Astronomy Books

The central theme of this scientist's theory is summarized in the last sentence of the book.

"The stars and galaxies that fill our view as we survey the depths of the universe are really just a froth delineating the massive, dark unseen structures beneath."

He is telling us that almost all of the matter of the universe is hidden from our view. All of the stars we see just account for 10% of the matter in the universe. The other 90% is invisible.

How does he arrive at this conclusion? A certain amount of mass is necessary to provide enough gravitational force to balance the opposite force in the universe, the force that drives stars away from each other. Without this mass, the stars would be hurtling off into space, not forming galaxies.

And the stars we can see only account for 10% of the necessary mass. What is the other 90%?

He answers this too. The other 90% of the matter of the universe is composed of black holes the size of beach balls and the mass of Jupiter.

What leads him to say that? He'll explain it all to you. It has to do with variations in the light of far-away quasars. He believes that this light is varying because it is being seen through the "lens" of a lot of little black holes that happen to exist in the line of sight between us and those quasars.

What is a quasar? What does baryonic mean? What is a black hole? What is inflation? There is a terrific glossary near the back of the book. It might be the best part of the book. You will learn a lot just from taking your time browsing through the glossary.

It is mind-boggling to me that all these millions of little black holes would have formed within the first millionth of a second of the universe's existence.

If there is a creator, she was certainly not hurried by our conception of time. She came from a place that isn't hampered by time constrictions.

He addresses the debate between the Big Bang and the Steady State theories, and he believes that the Big Bang necessarily supports the existence of a creator while the Steady State does not. I don't really see his point there.

If you choose to believe in a creator (and I can't think of a reason why you should back away from that idea, except for being utterly fed up with the nonsense of Noah chasing around the arctic to kidnap polar bears and haul them to the Middle East in a damn hurry) you are pretty well stuck with her (the creator) even with the Steady State theory. Wouldn't she have been the one who made the stars in the first place? That's her job, no?

This book also leaves us with the cheery thought that the world's scientists tend to be stubborn, jealous, impressed by status, rarely objective, and a bunch of annoying crapheads. Thank you for letting us know. It renews my faith in humanity.

British astrophysicist Hawkins presents his theory as to what makes up the missing mass (dark matter). Primordial black holes - small massive objects that are all but invisible to any attempt to perceive them. They are detectable only by their gravitational influence, which Hawkins believes he has found by examining the variability of light from quasars. All quasars apparently have this variability, which to this point has always been accepted as intrinsic to to the quasar.

Hawkins treats us to the theory only after 130 pages of his own views of the evolution of cosmological thought, complete with his take on the feuds, backbiting, and troubled waters of academic squabbling. His insights are interesting and his book a pleasure to read, but I had the troubling impression that I was being treated to someone else's dirty laundry all the while, though that's the way science works I suppose. Among opinions he expresses that ring true is that of the "HST bias," that results which come from HST observations are somehow given automatic priority over those of ground-based observations, a bias which is clearly not always warranted.

The most interesting part of his book, for me, was his detailed descriptions of his own observational programs - using a series of Schmidt plates of a single patch of sky, accumulated over a period of years, to search for faint variable stars. His hopes were to find microlensing events to bolster his theory. He ended up finding lots of previously unknown quasars, and finding new patterns of quasar variability spanning years, not months or weeks.

Hawkins is an unabashed UK promoter. I had to grin at many of his descriptions of the superior astronomy of the UK. He has a lot to brag about though.

Pretty good if your scientist! It isn't really a good source of information about blackholes, but if your looking for a nice scientific debate...this is the book for you! It mostly discusses arguments. Thats about it. See what you think.

