Book Description
There are many mysteries involving cosmic phenomena. Jerome Drexler used 14 of these and his analytical concept of dark matter(DM) relationism to discover a promising candidate for dark matter, the source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, and theories for star formation, starburst galaxies, and the emergence of DM halos. To test the validity of his discoveries, Drexler used another 11 unexplained cosmic phenomena discovered by astronomers primarily during 2005. Utilizing his same promising dark matter candidate, Drexler was able to explain in a plausible manner all 11 of these recently discovered cosmic mysteries. Drexler's research has led not only to an identification of dark matter and to plausible explanations for the 25 cosmic phe-nomena, but also to a deeper understanding of many aspects of the cosmos, leading to a partial decoding of the cosmos.
Customer Reviews:
Poses questions; posits answers.......2006-10-21
Drexler's book was sent to me unsolicited inviting my feedback and comments. I cannot call myself even an amateur cosmologist therefore I cannot assess how plausible the explanations in this book are. Furthermore, I have not actually read it cover to cover. Nevertheless, I award it 4 stars for the following reasons:
1. The topic is well laid out and is made very accessible via extremely short chapters listed in a detailed table of contents. It is well indexed. A glossary is also included.
2. Throughout the book, use is made of lists, both bulleted and numbered, e.g. pp 110-114, making it easy to follow his arguments.
3. More importantly, it lists 58 references (7 to his own work) as well as a further 30 suggested sources. Readers are cautioned not to assume agreement in these sources with Drexler's views.
4. The book is intended to be provocative and to generate further thought and discussion. The Preface states: "This book, "Comprehending and Decoding the Cosmos," deviates significantly from mainstream cosmological and astrophysical theories."
I would not, of course, recommend a book just because of its layout and style. I see this book as a thought-provoking re-examination of existing observations and theories in addition to offering solutions and new ideas. I leave it to others to comment on the plausibility of these.
CHALLENGING & PROVOCATIVE THEORIES ON DARK MATTER/RELATIONALISM.......2006-08-26
This is another fantastic book by Dr. Drexler. Dr. Drexler identifies dark matter as a viable candidate and explicates his theory cogently by describing in detail the astronomical evidence he found that justifies his theory and conclusion. His most recent book, "Comprehending and Decoding the Cosmos," published this year (2006), delineates and expounds his theory to an even greater extent. I queried him regarding the use of the term relationism vis-a-vis reductionistic practices. Dr. Drexler thoroughly explicated this complex theory that he has posited in significant detail.
Dark Matter, is deemed by many to be the most elusive mystery of the universe, which is probably attributable to its massive, extensive, and hard-to-detect characteristic. Dr. Drexler, in his 2006 sequel, astutely delineates 14 mysterious phenomena, along with his new analytical decoding concept of dark matter relationism, to discover and identify a very promising dark matter candidate compatible with these 14 cosmic elements. In the process, he has quite possibly brought the decades old quest to identify dark matter to a successful conclusion. He adroitly then locates and analyzes an additional 11 unexplained cosmic phenomena, which were discovered and reported by various astronomers mostly during 2005. Drexler again, utilizing his same promising dark matter candidate, plausibly explicates all 11 of these recently discovered cosmic mysteries in his May, 2006 sequel.
I have personally purchased multiple copies of Dr. Drexler's 2003 and 2006 books for family members and friends at the University of Maine. I read with chagrin Dr. Marc "DM"s negative reviews on these books, which interestingly were both written and posted on May 31, 2006. I vehemently disagree with Dr. Marc's and JMK's reviews and evaluations, both of which bring to mind the saying attributable to Herbert Spencer: "Contempt prior to investigation..." Although Dr. Marc characterizes himself as a professional astronomer, I am constrained to believe that he is a grant-seeking, self-promoter, who perhaps has not even read Dr. Drexler's two books. As a professional man, with graduate degrees myself, I eschew hasty judgments when pondering the theories of colleagues and others. I have therefore indicated that neither of Dr. Marc's reviews were helpful to me, and in closing, I strongly urge every professional cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist, or interested novice, to read Dr. Drexler's books with an inquisitive and open mind. Do not be influenced by the pejorative and negative views espoused by Dr. Marc.
