Beyond The Galaxy: How Humanity Looked Beyond Our Milky Way And Discovered The Entire Universe

by Ethan Siegel (Author)

46 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-9814667166

ISBN-10: 9814667161

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A look up at the night sky reveals a treasury of wonders. Even to the naked eye, the Moon, stars, planets, the Milky Way and even a few star clusters and nebulae illuminate the heavens. For millennia, humans struggled to make sense of what's out there in the Universe, from all we can see to that which lies beyond the limits of even our most powerful telescopes. Beyond the Galaxy traces our journey from an ancient, Earth-centered Universe all the way to our modern, 21st century understanding of the cosmos. Touching on not only what we know but also how we know it, Ethan Siegel takes us to the very frontiers of modern astrophysics and cosmology, from the birth of our Universe to its ultimate fate, and everything in between.

Readership: General public interested in astronomy, astrophysics and/or cosmology.

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Ethan Siegel
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Hardcover
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Editorial Reviews

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"Beyond the Galaxy offers a fun, informative excursion through the universe and the complex history of our attempts to grapple with its size, age and content. Ethan Siegel writes clearly and confidently, drawing upon wonderful analogies and fascinating tidbits of astronomical history, including outstanding accounts of the heated debates of the past about the nature of the cosmos. The book is richly illustrated, nicely supplementing Siegel's lucid prose. A must read for anyone curious about the development of cosmology and where it stands today!" -- Paul Halpern, Author of Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat
"Ethan Siegel takes us on an engaging journey from the smallest to the largest scales of space and time. He illuminates the path with abundant useful figures, and clearly explains the varied topics he tackles. His descriptions for how the Universe expands, depending upon what it is made of, are particularly nice. His prose exudes enthusiasm and passion — not just for the things we have learned, but for the scientific process. A great read for the science enthusiast." -- Robert Garisto, Editor, Physical Review Letters
"Ethan Siegel has achieved the rare feat of writing a textbook that reads like an engrossing page-turner. This is a book that belongs on the reading list of every undergraduate introduction to astrophysics and cosmology." -- Dr Roberto Trotta, Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics at Imperial College, London, and author of 'The Edge of the Sky: All you need to know about the All-There-Is'
"With eloquence and clarity, Siegel tells us the story of the universe, from the (inferred) cosmic inflation and the Big Bang at the very beginning to the (predicted) Big Freeze at the very end. Beyond the Galaxy is one of those rare books that not only communicates scientific ideas, but communicates what science itself is all about." -- The Physics Mill

"Beyond the Galaxy is an excellent way for less cosmically minded physicists to fill in the gaps in their astronomy knowledge, and thereby transform 'things I've vaguely heard about' into 'things I actually know something about'." -- Physics World

From the Back Cover

A look up at the night sky reveals a treasury of wonders. Even to the naked eye, the Moon, stars, planets, the Milky Way and even a few star clusters and nebulae illuminate the heavens. For millennia, humans struggled to make sense of what's out there in the Universe, from all we can see to that which lies beyond the limits of even our most powerful telescopes. Beyond the Galaxy traces our journey from an ancient, Earth-centered Universe all the way to our modern, 21st century understanding of the cosmos. Touching on not only what we know but how we know it, Ethan Siegel takes us to the very frontiers of modern astrophysics and cosmology, from the birth of our Universe to its ultimate fate, and everything in between.

Publisher : WSPC (November 26, 2015)
Language : English
Paperback : 388 pages
ISBN-10 : 9814667161
ISBN-13 : 978-9814667166
Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 0.92 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,172,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #543 in Astronomy & Astrophysics
- #1,290 in Cosmology (Books)
- #1,666 in Physics (Books)

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Frederick Martello

Best Everymans Cosmology I have ever Found!

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2017

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I have read many astrophysics for the common man, Cosmology without the math, but Ethan Siegel has written the most wonderful, informative book on Cosmology...with Just enough math brilliantly explained so that even I understood every word! IT really is an eye opening life changing book. I heartily recommend it,and I rarely if ever do that. There is nothing to fear...it's good.

5 people found this helpful

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mousegle

An excellent primer for beginning space nerds and wannabe astrophysicists of ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2016

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"This is not just the story of the Universe as we presently understand it, but also the story of how the scientific process works in general."

That's why it must be the first page turner to contain meson diagrams.

An excellent primer for beginning space nerds and wannabe astrophysicists of all professions, and a neat reference for the more advanced ones. The best part is that it shows the history and process of how science is made, including wrong assumptions and colorful personalities and simple rules to separate workable from useless theories. ("Can it make novel predictions that would be supported by experiments?") It emphasizes scientific understanding as an evolving process instead of a holy writ - something I happen to find particularly appealing both about this book and about science as my own profession.

