Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction [Hardcover]

Linda S. Sparke (Author), John S. Gallagher III (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521855934 | ISBN-13: 978-0521855938 | Publication Date: February 5, 2007 | Edition: 2

This extensively illustrated book presents the astrophysics of galaxies since their beginnings in the early Universe. It has been thoroughly revised to take into account the most recent observational data, and recent discoveries such as dark energy. There are new sections on galaxy clusters, gamma ray bursts and supermassive black holes. The authors explore the basic properties of stars and the Milky Way before working out towards nearby galaxies and the distant Universe. They discuss the structures of galaxies and how galaxies have developed, and relate this to the evolution of the Universe. The book also examines ways of observing galaxies across the whole electromagnetic spectrum, and explores dark matter and its gravitational pull on matter and light. This book is self-contained and includes several homework problems with hints. It is ideal for advanced undergraduate students in astronomy and astrophysics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book fills in a critical need in the undergraduate astronomy curriculum. It is a perfect fit to advanced astronomy/physics majors. It also catches the most important and most fascinating current topics and recent discoveries and introduces them in the broad framework of modern extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. Most importantly, the book does an excellent job in showing students how to solve contemporary research problems with the physics they have already learned and how basic physics principles can go a long way in understanding some of the most complex phenomena in the Universe. The Second Edition includes some of the most exciting recent discoveries in astronomy and makes it an extremely timely textbook."
Xiaohui Fan, Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona

"Sparke and Gallagher have produced a remarkably comprehensive and easy-to-read account of extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. Aimed at third and fourth year undergraduates, but invaluable for researchers at all levels, frontier topics in this exciting and popular area of astronomy are discussed with admirable clarity, with the physical principles carefully explained and well-illustrated."
Richard Ellis, Steele Professor of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology

"Sparke and Gallagher have successfully distilled a large, complex, and rapidly growing subject into a highly readable and self-contained textbook. It skillfully introduces the fundamentals of extragalactic astronomy and stellar dynamics, while engaging the interest of readers with their up-to-date account of the observational and theoretical work in the subject. It will serve as a superb advanced textbook for an undergraduate course in astronomy and astrophysics, as well as a valuable reference source for graduate students and researchers, in astronomy and physics. I will keep it close at hand on my own bookshelf."
Robert Kennicutt, Plumian Professor of Astronomy, University of Cambridge

Galaxies in the Universe is more than its title suggests. It has all the ingredients needed for a comprehensive senior-level course on galaxies, including the necessary background technology, stellar astrophysics and dynamical and cosmological theory. The book is full of interesting problems aimed at broadening the reader's understanding. Galaxies in the Universe is an excellent text: I use it for my senior class and can strongly recommend it.
Ken Freeman, Duffield Professor, The Australian National University

"The scope of the book is impressive indeed. It is sure to find its way onto the desks of astronomers and astrophysicists around the world who are looking for key resources to teach senior physics undergraduates and even first-year graduate students. In the intervening years between the first edition of the text and this new one, research on galaxies everywhere and at all redshifts has proliferated enormously. It accurately conveys the present sense of excitement and anticipation at still more advances just around the corner ... The writing style is energetic, yet also remarkably compact: single sentences on page after page convey whole trains of embedded logic as if the authors cannot wait to get on to the next point. All in all, this book is a welcome and major accomplishment."
William E. Harris, Professor of Astrophysics, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Book Description

This extensively illustrated book has been up-dated and thoroughly revised to include the most recent observational data and theoretical developments. It includes several homework problems with hints and is ideal for advanced undergraduate students in astronomy and astrophysics.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 442 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (February 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521855934
• ISBN-13: 978-0521855938
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,135,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be Sure to Work the Problems, May 22, 2010

By 

James M. Folks "SeaQueen" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction (Paperback)

Galaxies in the Universe is an absolutely wonderful book. That being said, it is the type of textbook written so that the problems are an integral part of the text. That's not my personal preference because my schedule is such that I don't always have time to work them. The other problem with that style is that if you get stuck on any one problem, you run the risk of getting very little out of the rest of the book. Even so, most of the problems are very fun and not so difficult that someone who is strong in math and physics won't be able to get through them.

It is very definitely an introductory text intended to get one started on the basics before going to a different book to tackle harder material. By the end of the book you'll have done things like calculate the amount of dark matter that must exist within a given galaxy. My favorite part of this book is the section on gravitational lensing and dark matter. A long time ago I tried to decipher the original Kaiser and Squires article on the topic, and never really succeeded. This book explained the material with wonderful clarity.

The mathematical content of the book is relatively simple. Anyone familiar with multivariable calculus should be able to work through it without too much trouble. Some of the key results and ideas will be familiar to physics majors who've already taken a classical mechanics course or a thermostatistics course, but applied in a sufficiently different context that they don't seem redundant. This would be a good book for someone who has strong basics in general physics, is strong in undergraduate calculus, and has an interest in galactic astrophysics.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Galaxies in the Universe review, February 9, 2008

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John E. Shirey "Space Cadet" (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction (Paperback)

This book does an excellent job of delineating the many observations of galaxies, not only in the present but also in the formation of galaxies and clusters of galaxies since the big bang. Much of the contemporary theories about galactic structure and star movements is backed up with math. Since this is a textbook, there are many problems to work on, and there are solution hints in an appendix. I would recommend it to any serious student of astronomy and physics.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent Undergraduate Textbook about Galaxies, June 28, 2010

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R. A. Lang "madbioman" (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction (Paperback)

This is one of the clearest and best written undergraduate-level textbooks on galaxies, requiring a fair amount of mathematics and physics to fully appreciate the harder sections. However, things are very well explained in the clear prose, even if you don't want to grapple with the (not over-numerous) equations. Sparke and Gallagher are "good practical extragalactic astronomers" who distil for the reader much of the everyday knowledge used by the observational extragalactic astronomer, with a stronger focus on easier-to-appreciate observational results than on their complex and difficult derivations. This textbook sensibly begins with several chapters on the Milky Way galaxy, as our own Galaxy represents "baseline truth" in humankind's quest to understand the galaxies.
This book is easy to read and very well structured. But it is at the university level; so the reader must have some prior algebra, and the ideal reader of this book should also be comfortable with graphs and physical argument.