An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics [Hardcover]

Dale A. Ostlie (Author), Bradley W. Carroll (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201598809 | ISBN-13: 978-0201598803 | Publication Date: December 11, 1995 | Edition: 1st

This exciting text opens the entire field of modern astrophysics to the reader by using only the basic tools of physics. Designed for the junior- level astrophysics course, each topic is approached in the context of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. The core chapters have been designed for a course in stellar structure and evolution, while the extended chapters provide additional coverage of the solar system, galactic structure, dynamics, evolution, and cosmology.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dale A. Ostlie's long-time interest in astronomy began with his childhood fascination in the space program, including vivid recollections of watching the Apollo missions with his family. His interest in teaching was born from his experiences as a student, being fortunate to have had excellent instructors and mentors in high school, college, and graduate school. During graduate school, Dale had the opportunity to spend a significant period of time working with Dr. Arthur N. Cox and the theoretical astrophysics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While at Los Alamos, Dale was introduced to great number of exciting and challenging problems in astrophysics, which spurred his interest in developing a broad exposure to the discipline.

After completing his graduate thesis on Mira variable stars, and after a two-year teaching position at Bates College in Maine, Dale accepted a teaching position at Weber State University. With WSU nestled up against the Wasatch mountains of Utah, Dale is able to indulge his addictions to skiing, hiking, camping, and mountain biking. One year after Dale arrived at Weber State, Brad Carroll was hired, and their partnership in stellar pulsation studies and text-book writing was born. Sharing many of the same pedagogical views, as well as a dedication to producing the best possible text, Brad and Dale worked for six years to write An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics and An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, and another year to produce the Instructor's Solutions Manual. Work related to the texts continues today with the maintenance of a collection of web pages associated with the books, including discussions of new discoveries since the publication of the texts in 1996.

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Bradley Carroll received his B.A. in Mathematics and a Secondary Teaching Credential from the University of California, Irvine, his M.S. in Physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder and his Ph.D. Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Brad's lifelong fascination with astronomy, combined with a happy naivete concerning what lay ahead, led him to graduate school at CU Boulder. His thesis, supervised by Carl Hansen and John Cox, was a study of the effect of rotation on pulsating stars. Brad then headed east to work as a postdoc with Hugh Van Horn at the University of Rochester, where he carried out research on the oscillations of accretion disks and neutron stars. At both CU Boulder and the U of R, he learned the virtues of making simple models of complex astrophysical systems. .

Four years later, as the postdoc came to an end, Brad was lucky to find a teaching position in the Physics Department at Weber State University, and doubly lucky that Dale Ostlie was there. It is rare to find two experts in Stellar pulsation in the same institution and department, especially when their outlooks are congenial. .

Brad truly enjoys teaching which gives him the chance to share the wonders of the physical world with his students. Such a background served him well (especially his naivete about what lay ahead) when he and Dale decided to write An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics. Now that the book and solutions manual, are completed, Brad once again has the time to enjoy traveling, camping, and fishing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Benjamin Cummings; 1st edition (December 11, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201598809
• ISBN-13: 978-0201598803
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,325,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Comprehensive Introduction to the subject.., October 8, 2000

By 

Susana Schneider - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics (Hardcover)

This is an excellent introduction to Stellar Astrophysics, covering from the very start the essential concepts needed to undertake the subject, and gradually building up untill a nice introductory level is achieved. The book is well organized: divided into two blocks, starts by setting a solid basis upon which later presents the subject. In the first and introductory part, the essential astronomical concepts are explained, and in the second part the author gets into the actual Astrophysics of Stars. The book is pleasant on several levels; conceptually, coherently and aesthetically, all this while making use of a clear, straightforward matheticall formalism which is simple enough to follow. It is well suited for an introductory course at the undergraduate level, and one of the few books which actually bridges the gap between the high-level available pieces and the general public oriented literature on the subject.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice Text, July 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics (Hardcover)

Modern Stellar Astrophysics was a nice book. It was organized very well and presented the material in an orderly fashion. I thought that it lacked depth though. It gave many concepts, but they lacked mathematical examples to go with those concepts. A good book for people who already understand modern physics, but for those without a deep understanding of modern physics it will leave many open questions. Lastly, the homework questions at the end of the chapters resembled those examples throughout the chapters themselves very closely and even identically, thus answering them takes absolutely no analytical skills just mere copying.

Update: given that I really enjoyed this book I am updating this review. This book is really excellent for people with advanced knowledge of modern physics. However, it is not a good book for people without at least an introductory course in modern physics and possibly a course in quantum mechanics. This book does not rigorously attempt to teach physics, rather it assumes prior knowledge. Given that said, this book is very enjoyable book to read for those with the background knowledge; it takes a history of astrophysics approach. Really great book and I am scoring this book a perfect 5.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics, July 4, 2008

By 

John A. Shaw (Monroe, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics (Hardcover)

I have taught 2-3 classes in astrophysics at the undergraduate level and found this a useful textbook. The book is essentially the stellar parts of the larger one volume text by the authors and it is a lot easier to carry around than the "big orange book." The layout of the material is logical and gets the student through the material using basic calculus arguments so it is good for students who have finished their core calculus sequence and have had some exposure to differential equations and are just starting in their upper level courses. The text strikes a good balance between mathematical and descriptive arguments.

I think the discussion is thin sometimes as the authors go from one topic to the next with a single sample calculation in between. Having looked at other texts though this is still one of the best at getting the student from Keplerian orbits to stellar interiors in a semester. I prefer it to Zeilik's book. The problems are not so cookbook as the one reviewer makes out and they help the student confirm their understanding of the material. The longer problems make nice short projects. I think they are well chosen and work out nicely _most_ of the time. I like the model Cepheid numerical exercise. One caveat below on the numerics in the text.

The authors have included a simple stellar structure fortran code they use for HW problems. Using the formulas derived in the text is surely a good thing. It shows the student how it all fits together... Right? However the code uses a simple shooting method integrating inward from the surface to "find" the solution that satisfies both the surface _and_ the core boundary conditions for a fixed input mass. This is ridiculously numerically unstable and requires the student to find that the correct solution is, say, between 0.9991 and 0.9992 by trial and error. It would have been trivial to modify the program to try to find a root instead of having the student type in a single mass for a run, have the solution diverge as it goes deeper into the star, and get a useless "wow, that didn't work-- please try again" error message. The second edition of the book does not fix this, but does add a pretty graphical interface... The students working with this program to solve the suggested end of chapter problems quickly learn there is no way to guess the answer and then stop trying. Why not fix the underlying code?

Despite the numerical caveat I like the book a lot and will use it again when I teach the course again (supplementing the stellar code with a lecture on numerical methods to the students so they can fix it themselves - once you modify the code it actually _is_ useful and I have used it in class).