Showing posts with label Astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astronomy. Show all posts

2023-09-04

"A Brief History of Black Holes and why Nearly Everything You Know About Them is Wrong" by Becky Smethurst

 


Publisher: McMillan
Copyright: 2022
ISBN: 9781529086706

This book is an excellent overview of the history and current state of knowledge of Astronomy, Astrophysics, and black holes in particular. It is well written, very informative, and should appeal to many readers.

Dr. Smethurst takes the reader on a historical as well as contemporary look at how black holes were discovered, and the people who did the discovering. She also takes the reader on an astrophysical journey that explains numerous other concepts that are barely touched on in a lot of other books.

Her first book "Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time" I reviewed back in November 2021, and this book is a great companion that will hopefully lead numerous students towards careers in astronomy and astrophysics.

Highly recommended, a great addition to any library.

2022-04-25

"Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour" by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott

 


Publisher:  Princeton University Press
Copyright:  2016
ISBN: 9780691157245

This was an amazing book that gives the reader an in depth look into the science of astrophysics. The three authors have written their sections in a clear and concise way that explain the concepts very well, and easily gets the message across.

In the first part  Dr. Tyson takes the reader on a study of the stars, planets and life in ten chapters that deal with a number of important concepts including explanations of the size and scale of the universe, Newton's Laws,  The lives and deaths of star, the classification of solar objects (e.g., Pluto) and the search for life.  Dr. Strauss then takes over and takes about galaxies in six chapters which include the Milky Way itself, our place in the universe, quasars, black holes, etc. Then Dr. Gott adds eight chapters in the third section that talk about both the general and special theories of relativity, black holes, string theory, the big bang, etc.

This was an extremely interesting  book to read, and even though it is a few years old at this time the information is still very relevant and should be of great value to anybody interested in astronomy or astrophysics. In addition, it is easily readable, and I believe would be a great addition to all school libraries, and would also make an excellent introductory text for first year university students.

2021-11-08

"Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time" by Becky Smethurst


 

Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781984858696

Dr. Smethurst examines and number of fundamental questions, that I'm fairly sure many astrophysicists get asked many times during their career. Some of these questions are why does gravity matter, what was around in the beginning, a history of black holes (her speciality), the overall size of the universe, alien existence, and why is the sky dark to name but a few. The chapters are well written, and give good explanations, and would be suitable to inclusion in any grade school library.

In addition of this book Dr. Smethurst is a popular YouTube personality who examines unsolved cosmological mysteries, space news in general. She also contributes videos to other YouTube channels such as Sixty Symbols, and astronomy videos to Deep Sky Videos.

2021-08-30

"How We'll Live on Mars" by Stephen L. Petranek

 


Publisher: TED Books
Copyright: 2015
ISBN: 9781476784762

This book is extremely informative and provided the source material for the docu-drama "Mars" which gives a fictional review of what might be encountered by astronauts going to the Red planet, interspersed with an examination of the current rather sad state of the space program.

Mr. Petranek begins with a basic overview of the space program from its impetus to approximately the 1980s. He deals a fair bit of time with Werner von Braun’s proposal “Das Marsprojekt” for missions to Mars that he began promoting in 1948 (I’ll be looking for a copy of this book as it sounds fascinating). After this he goes on to outline a very logical and in my opinion workable method of how we might actually make it there, and  why we should go.

A portion of the main narrative revolves around the work of Elon Musk and his Space Exploration Corporation aka SpaceX, but Mr. Petranek also looks into the various big questions such as will a small group of people be able to get along with each other, is anybody willing to pay for the project, the safety of the project, effects of prolonged exposure to micro-gravity, medical issues that might come about, and lastly the radiation the astronauts will be exposed to.

He then goes on to look at the economics of the project, the factors that will have to be taken into account if astronauts actually want to live on Mars, terra-forming, and other topics.

The only thing in this book that I found detracted from the overall plan is that it was written in 2015, and in the 6 years since then a number of major advances have been made, so it is hoped that the author will consider writing an updated second edition.




2020-11-23

"T-Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Walter Alvarez


 

Publisher: Princeton University press
Copyright: 1997
ISBN: 9780691169668

I have been working in the field of palaeontology for 10 years now, and even prior to that likely since I first heard about it in the 1980s, I have always excepted the fact that a meteor or a comet had spelled the end of the era of dinosaurs (otherwise known as the Cretaceous), and that it had hit on what we now know as the Yucatán Peninsula.

