
Taking the Back off the Watch
A Personal Memoir
Thomas Gold(Author)
Simon Mitton(Editor)
Springer (Publisher)
Published on 24. May 2012
Book
Hardback
XVIII, 234 pages
978-3-642-27587-6 (ISBN)
Description
Thomas Gold (1920-2004) had a curious mind that liked to solve problems. He was one of the most remarkable astrophysicists in the second half of the twentieth century, and he attracted controversy throughout his career. Based on a full-length autobiography left behind by Thomas Gold, this book was edited by the astrophysicist and historian of science, Simon Mitton (University of Cambridge).The book is a retrospective on Gold's remarkable life. He fled from Vienna in 1933, eventually settling in England and completing an engineering degree at Trinity College in Cambridge. During the war, he worked on naval radar research alongside Fred Hoyle and Hermann Bondi - which, in an unlikely chain of events, eventually led to his working with them on steady-state cosmology. In 1968, shortly after their discovery, he provided the explanation of pulsars as rotating neutron stars.In his final position at Cornell, he and his colleagues persuaded the US Defense Department to fund theconversion of the giant radio telescope at Arecibo in Puerto Rico into a superb instrument for radio astronomy. Gold's interests covered physiology, astronomy, cosmology, geophysics, and engineering.Written in an intriguing style and with an equally intriguing foreword by Freeman Dyson, this book constitutes an important historical document, made accessible to all those interested in the history of science.
Reviews / Votes
"Gold discusses cosmology in three relatively brief sections of Taking the Back Off the Watch: A Personal Memoir. . Taking the Back Off the Watch is likely to prove a useful source for historians of science of the post-World War II period." (Robert W. Smith, ISIS, Vol. 106 (2), June, 2015)
More details
Series
Edition
2012 ed.
Language
English
Place of publication
Berlin
Germany
Publishing group
Springer Berlin
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Research
Illustrations
XVIII, 234 p.
Dimensions
Height: 23.5 cm
Width: 15.5 cm
Weight
535 gr
ISBN-13
978-3-642-27587-6 (9783642275876)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-27588-3
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
06/2014
Springer
€106.99
Shipment within 7-9 days

E-Book
05/2012
1st Edition
Springer
€96.29
Available for download
Content
Foreword by Freeman Dyson.- Introduction by Simon Mitton.- School Years in Troubled Times.- Wartime Student Days.- Wartime Work for the British Navy.- Return to Cambridge: The Citadel of Learning.- Appointment at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.- Move to America.- Move to Cornell.- The Pulsar Era.- NASA: The Love-Hate Relationship.- The origin of Petroleum on Earth.- Earthquakes.-Unfinished Business.