A Degree in a Book - Cosmology

This book is a gift for my teen child who has interest in this area. I would like to thank Sten Odenwald for presenting this subject in such a spectacular way by simplifying the subject and explaining this vast subject in such fantastic way. I would recommend this book to everyone who has interest on this subject.

An interesting read but could have been better edited. Spelling mistakes, chopping and changing unites (sometimes SI but ergs get a mention) and mentioning MeV and TeV in the same paragraph without reminding one of the relationship between the two.

Fun and information packed book

I have read another "degree in a book" book before for Marketing and it was disappointing as it taught me nothing I didn't already know. I wanted to be an astrophysicist since I was a kid and have tried to keep up with a lot of the developments in science. This book showed me how poorly I had done. The book throws a lot of terms at you very quickly and after defining them once, it rarely helps you by explaining them again, even when it gets heavily involved but that simply means you have to read more carefully, and for stuff like this this isn't a bad thing. Lots of theories, their strengths, their weaknesses, the history of the field of Cosmology, and a lot of discoveries that have not been constantly shot at us in cheap discovery Channel poorly-made documentaries are hre and unlike the Marketing entry in this book line, this is entirely something you ought to read and can learn a lot from.

My husband (chemist) and I (dietitian) are reading this together. If not for his penchant for astronomy and physics and ability to explain some of the concepts, this book would be wasted on me. With him to translate, I'm able to get something out of it and our discussionsare interesting. Preliminary chapters which weren't technical, contained some errors (example was a photo of a prehistoric African rock showing hashmarks indicating 'Neanderthal' record-keeping though Neanderthals were never in Africa). Also the pace seems uneven. Some concepts are merely stated, not explained at all. Others go into excruciating detail including into the development of mathematical variables of formulas that were argued about in the early 20th century. Overall, there is alot of information here, and with my trusty interpreter I am able to enjoy this learning experience. Without a prior foundation in the physical sciences, however, I believe this book would be a hard one to get a 'complete course' overview from. Perhaps they should list course prerequisites.

Sure, there are many illustrations, but mostly useless artist renderings or diagrams without much explanation. The theories are more or less simply enumerated, without much attempt at analogical explanation.

I’m an astrophysicist. I selected this book because I am teaching a general education course in cosmology. I love the format and the writing is fine. However, there are many mistakes in the book. Some are typographic errors (e.g., neurons for neutrons, the wrong spins or charges for particles) but there are also many errors with the charts and diagrams. Some of the captions are wrong or missing. Also, data are sometimes presented with absolutely no indication as to who collected it or how, or even what it means. Colorful splashy illustrations are wonderful but this book requires a careful edit. I’m making a list of the mistakes I will have to give the students. I’m disappointed. I won’t be able to use it again unless there’s another better edition.