Customer Reviews

The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It doesn't matter if you are astronomer or not: every time you look at the clear and starry sky, you will lose track of time. And after you read this book, this will be even easier because Alchemy of the Heavens will be your guide for that beautiful picture above you. When you see a fuzzy patch, you will wonder whether this is some old globular cluster which holds clues to the origin and history of our own Galaxy or maybe even one of our bigger and brighter galactic satellites. Blue stars won't be just blue stars anymore but lighthouses tracing the spiral structure of our Galaxy, and the next time you see an Orion nebula, you will remember the story about H II regions and new stars that were and will be born there.

The author provides us with answers (and if they aren't available, then with current theories) to many questions, some of which are: How the Galaxy formed and evolved? What populations and types of stars exist? What can you tell about a star just by observing its color? And how was all this knowledge acquired? Chapters that explain long path to discoveries are chronologically ordered and contain many interviews with scientists themselves. This makes the book much more interesting to read and lets you learn about all ups and downs and not just the end result. This, in turn, will let you understand present theories better because you've already heard all the old ones and the reasons why they were rejected. Moreover, the author points to many misconceptions that can be found in today's literature (the most common of which being that our Sun is just an ordinary star). The last chapters of the book are left for a bit of speculation on the Hubble constant, age of the Universe and also the possibility that some of our 29-stellar neighbours harbor an Earth-like planet or maybe even life (for further exploration of this topic and other solar systems found, I recommend the book Planet Quest by the same author). If your forget some word, the rich glossary is there to refresh your memory. This book will be an exciting material to read, be it your first introduction to our Galaxy's clockwork or not.

Croswell focuses on stellar evolution and the evolution of galaxies in a narrative that alternates between the very technical and the very personal. He gives first hand glimpses into the lives and thoughts of many modern astronomers and cosmologists and provides insights into the battles as they are being fought today. A great book to read if you're interested in the contributions of astronomers of the 70's right up to the mid-90's. He also gives an historical treatment of his main topics (stellar evolution and galactic formation) but the history is brief - his main focus is on the state of these investigations today.

Imagine your first book sells to publishers around the world. It is discovered in Germany, Poland, China, England. The New York Times raves and the LA Times picks it as a runner up for their book award. That is The Alchemy of the Heavens by Dr. Ken Croswell. This gem has been praised and Croswell has been compared most favorably to the greatest living astronomers. His prose is a pleasure that makes him unique among science writers. Don't hesitate to buy this one

Wow, I loved this book, and recommend it to every scientifically curious person. In a wonderfully easy to read style, Dr. Croswell tells a facinating tale of how our understanding of stars and the Milky Way Galaxy has came about. The competition of ideas, and the human struggle to piece together bits and pieces of evidence make this a mystery book far better for me than any bedside novel. I especially liked the many direct quotes from the researchers involved. It reveals the human aspect, and frequent battle, of the scientific process. This is the single best book in my astronomy library.

As an amateur astronomer who formerly considered the generic topic of the Milky Way to be humdrum, I must say that this book totally changed my opinion. Croswell structures each chaper as a mystery, in which facts slowly conglomerate until bam!-the researcher gets the "big picture", and you learn something new. He wants the reader to figure things out along with the various astronomers, rather than to just spit out facts. His style is engaging and never dull. *Highly* recommended for anyone interested in the Milky Way who doesn't want to start out with the big guns like Bok or Payne-Gaposchkin. Read it. Enjoy.

The author does a good job in introducing the history and current understandings of the formation and properties of the Milky Way. Easy to follow and full of facts. Highly recommended.

The New York Times Book Review, Owen Gingerich:

An engaging account of the continuing discovery of our Galaxy....Croswell has awonderful knack for the apt analogy.

San Francisco Examiner,Keay Davidson:

Ken Croswell's THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS is one of the very best popular astronomy books in decades. With my usual humility, I delayed reading this book for months because I thought I knew everything about our home in space--the Milky Way Galaxy, a spiral-shaped swarm of hundreds of billions of stars. When I finally read it, I realized that Croswell had achieved a rare feat: a science book that 1) tells an entertaining, even romantic story; 2) clearly explains the historical evolution of difficult scientific ideas; and 3) tells even well-informed readers things that they never knew.

Los Angeles Times, Lee Dembart:
A very well-written, clearly explained account of how we know what we know about our own Galaxy.

Publishers Weekly:
Enlightening and entertaining.

Robert P. Kirshner, Sky & Telescope:
Excellent.

Astronomy, Stephen H. Peters:
Excellent.

New Scientist, Hazel Muir:
For an excellent guided tour of our Galaxy, look no further than THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS by Ken Croswell....The charm of Croswell's story is that much of it comes straight from the horse's mouth--from interviews with astronomers who have shaped and reshaped our picture of the Galaxy. His colourful account is enlivened by highlights of the controversy that has both fuelled and hindered astronomy's progress, from the debate about the Milky Way's size to the downright `mud wrestling' over the value of the Hubble constant. THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS is a captivating story, accessible to anyone. Curl up with this one and you'll really get a feeling for the magic of the heavens.

I agree with the other reviewers, this is good book. It's a well written introduction to stars of our galaxy and does a good job explaining how the structure of the galaxy came to be understood. I've read a lot of astronomy books, and I leaned a lot from this book. It covers the less flashy side of astronomy, yet it's oriented to the general reader not the amateur astronomer.

A key question in 2007, of course, is whether this book published in 1995 is now too out of date to buy. My answer is buy it. The last few chapters, which discuss topics like the Hubble constant, are now clearly dated, but history is history, and as far as I can tell (doing some cross-checking on Wikipedia) the core of the book, its discussion of Milky Way stars, holds up well.

This unfortunately titled book is actually a sober and detailed popular-level overview of Milky Way studies. It has nothing whatsoever to do with alchemy! It is chatty in style; plenty of racy anecdotes about various professional astronomers. It also adds a human interest story of the "bitter and tense controversy between two scientists" type, in an attempt to grip the non-technical reader.....but be aware that the layperson or the mid-level amateur astronomer will find that while Croswell's book does read well, it requires some serious study. The frustratingly high incidence of incorrect information within this book has to be judged more harshly than it would be in a book that was only a sketchy overview. Croswell successfully explains, in substantial detail, several important topics concerning our own Galaxy: stellar populations and stellar orbits, kinematics of Galactic components, the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, element transmutation by stars, the thick disk component, etc.
I have to say that a specialist in the Milky Way might have written a much more accurate book. I would have expected more accuracy from Croswell, a trained astrophysicist.