Hawkins spends the first nearly two-thirds of the book going over some of the history of cosmology and astronomy and the personalities of some of the great historical figures. He clearly shows that if an idea is not acceptable to the "community" (of astronomers, cosmologists, physicists, etc.), it will most likely be rejected out-of-hand regardless of its potential validity or usefulness. The last third of the book is an explanation of his own theory of the missing matter question. While this book is interesting and historically enlightening, Hawkins spends a good deal of time taking pot shots at the powers -that-be. It is evident after the first couple of chapters that his theory is not taken seriously enough. One cannot help but agree with Hawkins that certain scientists are unpublished and/or unpopular because their ideas conflict with or diametrically oppose the accepted main stream. This close-mindedness and protectionist attitude toward scientific theories needs to be made public and Hawkins expresses himself in a manner that is not off-putting or whiney; he is always professional. If one is looking for a good, easy to read insider's view of historical and current astronomy, cosmology and physics, this is a good book with which to start. I gave it a 9 only because it took him so darned long to get to his theory.

I received this book right when I was told I would, and it was perfect! I ordered it for a professor, so I didn't read it myself, but he is happy with it!

I was looking for an introduction on stochastic systems when
I found by chance this book. It was exactly what I was looking for. This is an excellent introduction to that subject. I enjoyed reading
the text and doing the exercises (I did them all, just for the
fun of it). I also bought most of the books the author gives as references, and I must say, those books are also excellent. If you buy this book, you are not going to have regrets. Congratulations to the author!

It is a pity that Ito Calculus is never taught in the physics curriculum (graduate or undergraduate), and learning it properly requires more advanced mathematics. This book won't overcome this deficit, however, it'll give the physicist an excellent intro to stochastic processes and practical (ready-to-use) methods for solving stochastic differential equations. I am amazed at how easy it is to read this book, and how clever and concise the presentation is. Definitely worth 5 stars for these 128 pages of text. Well worth the price tag. Get the hardcover if you want the book to last because you may refer to it again and again. It's a shame it took so long for a book of the sort to be made available.

This book is a perfect introduction to Stochastic Process for Physicists.However it is only an introduction.Our friends Economists are much ahead of us Physicists in the use of stochastic process . So for example the book do not explain ITO calculus and therefore the reader never knows that the stochastic differential equation is just symbolic. That the integrals involving paths do not exist and have to be interpreted like ITO or Stratonovich. I recomend another book like the one by Thomas Mikoshch or the one by Fima Klebaner for further studies

This author is one of the most briliant, the most optimistic, and the most enthusiastic writer in all of physics, and in this book, his competence as a physicist and his deep fascination with the physical world is brought out dramatically. He is clearly a man who is feeling a powerful sense of exhiliration of the discoveries now taking place in all areas of knowledge. His foundation and his theme in the book is a simple geometric principle, namely that the boundary of a boundary is zero. He then guides the reader, assumed to have a rudimentary knowledge of mathematics, in a splendid presentation of the power of this principle in gravitational physics.

The first chapter is an overview of the history behind the subject, via the work of people who contributed to our current understanding of gravity. And then, with a masterfull use of diagrams he gives the reader a taste of the simplicity of the equivalence principle and the need to tack on an additional dimension (time) to the 3-dimensional space of everyday experience. The Pound-Rebka experiment is discussed as one that illustrates the idea of the spacetime interval, and the role of time dilation is discussed via the possibility of practical space travel. And such enthusiasm in his dialog: "the universe will grow ever more exciting", he says, and looking at the developments now taking place in today's science, he is indeed correct.

Chapter 4 gives a fascinating overview of what the author calls the boomerang, which illustrates the action of curvature on nearby test masses. This thought experiment involves the motion of a spacecraft through an imaginary tunnel through the Earth. The author analyzes the motion from the standpoint of Newtonian physics and general relativity. Curvature as the "grammar of gravity" is the topic of the next chapter, with illustrations of the paths of ants on spaces of zero, positive, and negative curvature. A very intuitive treatment of parallel transport around a closed path on a curved surface is given. The tides are discussed as a natural manifestation of the gravitational influence of the Moon on Earth.

Must difficult for a layman to understand is how spacetime acts on masive objects, but the author explains it brilliantly in the next chapter, taught via the concept of "momenergy". This entity is a 4-vector, and the author uses it to show how its creation in a spacetime region can be written as the sum of 8 terms, reflecting the fact that the "boundary" of a four-dimensional block in spacetime consists of eight three-dimensional cubes. That the contents of these cubes sum to zero is the famous "boundary of a boundary is zero", which is discussed in the next chapter. This chapter is one of the best explanations ever given (at this level) of the physics behind spacetime curvature and massive objects. The actual mathematical quantification of curvature is detailed in chapters 8 and 9, using elementary mathematics. The author discusses nicely the famous Scharwzschild geometry.

