Last Days of the Lone Astronomer BOOKS & ARTS

Home , James Gunn (astronomer)

Vol 466|26 August 2010 BOOKS & ARTS Last days of the lone astronomer A celebratory account of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey highlights astronomy’s culture shift to big science — but at what risk to individual ingenuity, asks Joss Bland-Hawthorn?

A Grand and Bold Thing: An Extraordinary .org New Map of the Universe Ushering in a New Era of Discovery sdss by Ann Finkbeiner Free Press: 2010. 240 pp. $27

A hundred years ago, only a few astronomers www. survey; sky L had regular access to telescopes that allowed them to make the discoveries that built

their formidable reputations. In the mid- digita oan L twentieth century, social change gave rise to s national observatories that served a far greater constituency. The past decade has seen another major shift in astronomy: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has opened up the northern sky to any- one with a computer. A Grand and Bold Thing tells the story of the Sloan survey, which has mapped and digitized hundreds of millions of galaxies using a dedi- cated telescope in the New Mexico desert since 2000. With unfettered access to e-mail archives, science writer Ann Finkbeiner offers a fly-on- the-wall account of this ambitious programme, from the politics of its formation to its eventual success as one of the most highly cited projects in astronomy. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey uses this innovative 2.5-metre telescope to scan the northern skies. The survey was conceived by astronomer James Gunn of Princeton University, New Fortunately, as the technology proved itself and experimenting with jangling keys and lasers, Jersey, after the launch of the Hubble Space the inevitable success of the project became clear, technicians found that two puffs of air per sec- Telescope, in which he was also involved. the organizations learned to work together. ond kept the moths at bay. She describes many Frustrated that management clashes between The Sloan survey’s power lies in the design scientific results derived from the survey, such as universities and NASA had allowed the orbit- of its telescope. After the eighteenth-century measurements of galaxy clustering and the iden- ing observatory to be flown with flawed optics discovery by English astronomer James Bradley tification of distant quasars. But she emphasizes (since corrected), he turned his attention to a of stellar aberration — the shift in stars’ positions the contributions of US astronomers over those scheme to map the brightness and spectra of due to the motion of Earth — improvements in of others, writing Australian and UK scientists millions of nearby galaxies. differential measurement have heralded astro- out of the discovery of quasars and ‘acoustic’ Finkbeiner reveals the complex negotia- nomical breakthroughs. The Sloan project is no features in the distribution of local galaxies, for tions that were required to get the survey off exception. The telescope’s precision in record- example. And a lack of quotes from outsiders the ground. A set of elite ing brightness in five bands means that we do not get a broad perspective US institutions — Fermi lab, “There is huge pressure of optical wavelength allows of the survey. Princeton and the Institute on individual astronomers the accurate selection of The book highlights how the culture of for Advanced Study — ini- objects from a catalogue of astronomy is changing to one of ‘big science’. tially got together to secure to get involved with big astronomical sources on the Gunn has stated that “lone-astronomer days funding for the project from projects or lose out.” basis of their brightness and are over”, with the subject becoming so vast the US National Science colour, from which physical that it can be tackled only by large groups Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. trends and unusual objects can be derived. The armed with computer code. The origins of Several more university departments joined telescope can scan much of the northern sky this ‘industrialization’ lie in part with one of later. The different styles of the bodies involved over several years with a camera that, a decade Gunn’s Princeton astronomy colleagues, the led to near-fatal tensions within the project. ago, was the largest of its kind. late Bohdan Paczynski. In the 1980s, he pro- “The trenches are dug, the war has started,” Finkbeiner’s explanation of the hardware is posed that “dark compact objects” might act remarked Gillian Knapp, a senior project scien- solid. She veers from the mundane to the unex- as gravitational lenses, temporarily brightening tist on the Sloan survey. Finkbeiner summarizes pected, telling us, for instance, how the tele- background stars by distorting their light as the the factions succinctly: “Fermilab is intransigent, scope once lost its tracking because of moths compact masses moved in front of them. These Chicago is disengaged, Princeton is arrogant.” getting crushed on the instrument’s drive. After one-in-a-million events should be detectable,

