Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier/Book and 3-D Glasses

Customer Reviews:

Not A 3-D Book.......2003-07-12

I had bought this book expecting it to be an astronomy/space 3D book with lots of cool 3D pictures. However a "cool" 3D graphic book was not what I got. This book is a heavy, college level text book. The 3D glasses that come with the book are for a couple of stereoscopic line drawings that are in the book.
Just want to send this warning out to anyone who thinks they may be buying a 3-D book.

The Early Universe (Frontiers in Physics)

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Very good introduction to cosmology
Please create an audio adaptation ...

The Early Universe (Frontiers in Physics)
Edward W. Kolb , and Michael S. Turner
Manufacturer: Perseus Books Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0201626748

Book Description

The Early Universe has become the standard reference on forefront topics in cosmology, particularly to the early history of the Universe. Subjects covered include primordial nubleosynthesis, baryogenesis, phases transitions, inflation, dark matter, and galaxy formation, relics such as axions, neutrinos and monopoles, and speculations about the Universe at the Planck time. The book includes more than ninety figures as well as a five-page update discussing recent developments such as the COBE results.

Customer Reviews:

Very good introduction to cosmology.......2006-05-09

The Early Universe provides an excellent introduction to the topics it covers, including the standard big bang cosmology, baryogenesis and inflation. I read Dodelson's Modern Cosmology before this text, and the two compliment each other. The Early Universe provides a more complete and physically intuitive description of the standard big bang cosmology, including the role of thermodynamics, nucleosynthesis and out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Because of the attention to the "background" dynamics, and also to baryogenesis, phase transitions, inflation, and other applications of high energy physics, one gets a better sense of the "bigger picture" with Kolb and Turner's text. On the other hand, The Early Universe lacks any technical discussion of metric perturbations and CMB analysis, which are important components of much current research. These are highly emphasized in Dodelson's text. For appropriate topics, I have found The Early Universe to be a very good reference.

Please create an audio adaptation ..........1999-06-02

To the publisher I would appreciate it if the publisher could produce an audio adaptation of this book. I would love to listen to this while I drive to work and to let my 16 month old son listen to it as a bedtime story. Arnold D Veness

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier w/Essential Study Partner CD-ROM & Starry Nights 3.1 CD-ROM

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Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier w/Essential Study Partner CD-ROM & Starry Nights 3.1 CD-ROM
John D Fix , and John Fix
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0072996978

Book Description

This is a text for an introductory astronomy course. One of the main goals is to provide a broad enough and deep enough background in astronomy so the student will be able to follow current developments in astronomy years after they complete the course. This book presumes that most of its readers are not science majors and that they probably have not had a college-level science or mathematics course. The book provides a complete description of current astronomical knowledge, neither at an extreme technical level nor at a level that fails to communicate the quantitative nature of physical science. Finally, the historical development of astronomy is emphasized to show that astronomy, like other sciences, advances through the efforts of many scientists, and to show how present ideas have been developed.

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier Fourth Edition with Starry Nights Pro CD-ROM (v.3.1)

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Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier
Good read lost of water

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier Fourth Edition with Starry Nights Pro CD-ROM (v.3.1)
John D Fix
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0073040789

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier.......2005-09-26

The book was in mint condition. I received it promptly. I am confused though as to the record of it's purchase date. I bought this book in early September and the notification I just received says I purchased it yesterday. Other than that, no complaints.

Good read lost of water.......2005-07-11

Its a good read, clear definitions, emphasis on getting sence of things, and simple relationships (say lifetimes scales as inverse of mass squared) but rather poor problems if one intends to use as a textbook... a 100lvl classes only :)

Average customer rating:

Best General Space History Book ever

Into The Final Frontier
Bernard McNamara
Manufacturer: Brooks Cole
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 003032016X

Book Description

One of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century was man's advance into space. This book traces the development of manned space flight from the late 1800's to the present time and offers speculation about man's future objectives in space. The book discusses the scientific results of manned space flight while also examining the cultural, military, and political factors that influenced these achievements. INTO THE FINAL FRONTIER is designed to work as a supplement to a main astronomy course or in a course specifically targeting the space program.

Customer Reviews:

Best General Space History Book ever.......2002-09-28

I've been a avid space buff (living in Cape Canaveral) for years. I've read many books on the space program, always looking for the newest nugget of information.
This is the best Space History book for the general public reading that I've ever seen. The coverage of the Russian program is outstanding and really balances out the book. It gives a more complete view of the HUMAN space program, not just one countrie's program. If your going to read only one book about manned space history, or you are going to teach a general space history class this is the book to get.

