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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time
The year 1998 marked the 50th anniversary of the invention of the
neutron monitor, a key research tool in the field of space physics
and solar-terrestrial relations. In honor of this occasion a
workshop entitled 'Cosmic Rays and Earth' was organized to review
the detection of cosmic rays at the surface and in the lower
atmosphere of Earth, including the effect that this radiation has
on the terrestrial environment. A special focus was the role of
neutron monitors in the investigation of this radiation, on the
science enabled by the unique dataset of the worldwide network of
neutron monitors, and on continuing opportunities to use these data
to solve outstanding problems. This book is the principal product
of that workshop, integrating the contribu tions of all
participants. Following a general summary of the workshop prepared
by the editors, the volume leads off with a keynote article by
Professor John Simpson describing his invention of the neutron
monitor in 1948 and the early scientific discoveries made with this
instrument."
This book discusses cosmology from both an observational and a
strong theoretical perspective. The first part focuses on
gravitation, notably the expansion of the universe and
determination of cosmological parameters, before moving onto the
main emphasis of the book, the physics of the early universe, and
the connections between cosmological models and particle physics.
The book provides links with particle physics and with
investigations of the theories beyond the Standard Model,
especially in connection to dark matter and matter-antimatter
asymmetry puzzles. Readers will gain a comprehensive account of
cosmology and the latest observational results, without requiring
prior knowledge of relativistic theories, making the text ideal for
students. Features: Provides a self-contained discussion of modern
cosmology results without requiring any prior knowledge of
relativistic theories, enabling students to learn the first
rudiments needed for a rigorous comprehension of cosmological
concepts Contains a timely discussion of the latest cosmological
results, including those from WMAP and the Planck satellite, and
discuss the cosmological applications of the Nobel Prize 2017
awarded discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO interferometer
and the very high energy neutrinos discovered by the IceCube
detector Includes original figures complementing mathematical
derivations and accounting for the most important cosmological
observations, in addition to a wide variety of problems with a full
set of solutions discussed in detail in an accompanying solutions
manual (available upon qualifying course adoption) To view the
errata please visit the authors personal
href=":http//www.southampton.ac.uk/~pdb1d08">webpage.
Now a major film starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy and Kyle
Chandler, directed by Oscar-winner Damien Chazelle, First Man by
James Hansen offers the only authorized glimpse into the life of
America's most famous astronaut, Neil Armstrong - the man whose
"one small step" changed history. In First Man, Hansen explores the
life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with
the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive
access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent
panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century"
(Publishers Weekly, Starred Review) is an unparalleled biography of
an American icon. When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon's surface
in 1969, the first man on the moon became a legend. Hansen vividly
recreates Armstrong's career in flying, from his seventy-eight
combat missions as a naval aviator flying over North Korea to his
formative transatmospheric flights in the rocket-powered X-15 to
his piloting Gemini VIII to the first-ever docking in space. For a
pilot who cared more about flying to the Moon than he did about
walking on it, Hansen asserts, Armstrong's storied vocation exacted
a dear personal toll, paid in kind by his wife and children. In the
years since the Moon landing, rumors swirled around Armstrong
concerning his dreams of space travel, his religious beliefs, and
his private life. This book reveals the man behind the myth. In a
penetrating exploration of American hero worship, Hansen addresses
the complex legacy of the First Man, as an astronaut and as an
individual. In First Man, the personal, technological, epic, and
iconic blend to form the portrait of a great but reluctant hero who
will forever be known as history's most famous space traveler.
