Book Reviews &#8211; Astronomy Now

This book, by former Astronomy Now editor Paul Parsons, begins with an observation by Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaître that “the Big Bang was a day without a yesterday”. Grappling with that mind-blowing concept perfectly sets up the reader for what follows.

The shocking news in the 1990s that space is not only expanding, but is doing so ever more quickly, changed forever a few dog-eared theories about how our Universe was born and how, if at all, it would die. As the concept of an accelerating expansion itself becomes accepted, there has never been a better time to get to grips with this brave new world of cosmology.

This is not just a history of the Universe. The book is driven by the fascinating narrative of humanity’s developing cosmologies, from the religious philosophies of Mesopotamia to the latest scientific discoveries. By degrees we move from Thales, Copernicus and Newton to Einstein, Hubble, Hawking and beyond.

Time is spent examining how the Steady State theory fought for supremacy with the theory of the Big Bang and the expanding Universe. Evidence eventually favoured the latter, but even that camp did not suspect that this expansion is accelerating.

There can be no better example that science does not stand still. I am therefore pleased to see that the author occasionally pauses to explain the ‘scientific method’ and why it is such a powerful and progressive tool compared to the alternative of mere philosophical musing. Indeed, Parsons delights in pointing out that a scientist when presented with damning evidence is duty bound to discard a favoured theory – even if it is their own!

Parsons concludes the book in firmly scientific style. In the face of observations that deliver a startling result, what we need are more observations. He leaves us therefore eagerly anticipating further exploration of the very large, via gravitational wave detectors and the James Webb Space Telescope, and future revelations of those first few moments after the Big Bang through the subatomic physics of particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.

This enjoyable book delivers a solid background in cosmology and current thinking and is heartily recommended.

Reviewed by: Steve Ringwood

The Cosmic Mystery Tour: A High-Speed Journey Through Space and Time

Author: Nicholas Mee

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 978-0-198-83186-0

Price: £16.99 (Hb) 224pp

This is a high-quality, small-format hardback of just over 200 pages and more than 100, mostly colour, illustrations and diagrams that assist in the delivery of the book’s contents.

The Cosmic Mystery Tour moves at almost relativistic speed though the past 300 years of accumulated understanding of the physical world and Universe that we inhabit. The author, Nicholas Mee, acts as the reader’s chaperone as we are whisked along, starting with Isaac Newton hunting counterfeiters for the Royal Mint a decade after his breakthrough in gravity, before accelerating to 1915 and Einstein’s seminal work on General Relativity, and then travelling back to Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell’s work on electromagnetism, all in just the first 20 pages! There is a non-linear structure to the stories and topics covered in the book, which perhaps contributes to the element of mystery in the title, and it all still comes together in a coherent narrative.

Part one describes the quest for ‘The Laws of the Cosmos’, while part two focuses on the history and structure of the cosmos, covering the Big Bang and stellar evolution, as well as gravitational waves and, at the time of publication, the expected first image of a supermassive black hole, and includes stories and anecdotes of the often colourful characters who contributed to our current understanding, such as Georges Lemaître, Fritz Zwicky and Fred Hoyle.

The final section deals with astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life in the Universe – something that can easily spill over into the realm of science fiction, but which has certainly puzzled some great minds, as exemplified by the Fermi Paradox.

The Cosmic Mystery Tour is aimed at beginners looking for an easy-to-read introduction to the modern view of the Universe. It’s an engaging read and provides a good springboard to further investigation of any topic that captures the reader’s imagination. There is, in fact, a short bibliography, which can assist with this desire. For those of us with a more rigorous academic background in physics, it is still an entertaining diversion for a couple of hours.

Reviewed by: Matthew Hodgson

Your Place in the Universe: Understanding Our Big, Messy Universe

Author: Paul M. Sutter

Publisher: Prometheus Books

ISBN: 978-1-633-88472-4

Price: £18.99 (Hb) 288pp

The ability to make convoluted scientific developments and complex cosmology seem not only accessible and comprehensible, but also effortlessly entertaining, is a precious one. Paul Sutter’s disarming, breezy style draws you in and allows you to relax. Suddenly questions like ‘What is our place in the Universe?’, ‘How did we all get here?’ and ‘Is our home nothing more than a tiny speck of blue in an ocean of night?’ seem less terrifying.

