Splinters of Infinity

Cosmic Rays and the Clash of Two Nobel Prize–Winning Scientists over the Secrets of Creation

Mark Wolverton

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9780262377836
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Science History

Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America's foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868–1953) and Arthur Compton (1892–1962), who found themselves locked in an intense, often deeply personal, conflict about cosmic rays. Confirmed in 1912, cosmic rays—enigmatic forms of penetrating radiation—seemed to raise all new questions about the origins of the universe, but they also offered the potential to explain everything—or reveal the existence of God.

In engaging, accessible prose, Wolverton takes the reader through the twists and turns of the Millikan-Compton debate, one of the first major public examples of how heated the controversies among scientists could become—and the lengths that scientists would go to settle their disputes. What set them apart, at least in most cases, Wolverton shows, was their ability to concentrate finally on what mattered: the science. Along the way, Wolverton probes the forever elusive question, still unanswered today, about where cosmic rays come from and what they reveal about black holes, distant galaxies, the existence of dark matter and dark energy, and the birth of the universe, concluding that these splinters of infinity may not hold the keys to the secret of creation but do bring us ever closer to it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Epigraphs
• Table of Contents
• Prelude: Shaking Hands With Mussolini
• 1. “A Very Interesting Discussion”
• 2. The Penetrating Radiation
• 3. A Oneness About the Whole of Nature
• 4. The Din of Battle
• 5. Challengers
• 6. Mountaineers, Fliers, and Savants
• 7. Travel Arrangements
• 8. Globetrotting
• 9. Skyscraping
• 10. Throwing the Gauntlet
• 11. The Gathering Forces
• 12. High Noon in Atlantic City
• 13. Hooray for the Cosmic Rays
• 14. Falling and Rising
• 15. Rising and Falling
• 16. Creation and Annihilation
• 17. Quarrels in the Family
• 18. A Sort of Peace
• Postlude: The Unity of all Creation
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Index