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In 1984 Dr. Richard Muller, Professor of
Physics at the University of California at Berkeley, galvanized
the world with his theory that a killer star -- Nemesis
-- is orbiting the sun, barraging the Earth every 26 million
years with a cataclysmic shower of comets. Now Nemesis:
The Death Star offers Dr: Muller's own account of the
genesis, discovery, and aftermath of this epochal scientific
event.
Though at first greeted with disbelief and
even derision, the Nemesis hypothesis has established itself
as the only viable scientific theory to explain a bewildering
variety of phenomena, in fields ranging from geology to
astronomy to paleontology -- to the dramatic disappearance
of the dinosaurs. In a lively narrative, Dr. Muller tells
the saga of this scientific adventure, from the breakthrough
when he first propounded the hypothesis to his mentor, Nobel
prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, to the painstaking
research and experimentation as he struggled to evolve a
coherent theory around the initial insight, to the battle
for scientific acceptance after the publication of his article,
to the still reverberating impact of his discovery on the
scientific community.
In the tradition of James Watson and Lewis
Thomas, Nemesis: The Death Star is the story of a
major scientific breakthrough, by the brilliant scientist
responsible for the event. It is at once a fascinating autobiographical
narrative and a gripping intellectual adventure about how
science actually works -- at the highest level and from
the inside.
Dr. Richard A. Muller, Professor of Physics
at the University of California at Berkeley and Faculty
Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, is
the recipient of the Alan Waterman Award, the highest award
bestowed by the National Science Foundation; the MacArthur
Foundation Prize Fellowship; and the Texas Instruments Foundation
Founders Prize. Dr. Muller lives in California with his
wife and two children.
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