Concepts of a more concrete nature are discussed in chapter 10, wherein the author discusses the famous Pound-Rebka experiment and planetary motion. This is followed by a discussion of the elusive gravitational waves in chapter 11. Again with a clever use of illustrations, the author explains the transverse property of gravitational waves, and compares gravitational waves with electromagnetic waves. The role of the quadrupole moment in the creation of gravitational waves is brought out briliantly by the author. He discusses briefly various attempts to detect gravitational waves.

Black holes are the topic of chapter 12, wherein the famous Penrose process for extracting energy from a black hole is discussed, and the "no-hair" theorem for black holes. A neat symbolic representation of the Bekenstein number of a black hole is given. The role of the Hawking process, connection quantum processes with the physics of black holes is briefly discussed. The author ends the book with a look at the expansion of the universe, the missing mass problem, and another very interesting topic that has gained much attention recently: the concept of gravitomagnetism. This is a "weak-field" prediction of general relativity, and predicts that the rotation of the Earth should influence the motion of orbiting satellites. This topic is currently bringing together ideas such as the quantum Zeno effect, Mach's principle, and the notorious "frame dragging" effect in general relativity. Experiments do measure it are currently in play and in the proposal stage, namely the LAGEOS and LAGEOS II experiments, which measure the gravitomagnetic orbital perturbation, which is known as the Lense-Thirring effect.

This is a beautiful, poetic, and generous book. I found that after reading and mulling over each section, I could eventually visualize how space was behaving under the influence of mass, and could also see why one needed to choose one's point of view carefully to understand the physics.

The book is intended as an introduction to general relativity, without much tensor formalism, but it does not neglect the geometrical underpinnings. It presents a very nice way to get at the physics, with creative and light-hearted diagrams.

I'm not so sure that Wheeler's own poems, which introduce many of the chapters, are a great success, but I admire and salute him for including them. Even his poetry helps to open additional doors to understanding general relativity.

A book that is truly beautiful.

This is truely an amazing book. Wheeler does for General Relativity what Hawking did for Cosmology in "A Brief History of Time", and in some sense they are similar books. However Wheeler has a unique, quirky style of writing that makes the book an entertaining adventure to read.

Wheeler is able to pull off a major accomplishment: He explains Einstein's General Relativity in a clear, straightforward manner, with a minimum of math. It's "conventional wisdom" that General Relativity is seriously serious stuff, the domain of hardcore Physics geeks. That doesn't faze Wheeler. He leads the reader along, gleefully pointing out the scenery, making it all look quite simple and understandable. And then all of a sudden, when you least expect it, you find he's derived and presented Einstein's field equations with only a teensy-tiny bit of algebra! Even if you know this stuff already, his presentation makes you think about it with a new perspective.

And did I mention the illustrations? They are really exceptional.

If you have any interest or dealings with GR, ya gotta have this book!

The interrelation of gravity and spacetime is a formidable subject to describe; the author does so with excellence. The diagrams and charts reinforce the understanding.

Unfortunately when a key subject left me rather clueless, (Boundary of a Boundary) I spent quite a few frustrated hours being uncertain on whether or not to continue reading without the support of the material on those pages. As it turned out, the subject became clearer once I read on and returned again. I never did grasp it as completely as the rest of the book.

The book contains the most enlightening description of transverse wave propagation I've ever seen. It also helps solidify one's understanding of interval and relativity.

Not a book to be read overnight.

I got this book at the library and when I started reading it I couldn't stop reading. I learned that it is about 480 million miles from the sun. I've read other Seymour Simon books but this is the best so far. I also liked Venus. If you want to learn more read the book.