In addition, the author succeeds in addressing lay audience in a colloquial style that still never doubts the intelligence or logic of the reader. Combine that with the sense of humor and the fact that every time I started thinking "this is confusing, let me draw it out" there was a neat diagram on the very next page... I want a sequel, thank you.

24 people found this helpful

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Pablo Bridges

Very fun to read.

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2018

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A really fun romp through the history of astronomy that is fun to read, thanks to the author's good writing skills, including some fascinating discussion of inflation and its implications. I thought the treatment of special and general relativity were extremely sparse, so you'll have to pursue that elsewhere, But most other topics about the structure of the cosmos and its evolution over time are well explained. Tons of color graphics provided.
Pretty recent, although printed in 2016, it doesn't record the observation of gravitational waves in 2017.

Definitely worth a read.

One person found this helpful

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Doug

Highly recommend. This book would be terrific as an audio ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2017

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We attended a lecture of his earlier in the month, and mid-lecture, we were on Amazon, purchasing a copy of this book. Highly recommend. This book would be terrific as an audio book, with him doing the voice work. He does a great job of approaching some pretty meaty topics in an engaging, approachable, and thorough way - and acknowledges that not everyone has a Ph.D. in this stuff, and doesn't hold it against them, or lord it over them. Bravo!

4 people found this helpful

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Double Ott Rancher

Very interesting journey through the ages on man's concepts of the universe.

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2019

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Very interesting journey through the ages on man's concepts of the universe. Very interesting when discussing current concepts. Ties in current thinking on quantum mechanics, dark matter , dark energy etc. in a way that a non-astrophysicist (like me) can understand. NO MATH :)

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Great Read

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018

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Incredibly insightful and well written. Ethan Siegal is one of the best writers in the world who is writing about scientific subjects. The fact that he actually IS a scientist means you get accurate information, and that's a hot commodity in science journalism today.

One person found this helpful

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Neil C. Wilhelm

Modern cosmology in a compact and readable form

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2016

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A good updater on present cosmological thinking. I especially applaud his pointing out the weaknesses of current ideas; there is too little of this in modern science writing.

3 people found this helpful

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Boris Petrov

An outstanding book on astronomy

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2020

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Well written in content and form, with very high scientific integrity -- the best I have found. Highly recommended

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Top reviews from other countries

Florin

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2016

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I was considering myself being knowledgeable in the subjects approached by this book but I was so wrong ! I am glad I red it as so many things clarified. Style is simple and concise even when Ethan goes to relatively complex explanations.

3 people found this helpful

ein kunde

Even the paperback is full-color and printed on quality paper

Reviewed in Germany on March 14, 2016

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In the current description on Amazon it's not clear, but even in the "paperback" edition (at least, 978-9814667166 I have) the whole book is printed full-color on the glossy paper, much higher quality than the typical plain paperback book. The letters are big and easy to read. The book has 388 pages, not 300 like the description on Amazon.de claims, and that's good, because that's the number of pages in the hardcover version, so nothing is reduced. I'll comment on the content after I read the book. Potential buyers can sample author's style and approach in many of his articles on the web.

One person found this helpful

Ian Liberman

A Book for the Novice and Experienced

Reviewed in Canada on June 21, 2016

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Ethan`s book was exceptionally entertaining and informative. I like his use of illustrations. Great book, Ethan.

Barry Linton

Does not achieve what the author sets out to do.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2016

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The Introduction states that the book is aimed to be an "introductory course" in Astronomy; "there are no problems to be solved or worked out, no formulas and no equations....and any mathematical or physical relationships ...are described in plain English". So we get Kepler's Law explained as "They all orbited with period related to their semi-major axes in proportion to the 3/2 power". Mmm?
The books starts reasonably well explaining the historical discoveries but in the later chapters gets far too bogged down in the details of atomic particle physics. I would challenge a Physics Grad to explain in simple English what fig 9.10 means. Baryon Density? What's that all about, and why is it in an Astronomy primer book?
Many of the photographs and diagrams have been lifted (with acknowledgements) from other publications or the internet. The trouble is they are all printed up in low-resolution and look tatty.
This book is neither an introductory course or a textbook for the serious graduate student. I cannot recommend it.

mikaljan

Highly recommanded, great material!

Reviewed in Japan on November 14, 2018

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This book is well written, the author is also one of my favorite physicist Dr. Ethan Siegel. The book is written in a way that it is easy for non-physicists could understand. I highly recommand this book!

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