Baryons as Dark Matter.......2006-06-16
Since the discovery of DM, which many believe constitutes most of the mass of the universe, there has been a debate regarding the baryonic or non-baryonic nature of DM. Current scientific research favors non-baryonic particles with huge new detectors being built today that actually exclude baryons. At its heart, Drexler's book is philosophical in its approach, taking a contrarian view in the debate. Citing Ockham's razor and top-down vision, the author sorts recent astrophysics data of others to analyze and resolve the DM issue, asserting that DM consists of relativistic protons, i.e. baryons. A large amount of data is reviewed and the considerations seem persuasive. Not mentioned as a baryonic argument in favor of DM is another philosophical consideration relating to the significance of man in the Universe. If man is significant and perhaps even central in the universe, as Primack suggests in his new book, it would be a shame if the baryons of which we are made turn out to be cosmologically weird stuff. Drexler's book is worth a read.
Comprehending and Decoding the Cosmos: Discovering Solutions to Over a Dozen Cosmic Mysteries by Utilizing Dark Matter Relationi.......2006-06-12
I have read this book and it is another fine book by the Scientist, Mr. Drexler. I have followed Drexler's career since his days at Bell Labs-his founding of the Drexler Technology (Lasercard), his numerous patents -- He would not publish a book with research that is false. Did the other reviewer really read the book? I HAVE READ IT FROM COVER TO COVER AND IT OPENED MY MIND TO NEW IDEAS ABOUT THE COSMOS,ETC. EVERYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN GOOD , LOGICAL RESEARCH SHOULD READ THIS BOOK.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!.......2006-06-01
There are many reasons why Jerome Drexler's theory of dark matter is not widely accepted amongst astronomers. I am a professional astronomer working at a research establishment in California. The idea that relativisic protons can be responssible for the dark matter of the Universe seems ridiculous to me and this is why:
1. If dark matter consisted of relativistic particles (such as relativistic protons) then this is what astronomers would refer to as Hot Dark Matter. Hot Dark Matter has been ruled out as a form of dark matter because it does not allow the structures we see in the Universe. The reason because the particles are at such high velocities that they can never become gravitationally bound to each other, and all structure is wiped out. Galaxies cannot form, stars cannot form, planets cannot form. This would be a huge problem. This is why astronomers have come to believe in Cold Dark Matter (slow moving massive particles).
2. Protons are charged particles (they have positive charge). Any moving charged particle has both an electric and a magnetic field associated with it. Relativistic charged particles would create a huge electric and magnetic field. This would be easily observed. However, it has never been observed.
3. The Cold Dark Matter Particle (the WIMP) has never been observed for a reason. It's predicted mass lies just beyond the energies we can probe with our current particle accelerators. The next generation of particle accelerators will be able to probe these energies. These new particle accelerators will be coming online in the next 2 to 5 years, so watch this space. Admittedly, if we don't find the predicted WIMP (or neutralino as it is strictly called), then we do have to go back to the drawing boad.
I don't understand how this book has come to be published. The people deciding it should be published are obviously not professional astronomers. However, Jerome Drexler has never had his theory published in an astronomical journal. The reason is because it has never made it past the peer review stage... because his theory is simply WRONG. It does not stand up to experimental tests or what we know about the Universe.
Book Description
The classic book on the Dark Matter problem, updated after ten years to include the significant new theories of the 1990s.
Will the universe continue to expand forever, reverse its expansion and begin to contract, or reach a delicately poised state where it simply persists forever? The answer depends on the amount and properties of matter in the universe, and that has given rise to one of the great paradoxes of modern cosmology: there is too little visible matter to account for the behavior we can see. Over ninety percent of the universe consists of "missing mass" or "dark matter" - what Lawrence Krauss, in his classic book, termed "the fifth essence."
In this new edition of The Fifth Essence, retitled Quintessence after the now widely accepted term for dark matter, Krauss shows how the dark matter problem is now connected with two of the hottest areas in recent cosmology: the fate of the universe and the "cosmological constant." With a new introduction, epilogue, and chapter updates, Krauss updates his classic for 1999 and shares one of the most stunning discoveries of recent years: an anti-gravity force that explains recent observations of a permanently expanding universe.