Finding meaning in our lives in this topsy-turvy world could not be more in vogue at the moment, but with light-hearted metaphors, a large dollop of fun and some gentle hand-holding, Sutter guides us through some of the enigmatic mysteries of the Universe. When did a scientific book last make you laugh out loud? Well, this one will. Under Sutter’s slightly irreverent treatment, iconic historical figures suddenly become personalities – characters who we can relate to, laugh at (just a little) and perhaps most importantly, marvel with. From Johannes Kepler’s ever-expanding bladder to Edmond Halley the history geek, as well as William Herschel the planet-discovering rock star, Sutter’s writing adds context and colour. From pin-pointing the Earth’s place in an infinite Universe to black holes and dark energy, Sutter is our cheerful fact-filled guide.

This is by no means a frivolous book, but importantly, you don’t need a degree or to be an astronomy nerd to enjoy it or to wonder at the audacity of life. This is a book for anyone who has ever stared at the night sky and wondered what the grand design was (Sutter says there wasn’t one). As Sutter himself says, Your Place in the Universe is a book not just about physics and science, but also about our home, the Universe, and our human story. It is about how our knowledge and understanding has grown and developed, and how we have decoded and deciphered, faltered and often misunderstood. We may have occasionally got a little lost and gone down the odd blind alley, but Sutter sums up how, ultimately, we still continue to untangle our delightfully chaotic existence in the Universe.

Reviewed by: Elizabeth Dale

A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos

Authors: Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 978-1-107-15661-6

Price: £12.99 (Pb) 388pp

The Universe seems curiously fine-tuned to allow for the emergence of stars, planets and life. Were the gravitational constant, or the strength of the weak and strong forces, or any other of the myriad properties that have gone into defining our Universe, even just slightly different, then our Universe would likely be empty, sterile and possibly very short-lived. So, why is the Universe the way it is?

It is a weighty subject, incorporating everything from cosmology and atomic physics to quantum physics and philosophy, but astrophysicists Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes have done a stellar job in explaining some extremely challenging concepts with style and panache. Cambridge University Press are mostly known for their academic titles, but this is firmly in the popular science mould, akin to the works of authors like Brian Greene or Sean Carroll.

Occasionally it does struggle a little under the weight of the concepts being discussed. For example, I found the section where the authors imagine what would happen if time, and therefore light, travelled backwards towards the big bang, to be rather heavy reading. However, these are difficult topics to explain and although I found myself having to reread pages, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall, the tone of the book is engaging, though occasional attempts at being witty fall flat, while the authors sometimes become distracted by tangents resulting in their belabouring their point. This can become frustrating, particularly as you know where it’s headed: the multiverse.

The concept of the multiverse is tackled in the final ‘conversation-style’ chapter (the two authors talking to one another), along with other potential solutions to the fine-tuning problem, including the simulation hypothesis and God. That each of these solutions can be seen as far-fetched, depending on your viewpoint, is eye-opening, but ironically (given that I’ve always had a soft spot for the multiverse hypothesis) the book has succeeded in giving me a greater appreciation for the idea that there are simply deeper, as yet undiscovered equations that explain the fundamental constants without having to invoke parallel universes or the hand of God.

So, despite a few small caveats, I strongly recommend A Fortunate Universe.

Reviewed by: Keith Cooper

The Knowledge. Stargazing

Steve Ringwood — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 05:18:43 +0000

Author: Maggie Aderin-Pocock
Publisher: Quadrille
ISBN: 978-1-8494-9621-6
Price: £9.75

‘The knowledge’ is a series of titles aimed (so says series editor Jane O’Shea) at demystifying subjects by providing an accessible introduction that will also be of interest to the more informed reader. This book, by a BBC Sky at Night co-presenter, succeeds for the most part in its first aim, but I cannot say it does so for the second.

Within ten easily digestible chapters, we run the gamut of astronomy’s origins, classes of celestial objects, their appearance and how amateur and professional astronomers study them. Each topic is given concise treatment in very simple terms; bite-sized ‘spotlight’ summaries that hardly ever over-run a page — and frequently much less.