Gorgeous color photos, most from NASA illustrate this book about Jupiter. I appreciate that Seymour Simon writes matter-of-factly, without a patronizing attitude. There are plenty of facts about Jupiter and each of itsý four closest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

I am impressed by the entire series of picture books by Seymour Simon and our family has been enjoying his books, one about each planet, which we are using as part of our homeschooling. I have found that many of the books that attempt to cover all topics about space end up skimping on important general information that Simon easily communicates, such as the temperature and how it compares to Earth, why humans could not survive on the planet, and the general weather conditions and how they compare. The way these comparisons are made really helps children understand the conditions on the planets. This series by Simon is also superior to other books about Jupiter because the photos are in color; they are real, stunning photos, not lame illustrations drawn by hand.

I highly recommend that any parent read these books to their children. Teachers and homeschoolers would find this book a wonderful book to use while teaching about Jupiter.

This book is abut Jupiter.Did you know it has sixteen moons?There are other books in this series.They are all about the solar system.I gave this book four stars.Read it if you want to find out more about Jupiter.

Jupiter, by Seymour Simon is a very educational, easy to read book talking about our Solar System's largest planet. I especially liked all the interesting facts mentioned i this book and it was an informational and short read. Some of the facts that I found fasciating in this book were that Jupiter is one-and-one-half times as big as the other eiht planets put together, Jupiter's atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen gas, and the temperature is 250 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. This book also has some really good pages describing Jupiter's moons, an extremely informative page describing the Great Red Spot- Jupiter's super-hurricane more than twice the size of Earth-, and a page on the thin ring encircling this super-planet. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants detailed information on our largest planet. The color photographs in this book are amazing and really cool to look at.

This biography is simply the best on the life and trials of Johannes Kepler.Anyone,who is exploring the field of astronomy,should invest their time in reading this great book.It's the fascinating story of a genius scientist having to deal with the heretical zeitgeist and relentless religious persecution of his times.Ironically,more from his own protestant leadership rather than the catholic church.Kepler was like the modern Socrates during this epoch leading to the Age of Reason. Kepler supported the Greek Copernican world model,which was in direct oppossion to the teachings of all christian-jewish European schools.Kepler did not want to 'drag the owls of knowledge to Athens',yet to bring their greek pagan wisdom to the heart of the European centers of learning.This is just an excellent book for any astute historian with a budding interest in the laws of the stars above us.

Although written in 1948, Caspar's biography is today still the most comprehensive attempt to portray the person of Kepler in a unified manner. This work reflects Caspar's lifetime of work dedicated to Kepler's many publications, manuscripts, and correspondences, and, thanks to additional citations made by editor Owen Gingerich, the reader may now find where nearly all of these passages derive from. Both the common reader and serious student may benefit from this book, for it combines Kepler's scientific studies with the deeply personal conflicts of an early modern genius. Caspar's biography is fundamental not only for studies made on Kepler, but also for the Scientific Revolution in general.

Like the other reviewers have said, this book is simply the best combination of an account of Kepler's life, theories, and works.

....about Kepler, you must have this book. Period.

This is a beautifully written and deeply evocative book on the subject of the lunar nodes in Vedic astrology. Prash Trivedi generously reveals some of the of the erstwhile secrets of the Brahman class of Indian astrologers by writing in a format which is lucid, extremely articulate, highly creative, and very well organized. In addition, (and so unlike most Vedic astrological texts by Indian authors), this book is actually FUN to read!! One is never forced to plow through page after page of basically unreadable verbiage in order to detect glimmers of decipherable wisdom about Vedic astrology, but rather it is all right there, up front, and presented in a highly straight forward manner. The case studies are richly and comprehensively developed, and there is no assumption of reader expertise or prerequisite understanding. The nodes come to life in this smoothly crafted work, and Mr. Trivedi's wealth of experiential wisdom and human compassion shine through on every page. Add to that the fact that new concepts and new information abound in this work, and it becomes one of the very best in the field. Do you know what your 'Karmic Distribution Control Planet' is? Find out in 'The Key of Life: Astrology of the Lunar Nodes,' a work which is brilliant in every conceivable aspect. ~ Alison Spalding, Ph.D.