Customer Reviews:
One of many, but... .......2005-03-22
"Quintessence" is elegant, very complete but not easy cosmology textbook. Properties of particles (to explain Inflation and early stage of Big Bang) connect here with properties and expansion of large space, while observational astronomy serves as a background. It is somehow comparable to "Extravagant Universe by Robert Kirshner. Lawrence Krauss was first, in the spirit of Aristotle, who used name "quintessence" discussing dark matter. This should not be confused with quintessential Universe proposed by Paul Steinhardt, where energy field (coined by him as quintessence) is responsible for accelerated expansion of space. In his book professor Krauss, leading expert in "weighing" our Universe, concentrates mostly on "dark matter", but describes and explains importance of vacuum energy field as well. More about vacuum energy can be found by taking excellent "The Book of Nothing" by John Barrow. Yes, we have a nagging cosmology problem: our two estimates of the amount of matter and energy in the Universe. These estimates/calculations come from particle physics research and separately, are based on long distance observations. Results are not equal, and this is the hub of "Quintessence".
It's about the missing mass in the universe.......2001-10-27
Krauss takes his title, "Quintessence" from ancient concepts about space, and makes the point that some of our concepts have come full circle (though not in ways envisioned by their first proponents). The subject is the "missing mass" of the universe. The universe, of course, is exactly what it is - so there isn't really any "missing mass." What's meant by that phrase is that we know there is more mass in the universe than what we see, and the question is, what is this hidden material? That might seem like a narrow subject for such a long book, but missing mass, it turns out, has implications for just about everything, from quantum mechanics to the broadest theories of formation of the universe.
For me, the book started off slow. The first chapter is mostly about ancient notions of the universe, with discussions about Aristotle's aether, and things like that. This chapter is basically a very short history of science, from earliest concepts through Einstein's development of the theory of relativity, and the demise of the aether. With the theory of relativity, physics viewed empty space as just that - empty. The idea of a uniform background of invisible stuff (particles, aether, etc.) lay pretty much discarded.
Then we had the beginnings of the modern science of cosmology and the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which has been confirmed as the closest-to-theoretical blackbody radiation source ever discovered. The CMB is one of the pillars of evidence for the expanding universe and the Big Bang theory of cosmology, and Krauss does a nice job of following the historical and logical sequence of discoveries in its development. Within the Big Bang theory, the amount of matter in the universe has broad implications for how the universe will continue to evolve, so any "missing mass" is very important. Krauss covers these topics in a relatively brief but nicely done chapter on the Big Bang and large-scale structure in the universe. One of the things I like best about this book is the extra bit of detail Krauss offers that is often over looked in other books. The sort of details that help the reader better understand the specifics and particulars that real science is made of.
The subjects in this book range from the very large (theories of the evolution of the cosmos) to the very small (concepts and ideas in quantum physics). For example, there is an early introduction to the concept of virtual particles and the resolution they bring to many different and important calculations in physics. One of the most important of these is the philosophical problem of action at a distance, which virtual particles solve nicely by providing a mechanism for transferring force from one particle to another.
Chapter three was one of the most interesting for me, and marks the beginning of the real meat of the book. It describes how astronomers weigh the universe. At first, this can seem either trivial or impossible, depending on your expectations. On one hand, it seems that all you need do is count stars (not literally, of course, but by measuring an average density and multiplying by total volume) multiply by some sort of average stellar weight, and there you have it. On the other hand, closer examination begins to show cracks in that method. What about dim stars? Gas? Dust? Planets? How much mass do they contribute? Krauss does an excellent job of pointing out these difficulties, and showing how, one by one, scientists refined their estimates by including more and more candidates for matter in the universe. It was a monumental task, and Krauss does a nice job of illustrating for the informed layman the incredible intricacies that had to be included in the methods and calculations that went into calculating the amount of barionic matter in the universe.
Next, Krauss shows how you can use Newtonian mechanics to predict the amount of mass within a given radius by measuring how fast objects outside the radius orbit the center. He begins with an example showing the average orbital velocity of the planets as a function of the distance from the sun. He uses this example to predict the solar mass, and to also illustrate how much (how little, actually) other material besides the planets there is in the solar system. I find this aspect of science fascinating; how, with some careful observations of lights in the sky, we can infer the amount of mass resulting from countless unseen specs of dust orbiting the sun in an unimaginably large volume of space.
