Traveling at the Speed of Thought

Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1: The Gravitational Wave Analogy 1 Chapter 2: The Prehistory of Gravitational Waves 18 Chapter 3: The Origins of Gravitational Waves 41 Chapter 4: The Speed of Thought 66 Chapter 5: Do Gravitational Waves Exist? 79 Chapter 6: Gravitational Waves and the Renaissance of General Relativity 105 Chapter 7: Debating the Analogy 124 Chapter 8: The Problem of Motion 144 Chapter 9: Portrait of the Skeptics 180 Chapter 10: On the Verge of Detection 203 Chapter 11: The Quadrupole Formula Controversy 231 Chapter 12: Keeping Up with the Speed of Thought 259 Appendix A: The Referee's Report 281 Appendix B: Interviews and Other New Sources 290 Notes 293 Bibliography 299 Index 315

Daniel Kennefick is Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Arkansas. He is an editor of "The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein" (Princeton).

The great achievement of Daniel Kennefick's fascinating Traveling at the Speed of Thought is that he takes...assumed existence of gravitational waves apart. He is not out to show that they do not exist--far from it. Rather, he carefully explains how durable skepticism has been toward the existence of gravitational waves ever since Einstein first predicted them...Kennefick offers a readable account of the theory of gravitational waves, exploring why skepticism was a reasonable stance at various points in the 20th century and why it has ceased to be so in the 21st. -- Michael D. Gordin Science This dense account of the history of gravity waves--undetected ripples in space-time--is the kind one might think would appeal only to physicists. But Kennefick uses this narrow subject to elucidate the larger issue of metaphors and analogies in science. A practicing gravitational wave researcher, Kennefick keenly explains how scientists become willing to believe that which they cannot see, or even observe experimentally. SEED Magazine In Traveling at the Speed of Thought, Daniel Kennefick gives an authoritative, insider's account of a scientific phenomenon that more of less everyone in the field believes to exist, yet no one has ever seen. This is a scholarly contribution to the history of twentieth-century physics...yet...it provides a rare insight into the tension in physics between the abstract reality that emerges from mathematics, and the warm body of nature that we can see and touch. -- Georgina Ferry TLS Kennefick is the right author at the right time. He has strong connections to research in this area as well as being a historian and a very good storyteller...An impressive book, in that Kennefick thoroughly covers the material and still keeps it at a level that should be accessible to all readers. -- E. Kincanon Choice This book is worth reading not only because it gives a well-framed picture of the gravitational wave history, but also because it offers many suggestions