Berkeley Book List: Astronomy

Alex Filippenko, professor, Astronomy T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, Walter Alvarez, Princeton University Press, 1997 The Extravagant Universe, Robert P. Kirshner, Princeton University Press, 2002 Our Cosmic Habitat, Martin J. Rees, Princeton University Press, 2003 Prisons of Light — Black Holes, Kitty Ferguson, Cambridge University Press, 1996 Flash!: The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe, Govert Schilling, Cambridge University Press, 2002 More Things in Heaven and Earth: Poets and Astronomers Read the Night Sky, David H. Levy, The Wombat Press, 1997

Dinosaurs and their extinction have always fascinated humans. Interest in the demise of the dinosaurs has grown with the realization that about two-thirds of all species disappeared from Earth at that same time, 65 million years ago — a global event known as the "Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction." During the last few decades, evidence has mounted that the KT extinction was precipitated by the collision of a comet or meteoroid with Earth, initially causing very high temperatures and widespread fires followed by darkness (caused by dust and smoke in the atmosphere) and a complete breakdown of the food chain. This idea contradicted the previously established view that all changes on Earth are slow, not sudden and catastrophic. Walter Alvarez and his team at UC Berkeley played a leading role in the development and testing of the collision hypothesis, which by now is generally accepted. In T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, he presents a lively, informative, highly personal account of the research and its profound implications. The book provides a wonderful view of the excitement and adventure of cutting-edge, multidisciplinary science. It also reveals a possible "doomsday" future scenario for humans, if we don't take the lessons of the past seriously.

For nearly a century, astronomers and physicists expected the expansion of the universe to be slowing down with time because of the mutual gravitational attraction of all stars and galaxies for each other. But a few years ago, two teams of astronomers independently discovered that the expansion is actually accelerating rather than decelerating, propelled by some kind of mysterious new kind of antigravitating "dark energy." In The Extravagant Universe, the story behind this astonishing conclusion is told in a remarkably clear, entertaining, and accurate manner by Robert Kirshner, who played an important role in the work: he had previously trained several of the principal researchers when they were graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The book teems with excellent analogies and metaphors, helping the general reader understand the scientific goals and the methods by which they are achieved. Despite generally being light and pleasurable reading, "Extravagant Universe" tackles some fairly advanced concepts, and — as is often the case in such books — it would help the lay reader to have already taken an introductory astronomy course. Overall, though, this is a wonderfully informative and engaging book on one of the most exciting recent developments in all of science.

The values of the Earth's physical constants seem to be spectacularly fine-tuned for life as we know it. In many cases, if things were altered by just a small amount, the results would be disastrous for life, or even for the existence of elements other than hydrogen and helium. Some people use such "cosmic coincidences" to argue for a special, divine Creator. Or we may say that there is only a single universe, and it has these seemingly "special" properties by chance. Finally, we could suppose that there is an ensemble of universes, perhaps even an infinite number, spanning a very wide range of properties — and we live in one of the "good" ones. This last line of reasoning is consistent with the conclusion, based on other physical arguments, that multiple universes might exist regardless of the implications for life as we know it. Sir Martin Rees discusses these ideas in Our Cosmic Habitat, focusing most specifically on the mind-boggling possibility that our universe is just one of many in a giant "multiverse," with most universes not conducive to the development of complexity. Along the way, he presents a thorough and lucid overview of astronomy, concentrating on the processes that ultimately led to the formation of Earth and life. Rees has a delightful and engaging writing style, and you will be left pondering with a smile some of the most profound cosmic questions imaginable.

