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 Another good book by Dr. Tyson August 2, 2008
I am a student of astrophysics and I just wanted something simple to read about my favorite subject. This is exactly what I got. Dr. Tyson's book conveyed the cosmos throughly in a very entertaining tone. I will be buying more of his books.
Gould for the Common Man? May 17, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the current director of the hayden Planetarium and an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History. His picture shows a portly African-American with a wry smile, wearing a vest with astonomical figures perhaps cut from a wizard's robe discarded by Hogwarts. Most likely half of America knows better what he looks and sounds like than I do, since he appears frequently on TV, on the Daily Show and various Fox blathergrounds. I heard him talking about comets for a few minutes on my car radio, and found him very quick, very amusing.
A comparison with Stephen Jay Gould is almost inevitable. This book, like most of Gould's, is a selection of Tyson's columns for the magazine Natural History. Tyson has a lighter touch and will be easier going for people without much background in science. He is nowhere near as encyclopedic or allusive as Gould, which will come as a relief to many. Gould wrote, increasingly so over the years, as a Harvard Don, which all the rhetorical flourishes of a man who expects his readers to be very erudite. The danger of such writing is pomposity and condescension. Since I almost became a Harvard Don myself, I have a high tolerance for pomposity, but I find Tyson's writing style delightfully relaxed.
Tyson's subject in Death by Black Hole is the astronomical zoo of gravitationally caged objects - stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and Anomalous Flying Objects - in what we still call the Universe, although the name seems less and less appropriate. Tyson back-fills as needed with tidbits of history but his central purpose is to make us acquainted with current observational astronomy. People who "already know all that" will enjoy his witty delivery, while the rest of us will learn quite a lot, quite painlessly.
One of the Identified Flying Objects Tyson describes is the asteroid Apophis, which ought to be of maximum interest for anyone under 40 years old. Tyson writes: "On Friday the 13th of April, 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup, will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites ...If the trajectory of Apophis at close approach passes within a narrow range of altitudes called the Keyhole, the precise influence of Earth's gravity on its orbit will guarantee that seven years later in 2036...the asteroid will hit earth directly, slamming in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii." You knew that, didn't you, and you've already made reservations for the observation grandstand on Mt. Whitney? What a show! But Tyson continues: "The tsunami it creates will wipe out the entire west coast of North America, bury Hawaii, and devastate all the land masses of the Pacific Rim." Oops. I'd better warn my grandchildren to sell my house in SF before it's too late.
Tyson doesn't mention it, but there's an upside to Apophis -- no need to worry about global warming after all.
In fact, Tyson is not all levity about Apophis, or about the inevitable fate of civilization. Later in the book, he discusses what "we" should be doing about our self-preservation in a universe that is far from anthropically perfect for human life, or any kind of life at all. Read it and quake - from laughter as well as fear.
Great Bedtime-Bathroom Book April 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I hate to use those descriptors in the title but I couldn't think of a better way to say it. This book is a collection of short essays that enlighten and entertain in a way that Dr Tyson is so uniquely qualified to do. Many of the topics are great for dinner conversation, especially the ones that discuss the relationship between science and religion.
I kept it on my bedside and read a few essays before bed and then placed it in the bathroom where guests often find themselves engaged with the witty and knowledgeable information. Worth the purchase.
Maybe THE Greatest Book Ever!!! April 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The first book in years that I couldn't put down once I started. I am 16 and thought I would give a challenging book a try, so I purchased this one. Good call! I fell in love with it as soon as I started. I love Tysons' sense of humor on scientific aspects of the universe. He explains stuff so well, even if you don't have a scientific mind. As I had said before, he adds a sense of humor not expected from someone with the title of an astrophysicist(and does it well!) I highly recommend picking this book up as it is maybe not only the best scientific book ever written, but quite possibly the best book ever! I don't think it gets any better than this!
If it's Tuesday, it must be Betelgeuse April 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"And behold the greatest mystery of them all: an unopened can of diet Pepsi floats in water while an unopened can of regular Pepsi sinks." - From DEATH BY BLACK HOLE
On graduating from high school near the top of my class, I had visions of becoming an aeronautical engineer helping send missions to the stars. (This was in 1967 during the height of the "space race".) But, the realities of university-level physics and differential calculus soon brought me back to earth with a crash. And then I got drafted. If only I'd had DEATH BY BLACK HOLE to read, I might've been inspired to greater academic efforts. I could've become a superstar in the field of astrophysics, you think?
Well, probably not; I'm more of a Life Sciences kind of guy.
