Crush

The fascinating story of gravity, from its intimate role in our daily lives to its cosmic significance.

Gravity is at once familiar and mysterious. It’s the reason for the numbers on your bathroom scale, the intricate dance of the stars and planets, and the evolution and eventual fate of the universe. In Crush, James Riordon takes readers on a tour of gravity from its vanishing insignificance on the microscopic scale to its crushing extreme inside black holes.

From the moment we lift our heads as infants until the moment we lie down and ultimately surrender to its pull at the end of our lives, we labor under the burden of gravity. It has guided the shape and structure of our bodies over eons of evolution and sculpted the Earth as it cooled from a blob of molten rock. As Riordon explains, the stars couldn’t shine without gravity holding them together. Even the atoms that form you and everything around you were forged in stellar furnaces that gravity built. It took Einstein to realize that gravity is not, in fact, a force at all, but instead the curvature of space and time.

A fascinating and memorable read, Crush examines our personal relationships with gravity, explores gravity’s role in making the universe uniquely hospitable for life, and even reveals how the mundane flow of water in your kitchen sink offers a glimpse into the secrets of black holes.Foreword
Preface
1. First Person Force
2. Leaping Nematodes, Spherical Cows and Linear Snakes
3. Goldilocks Gravity
4. Cosmic Sculptor
5. From Newton to Einstein
6. Big G Problems
7. Black Holes
8. Gravitational Waves
9. Quantum Conundrum
10. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Other Mysteries
11. Gravity for Life
12. Einstein’s Cryptozoo
13. Gravity Dreams“Riordon strikes the perfect balance between personal anecdote and scientific insight in this eminently readable rumination on the many ways gravity impacts both our daily lives and our universe.”
—Jennifer Ouellette, author of The Calculus Diaries

“A fascinating exploration, packed with surprising insights and eye-opening explanations of cutting-edge physics. Riordon shows how gravity is at the heart of some of the biggest puzzles in the universe, and how understanding it could point us toward a deeper understanding of everything.”
—Clara Moskowitz, senior editor at Scientific American

“Science journalist Riordon scrutinizes both the familiarity and the mystery of this potent force.”
—Booklist

“Crush is a crisp and fresh tour through a continuum from orchards to observatories, showing that every planetary orbit, pulse of starlight and even every apple fall is part of the same wondrous story . . . deeply engaging.”
—Physics WorldJames Riordon is a science journalist who has written for Science News, Scientific American, New Scientist, Popular Science, The Washington Post, Science, Ad Astra, Physics Today, and Analytical Chemistry. He is a past President of the DC Science Writers Association and Cofounder of the Southwest Science Writers Association.