Customer Reviews

Pulsar Astronomy (Cambridge Astrophysics)

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This book contains everything you need to know about pulsars. Although it includes some advanced physical and mathematical concepts, people not familiar with them can still read and enjoy it. It is an excellent reference for basic information about the discovery, observations and nature of pulsars.

Pulsars are one of the most fascinating types of astronomical objects known. This new third edition gives a comprehensive and up to date description of what is known about them.

Much of the book is the same as earlier editions. Like the now familiar story of how the first pulsar was discovered in the 60s by Jocelyn Bell. And how a Nobel was later awarded to her advisor. (Considered by some to be a massive oversight.)

The book explains how pulsars let us probe cosmological distances and times. (The two are related.) It gives the latest models for pulsar formation. More recent results include the solving of the gamma ray bursters conundrum. A deep puzzle until recently, when satellite observations proved vital in explaining bursters.

an excellent book for anyone deeply into astronomy, stellar evolution, or galactic dynamics .. the only part i question is the speculation on internal structure. the book should also appeal to physicists interested in materials or states of matter. ah yes! there is much current research in 'gravity waves' (search on LIGO). good luck! :)

The discovery of pulsars is now less than 40 years old. But in that time pulsars have been in the forefront of the discoveries in cosmology. An astounding amount of information exploring the limits of theoretical physics has been obtained from these pulsating light signals.

This book, now in its third edition, would be of interest to the advanced undergraduate astronomy or astrophysics student. Or more likely it can serve as an introductory text to pulsars at the graduate school level or as a source of reference to the researcher. Among other things, it gives a catalog of the 1483 known pulsars.

The text begins with the early history of the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell during her graduate work at Cambridge (for which her advisor Anthony Hewish received the Nobel prize). From here the book chronicles the discoveries made by other researchers made since that time along with the changes in the theory that these discoveries brought about.