BOOK REVIEWS dietary trends may differ significantly from agriculture, heavily reliant on the chemical and large-scale structures that we can actu­ those of its predecessors precisely because industry, and are concerned with the prob­ ally observe. Silk gives a well-written and of its size and the fact that it is a late lems faced by the unemployed and the beautifully illustrated account of modern entrant in the industrialization race. Signif­ rural poor who lack the purchasing power astrophysical cosmology, taking us through icant rises in global food prices caused by or the land resources to obtain an adequate all the main questions. The basic concepts increased demand for food in China could diet. Both are concerned with the effects of of the expansion of the Universe, the influence the relative value of agricultural economic growth on the environment, but microwave background radiation, inflation, and industrial land, and slow down or neither deals adequately with the complex the origin of matter and the formation of reverse the alienation of agricultural land. range of feedback effects of environmental helium, dark matter and its possible forms, When China, with its relatively cheap change on the economy, because neither and the origin of clusters and galaxies, are labour supply, becomes a large-scale inter­ has considered the possibility of the re­ explained lucidly for the general reader. national supplier of manufactured goods, emergence of labour-intensive agriculture Because Silk wants to take us to the heart the pressure on wages in its indus-trial and industry as a response to shortages of of the physical processes involved, this is a competitors could force a downward level­ natural resources. D demanding book, but I believe it is the best ling of the more developed economies (as introduction to cosmology for the general postulated by J. Cobb and H. Daly). Basia iaba is at Centre for Population Stud• reader currently available. Both of these books describe historical ies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Martin Rees's Perspectives in Astrophysi­ progression from low-yield, labour-inten­ Medicine, 99 Gower Street, London WC1E cal Cosmology is directed more at the sive agriculture to high-yield, mechanized 6AZ, UK. beginning graduate student and gives an outline of what Rees sees as the important research questions in cosmology today. After introducing the cosmological frame­ On the wilder shores of cosmology work, he turns his attention to galaxies and Michael Rowan-Robinson dark matter, the emergence of cosmic structure, quasars and their demography, probability that the hot Big Bang model probes and relics of the high redshift A Short History of the Universe. By gives a broadly correct description of the Universe, and finally to the early Universe Joseph Silk. Scientific American Library: history of the Universe from 1 second after and inflation. Although there are not many 1994. Pp. 246. £19.95, $32.95 (hbk). the Big Bang to the present as 99 per cent. equations, the general reader would strug­ Perspectives in Astrophysical Cos• To inflationary cosmology (the idea that gle because concepts such as the Planck mology. By Martin Rees. Cambridge very soon after the Big Bang the Universe time, the density parameter [l and the University Press: 1995. Pp. 141. £24.95, went through a period of rapid exponential Boltzmann factor are introduced without $39.95 (hbk); £9.95, $19.95 (pbk). expansion), I assign a probability of 30 per explanation. I liked Rees's remark that the The Nature of Space and Time. By cent. To string (or superstring) theory, the evidence for Big Bang cosmology is at least Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. front-runner among theories to unify all as good as the evidence for the history of Princeton University Press: 1996. Pp. the forces of nature and thereby quantize the Earth and also the dictum that he 141. $29.95. gravity, I give a probability of success of 10 attributes to Landau that "cosmologists are Einstein's Greatest Blunder? The Cosmo• per cent . And to Penrose's 'twistor cosmol­ often in error but never in doubt". This is a logical Constant and other Fudge Fac• ogy' and Hartle and Hawking's 'no bound­ fascinating book which all cosmology grad­ tors in the Physics of the Universe. By ary proposal', I assign probabilities of only uate students and others with an interest in Donald Goldsmith. Harvard University 1 per cent to their being the way forward. I cosmology and some knowledge of physics Press: 1995. Pp. 216.£14.50, $22.95. say this only to emphasize that these ideas should read. It is a mine of good PhD Cosmology: A First Course. By Marc belong to the wilder shores of cosmology. projects. Lachieze. Cambridge University Press: In Joseph Silk's A Short History of the Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose 1995. Pp. 136. £25, $49.95 (hbk); Universe we encounter the more rewarding are well-known both for their work on the £13.95, $19.95 (pbk). landscape of the origin of the stars, galaxies nature of black holes and for successful

