The 4 Percent Universe

Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

By: Richard Panek

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Over the past few decades, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only four percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown.

Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of the quest to find this “dark” matter and an even more bizarre substance called “dark energy”. This is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science, and solving it will bring fame, funding, and certainly a Nobel Prize. Based on in-depth reporting and interviews with the major players—from Berkeley’s feisty, excitable Saul Perlmutter and Harvard’s witty but exacting Robert Kirshner to the doyenne of astronomy, Vera Rubin—the book offers an intimate portrait of the bitter rivalries and fruitful collaborations, the eureka moments and blind alleys, that have fueled their search, redefined science, and reinvented the universe.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Our view of the cosmos is profoundly wrong, and Copernicus was only the beginning: not just Earth, but all common matter is a marginal part of existence. Panek’s fast-paced narrative, filled with original reporting and behind-the-scenes details, brings this epic story to life for the very first time.

©2011 Richard Panek (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“It’s the biggest mystery of all: why is the universe expanding at an accelerated rate? At its heart is a search for what forces and particles make up reality. It baffled Einstein, and it now obsesses a cadre of fascinating cosmologists. By brilliantly capturing their passions and pursuits, Richard Panek has made this cosmic quest exciting and understandable.” (Walter Isaacson, New York Times best-selling author of Einstein: His Life and Universe)

“A superior account of how astronomers discovered that they knew almost nothing about 96 percent of the universe…. Panek delivers vivid sketches of scientists, lucid explanations of their work, and revealing descriptions of the often stormy rivalry that led to this scientific revolution, usually a media cliché, but not in this case.” ( Kirkus Reviews)

“Science journalist Panek offers an insider’s view of the quest for what could be the ultimate revelation.... This lively story of big personalities, intellectual competitiveness, and ravenous curiosity is as entertaining as it is illuminating.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Excellent Narrative of the hunt for Dark Matter

Loved the history, the scientific detail, each night I got home and was digging through my old books or doing Internet searches to refresh myself on some of the subjects covered in greater detail. The author seemed to have a bias towards the High-Z team over the SCP team. The one detracting issue I had was that the author never seemed to finish up on anything...

Great overview of the history of cosmology

While a little difficult to follow and lacking in layman's terms it is a great book for those curious on the stars and the big bang Theory. Eye opening to the potential of space and since!

Powerful, entertaining book, but disappointing.

The author held my attention throughout the book. And I really do think that we live in an era with discovery and realization similar to the what had occurred in the time of Galileo. Everything has changed with the discoveries made in the last 20 years. But here is what I meant when I said I was disappointed. The author points out repeatedly that the holy Grail, at least a part of it, was to determine if the expansion of the universe was slowing down at some point. This was predicted. It turns out that, and this is the measurable reality, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The author mentions this, and then moves right past that monumental discovery, onto the theories of dark energy and dark matter.
The author committed a little heresy, when he hints that there may be scientific questions that are unknowable. Galaxies revolve, does the universe revolve? There are multiple galaxies, are there not multiple universes? The scientific community awards itself huge perks and recognition, but last week a few astronomers figured out that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. And last week the regal geniuses figured out they may have missed 96% of the universe. It may be that the scientific emperor community has no clothes.
But don't worry, there will never be any shortage of people to line up for the scientific awards. Even though the wizard behind the curtain is determined to be a fraud.

Great reading, a bit divulgent.

Great recognition of various people involved with the discovery of Dark Matter. Jumps around a bit and goes back and forth, so would need a solid couple of hours of listening to grasp. Otherwise, good reading pace and stayed on subject matter.

Good narration. Engaging story.

There is no science in this book but rather stories of science. But the author and the narrator managed to keep me engaged and entertained. it brought me up to speed with the latest frontier of physics(astrophysics, cosmology and dark matter) the story could had ended at the end of the announcement of the acceleration of the universe and it would had been the perfect ending with just the right amount of suspense. but then this isn't exactly a detective novel. the last few chapters 9-12 were a drag but he managed to closed it out better. Overall, a great story AND it really happened AND also these findings have so much influence over our understanding of universe.

Honestly, this was my first ever audio book and I really liked it. I would recommend to any physics or science enthusiast out there.

Great narration but tough content

I was hoping to learn about the expansion of the universe and dark matter, which I did, but it was in a very roundabout way. The story jumps around in time a lot, I guess for the narrative aspect, but It would have been better with dates because it was confusing to follow. There are more names than a game of thrones book and without much introduction to every person it was hard to keep them straight. The last few chapters didn’t really add much to the book.
Overall though, I gained a good understanding of why we think the universe is expanding and how we discovered it, explanations of what Lambda and Omega are and how they were measured, etc. and of course, Ray Porter makes anything interesting to listen to.

Bigger than God

What a bunch of egotistical and pompous individuals that pretended to be a team. Though this book centers around these interesting theories and topics it always comes back to who did what first and contributed the most. They fight nonstop over who gets to pat themselves on the back with the biggest stick. I did enjoy most of the book, but as it continued the in fighting amongst arrogant scientists just grew and grew. Amazingly no murder occurred (though one on another team in the Artic was eluded to...). I would not recommend listening to this book. Ray Porter is amazing and kept me listening. I'm glad I didn't pay for this one.

Just Right - Not too technical not boring

This is a pleasant story of some of the characters and events in astrophysics over the last few decades with a focus on recent data showing the expansion of the universe is unexpectedly accelerating. The characters presented are pleasure to listen to and the level of technical detail is nice for a general audience without being boring to a technical reader. The narration is really good for this kind of material.

Excellent Book!

This is a wonderful book that tells the history of Cosmology, what the scientist know & especially how they know what they know about the universe...Which is absolutely fascinating!

This book should be read by all the Christians & other religious people who claim scientist have no way of knowing the things they claim, scientist just guess or make things up to debunk religion, etc.

Just to be clear this book is NOT a science vs religion book at all...I am simply pointing out the fact that religious people who think & have been taught that science is just opinion, especially American Christians, should sit down & read this book if they are interested in knowing the truth about how science works. And of course knowing what our current understanding of the universe is & yes the areas where we know very little.

Simply as good as it should be

This was my first book on cosmology, I'm about 9 months in and I'm now a expert on the related subjects, quantum mechanics, particle physics and cosmology (Without the Math). I've listened to book after book and some up to 6 times, including this one, 4 times. I was new to audible, and depending on available credits and type of traffic, you may not listen to it 4 times.

This is the highest quality audio I have ever heard in a book, complemented by an outstanding narrator. He really is great. (Really should download at high-quality, it does matter)

I'm so happy to have started my journey into this subject with this book. It gave me a foundation that was absolutely flawless. It's not as scientific, as much as it is history. It does have just enough spaced out but it's not about the science, it's about the 2 teams, making history. It must have been very boring in real life, (a competition to look at changes to dots ) but it reads like an epic adventure, it really does and deserves to be. Most importantly it introduces you to many, so many more real people that you will hear of again, and these people should certainly be known.
If your into cosmology, particle physics, I don't see how you can get by without knowing this history.