What an incredibly insightful book !!!!
It really got me thinking and growing from all these informations. I learned a lot from it, and I am paying attention
to the sky much more than before... One of the best book on Indian Astrology

Prash Trivedi, India's most insightful young astrologer offers what is probably the longest, most researched and most original book on Rahu and Ketu published in modern times. This book is worthy of serious examination by all students of Astrology and all those interested in the great mysteries of life, death, karma and transformation.

I would like to make a sincere comment about this book because it deserves a great deal of praise. It is the best book on the lunar nodes to be written in this century. It discusses the spiritual and collective importance of the nodes and how they work in our own personal destinies. The book contains analysis' of hundreds of notable and famous personalities. One can spend a year reading it because it is so jampacked with insights, knowledge and mind ripping stuff. David Frawley, the well known Vedic scholar puts it best when he writes in the forward -

"Prash Trivedi, India's most insightful young astrologer offers what is probably the longest, most researched and most original book on Rahu and Ketu published in modern times. This book is worthy of serious examination by all students of Astrology and all those interested in the great mysteries of life, death, karma and transformation."

In addition to my own personal comments I would like to enclose some of the comments of other readers who have approached my website.

"I recently purchased the book "The Key of Life" and wish to thank the author deeply. He has filled the book with many sparks of brilliance -- making it very illuminating. "

- Hank Friedman, Astrologer from USA

"The book "The Key of Life", arrived fast and promptly .....and I read in it every day !! I must say that it is a very clear and straightforward book ... very easy to read and with TONS of information..!! I am very pleased to have one in my care..!!! "

- Kerstin Jansson from Portugal

"I have gone through the book "The Key of Life" and I have found it very illuminating and excellent book. "

- Ashok Agrawal, India

"I am very impressed with the book so far and wanted to congratulate the author on a well thought out thesis on the nodes. I have read about a third of this book in the first day and it is unusual for a book to hold my interest. "

- Andrew Lynn , moderator of the Muruga Astrological Research Group, Western Australia

"I have read this book and it is one of the best books on Rahu & Ketu."

- Vineet Gupta, Astrologer from India

"I have just finished reading this book and must follow the impulse to congratulate the author and thank him for writing it. HIs theory in particular about the nodes being linked to ones grandparents and ones genetic inheritance is truly amazing. I have never read any account of the nodes which is so exhaustive and he ought to be congratulated over and over again for writing this. "

- Kumkum Jain, Writer-Publisher from India

The book, "The Key of Life" was one of the first books I ordered from India. I *so* enjoyed your book. Thank you.

- Robyn, Editor of Jyotish Discovery - Online Jyotish Magazine

When I was about 3, my parents took me to see "2001" and I was told that, by 2001, we could buy tickets to the Moon. Later on, I was just old enough to understand that the Moon landing was a "big thing". Close to 40 years on, I've watched 2 shuttles blow up, the Hubble near-disaster and loss of spacecraft due to software confusion between imperial and metric units. Most of all, I am appalled by the ongoing waste of money, including Canadian tax money, that is the International Space Station. NASA seems to have lost its touch, despite occasional successes. Why?

As a layman, this is as good a place as any to find out, though the book gives no easy answers and is rather dry reading. The author, a scientist, worked on the project for 20 years till it launched. He is clearly frustrated by project's duration, constant reviews, cost-cutting and changing agendas. Nevertheless, he also recognizes the need for both cost cutting and reviews. Spaceships are unique in that they are extremely complex machines that are produced only once, using essentially skilled artisan techniques rather than mass-production engineering. Worse, once launched, there is little that can be done to correct defects. A wonder they work at all. That gives you some sympathy for the amount of administration, reviews and documentation at NASA. Ideally, every possible contingency needs to be anticipated and accounted for. Unfortunately, that costs lots of money.

Despite suffering from its fads, Mr. Rieke does not dismiss "better, cheaper, faster". What he seems to say is that, up until a certain level of cost, complexity and novelty, a space mission can be carried out with streamlined management and control. Especially if the project is not put under undue time pressure. Past that level of complexity and cost, more formal and thorough management is needed to palliate mission risks. He also highlights interesting misconceptions about where the real mission risks are, statistically. Overall, you are left with the impression that managing spaceflights is not amenable to easy answers. Personally, I think more extra-agency competition would help in avoiding groupthink.

