Customer Reviews

Astronomy: A Physical Perspective

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

 

 

This book offers a good introduction to astronomy, with chapters devoted to everything from telescope technology to general relativity and cosmology. Its explanations are generally clear and instructive, although the sections on subjects like nuclear and particle physics could be a little overwhelming to the uninitiated - it's simply a lot of information to present in a relatively small amount of space, but the author does a decent job. The book gives a good understanding of the science aspect of astronomy, but rushes through some of the technicalities, with, for example, a surprisingly brief and uninformative section (3 pages!) on astronomical coordinates and timekeeping.

My big complaint about this book is that it is chock full of errors! Some entire diagrams need to be replaced, and more importantly, there are way too many errors in the equations and exercises. As a student with weekly problem sets to get through, I found this quite frustrating. In one case, an entire exercise was an error and had to be replaced with a different question. If you're thinking of using this book for a course, make sure you find the list of after press corrections, and hand it out on the first day of class.

I like this up-to-date textbook. I like the explanations, the diagrams, the marvellous photographs, the exercises. It covers pretty much everything I'd want as a teacher or student, and in well under 600 pages. Maybe the parts I liked best were the sections on relativity and cosmology. But it was all just great, as it sailed through telescopes, stars, spectra, binaries,the Sun, stellar evolution, the Milky Way, star formation, the interstellar medium, normal galaxies, active galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the Sun's planetary system. The treatment of the solar planetary system included planetary atmospheres, surfaces, and interiors. It even talked about planetary resonances.

One weakness, to my way of thinking, was the overly brief appendix on astronomical coordinates and timekeeping. And there were a couple of minor topics I would have wanted to see mentioned. One was Gamma Ray Bursters. Another was Blue Stragglers.

I have to agree with Ballpoint legs - this textbook is adequate as a survey, but when it comes to the mathematical, the textbook fails to provide clear explanations of concepts that then lead into examples with reliable solutions. I have trouble feeling that I have a deep understanding of the concepts, and I feel unprepared for the problem sets in my class. Unfortunately, this is the textbook assigned. So much for going to an Ivy League institution.

This text was assigned for my second year astronomy course. While I'm told that it is rather difficult to find a suitable text for the course, this one sure doesn't fit the bill.

First of all, after being raised on MKS (meters, kilograms, seconds) units since the sixth grade, it would be nice to stay consistent with that; this book uses CGS (centimeters, grams, seconds) units. Although this didn't seem like a big deal initially, it becomes bothersome when converting constants and generally known scientific values to suit the more awkward CGS system.

Second, the number of errors contained therein are absolutely astonishing; there are mistakes in the formulas given in the instructive portions of the book, in the practice problems, and even in the constants listed (very inconveniently) in the appendix. For example, the gravitational constant, G, was given units of "dyne cm^2 g^2", when it should have been "(dyne cm^2)/g^2". Speaking from a student's perspective, it is extremely frustrating and defeating to spend hours attempting to solve a problem, only to find that the formula you are supposed to prove is missing a key component or is outright misleading (i.e., a formula missing an "R," refers to the "mass of a proton" when it is supposed to read "mass of a neutron," and declares that pi must be approximated to exactly three (!). That's a sum total of three errors in one just one question.)

Instructors, I would advise you to look for a more user-friendly textbook with a more intuitive layout, clearer diagrams, and and fewer errors.

Students who are unfortunate enough to be assigned this text, my heart goes out to you.