Chaos to Cosmos: A Space Odyssey

by Laura Danly, Leonard David, Donald Goldsmith

Book Overview

Curious minds of all ages will love exploring the ever-expanding universe in CHAOS TO COSMOS: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Copublished with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, this elegant volume is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558687009
• ISBN13: 9781558687004
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company
• Length: 137 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.5" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Lovely Mind Candy

Here is your little piece of heaven on the Universe. I highly recommend "Chaos to Cosmos: A Space Odyssey" to anyone with at least a neutrino (a very small amount) of visual or intellectual curiosity about the universe. The photographs are outstanding and even without the text would justify a front and center position on the finest coffee table. But I recommend a cold evening with a warm blanket, your favorite blend of freshly ground coffee, perched on the new window seat you just built, so you can take in the marvelous words of the three clever authors, while you occasionally glance out the window into the night sky to ponder what you've just learned. I have the greatest respect for people like Dr. Danly, Mr. David, and Dr. Goldsmith who are able to transate the most complex theories and realities into concepts simple minds like mine can understand. And I think a book like this is so much better when it incorporates the views of several people rather than just one, because there is more to learn from the unique perspective of each physicist and philosopher. Its a brief, brilliant 134 pages long. I wanted more, but perhaps these folks understand that the attention span of the average amateur is ephemeral. But in that short time they hooked me. I'm more curious now. I think about the "four dimensions" of the universe. I've come to understand a marvelous thing about my humanity is that I am able to begin to think about what it all means, in size and spiritual terms. I've always found the universe to be a little romantic. I like the idea of all these fantastic things going on all around which inspire feelings of majesty, beauty and togetherness. Yet all these things (ourselves included) are entirely surrounded by immense voids of nothingness which inspire feelings of loneliness, cold, and dark. In particular, Dr. Laura Danly's words were the most inspiring. Some people have a gift for conveying interesting things with personality, and she's got it. I've re-read her section of the book several times. It remains the highlight for me. She seems to put everything into the context of our humanity. I imagine she is the kind of person you would want as your professor, your dinner guest, and as your friend. I'll leave you with a little quote from Dr. Danly: "The universe is littered with galaxies. The deep field images from the Hubble Telescope show tens of thousands of them concentrated in a small patch of the sky no larger than the head of a pin held at arms's length. Extrapolating from that image to the whole sky, we think there are more than 1 trillion galaxies, each containing 100 billions stars." So consider the odds of waking up one morning to discover you are drawing breath on the exact same planet, in the same exact galaxy as one Dr. Laura Danly. Its a miracle, really. My thanks to these authors and the John Duncan Foundation which funded the project.