In Search of the True Universe: The Tools, Shaping, and Cost of Cosmological Thought, Martin Harwit, Cambridge U. Press, 2013. $50.00 (393 pp.). ISBN 978-1-107-04406-7
When I was 12, my father told me that one of the best things to do when going to sleep is to rehash the day. “Go over what you did, thought, and felt. No judgments, just the facts,” he said, “and then tomorrow or a week later you will remember and consider what you could have done better.” By reminding myself what I had done, I captured it for later reflection.
That is what Martin Harwit’s new book does, not for an individual and a day, but for a field of research involving thousands of people and over a span of the past 40 years. In Search of the True Universe: The Tools, Shaping, and Cost of Cosmological Thought records and discusses what worked, what was inefficient, and what failed. This book is a companion to, not a revision of, his earlier Cosmic Discovery: The Search, Scope and Heritage of Astronomy (reprint, MIT Press, 1984), which asked how individual discoveries happen.
Rather than address what astrophysicists should do to reveal new phenomena, Harwit’s latest book delves into what scientists actually do under the constraints of their own hopes and biases, the political climate, funding pressures, and just plain logistics for complex experiments. However, it goes further, to “tomorrow or a week later,” to consider how all that work is combined into the cohesive picture of the universe that the field strives for and to assess what might change in the process of science.
Harwit writes eloquently. Although the book requires a rudimentary knowledge of physics and astronomy, many parts will appeal to politicians and historians. The book is organized into three sections, hinted at in its subtitle. The first describes how theory and observation are used to form the overarching human understanding of the universe. The second section details the political and even historical influences on the specific scientific questions that are posed and the methods—from long-term space missions to smaller projects—by which they are answered. Finally, in an innovative application of network theory, Harwit centers attention on the organization of the field and its economic viability.
Throughout, Harwit details the observational and experimental history of the past 40 years, a period that remained unexamined until now—at least from a coherent, field-wide perspective. Reviews of individual subfields abound, but Harwit’s much broader perspective is one of the greatest strengths of the book. He writes from the inside; he participated in much of that history and contributed to many areas. His presentation is an authoritative, if abridged, history of astronomical research over that period. His purpose is to use examples that illustrate the mechanisms of modern science, not to give a comprehensive history.
Unfortunately, the subfield with the most growth over the past 20 years in terms of funding, number of researchers, and general interest—the study of brown dwarfs and exoplanets (full disclosure: my area of research)—suffers from little attention. Brown dwarfs make a singular appearance in a short list of the 19 “most important discoveries since 1975” and “planets around other stars” are relegated to minor mentions on a few of the book’s nearly 400 pages. That is an oversight, because the issues related to those alien objects are of paramount importance to understanding our own origins. Further, their study can provide a unique view into how science is funded and how new questions are prioritized—central themes to the book’s depiction of science.
The last section of the book attempts to decipher some of the social aspects of science. There are some gems of insight, particularly in how persuasion is important in advancing both good ideas and red herrings. Harwit goes further, however, and employs network theory to demonstrate how areas of research often evolve in isolation, with certain key events causing cross-fertilization—for example, between pure mathematics and physics. This last section of the book may also be the most controversial, and Harwit’s choice of certain terms with roots in literary theory may open his ideas to criticism from social scientists.
In Search of the True Universe throws a clear and needed spotlight on the complexities of conducting science in a political world and within the funding framework of Western society. Despite my minor criticisms, the book ought to be read by every student and professor of science, all of whom are professionally obliged to understand how modern science works—a subject not explicitly taught as part of a scientist’s training. Harwit has captured the recent past to allow us to reflect on how we might do better in the future.
Rebecca Oppenheimer is a curator in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and a professor at the museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School.
