Books of Note Archives
Listed alphabetically by title.
Clifford
A. Pickover
Calculus
and Pizza: A Cookbook for the Hungry Mind
Wiley, 2003, ISBN: 0-471-26987-5, $16.95 (paperback)
Setting up residence in a pizza parlor, Clifford Pickover focuses on procedures for solving problems, offering short, easy-to-digest chapters that allow you to quickly get the essence of a technique or question. From exponentials and logarithms to derivatives and multiple integrals, the book utilizes pepperoni, meatballs, and more to make complex topics fun to learn emphasizing basic, practical principles to help you calculate the speed of tossed pizza dough or the rising cost of eggplant parmigiana.
Edward
M. Reingold & Nachum Dershowitz
Calendrial
Calculations: The Millennium Edition
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-77167-6/0-521-7772-6,
$100/$37.95
Frames the calendars of the world in a unified, completely algorithmic form, giving a description of 25 calendars and how they relate to one another, including various forms of the Gregorian, ISO, Egyptian, Julian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Islamic, Modern Persian, Baha’i, Hebrew, Mayan, Balinese, Pawukon, French Revolutionary, Chinese, and Hindu. Conversion among these calendars is a by-product of this approach, as is the determination of secular and religious holidays. Algorithms included on the accompanying CD and updates are available on the web.
Edward
M. Reinbold & Nachum Dershowitz
Calendrical
Tabulations: 1900-2200
Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-521-78253-8, $120
This comprehensive collection of calendars could only have been assembled by the authors of the definitive text on calendar algorithms, Calendrical Calculations. Using the algorithms outlined in their earlier book, Reingold and Dershowitz have achieved the near impossible task of simultaneously displaying the date on thirteen different calendars over a three-hundred year period. Represented here are the Gregorian, ISO, Hebrew, Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Persian, Hindu lunar, Hindu solar, and Islamic calendars; another three are easily obtained from the tables with minimal arithmetic (JD, R.D., and Julian). The tables also include of the moon, dates of solstices and equinoxes, and religious and other special holidays for all the calendars shown.
Mark
Williamson
The
Cambridge Dictionary of Space Technology
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-66077-7, $39.95
A comprehensive source of reference to the most important aspects of this fast-developing field, from basic concepts to advanced applications. With some 2300 entries, it lists fundamental terms that will remain in common usage for the foreseeable future and includes a selection of historical and highly specific entries adding context and depth. Related entries are highlighted in the text and other important entries are cross-referenced.
Michael
E. Bakich
The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Amateur Astronomy
Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-521-81298-4, $50
This complete reference provides a wealth of practical information covering all aspects of amateur astronomy. Organized thematically for ease of use, it covers observing techniques, telescopes and observatories, internet resources, and the objects that can be studied. Those new to the field will find tips, techniques and plans how to begin their quest, and more advanced observers will find useful advice to advance their observing skills.
O.
Richard Norton
The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites
Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-521-62143-7, $50
Meteorites are our only contact with materials from beyond the Earth-Moon system. Using well-known petrologic techniques, this book reveals in vivid color their extraordinary external and internal structures. Looking deeper still, right to the atomic level, they begin to tell of the environment within the solar nebula that existed before the planets accreted. Beautifully illustrated with over 150 full color images. Includes detailed descriptions of every meteorite type, terrestrial impact crater sites, tables of recent fall and find data, and details of important meteorite collections.
Fernand
Verger, et al.
The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Space: Missions, Applications and Exploration
Cambridge
University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-521-77300-8, $50
Since the lift-off of Sputnik in 1957, over 8,000 satellites and spacecraft have been launched from over thirty countries, costing hundreds of billions of dollars. While only about 350 people have made the incredible journey beyond our atmosphere, we all benefit in countless ways from the missions. An authoritative and accessible source that collects information on man's quest to explore the Universe, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Space, provides a global perspective of our occupation and use of space, whether for scientific, industrial, commercial, technical, or military purposes. The authors set the stage by describing the space environment, orbits and ground tracks, launchers and launch sites. Subsequently, they discuss the main space applications (telecommunications, navigation and Earth observation, military), science missions, planetary exploration, and space stations. Extensively illustrated with more than 300 illustrations, maps, and graphs.