The orbital velocities for planets in the solar system fall off rapidly with increasing distance from the sun. But when we apply these techniques to galaxies, we see something different: the orbital velocities fall off as if there was an invisible halo of mass around them. Taking the best estimates for matter in a typical galaxy, and measuring the velocities of stars orbiting various galaxies, scientists found that the amount of matter they thought was there is a small percentage of the amount that is inferred by the measured orbital velocities. This is the origin of the central problem of Krauss' book: the missing mass of the universe. We know it's there, but what is it? What is it made of? If current estimates are correct, it is the dominant source of mass in the universe.
Most of the rest of the book looks at the central question of what the missing matter - called dark matter - is made of. Along the way Krauss examines possible candidates from neutrinos and WIMPS to vacuum energy. As I said, this is a nicely written book, and one that wraps a whole lot of information on the universe together. If you enjoy amateur cosmology (like I do) I think you'll want to read it.
Qunitessential modern science?.......2000-11-23
I was fortunate this autumn to have lots of train journeys round the south of England, and this book was a fascinating and thought provoking companion. Less mathematical than some other recent treatments (Bernstein's Introduction to Cosmology, or Peacock's Cosmological Physics), it nevertheless covers what sems to be a transition in cosmology from a theoretical set of models to a practical observational subject. The reviewer who thinks that scientists in this area simply demonstrate ignorance presumably didn't get past the dust jacket since the book is full of empirical discoveries which still require adequate theoretical coverage. If there is one weakness it is the near absence of treatment of string theories, which are held, in some quarters to provide the only adequate descriptions of quantum gravity - but also seem to 'explain' so much else that their correspondence to our actual universe is still highly moot. (Also the mathematics seems to be so abstruse as to make it intrinsically uncertain!) One final point, I had not read Krauss's earlier work and was worried that I would be reading an update to a 10 year old work which must have been seriously left behind by the discoveries of the 90s, but, impressively, the work reads seamlessly and I could not tell what (if any) came from the original work, and what was new.
A Moderately Bright Description of Dark Matter.......2000-10-08
Will the universe expand forever, begin to contract at some time in
the future, or get to a balanced state? The answer depends on the
amount of mass it contains. To explain the behavior of galaxies
unaccountable by the mass of visible matter, the idea of "dark
matter" was proposed in the 1980s.
The title of the book
"Quintessence" means "The Fifth Essence." The
latter was the title of the first edition of this book published in
1989. In ancient philosophy, it meant the heavenly material that was
supposed not only to form stars but also to pervade all things, and is
used here to represent dark matter and vacuum energy in the
universe.
Lawrence Krauss starts the story by an intriguing brief
review of the earliest notions of cosmologies and gives an updated and
much detailed account of the dark matter problem for lay readers. The
account covers both theoretical and experimental studies including
those to be done in the near future. Some chapters might be hard for
bedside reading even for scientists, because the author often lays one
reason upon the other for an explanation. However, thorough reading of
this book would be rewarding if you like to wonder about the mysteries
of the universe and scientists' efforts to resolve them.
The book
contains some irritating misprints. For example, "decrease"
should read "increase" at one place, and "charge"
should read "change" at another.
Worth the effort........2000-09-09
I understand the negative reviews. This book is dense with information and is most appropriate for the lay reader who really wants to get some idea of where professional cosmology is today, and how it got there. Reading it just once, quickly, like a cheap novel, is not going to be good enough. You need to read it at least twice before it will start to really click (unless you have more background than I do!). I remember reading a book about Feyman (the Nobel prize-winning physicist) in which he related that, when he was a kid, he would read a heavy-duty science book until he couldn't understand it anymore. Then he would put it aside. The next day, he would pick it up again, start reading and, lo and behold! the foggy became clear and he could get a little further. He would repeat this process until he had finished the book. Sometimes, if you want to know, you just have to make that kind of effort. This book rewards the effort. It is excellent, but it's not a cheap date and you aren't going to get very far in a single encounter. Unless, again, you have a good background in this area already.
Buy it. Live with it for a week. It will pay off. You will be fascinated. Do it now.
Book Description
For over a quarter of a century, gamma-ray bursts were the outstanding mystery in astronomy. No one knew where they were or how they worked. The Biggest Bangs tells how the mystery was unraveled, from the discovery of gamma-ray bursts by a Cold War satellite system monitoring the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the localization of bursts in distant galaxies and the observation of surprisingly bright flashes of light from the bursts themselves. The Biggest Bangs is for laymen with an interest in science, physicists and astronomers interested in subjects in those fields not their specialty, students in non-technical astonomy courses, and as supplemental reading for courses in the history of science.