Black holes — regions of space where the local gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape — are among the most bizarre objects in the universe. When one mentions the subject of astronomy, nearly everyone automatically thinks of planets, stars, and (you guessed it!) black holes. Yet black holes are often considered mysterious and difficult to understand, within the realm of only those who study Einstein's complicated general theory of relativity. In Prisons of Light — Black Holes, Kitty Ferguson discusses black holes in simple, jargon-free language that is certain to educate and entertain you. Though the book is somewhat dated and doesn't include the best existing observational evidence for black holes, it provides an excellent overview of the general methods that have been used to search for them and measure their mass. She uses analogies and diagrams to provide insight into the nature and strange properties of black holes. Far from being just a theoretical exercise, black holes appear really to exist in nature, and the author outlines the ways in which black holes can form. Ferguson takes us on a hypothetical journey into a black hole, allowing the reader to partially fathom the strange distortions of severely warped space-time. She also discusses some of the wild ideas associated with black holes, a number of which have been incorporated into science-fiction novels and films. Get ready for a fantastic voyage with this fun yet intellectually stimulating book!

A few times per day, somewhere in the sky there is a bright flash of gamma rays — the highest-energy form of electromagnetic radiation (light). These so-called "gamma-ray bursts" (GRBs) were discovered in the 1960s by satellites designed to search for possible violations of the international agreement to ban testing of nuclear weapons. Although GRBs were soon recognized to be of cosmic rather than terrestrial origin, their physical nature remained a mystery for decades. Only in the past six years have astronomers proven that GRBs generally originate from enormous distances, typically billions of light-years away. They are the most powerful explosions in the universe, emitting as much energy within a few seconds or minutes as the sun will throughout its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. Although the details are still unclear, it appears that the awesome power released by a GRB results from the formation of a black hole, through either the collapse of a very massive star at the end of its life or the merging of two orbiting neutron stars (or a black hole and a neutron star). In Flash!: The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe, Govert Schilling vividly describes the race to determine the distance and true nature of GRBs. Astronomers can be as competitive as Olympic athletes or the CEOs of high-tech companies, and Schilling conveys in an exciting and lively manner the trials and tribulations of those involved in this challenging, high-stakes, fast-paced field of research.

David Levy, an amateur astronomer who is also the science editor for Parade magazine and a highly sought-after speaker, is best known as the discoverer of over 20 comets, including one (Shoemaker-Levy 9) that crashed into Jupiter in July 1994. He used this incredible collision to generate public interest in science, and to inspire people (especially the young) to wonder about the universe and its contents. Having B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature, with emphasis on poetry, he has searched for references to science in poetry and literature, and he has sought to find poetry within science as well. In More Things in Heaven and Earth: Poets and Astronomers Read the Night Sky — the title of which is taken from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" — Levy quotes extensively from Chaucer, Frost, Keats, Milton, Donne, and others who have included astronomical themes in their writing, from obvious cases such as Jane Taylor's "The Star" (1806; "Twinkle, twinkle, little star ...") and Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" (1865), to more subtle cases such as the Shakespearean reference to Copernicus and his ideas in Hamlet's love letter to Ophelia ("Doubt that the sun doth move..."). As with most poetry, different interpretations abound; for example, Levy suggests that Robert Frost is referring to a fiery comet collision ending life on Earth in "Fire and Ice" (1923), whereas I think he means gravitational collapse (the inverse of the Big Bang) as a possible ultimate fate of the Universe. Levy's delightful book shows that the beauty of the universe can be enjoyed on many levels, from the scientific to the poetic.

About Alex Filippenko
Alex Filippenko joined the UC Berkeley astronomy faculty in 1986. An observational astronomer who makes frequent use of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck 10-meter telescopes in Hawaii, his primary areas of research are

exploding stars, active galaxies, black holes, and the expansion of the universe. He has won numerous awards for his research, most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship; in addition to being honored with the Berkeley's top teaching awards, he was voted the "Best Professor" on campus in informal student polls in 1995, 2001, and 2003.

He has appeared in several TV documentaries, such as "Mysteries of Deep Space," "Stephen Hawking's Universe," and "Runaway Universe." In 1998 he produced a 40-lecture video course on introductory astronomy with The Teaching Company, and in 2003 he taped a 16-lecture update on recent astronomical discoveries. In 2000 he coauthored an award-winning introductory astronomy textbook; the second edition appeared in 2003. He is addicted to total solar eclipses, having seen 7 of them, most recently in Zimbabwe.