James
B. Kaler
The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stars
Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN: 0-521-81803-6, $60
This unique encyclopedia by ASP President-elect James Kaler provides a fascinating and fully comprehensive description of stars and their natures and is filled with beautiful color images. The book begins by telling the story of astronomy, from ancient constellations and star names to the modern coordinate system. Further chapters explain magnitudes, distances, star motions and the Galaxy at large. Double stars, clusters and variables are introduced and once the different kinds of stars are in place, later chapters examine stellar evolution, beginning with the interstellar medium and star formation, proceeding to our Sun and its characteristics and then the ageing process of solar-type and high mass stars. The book ends by showing how this information can be combined into a grand synthesis. Detailed cross-referencing enables the reader to explore topics in depth and makes this an invaluable work both for beginners and those with a more advanced interest in stars and stellar evolution. Supplemented by the author's extensive STARS website, hosting star tables, constellation photographs and links to essential star websites (http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sow.html).
Kenneth
R. Lang
The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Sun
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-78093-4, Price
unavailable
One of the world's leading solar scientists, Kenneth Lang provides a fundamental, up-to-date reference source of information about Earth's nearest and most familiar star, covering everything from basic facts to detailed concepts. Liberally illustrated with many stunning photographs of solar phenomena such as flares, views of the corona, and auroras as seen near the Earth's poles. While there is much technical and mathematical explanation, most of this is extracted into 'focus' panels, keeping the main text easily readable for students or amateur astronomers. There is also enough depth to ensure that The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Sun will be an indispensable reference for professionals and more advanced academic astronomers and physicists.
Kenneth
R. Lang
The
Cambridge Guide to the Solar System
Cambridge
University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-521-81306-9, $60
Provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the planets and their moons, beginning with a short introduction to the history of planetary observation and discovery. The major planets and their moons are then introduced by presenting common properties, processes, and themes. This is followed by chapters which focus on individual planets and other solar system objects, including an comprehensive treatment of the various space missions—from the Apollo missions to the Moon, to recent missions to Jupiter and Mars. Illustrated throughout and supported by a website located at http://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/ that contains all the images in the book together with their legends and brief explanatory text.
F.
W. Taylor
The
Cambridge Photographic Guide to the Planets
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-78183-3, $50
Contains a selection of the latest and most interesting images of the planets, moons, comets, and asteroids of our solar system. The book begins with a general introduction to the planetary system, its origin and its evolution. Each subsequent chapter is devoted to a different planet or solar system body, and contains a comprehensive introduction to the planet, and its moons and rings where relevant. This is followed by a selection of images from planetary missions, with explanatory captions.
Joel
Achenbach
Captured
By Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe
New York: Simon & Schuster, November 1999, 0-684-84856-2,
$25 (cloth)
The great minds of the human race, employing ever more fabulous technology, have peered into the depths of space and discovered that we exist on a tiny speck in a universe that is mostly rocks and gas and dust and empty space. But there is one thing we have yet to discover: a single scrap of extraterrestrial life. Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach puts the ET debate into the context of the space program, discoveries in astronomy, and the hunger for meaning in an era when science doesn’t always provide the answers. He finds that the topic of extraterrestrial life is poisoned by wishful thinking, but he also finds some fascinating, admirable and maddening characters who have pursued the truth about extraterrestrial life.
Keay
Davidson
Carl
Sagan: A Life
John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1999, ISBN: 0-471-25286-7,
$30
Whether he was seeking life on Mars or visiting Timothy Leary in prison; listening for radio messages from a distant galaxy or bantering with Johnny Carson, Carl Sagan was always fascinating. Science journalist Keay Davidson draws on a wealth of interviews with Sagan’s family members, friends, colleagues, admirers and detractors, as well as from a vast archive of unpublished writings and intimate personal papers to present an insightful and evenhanded account of the complex man behind the visionary legend. Notes and extensive bibliography.
