Customer Reviews

The universe; from flat earth to quasar

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For anyone at all interested in astronomy, this book is a must-read. Asimov outlines the process by which man built up his astronomy starting in ancient times and moving right up through the present (when this book was published - the late 60s, I believe). It describes all the observations and measurments make to figure out everything from the size of the earth to the size of the galaxy, to the number of stars in the galaxy, to the distance of far-away galaxies. He writes it in such a way that anyone, regardless of your level of math, could say, "Wow! If I only had the data, I could figure that out!" Unfortunately, this book stops in the 60s, so, towards the end, I knew more about some things than he did. However, up until then, this is truly a fascinating read.

"The Universe from Flat Earth To Quasar" is a rather outdated book by now, but it was one of the formative and most exciting books of my childhood. Asimov's description of the development of cosmology, from the ancient Greeks up until the mid 1960s, captivate me as a child, and I even remember exciting passages in (for example, about colliding galaxies) to members of my family. It still remains to this day my favorite book on this history of cosmology.

I would love to see someone write an updated version of the book (perhaps I will try this myself), one that incorporated modern ideas such as inflation, string theory, the microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang and the modern concept of sub-atomic particles. I would still recommend to anyone interested in the subject, even though it is not up to date from developments of the mid 1960's onward.

Reading this book is like listening to a professor give an amazing, interesting, and astounding talk about everything you ever wanted to know about the cosmos. Asimov pulls all the subjects together effortlessly and flows from one into the next easily. He has a conversational tone throughout the book, which is amazing considering the highly complex ideas he's trying to explain. The only drawback is that it was published in the 60's (maybe?) and is kind of dated. It's still a great primer though.

This book, like most of the other non-fiction books Asimov has written, is a bit dry. It covers all the relevant information you need to know about the universe (in 1966)