The Disordered Cosmos

Chanda Prescod Weinstein, 2021

See how wonder, power, race, labor, and survival shape physics, and why a freer science must redistribute authority while protecting everyone’s right to the night sky.

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5 parts, about 16 minutes to read.

Why read it

Joins clear explanations of dark matter and cosmology with a hard look at who gets to do science
Shows how metaphors, archives and credit decide which scientists are remembered and which are erased
A theoretical physicist writes from her own life as a Black queer woman, refusing to split physics from politics

Who it is for

Readers curious about dark matter and the early universe
Scientists and students facing exclusion in academia
People following disputes over observatories on Indigenous land

What the summary covers

Wonder from a Situated Place3 min
An Uncertain, Collective Cosmos3 min
Matter, Race and the Power of Metaphor3 min
Who Gets to Practice Science and Survive It3 min
What Science Is For4 min

Recommended by

Sean CarrollAuthor of Something Deeply Hidden
Eye-opening, provocative, and ultimately inspiring: if we can grasp the enormity of the cosmos, surely we can look within ourselves and try to be better to each other.
Ruha BenjaminAuthor of Race After Technology
Breathtakingly expansive and intimate…. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a griot of the universe
John GreenAuthor of The Anthropocene Reviewed
It is just brilliant; I have never read anything like it.

About the author

Chanda Prescod WeinsteinTheoretical cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire
- Born in Los Angeles and grew up in the eastside neighborhood of El Sereno
- Earned a BA in physics and astronomy at Harvard College in 2003
- Completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Waterloo in 2010
- Named in Nature's list of ten people who helped shape science in 2020
- Core faculty in women's and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire alongside physics and astronomy