Sizing Up the Universe: A New View of the Cosmos - Hardcover

Gott III, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1426206518 ISBN 13: 9781426206511

Publisher: National Geographic, 2010

Synopsis

The almost unimaginably large size of many objects in the universe accounts in part for astronomy's tremendous appeal. Yet the problem of depicting a vast range of scales is perhaps astronomy's greatest challenge. "Sizing Up the Universe" addresses, in highly readable and richly illustrated style, the intriguing concept of size in the universe. The authors - both professors at Princeton University - put forward clear, concise, and understandable answers to the hard-to-answer questions: How big is the sun? Our solar system? Our galaxy? The visible universe? What is the largest structure in the cosmos? And how do we know? With size comparisons as a unifying theme, this gorgeous book goes beyond the facts and figures to work as a superb visual guide to the heavens. It captures a fresh vision of the universe, chronicling a host of exciting recent discoveries: new Kuiper belt objects in the solar system, new planets orbiting nearby stars, great walls of galaxies, even the fingerprints of creation in the cosmic microwave background radiation. As a special bonus, "Sizing Up the Universe" includes, for the first time in an astronomy book (despite repeated requests to reproduce it in previous titles), a beautiful new full-color version of author Richard Gott's incomparable "Map of the Universe". This stunning chart includes everything from Earth satellites to planets, stars, and distant galaxies. The map has been featured in "New Scientist" and "Planetarian Magazine" cover stories, as well as extensive articles in "The New York Times" and other publications. It has been honoured by The Adler Planetarium through inclusion in a special exhibition and catalogue. In "Sizing Up the Universe", "The Map of the Universe" is beautifully reproduced in full color on a large gatefold section to maximize impact and usefulness. With its original and beautiful way of comparing objects in the heavens...its coverage of remarkable recent discoveries...and its breathtaking gatefold map, "Sizing Up the Universe" has very wide appeal. It's a great choice for armchair astronomers, students of all ages, science-minded families, and even the most advanced amateur stargazers, who will find intriguing surprises here.

About this title

Review

"A feast for the eyes and a banquet for the mind."
Neil de Grasse Tyson, best-selling author and NovaScienceNow host

"The genius of Sizing Up the Universe comes directly from the co-authors'
fertile brains. ... It may strike readers, meanwhile, that the authors
must have conjured up some sort of Einsteinian space warp to get so much
information, in such a variety of vivid, gorgeous and conceptually
brilliant forms, into a single book. You can pretty much open it to any
page and have an "aha!" moment that will embed itself in your brain. And
over time, without even noticing, you may even begin to grasp the true
immensity of the universe." Michael D. Lemonick, TIME.com

"It may strike readers...that the authors must have conjured up some sort of Einsteinian space warp to get so much information, in such a variety of vivid, gorgeous and conceptually brilliant forms, into a single book." --Time

"You can pretty much open it to any page and have an "aha!" moment that will embed itself in your brain." --Time

"The latest attempt to put the cosmos in perspective, and it may be the most effective yet -- even though it takes the retro form of a physical book...it also conveys the relative sizes and distances of cosmic objects in so many different and ingenious ways that it becomes a little dizzying -- in the best possible sense." -Time

"This is a wonderful book - one I had been waiting for ever since I was eight years old, and one that would make a memorable gift for imaginations young and old." -New Scientist

"magnified stunning views." -Book News

"It's impossible to fathom the scale of the universe, but Princeton professors Robert Vanderbei and J. Richard Gott sure as heck try." -The Star Ledger (Newark)

About the Author

Richard Gott is Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate in Physics from Harvard in 1969, he received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton in 1973. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and at Cambridge University before returning to join the Princeton faculty. He is the author of the Time Travel in Einstein's Universe (Phoenix). He has written on time travel and other subjects for Time, Scientific American, New Scientist and Nature. He is one of the world's experts on parallel universes, string theories and cosmic origin. Robert Vanderbei is Professor and Chair of the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University. A summa cum laude graduate in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, he received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1981. As an amateur astronomer, Vanderbei has taken, from his backyard, astonishing and very highquality photographs of astronomical objects: these photos rival the best of those taken from some of our greatest observatories.

Edition details

• Publisher: National Geographic
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1426206518
• ISBN 13: 9781426206511
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240