Reading this book, it seems that there are really 2 NASA. One, the unmanned scientific branch, is extremely competitive (in the old sense of the word), quite short of money and almost too careful in funding scientific missions. It fails, often, but also advances scientific knowledge. The other one, which is only glancingly mentioned, but not without veiled contempt, is "big NASA" (my nickname).

"Big NASA" badgers scientific missions into using their pretty shuttles, whether that makes sense or not. "Big NASA" spends $100 billion on the shuttles and the International Space Station, with dubious scientific returns, but takes 20 years to fund a $700 million satellite. "Big NASA" wants to put men on Mars and a station on the Moon, whether they are useful or not.

Quoting p.25 "The space station was starting to eat up a huge part of NASA's budget. An attempt to rally scientists and others to oppose the station in Congress led to a dramatic demonstration of the power of the professional aerospace lobby over the amateurish scientific one - the station was easily victorious." Not dated, but circa 1994 apparently. p.88 - "It appears the $14 million we got extra was really a way for headquarters to hide money they wanted to spend on the space station" (1998).

For those interested in management techniques, the author dissects how the project was managed. It certainly shows that _good_, respectful and technically savvy management is a huge help - something many of my fellow software programmers forget all too easily.

What is a bit left out in all this are the scientific aspects of the Spitzer telescope. That wasn't a big deal for me however, because I was more interested in understanding one view of NASA's problems.

The Last Of The Great Observatories: Spitzer And The Era Of Faster, Better, Cheaper At NASA is the story of the last of the four "Great Observatories" that tell modern scientists more about the stars, planets, and galaxies beyond our own; the other three are the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Developed over twenty years and nicknamed the "Infrared Hubble", Spitzer launched in 2003 to resounding scientific success. The Last Of The Great Observatories tells of the long history and creation of Spitzer, from its lengthy planning to its reflection of the desire to get it done "better, faster, cheaper" to complications plaguing its launch and more. An excellent, smartly written contribution to astronomy history shelves.

The Hubble is the most famous of the satellite observatories. But it was actually only one of four, the so called 'Great Observatories.' This excellent book tells the story of the last of the four, the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer operates in the infrared part of the spectrum (Hubble - Visible Light, Chandra - X-Ray, Compton - Gamma Ray).

The idea for the Spitzer began in 1983 with a proposal that NASA spend $2 billion for the project. The key to this book is the twenty years that it took to get it to fly in 2003. Here's the inside story of what it takes to get one project through the NASA system. It makes for excellent reading.

There isn't much in the book about the astronomy that the Spitzer does, and just a few color pictures would help. After all, it is the pictures that have kept the Hubble in the public's eye. But you can fix this by browsing to [...]

Dr. Rieke, a professor at the University of Arizona, was one of the people who worked on the original proposal in 1983 and is still with the project. He also knows how to spin a good tale.

As a former IR astronomer and author of several space mission proposals, I already knew some of the information in this book. But I still found it to be a fascinating window into the arcane and Byzantine process by which NASA produces complex scientific spacecraft. SIRTF/Spitzer took 20 years from announcement to launch, and it went through more fundamental changes in design and survived more NASA management fads than any spacecraft in history. Somehow Professor Rieke managed not to lose his sense of humor during this torture.

The impression one gets from reading this account is the whole system for selecting and funding NASA missions is fundamentally broken and needs to be totally overhauled. The amount of effort and money wasted on mission concepts that were abandoned is astonishing. Spitzer only worked because IR detector technology improved by a factor of 10,000 during its development cycle (mostly due to military-funded research).

I also was surprised at the number of dumb mistakes made by experienced engineers. The main contractor for the Spitzer instrument package was Ball Aerospace, who have a mixed reputation for competence. Clearly this mission was not one of their high points. Ball's pre-launch testing program seems to have caused more problems than it cured.

