If you're drawn to physics, astronomy, cosmology, or anything related then buy this book and hold it close. It's truly the HUMAN story of the heavens. It reads like a novel but teaches like a text. Thoroughly enjoyable, wonderfully informative. I read my copy at least once a year just to enjoy it again.

The struggle for the direct detection of gravity waves has continued for some years, and to date the search has been totally unsuccessful despite the tremendous investment of effort in this area. I found this book's documention of this quest somewhat interesting. However, I found the subject of this book somewhat unfulfilling because it has no punchline. I would have waited for the direct detection of gravity waves before writing a book like this.

Neither had I...

Now, as the New York Times Book Review states, "When a gravity wave is first detected..." (I) "...will feel like a participant in the great event."

Why should you care? When gravity waves become detectable, we humans will open a brand new chapter into the discovery of our universe, and subsequently ourselves. We may eventually find the universe is a great huge pond with spacetime ripples originating from infinite sources. We may finally see the big picture, a bit of celestial music, and direct evidence of the most incalculable event in our universe, the collision and coalescence of two black holes. The thought of this type of event being recorded for human ears is exciting and provocative... I hope I am a lucky participant.

The supporting cast, are the scientists from many countries, who seek to be the first to find and record a gravity wave. This is an obvious Nobel Prize event, so the stakes are high... On the other hand, virtually all of them realize they are laying the groundwork for (perhaps) future generations. There is a very good chance that none of the current players will even be around when a gravity wave is captured on it's travel to infinity. On the other hand, future generations will be infinitely indebted to these pioneers, and us common astronomy buffs will be richer for their selflessness.

Marcia Bartusiak wrote a fine book for the rest of us... I look forward to reading more from her, and recommend this to anyone with even a passing interest. Sure, there is no punch line yet, but when there is, I will 'get it'... Will you?

Finally, what can be said about Albert Einstein... A towering genius that looked at our physical world, pulled back a great obscuration, and let us all see the light. I will always be in awe...

In this book Marcia Bartusiak, an excellent science journalist, writes about scientists' endeavors to detect gravitational waves coming from deep space. The existence of gravity waves was predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, and they are considered to have the frequency falling into the audio range, but no one has ever listened to them. Thus the author elegantly entitled this book "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony." Each chapter also has the title related to music. For example, the chapter about the discovery of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar, indirect evidence for gravity waves, is cogently entitled "Pas De Deux."

Bartusiak's sentences are also rhythmic like music, especially in the earliest chapters, so that the reader comfortably learns about Einstein's discovery of the origin of gravity and Renaissance in relativity made theoretically by John Archibald Wheeler and experimentally by Robert Dicke. Wheeler is cited to have explained general relativity in one clear sentence, "Mass tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells mass how to move."

The pioneer of experimental work directly to catch gravity waves was Joseph Weber. He published his first results in 1969, claiming evidence for observation of gravity waves based on coincident signals from two bar detectors. Unfortunately, by the middle of 1970s nearly everyone came to agree that Weber was mistaken. Bartusiak writes that Weber had however created a momentum that could not be stopped. Weber died on 30 September 2000, just a few months before the publication of this book. Thus the book partially happened to become one of the earliest tributes to Weber. His first bar detector is now shown in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.

Then comes the central story of this book, the construction, improvements and prospects of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). LIGO is a gigantic instrument system placed in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. Its construction started as a collaborative project, involving dozens of scientists and the cost of more than $370 million. Among those scientists, Rainer Weiss is considered to be the founding father of the effort. His career began with a determination to get rid of the noises in a hi-fi system, only to transfer that interest ironically or rather wonderfully to reducing the noises that could mask a gravity wave.

Each piece of LIGO's detector includes a marvel of engineering. LIGO's "classy" physics and the virgin territory of possible gravity wave astronomy are gathering young physicists from around the world. Potential sources of gravity waves cataloged so far by Kip Thorne's Caltech team and other theoretical groups around the world are many and varied from black hole collisions to neutron-star mountains. The author tells us all the details of these in a quite understandable manner. She also describes gravitational research in countries other than United States and projects by the use of spacecrafts.

The book is well balanced between theory and experiment, between science and sociology, and between anecdotes and stories of serious pursuit. As for anecdotes, there is one about the fact that the term "black hole" caused a problem for a while in France. Read the book for the reason. This is a masterpiece of nonfiction, and will absorb the mind of both a scientist and a layperson.