Customer Reviews

Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume 1, The Mount Wilson Observatory: Breaking the Code of Cosmic Evolution

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The first half of the 20th century was a golden age at the Mount Wilson Observatory. It was there that many of the most important steps in riddling out the secrets of stellar evolution and the expansion of the universe were made. Allan Sandage's delightful history recounts both the scientific advances made at the observatory, and tells the reader something of the brilliant but often eccentric people behind those discoveries. The author does have a distinct point of view -- he is a champion of the role of this observatory in the progress of astronomy -- but that brings a unity to the story. Some minor errors and typos have slipped through the editing, but overall this is a wonderful book. It is, however, a book that will be of most interest to readers who are already familiar with topics such as spectral classification and the Hubble Law.

If this book is all that Alan Sandage did for astronomy it would still be an enormous contribution. It provides semi-technical survey of all the work and people at the Mt. Wilson observatory up to early 1950's. Sandage does not merely list papers and projects and reproduces somebody else's opinion on them, he provides his own excellent authoritative analysis and summaries. As a scientist, he is known for strong opinions, but such personal angles can either be easily spotted or are largely smoothed by the perspective of a lifetime experience. The book is a work of love, actually worship. Anyone interested in MWO, or history of solar physics, stellar physics, or observational cosmology will benefit from this book.

I received my copy of this book in fine condition and very promptly. The price of $80 is in line with what everyone selling this book is asking. The price is a bit high but that is true with any book of limited release. The book itself has a few very minor errors. This is the best history of the Mount Wilson Observatory which I have every seen. The only way to get a more comprehensive history is to have access to the Observatorys libary. Then you would have to spend years reading thru hundreds of volumns of techincal work for the same information.