Details

| Size | | Length: | 128 pages | | Height: | 11.8 in | | Width: | 8.8 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 32.8 oz |
Industry Reviews New technology, not only for ground-based telescopes but especially for that carried on space platforms such as the Hubble Space Telescope, has produced a spate of marvelous astronomical images. Gribbin and Goodwin, both well-known popularizers of science, had the clever idea of using a selection of these new images to illustrate our current understanding of the universe and the place of the Milky Way in it. The execution of this plan is successful. The narrative is meticulously planned and exceedingly well done, and the illustrations are carefully chosen. The famous Hubble deep field, the beautiful cometary nebula, and the radar image of Venus are particularly pleasing. . . . The lay reader will find this an informative and appealing introduction to astronomy. But it only sketches the modern ideas, and those seeking a deeper understanding will wish to read a more comprehensive treatment such as that found, for example, in In the Beginning, by John Gribbin, or The Secret Melody and Man Created the Universe, by Trinh Xuan Thuan (1995).
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company. Chang
For a book to make you feel completely insignificant, you'd have to go some way to beat Origins: Our Place in Hubble's Universe. . . . The book sets out to explain in plain language what the Universe is all about. You are left, nonetheless, with a nagging feeling of nothingness. When you have it spelt out that you come from an eminently unimpressive planet of a fourth-division star's solar system in a Universe that is 15 billion years old, it is difficult to retain a sense of being, let alone proportion.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company. Chang
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