I was unaware however of all the research, and the years it took for Walter Alvarez, his father Luis Alvarez, and scores of other scientists to prove that this had actually occurred. This book takes you on an absolutely enthralling journey of how the discovery was made.

The first chapter takes you back to a world 65 Million years ago, just before the Cretaceous era was about to abruptly end. It describes in detail what must have happened on that fateful day when either a comet or meteor approximately 10 kilometres across slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula. There was no warning as it was travelling at an estimated 30 kilometres per second (about 150 times faster than your typical airliner).

Between the time it first touched the Earth's atmosphere and it hit the ground, only 1 second had elapsed.

Dr. Alvarez'sstyle of writing makes this a very easy book to read, and provides the reader with a close look at exactly how the scientific method works, and should be required reading for anyone interested in the scientific method regardless of their discipline, as a great many people don't really seem to realize all the work that has to go in to actually examining a hypothesis, and subsequently proving a theory, or the amount of time it can take to do it.

A great book, I'm kind of sorry it took me so long to getting around to reading it.

2019-01-07

"Star Talk" with Neil deGrasse Tyson



Publisher:Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, [2016]
Copyright Date:©2016
ISBN: 9781426217272
Characteristics: 302 pages :,colour illustrations

"StarTalk" is the companion book to the radio show and television program. It is hosted by Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium in New York.

The book itself is not a transcript of what took place on the radio or television program. It is more of a coffee table style of book that touches on numerous subjects and gives very concise explanations with regard to why they are true or untrue, work or don't work, and it debunks a number of myths as a bonus.

It is separated into four major sections space, planet earth, being human, futures imagined. It each of these there are 5 to 6 different sub-topics. For example in the space section there are discussions entitled: What do I pack for Mars? What do I eat in space? Can we use wormholes to travel? Who goes there? And are we there yet?

Each of these subtopics is then broken down into smaller discussions with contributions from authors, experts in the field, celebrities and so on.

This is an extremely good book, that is designed to answer questions that a teenager or younger child will have about various topics related to science. It would also be a great resource for students up to high school to stimulate their curiosity, or give them ideas for research paper topics.

I personally have not listened to the radio program but the television program which is produced by National Geographic is extremely interesting and quite humourous at times as well.

2017-12-18

"Artemis" by Andy Weir

Artemis



Publisher:New York : Crown, [2017]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2017
ISBN: 9780553448122
Characteristics: 305 pages :,illustrations ;,25 cm

Artemis is Mr. Weir's second novel, and he has followed up "The Martian" with another great story. I believe this one would also make a great movie in the event someone from Hollywood happens to be reading this blog (yeah, right!). As it has the elements of a great adventure story, with political intrigue, a strong protagonist, and much more.

The story revolves around a lunar resident by the name of Jazmine Bashara who seeks out a living (not always legally) in the only inhabited city on the moon. Her life suddenly gets very interesting however, when she is offered an opportunity she can't really refuse. But which turns out to be a little more complicated than she planned on.

Mr. Weir is one of few authors today who writes in first person, and this gives the story a very immediate feel that many novels now-a-days never get close to. Many writers seem to shy away from first person, and more writing teachers, and resource material seems to advise against using it. Now while this may be good advice for an absolute beginning writer, it is quite refreshing (in my opinion at least) to read stories told this way.

In addition, Mr. Weir definitely did a fair bit of research when planning the city of Artemis and this has really paid off, as the technology behind the story is very consistently designed, and believable.

I eagerly await his next book, as I'm sure after two hits he'll be able to keep going.

2017-12-11

"Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Neil de Grasse Tyson

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry



Publisher:New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2017]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2017
ISBN: 9780393609394 
Characteristics: 222 pages

I really enjoyed this book and think that Dr. Tyson's explanations of astrophysics are very complete and extremely easy to understand with little math required. I'm not sure when I first became aware of Dr. Tyson's work, but I believe it was possibly during the controversy that erupted following the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006. I grew up in a time when we all thought that the solar system had nine planets, and now we have eight, so what? It was either that or when I saw the updated series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which I feel is a great complement to the original series by the late Dr. Carl Sagan. If you haven't seen this series, I would definitely encourage you to do so, but would recommend that you watch the original first.

