Mark Wolverton—Splinters of Infinity: Cosmic Rays and the Clash of Two Nobel Prize-Winning Scientists over the Secrets of Creation

SPLINTERS OF INFINITY:
COSMIC RAYS AND THE CLASH OF
TWO NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING SCIENTISTS
OVER THE SECRETS OF CREATION
Mark Wolverton
MIT Press, March 12, 2024, $29.95
ISBN 13: 9780262048828

Wolverton reports:

After publishing two books in a row on nuclear weapons, I decided I needed a change of pace for the next book, something more benign. I settled on two of my favorite areas, astronomy and history, and became fascinated with the topic of cosmic rays, still something of a mystery over a century after their discovery.

I recalled a historical episode I'd discovered during research for another project about two of America's most eminent scientists, Robert A. Millikan and Arthur H. Compton. In the early 1930s, these Nobel Prize winners became embroiled in a bitter feud over one of the biggest scientific questions of the time: the true nature of cosmic rays. It started as just a professional difference of opinion but soon exploded into a controversy that became a press and public cause célèbre, fueled by the fact that the topic held great scientific, philosophical, and even religious implications about the nature and fate of the universe.

Here was my subject. Not only did it provide a chance to write about astronomy combined with science and cultural history, but I felt that the whole idea of cosmic rays had a poetry, a lyricism, a beauty to it that the gloom and doom of nuclear annihilation decidedly lacks.

After I put together a proposal partly based on a previous magazine article I'd published on the story, my marvelous agent Michelle Tessler sold the book to Jermey Matthews at MIT Press. Unfortunately, that happened just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold and closing down all the libraries and archives I'd counted on visiting for archival research.

As restrictions began to ease somewhat, however, those resources opened up for remote access. A wonderful group of librarians and archivists at Washington University, Caltech, the American Philosophical Society, and MIT Libraries provided me with vast amounts of material electronically. Aside from my book advance, the research and writing of the book were supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Contact info:

• Mark Wolverton: mark@markwolverton.com, http://www.markwolverton.com/
• Book: Splinters of Infinity: Cosmic Rays and the Clash of Two Nobel Prize-Winning Scientists over the Secrets of Creation
• Publicist: Katie Lewis, 1077221 (England), lewisk@mit.edu
• Agent: Michelle Tessler, 212-242-0466, michelle@tessleragency.com

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Banner image adapted from original photo by Mark Wolverton.