In forty-two chapters arrayed in seven sections, astrophysicist Neil deGasse Tyson guides us on a grand tour of the universe from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago to its projected end trillions of years hence when all energy is dissipated and cosmic death arrives with a whimper.
Section 1: "The challenges of knowing what is knowable in the universe" covers (the inadequacies of) our built-in human senses, the universality of physical laws, the ability of scientific observations to fool the observer, the potential trap of overabundant information, and what can be learned using the most rudimentary of measuring systems, which, in Tyson's example, is an upright stick stuck into the ground.
Did you know that Saturn's rings will be gone in about 100 million years? Book your seat on the tour early.
Section 2: "The challenges of discovering the contents of the cosmos" sets forth the genesis and journey of the Sun's energy, the (re)definition of "habitable zone" when considering the Solar System's planets and moons, asteroids, Lagrange Points, and antimatter.
Did you know that there's an asteroid named Ralph? Actually, I like to contemplate one named "Bob."
Section 3: "How nature presents herself to an inquiring mind" comprises discussions of physical and numerical constants, the speed of light, orbital mechanics, density, the visible light spectrum, rays other than visible light (radio, micro, infrared, ultraviolet, x, gamma), the colors of the cosmos, cosmic plasma, and the universe's temperature extremes.
Did you know that the coldest temperature ever achieved in a laboratory was 500 picokelvins (0.0000000005 degrees K)? Do you suppose the lab gnomes wore their wooly longjohns that day?
Section 4: "The challenges and triumphs of knowing how we got here" explores space dust, cosmic chemistry within supernovas, element synthesis within stars' cores (hydrogen to helium to carbon to nitrogen to oxygen to sodium to magnesium to silicon ... to, lastly, iron), the necessity of water for "habitability", the sources and properties of terrestrial water, the cosmic genesis of the molecular building blocks of life, the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and Earth's radio footprint in the universe.
Did you know that hydrogen, carbon and oxygen are the top three ingredients of life on Earth? What, not chocolate? Say it ain't so, Joe!
Section 5: "All the ways the cosmos wants to kill us" delves into the inherent cosmic chaos, killer asteroids and comets, the eventual deaths of the Earth, Sun and universe, the properties of black holes, types of killer radiation, and DEATH BY BLACK HOLE.
Did you know that in 2036 the asteroid Apophis may slam into the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California generating a tsunami that'll drown the former and devastate the Pacific Rim? Dude, surf's up!
Section 6: "The ruffled interface between cosmic discovery and the public's reaction to it" surveys the unthinking things people say, the fear of certain numbers, scientific bafflement, the historically shifting cultural and national nodes of scientific discovery, the erosion of nocturnal darkness by city lights, and Hollywood's misrepresentation of the cosmos.
What is the error in the following statement?
"Days (i.e. the period of daylight) get shorter in the winter and longer in the summer."
Section 7: "When ways of knowing collide" describes the first two minutes after the Big Bang, the necessarily irreconcilable differences between religion and science, and the boundaries of our ignorance.
Did you know that Galileo reportedly stated during his trial, "The Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go"? Right on, bro.
Sections 6 and 7 represent a change in the tone of Tyson's narrative in that, to a large degree, they reflect the author's opinions rather than observed scientific facts. Indeed, a portion of Section 6 the author himself describes as a "rant". I'm not convinced that Neil's personal views provide a smoothly contiguous ending, but the whole is so superlative that I'll not nit-pick or knock off a star. Indeed, the strength of Tyson's writing is that he makes esoteric knowledge accessible to the average reader (such as one who bombed out of university physics and calculus). An example of his humorously common touch is:
"As a child, I knew that at night, with the lights out, infrared vision would discover monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded. Infrared vision would thus miss a bedroom monster completely because it would simply blend in with the walls and the door."
In the perfect reading experience, I'm both diverted and educated. Both elements may otherwise be present or not. An example of a book that's entertaining but thoroughly non-instructional would be, say, any one of the Jack Reacher thrillers by Lee Child, e.g. Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher). At the opposite extreme would be any random school text regardless of how competently it presents the material. DEATH BY BLACK HOLE joins two other books that immediately come to mind that satisfy immensely on both levels: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet by Steve Squyres. Tyson has written a volume for any inquiring and thinking reader who's ever gazed up at a cloudless night sky with wonder and the thought,"Cool! What's that all about?"
DEATH BY BLACK HOLE should be required reading for incoming high school freshmen; early on, it might get them focused on a career worth pursuing.
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