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Marcia Bartusiak Thursday's Universe
Westminister, Maryland, U.S.A. Crown 1986 0812912020 / 9780812912029 Cloth Fine Near Fine
0812912020 0812912020 Marcia Bartusiak is a winner of the American Institute of Physics Science - Writing Award. Jacket blurb: A report from the frontiers of astronomy on the origin, nature, and destiny of the Universe. From Publishers WeeklyBartusiak is a specialist in astrophysics who in 1982 won the American Institute of Physics Writing Prize. Buffs of the genre will welcome her attempt to render the history of this century's astrophysics, up to its merger with quantum particle physics and cosmology, for the book is freshly angled with inside lore and lab legend about the serendipitous discoveries and one-shot speculations of physicists and astronomers normally passed over by science writers. Too, Bartusiak is knowledgeable about the most sophisticated technology that has permitted the amazing growth of knowledge about pulsars, quasars, "radio galaxies" and much more. Her detailed scenario ranges from our new awareness of stellar evolution to recent findings relating the world of quarks and their kin to bizarre speculations called GUTs (Grand Unified Theories), which take science beyond the Big Bang virtually intometaphysics? Bartusiak shows how science confronts a cosmos incredibly vaster and more violent than ever imagined. Photos.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalAs the title implies, cosmology has far to go, but Bartusiak's review of major discoveries and theories about the origin and characteristics of the universe also shows how far it has come. Especially great strides have been made recently as astrophysicists, who theorize on a multigalactic scale, and particle physicists, who study atoms and their components, converge upon a Grand Unified Theory from different directions. Having interviewed many of the U.S. scientists who are pushing back the frontiers of physics, Bartusiak identifies who has been responsible for what major developments. Her explanations of often bizarre-sounding theories are expressed metaphorically rather than in the mathematics or specialized terminology of physics. For general readers. Laurie Tynan, Huntingdon Cty. Lib., Pa.
Price:
7.98 USD
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