Unfortunately the undue compactness of some texts makes them little more than extended dictionary definitions, an approach that has created some odd balances. For example, use of a finder scope gets more than a page, yet observing the Moon with a telescope merits barely a half.

But brevity is not the same as accessibility. Many items read as if an original text has been cut so repeatedly that what little remains barely hangs together. Certainly, there are passages that seem to have been so squeezed into a breathless time limit that one is led to wonder what limitations of space and format were placed on the author after the first draft was submitted.

Never-the-less this book does address the needs of a complete novice who may be thinking of taking further steps in the subject (or an interested ‘outsider’ who needs a bluffer’s guide). It assumes no previous familiarity and has an eclectic textual arrangement that suits either casual dipping or end-to-end study. Not so much a beginners’ guide; more a taster. However, it does not demystify — its information is insufficient for that.

It could really do with treating the reader to a little more depth. Indeed, I feel that unappeased appetites will soon be searching for richer meat.

Reviewed by Steve Ringwood

Go, Flight! The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965-1992

Astronomy Now — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 04:59:15 +0000

Authors: Rick Houston and Milt Heflin
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 978-0-8032-6937-8
Price: £24.35

‘Go, Flight!’ For children of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo era, just those two words alone are enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Scores of brave Major Toms have been fired into space atop the most powerful rockets known to man. The responsibility for getting them there – and back – rested with the mission controllers in Houston.

While the foreground action of the NASA space programme is very familiar, it’s in the detail of the workings of Mission Control where the real, human stories are to be found. For example, when Deke Slayton says, “Shut up and let ’em land.” Too much information is being relayed to Neil Armstrong as he wrestles with the lunar module to steer clear of a boulder-strewn field. Gene Kranz agrees: only fuel readings will be called up. The atmosphere must have been crackling.

The achievements of Apollo 8 are legendary — the first astronauts to escape Earth’s gravity, the first to see the far side of the Moon. Less well known is that Apollo 8 wasn’t planned to be a lunar mission. With just four months to go before launch — and 18 months to meet President Kennedy’s ‘end of the decade’ challenge – controller Chris Kraft called a meeting with a few select colleagues: “Can anybody give me a reason why Apollo 8 should not go around the Moon in December?” There was only ever going to be one answer.

The story starts back in the days when Houston was just another oil town, vulnerable to the occasional hurricane. The political shenanigans in choosing where to site mission control are laid bare. Fortunately, the cursed Apollo 13 was spared the indignity of having to say, “Bogalusa, we’ve had a problem…”

Unsung heroes? Heroes, certainly. But after this firecracker of a book, no longer unsung.

Reviewed by Andy Sawers

Meteorite: Nature and Culture

Astronomy Now — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 04:40:50 +0000

Author: Maria Golia
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 978-1-78023-497-7
Price: £14.95

It’s remarkable to us today that the origin of meteorites was, for a very long time, a source of uncertainty, debate and hostility. Variously believed to be messengers from the gods, solidified ‘exhalations’ from the earth, or simply rocks swept up by strong winds, only in the early 19th century was their extraterrestrial origin finally accepted.

While Earth is bombarded by anything from 100 to 300 tonnes of small meteorites each day, finding a readily handled fragment is rare. Golia is perhaps at her best when she covers rarely heard accounts of historical hunts for meteroites in some of the world’s most arid landscapes, and the occasional legal wrangles that broke out over their ownership. In today’s buoyant market, finding yourself in possession of a larger, aesthetically attractive meteorite fragment could well mean early retirement.

This is an extremely well-researched book, with its focus away from the scientific details, and squarely on the place of meteorites in various aspects of human culture. Despite a lifetime’s interest in astronomy, I hadn’t previously seen most of the images beautifully reproduced on the very high quality paper. I found the depiction of meteorites and their craters within artworks, especially those by tribespeople, fascinating.

Interspersed among the various sections are full-page images of meteorite sections as viewed under the microscope. These prompted me to delve deeper into how some of the oddly shaped and highly colourful inclusions were formed. Indeed, the book renewed my interest in meteorites in general — a success for any book.

The text does occasionally drift into an overly-academic style, seemingly brought on by the thorough referencing of almost every sentence. But there are plenty of amusing and well-told stories in there, too.