he suggested, by monitoring millions of stars it is debatable how robust these computer get involved with big projects or lose out. with an automated telescope, a battery of models are, what exactly we learn from them Although A Grand and Bold Thing is more computers and an automated software pipeline. and to what extent they are falsifiable. a celebration of Gunn’s extraordinary career A US–Australian team succeeded in detecting The availability of vast databases also affects than a definitive account of the Sloan survey, it the objects by such a technique in 1993. the nature of the research. I fear for the loss succeeds in capturing the arcane world of the The emergence of a new generation of gradu- of individuality in approaches and for niche professional astronomer. To Gunn’s colleague at ate students and postdocs who are “born wired projects that would otherwise open up new Princeton, Jerry Ostriker, it is almost a religious to write code” is credited as essential to inter- areas of exploration. Every new survey sparks undertaking: “People will devote their lives, preting the vast data sets of modern astronomy. a rush of comparisons with existing surveys at their time, their wits for things which have no Astrocoders entertain us with their impressive other wavelengths; this might exponentially practical importance. And there’s something films of stars falling into black holes, galaxies boost the literature but it does not benefit our rather beautiful about that.” ■ in collision and the birth and evolution of the understanding to the same degree. Confirma- Joss Bland-Hawthorn is an ARC Federation Universe. Yet Finkbeiner does not explore tory results abound, and networked citations Fellow and a professor of astrophysics at the the deeper question of how we should move between groups foster a sense of success, irre- Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, from this information overload to physical spective of scientific outcome. As a result, there University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. understanding. With so many free parameters, is huge pressure on individual astronomers to e-mail: [email protected]

Preserving social difference

What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near to focus on single regions. They agree with the mortuary cult of the pharaoh — with its East and the Future of the West the striking insight of French sociologist and mummies, lavishly painted tombs and ‘books by David Wengrow anthropologist Marcel Mauss, who wrote in his of the dead’ — have no obvious equivalent in Oxford University Press: 2010. 217 pp. 1920 essay ‘The Nation’, after the First World Mesopotamia. Writing was invented in the two £14.99, $24.95 War: “Societies live by borrowing from each regions at about the same time — in Mesopo- other, but they define themselves rather by the tamia as cuneiform around 3300 bc, and in refusal of borrowing than by its acceptance.” Egypt as hieroglyphics in about 3200 bc — yet Every major war causes us to reflect on the Mesopotamia and Egypt, despite their geo- the two scripts look entirely different and seem meaning of the word civilization. The mayhem graphical proximity and similar locations in to have arisen independently. over the past decade in what was once Meso- the flood plains of great rivers, provide a fasci- Astonishingly, there is no written evidence potamia (now Iraq) is particularly provocative nating example of Mauss’s observation. For all that ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt were because the region is known as the histori- the impressive scale and sophistication of these directly aware of each other during their cal birthplace of civilization. In What Makes two early civilizations, they developed in very first 1,000 years of existence. However, both Civilization?, archaeologist David Wengrow different ways. Egyptian pyramid building and civilizations undoubtedly traded with areas takes a 5,000-year perspective, comparing farther afield well before the third millennium. etty g the first thousand years of the Mesopotamian For example, precious lapis lazuli, which must FP/ a and Egyptian civilizations to draw unsettling have come overland and by sea from its nearest / lessons about recent events. source in mountainous Afghanistan, is found

onians The early glories of civilization developed in Egyptian burials dating back to the fourth

C. in the third millennium bc (3000–2000 bc) millennium bc. in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ of the Middle East and These differences lend support to the sepa- beside the River Nile: city states such as Uruk ratist argument of Mauss, rather than to the and Ur in Mesopotamia, the pyramids at Giza idea of the growth of civilization as a univer- and the development of sophisticated writ- sal and multicultural phenomenon. Although ing systems in cuneiform and hieroglyphics. What Makes Civilization? does not deny the Isaac Newton wrote in his Chronology of importance of mixtures and borrowings, Ancient Kingdoms Amended (published post- it convincingly concludes that the parallel humously in 1728) that ancient Mesopotamia development of Mesopotamia and Egypt and Egypt provided Europe with the earliest demonstrates “the deep attachment of human glimmers of the Enlightenment — farming, societies to the concepts they live by, and the literacy, astronomy and navigation — as well inequalities they are prepared to endure in as a darker heritage of sacred kingship and the order to preserve those guiding principles”. dynastic cult of the dead. This finding does not bode well for the current Archaeologists have always debated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ■ importance of borrowing and diffusion of Andrew Robinson is a visiting fellow of Wolfson ideas versus that of independent invention and College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge national identity. There is a current fashion for CB3 9BB, UK. He is writing a biography of the exploring the interconnectedness of ancient Early Mesopotamian culture had little overlap with French philologist Jean-François Champollion. civilizations, yet most archaeologists continue that of ancient Egypt, despite their proximity. e-mail: [email protected]