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Title: Galactic Astronomy by James Binney, Michael Merrifield ISBN: 0-691-02565-7 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 17 August, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $47.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: There is NO better book
Comment: For observational astronomy this is it: there is no better book The fact that the information is somehow out of date is not important, because the subject is mainly how the results are obtained, rather than the results themselves. This is a professional book for professional astronomers, cosmologists and astrophysicists at a graduate level. At this level the math is trivial. Most problems are very simple and do not involve difficult calculations, but rather simple, intuitive reasoning. In fact the math is simple enough that the book should be useful also for (very) advanced amateur astronomers.
The book only seems difficult because it contains so much information. This is actually an advantage, especially given the very reasonable price. The writing style is very clear. As an example I will quote verbatim the author's description of the importance of "dust" in interstellar space:
"The space between the stars is not empty. It is filled with rarefied but exceedingly filthy gas; if this gas were compressed to the density of ordinary air [...] the density of smoke in it would be such that objects would disappear into the haze at a distance of much less than a meter. Interstellar gas is so filthy because many stars are furnaces of the least environment-friendly type..."
Is this not clear enough?
Rating: 5
Summary: Just an amazing textbook covering masses of astrophysics...
Comment: This book is, as it says on the cover, for readers with a background in physics - specifically, for professionals, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. It will therefore be heavily mathematical, as there is no other way in which to express the theories within, and to quantitatively distinguish between them - an essential part of all scientific research.
The ideas are explained clearly, and there are frequent up-to-date references: the book was published mid-1998, and updated quite a lot from its previous incarnation. Where a field is moving very rapidly, like in parts of astrophysics, there is clearly always a danger that the work will become out of date, but most (at least all I have had to read) of what is in this book is still current.
This book is not only beautifully written, and presented, it also covers an incredible range of subjects, making it suitable not only for background reading for those who study galactic astrophysics, but also those working in stellar astrophysics. The authors clearly know their stuff in very wide-ranging areas of astrophysics, and are passionate about them, as it comes across very clearly, and adds to the joy of reading this book.
One of the many things that makes this such a wonderful book is the clear linking of astrophysical phenomena with basic physics, something which is easy to lose sight of when confronted with exotic objects and processes. A particularly lovely example of this (IMO) is the explanation of the effects of the kappa-mechanism in variable stars in terms of the humble heat engine in thermodynamics.
Admittedly, if you were wanting an introduction to galactic astronomy this would not be the book for you, but, for its target audience it is an amazing book.
Rating: 1
Summary: Very badly written - and confusing...
Comment: I read the complete book but I must admit I understood very little of it. The main reason for this is that the authors seem to have written the book for those who already are fully versed in the technical details of the subject. I am not, and I was hoping this book would elevate my understanding of the field. Unfortunately it did not. Furthermore, I found the book completely lacking in information about the more recent discoveries in cosmology. It appears to be about ten years behind.
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Title: Galactic Dynamics by James Binney, Scott Tremaine ISBN: 0691084459 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 January, 1988 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: Radiative Processes in Astrophysics by George B. Rybicki, Alan P. Lightman ISBN: 0471827592 Publisher: Wiley-Interscience Pub. Date: 26 March, 1985 List Price(USD): $99.50 |
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Title: Galaxies in the Universe : An Introduction by Linda S. Sparke, John S. III Gallagher ISBN: 0521597404 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 21 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis: With a New Preface by Donald D. Clayton ISBN: 0226109534 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: March, 1984 List Price(USD): $29.00 |
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Title: An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley W. Carroll, Dale A. Ostlie ISBN: 0201547309 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 11 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $132.00 |
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