Physics in Your World by Karl F. Kuhn, Jerry S. Faughn (review)

320 Book5 of the L-4 or L-5type, Solar Power Satellites, and a Lunar Base. The authors then give their recommendations for the exploration and eventual colonization of our Solar System, dealing with each planet as well as the asteroids and comets. In the case of the outer planets, the physical information is accurate up to and including data from Voyager I. But, as the title indicates, the main concern of this book is with travel beyond the Solar System. The Milky Way Galaxy is ‘surveyed’ for suitable stars, possible methods of propulsion and life support systems are examined (including past feasibility studies such as the U S . Orion and the British Interplanetary Society’s Daedalus), and methods of determining distance and navigation explained in some detail, all in fairly non-technical language. Communication over interstellar distances and the exploration of the Alpha Centauri system (the closest star-system to Earth) are other subjects dealt with. If the text has a fault, it is that it attempts to cover too much ground. The sections on how life evolved on Earth and the examination of the bodies in our Solar System are better dealt with elsewhere. Such works are, however, greatly needed in these days of economic depression. to give Man worthwhile goals for the future. Our Cosmic Universe, which is written by a radio-astronomer, is concerned much less with travel to stellar bodies than with their examination by optical and radio astronomy. Within its province it does a very thorough job, starting with The Universe in Seven Steps -each taking us an order of magnitude further outward: Earth, Earth-Moon, Solar System, Neighbouring Stars, our Galaxy, the Galactic Neighbourhood, and The Universe. The methods and instruments for investigating the physical properties of stars, galaxies, quasars, etc. in various wavelengths are explained and illustrated in some detail, with examples of several actual optical and radio telescopes. The biggest shortcoming of both of these books, especially for the artist or art teacher, is their illustrations. Our Cosmic Universe is by far the most profusely illustrated, and even contains four pages of colour. But both books draw heavily on material widely published elsewhere, both as line illustrations and as half-tones. There is even some duplication of NASA material in both books. In Our Cosmic Universe, too, the layout is unimaginative to say the least; some illustrations are crudely retouched, and the colour montages of planets to scale are particularly unintelligible. In the same book. the child-like line ‘portraits’ of Galileo and William Herschel with their telescopesare not likely to attract a would-be reader-which is a pity. The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe. Joseph Silk. W. H. Freeman, Oxford, England, 1980. 394 pp.. illus. Paper, €4.90. Cloth. €10.70. ISBN: 0-7167-1085-4. Reviewed by Harry L. Shipman* Astronomers have recently come to a tantalizingly complete understanding of the grand drama of cosmic evolution. In the 1950’s, the nonspecialist reader could read books by George Gamow and Fred Hoyle and confront two distinct ideas for the origin of the Universe,the Steady State and Big Bang schemes. Both astronomers and lay readers could only decide between the two ideas on aesthetic or philosophical grounds. But now. the evidence is on the side of the B I ~ Bang scenario, and cosmologists are more concerned with filling in the details and less preoccupied with proving that the Big Bang occurred. Silk’s book is the most complete and comprehensive of a number of popular level books which describe contemporary cosmology for the lay reader. Someone witnessing the first few minutes of cosmic evolution would see the Universe rapidly expanding from a hot, dense state, in a primeval explosion. In what Silk calls the ‘thermonuclear detonation of the Universe’, about one-quarter of the cosmic matter was transformed into helium in nuclear reactions, leaving lesser amounts of other nuclear debris. The light present at that time has now become radio radiation. a small part of the static you hear on radio sets. The radio background and the remnant nuclei constitute clear, unambiguous Big Bang footprints that persuade all but a handful of astronomersthat the...