This textbook provides details of the derivation of Lagrange's
planetary equations and of the closely related Gauss's variational
equations, thereby covering a sorely needed topic in existing
literature. Analytical solutions can help verify the results of
numerical work, giving one confidence that his or her analysis is
correct. The authors-all experienced experts in astrodynamics and
space missions-take on the massive derivation problem step by step
in order to help readers identify and understand possible
analytical solutions in their own endeavors. The stages are
elementary yet rigorous; suggested student research project topics
are provided. After deriving the variational equations, the authors
apply them to many interesting problems, including the Earth-Moon
system, the effect of an oblate planet, the perturbation of
Mercury's orbit due to General Relativity, and the perturbation due
to atmospheric drag. Along the way, they introduce several useful
techniques such as averaging, Poincare's method of small
parameters, and variation of parameters. In the end, this textbook
will help students, practicing engineers, and professionals across
the fields of astrodynamics, astronomy, dynamics, physics,
planetary science, spacecraft missions, and others. "An extensive,
detailed, yet still easy-to-follow presentation of the field of
orbital perturbations." - Prof. Hanspeter Schaub, Smead Aerospace
Engineering Sciences Department, University of Colorado, Boulder
"This book, based on decades of teaching experience, is an
invaluable resource for aerospace engineering students and
practitioners alike who need an in-depth understanding of the
equations they use." - Dr. Jean Albert Kechichian, The Aerospace
Corporation, Retired "Today we look at perturbations through the
lens of the modern computer. But knowing the why and the how is
equally important. In this well organized and thorough compendium
of equations and derivations, the authors bring some of the
relevant gems from the past back into the contemporary literature."
- Dr. David A Vallado, Senior Research Astrodynamicist, COMSPOC
"The book presentation is with the thoroughness that one always
sees with these authors. Their theoretical development is followed
with a set of Earth orbiting and Solar System examples
demonstrating the application of Lagrange's planetary equations for
systems with both conservative and nonconservative forces, some of
which are not seen in orbital mechanics books." - Prof. Kyle T.
Alfriend, University Distinguished Professor, Texas A&M
University
Professor Sir Roger Penrose's work, spanning fifty years of
science, with over five thousand pages and more than three hundred
papers, has been collected together for the first time and arranged
chronologically over six volumes, each with an introduction from
the author. Where relevant, individual papers also come with
specific introductions or notes. Publication of The Emperor's New
Mind (OUP 1989) had caused considerable debate and Penrose's
responses are included in this volume. Arising from this came the
idea that large-scale quantum coherence might exist within the
conscious brain, and actual conscious experience would be
associated with a reduction of the quantum state. Within this
collection, Penrose also proposes that a twistor might usefully be
regarded as a source (or 'charge') for a massless field of spin
3/2, suggesting that the twistor space for a Ricci-flat space-time
might actually be the space of such possible sources. Towards the
end of the volume, Penrose begins to develop a quite different
approach to incorporating full general relativity into twistor
theory. This period also sees the origin of the Diosi-Penrose
proposal.
Observational and Theoretical Issues of Interacting Binaries was
the topic of the 22nd Advanced Course of the Swiss Society for
Astrophysics and Astronomy. It was the first time that binary
systems were the center of attention of our course. The established
concept and organisation of the Advanced Course has been retained:
three scientists, all acknowledged experts in their respective
fields, were each invited to give nine one-hour lectures within the
period of a week. The Advanced Course took place from April 6 to
11, 1992, at Les Diablerets, a charming resort in the Swiss alps.
The high level of the lectures, the international background of the
65 participants, including many young students, and the beauty of
the surroundings all contributed to the success of the course. The
lecture notes of this course, the 22nd in our series, are also the
third to be published by Springer-Verlag. Well over half of all
stars seem to exist in binary systems. The study of binary
evolution is therefore essential for our understanding of stellar
evolution in general. The evolution of interacting binaries
contains in itself many of the problems met in other fields of
modern astrophysics. This is very apparent in these lecture notes.
This book provides a first-hand account of modern cosmology, written by three celebrated astronomers renowned for their excellence in both research and teaching. The central theme of the book, the deep Universe, is approached in three truly complementary ways: as a coherent and smooth theory embracing the evolution of the Universe from its original radiations emerging from the hot Big Bang to the present structures of matter; as a meandering, rough road paved by our observations of stars, galaxies, and clusters; and in terms of how these approaches have been gradually developed and intertwined in the historical process that led to the modern science of cosmology.
Written by a leading expert on comets, this textbook is divided
into seven main elements with a view to allowing advanced students
to appreciate the interconnections between the different elements.
The author opens with a brief introductory segment on the
motivation for studying comets and the overall scope of the book.