Reviewed by John Rowlands

How We’ll Live on Mars

Astronomy Now — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 01:56:30 +0000

Author: Stephen Petranek
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 978-1-4711-3888-1
Price: £7.99 (Hb), 77pp

Everyone is no doubt aware that humans will return to the Moon and Mars within the next 20 years. Many nations are working hard on spacecraft and launchers to safely traverse the vast void of space.

Stephen Petranek’s book does not deal with the reasons for this exploration but does outline many of the problems that will be encountered and some of the almost insurmountable difficulties in getting to Mars and living on its surface.

While reading How we’ll live on Mars I became aware that some topics had been given more emphasis than others but in such a concise book everything cannot be covered in too much detail.

Just getting humans to Mars will be an outstanding achievement — landing them safely on the surface will take some of the greatest minds in engineering to pull it off.

Mars has no magnetic field. This is a fundamental point, one which will need to be overcome but not by living underground as suggested in the book. Humans like walking their dogs and sailing the seas, humans do not like living underground for decade after decade.

The book does cover the ‘energy bank’ in quite a lot of detail. Solar radiation is less than we receive on Earth. This will become a big issue when trying to set up comfortable living conditions. The first settlers will have to cover their habitat modules with tons of Martian rock to give some protection to its human occupants. Stephen Petranek also mentions terraforming Mars, something that has been put forward many years ago by such scientists as Carl Sagan. But he also stresses the difficulties of keeping conditions favourable by continuing to maintain the processes of terraforming.

In some respects this book is its own worst enemy in that it touches on many aspects of space travel and living independently on Mars but does so at the cost of detail. However for its 77 pages it certainly has crammed a great deal in. A worthwhile read.

Reviewed by Greg Smye-Rumsby

Myths, Symbols and Legends of Solar System Bodies

Astronomy Now — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 01:31:01 +0000

Author: Rachel Alexander
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 978-1-4614-7067-0
Price: £22.99 (Pb); 252pp

As well as being interested in the scientific discipline of astronomy, I am also intrigued by the history of astronomy and how ancient peoples interpreted the night sky and celestial bodies through mythology. This book, though, is not one I’d recommend to make sense of the myriad stories that various cultures around the world have told about the Sun, Moon and planets.

There is an overload of legends and anecdotes crammed into every chapter, covering mythologies as wide ranging as Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, Japanese, Polynesian, to name but a few. However, it comes across as a messily written barrage of information rather than a smooth, engaging narrative. Other than chapters for each Solar System body, there is no cohesion within the chapters themselves, no sense of chronological or geographical order to the myths mentioned – the information is all over the place. It reads like an encyclopedia that has been compiled in the most haphazard manner. It’s a rare example of reading something that overwhelms and disappoints in equal measure.

There are also some serious errors. A couple that I found was one sentence saying that the Sun will ‘explode’ at the end of its life, and another says that Venus, when viewed with the naked eye, has a ‘reddish hue’. These errors make me question the credibility of the book as a whole. Sometimes the same sentences are repeated several times, and at times sentences contradict each other; one example is the aforementioned ‘exploding Sun’. In a later paragraph, it is mentioned that the Sun will expand into a red giant.

It is a shame, as the subject of astronomy in mythology, legends, art and popular culture is a fascinating one.

Reviewed by I. Fontaine

Galactic Encounters

Astronomy Now — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:53:22 +0000

Authors: William Sheehan & Christopher J Conselice
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 978-0-387-85346-8
Price: £31.99 (Hb) 385pp

We know that galaxies and nebulae are critical to our understanding of the Universe. But that wasn’t always the case. Galileo doesn’t seem to have noticed the Orion Nebula when he sketched some of its stars. After the great genius Isaac Newton explained how gravity drives planetary motion, the scientific community focused its endeavours on the Solar System; nebulae were a sideshow.

Even the man who first catalogued galaxies and nebulae, Charles Messier, had no interest in them, he was simply compiling a list of all the objects in the sky that weren’t comets — and which, in his view, could therefore be ignored.

As Sheehan and Conselice explain, all this started to change with William Herschel and his sister Caroline. The authors bring to life the men and women who observed the skies, scrutinised photographic plates, recorded data, and theorised. They tell these personal stories with detail and passion — and in so doing tell a remarkable tale about the twists and turns of astronomical discovery. Their scope ranges from the Herschels to E.C. Pickering and E.E. Barnard, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russel, Annie Jump Cannon and the mercurial Fritz Zwicky, right up to the modern-day cosmologists.

