The Universe at Midnight: Observations Illuminating the Cosmos

by Ken Croswell

Book Overview

Technology provides us with the means to look further out at the universe from our corner of it than we had ever dreamed possible. The Universe at Midnight tells the story of 20th-century cosmology. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684859319
• ISBN13: 9780684859316
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Reads like a good mystery!

I have read previous works from Dr. Croswell, and found this to be the best yet. There is enough background info on the characters, their lives, and the chronological order of the research, to keep you riveted, but not so much that the lay reader becomes scared of the subject. I think the greatest aspect of this book is that my thirteen year old daughter read it, and it has given her the impetus to explore many of these aspects of the science in greater detail. What more could you ask for?

The Universe at Midnight

Dr. Ken Croswell has written another fascinating, page turning, and a stay up all night: "In astronomy, there's still too much to explore" [my mislabelled quotation]. Although other reviewers wanted more pictures, drawings, or diagrams, it's really the rewarding descriptive writing and your mind's imaginations of his descriptions: "hordes of foreground stars speckled the photographs, raindrops on a celestial windshield, further obstructing the view." I really was quite awestruck by the knowledge of the current observable lookback distance of 14.5 billion light years in any direction to the estimated non-observable, current galactic distance is somewhere out to 47 billion light years in any direction. We are, in a sense, at the center of the observable Universe! The master moral dilemma, naturally, poised by Dr. Croswell:as the most intelligent species on Earth, what are we going to do with our intelligences? We have a moral and ethical obligation to use our creative, imaginative, and awesome capacity towards all other species and to ourselves now and into the, maybe, distant future. We are also capable of much nastiness and extinction. As the only known Galactic planetary civilzation (ex: Asimov's Foundation series), we must education ourselves and everyone else about our Cosmic potentials! And, then, act on them. Don't rely on me or this review--read the book!

Ken Croswell Lights the Universe for Astronomers!

The Universe at Midnight is a truly remarkable book! I was absolutely blown away by it. Ken Croswell has a talent for science writing. I had never read a book by him before, and I can say that I was so impressed with this book that I will definitely look for more of his works. He does not try to force a specific belief on any of his readers, rather he simply presents the facts of astronomy and let's the reader draw his own conclusion. Ken Croswell gives new understanding to the nature of astronomers in history. Though I understood areas such as Redshift, Omega, and Hubble's Constant before, I gained impressive new understanding to them. Never before has a science book been able to capture my interest so completely. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time! This book is a must have for any astronomer's professional library!

Mind blowing revelations about the Universe

This is just the right mix of detail yet not so technical as to push the reader over the edge of excess complexity. The book is a detective mystery and spirals around various topics regarding the structure and evolution of the universe returning again and again to the same issues but from ever more recent vantage points. We gain a sense of what it must be like to be scientists pushing back the frontiers of knowledge yet not above the personal issues and passions that intrude upon the process of discovery. The writing style is clear, clever, and fun while at the same time revealing deep levels of reality. Some long standing puzzles about the expansion of the universe were explained clearer here than I have seen anywhere else. I did not want the book to end and rather wished for a magical way to keep tacking on new chapters as discoveries continue to be made. It helps to have a general knowledge of physics and astronomy although the author does take pains to offer background information in as painless a manner as possible. In fact the seamless incorporation of the basics is unusually effective.

What Sir Patrick Moore said about

Popular books about cosmology tend to become out of date very quickly, simply because this is such a fast-moving science. Every month seems to bring a fresh batch of discoveries and surprises. "The Universe at Midnight" by Ken Croswell is fully up to date, and clearly the author has carried out a tremendous amount of research.The book covers the whole field of modern cosmology. The first chapter sets the scene with some fascinating historical anecdotes. Then come sections on the big bang and its rival theories, dark matter, stellar evolution, the expansion of the universe, its "weight," background radiation and much else. The text abounds in quotes from experts thus avoiding the danger of distortion or misinterpretation--most cosmologists, both past and present, have very definite views. Many of the quotes from key figures given here will not be found anywhere else.Croswell makes no attempt to disguise the fact that our present knowledge is very limited, and that we are still uncertain about fundamentals such as the Hubble constant, which defines the rate at which the universe is expanding. There is a long and particularly interesting chapter about this. Neither can we be really confident about the age of the universe. The best current estimate is of the order of 15 billion years, but it is conceivable that this figure may be drastically modified in the foreseeable future.The final chapter, which deals with the eventual fate of the Earth, is rather different in approach, and is highly speculative. Our planet cannot last forever, but when the situation becomes intolerable is there anything our descendants could do? As yet we cannot say, but breaking the Earth free from the dying Sun and transferring it to another star is likely to be a rather difficult matter. Fortunately, there is no need for immediate alarm.The text is accurate, with only a few tiny and wholly unimportant slips (for example, the Large Magellanic Cloud is no longer classed as a completely irregular galaxy). The main disadvantage of Croswell's approach, however, is that the emphasis upon personalities sometimes masks the science. This is probably not the book for a reader who wants a no-nonsense, straightforward and concise account of modern cosmology.It is also a pity that Croswell has emphasised personal conflicts between researchers--accusations of [...], attempts to claim credit for other people's work and so on. Of course this does happen, but from this book the newcomer might well think that cosmologists are a jealous and arrogant breed. This was certainly not the author's intention. In places, too, the writing tends to be of what may be called the tabloid variety. "Perhaps the universe is expanding into nothing, or into God's living room, or into some physicist's laboratory. Take your pick."But these are quibbles. "The Universe at Midnight" is vastly entertaining and enjoyable, as well as informative. It will be a welcome addition to any library, particularly if it is read