 | By: Marcus Chown Binding: Paperback Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd ISBN: 0099280515 ISBN-13: 9780099280514 Released: 01 Jul 1993 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Electrons jiggling around generate radio waves. Temperature is just a measure of the average speed with which the atoms of a body are moving, vibrating & spinning. So any body, at any temperature above absolute zero, emits radio waves. Cool!
Why tell you this? Well, when they say the Background radiation is at a temperature of 3 degrees what they mean is, it's of the type of radiowaves that are emitted by a body at a temperature of 3 degrees.
-- & that's something I didn't know, before I read the book.
It's the least of what you'll get:
1. You get a history of the theory.
2. Details about radioastronomy, & how astronomers work around their problems (since everything -- the ground, the air, the dust in the galaxy, the cables on a ballloon carrying a detector -- glows with radio waves, it's a bit tricky seeing the backround radiation of the Big Bang)
3. Peeks into how science works: you propose a theory, & then chuck it if it doesn't fit the data, except that sometimes it's the data that's at fault not the theory
4. The importance of confirming your results, so that scientific discovery's a community effort despite alll the pushing to get there first
5. The importance of looking at alll the ramifications of a theory: gas clouds in interstellar space are warmed by the background radiation, & people measured their temperature, & wondered why they weren't stone cold, long before the radiation itself was observed
6. Why that famous photo of pink & blue patches is both the truth & not
7. Interesting tidbits on cosmology
8. the personalities involved
... & more, & more, in only 170 pages.
Students doing London A Level Astrophysics will find this an exceedingly useful read. (Though no mathematical equations at alll, you get a load of physics, painlessly)
And to top it alll, some neat rhetoric:
" ... COBE had reached its orbit 900 kilometres above the Earth. It was now circling the Earth every 72 seconds as it turned on its axis. It could be seen in the night sky, going from south to north a little after sunset, or from north to south a little before dawn.
COBE awakened, opening its eyes to the microwave Universe. "
The bit at the end's the best, though.
Read, enjoy, learn.
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