An Introduction to Galaxies and Cosmology

Arrived in good condition, if a bit well-used (which was no surprise). The pages are clean, only the edges are slightly soiled and worn. Briefly paged through: the book is well illustrated. The approach and coverage / pedagogy seems appropriate for an undergraduate course for non-majors, i.e. as a breadth course. As with any cosmology astrophysics text printed over five years ago, it is a bit dated, but the basics (aka hot bang physics) is perfectly current (= there still is no answer as to what dark matter or dark energy are other than variables in an equation).

I found AN INTRODUCTION TO GALAXIES AND COSMOLOGY to be an excellent book! It is especially geared to a person who wants more than just a superficial description of this branch of astronomy and yet it avoids complex mathematics making it perfect for a person who does not need to see the mathematical step-by-step development of all the equations involved in the topic. The book consists of 2 parts: Part 1 (Chapters 1-4) has a detailed discussion of the structures of our own Milky Way Galaxy and goes on to introduce normal and active galaxies. Part 2 (Chapters 5-8) gets into the wide range of Cosmological Models and discusses the Big Bang and expansion of the Universe. Chapter titles are: Ch1 The Milky Way-Our Galaxy Ch2 Normal Galaxies Ch3 Active Galaxies Ch4 The Spacial Distribution of Galaxies Ch5 Introducing Cosmology-The Science of the Universe Ch6 Big Bang Cosmology Ch7 Observational Cosmology- Measuring the Universe Ch8 Questioning Cosmology- Problems About the Universe Although the book avoids showing the complex mathematics behind important formulas, it does not neglect showing many formulas and gives student exercises using them to calculate various important quantities. Full solutions to each one are given in the back of the book. The book correctly advertises itself as being understandable to anyone who has completed beginning undergraduate physics courses. The book does not require calculus in its problem solving. I highly recommend it!

One would believe University level book. Great book for Telescope Addition. In Example: Star[s] Galaxie[s], Universal Existence[s], v[s] Distance[s], Movie[s] Manufacturing[s], Ect.

Arrived on time. In good condition. Was just as described. Thank you.

I think this is a great intermediate level book on galaxies and cosmology. The writing style is clear and easy to follow. There are many useful diagrams and a fair number of beautiful images. The first part of the book focuses on galaxies. The Milky Way is the subject of the first chapter. In addition to providing a nice description of the galaxy we live in, a lot of concepts are introduced that are needed for the remainder of the book. This includes things like globular clusters, open clusters, density waves, stellar halos, HR diagrams, rotation curves and dark matter. This is followed by a chapter on normal galaxies. The Hubble classification of galaxies is covered here. The treatment goes beyond morphology, it also describes the properties these classifications have (for example mass to gas ratio) and how they are measured. A very high level view of structure formation is given. This topic is treated in more detail in the cosmology part. The extremely important topic of the cosmological distance ladder is covered. The following chapter on active galaxies is excellent. In addition to describing the types of active galaxies, it explains the current models of how they are powered. It also provides reasons for thinking that they are fundamentally the same kind of thing, just being viewed in different ways by us. This is followed by a chapter on the large scale distribution of galaxies which provides a nice transition to the study of cosmology. The cosmology part is equal in quality to the galaxies part. It opens with a qualitative discussion of general relativity. Obviously it isn't very detailed, the most complicated part presented is the Robertson-Walker line element. However it's enough to motivate important things like the cosmological redshift, the cosmological constant and the critical density. This basic material is built upon to discus dark matter (both baryonic and non-baryonic), structure formation, anisotropies in the microwave background (the detail here was more than I expected form an introductory book, it actually went a bit into multipole expansions), problems with the standard cosmology (standard here meaning pre-inflation, today it would probably be safe to say that inflation is now the standard) and inflation (no details to speak of, just qualitative). In summary I think this is a great book, suitable for students without any previous knowledge of the topics. Most of the concepts from astronomy needed are described, but not covered in detail. This includes things like population I/II/III starts, variable stars and what astronomers mean when they say "metal". This is a lot of information for someone without any background in astronomy. Such people would probably have a fairly tough time following the presentation, but could probably still do it with sufficient motivation. I would expect the best audience would be undergraduate astronomy students. More advanced students would probably be familiar with most of the material, but may still enjoy it because the presentation is so good.

Very useful, full course of the Galaxies evolution and Cosmology. I strongly recommend it to anyone who are interesting in this topic.

Captivating and well written, great level of detail (compared to many texts you can find on market). I did truly appreciate the description of the Milky Way and of the galaxies in the universe, never found anywhere else in such detail. (I'm not an astronomy student, I'm just an interested reader with some physical and matemathical background from scientific studies some thirty years ago...)

Pan Galactic Marvel Blaster. Lego Guide to Galaxy Building. Build your own Galaxy. Scholarly, Colorful, Readable, Step by Step

De fácil lectura el inglés en el que está escrito, Libro de texto, accesible con alguna base. Obra excepcional, bien explicado y solo las fórmulas elementales. Diagramas y fotos en color. Cada capítulo con descripciones de los autores de la materia descrita, con "box" para ampliación de los contenidos, preguntas/respuesta, problemas "Question" y al final de cada capítulo un sumario de lo tratado. Al final del libro, soluciones a las "questions"). Apéndice. Glosario. Índice alfabético, Bibliografía. Encuadernación excelente, calidad del papel con letra grande y clara. Sin duda aprenderás y mucho con esta obra y su complementaria "An Introduction to the Sun and Stars" de S.F. Green y M.H. Jones. Describe la estructura e historia detallada de nuestra galaxia (Vía Láctea). Otras Galaxias (tipos, características, propiedades, origen, evolución). Modelos cosmológicos (Einstein, De Sitter, Lemaître, FRW). Big Bang (modelo, evolución, verificaciones). Parámetros (H0, q0, R(t), z, Ʌ, Ω(t) ,etc.), masas, densidades, diámetros, edades, constantes del universo. CMB, Nucleosíntesis, Recombinación, Materia y energía oscuras, problemas del Horizonte y de la Planitud, Universo primordial, etc. etc.

An amazing book for beginners interested in cosmology, explains everything properly and clearly, helps one to get along the things very easily, well written with beautiful pictures, very up to date, can only recommend this book!