一位获奖的科学记者详细介绍了分离和理解暗物质的探索，并展示了这种探索如何帮助我们理解我们所居住的宇宙。
当你在外太空训练望远镜时，你可以看到发光的星系、星云、恒星和行星。但如果把这些加起来，它只占宇宙物质的15%。尽管进行了几十年的研究，但剩下的85%的人的性质仍不得而知。我们称之为暗物质。
在《宇宙中的大象》中，戈弗特·席林探索了探索暗物质的迷人历史。它存在的证据来自大量的天文观测。宇宙演化的理论和计算机模拟也具有启发性：只有当暗物质是自然界的主要组成部分时，它们才能与天文测量相协调。物理学家们已经设计出巨大、灵敏的仪器来寻找暗物质，而暗物质可能与宇宙中其他任何东西都不同——一些未知的基本粒子。然而到目前为止，暗物质已经逃过了每一次实验。事实上，暗物质是如此难以捉摸，以至于一些科学家开始怀疑我们关于引力的理论或当前的宇宙学范式可能有问题。席林采访了信仰者和异教徒，描绘了暗物质研究的历史和现状，天文学家和物理学家都试图理解理论和观测。
《宇宙中的大象》将暗物质视为一个问题、一个机遇和一个科学实践的例子，是一个生动的故事，讲述了科学家们对宇宙真实本质的困惑。
The Elephant in the Universe : Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter
An award-winning science journalist details the quest to isolate and understand dark matter—and shows how that search has helped us to understand the universe we inhabit.
When you train a telescope on outer space, you can see luminous galaxies, nebulae, stars, and planets. But if you add all that together, it constitutes only 15 percent of the matter in the universe. Despite decades of research, the nature of the remaining 85 percent is unknown. We call it dark matter.
In The Elephant in the Universe , Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos—some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.
Taking a holistic view of dark matter as a problem, an opportunity, and an example of science in action, The Elephant in the Universe is a vivid tale of scientists puzzling their way toward the true nature of the universe.
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