Losing the Nobel Prize, Brian Keating
Losing the Nobel Prize, Brian Keating
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Losing the Nobel Prize
A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor

Author: Brian Keating

Narrator: Stephen R. Thorne

Unabridged: 10 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/30/2018


Synopsis

What would it have been like to be an eyewitness to the Big Bang? In 2014, astronomers wielding BICEP2, the most powerful cosmology telescope ever made, revealed that they’d glimpsed the spark that ignited the Big Bang. Millions around the world tuned in to the announcement broadcast live from Harvard University, immediately igniting rumors of an imminent Nobel Prize. But had these cosmologists truly read the cosmic prologue or, swept up in Nobel dreams, had they been deceived by a galactic mirage?

In Losing the Nobel Prize, cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2's mesmerizing discovery and the scientific drama that ensued. In an adventure story that spans the globe from Rhode Island to the South Pole, from California to Chile, Keating takes us on a personal journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to vivid life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation.

About Brian Keating

Brian Keating is a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego; a Fellow of the American Physical Society; a commercially rated pilot; and the director of the Simons Observatory. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his work on BICEP.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brian

Today, I submitted submitted my book for publication by W. W. Norton! I’m beyond thrilled that advance review copy readers have already started giving it high-praise. Why did I write this book, a work that will most likely have harsh implications for my career? First, wanted to give the public an ins......more

Goodreads review by David

An extraordinary work of intellectual honesty. Astrophysicist Brian Keating explores the fascinating history and mixed effects of the Nobel Prize, especially on the field of physics. For a few years, Keating felt these effects, as people chattered about his own possible candidacy, before the chances......more

Loved this book! It's a page-turner (not usually what I"d say about science books, but it's true). It recounts the evolution of the experiment that led to recent claims of discovery of gravitational waves from the earliest moments of the Universe --- claims that later turned out to be (literally) du......more

Goodreads review by Roo

2.5 stars. A solid missfire. An unfortunate missed opportunity. I wanted this book to be good. It has all the elements required for telling a compelling story about one of the bigger problems with science, but it turned out to be...just weird. Brian Keating is an experimental cosmologist who built a......more