Customer Reviews:
An educational and insightful peek into the research on Gamma-Ray Bursts .......2007-08-20
In this book, Dr. Katz (a professor of Physics) takes the reader on an educational and insightful trip into the history of research on the phenomena of Gamma-Ray Bursts ... bursts of highly energetic photons with energies far in excess of standard X-Rays - sometimes hundreds (even thousands) of times more powerful.
The journey of discovery goes all the way back to the early days of the Cold War, and fledgeling attempts to monitor international compliance to the nuclear test ban treaty ... and from there into the early days of the space program ... and on into the days of the Hubble Space Telescopes, the BATSE/GRO (Gamma Ray Observatory), HETE-2 (High-Energy Transient Explorer), and on into attempts to scatter GROs far and wide throughout the solar system, in order to use triangulation and parallax to pinpoint the location and distance of such bursts ... with the holy grail being to someday localize such a burst quickly enough to focus a telescope on the origin, and settle the ongoing (and heated) debates concerning the nature (and distance) of their origin.
The author does an excellent job of taking the reader along on a thrilling ride of discovery - not just of the phenomena at hand, but also on a lifecycle of the scientific method itself ... from the early stages of gamma burst detection, through early theoretical explanations, through increasingly complex experiments attempting better measurements, through setbacks of funding and accidents during and after launch, to revised theories and debates in response, to still more ambitious experiments by forward thinking and innovative minds ... and finally onward to the holy grail itself - timely photos of the afterglow of a super burst, and the long sought-after confirmation of the origin and nature of such bursts - a holy grail that, in this case, is found and described by the author in his closing chapter
The book is recommended, albeit with one minor stylistic nit ... the author has this inexplicable aversion to using superlatives when he writes about his subject. This causes him, at times, to project an overly-cool detachment, when describing mind-bogglingly powerful phenomena (on the order to 10**54 ergs) ... it left me feeling half-crazed at times, wishing I could shake him.
Anyway, if you like populist {astro}physicists-turned-authors like Brian Greene, you'll like Dr. Katz, and this book as well.
Whiny.......2006-08-28
I have to agree with a previous review, this book is so whiny of the lack of research in gamma-ray bursts that I forgot I was reading a science book.
Gamma-ray bursts!.......2004-12-03
Gamma-ray bursters were first detected in 1967, by satellites designed to verify complaince with rules against testing of nuclear weapons. This book traces the history of figuring out what produced the gamma-ray bursts and tells what we know about them.
The first question was: were they near us or far from us? That got answered more than ten years ago: they're far away. Besides the gamma-ray bursters, there were other objects, "soft gamma repeaters." We learn how all these phenomena started to become associated with faraway neutron stars. The soft gamma repeaters were interpreted either as a release of magnetic energy by the neutron star or as the sudden accretion of matter by the neutron star. And the gamma-ray bursters were interpreted as the, um, collision of binary neutron stars. Actually, I think there is good evidence for some gamma-ray bursters being collapsars rather than merging binary neutron stars, and I wish there had been a better discussion of all this. In addition, I would have liked to see more about the difference between the shorter and longer gamma-ray bursts.
In any case, we're led to a couple of obvious questions: just how big are these bursts? And how much damage would one do if it occurred in our galaxy? Well, they can dish out up to 10 to the 52 ergs per second. And they do that for about a minute. For reference, our Sun puts out about 4 times 10 to the 33 ergs per second. So for a minute, the gamma-ray burster is more than 10 to the 18 times as luminous as the Sun. Over a hundred thousand times as luminous as the entire Milky Way galaxy! That's scary. If a star 5 light years from us were to become a gamma-ray burster, the blast would hit us like an atom bomb going off less than 10 feet away. We'd be vaporized.
Still, gamma-ray bursters are rather infrequent. We might do better if the burster were, say, 500 light years away. Still, that would pretty much set half the planet on fire, not a very pleasant prospect.
Supernovae are about 10,000 times more frequent than gamma-ray bursters. But Katz explains that gamma-ray bursters may be more dangerous to us than supernovae. After all, we might well survive a supernova blast at a distance of 20 light years.