CosMOLOGY is in a deliciously exc1tmg state. The COBE satellite has demonstrat­ HuBBLE Space Telescope image ed the reality of the 'hot Big Bang' and of the massive star Eta Carinae, opened up speculation about the first 10- 35 surrounded by remnants of an seconds of the Universe. The Hubble con­ outburst seen in 1843. Hubble stant ought by now to have been deter­ has just discovered a unique mined but remains bafflingly uncertain. natural ultraviolet laser in a Dark matter appears to dominate much of nearby cloud. This picture the mass of the Universe but its nature appears in two new remains unclear. It is scarcely surprising celebrations of the telescope's then that every year sees new books on cos­ successes: A Journey Through mology at every level. Time (Penguin Studio, $29.95) The present batch shows a very wide by Jay Barbree and Martin range in quality, scope and audience. The Caidin is gaudily written and, three books by eminent cosmologists, those when coherent, astonishingly inaccurate; Hubble Vision by Silk, Rees, and Penrose and Hawking, (Cambridge University Press, are all, in their different ways, of high qual­ £24.95, $39.95) by Carolyn ity, and the serious student of cosmology Collins Peterson and John C. needs to read all three. Before discussing Brandt succeeds modestly in them in detail, let me indicate my own prej­ combining a popular style with udices by giving my assessment of the prob­ real astronomy. S.B. ability of some of the ideas that appear in these books being correct. I estimate the NATURE · VO L 379 · 25 JANUARY 1996 309

© 1996 Nature Publishing Group BOOK REVIEWS books for the general public. The Nature of bizarrely, no mention of the microwave National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Space and Time has its origin in a series of background radiation. The bulk of the the ultra-conservative politics of the Bush lectures that they gave at a study pro­ book is a conventional account of the administration. Langston, and the other gramme in 1994 at the Isaac Newton Insti­ Friedmann models and their properties. bit-part actors in the story, had to confront tute in Cambridge. They outline their past The chapters on the early stages of the all of these in solving the mystery of the and current work on the global causal Big Bang and on galaxy formation give frozen addicts and applying the knowledge structure of space-time, singularity theo­ rather a limited physical insight. The great­ to advance our understanding of Parkin­ rems, cosmic censorship, the laws of black­ est weakness is the virtual absence of son's disease and other disorders of volun­ hole dynamics, quantum black holes, discussion of observational cosmology. No tary movement. Schrodinger's cat paradox, the no­ index, references or list of further reading It is a tale of several parallel strands. We boundary proposal, the arrow of time, and are provided. D learn how the police eventually tracked the twistor view of space-time. This is an down the manufacturer of the contaminat­ extremely demanding book, with many Michael Rowan-Robinson is in the Astro• ed drug (he was formerly a public-spirited equations, and requires some knowledge of physics Group, Imperial College of Science, lawyer); how sample analysis revealed the general relativity and quantum theory. The Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort toxic contaminant to be MPTP; and how main theme of the lectures is the quantiza­ Road, London SW7 2BZ, UK. Langston and other scientists came to dis­ tion of general relativity. Hawking's work cover that MPTP, after metabolic conver­ on quantum effects near black holes and sion to MPP+, selectively destroys the Penrose's on twistor theory have proved dopamine-producing cells in the substantia enormously illuminating, but few physi­ Neural mysteries nigra, a region of the brain involved in the cists, I think, believe that a full quantiza­ Alison Abbott control of movement. It was this finding tion of general relativity will be achieved that led to the first animal model of Parkin­ along these paths. A better bet, surely, is son's disease and so to an explosion of string theory, despite the difficulty of The Case of the Frozen Addicts. By J. basic research into the disease. developing this to the state of testable pre­ William Langston and Jon Palfreman. The authors explain both the detective dictions. The claims made for the no­ Pantheon: 1995. Pp. 309. $25. story and the science through the eyes of boundary proposal seem overstated. The the personalities involved. One feels for 'prediction' of the microwave background "SWEDISH scientists use aborted fetuses to Langston both when he suffers the practical fluctuations detected by COBE is a success save drug addicts." This tabloid headline consequences of professional jealousy and also claimed by the whole generic class