Astronomy, physics, math, chemistry- these are all subjects that in the past, would have made my stomach cramp, as if I've eaten a whole bowl of suspiciously looking beans...When I was a little kid those were my biggest fears. I just didn't get it, it made no sense, it made my life miserable. Of course, school didn't help the slightest. We had the kind of teachers that tried their best, to make you hate the subject even more. I have a very vivid memory from school, where we had to solve just one equation and we could go home. I was the last one to not solve anything and was left alone in the classroom, thinking of all the magical possibilities, of growing up to be another empty-headed parasite of society. Needless to say I grew up resenting everything from math to astronomy. Whenever I would go to a romantic date with boys, consisting of the obligatory "stars sighting" I would always be the one to ruin the moment by saying "What's so special about them, they're just dots!". Even my current boyfriend, who has a spiritual boner every time he mentions "cosmos" or "string theory", couldn't kindle my passion for the vastness of space.This is why I was extremely skeptical when picking up this book, but form the first sentence, I knew this would be a keeper. Not only does it have an enormous amount of information, it is written with a certain doze of humor and elegance, that makes it so much more, than your typical informative blabber. I can happily say that Timothy Ferris has lighten a big-ass fire in my heart, and a big-ass love for everything that has to do with astronomy, physics, math and chemistry. If a book can completely alter a person's world view, it's a hell of a good book worth giving a chance!
There's something poetic about the nature of the universe, and it is this as much as a desire for knowledge which drove early man to strive toward a solution of its riddles. The universe, in turn, has also driven men to write poetry, and there's something of the poetic in Ferris' history of cosmology, a book which takes us from the first recorded beliefs of our forebears through to recent discoveries at CERN. The book is structured in sections which cover first the development of our understanding of the scale of the universe, then the nature of time and its relation to space, and finally plunges into the subatomic ballet which is currently expanding our knowledge of how the universe was formed.Ferris has a light, elegant style which lends itself well to this kind of book, both in the lyricism with which it draws the readers through the early stages and in the skilled use of metaphor which allows him to illustrate concepts in quantum physics, although these come so thick and fast toward the end that you'll not so much struggle to understand as remember them all. You can appreciate the view of one scientist who, on seeing the mass of particles predicted by quantum physics, said that if he could remember all that he would have become a botanist. Like trails in a cloud chamber, however, what is left imprinted on the reader is an appreciation of just how far we've come.My one niggle was in the section on Herschel, where I thought he gave his sister Caroline - a skilled astronomer in her own right - somewhat short shrift. Perhaps this is understandable in a work of this scope - it certainly shouldn't detract from the enjoyment and edification which flows from its pages.
Do You like book Coming Of Age In The Milky Way (2003)?
A great book for everyone. As a physicist, I appreciated the descriptions of the personal lives of these outstanding scientists. Ferris demonstrates their faults and failures. It points out that all of us foul-up at some points in our lives.For example, who would have guessed that the women natives of Tahiti would trade sex for a nail and Captain Cook's sailors pulled so many nails from their ship that it almost fell apart. Galileo was so absorbed with self-promotion that he wouldn't help Kepler get better telescope lenses because he feared that Kepler's skills would make him (Galileo) look bad. Kepler described his wife as 'simple of mind and fat of body'. So we see that these intellectual giants are human just like the rest of us.
—Eugene
This book helped me understand, like, lots of stuff. You know, like, stars and shit.It's actually fantastic, not only in its explanations of processes that are downright miraculous, but also in its biopics of various astronomers, physicists and geologists, some of whom (Kepler) I'm determined to learn more about. My one complaint is that the discoveries of the 20th Century, the complexities of which fill many textbooks, were diluted to a point that the layman (Matt) could not understand them. On the bright side, this shortcoming left me with lots of questions that I'm going to pursue further.This may be the best science writing I've ever read.
—Matthew
Apparently I forgot to write a review on this book when I read it, so I'm writing it now, a couple months later. If you're looking for a history on astronomy/cosmology, you could do worse than this book. The only problem is it's a bit dated, having been written in 1988, and then updated in 2003. But it does a pretty good job of explaining the discoveries prior to that. Ferris covers all the main points, and gives a good amount of detail to them and the people involved, even if the writing isn't the most entertaining. The book discusses the theories, philosophies, and discoveries of Aristarchus, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, Galileo, Newton, Herschel...and thats just the first half or so of the book, and there are lesser known names as well. Really, any review I give won't do justice to the amount of info that is contained in this book. Just know there is a lot of information covered.Still, its a good place to start if you're looking for a history of astronomy. You can find what you are interested in, and then find more in depth books on those topics.
—Brie