Secrets Of The Hoary Deep: A Personal History Of Modern Astronomy

摘要

Secrets of the Hoary Deep is the story of Riccardo Giacconi's scientific journey from crude cloud chamber experiments in the postwar University of Milan to the discovery and seminal work in understanding X-rays as a fundamental astrophysical phenomenon. Giaconni's lifelong quest leads to some of the most profound insights that have shaped modern day astronomy. Yet the book is much more than that. It is a story of the evolution of modern day scientific management and major policy shifts that have enabled the science itself to succeed. Giacconi's personal role and his views on these advances are crucial in understanding how modern day astronomy is actually done.rnSecrets of the Hoary Deep is a literary reference to Milton's Paradise Lost, and aptly describes the primeval chaos at the universe edge that astronomers have attempted to comprehend. Giacconi's personal mission statement is modeled around "studying the Hoary Deep at cosmological distances with the greatest sensitivity and angular resolution in hopes of solving the mystery of the X-ray background and studying the formation and evolution of the earliest structures in the universe".