"A cracking read, combining storytelling of the highest order with a
trove of information. . . . What's remarkable is that it all fits
together."--Wall Street Journal
"Successful science writing tells a complete story of the 'how'--the
methodical marvel building up to the 'why'--and Randall does just
that."--New York Times Book Review
"[Randall] is a lucid explainer, street-wise and informal. Without
jargon or mathematics, she steers us through centuries of sometimes
tortuous astronomical history."--The Guardian
In Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, Professor Lisa Randall, one of
today's most influential theoretical physicists, takes readers on an
intellectual adventure through the history of the cosmos, showing how
events in the farthest reaches of the Universe created the conditions
for life--and death--on our planet.
Sixty-six million years ago, an object the size of a city crashed into
Earth, killing off the dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the
planet's species. Challenging the usual assumptions about the simple
makeup of the unseen material that constitutes 85% of the matter in the
Universe, Randall explains how a disk of dark matter in the Milky Way
plane might have triggered the cataclysm.
But Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs does more than present a radical
idea. With clarity and wit, it explains the nature of the Universe, dark
matter, the Milky Way galaxy, comets, asteroids, and impacts. This
breathtaking synthesis, illuminated by pop culture references and social
and political viewpoints, reveals the deep relationships among the small
and the large, the visible and the hidden, as well as the astonishing
beauty of the connections that surround us. It's impossible to read this
book and look at either the Earth or the sky again in the same way.