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier -- Galaxies (VOLUME 2) and Starry Nights 3.1 CD-ROM (Ch. 1-6; 17-27)

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Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier -- Galaxies (VOLUME 2) and Starry Nights 3.1 CD-ROM (Ch. 1-6; 17-27)
John D Fix
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0073126128

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compares well to NASA
A well researched and detailed history of Russia in Space
Russia may very well hold the key to space

Russia in Space: The Failed Frontier?
Brian Harvey
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

ASIN: 1852332034

Book Description

This comprehensive history of the Russian Soviet space programme, from its origins to the present, addresses the technical, political, historical, human and organisational issues and provides a balanced focus on manned and unmanned programmes. It is the first book to access the Russian space programme over the ten-year period since the fall of communism and provide an historical and contemporary treatment.

Customer Reviews:

compares well to NASA.......2007-01-26

For Americans, brought up on NASA's many successful exploits, this book gives a useful different perspective. Much of the narrative details the Soviet space achievements during the Cold War. And indeed, there were many notable firsts. From Sputnik to Vostok, Gagarin to Tereshkova, the Soviets made impressive strides. But Harvey shows that they also had their share of failures. From unmanned probes that got lost, to cosmonauts who perished.

Comparing the Russian and American space programs, you can see how the former played to their strengths. By emphasising massive launch capability (like the Proton and Energiya rockets) and a can-do attitude necessitated by small budgets, especially after the end of the Cold War. Arguably, the Americans had the most advanced vehicle, in the form of the Space Shuttles. But scarcely perfect, given 2 that were destroyed, and the lengthy regular maintenance costs even when matters were routine. The book also shows the deep experience of prolonged spaceflight that the Russians amassed, via their space station. Something the Americans largely gave up after Skylab was abandoned.

A well researched and detailed history of Russia in Space.......2005-02-15

Brian Harvey has clearly done a tremendous amount of research to create "Russia in Space - The Failed Frontier?"

It does a great job of covering the manned, unmanned, military, and civilian space operations in the Soviet Union and Russian programs.

This is not a light read. It is more of an academic work with great detail on costs, system capabilities, and history.

There is a lot of detail on how the program changed when the USSR dissolved.

Russia may very well hold the key to space.......2001-10-26

For those who think that NASA is the only way to go into space, read this excellent book, and you will see that the Soviets, and now Russia, really have an incredible history, and a bright future ahead, providing they can cope with their financial problems. The quality and imagination of the russian space program is incredible, and it would be a invaluable loss if it had to collapse completely... because it may very well be this program that will get us out of our craddle.

Black Holes: And Other Bizarre Space Objects (Science Frontiers)

Average customer rating:

Accessible to kids but not dumbed down

Black Holes: And Other Bizarre Space Objects (Science Frontiers)
David Jefferis
Manufacturer: Crabtree Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0778728706

Customer Reviews:

Accessible to kids but not dumbed down.......2007-08-01

An excellent science book that is accessible to children, but does not dumb down the science. Several sophisticated concepts are presented. The content is current on some of the latest research on black holes and astrophysics.

Relatively thin book, large format with lots of pictures including many with real scientific value, not just pretty pictures.

Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time

Average customer rating:

Passionless and paradoxical
Disappointing, misleadingly tame, and cheesy
The strange and the stranger
Great Book
A Great Book!

Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time
Tom Siegfried
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0425194175
Release Date: 2004-03-02

Book Description

Twentieth-century physics was a long, strange trip indeed. Stranger still is what might lie ahead. In this startling book, science writer Tom Siegfried takes us into a weird world of quark nuggets, selectrons, quintessence, and quantum cosmology and introduces us to some of the most imaginative ideas being batted about by scientists today, from funny energy to mirror matter to two-timing universes. In addition, he reviews theories of the past both proven and unproven-offering us a grounding in our scientific history as well as an informed and intriguing look at the possibilities of tomorrow.

Customer Reviews:

Passionless and paradoxical.......2005-03-05

"Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time" Tom Siegfried

"Strange Matters" is a sweeping survey of some recent developments in theoretical physics. It is divided into three groups of chapters, entitled "Strange Matter," "Strange Frontiers," and "Strange Ideas." Each chapter connects a recent development with an earlier theoriest, for example "From Einstein's Greatest Mistake to the Universe's Accelerating Expansion."

This book is apparently intended for a general reader with no special training in physics. No math is used. That said, a reader who has already read a few books of this type will probably find the text both frustratingly generalized and annoying overinvested in a math that nevertheless does not appear. The truly general reader will likely find the text readable but dull.

