Customer Reviews

Modern Cosmological Observations and Problems

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the writer provides and detailed yet concise discussion on the subject of modern cosmology. the path the writer leads you through is as he describes "following the data", a easy path to follow. i recommend this book for the professional and advanced lay person. one added benefit the author has thought of is a web site were you can get updated information. the author in doing this has created a dynamic book that will not be informationaly out of date for some time.

Greg Bothun is a well-known professional astronomer, fully in touch with the "now" of astronomical knowledge, and also a talented popularizer of science. These two "hats" are seldom these days worn by the same person.
(in contrast to today's scientists, early-to-mid 20th Century astronomers still had enough spare time to fully develop their communication skills!)
In style, Bothun's book is squarely in the tradition of the classic bygone popularizations of galactic astronomy ( by Hubble, Hoyle, Shapley, etc.). Therefore, his book can be profitably read by readers at many levels - from the extremely dedicated and very persistent amateur astronomer having a very solid astronomical background..... through to beginning professional astronomers.

Bothun's individualistic and lucid text covers some things particularly well; he brings you "right up to speed" on a great amount of research: the extragalactic distance scale, galaxy clusters and the large-scale structures, dark matter, low surface brightness galaxies, large-scale supergalactic structures such as voids and walls, the peculiar velocity field of galaxies, structure formation in the universe, etc.
The focus of this book is.....a very concise and only slightly simplified, very accurate, qualitative and quantitative explanation of those things known about galaxies, galaxy clusters, and supergalactic structures that are the most relevant for sorting out and testing cosmological theory. He explains these topics very well, while giving only a short overview of galaxy morphology and properties [it is inevitable in a modest-sized text (this one is some 300 pages) that only some of the important topics relating to galaxies will be covered in real detail.]

In contrast to a good number of other texts at the college through to undergraduate level, Bothun does not oversimplify topics, nor does he shirk complexity. However, it is a great achievement that this excellent textbook is not really much harder to read than the more descriptive and lower-level textbooks on galaxies.

When reading Bothun's text, expect to THINK in terms of complex ideas and structures, correlations between quantities (= graphs), mathematics, and physics; though there are, in reality, only a few equations in the text, and very few differentials and integrals.(statistical understanding is not required). A substantial portion of this text is descriptive, but the book is in reality rather high-brow and it is therefore still useful even at the upper-undergraduate or "beginning professional astronomer" level. This elegant text deserves to be better known.

An excellent follow on read for anyone who wants to test or compare theories of cosmology. The only book on cosmology I've read which fesses up to the biases introduced by observer error and sample selection. A must for undergraduates considering graduate school in astrophysics or astronomy.
Two caveats that are applicable to almost all texts in the field: needed is a one- or two-page glossary at the end for all acronyms and repeated symbols; the author does not appear to be keeping the text's accompanying web-page up to date.