I am warned that I should take this book with a pinch of salt, since Smoot may not be telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But dammit, I want to believe him. This is what science should be like: go out and look for the data, no matter what it costs you. At several points, you just can't help comparing him with Indiana Jones.Smoot started off in the early 70s as a particle physicist, where the norm was already for people to work together in big teams. But he was ambitious, and th...

Awesome. First of all, let me say that I was lucky. Why? I bought this from Amazon, a used copy... and I discovered that the book came to me with the author's signature on it, the real one... so, this is my second signed copy of a book. Haha, geeky lucky bastard. Anyway, ripples and wrinkles in time. What are they? The first glimpse about their probable existence was detected by another pair of lucky bastards, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who discovered the MBR (microwave background radiation...

This was a good introduction to the pop aspects of quantum fluctuation, COBE's confirmation of quadrapolar background radiation following Penzias-and-Wilson's discovery of the isotropic 2.725K CMBR (as immortalized on the back of an XKCD shirt I bought the day of release -- the front reads: "SCIENCE: IT WORKS, BITCHES". Huzzah! Popular garb down at the Institute of Technology), and the exciting cosmological research of the late twentieth century. On the con side: Smoot is a ruthless self-propaga...

I really enjoyed this book. First, I have a story of how I found this book-I love these kinds of stories. We love the Big Bang Theory sit com on CBS. We find the writing exceptional, the characters endearing and the situations hysterical. I also love that they really work hard to make the science authentic by having a scientific consultant. They also have very impressive cameo appearances by well-know members of the scientific community. In one episode, our beloved characters are on a train on t...

I found this book well written and provocative. The author's description of time and its lack of smoothitude (a word I just made up) has occupied my thoughts a great deal since I read the book. It's the sort of book that, and this is the best compliment I can give, made me want to have lunch with the author.

Taming the Cosmic Zoo:Written primarily for the layman reader, "Wrinkles in Time" nevertheless attracted a lot of attention from the academic world as well. The authors, Nobel Laureate George Smoot and award-winning journalist Keay Davidson, chronicle a paradigm changing discovery in Cosmology; the texture of the early universe. Part personal memoir and part science-history, Smoot shares his thoughts and insights on the efforts to solve the cosmic mystery of the Big Bang and why the Universe is

Spoiler Alert: COBE totally gives viable evidence of inflationary theory!This book is an accounting of science as it ought to be done. George Smoot was the project head of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite that in the early nineties mapped the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson in 1964. COBE's discovery of "Wrinkles" in this radiation gives a beautiful picture of what the universe must have looked like only 300,000 years after the Big Bang. So yes, dramatic evidence of a cosmologi...

As someone who is interested in cosmology and astronomy, I found this book to be very interesting. Smoot does a very good job of explaining the history of cosmology and the background to COBE, his satellite to study the cosmic microwave background radiation. He also adds a little bit of personal experiences to lighten the tone - so it's not ALL science-speak. And then he rounds it off by talking about the experiment and its findings. The book is not very difficult to read, like some science book...

I finally got around to reading this because it was referenced in About Time . This was not nearly so well written, but it was an interesting companion read nonetheless.Both book cover some of the same background, bringing the reader up to speed on certain necessary concepts and the history of astronomy and cosmology. The focus here is a bit more narrow, however, as well it should be since the author is dealing with the story of his own contributions to the science, rather than providing an o...

Loved it, but then I'm a nerdy geek, or maybe a geeky nerd. I thought it was a good, straight-forward read on what was known when, and then what was done to add to the knowledge base. The end result is that the cosmic background radiation, once thought to be uniform, is not really uniform, but patchy. And the patches are where the galaxies were formed, which leads to the present day non-uniformity of the distribution of galaxies.

An incredible read: Talking about the discovery and investigation of the cosmic microwave background and the resulting consequences to the physics community would have been fascinating enough. Yet the author actually gives a concise and understandable introduction to cosmology and astronomy with many useful illustrations, making this a truly enjoyable read for a student of physics.

This was my first book about cosmology / astrophysics. Smoot (and friends) tell the full story of the COBE experiments and data, and explain the consequences of the data very clearly.

Almost everything in this book is true. My lawyer strongly suggests I should leave it at that.

I saw Leonard Hofstadter reading this book in one of the episodes of The Big Bang Theory,ever since then I've wanted to read it and I am not disappointed at all.The only thing that I didn't like about George's writing is that its quite self- congratulatory,he praises himself for the work he has done but that's only fair because it is praise worthy. The book is not just about quantum fluctuation or inflationary theory or George Smoot's research,its a peek into the world of how science and scienti...

Not merely a great book, but an absolutely essential reading for any physics and wholly Science curious explorer. A certainly must buy and must read.

I have a Little, Brown & Co edition from 1993 in hardback. Very interesting but heavy going. Not one to give up, it took me ages to complete.

The first part of this book was a slog: Smoot made the history of Cosmology as dry and dull as he possibly could. However, once the story switched to his personal search for the structure in the microwave background it picked up. I was an undergraduate when the COBE results came out in 1992 and I remember how excited people were around the JHU Physics & Astronomy Department. I didn't fully appreciate what these observations meant at the time - but it certainly made it feel exciting to be becomin...

This is a book on physical cosmology intended for the general public. After the briefest of introductions to the field the issue at hand resolves to defending the big bang theory by accounting for the formation of structured matter (galaxies, nebulae and the like) in the cosmos. The portion of this work done by Smoot and colleagues is detailed.In fact, much of this book would not be readily accessible to the general public. Personally, I found much of it dull and obscure, though I did appreciate...

When I was younger and was interested in this topic (and more up on my chemistry and physics) I would have enjoyed this book more. Dr. Smoot mentioned that he had to pared down the manuscript from 600 pages and lost a lot of personal dynamics...I may have been more interested in that manuscript. If you are physics, cosmology, or astrology enthusiast...you will find this book very rewarding!

It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Basically you get the story of how an important discovery was made - what the scientists had to do to get answers to the problems they were trying to solve and how they had a lot of interesting adventures in the mean time from Brazilian jungles to the South Pole.A certain thing to take away from reading this book - doing scientific experiments on high altitude balloons is a nerve-wrecking business.

Loved the book. Clearly the title plays on Hawkings A Brief History but the subject matter is very different, dealing with the origins of space and time and the adventure that the author and his team embarked upon attempting to discover why the universe is not just comprised of dust. For the curious mind with a bent for science, a must read.

A descriptive, well-written book about the history of advancement of our understanding of cosmic phenomena. Nevertheless, the mix of travel, ballooning, and budget adventures with historical and contemporary scientific advancements bewilders the serious and the lay reader alike. Did the author really need his formally attired persona on the front cover?

Very good science book, not too deep in the science, but he explains the important points very well. Interesting look at the search for "wrinkles" in the cosmic background radiation. Good mix of science and human adventure. I picked this to read after seeing George Smoot on the "Big Bang Theory" TV show. (He'll never be a good actor!)

An interesting memoir covering the more practical side of cosmology, so to speak -- the nuts and bolts of actually carrying out cutting-edge experimentation. And yes, I'll happily admit I found this book thanks to Sheldon Cooper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXV4Cw...

a little heavy at times, but still pretty easy to follow along without a science degree in anything.

All you ever wanted to know about cosmic microwave background radiation.

It is interesting, but it gets me tired. So I read a little and leave it alone, and them pick it again...

this is one of the first popular science books I read -- I think it was an xmas gift from big brother.

Very good book if you like science and people who love it.

Good account of the Smoot et al. work on experimental measurement and interpretation of the CMB.