Review of "Cosm" by Gregory Benford
Avon/Eos
Avon Books 1998
0-380-97435-5
344 pages
US$23.00
A Californian particle physicist runs a daring experiment at the RHIC 
on Long Island.  She's smashing uranium atoms together when 
something goes wrong---a violent explosion.  As she picks through the 
wreckage of her equipment, she comes across a featureless silver sphere 
suspended between the guiding magnets of the collider.  She briefly 
considers informing the leaders of the New York lab, but then decides the 
anomaly would be better studied at her home at U. of California-Irvine and 
smuggles it out of the building under a tarp.

Working with her trusty lab assistants, she finds that this oddity isn't a 
simple bubble of steel formed during the uranium collision---she has 
created a universe and the sphere is a window into it.  She names it a 
"Cosm."  As firey visions of galaxies forming and dying appear on the 
surface of her sphere, the politics of her "liberating" the anomaly from 
the New York collider flare up and sweep her along the road to scientific 
kudos and public scorn.

Benford has crafted a clever novel---the astrophysics of the Cosm rarely 
overwhelm the non-technical audience, while the craven power games by 
scientists and science regulatory commissions whirl by, seen from the 
somewhat bemused distance of the narrator's scientific detachment.  Our 
heroine is no Hollywood scientist, though---Dr.  Alicia Butterworth is a 
full-grown human being with the curiosity needed to stare into the 
mysteries of the universe, the arrogance to believe she is the one who 
should be doing it, and the stunted helplessness so many technical people 
feel when dealing with their personal lives outside the lab.

Alicia's problems with men are summed up by a joke she tells to the 
readers---a particle physicist cheats on his wife, and when he tearfully 
confesses his infidelity to explain his weekend absences from his wife, she 
screams, "You liar!  You were in *lab*!"  All through the book, Alicia 
struggles with her inability to deal with anyone who isn't a scientist, but 
also shows she's too canny in science politics to fall for the few men who 
could understand her fascination with invisible particles.

Even with diagrams and some long exposition, I never quite understood how a 
uranium collision could create a new universe.  In a way, though, that isn't 
as important as the thread of the story---a big bang followed by growth, 
then increasing heat and chaos until the tremendous reverse bang at the 
end.  This happens in Alicia's research, in her social life, and of course 
in the eye of the Cosm.

Benford, a scientist himself, knows scientists and paints science as it is 
played by the biggest players---men and women struggling to contribute 
knowledge for the greater good, yet scuffing with one another for grant 
money and attention.  Also, Benford puts together a reasonable conjecture 
on the effect such a discovery would have on the general public, portrayed 
as a short-attentioned, suspicous sleeping dragon that seems to 
deliberately misunderstand the Cosm.  Religious and political leaders (as 
well as many amusing nuts) traipse through Alicia's life, trying to make 
her a casualty in their battles.

I liked this book---it's one of the first books I've read for years that 
kept me away from my own research.  As the story moved faster and faster 
from a wobbly start, I found myself unable to get out of bed and go to 
work.  Thus, my recommendation is to read it, but start early on Sunday 
morning.