In any case, "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" is a great book, and well worth the read. I've been a fan of space for many decades, but still learned a fair bit from this book which examines topics such as the Big Bang, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and much more.

Dr. Tyson's sense of humour is quite unique, and adds to the fun of what some might think of as a rather unwieldily topic for a book that is marketed to the general public. His views on the viability of levitation are very interesting, and I would be very interested in seeing his equations on how this could be accomplished, and even more so in see an actual demonstration (but preferably not inside a closed room).

2017-12-04

"The Discoverers" by Daniel J. Boorstin

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know his World and Himself

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004)
Publisher:New York : Random House, [1983]
Copyright Date:©1983
ISBN: 9780394726250
Characteristics: xvi, 745 pages ;,24 cm

The overview of this book says that it is "An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. In the compendious history, Boorstin not only traces man's insatiable need to know, but also the obstacles to discovery and the illusion that knowledge can also put in our way. Covering time, the earth and the seas, nature and society, he gathers and analyzes stories of the man's profound quest to understand his world and the cosmos."

This book is one of three Mr. Boorstin wrote in this same vein, the others being "The Creators" and "The Seekers".I haven't read either of these yet, but they are on my list, and will be reviewed in time.

The Discoverers was a fascinating book, and even thought it took me a long time to read it (684 pages of text) it was well worth the time. I believe this book (and possibly the other two mentioned above as well) would make fantastic texts for a history or anthropology class at the University level. Granted that the majority of students might not read them, but those that did would benefit immensely from the information to be gained.

The book is separated into four major divisions Time, The Earth and the Seas, Nature, and finally Society. Within each of these are sub sections that breakdown the divisions into more manageable works. These are sub sequentially separated into chapters dealing with a specific idea.

The detail with which Mr. Boorstin was able to present this information is wonderful. An example of this from the section of Time is: "Part I: The Heavenly Empire" which deals with rudimentary astronomy and it relation to astrology and how it was connected with religion and how they all influenced various historical events.

"Part II: From Sun Time to Clock Time" traces the development of time keeping through its many phases. Including Calendars, Sun Dials, Clocks, Time Keeping at Sea which allowed for the determination of longitude, etc.

I could go on and give an overview of the entire book, but then you wouldn't have to read it, which is something you should definitely do! All in all this was a great book, and I'm looking forward to reading the next ones in the series, however I won't be reading them right away as it will take me a while to digest all the information presented in this volume.

2012-02-21

More Science in Movies

I my last posting I tore a strip off Star Trek, and while I think in most respects it does deserve it there are other shows that are worse with respect to science. Now the reason I'm going soft on Star Trek is simply because under a number of different definitions of Science Fiction it doesn't fit. Why? Because dear reader many people who have gone and bothered to define Science Fiction say essentially that it is fiction where  science is a major necessity in the plot. Or as Theodore Sturgeon says: "A good science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its science content". And due to the lack of science content, or rather all the liberties taken in writing that have been disguised as science I don't believe it should qualify.

Now because I've given Star Trek a rather good beating, it's time to point out that this same problem exists with virtually every "science fiction" movie that has been made for many years. In fact this is the case with most movies and television shows that come out now-a-days (not just the science fiction ones). The lack of an understanding of basic science (either willfully, or simply through sheer laziness/ignorance) by the writers, directors, and many other technical staff that contribute is simply astounding. I'll go into these details in a later column, but for now I'd like to point out that this disregard for science is not wholly a problem with television and movies. Many books suffer from this same problem. And as a writer of Science Fiction stories I feel that this is important (otherwise I probably wouldn't be writing this - go figure).

So what's my beef?

Why do many science fiction authors seem to make no attempt (or very little at least) to incorporate science into their stories, and when they do why do they frequently get it wrong?

Okay, so the first thing you might say is "well it is fiction!". Okay point taken, but if you aren't going have any science you might as well call it a fairytale, and not science fiction. Back up in the first paragraph I quoted Theodore Sturgeon, here are a few other quotes that define science fiction:

Robert J. Sawyer: "Science fiction is the mainstream literature of a plausible alternative reality."

Barry N. Malzberg: "Science fiction is 'that branch of fiction that deals with the possible effects of an altered technology or social system on mankind in an imagined future, an altered present, or an alternative past'."

