Thirty years ago when Sir Richard Branson called up Boeing and asked if they had a spare 747, few would have predicted the brash entrepreneur would so radically transform the placid business of air travel. But today, Branson flies airlines on six continents, employs hundreds of jets and, in 2014, was predicting that his spaceship company – Virgin Galactic – would soon open the space frontie…
Mathematical methods are essential tools for all physical scientists. This book provides a comprehensive tour of the mathematical knowledge and techniques that are needed by students across the physical sciences. In contrast to more traditional textbooks, all the material is presented in the form of exercises. Within these exercises, basic mathematical theory and its applications in the physica…
Viewing and Imaging the Solar System: A Guide for Amateur Astronomers is for those who want to develop their ability to observe and image Solar System objects, including the planets and moons, the Sun, and comets and asteroids. They might be beginners, or they may have already owned and used an astronomical telescope for a year or more. Newcomers are almost always wowed by sights such as the…
This book presents the status of research on very massive stars in the Universe. While it has been claimed that stars with over 100 solar masses existed in the very early Universe, recent studies have also discussed the existence and deaths of stars up to 300 solar masses in the local Universe. This represents a paradigm shift for the stellar upper-mass limit, which may have major implications …
Mathematical methods are essential tools for all physical scientists. This second edition provides a comprehensive tour of the mathematical knowledge and techniques that are needed by students in this area. In contrast to more traditional textbooks, all the material is presented in the form of problems. Within these problems the basic mathematical theory and its physical applications are well i…
Hugh Van Horn’s entire career since 1965 has been dedicated to conducting research into the properties of dense matter and applying that knowledge to objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. For almost 30 years, he led a research team investigating these topics at the University of Rochester, and a number of his former students have gone on to distinguished careers in astrophysics them…
The bubbles were swirling all around me, massaging my body. As I luxuriated in this fantastic bath, I gasped realizing that those bubbles carried with them miniature galaxies bringing the entire Cosmos into my bathtub... Alfie is back. And so are George and other characters from the author’s previous book Einstein’s Enigma or Black Holes in My Bubble Bath. While the present book, Univers…
In 2016, the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations made headlines when they announced the detection of gravitational waves—a century after Albert Einstein first predicted their existence with his general theory of relativity. With unprecedented perspective as physicists at the forefront of this discovery, Mario Díaz, Gabriela González, and Jorge Pullin provide a comprehensive and accessible account…
You too can follow in the steps of the great astronomers such as Hipparchus, Galileo, Kepler and Hubble, who all contributed so much to our modern understanding of the cosmos. This book gives the student or amateur astronomer the following tools to replicate some of these seminal observations from their own homes: With your own eyes: Use your own observations and measurements to disc…
This book explains why scientists believe that life may be more common in the Universe than previously considered possible. It presents the tools and strategies astronomers and astrobiologists are using in their formal search for habitable exoplanets as well as more advanced forms of life in other parts of our galaxy. The author then summarizes what is currently known about how and where organi…