by Stuart Clark
Other sources of mine include: The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak, E=mc2 by David Bodanis, The Born–Einstein Letters 1916–1955 by Max Born, Tycho Brahe’s Path to God by Max Brod, Afterglow of Creation by Marcus Chown, Edwin Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae by G E Christanson, Einstein’s Jury: The Race to Test Relativity by Jeffrey Crelinsten, Einstein’s Nobel Prize: A Glimpse behind Closed Doors by Aant Elzinga, Cecilia PayneGaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (Katherine Haramundanis, ed.), Einstein in Berlin by Thomas Levenson, Einstein’s Mistakes: The Human Failings of a Genius by Hans C Ohanian, Edwin Hubble, the Discoverer of the Big Bang Universe by Alexander Sharov and Igor Novikov, Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of all Time and Why You Need to Know about It by Simon Singh and also www.firstworldwar.com.
And, of course, the writings of the men themselves: Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein, The Primeval Atom: An Essay on Cosmogony by Georges Lemaître.
This is the final book in the Sky’s Dark Labyrinth trilogy. As with the previous two volumes I have distilled certain events in the hope of serving the story better. In doing this I have learnt that both art and science are about reducing a plethora of specific experience, observations or details into a general truth that can be shared. I hope that in my presentation of these characters and events I have found some of their truths.
In the narrative, I have used my characters’ estimates for distances to the celestial objects and the age of the Universe. The modern values are that the Andromeda galaxy is roughly 2.5 million light years away, and the age of the Universe is approximately 13.7 billion years.
This time around I did not have to invent a fictional character to help fill in the blanks that are missing from the stories, and I was helped immeasurably by photographs of the protagonists. Seeing the emotions caught on their faces provided powerful inspiration.
I have lived and worked with this trilogy for the better part of a decade now, and there seems to be no slowing down in people’s interest in the project. Thanks to everyone who has shown support and understood the motivation for writing this story in fictional form.
Science is a human endeavour, and so is storytelling. Let us continue to tell stories about science to entertain and inspire.
Thanks in particular go to: Peter Tallack, Hugh Andrew, Neville Moir, Maria White, Alison Rae, Jan Rutherford, Kenny Redpath, James Hutcheson, Sarah Morrison, Vikki Reilly, Anna Renz, Edward Crossan, Duran Kim, Hamish Macaskill, Anna Rantanen, Kim McArthur, Ruth Seeley and Nic Cheetam.