Michael
Hoskin
Caroline Herschel's Autobiographies
Science History Publications Ltd. (www.shpltd.co.uk),
2003, ISBN: 0-905193-05-9, $40 + $10 airmail
A complete and annotated edition of two sources fundamental for the understanding of the Herschel partnership.
Halton
Arp
Catalogue
of Discordant Redshift Associations
Apeiron,
2003, ISBN: 0-9683-6899-9, $45
High redshift quasars, low redshift ejecting galaxies, aligned X-ray clusters, gamma ray bursters, supposed gravitational lenses, quantized intrinsic redshifts—this book presents examples of empirical patterns of associations that repeat from region to region in the sky, suggesting evolutionary sequences and new fundamental physics. Each catalogue entry furnishes critical objects for further investigations.
Michael
A. Covington
Celestial
Objects for Modern Telescopes: Practical Amateur Astronomy, Volume
2
Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-521-52419-9, $30 (paperback)
Based on field notes made by Michael Covington throughout his career as an amateur astronomer, this guide covers both the traditional and novel approaches to studying the night sky. In addition to the more standard techniques, it discusses the latest modern resources available to today's astronomer, such as personal computers, the internet, and computerized telescopes.
Covington includes practical advice on site selection and weather; detailed instructions for observing the Sun, Moon, planets, and deep-sky objects; and newer specialties such as satellite observing and the use of astronomical databases.
Marc
Lachièze-Rey and Jean-Pierre Luminet
Celestial
Treasury: From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-80040-4, $59.95
Images of the universe often convey more than physical information because they can have an emotional and aesthetic effect on the viewer. Celestial Treasury balances science and beauty by showing how the development of our present understanding of the universe was inspired by literature, the fine arts, and philosophy. Four main topics unify the presentation: the different mechanical schemes for understanding planetary motion; representation of the sky and the universe through maps and globes; creation traditions; and mythological traditions. Heavily illustrated (380 full-color), large format.
Allan
Sandage
Centennial
History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Volume I: The
Mount Wilson Observatory
Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN: 0-521-83078-8, $80
Perched atop a mountain wilderness, the two mammoth solar tower telescopes and the 60- and 100-inch behemoth night-time reflectors of the Mount Wilson Observatory were the largest in the world, and at the center of the development of astrophysics. This book brings together the science and personal stories of those involved in the development of modern theories of stellar evolution and cosmology at the Mount Wilson Observatory. It is fully illustrated with contemporary photographs of people and instruments.
Louis
Brown
Centennial
History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Volume II: The
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism
Cambridge
University Press, 2005, ISBN: 0-521-83079-6, $80
This second volume in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution describes he people and events, the challenges and successes that the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism has witnessed over the last century. Contemporary photographs illustrate some of the remarkable expeditions and instruments developed in pursuit of scientific understanding, from sailing ships to nuclear particle accelerators, and radio telescopes to mass spectrometers.
Oded
Regev
Chaos
and Complexity in Astrophysics
Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN: 0-521-85534-9, $80
The discipline of nonlinear dynamics has developed explosively in all areas of physics over the last two decades. This comprehensive primer summarizes the main developments in the mathematical theory of dynamical systems, chaos, pattern formation and complexity. An introduction to mathematical concepts and techniques is given in the first part of the book, before being applied to stellar, interstellar, galactic and large scale complex phenomena in the Universe. Oded Regev demonstrates the possible application of ideas including strange attractors, Poincaré sections, fractals, bifurcations, and complex spatial patterns, to specific astrophysical problems.
Daniel
R. Altschuler
Children
of the Stars: Our Origin, Evolution, and Destiny
Cambridge
University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0521812127, $30, Hardback.
Are we alone in the Universe? What is our place in it? How did we get here? In this beautifully illustrated book, Daniel Altschuler provides the readers with the elements to understand these questions and their answers as far as we know them. He explores subjects from physics and astronomy to geology and palaeontology. Along the way he touches on topics of great popular appeal such as the search for life on other worlds and the hazards of asteroid impacts.