That's an odd bunch of assertions, so let's take it from the top.

For starters, the writing style is somewhat funky. The author is by trade a journalist (he writes for the Dallas Morning News), and the writing is permeated with the style of contemporary journalism: lots of sentence fragments and comma splices, and nary a semi-colon in sight. The tone is aloof and unemotional, yet returns perennially to its preoccupations. The effect is like watching a CNN report done as a 300 page newspaper article. Readily graspable, but not very elegant or imaginative (that was a sentence fragment). Maybe I'm just oversensitive because I'm a teacher.

More importantly, however, the author has an annoying overinvestment in math that clouds the presentation with shaky reasoning. For example, one theme of the text is the capacity of math to "prediscover" elements of physical reality. Thus, Murray Gell-Mann "prediscovered" quarks, Pauli "prediscovered" neutrinos, and Einstein "prediscovered" gravitational lensing. But this is a distortion of language in service of a personal ideology, as American journalists are so prone to doing. When I am half-way to work I have not "prearrived"; when a woman is 4 months pregnant the baby has not been "predelivered." You are not "prefinished" reading this review. Neither does math prediscover anything, which is an oxymoron. The author is merely dressing up the plain idea of prediction.

But there's more to it. The author's use of "prediscovery" is made possible by his belief that math forms the most basic level of reality in the universe. On virtually every page we read that nature totters after math like a toddler being led around on a leash by a calculator. If that judgement seems harsh or improbable, consider this quotation:

"So there is no mystery, [cognitive scientists] say. We impose our math on the world in order to describe it. That's why math works. Frankly, I am not impressed by this argument. Although it is surely true [...] that math is a human invention, it does not logically follow that the universe does not live by mathematical laws. The idea of math as a human invention may explain much of its success. But I do not see how it explains the way that math reveals unseen, even unimagined, features of reality. [...] But perhaps exploring the prediscoveries of the past and the potential prediscoveries of today can provide some clues to that mystery." (9-10).

I would call this a circular argument. First the author arbitrarily installs math at the centre of the universe, and then he invents the tool of "prediscovery" with which to authenticate that claim. My suspicion throughout this text was that the author is basically arguing from a Christian-creationist position, and this may not be wrong; we finally get to the bible in Chapter 8. Leaving this speculation aside, if you've read Spinoza or are familiar with Pythagoras, Plato, or de Chardin, there's nothing new here.

Anyway, if you do like math, as I do, you will also be disappointed. There are no equations to stare at and puzzle out. More pertinently, there is also no depth of detail in most of the chapters. When we encounter quantum entanglement or black holes, the author merely waves us by with a few fairly widely-known facts and more talk about the wonder of math. That's the journalistic writing style again.

Actually, I think its lack of wonder is my most serious complaint about this book. It's bad enough that it's a book about math with no math in it, but it's also a book about wonder with no wonder in it. There is little imaginative speculation, and even less marvelling at recent jaw-slackening developments in cosmology and theoretical physics.

If I had to sum up this book in a word, I would call it suburban. It is polite and accomplished, orderly and discrete. It is very organized and comfortable. You will not encounter anything shocking to middle-class sensibilities. You will not be asked to leave your driveway, though you *will* be asked to keep off the mathematical grass (it's just been sprayed!). But a suburb is also a limiting, troubled place, and throughout this book I was frequently reminded of the film "Pleasantville."

If you are looking for a book that's both more scientifically rigorous and less uptight, then I suggest either Brian Greene or Stephen Hawking. For a more personal account, try Janna Levin or George Gamow.

Disappointing, misleadingly tame, and cheesy.......2004-07-16

I'm fascinated by the peripherals of science--dark matter, black holes, string theory--so in theory I should love a book like this. In theory.

The universe is strange (thanks mostly to Quantum Mechanics). The title of this book implies an analysis of how strange the universe can be in the borderlands of science. However, if you want a book about how strange the universe *isn't*, than this book is for you. The title is betrayed by the tame speculations and interpretations of concepts that are better outlined in entry-level astronomy textbooks (like WIMPs and black holes). Siegfried's conclusions emphasize how unified and harmonic the universe is, how in sync the universe is w/ our math. That's fine, that's reasonable, it's also bait and switch. If you want an unprovocative book, get this. I expected a cutting-edge, substantive analysis of the "strange matters" out there, like dark matter, "cosmic fluid", string theory--an analysis that is unafraid to balance what we do know w/ what is possible. What I got was science for Victorian tea-sippers, biographies of the likes of Einstein (that's all fine and good...for books about EINSTEIN, this is a book about STRANGE MATTERS), and groaningly lame cultural references (that are allegedly, jokes). Behold, the first popular science book that has a footnote on Nancy Kerrigan! I really wanted an indepth and comprehensive analysis of dark matter, I didn't get it.

