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  • Mapping the Heavens

  • The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos
  • By: Priyamvada Natarajan
  • Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
  • Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (50 ratings)
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Mapping the Heavens

By: Priyamvada Natarajan
Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
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Summary

Mapping the Heavens provides a tour of the "greatest hits" of cosmological discoveries - the ideas that reshaped our universe over the past century.

The cosmos, once understood as a stagnant place filled with the ordinary, is now a universe that is expanding at an accelerating pace, propelled by dark energy and structured by dark matter. Priyamvada Natarajan, our guide to these ideas, is at the forefront of the research - an astrophysicist who literally creates maps of invisible matter in the universe. She not only explains for a wide audience the science behind these essential ideas but also provides an understanding of how radical scientific theories gain acceptance.

The formation and growth of black holes, dark matter halos, the accelerating expansion of the universe, the echo of the big bang, the discovery of exoplanets, and the possibility of other universes - these are some of the puzzling cosmological topics of the early 21st century. Natarajan discusses why the acceptance of new ideas about the universe and our place in it has never been linear and has always been contested even within the scientific community. And she affirms that, shifting and incomplete as science always must be, it offers the best path we have toward making sense of our wondrous, mysterious universe.

©2016 Priyamvada Natarajan (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

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Science at its best

Read in one go

Worth every minute

I urge people to give this book a go

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    5 out of 5 stars
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science in the messy hands of humans

A fascinating mix of well-explained scientific concepts, a history of cosmology, and inciteful biography.

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A marvelloius account, well-told.

For anyone interested in cosmology, past, present and future, this is a must-listen. Brilliantly researched and presented, it requires concentration and attention but this effort is extremely well worth it and rewarding.

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Intelligent presentation that doesn’t lose the layman.

The audio book gives a good overview, without the technical detail, of the key developments in astronomy. It is clear what we think we know, and what we know we don’t. The book also touches on how science works in practice. Personalities may act as a temporary stop on acceptance of truth, but the scientific method leads to an ever closer approximation of the truth in a way which seems lacking in, say, politics.

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