The Case of the Missing Neutrinos

The seventeen chapters of this book were originally published in the "Griffith Observer" (a monthly magazine issued by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles). More often than not, essay collections suffer from a lack of cohesiveness, but this book is a rarity: with little repetition, plenty of wit, and a well-planned narrative arrangement, this fascinating introduction to astrophysics travels smoothly from the evolution of intelligent life and the causes of ice ages to black holes and the inflationary universe. I was particularly impressed by how several of the chapters elucidated and expanded upon concepts presented in earlier chapters. It would have been helpful, however, if Gribbin had indicated when each of these chapters was originally written (a few originated in the late 1970s), since some of the ideas presented seem to have been eclipsed or supplemented by more recent advances.Some readers with a more thorough scientific background may find the information here a little too general, but I wish I had read this book before I had tackled more complex volumes--they wouldn't have been such hard going!

Having read quite a few of Gribbin's books, I tend to find that they rehash the same information quite often. Given the number of books he has written, this is not surprising, but it's still annoying. This book came as a pleasant surprise, since there was quite a lot of new content.As a collection of essays written over the past 20 years, some are not surprisingly out of date, but not badly so. Gribbin has gone to the trouble to arrange the essays in a related fashion, and so the book reads almost as a continuous volume, with each essay flowing nicely to the next.I was starting to feel as though Gribbin had nothing new left to tell me, but he obviously has plenty of good insights and interesting information still up his sleeve. Definitely one of his better books.

Don't believe anything negative written about this book. I could not put this book down. After having labored through books covering similar topics, this was one of those books that had a definite flow to it. John Gribbon is also very fair in the way he writes. Many experts seem to have an unyielding agenda in their books. Gribbon presents all of the viewpoints in an unbiased manner. Gribbon's selection of chapter/essay topics is excellent - all of the topics that would interest those of us who want a clearer picture on what it's all about. I am usually not easily impressed. People. Trust me. This is a definite must read.

This is a nice little book with 17 chapters and not quite 250 pages. Each chapter is typically between 10 and 20 pages long, and reads more like an in-depth article that you might find in the science section of a better-than-average newspaper. These are high-level discussions for the intelligent and informed "man on the street." As such, there are no equations. Unfortunately, there are no figures, illustrations, pictures, charts, or tables, either. The title describes the case of the missing neutrinos - referring, of course, to the fact that the flux of solar neutrinos found in experiments is only about 1/3 the flux predicted by the standard solar model, under the assumption of zero neutrino mass. The book, though, discusses lots, lots more than just the missing neutrino problem. This is a collection of short essays on issues of primary interest to physics - the hot topics of the day. The book is a joy to read - I bought it for the trip from Portland to Newark, and read it in just a few hours.Chapter 1 consists of speculation regarding the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and how likely it is that any such extraterrestrial civilizations might count with, say, base eight instead of base 10. It's interesting to compare Gribbin's assumptions and prejudices regarding the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations in light of Ward's recent book, "Rare Earth." The idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life is also extended in chapter 2, which also includes a very brief and simplistic discussion of the history of life on earth.Chapter 3 reviews the evidence for the Milankovitch cycles, which are associated with ice ages on earth. The chapter predicts that the next ice age is imminent, but does not include speculation about how the current dumping of carbon dioxide and other "green house gases" might affect its onset. If you enjoy chapter 3, you'll also want to read "Ice Ages," by John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie. You may also want to read "Is the temperature rising," by S. George Philander.Chapter 4 is a real gem. It's called, "How Darwin Discovered Relativity." It's an historical recantation of how biologists discovered, through their study of the earth and evolution, that the earth is many thousands of millions of years old. However, at the time there was no known way to keep the sun shinning for that long. It drove everyone nuts, and resulted in some pretty interesting ideas - all classical, about how to provide earth with heat and life long enough for species to evolve the way they have. Eventually, of course, physicists discovered the energy released in atomic fusion, and that solved the problem. It's a great little chapter that illustrates how progress in one branch of science can stimulate progress in other branches.Chapter 5 finally gets down to the book's title by introducing the fact that the sun does not seem to be emitting the flux of neutrinos that t

GRIBBIN is a good mystery writer but none of his cases are ever solved. Another science popularizer-writer who tackles describing the content of empty mini space -- this is space smaller than the Planck length of ten to the minus 33rd centimeters. I must give him an A for effort! He would like to weigh the empty space of the universe. What is there to weigh? Here is a list of some of his efforts: a) virtual particles such as positrons, electrons and photons; b) quantum microscopic wormholes; c) "sort of a gas of shifting minispace bubbles" d) space-time foam and e) "monstrously labyrinthine spacetime froth". Thank God for wormholes, for according to Gribbin's reporting, the weightless nature of space "is due instead to an unseen froth of parasite universes that cling to our spacetime through a network of invisible wormholes. Without wormholes, the Universe would indeed be so heavy that it would collapse." (P.193)Gribbin does no better with the case of the missing neutrinos. Four billion neutrinos per square centimeter per second are said to pass through the detector tank of cleaning fluid buried in a South Dakota gold mine. Only eight of the calculated 25 neutrinos have been detected per month. Two thirds of the little devils are still missing in action. Perhaps a Sci-fi reader can fill in this blank. As an aside, Gribbin reports that a Russian team has implied that a neutrino does in fact have mass, as much as 25 electron Volts, which would, if so, at least account for the missing mass of the Universe, hunted vigorously for decades, no small feat. Happy hunting.