The Elephant in the Universe by Govert Schilling

Peter Tallack

Harvard University Press

31 May 2022

LENGTH 336 pages

• World English Language (Harvard

University Press) • China (CITIC) • Germany (Franckh-Kosmos) • Netherlands (Fontaine) • Russia (Alpina)

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 per cent of the matter in the Universe. Despite decades of research, the nature of the remaining 85 per cent is unknown. We call it dark matter.

Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations, theories and computer simulations. 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.

In THE ELEPHANT IN THE COSMOS, Govert Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colourful picture of the history and current status of research into dark matter. In doing so he provides a holistic view of dark matter as a problem, an opportunity and an example of science in action. The result is a vivid tale of scientists puzzling their way towards the true nature of the cosmos.

Govert Schilling is a prize-winning freelance astronomy writer based in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines as well as in New Scientist, Science, BBC Sky at Night and Sky & Telescope. He has written more than 50 books, appears frequently on radio and TV and gives talks for a wide variety of audiences. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid (10986) Govert after him. His most recent English-language book is RIPPLES IN SPACETIME (Harvard University Press, 2017).