Product Description
With Astronomy Today, Sixth Edition, trusted authors Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan communicate their excitement about astronomy and awaken students to the universe around them. Thoroughly updated, the revised edition focuses on the process of scientific discovery and scientific method, making "how we know what we know" a more integral part of the text with attention to clearly and concisely presenting scientific terms to the non-science student. In addition, the authors have taken great care to identify places where they could clarify or simplify an explanation, better define a term, and discuss the process used in making a discovery. This editionoffers the most complete and innovative learning package available for one- or two-semester introductory courses in astronomy. Alternate Versions *Astronomy Today, Volume 1: The Solar System, 5/e - Focuses primarily on planetary coverage for a 1-term course. Includes Chapters 1-16, 28. *Astronomy Today, Volume 2: Stars and Galaxies, 5/e - Focuses primarily on stars and stellar evolution for a 1-term course. Includes Chapters 1-5 and 16-28.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Simply put – I purchased this Astronomy book through Amazon because the price was the same as elsewhere but I would save on shipping. I expected a NEW book but received a Used Book in good condition.
The Book itself so far seems well laid out and interesting but the course I am taking has just reached the 1/3 mark toward completion.
I would like to have my self a copy please post it to Mr R.K SETSHEDI P.O BOX 19 MADIKWE 2835 R.S.A
I bought the Astronomy Today:Stars and Galaxies, 4th edition paperback several years ago. Amazon lists the HARDBOUND 6th edition as having 848 pages, while the 6th edition two section paperbacks have a total of 1024 pages listed. I have NOT SEEN the 6th edition so I don’t know what the 176 pages consist of.
The authors of this book say it is for the laymen. Bull. This book is not only exceptionally difficult to comprehend with all the manifold “big terms and measurements” they throw at you, but is also annoying, and does not provide answers. God it’s annoying.
The diagrams pertaining to what you are reading are not even on the page you ARE reading, so you have to flip two or three pages to find which diagram they are talking about–as paradoxical as that sounds. The diagrams, moreover, are difficult to understand and sometimes just a damn mess.
I can’t even tell you how many times I almost fell asleep reading the author’s ramblings and piles of excess information–literally mountains and heaps of excess, useless, complex, redundant, information that only professional astronomers or math-adepts could understand.
This book is so not for someone who wants to take a casual astronomy course. After I am done with it, I’m going to set it on fire. Stay away from this thing.
This is an excellent textbook, but I deducted one star (from a possible five-star rating) because of the absurd comments made by the authors in the beginning of the book. In this fourth edition of Astronomy Today, a textbook published by Prentice Hall for college students, the authors open the very first chapter with the following statements:
“Of all the scientific insights attained to date, one stands out boldly: Earth is neither central nor special. We inhabit no unique place in the universe. Astronomical research, especially within the past few decades, strongly suggests that we live on what seems to be an ordinary rocky planet called Earth, one of the nine known planets orbiting an average star called the Sun, a star near the edge of a huge collection of stars called the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one galaxy among countless billions of others spread throughout the observable universe.”
Huh!? Earth isn’t special? Compare the other planets in our Solar System to Earth and tell us it isn’t special. And Earth is “…an ordinary rocky planet…”? It’s the only planet we know of with vast oceans of liquid water, a breathable atmosphere, lush vegetation, and a spectacular collection of life forms. The authors of this textbook must have been “out to lunch” when they wrote that trite introduction, or… this is just another deliberate attempt by “philosophers of gobbledygook” to strip the Earth of its special place in the universe and to squash any special characteristics that may differentiate it from everything else in the cosmos. I strongly suspect the latter viewpoint is the correct one.
The fact is the Earth is indeed a very special place, and the Sun is a very special star. In fact, the Sun-Earth relationship represents a very special arrangement that permits life to thrive upon our planet. Mercury, Venus and Mars may be nothing more than ordinary rocky planets, but Earth is truly unique from all the other planets in our Solar System, and may be truly unique in all the universe.
I stand by my initial rating of the textbook: 4 stars and an excellent read. I just have a wee bit of a problem with blind astronomers.
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