Ben
Bussey & Paul Spudis
The
Clementine Atlas of the Moon
Cambridge
University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-521-81528-2, $80
The highly successful Clementine mission to the Moon in 1994 gave scientists their first global look at the Moon, and both the near and far side were mapped. This atlas is based on the data collected by the Clementine mission. It covers the entire Moon in 144 Lunar Aeronautical Charts (LACs), and represents the most complete lunar nomenclature database in existence, listing virtually all named craters and other features. This is the first atlas to show the entire lunar surface in uniform scale and format. A section of color plates shows lunar composition and physical properties.
Chet
Raymo
Climbing
Brandon: Science & Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain
Walker
& Company, 2004, ISBN: 0-8027-1433-1, $23
Also from Chet Raymo: the acclaimed science writer celebrates an enduring symbol of Ireland's Celtic past, Christian tradition, and love of nature
Mount Brandon is one of several holy mountains in Ireland that attract scores of believers and secular trekkers from around the world. For thirty-two years, Chet Raymo has lived part of each year on the Dingle Peninsula, near the foot of the mountain, and he has climbed it perhaps a hundred times, exploring paths that have been used for centuries by pilgrims in search of spiritual enlightenment. But the history and geography of Mount Brandon are what drew Raymo to it and offered him a lens through which to view the modern conflicts between science and religion.
When Ireland converted from paganism, it became home to a kind of Christianity that was unique in Europe—intensely intellectual yet attuned to nature, skeptical yet celebratory, grounded in the here-and-now yet open to infinity. In this rich celebration of Mount Brandon, Raymo weaves together myth and science, folklore and natural history, spiritual and physical geographies. He takes us to a time on the wave-lashed edge of the Western world when Mediterranean Christianity ran up against Celtic nature worship and the Irish—with their fondness for ambiguity, double meanings, puns and riddles—forged a fusion of knowledge and faith that sustains us today.
Robert
Churchouse
Codes
and Ciphers: Julius Caesar, the Enigma, and the Internet
Cambridge
University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-00890-5, $20 (paperback)
The design of code and cipher systems has undergone major changes in modern times. Powerful personal computers have resulted in an explosion of e-banking, e-commerce, and e-mail, and as a consequence the encryption of communications to ensure security has become a matter of public interest and importance. This book describes and analyses many cipher systems ranging from the earliest and most elementary to the most recent and sophisticated such as RSA and DES, as well as wartime machines such as the Enigma and Hagelin, and ciphers used by spies. Security issues and possible methods of attack and discussed and illustrated by examples. The design of many systems involves advanced mathematical concepts and these are explained in detail in a major appendix.
Peter
Carruthers Stephen Stich and Micheal Siegal (Editors)
The
Cognitive Basis of Science
Cambridge
University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0521011779, $25
The Cognitive Basis of Science is a collection of essays by philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences that address the question "What makes science possible?" The volume is an interdisciplinary approach to accessing the features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development that permit and facilitate the conduct of science; contributing authors explore the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and laypersons as well as in professional scientists. The Cognitive Basis of Science will be a valuable resource to readers studying the philosophy and psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as, more generally, those interested in the nature of the human mind.
Ludwik
Liszka
Cognitive Information Processing in Space
Physics and Astrophysics
Pachart
Astronomy & Astrophysics Series Volume 13
Pachart
Publishing House, 2004, ISBN; 0-88126-090-8, $58 (paperback)
Discusses various information processing techniques that are particularly useful when studying complex, multivariate processes in nature. The first example are the different types of neural networks; secondly, wavelets techniques; and thirdly, causal modeling. Introduction of these techniques into the area of space physics and astrophysics opens new possibilities for understanding the vast amount of information collected in space experiments.
David
K. Lynch and William Livingston
Color
and Light in Nature, 2/e
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-77284-2/0-521-77504-3,
$85.00/$29.95
Color and Light in Nature provides clear explanations of all naturally occurring optical phenomena seen with the naked eye, including shadows, halos, water optics, mirages, and a host of other spectacles. Separating myth from reality, David Lynch and William Livingston outline the basic principles involved, and support them with many figures and references. Rare and spectacular photographs, many in full color, illustrate the phenomena throughout. In this new edition the authors have added over 50 new color images and provide new material on experiments readers can conduct themselves, such as how to photograph geostationary satellites with your own camera.