One favourite chapter is about how astronomers tried to measure the size of the Milky Way — not easy when we’re all sitting inside it. A hundred years ago, estimates ranged from 3,000 to 300,000 light-years.

With many great photographs — from Edwin Hubble to the Hubble Space Telescope — a robust approach to the science which is (usually) very well explained, and detailed footnotes, this is a history of galactic astronomy that should definitely find space on your bookshelf.

Reviewed by Andy Sawers

Beyond: Our Future in Space

Astronomy Now — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 14:11:26 +0000

Author: Chris Impey
Publisher: Norton
ISBN: 978-0-393-23930-0
Price: £17.99 (Hb), 336pp

Beyond: Our Future in Space, is a fascinating read that discusses our role as cosmic revolutionaries. The author starts off by describing our urge to explore, reporting in great detail the trek our ancestors made over two-hundred-thousand years ago, as they crossed Africa and entered into Central Asia and Europe. Although this chapter is short, it is comprehensive in such a way that you cannot help but be fascinated about how genetic anthropology has traced human migration throughout the years. Impey explains how genetic materials have revealed how humans spread around the world and explains that there is no single ‘exploration gene’, but instead that there could be a number of mutations or combinations of genes that could lead us to explore. For example, a genetic mutation in the gene DRD could be one of the reasons why people are more likely to take risks, explore new places, seek and crave novelty, be extroverts and be hyperactive.

As we move through the book, Impey does a fantastic job of explaining the rivalry and eventual collaboration between the United States of America and the Soviet Union that fuelled the Space Age, along with discussing the trials and tribulations undertaken by each nation when testing their spacecraft.

Impey does a brilliant job of introducing us to the entrepreneurs that have made and are making space exploration possible. We meet Robert Goddard, Harry Guggenheim, Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, Peter Diamandis and Elon Musk, to name but a few.

Towards the end of the book Impey captures our imagination by discussing the colonisation of Mars, along with the new technologies that would not only aid space exploration but revolutionise it. He even touches upon the absence of extraterrestrial life. Beyond is a compelling book with great attention to detail and science that is awe inspiring – it is a stellar read indeed.

Reviewed by Alex Green

Masters of the Universe

Astronomy Now — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:50:08 +0000

Author: Helge Kragh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-198-72289-2
Price: £25 (Pb); 304pp

This book contains a set of transcripts from some of the most revealing interviews ever to have taken place. The interviewer is Carl Christian Nielsen, known as CCN, and the interviewees are a collection of eminent twentieth century cosmologists, among them Einstein, Eddington, De Sitter, Hoyle, Arrhenius, Dirac and Schwarzschild. Except, the interviews never really took place and CCN is a fictitious ancestor of author Helge Kragh, who has crafted these ‘fake’ interviews to give a personal insight into the work and times of these great scientists. Kragh has gone to some lengths to convince us of CCN’s authenticity and has even included a photograph of this scientist-turned-journalist for good measure.

Rarely do academic papers, journals and books allow for personal characteristics to emerge, but in Masters of the Universe we read about Einstein’s love of music, we meet a genial Eddington rather than a serious stoical don, de Sitter comes across as connected and emotive about his work, while Edwin Hubble revels in reflection.

Each interview starts with a description of where the interview took place, followed by an entertaining introduction that sets the tone. The interviews are all fully referenced with legitimate sources, including a number of actual interviews collected by the Niels Bohr Library and Archives, and the American Institute of Physics.

The value in this book academically is the relationship between cosmologists and their field of research. Furthermore, Helge Kragh demonstrates that science is about dialogue and debate, creating interviews that are both personal and delicate, while drawing out their stories.

This book is curiously entertaining thanks to its unique format and I am hopeful this is merely the first of many volumes with other ‘interviews’ to be collected.

Reviewed by Ian Welland

New Space Frontiers

Astronomy Now — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:23:54 +0000

Author: Piers Bizony
Publisher: Zenith Press
ISBN: 978-0-760-34666-2
Price: £23 (Hb), 176pp