Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Ann Finkbeiner: A Grand and Bold Thing


I bought and read this book, because it deals with the history of SDSS, a project that started in late 80s and is now in its third incarnation. As a scientist I spend most of my time working on BOSS, which is part of SDSS3 and so I was interested in reading this, especially given that I wasn't around when the interesting things happened. The book is good for me, because it deals primarily with: a) the horrible politics surrounding such big project and b) the way how SDSS changed the way we do astronomy these days. It doesn't do too much science though and when it does it is neither very accurate nor very well organised or focused. So, if you want to buy it for learning about what SDSS did - don't. Also, there is some stretching of truth here and there. For example, as someone who actually attended a couple of collaboration meetings, I have never heard of anyone referring to ourselves as Sloanies (or Threeons). I have hard time believing Željko Ivezić is the same to LSST as what Jim Gunn was to Sloan (and this is not to say that Željko is not super competent, just that LSST is one big corporate beast run by particle physicist where everyone is replaceable by construction). She completely skips big chunks of exciting science and everything revolves too much around Jim Gunn (yes, he is a walking legend, very intellingent dude, everything is cool, but we should get over personality cults at some point). Still, there are anecdotes in the book to tell on wintery nights in warm pubs and this is why it is still a must read for every one of us.

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