Philip
Chien
Columbia–Final
Voyage: The Last Flight of NASA's First Space Shuttle
Copernicus Books, 2006, ISBN: 0-387-27148-1, $27.50
In Columbia: Final Voyage aerospace writer Philip Chien, who has over 20 years' experience covering the US space program, provides a unique insight into the crew members who lost their lives in the Columbia disaster. Chien interviewed all seven crewmembers several times and got to know them as individuals. He reviews in detail their training, their scientific work and other activities during their successful 16-day flight, the background of the accident itself and a detailed first-hand account of what happened that fateful day in February 2003. The author provides a comprehensive and personal look at both the Columbia astronauts and the STS-107 mission, together with a behind-the-scenes account of other people involved in the mission and their personal reactions to the accident.
Gary
W. Kronk
Cometography,
Volume 2: 1800-1899
Cambridge
University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-521-58505-8, $185
A four-volume catalog of every comet observed throughout history. This second volume provides a complete discussion of the comets seen during the 19th century, including details of discovery, closest approaches to the Sun and Earth, path across the sky, physical descriptions, orbital information, and final observations. Detailed observer descriptions of every comet seen from 1800 to1899; calculated details of every well-observed comet; the unconfirmed comets (those never confirmed by a second observer, or those not observed long enough for an orbit to be calculated).
Michael
C. Festou, H. Uwe Keller & Harold A. Weaver, eds.
Comets
II
University of Arizona Press, 2005, ISBN:0816524505, $85
The study of comets is a field that has seen tremendous advances in recent years, far surpassing the knowledge reflected in the original Comets volume published as part of the Space Science Series in 1982. This new volume, with more than seventy contributing authors, represents the first complete overview of comet science in more than a decade and contains the most extensive collection of knowledge yet assembled in the field. Comets II situates comet science in the global context of astrophysics for the first time by beginning with a series of chapters that describe the connection between stars and planets. It continues with a presentation of the formation and evolution of planetary systems, enabling the reader to clearly see the key role played in our own solar system by the icy planetesimals that were the seeds of the giant planets and transneptunian objects. The book presents the key results obtained during the 1990s, in particular those collected during the apparition of the exceptional comets C/Hyakutake and C/Hale-Bopp in 1996-1997. The latest results obtained from the in situ exploration of comets P/Borrelly and P/Wild 2 are also discussed in detail.
John
Man
Comets,
Meteors, and Asteroids
DK Publishing, 2001, ISBN: 0-7894-8159-X, $12.95
From a new series on space by DK Publishing in conjunction with the BBC. Comets, Meteors and Asteroids profiles the smaller, free-ranging bodies that circle our Sun, describing how these mysterious objects form, evolve and die. Full-color illustrations throughout.
Matt
Tweed 
The
Compact Cosmos: A Journey Through Space and Time
The Latest Addition to the Wooden Books Series
Walker & Company, 2005, ISBN: 0802714552, $10
Exploring the macrocosm from colossal galactic superclusters to quiet backwater planets, Matt Tweed offers a primer on the cosmos. A guided tour through the universe goes past quasars, jets, and galaxies to land on a curious world and examine an array of ideas about space and time. Tweed traces the evolution of stars and formation of planets, describing our “light bubble” and why we can’t see any farther than we do. For a concise and accessible description of extra-solar planetary systems, black holes, pulsars, nebulae, great walls, dark matter, red shifts, and much more, The Compact Cosmos is an indispensable guide. Data tables, lists of cosmological constants, and distances from Earth to other bodies in space form a useful appendix.
“Wooden Books” is a series of concise, accessible introductions to timeless sciences and vanishing arts. Recreating the essence of medieval texts through elegant designs and writing, they are invaluable sources of information and inspiration.
