Right before the 2023 Boston Marathon, I participated in a marathon charity event to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Called the "Grit and Gumption Gathering," it brought together five speakers who presented short "TED-style" stories of people who have redefined impossible through grit and gumption. Here is my presentation on the century-long endeavor to establish the field of gravitational-wave astronomy.
The Lyceum, an educational podcaster based in Cambridge, MA, is producing a podcast on the books that changed the world. Recently posted was my interview on astronomer Edwin Hubble's Realm of the Nebulae, the 1936 book that summarized his historic discoveries of other galaxies and the expansion of the universe. To hear this segment of the WritLarge podcast, click here.
Seth Mnookin, my colleague at the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing, interviewed me about my latest book, Dispatches from Planet 3, for the Undark podcast. Listen to it at this link: Undark.
I made an appearance on PBS's NOVA program on 10 January 2018, the episode titled "Black Hole Apocalypse." To watch the entire video on NOVA's website, click here.
Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where I did my graduate work in physics, published a very nice profile of my career. My gratitude to writer Jim Raper for his engaging presentation. See it at this link: ODU Profile.
Yale University Press opened their campaign for the new edition of my classic work on gravitational-wave astronomy, Einstein's Unfinished Symphony, with my blog commentary on what's expected to be revealed in this new field. Read it by clicking here.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) marked its 100th anniversary in 2015 and celebrated with a set of web videos on some of the journal's landmark papers, including the work of George Ellery Hale and Edwin Hubble. I participated as one of the video's commentators. Click here to watch the video.
Quirks and Quarks, a science radio program on the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, interviewed me on the black hole and its history. You can listen to it by clicking on this link: Black Hole Interview. I later talked with Radio Boston, which you can hear on this link: Second Black Hole Interview.
A 45-minute talk on my Black Hole book at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, complete with slides, can be seen on YouTube at this link: Black Hole Talk.
The Day We Found the Universe was awarded the 2010 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize by the History of Science Society for best history-of-science book for a general audience. Traveling to the society's annual meeting, taking place in Montreal, I was able to say a few words at the award ceremony. This opportunity allowed me to thank the many historians who helped me in my popularization. They include Norriss Hetherington, Robert Smith, David DeVorkin, Owen Gingerich, Michael Hoskin, and the late Donald Osterbrock. I am grateful to the award committee--Kenneth Manning, Edward Larson, and Maria Portuondo--for choosing my book for this high honor.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the news that I also received the 2010 Klumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy. I had the opportunity to thank the society personally when I traveled to its annual meeting in Boulder, Colorado, in August 2010.
I've had many inquiries about the cover of my book, The Day We Found the Universe. It shows Einstein and company during a visit to the top of California's Mount Wilson on 29 January 1931. It was the one and only time Einstein made the trip. The group is standing in front of the dome of the observatory's historic 100-inch telescope, the instrument Edwin Hubble used to make his major discoveries.
Everyone wants to know, who are those other people? Here's the scoop (as far as I know it): The tall man right behind Einstein's hair and above the short guy in front of him is Hubble. The short guy is Walther Meyer, Einstein's assistant. The man in the hat, slightly leaning in the center, is astronomer Walter Adams, then head of the Mount Wilson Observatory. The stiff-looking man on the right with the distinguished chapeau is William Campbell, who was directing Lick Observatory at the time (Mount Wilson's competitor to the north).
For a while, I didn't know the identity of the white-haired gentleman, standing behind Campbell. But thanks to John Grula, librarian for the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mystery man is now identified. According to Grula, the man is Arthur S. King, a staff member at Mount Wilson from 1908 to 1943. He headed the observatory’s physics laboratory, where he specialized in divining the spectral lines of elements at various temperatures (important in discerning the chemistry of the heavens). He also showed how magnetic fields can affect the spectral line patterns, which helped scientists reveal the strength of magnetic fields in sunspots. He died in 1957 at the age of 81.
Grula even has a guess as to who “Mr. Forehead” is, the man seen peeking behind King. The “rimmed glasses,” “healthy shock of combed-back dark hair,” and “short stature,” according to Grula, suggest it might be Milton Humason, Hubble’s observing partner in surveying the expanding universe in the 1930s. There was a problem with this for while, because I had not come across any other picture of Humason taken when Einstein visited the mountaintop. But no longer. Mount Wilson Observatory docent Robert Anderson sent me a photo taken on the 100-inch catwalk that proves that Humason was part of the group. Humason, with his distinctive glasses, is seen on the right, partially hidden behind Walter Adams. Humason appears to be rather shy around a camera.
Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: On the newest form of astronomy, the search for "gravitational waves" coursing through the universe.
Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved. The history of an idea.
The Day We Found the Universe: On Edwin Hubble and the birth of modern cosmology in the 1920s.
Archives of the Universe: An engaging tour of astronomy's greatest discoveries, from Aristotle proving the Earth is round to the detection of planets around other stars.
Einstein's Legacy to Astronomy: How the illustrious physicist and his theories completely recast our view of the universe.