Sam Moskowitz: "Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the "willing suspension of disbelief" on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy."

John W. Campbell, Jr.: "The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along... The basic nature of fantasy is "The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!" The basic rule of science fiction is "Set up a basic proposition--then develop its consistent, logical consequences."

Likely the best definition of those above is the one from Campbell, which seems pretty simple to me. Unfortunately it seems to slip the minds of many science fiction authors. Now granted there are various sub-genres of science fiction such as "hard-science fiction" which usually does a very good job of getting it right, but it's not these authors that I'm whining about. Its the author who says "I write science fiction", but who has no idea what science is.

I've already talked a lot about Hollywood and how it's famous for this and maybe this is where these authors get their ideas. Now if a person had never seen anything from NASA, had never read Scientific American, or seen Discovery Channel, etc., and was basing all their science on "Star Wars", "Star Trek", "Jurassic Park", and any number of 1950s & 60s "B" movies you'd probably have to cut them some slack, but I doubt there are many of these people around. A couple of prime examples from this era are "Them" (1954) and "Attack of The Fifty Foot Woman" (1958). Sorry folks, but neither the ant's nor the lady's legs would have been able to support their respective bodies, bone simply isn't strong enough. In other words some of the science that is violated is so simple as to make the authors essentially look like fools (or worse).

The written word however is vastly different, after all how many times have you read a book, then seen the movie and thought it was crap? That's because the written page can contain so much more detail, and because of that the author has to do that much more research (or they should at least). Now granted compressing a couple of hundred pages of text into a movie is no mean feat, but still …

I'm going to continue on with this theme next time and give you some illustrations on some of the problems and maybe even how to fix them if you're interested.

TTFN

2012-02-17

But Why Would They Come?

Okay, so we can all likely agree that the other stars are a long way from here. But if we ignore this by saying that another civilization is using multigenerational ships to travel say something like what I'm assuming they were trying to portray in the movie "Independence Day". I say assuming as they definitely didn't saying anything about faster-than-light drives, etc. and the only time we saw the mother ship is was either moving at a relatively normal speed for spacecraft, or it was in orbit (yeah I know this is assuming a lot but I figure they didn't mention it so we can ignore it). So for sake of argument an alien race shows up in our stellar neighbourhood, the big question would be why would they bother to come here in the first place?

Let's face it human's aren't exactly going to attract any other civilizations. We've only had the ability to transmit data electronically for under 100 years (1907 for radio, 1918 for television). These first broadcast signals were very weak compared to what w have today so we can likely shave a fair number of years off these as well as by the time they got out into space any distance their signal strength would be extremely weak. So for sake of argument let's say that we have been transmitting for seventy years at a decent signal strength to reach anybody who might be listening - that puts us in 1942.

So sometime in the last seventy years a spacefaring civilization picked up our signals, and figured out what they were. After all not only would the signal strength be very weak, but whoever was listening wouldn't know any of our languages. But is we assume that they puzzled out that they were from an intelligence race of beings and decided to visit then we have another problem, which relates back to the previous posting I made, and that's distance and consequently the speed their ship can travel at.

In order for extraterrestrials to be visiting us today in 2012, and assuming they left home as soon as they detected the signal (the ships were ready to go all they had to do was shut the hatch and step on the accelerator), and further assuming they can travel at the generous speed of ten percent of the speed of light then that means the furthest away they can be from us is three point five light years (which would give them a thirty-five year journey). If by some chance they can get extremely close to the speed of light (by the way I am intentionally ignoring the time dilation effects) then this allows them to be further away but only thirty-five light years. But why do I say thirty-five is the maximum?

I set thirty-five for a maximum because I first assumed we have only been transmitting for about seventy years. Which means that the signals from 1942 are just now reaching the vicinity of Zeta Lepus (which happens to be 70 light years away), but even if a ship left there right now, it wouldn't get here until 2082 if they could travel at light speed (or close enough not to matter) and that's seventy years from now. So we're back to thirty-five year issue (thirty-five for the signal to get to them, and thirty-five for them to get to us - remember we're assuming they can travel close to light speed).