Walter
G.H. Lewin & Michiel van der Klis
Compact
Stellar X-Ray Sources
Cambridge Astrophysics Series 39
Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN: 0-521-82659-4, $175
X-ray astronomy is the prime available window on astrophysical compact objects: black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. In the last ten years new observational opportunities have led to an explosion of knowledge in this field. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the astrophysics of compact objects that emit X-rays. Sixteen chapters written by the foremost experts in the field cover the observations and the astrophysical interpretation of these objects. Topics covered include binary systems, gamma ray burst sources, soft gamma ray repeaters, anomalous X-ray pulsars, super-soft sources, and enigmatic fast X-ray transients.
Jay
Pasachoff
The
Complete Idiot's Guide to the Sun
Alpha, 2003, ISBN: 1592570747, $18.85 (paperback)
"Dear Reader, Solar storms. Floods of neutrinos. Particles rushing by spacecraft and zapping astronauts. The Sun is the benign presence that makes life on Earth possible, but it has its crazy moments. I have had the pleasure of studying the Sun in many ways, and I am glad to have this chance to tell you about my favorite star....After you read this book, I hope that you will agree with me that the Sun is the most fascinating object in the universe. The Sun is there for all of us, but let us each make it his or her own." Jay Pasachoff.
The author is known around the world as a premier astronomy and solar scientist, chair of the Working Group of Solar Eclipses of the IAU, and recipient of the 2003 Education Prize of the AAS.
James
R. Voelkel
The Composition of Kepler’s
Astronomia nova
Princeton University Press, 2001, 0-691-00738-1, $49.50
Drawing extensively on Kepler's correspondence and manuscripts, James Voelkel posits that the strikingly unusual style of Kepler's magnum opus, Astronomia nova (1609), has been traditionally misinterpreted. Kepler laid forth the first two of his three laws of planetary motion in this work. Instead of a straightforward presentation of his results, however, he led readers on a wild goose chase, recounting the many errors and false starts he had experienced. This had long been deemed a ''confessional'' mirror of the daunting technical obstacles Kepler faced. As Voelkel attempts to demonstrate, it is not.
Voelkel argues that Kepler's style can be understood only in the context of the circumstances in which the book was written. Starting with Kepler's earliest writings, he traces the development of the astronomer's ideas of how the planets were moved by a force from the sun and how this could be expressed mathematically. And he shows how Kepler's once broader research program was diverted to a detailed examination of the motion of Mars. Above all, Voelkel shows that Kepler was well aware of the harsh reception his work would receive--both from Tycho Brahe's heirs and from contemporary astronomers; and how this led him to an avowedly rhetorical pseudo-historical presentation of his results.
In treating Kepler as a figure in time and not as independent of it, this work will be welcomed by historians of science, astronomers, and historians.
Victor
J. Stenger
The
Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come from?
Prometheus
Books, 2006, ISBN: 1-59102-424-2, $28
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." – Albert Einstein In a series of remarkable developments in the 20th century and continuing into the 21st, elementary particle physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists have removed much of the mystery that surrounds our understanding of the physical universe. We now have mathematical models that are consistent with all observational data, including measurements of incredible precision, and we have a good understanding of why those models take the form they do.
But the question arises: Where do the "laws" revealed by the mathematical models come from? Some conjecture that they represent a set of restraints on the behavior of matter that are built into the structure of the universe, either by God or some other ubiquitous governing principle. Physicist Victor Stenger disputes this notion. Instead, he argues that physical laws are simply restrictions on the ways physicists may draw the models they use to represent the behavior of matter if they wish to do so objectively. Since mathematical descriptions of data must be independent of any specific point of view, that is, they must possess "point-of-view invariance" (maximum objectivity), they naturally conform to certain fundamental laws that insure that objectivity, such as the great conservation principles of energy and momentum. The laws of physics, however, are not simply an arbitrary set of rules since the observed data beautifully demonstrate their accuracy.
Jean-Louis
Tassoul & Monique Tassoul
A
Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics
Princeton
University Press, 2004, ISBN: 0-691-11711-X, $39.95
A comprehensive overview of the history of ideas about the sun and the stars, from antiquity to modern times. Two theoretical astrophysicists who have been active in the field since the early 1960s tell the story in fluent prose. About half of the book covers most of the theoretical research done from 1940 to the close of the twentieth century, a large body of work that has to date been little explored by historians.
