The Ascent of Gravity

The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything

By: Marcus Chown

Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh

Why the force that keeps our feet on the ground holds the key to understanding the nature of time and the origin of the universe.

Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists.

Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And penetrating that enigma promises to answer the biggest questions in science: what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from?

Award-winning writer Marcus Chown takes us on an unforgettable journey from the recognition of the "force" of gravity in 1666 to the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015. And, as we stand on the brink of a seismic revolution in our worldview, he brings us up to speed on the greatest challenge ever to confront physics.

Well written interesting story.

only gripe is the reader using a unbelievably annoying accent for every quote that is books only major grinding feature.

great narrative overview

really solid introduction to basics of newtonian revolution, then relativity, touching on quantum mechanics and then discussing the future.. only complaint is the narrator's use of accents when reading quotes... I personally found it off-putting, especially the nasal sounding American accents (that's not what we sound like, is it?!)

hit and miss

About a quarter of this book is very well written and easy to understand. About half is average, the remaining quarter is like a decent writer is trying to make their book interesting by writing in a way that doesn't suit them. Overly descriptive, repetitive etc. But this is all dwarfed by the fact the narrator for some inexplicable reason thinks she can do accents. This is highly distracting to the content, partly because they are so inaccurate, and partly because they are exaggerated and jarring. What makes it worse is she has a very pleasant voice and natural accent. Nevertheless I did feel like I learned from this book.

Very good overview of the subject

This book provided a great survey of and incredibly broad and complex field. I particularly liked the opening chapters and their coverage of Newton and other early theorists. The author connected many of these early ideas into this framework of modern physics instead of skimming over it like many other books.

The rest of the book continues in an extremely accessible and complete manner, tying the history, the personalities, and the theory in an engaging dialogue. This book stays at the conceptual level and doesn't require any math.

My only critique of the content is that it doesn't cover the breadth of modern approaches to the challenging questions of gravitational theory. It discussed string theory at length, but doesn't consider loop quantum gravity.

The narration is generally very good. Her voice is clear and she navigates the jargon as well as a "native speaker" of physics. My one major complaint with her narration, and the audio book in general is that she does a very poor job with accents when doing quotations. All the Americans sound like a cross between a team and a gangster. Her German accents seem like caricatures of Einstein. It was distracting from the otherwise enjoyable narration. I would have preferred her to just do these in her own voice instead.

The reader is great...but

The reader is vwry talented and reads great. Also easy to understand...but...i have one complaint. Durring reading, reader subtly changes her voice to give the listener a sense of different people when reading "quotations"...and that is where I cannot get past. Her voice somewhat resembles Fran Drescher from the show The Nanny...very nasal, very auditorally insulting. if not for my high-interest in the subject matter, i would have quit listening long ago. If you can look past the fluctuations, you will enjoy the read.