But once again why would they come? Thirty-five years ago the signals that were coming from good ol' Mother Earth were things such as "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown", "Eight is Enough", "Soap", "CHiPS", and "The Love Boat" - not exactly anything that would attract an intergalactic civilization - unless of course they were intergalactic police, and wanted to protect the citizens of the galaxy from extremely poor quality writing (okay, Soap was relatively good, but the rest give me a break!).

You'll have noticed by now that I used the word "if" a lot in this article, and that is because there are a lot of questions that need answering (I mean other than why did "The Love Boat" last for nine seasons?). Also remember in the last couple of paragraphs I assumed that these supposed extraterrestrials could travel at just under light speed, which isn't likely. I'm not saying it impossible, but the technological leap that would have had to be made is a little hard to swallow.

TTFN

2012-02-15

Space is big, real big ...

I was doing a presentation at one of the schools the other day for grade six Sky Science (introductory astronomy for those of you not familiar with the Alberta curriculum) and a few of the students asked me about aliens, and UFOs, and such. I expected these after all this is what the various media outlets are feeding people now-a-days. In fact if you believed everything you saw in the media you probably think that every other person in the word was from another star system.

Now I don't want to sound like some type of a nay sayer, so to I'll make my stand clear. Yes, I believe that there is other life in the universe, and I hope that someday we will come in contact with them. This will likely be by detecting their radio transmissions, or some such as opposed to having a little green man knock on your door one morning and asking for a cup of anti-matter. But I don't believe they have ever visited us. Why? Read on for the first of my objections.

For those of you who have been weaned on a diet of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Independence Day" and various other gems from Hollywood the chances of aliens having visited us are pretty slim, in fact they are essentially non-existant. Why? I knew you ask so I here goes:


"Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hughly mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Mr. Adams wasn't kidding either, and that's why I don't really believe that we've ever been visited - there's another reason too, but I'll get to that in days to come. So everybody agrees space is big, but how big is it? Well I just happen to have my copy the 2012 Observer's Handbook handy so flipping to page 291 (Table of Nearest Stars) we see that Proxima Centauri is 4.24 lightyears (ly), Alpha Centauri 4.36 ly, Barnard's Star 5.98 ly, and Wolf 359 7.78 ly distant. So this means that the light were seeing right this second from Proxima Centauri left there 4.24 years ago. For that matter if our sun was above the horizon as I write this the light that we would see from the sun left there 8.3 minutes ago (499.0047864 light seconds to be exact)

Now a light year is standard measure of distance. Sorry to break it to you, but Han Solo got it wrong in Star Wars IV when he said it was a speed factor. It is the distance light travels in one year. Now light goes 299728.458 kilometres per second (abbreviated as c)which when multiplied out gives you 9.458 x 10^12 or 9,458,000,000,000 km in a year (299728.458 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25). A long way!

Now according to a certain rather famous scientist by the name of Albert Einstein it is impossible for an object of positive mass to reach (and therefore pass) the speed of light, so that means that any visitors would have to be travelling at a speed somewhat less than this speed limit. which therefore makes their journey that much longer. So if they were travelling at half light speed then Proxima Centauri is 8.48 years away.

By the way, for the time being I'm going to ignore all the hypothetical faster than light drives that have been postulated for many years in science fiction stories, as we have no idea if it is possible, and until someone rewrites the laws of physics as we understand them it really isn't worth worrying about. I'm also going to ignore the ideas of cold sleep / hibernation etc. in case your curious.

So what we have is a trip to Proxima Centauri that is going to take at least 8.48 years (at 1/2 light speed) and likely much longer (at 1/10 light speed it's 84.8 years). So what does this give us? Well, if a civilization was going to outfit a ship to travel from say Proxima Centauri to us, they would have to provide the crew with sufficient supplies (breathing gases, water, food, spare parts, etc.) to last the journey, and they would also have to devise a way for the crew to entertain themselves for the entire trip. Now I get bored on a car trip longer than a few hours, so I don't even want to imagine being stuck in some type of vehicle for 8.48 years (or 84.8 for that matter).

So as you can see one of the biggest arguments against us being visited is simply distance. Plain and simple. Now if you do accept faster than light drives, cold sleep / hibernation etc. this all changes, but that's what I'm going to talk about tomorrow.

TTFN

Going on Hiatus

 Greetings, I have decided to put a hold on doing further book reviews for a while. In fact I'm not sure if I will resume doing reviews ...