The first chapter, which outlines the period from about 3000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., shows that at every stage in history human beings have had a particular understanding of the sun and stars, and that this has continually evolved over the centuries. Next the authors systematically address the immense mass of observations astronomy accumulated from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth. The remaining four chapters examine the history of the field from the physicists perspective, the emphasis being on theoretical work from the mid-1840s to the late 1990s--from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics, from nuclear physics and magnetohydrodynamics to the remarkable advances through to the late 1960s, and finally, to more recent theoretical work.
James
Tobin
To
Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
Free
Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-684-85688-3, $28
"For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life."
So wrote a quiet young Ohioan in 1900, one in an ancient line of men who had wanted to fly—men who wanted it passionately, fecklessly, hopelessly. But now, at the turn of the twentieth century, Wilbur Wright and a scattered handful of other adventurers conceived a conviction that the dream lay at last within reach, and in a headlong race across ten years and two continents, they competed to conquer the air. For years Wright and his younger brother, Orville, experimented in utter obscurity, supported only by their exceptional family. Meanwhile, the world watched as the imperious Samuel Langley, armed with a rich contract from the U.S. War Department and all the resources of the Smithsonian Institution, sought to scale up his unmanned models to create the first manned flying machine. But while Langley became with flight as a problem of power, the Wrights grappled with it as a problem of balance. Thus their machines took two very different paths—his toward oblivion, theirs toward the heavens.
John
D. Barrow
The
Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega тАФ The Numbers that Encode
the Deepest Secrets of the Universe
Pantheon,
2003, ISBN: 0-375-42221-8, $26
The constants of nature are the fundamental laws of physics that apply throughout the universe: gravity, velocity of light, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. They encode the deepest secrets of the universe, and express at once our greatest knowledge and our greatest ignorance about the cosmos.
Their existence has taught us the profound truth that nature abounds with unseen regularities. Yet while we have become skilled at measuring the values of these constants, our frustrating inability to explain or predict their values shows how much we have still to learn about inner workings of the universe.
What is the ultimate status of these constants of nature? Are they truly constant? And are there other universes where they are different? The Constants of Nature grapples with these and other issues, looking back to the impact their discovery had on scientists like Einstein, and forward to new theories on the higher dimensions of space. It also delves into tantalizing new astronomical discoveries that suggest some constants may have been different when the universe was younger.
Edward
Teller, with Wendy Teller & Wilson Talley
Conversations
on the Dark Secrets of Physics
Perseus Publishing, 2002, ISBN: 0-7382-0765-9, $16 (paperback)
From the Prologue:
"I want to warn you -- I will say quite a few things that everybody understands and I will say a few things that nobody understands and even some things that nobody can understand. I take this liberty because it is an actual picture of what sciences do."
In Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics, Teller returns to the fundamentals of physics to share with readers his unbridled enthusiasm for the of physical reality -- from the nature of molecules to quantum mechanics and superconductors, from the elementary laws of thermodynamics to how planets, asteroids, and comets develop their orbits.
Sun
Kwok
Cosmic
Butterflies: The Colorful Mysteries of Planetary Nebulae
Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-521-79135-9, $29.95
A star does not live forever. Brilliant in its youth, the average star is even more spectacular as it approaches death. During the last 10,000 years of a star's life, it undergoes a glorious stage called the "planetary nebula" phase. In Cosmic Butterflies, Sun Kwok captures the incredible beauty of this phase and details the discovery process of the creation of planetary nebulae and of the future of the Earth's sun. Using more than 100 Hubble images, this visual presentation reveals how the mystery begins when the dying star wraps itself in a cocoon by spilling out gas and dust; sometime later a butterfly-like nebula emerges and develops into a planetary nebula, hovering in the gossamer of delicate streamers of glowing gases.
Malcolm
Longair
The
Cosmic Century: A History of Astrophysics and Cosmology
Cambridge
University Press, ISBN: 0-521-47436-1, $60
Provides a historical introduction to modern relativistic cosmology and traces its historical roots and evolution from antiquity to Einstein. The topics are presented in a non-mathematical manner, with the emphasis on the ideas that underlie