Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (California World History Library) by David Christian  (9)
$14.93
|
Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives by David Sloan Wilson (24)
$10.20
|
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin  (60)
$16.32
|
Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life by Paul Davies  (27)
$17.16
|
Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion by Stuart Kauffman (14)
$17.82
|
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Chaisson attempts to explain the origin of the universe and the evolution of everything in it, in nontechnical terms. With such a huge topic, it's hardly surprising that he paints with broad strokes and glosses over specifics. Nonetheless, his writing is clear and his overview will both educate and entertain the average reader. Chaisson (The Hubble Wars), head of the Wright Center for Science Education at Tufts, structures his book by following the chronology of change and development in the universe, beginning with the creation of atomic particles 15 billion years ago at the time of the Big Bang. Subsequent chapters describe the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, chemical interactions, life and human culture. Chaisson does a good job of explaining two overarching concepts. First, "all ordered systems seen in nature differ not in kind but only in degree, namely, the degree of complexity." Second, he repeatedly and articulately describes the nature of the scientific method, demonstrating how science differs from other ways of understanding the world. Given the never-ending public controversy over evolution, this point is particularly appropriate for the generalist audience. Photos and illus. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The author of astronomy textbooks and occasional popular works (The Hubble Wars, 1994), Chaisson will interest the same readers Bill Bryson won over with A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Though far more scientifically rigorous than Bryson, Chaisson is just as readable and greatly appealing for exuding the scientific spirit that asks not merely what things exist but why they exist. Dividing the universe into seven epochs, Chaisson charts the course of its evolution-effected complexity. Chaisson explicates the observational and experimental information that allows scientists to be so confident about the first few minutes after the big bang, admitting its origin is complete speculation. Introducing the bearing of relativity and quantum mechanics on the beginning and possible fates of the universe, Chaisson incorporates theory as needed while he discusses the universe's cooling expansion, and its increasing structure over time, sequentially manifested in galaxies, stars, the elements, terrestrial planets, life, and human beings. Capacious and comprehensible. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Chaisson attempts to explain the origin of the universe and the evolution of everything in it, in nontechnical terms. With such a huge topic, it's hardly surprising that he paints with broad strokes and glosses over specifics. Nonetheless, his writing is clear and his overview will both educate and entertain the average reader. Chaisson (The Hubble Wars), head of the Wright Center for Science Education at Tufts, structures his book by following the chronology of change and development in the universe, beginning with the creation of atomic particles 15 billion years ago at the time of the Big Bang. Subsequent chapters describe the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, chemical interactions, life and human culture. Chaisson does a good job of explaining two overarching concepts. First, "all ordered systems seen in nature differ not in kind but only in degree, namely, the degree of complexity." Second, he repeatedly and articulately describes the nature of the scientific method, demonstrating how science differs from other ways of understanding the world. Given the never-ending public controversy over evolution, this point is particularly appropriate for the generalist audience. Photos and illus. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The author of astronomy textbooks and occasional popular works (The Hubble Wars, 1994), Chaisson will interest the same readers Bill Bryson won over with A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Though far more scientifically rigorous than Bryson, Chaisson is just as readable and greatly appealing for exuding the scientific spirit that asks not merely what things exist but why they exist. Dividing the universe into seven epochs, Chaisson charts the course of its evolution-effected complexity. Chaisson explicates the observational and experimental information that allows scientists to be so confident about the first few minutes after the big bang, admitting its origin is complete speculation. Introducing the bearing of relativity and quantum mechanics on the beginning and possible fates of the universe, Chaisson incorporates theory as needed while he discusses the universe's cooling expansion, and its increasing structure over time, sequentially manifested in galaxies, stars, the elements, terrestrial planets, life, and human beings. Capacious and comprehensible. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
|
