P)2017 Tantor Astronomy & Space Science Black Hole Physics Cosmology Astronomy History History & Philosophy Science Power Resources Engineering Space Theory

Critic reviews

"An exciting history of the second great breakthrough of 21st-century physics." ( Kirkus, starred review)
Fascinating Scientific Information • Accessible Explanations • Excellent Narration • Comprehensive Historical Context

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
A metaphor given in the book is quite appropriate. A deaf jungle trekker suddenly hears--like our experience with gravitational wave. The story is well laid out, with background stretching back centuries. The LISA pathfinder section is a little confusing.

Great overview, ear opener to gravitational wave

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's what it takes to detect a gravitational wave made by two black holes merging

Find out what 10 to the negative 21 means

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Author missed a Leiden connection. Joe Weber began his work on General Relativity there in 1955 1956 working with Wheeler at Institute Lorenz.

Reader mispronounced many words

OTW well done

Covers the field well

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was an easy read with my lack of formal college classes on subject matter. I have been interested in astrophysics for years without the ability to take classes.
This book puts the subject into easy to understand relations all the while maintaining the fact we are talking about G waves. Sometimes the science could not be taken any lower, so the use of analogies was needed. These were well thought out and fun to think about.

easy to follow with no formal Physics education

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I vaguely recall a bunch of this cosmos stuff, but wow. Better than that guy Hawkins book 🤔

Very incite full

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews