Customer Reviews

Clocks in the Sky: The Story of Pulsars (Springer Praxis Books / Popular Astronomy)

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This is a good book for those who have an interest in this particular stellar pathology also if you enjoy the type of writer who informs via the anecdote you will again find this an entertaining way to learn. He for example explains through the words of Ms Jocelyn Bell her perspective on not being included in the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the pulsar and from my own point of veiw I was interested to learn of the radio interferometry experiments carried out here in post war Sydney. The book begins with the life cycles of stars that eventually become the subject of this book and then leads in to the link between the subatomic and the nature of the neuton star. I felt this section was a little confused but encourage the prospective reader to 'read on'. A few of the diagrams are misplaced and in one case i can recall, insufficient in regard to explanations. Closing chapters explore the subclasses of the Pulsar as well as the system PSR 1913+16 which became famous through it being a test bed for General Relativity and the subject of another book by McNamara, gravitational waves.
This book I hope will inspire readers to look further into the types and classifications of stars as well as the interesting behaviour that they exhibit.
McNamara's book is thouroughly researched and therefore a reliable book, which is not always the case with popular science.