A lot of trouble was caused by defective components supplied by sub-contractors (which under the insane rules of the time could not be tested by the prime contractor or NASA). It seems incredible to me that after 40 years of building space probes, it is not possible to obtain basic parts like wiring harnesses and gas valves that aren't riddled with defects. There is no indication that the vendors of these defective parts were sued for damages, denied award fees, or placed on some NASA blacklist.

Everybody interested in space mission planning should read this book. You may laugh, you may cry, but you will learn a lot.

Needed this for a college class, the bookstore on campus didn't sell the textbook and workbook (this product) separately, so I bought it here. It isn't the best book for learning or supplemental material for that matter, but if you need it for class, you need it for class

This item was in excellent condition and came in a timely manner. It helped a lot with my class.

Adam's "Lecture Tutorials" collection is an excellent suppliment to any astronomy textbook. While most text books include a couple of introductory chapters on naked-eye astronomy the material included is often surface deep at best and downright confusing at worst. Much of this is because the topics covered (i.e.-the celestial sphere, daily and yearly motions of the stars, sun and moon, etc) are highly abstract and require activities that force the student to move away from memorization towards an understand of the apparent motions and what causes them.

The Lecture Tutorials are a test ed set of just such activities based on a wealth of astronomy education research. They can be used in both large scale classes and smaller groups to get students to work through the difficult misconceptions and misunderstands that oftentimes beset the subjects being studied.

The activities range throughout the standard astronomy curriculum but, in my opinion, the best activites are those that focus on the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon and stars.

I recommend this to any student trying to better understand the subject and for any educator who wants help moving their students from "fun facts" to deeper understanding.

It's been a long coming, but it's finally here! Astronomy instructors and authors have produced a wonderfully readable and thoroughly comprehensible introduction to the science of astronomy. Each topic in this book really is a mini-tutorial as proclaimed by the cover title. The book format is actually written in a laboratory worksheet fashion (the sheets can be detached from the book along their perforated edges) with each worksheet dedicated to a specific astronomy concept (e.g., position, motion, Keplar's Third Law, etc.). One pass through this ingeniously designed "book of tutorials" and the beginner to the wonderful world of the cosmo is truly ready to move on to more advanced astronomy books and/or astronomy courses. My congratulations (and gratitude) to the Pearson Addison-Wesley Publishing Company for making the concept of learning enjoyable once again.

If you are at all interested in astronomy, but recoiled away from the subject after opening a typical "introductory" college textbook, then you would do yourself a tremendous favor by purchasing this book. You won't be disappointed!

I bought this book for my grandson who just started second grade. He said science was his least favorite subject. He was reading the book by himself when I visited. He loves to read and he likes the book.

The concept of day and night is discussed in grades 2 and 3. This book is a great supplemental text to help increase children's understanding of this concept. Great text and pictures.

My five-year-old grandson likes this book and my two-year old granddaughter looks along. Answers some of his gazillion questions in a manageable way.

If your child is interested in science, they will enjoy this book. It combines colorful drawings with actual photographs to explane the earth's rotation in a simple, understandable way. It is also a part of the Harcourt reading series for second grade, and a wonderful addition to your home library.

This is a really expensive paperback, but it should have an honored place in your home, next to your dictionary, your atlas, your Roget's Thesaurus and your Holy Bible, Koran or any other book that is important to you.

Its opening chapter, "A Universe of Life," is awe-inspiring, summoning up as it does the almost-endless, vast reaches of known creation and inviting us to consider how MUCH there is out there that might be home to any form of life --from the submicroscopic to beings, well, something like us (although not much of the book is given over to the latter possibillity).

It tackles the place of religion, too, in all of this -- including Creationism and its offshoots -- and gives you some pretty good reasons for setting aside your feelings and just going along for the scientific ride in this 346-page stunner (plus appendixes).

The artwork is superb. Worth the price of admission by itself.

So, drag out the old credit card and put yourself even deeper into literary debt, because you will return to this book again and again over the years.

This book seems to have two goals. One is to teach the reader something about astrobiology. The other is to be a text for a science course for college undergraduates (in most cases, underclassmen majoring in something other than science).