of never existed, but the fear of it followed Bill when he falls foul of the NIH, which inflationary theories. The debate between Langston from the United States to Swe­ 'poached' one of the addicts behind his the positivist Hawking and the platonist den where two of his patients underwent back. (The moral here is that a small-time Penrose on how the paradox of experimental surgery in 1989 to reverse scientist cannot take on the might of the Schrodinger's cat should be understood is their parkinsonism. This was a time when NIH.) Against all the odds, however, enjoyable, though the comparison with the the world of neuroscience was gripped with Langston managed to establish his own pri­ classic debate between Einstein and Bohr excitement about a possible breakthrough vate treatment and research centre. We also in the 1920s on the correct interpretation in our understanding of Parkinson's gain insight into the minds of drug addicts, of quantum theory, made by Michael disease. A chance discovery had opened up as well as sympathize with their agony, and Atiyah in his introduction, seems a bit a new research direction in a field that for that of their families, on finding themselves grandiose. decades had stagnated, leading to an faced with a hellish choice: to remain Donald Goldschmidt previously wrote a aggressive race to elaborate the biological trapped in an immobile body or to suffer good book on Supernova 1987A, but Ein­ mechanisms underlying the disease. the severe side-effects of the only medica­ stein's Greatest Blunder? is less successful. It The discovery came not from a research tion, L-dopa, that could free their limbs. is a rambling and shallow account of the bench but from the street, from the sad The story has a happy ending. Three of present controversies about the Hubble cases of six young Californian heroin the addicts have benefited from a contro­ constant and the nature of dark matter in addicts inadvertently exposed to a contami­ versial new technique, pioneered in Swe­ the Universe, and whether the introduction nated batch of a 'designer drug' in the sum­ den, of transplantation of substantia nigra of the cosmological constant (essentially an mer of 1992. A few days after their bad cells from human fetuses into the brains of additional repulsive force acting on large shots, the addicts slowly froze. Completely parkinsonism sufferers. The use of fetal tis­ scales permitted in general relativity) can unable to move or talk, the first victim, sue in medicine was outlawed in the US resolve them. I was irritated by the George Carillo, was presented to just as the first scientists applied for per­ approach implied by the book's subtitle: Langston, a local neurologist, who recog­ mission to attempt such transplants at the The Cosmological Constant and Other nized the symptoms of severe parkinson­ NIH in 1988. (The ban was lifted in 1991.) Fudge Factors in the Physics of the Universe. ism, a degenerative motor disease normally Although the authors provide an accu­ There are some surprising omissions, for confined to the elderly. Carillo had already rate and accessible description of the example the results from the surveys of been misdiagnosed by several doctors, all science, they do occasionally show a regret­ galaxy redshifts undertaken by IRAS. In convinced he was malingering to avoid a table lack of judgement in giving equally the list of underground dark matter experi­ prison sentence. enthusiastic weight to all theories, including ments, the UK experiment, currently set­ At the time, Langston was a clinical the doubtful proposal that an environmental ting the best limits, is ignored. Some of the neurologist in a mundane county medical toxin, with a similar mechanism to MPTP, figures are crude and inaccurate. You will centre in California. He had ambitions to may be a prime cause of 'normal' parkinson­ learn far more about these issues from do basic research, but had neither the ism. Nevertheless, the book succeeds in Silk's book. resources nor the training. The addicts bringing science to life and showing its There are not a great number of intro­ proved to be his professional saving. The relevance to human health. It also illumi­ ductory textbooks on cosmology for under­ Case of the Frozen Addicts tells the tale of nates the complexities that can surround graduates, but Marc Lachieze-Rey's how Langston found his fortune in worlds researchers less isolated from the real world Cosmology: A First Course is not a very dis­ initially foreign to him: the grim reality of than they might otherwise imagine. LJ tinguished addition to the list. There is a drug addiction in America's underclass; the poor and inaccurate introductory chapter aggressive competitiveness of medical Alison Abbott is Nature's Senior European with some astrophysical background but, research; the devious politics of the Correspondent. 310 NATURE · VOL 379 · 25 JANUARY 1996

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