The good news the author gives us is that we might be able to predict when a gamma-ray burst would occur. He speculates that we might even know the time to the minute (assuming the merging binary neutron star theory is correct and we can make use of it), and know it years in advance. If that burst were a thousand light years away, what would we do? Most of us would get to the side of the Earth away from the blast, and that would protect us. And a few brave firemen would water down half the planet and hide out underground, and then try to put out all the fires! I've no idea what we'd do about all the induced radioactivity. Sounds like a marvellous science fiction story.
Anyway, I liked the book. I don't know why there isn't more popular interest in these fascinating gamma-ray bursts.
Written too Soon?.......2003-05-13
In the late 1960s the U.S. military discovered gamma-ray bursts: intense bursts of radiation coming from random points in the sky. Over the next thirty years these bursts remained one of the most mysterious astrophysical phenomena. Very little was known about them. This changed in 1997 when Paul Vreeswijk discovered an optical flash at the location of one gamma-ray burst. This discovery made it possible to determine that gamma-ray bursts are at cosmological distances and involve energies that are usually only seen in exploding stars. Jonathan Katz gives the history of gamma-ray bursts and provides a clear explaination of how astronomers have come to understand what they are and how they work. Unfortunately most of the book is devoted to what happened before 1997. Only four of the seventeen chapters cover the time after the discovery of the optical flashes. This is unfortunate because it has been since 1997 that science has been able to understand gamma-ray bursts. The book would have been much better if it had treated the two eras equally instead of concentrating on the early history of the field. The book also suffers from a slighly biased view of who contributed what to our understanding of gamma-ray bursts. The field is competetive, and rival researchers often refuse to give credit where credit is due. It is unfortunate that Katz chooses to continue this trend in a popular work. Gamma-ray bursts are a hot topic in astronomy, and the story of their discovery is worth telling. However, "The Biggest Bangs" is not that story.
Science is Done by People.......2002-10-02
The Biggest Bangs is really two books in one. The first book is an entertaining popular account of astronomical gamma-ray bursts. It tells how they were accidentally discovered (by satellites launched to monitor the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty), how (through the development of better instruments) we gradually learned more about them, how the right ideas were sifted from the wrong ideas (there were plenty of wrong ideas), and how astronomers finally arrived at their present understanding. The picture is still rather cloudy, so there are likely many surprises yet to come. This is straightforward popular science writing, uncontroversial and rather well done.
The second book hiding inside The Biggest Bangs is an account of the human side of science, warts and all. This is reminiscent of The Double Helix (although Katz is only one of many contributors to understanding gamma-ray bursts, and his own name doesn't even appear in his index, in contrast to The Double Helix, in which Watson was the biggest player as well as the author). In both books the human side is often ugly. Good ideas are rejected for funding, scientists can be real backstabbers (they're human beings with the usual share of jealousy and more than the usual share of ambition), and credit doesn't always go to the most deserving (the Soviet contributors seem to have received particularly short shrift). NASA comes in for severe criticism (well-deserved, according to most scientists who have dealt with that agency). NASA apparatchiks and people who believe that science is a never-never land populated by goody-goodies above mere human failings have not been pleased.
This second book within The Biggest Bangs is really a book about the history and sociology of science, using gamma-ray bursts as a source of illustrations. It occupies only a small fraction of the text, a paragraph or a page here and there. Yet it may the most interesting part, especially for readers who don't begin with a great interest in astronomy. If the people who run science read it and pay attention it might do some good. Science could be more efficient and productive, if it were run a little differently.
Average customer rating:
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Space Time and Self: Three Mysteries of the Universe (Quest books)
Manufacturer: Theosophical Pub House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0835606589 |
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- Non Fiction
- An Excellent View of the Universe
- Disappointing - if you're looking for pictures
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Visions of Heaven: The Mystery of the Universe Revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope
Tom Wilkie , and
Mark Rosselli
Manufacturer: Trafalgar Square Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Astronomy
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ASIN: 0340717351 |
Book Description
The Hubble Space Telescope's spectacular pictures of nearby planets, remote stars, and distant galaxies captured the public imagination in a way not seen since the heady days of the Apollo Space Program. In Visions of Heaven, we see their full range, from the stellar nurseries where young stars are hatched out of immense clouds of gas and dust, to the magnificent remains, glowing across billions of miles, of once-mighty stars. But Hubble has brought us more than just glorious pictures: it offers new insights into the cosmos, and with them, the glimmering of answers to some of the most fundamental human questions. What really happened "in the beginning?" Is there life on other planets? What does the future hold? To the astronomer's eye, each of the Hubble pictures may tell a clear story, but the casual reader needs a guide to see and appreciate the deeper order contained within the images. Now, Visions of Heaven presents these remarkable pictures with a concise narrative that reveals the thrilling and moving stories behind them.
