Understanding The Heavens

Astronomy is the oldest and most fundamental of the natural sciences. From the early beginnings of civilization astronomers have attempted to explain not only what the Universe is and how it works, but also how it started, how it evolved to the present day, and how it will develop in the future. The author, a well-known astronomer himself, describes the evolution of astronomical ideas, briefly discussing most of the instrumental developments. Using numerous figures to elucidate the mechanisms involved, the book starts with the astronomical ideas of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian philosophers, moves on to the Greek period, and then to the golden age of astronomy, i.e. to Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and ends with modern theories of cosmology. Written with undergraduate students in mind, this book gives a fascinating survey of astronomical thinking.

For the last eighteen years, I have been teaching an introductory course in as­ trophysics. The course is intended for nonscience majors satisfying a general education requirement in natural science. It is a physics course with applications in astronomy. The only prerequisite is the high school mathematics required for ad­ mission to the university. For a number of years, I used an astronomy text, which I supplemented with lecture notes on physics. There are many good astronomy texts available, but this was not a satisfactory state of affairs, since the course is a physics course. The students needed a physics text that focused on astronomical applications.