The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium

Overall excellent book with lots of diagrams and photos in colour. Formulas are in special boxes so a great extra but book can also be read and understood without mathematical formulas if astronomy is only a side course. The greatest gripe though is that the publisher doesn't offer a single answer to the manifold questions. According to the intro text the answers were supposed to be on a free authors' website but there are non. The second link stated leads to the publisher's sales website to purchase an online edition of the bok including questions and answers - what a greedy uttlerly useless way for most students who borrow the book from a uni library! Also, wrong scientific notation given in chapter one (the pages that compares scales of distance - the authors made the error of giving higher numbers in scientific notation than the text states for each example - beginner's student error that should not have happened by two professors of the subject. Not sure whether other mistakes are to be found in later chapters. All in all the absolutely best non maths heavy astrophysics/astronomy textbook available. Book itself fully recommendable.

The book is perfect. Thank you for writing it. It's current, it's relevant. It describes the field beautifully. It should be on the coffee table or bookshelf or nightstand of every amateur astronomer or anyone with even a passing interest in the field. It's real-life astronomers explaining their life's work to you in a really fun and interesting way. They are also explaining other people's life's work from Galileo to Kepler to Einstein to their colleagues, the astronomers of today. So it also has a history, my friends! With fun images and figures of astonishing intellectual interest and jaw-dropping beauty ON EVERY PAGE. Not just a few but on EVERY page. There is not a page without images and figures. Who else does that at this level of expertise? Please tell me I actually want to know so I can buy that book too. In any field, this approach to education and science writing is a dream. In colleges and universities, it should be used by every lower-division, undergraduate introductory, general astronomy class that is designed not just for majors, and not just for stem majors, but for all students with an interest. People like images and figures and color, and seeing science and science history come to life! I think we'd have more astronomy majors if this book was used in lower division intro courses. I got the physical copy but the digital copy is probably great too. PDF or Kindle are readily available, so students will have affordable options. There are star charts on the inside cover, which if it's a CLASS you are giving, may save the student the price of buying one of the wheels, which maybe make it more of a lab class? Idk if those are included in the digital version? probably are. It's nice to have them there so you can instruct students to turn to the front or back cover when talking about observing skills. But also could be supplied as a handout. This book could be used in high school physics classes! That would be so much fun. Like class let's do 3 to 6 weeks of magnets and prisms and ok we will build one catapult, slide things on tracks on an inclined plane, make one waterwheel, and yes you can break something on purpose, and almost set something on fire as long as you use a vice and alligator clips to do so. Ok, we will do two full weeks on circuits. Three full weeks on force diagrams, one week on fluids and a week on thermodynamics, and a week introducing you to quantum mechanics. I may have left some physics things out, but Einstein was an astrophysicist too so they have relativity covered I am sure, and probably a bunch of what I did list already too. So after that, we are using this book to teach you the rest! Every lab after that will be us trying to put something in orbit in a safe and responsible way and besides that, we will be learning about physics by talking a lot about astrophysics, outer space, and the universe using this book as our guide. That would be awesome. It's just so readable. Everyone should read it. And it's just so, so beautiful to look at. You might be tired of having to choose between beauty and expert current knowledge in an astronomy book. So then get this book. It's as good as I've ever seen at doing both. It has fill-in-the-blanks! Multiple choice! And true and false questions at the end of each chapter which means you can use it in a BIG classroom without the need for online access. Or if you are just a huge nerd like me who likes to do little quizzes for fun you will be in nerd quiz heaven. I assume you write the authors and verify your identity as NOT a current student in a class using this textbook for credit, to get the answers. Probably have to check a box or something, who knows? Just so, so beautiful! Thank you again to the authors! At least one of whom is one of the most famous astronomers alive today. Or so I am told. Pictures on every page! Every page!

Para quem tem algum conhecimento mais básico e quer se aprofundar mais no assunto, um material super didático, abordando praticamente todos os assuntos da Astronomia, sem ficar recorrendo a muitas fórmulas matemáticas! Recomendo!

I am a physics, astronomy, and mathematics tutor with 20 years research experience in the field. I bought this book to review to tutor as astronomy and modernize my knowledge of how the subject is taught. I was very happy with the book! It has nearly professional quality diagrams and images but the text itself is appropriate for a beginner (it has almost no math). Great resource for learning the current state of the field covering a huge variety of topics fairly thoroughly. Like reading a topical review paper crossed with a Hubble images coffee table book. _Really_ great!

This DVD set was just what I anticipated. Lots of dramatic footage and music to the beautiful scenes of the universe. I'm not a real science geek, but I loved it!