Scientific American, “Echoes from the Big Bang,” January 2001, pp. 38-43; and Nature, “It All Adds Up,” December 19-26, 2002, p. 733.
“Penzias and Wilson’s finding pushed our acquaintance . . .” Guth, p. 101.
“about 1 percent of the dancing static . . .” Gribbin, In the Beginning, p. 18.
“These are very close to religious questions . . .” New York Times, “Before the Big Bang, There Was . . . What?” May 22, 2001, p. F1.
“or one 10 million trillion trillion trillionth . . .” Alan Lightman, “First Birth,” in Shore, Mysteries of Life and the Universe, p. 13.
“He was thirty-two years old . . .” Overbye, p. 216.
“The lecture inspired Guth to take an interest . . .” Guth, p. 89.
“doubling in size every 10-34 seconds.” Overbye, p. 242.
“it changed the universe . . .” New Scientist, “The First Split Second,” March 31, 2001, pp. 27-30.
“perfectly arrayed for the creation of stars . . .” Scientific American, “The First Stars in the Universe,” December 2001, pp. 64-71; and New York Times, “Listen Closely: From Tiny Hum Came Big Bang,” April 30, 2001, p. 1.
“no one had counted the failed attempts.” Quoted by Guth, p. 14.
“He makes an analogy with a very large clothing store . . .” Discover, November 2000.
“with the slightest tweaking of the numbers . . .” Rees, Just Six Numbers, p. 147.
“gravity may turn out to be a little too strong . . .” Financial Times, “Riddle of the Flat Universe,” July 1-2, 2000; and Economist, “The World Is Flat After All,” May 20, 2000, p. 97.
“the galaxies are rushing apart.” Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, p. 34.
“Scientists just assume that we can’t really be the center . . .” Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 47.
“the universe we know and can talk about . . .” Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 13.
“the number of light-years to the edge . . .” Rees, p. 147.
CHAPTER 2 WELCOME TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM
“From the tiniest throbs and wobbles . . .” New Yorker, “Among Planets,” December 9, 1996, p. 84.
“less than the energy of a single snowflake . . .” Sagan, Cosmos, p. 217.
“a young astronomer named James Christy . . .” U.S. Naval Observatory press release, “20th Anniversary of the Discovery of Pluto’s Moon Charon,” June 22, 1998.
“Pluto was much smaller than anyone had supposed,” Atlantic Monthly, “When Is a Planet Not a Planet?” February 1998, pp. 22-34.
“In the words of the astronomer Clark Chapman . . .” Quoted on PBS Nova, “Doomsday Asteroid,” first aired April 29, 1997.
“it took seven years for anyone to spot the moon again . . .” U.S. Naval Observatory press release, “20th Anniversary of the Discovery of Pluto’s Moon Charon,” June 22, 1998.
“. . . after a year’s patient searching he somehow spotted Pluto . . .” Tombaugh paper, “The Struggles to Find the Ninth Planet,” from NASA website.
“there may be a Planet X out there . . .” Economist, “X Marks the Spot,” October 16, 1999, p. 83.
“The Kuiper belt was actually theorized . . .” Nature, “Almost Planet X,” May 24, 2001, p. 423.
“Only on February 11, 1999, did Pluto return . . .” Economist, “Pluto Out in the Cold,” February 6, 1999, p. 85.
“over six hundred additional Trans-Neptunian Objects . . .” Nature, “Seeing Double in the Kuiper Belt,” December 12, 2002, p. 618.
“about the same as a lump of charcoal . . .” Nature, “Almost Planet X,” May 24, 2001, p. 423.
“now flying away from us . . .” PBS NewsHour transcript, August 20, 2002.
“fills less than a trillionth of the available space.” Natural History, “Between the Planets,” October 2001, p. 20.
