The Alchemy of the Heavens

by Ken Croswell

Book Overview

The Alchemy Of The Heavensoffers an exciting and accessible survey of what we know about our galaxy.??The home of the earth, the sun, and countless other stars, the Milky Way has long been an object of human fascintation, but it's been in the last forty years that astromoners and astrophysicists have made the most startling discoveries about our galaxy.??Author Ken Croswell reveals that the Milky Way formed as many earlier galaxies collopsed and smashed...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385472137
• ISBN13: 9780385472135
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

("Other" user) A wonderful book

As an amateur astronomer who formerly considered the generic topic of the Milky Way to be humdrum, I must say that this book totally changed my opinion. Croswell structures each chaper as a mystery, in which facts slowly conglomerate until bam!-the researcher gets the "big picture", and you learn something new. He wants the reader to figure things out along with the various astronomers, rather than to just spit out facts. His style is engaging and never dull. *Highly* recommended for anyone interested in the Milky Way who doesn't want to start out with the big guns like Bok or Payne-Gaposchkin. Read it. Enjoy.

An up-to-date account of modern cosmology

Croswell focuses on stellar evolution and the evolution of galaxies in a narrative that alternates between the very technical and the very personal. He gives first hand glimpses into the lives and thoughts of many modern astronomers and cosmologists and provides insights into the battles as they are being fought today. A great book to read if you're interested in the contributions of astronomers of the 70's right up to the mid-90's. He also gives an historical treatment of his main topics (stellar evolution and galactic formation) but the history is brief - his main focus is on the state of these investigations today.

More than just another book about Galaxy.

It doesn't matter if you are astronomer or not: every time you look at the clear and starry sky, you will lose track of time. And after you read this book, this will be even easier because Alchemy of the Heavens will be your guide for that beautiful picture above you. When you see a fuzzy patch, you will wonder whether this is some old globular cluster which holds clues to the origin and history of our own Galaxy or maybe even one of our bigger and brighter galactic satellites. Blue stars won't be just blue stars anymore but lighthouses tracing the spiral structure of our Galaxy, and the next time you see an Orion nebula, you will remember the story about H II regions and new stars that were and will be born there.The author provides us with answers (and if they aren't available, then with current theories) to many questions, some of which are: How the Galaxy formed and evolved? What populations and types of stars exist? What can you tell about a star just by observing its color? And how was all this knowledge acquired? Chapters that explain long path to discoveries are chronologically ordered and contain many interviews with scientists themselves. This makes the book much more interesting to read and lets you learn about all ups and downs and not just the end result. This, in turn, will let you understand present theories better because you've already heard all the old ones and the reasons why they were rejected. Moreover, the author points to many misconceptions that can be found in today's literature (the most common of which being that our Sun is just an ordinary star). The last chapters of the book are left for a bit of speculation on the Hubble constant, age of the Universe and also the possibility that some of our 29-stellar neighbours harbor an Earth-like planet or maybe even life (for further exploration of this topic and other solar systems found, I recommend the book Planet Quest by the same author). If your forget some word, the rich glossary is there to refresh your memory. This book will be an exciting material to read, be it your first introduction to our Galaxy's clockwork or not.

Facinating and human tale of discovery will grab you!

Wow, I loved this book, and recommend it to every scientifically curious person. In a wonderfully easy to read style, Dr. Croswell tells a facinating tale of how our understanding of stars and the Milky Way Galaxy has came about. The competition of ideas, and the human struggle to piece together bits and pieces of evidence make this a mystery book far better for me than any bedside novel. I especially liked the many direct quotes from the researchers involved. It reveals the human aspect, and frequent battle, of the scientific process. This is the single best book in my astronomy library.

The Complete Milky Way as you always wanted to see it

Imagine your first book sells to publishers around the world. It is discovered in Germany, Poland, China, England. The New York Times raves and the LA Times picks it as a runner up for their book award. That is The Alchemy of the Heavens by Dr. Ken Croswell. This gem has been praised and Croswell has been compared most favorably to the greatest living astronomers. His prose is a pleasure that makes him unique among science writers. Don't hesitate to buy this one