Also, I found Siegfried's writing uninspired and confusing, and I'm someone who has a basic understanding of the material. I don't know how much use it would be to someone who has just heard of the photoelectric effect and gluons. Of course, the bad jokes make you want to skip a couple of paragraphs and you get lost. I'd recommend "Borderlands of Science" by Sheffield instead as the text that fullfills the promise of "Strange Matters" title and subtitle. Also the works of Greene and Gribbin for string theory and black holes. "The Universe Next Door" by Chown, a book I haven't read, also looks promising. Skip this unless you've had a serious deficit of Nancy Kerrigan references in your life.

The strange and the stranger.......2002-12-13

Siegfried not only manages to make some very strange theories (like dark matter, superstrings, etc.) reasonably intelligible but also gives us an understanding of the kind of people who develop them. He also tackles some interesting questions, e.g. how can a set of equations (such as Maxwell's) turn out to yield more information than the writer put into them? How do pre-discoveries occur?

The book can be tough going at times but always interesting.

A personal note: many times when researchers are contending about esoterica, I found myself asking: so what? What difference do any of these issues make to people outside the field? Why should we care whether there are superstrings or not?

Great Book.......2002-11-12

Tom Siegfried really knows how to explain things. Parallel universes, superstrings, anti-matter--what the &$%! are all these things??? I admit at times I've always wondered whether the physicists are making it all up, it all sounds so odd. Siegfried, however, presents all these concepts lucidly, with flair and wit as a bonus. It is, indeed, a strange, strange world that we live in.

A Great Book!.......2002-11-11

This book is a wonderful adventure that takes you to the edge of forefront thinking and beyond, with all the historical background you need to make sense of it all. (I don't know what that negative reviewer was thinking: The New York Times was so inspired by this book it ran an entire essay based on this book in its "Arts and Ideas" section.) Siegfried is the best. Honest, clear, interesting, original. Everything you ever wanted to know about matters that are strange, and probably even true. Quark stars? Mirror matter? A universe shaped like a donut? How about multiple universes? Multiple dimensions? This isn't science fiction, folks. Just science writing at its best. The perfect holiday gift for everyone you know who's curious about the unreasonably fantastic universe we live in.

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier

Average customer rating:

Waste on a Scale of Cosmic Proportions
Yay! Color pictures!
Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier
John D. Fix
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0072482621

Book Description

This is a text for an introductory astronomy course. One of the main goals is to provide a broad enough and deep enough backround in astronomy so the student will be able to follow current developments in astronomy years after they complete the course. This book presumes that most of its readers are not science majors and that they probably have not had a college-level science or mathematics course. The book provides a complete description of current astronomical knowledge, neither at an extreme technical level nor at a level that fails to communicate the quantitative nature of physical science. Finally, the historical development of astronomy is emphasized to show that astronomy, like other sciences, advances through the efforts of many scientists, and to show how present ideas have been developed.

Customer Reviews:

Waste on a Scale of Cosmic Proportions.......2005-08-01

This is quite possibly one of the worst text books I have ever had the displeasure to read. I have no doubt that the author is a person of great intelligence, but his ability to write effectively and provide clear explanations is sorely lacking. The main problem deals with his lack of attention to detail when explaining fundamental concepts.
My main issue comes into play with the problems section of the book, supposedly designed to test one's knowledge/comprehension of the subject covered in that chapter or building on the preceeding chapters. However, this is not the case. The problems will hint to equations that do not exist in the text or asks questions too ambiguous for an accurate understanding. Answers are given in the back of the book, but no work is shown in how to arrive at those conclusions.
Honestly, I'd get more out of my Astronomy class if I had just been turned loose on the internet with a set of problems to solve.
Don't waste your money.

Yay! Color pictures!.......2001-07-13

This was an excellent book and fun to read. I've been a lover of astronomy for 7 years since I was 13 years old! I've read dozens of astronomy books and this one really is a great one. It definitely made my class easier and more enjoyable. The CD-ROM helps too! Nice big book with tons of color pictures, and interesting facts. Not boring at all. It was a good choice for the class.

Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier.......2000-05-04

This book is a well expresed and enjoyable introduction toastronomy; pictures and graphics, text-boxes on seminal concepts,clear writing do it an amazing reading. Programs and texts on CD arethe precise aid to textbook as a powerful tool for those that want learn about modern astronomy, this thanks to up-to-date references and glossary.

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