The book begins by discussing how stars and planets are formed. And then comes a major point: biology may be common in the universe given evidence that organic molecules form fairly easily, life appears to have originated early in the Earth's history, and there's evidence that Earth life can survive under a wide range of conditions.

Next, there's a section on the nature of science and the scientific method. And then some material on the definition and nature of life. From there we go to the Earth's geological record. And there's a useful discussion of greenhouse gases, possible high surface temperatures on Earth when life first developed, and a possible "Snowball Earth" much later.

Now comes a key chapter: how did life get started? And when. The text shows that it was not all that long after the Earth emerged from forming and being heavily bombarded. And that hyperthermophiles may well have been the common ancestor of life on Earth today. The book speculates that the process was: synthesis of organic precursor molecules, development of replicators (RNA), development of protocells (enclosing membranes), primitive cells (the RNA world), and then DNA-based cells. It also addresses the question of whether life could have migrated to Earth from Mars or elsewhere. There's a discussion of the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere. And how primitive life evolved into the intelligent life that now exists.

These are certainly the right topics to start with. But I wish this book, even with the constraint of being for non-science majors, had gone into just a little more detail on all of them. It does just that on the rest of the topics.

The book continues with an excellent section about possibilities of life elsewhere in our planetary system, including the environmental requirements. We look at Mars (including evidence from Martian meteorites), Jovian moons, and Titan. And we see why Venus is too close to the Sun to be in the "habitable zone."

After that, there is a discussion of extrasolar planets and the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence. If anything, there is an excess of material here, including speculations about the possible technology levels of an intelligent society and interstellar travel. But this does lead to a worthwhile discussion of the Fermi paradox: if there are relatively nearby extraterrestrials, why aren't they here by now?

Writing an overview of this field for non-science majors is a daunting task, and I think the authors did a really good job. After reading such a book, I think one will find it much easier to understand any advances made in this field in the future.

This is the ONE Science Textbook I will keep forever and ever.

This book seems to have two goals. One is to teach the reader something about astrobiology. The other is to be a text for a science course for college undergraduates (in most cases, underclassmen majoring in something other than science).

The book begins by discussing how stars and planets are formed. And then comes a major point: biology may be common in the universe given evidence that organic molecules form fairly easily, life appears to have originated early in the Earth's history, and there's evidence that Earth life can survive under a wide range of conditions. Next, there's a section on the nature of science and the scientific method. And then some material on the definition and nature of life. From there we go to the Earth's geological record. And there's a useful discussion of greenhouse gases, possible high surface temperatures on Earth when life first developed, and a possible "Snowball Earth" much later.

Now comes a key chapter: how did life get started? And when. The text shows that it was not all that long after the Earth emerged from forming and being heavily bombarded. And that hyperthermophiles may well have been the common ancestor of life on Earth today. The book speculates that the process was: synthesis of organic precursor molecules, development of replicators (RNA), development of protocells (enclosing membranes), primitive cells (the RNA world), and then DNA-based cells. It also addresses the question of whether life could have migrated to Earth from Mars or elsewhere. There's a discussion of the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere. And how primitive life evolved into the intelligent life that now exists.

These are certainly the right topics to start with. But I wish this book, even with the constraint of being for non-science majors, had gone into just a little more detail on all of them. It does just that on the rest of the topics.

The book continues with an excellent section about possibilities of life elsewhere in our planetary system, including the environmental requirements. We look at Mars (including evidence from Martian meteorites), Jovian moons, and Titan. And we see why Venus is too close to the Sun to be in the "habitable zone." I hope that the next edition of this book, due out in 2006, will mention the Saturnian moon Enceledus as well.

After that, there is a discussion of extrasolar planets and the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence. If anything, there is an excess of material here, including speculations about the possible technology levels of an intelligent society and interstellar travel. But this does lead to a worthwhile discussion of the Fermi paradox: if there are relatively nearby extraterrestrials, why aren't they here by now?

Writing an overview of this field for non-science majors is a daunting task, and I think the authors did a really good job. After reading such a book, I think one will find it much easier to understand any advances made in this field in the future.