Customer Reviews:
Non Fiction.......2007-09-03
Very pretty, basically I bought it for the cover picture, which I had seen before, and would be happy to have a big poster of, one day, or of something similar.
Apart from the very nice space photography, some Hubble information is given.
A book with many beautiful pictures, if you are interested in what is way out there in the galaxy.
An Excellent View of the Universe.......2001-03-21
I think that anyone who rates this book on its "coffee table" worthiness, is doing a disservice to this excellent book. While maybe not qualifying for the coffee table, this book provides an amazing assortment of pictures taken not only from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), but also contrasting them with pictures available only from Earth-based telescopes prior to the existence of the HST. Almost every page of the book contains spectacular pictures from the HST, along with clear descriptions of what is occurring within each photograph. The book begins with a brief description of the history of the HST, then onto exploring our own solar system, and then outward to the stars themselves. This book is a welcome addition to anyone interested in seeing and learning about our amazing universe.
Disappointing - if you're looking for pictures.......2000-12-26
My desire was to have a coffee table book to show the glory of the heavens (and especially their Creator). Despite a great looking cover, though, I was disappointed to find that this was not a coffee-table book. I wanted good pictures but found most of the ones in here to be kind of blurry, not striking like those presented (more briefly) in Nightwatch.
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Mysteries of Space and the Universe (Strange Unsolved Mysteries)
Phyllis Raybin Emert
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0812536312 |
Book Description
Lights in the sky moving at hundreds of miles and hour in perfect formation....Is it evidence of life from other planets or is it a trick of the imagination?What could have caused the giant symmetrical rings in the wheat fields of England?How can you explain a dozen simultaneous sightings of a glowing egg shaped object 125 feet long?What about the presence of objects on radar moving at over 5,000 miles per hour?Is there life out there beyond the stars and is it visiting our planet?With more than twenty fascinating stories to choose from, you be the judge!
Amazon.com
As biological scientists learn more about how terrestrial life was formed, they increasingly turn to the stars to ask whether life might have evolved elsewhere. Thus far, despite a recent flurry of interest in Mars, they have found no solid evidence, but they keep looking. This scholarly book, written by a historian at the U.S. Naval Observatory, examines the long development of that quest, along with some of the philosophical questions that have emerged from it. Steven J. Dick notes that our observational abilities are both limited and biased, and that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence forces us to examine some of our own assumptions about what constitutes life in the first place.
Book Description
Throughout the twentieth century, from the furor over Percival Lowell's claim of canals on Mars to the sophisticated Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherworldly life has often intrigued and occasionally consumed science and the public. The Biological Universe provides a rich and colorful history of the attempts during the twentieth century to answer questions such as whether "biological law" reigns throughout the universe and whether there are other histories, religions, and philosophies outside those on Earth. Covering a broad range of topics, including the search for life in the solar system, the origins of life, UFOs, and aliens in science fiction, Steven J. Dick shows how the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence is a world view of its own, a "biophysical cosmology" that seeks confirmation no less than physical views of the universe. This book will fascinate astronomers, historians of science, biochemists, and science fiction readers.
Customer Reviews:
May be the same book with different title.......2007-03-30
I looked over this book and Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate. They seem to be the same book with different titles. Just a heads up.
A paradigm-setting study.......2003-09-24
This book is subtitled "the twentieth century extraterrestrial life debate and the limits of science." In fact, it is more than that. Science historian Stephen Dick describes a new paradigm of the universe that integrates biology. Where once we seemed lost in a vast and empty Cosmos, now we can credibly argue that we may be part of a living universe.
