Astrophysicist David Elbaz runs the "Cosmology and Evolution of the Galaxies" lab at the French Atomic Energy Commission. He has also written the scripts for several documentaries and shows, and has had two scientific novels published by Odile Jacob: Le Vase de Pépi (“Pépi's Vase”, 2007) and Alice Tao se souvint du future (“And Alice Tao Remembered the Future”, 2010).
After the stupefying advances made in the last century – the discovery of the Big Bang and of the expansion of the universe – is cosmology losing sight of the object of its study? The advent of "dark matter" (invisible, but necessary to explain the movements of the galaxies), of “dark energy” (imperceptible, but indispensable for the acceleration of that expansion), and of those famous “black holes” (which make normal matter disappear like a rabbit going back into a magician’s hat) create an image of an elusive universe, a growing part of which escapes our observation.
Shedding light on what he calls “the dark triad of our own ignorance,” the author is looking for the issues that could shield the universe from our gaze. Is matter really missing? Are our observations incorrect? Are we seeing in just three dimensions a “holographic universe” that actually contains superior ones? This reader-friendly book, which presents critical issues in today’s cosmology, really does offer another way of looking at the universe.