Dick sets the stage by surveying the debates over the existence of life and intelligence beyond the Earth up to the beginning of the 20th century, seeing the extraterrestrial life debate as a struggle for a world view that has advanced in stages. He connects the plurality of worlds with the decline of anthropocentrism, describing the latter as one of the major intellectual changes of the past century. He then describes how Percival Lowell's theories about Mars demonstrated the limits of astronomical observation. He goes into scientific theories about the origins of planets before discussing images of extraterrestrials in literature and the arts. Dick takes on the UFO controversy in an admirably objective way. He reviews scientific theories about the origin and evolution of life before describing the modern search for radio signals known as SETI. Dick argues convincingly that we have seen the birth of a new science: astrobiology. He concludes by discussing some of the implications of possible future contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. In his summary, he describes the triumph of an evolutionary view of the Cosmos, and the emergence of the biological universe as a worldview. This is a basic work for any serious student of the extraterrestrial life issue.
Very good history, very good science.......2001-08-09
Steven J. Dick is an historian with a broad academic background both in the humanities and in the sciences. The present book of nearly 600 pages will establish his reputation even more. Its sub-title, "the Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science" reveals what is the book's focus, and also gives a hint of its broad philosophical scope. For though Dick's main theme is the astronomers' efforts to find out whether there is life on other heavenly bodies than our own earth, he is careful to relate it to the astronomical world-picture of the time. He sets forth in sufficient detail the arguments used to support or reject the idea of extra-terrestrial life. His presentation is clear and informative, with a minimum of technical jargon. Readers of this book will get a good grasp of the development of astronomical practice and theory after Copernicus and Newton, both in the scientific community and among the general public.
Of course the main meat of the book is the tremendous rise of interest in matters of outer space. On the unsophisticated popular level, this means mainly "little green men from Mars", fanciful accounts of Star Wars, eked lout by UFOs -- Flying Saucers. Dick's perspective includes these: he notes that many future scientists, including Carl Sagan and several future Nobel laureates, devoured science fiction of this kind in their early teens. As a serious historian, Dick tries to account for how popular culture and the scientific elite influenced each other. Positively, since public interest made it possible to raise money for building ever more sophisticated and expensive astronomical instruments and space probes, including the Hubble space telescope. Negatively, since the sensationalism of the popular press, radio and television (including Orson Welles's extraordinary radio broadcast in 1938, "War of the Worlds", and later TV dramas about space adventures such as "Star Trek", tended to hurt the reputation of scientists who participated in space projects. Dick consistently takes the view that scientific research cannot progress without the trial and error of creative hypotheses: the very essence of hypothesis testing.
True, we still do not have any proof of life or conscious intelligence on other planets than the earth, nor around other stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, nor in the billions upon billions of galaxies around us. But thanks to the adventurous research projects of the latter half of the 20th century, with radio telescopes and the Hubble space telescope, and also the landings on the Moon , Mars and Venus, and finally the grand, Government-supported project of SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), where Carl Sagan was an important actor, we now know much more than we did around 1900. The quest will go on, strengthened by the arguments elaborated in the lively 20th century debates.
To complement Dick's historian's perspective, I strongly recommend "Our Cosmic Origin" by A. Delsemme, a prominent astronomer specializing on comets. His history starts with the BIg Bang, some fifteen billion years ago.
A Detailed and colorful insight on Human thinking protocols........2000-10-09
The Book is certainly one of a kind, in that it even when it was not the original goal of the author to follow a very detailed evolution in human thought processes throughout time..one can certainly take this aspect as a very interesting and outstanding one. By exposing the evolution of the formulation of the necessary premises upon which an extraterrestrial life was/is supposed to exist, it is showing the evolutionary steps taken by human logic until today's scientific method. Thus, starting from the "known" existing historical records of the discussions around the possibility of an exterrestrial intelligence, one can track this evolution as well as view the slow drift from a dictatorial role played by the Church and religion in philosophical/scientific debates to a totally religiously independent scientific debate held nowadays.
A sweeping history of a new worldview.......1999-11-21
In recent years, science has given us a new worldview. The universe now seems much friendlier to life than it was in the old cosmology of lifeless rocks and stars. Steven Dick captures this new worldview in THE BIOLOGICAL UNIVERSE. It is easy to understand, breathtaking in its broad sweep of decades of debate and progress, and highly relevant for understanding today's science.
Average customer rating:
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The Mysteries of Outer Space (Mysteries of the Universe Series)
Franklyn M. Branley
Manufacturer: Dutton Juvenile
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