The first chapter describes fundamental aspects most usually
addressed by ground-based observation. The author then looks at the
basic physical phenomena in four separate chapters addressing the
nucleus, the emitted gas, the emitted dust, and the solar wind
interaction. Each chapter introduces the basic physics and
chemistry but then new specific measurements by Rosetta instruments
at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko are brought in. A concerted effort
has been made to distinguish between established fact and
conjecture. Deviations and inconsistencies are brought out and
their significance explained. Links to previous observations of
comets Tempel 1, Wild 2, Hartley 2, Halley and others are made. The
author then closes with three smaller chapters on related objects,
the loss of comets, and prospects for future exploration. This
textbook includes over 275 graphics and figures - most of which are
original. Thorough explanations and derivations are included
throughout the chapters. The text is therefore designed to support
MSc. students and new PhD students in the field wanting to gain a
solid overview of the state-of-the-art.
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Cosmic!
(Hardcover)
Brian May, Patrick Moore, Chris Lintott
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Take your seats for the greatest tour ever - one that encompasses
the whole of the Universe. En route, we stop off to gaze at 100
amazing sights - from asteroids to zodiacal dust and from orbit
around the Earth to beyond the most distant galaxies. We start
right here on Earth, and your tour guides are cosmic voyagers
Patrick Moore, Brian May and Chris Lintott: Patrick is a lifelong
lunar specialist; Brian is the leading authority on dust in our
solar system, and Chris researches the formation of stars and
galaxies.
The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is
one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth
century. This revised and updated 4th edition explores the
challenges that faced the scientists and engineers of the Manhattan
Project. It gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the
level of an upper-year undergraduate physics student by examining
the details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, analytic
and numerical models of the fission process, how critical masses
can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what
factors complicate bomb design. An extensive list of references and
a number of exercises for self-study are included. Revisions to
this fourth edition include many upgrades and new sections.
Improvements are made to, among other things, the analysis of the
physics of the fission barrier, the time-dependent simulation of
the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and the discussion of tamped
bomb cores. New sections cover, for example, composite bomb cores,
approximate methods for various of the calculations presented, and
the physics of the polonium-beryllium "neutron initiators" used to
trigger the bombs. The author delivers in this book an
unparalleled, clear and comprehensive treatment of the physics
behind the Manhattan project.
Offers an accessible text and reference (a cosmic-ray manual) for
graduate students entering the field and high-energy
astrophysicists will find this an accessible cosmic-ray manual Easy
to read for the general astronomer, the first part describes the
standard model of cosmic rays based on our understanding of modern
particle physics. Presents the acceleration scenario in some detail
in supernovae explosions as well as in the passage of cosmic rays
through the Galaxy. Compares experimental data in the atmosphere as
well as underground are compared with theoretical models
The last decade of this century has seen a renewed interest in the
dynamics and physics of the small bodies of the Solar System,
Asteroids, Comets and Meteors. New observational evidences such as
the discovery of the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, refined numerical tools
such as the symplectic integrators, analytical tools such as
semi-numerical perturbation algorithms and in general a better
understanding of the dynamics of Hamiltonian systems, all these
factors have converged to make possible and worthwhile the study,
over very long time spans, of these "minor" objects. Also the
public, the media and even some political assell}blies have become
aware that these "minor" objects of our planetary environnement
could become deadly weapons. Apparently they did have a role in
Earth history and a role more ominous than "predicting" defeat (or
victory, why not?) to batches of credulous rulers. Remembering what
may have happened to the dinosaurs but keeping all the discretion
necessary to avoid creating irrational scares, it may not be unwise
or irrelevant to improve our knowledge of the physics and dynamics
of these objects and to study in particular their interactions with
our planet.
MUL.APIN, written sometime before the 8th century BC, was the most
widely copied astronomical text in ancient Mesopotamia: a
compendium including information such as star lists, descriptions
of planetary phases, mathematical schemes for the length of day and
night, a discussion of the luni-solar calendar and rules for
intercalation, and a short collection of celestial omens. This book
contains an introductory essay, followed by a new edition of the
text and a facing-page transliteration and English translation.
Finally, the book contains a new and detailed commentary on the
text. This is a fascinating study, and an important resource for
anyone interested in the history of astronomy.
Long-term monitoring is of fundamental significance in solving many
important problems in astrophysics and, furthermore, has unequalled
value in extending observational runs with small telescopes for the
education of young astronomers in order to teach them how to secure
high-quality observational data over many years. The Impact of
Long-Term Monitoring on Variable Star Research contains reports
based on the analysis of data collected in the visible, IR and
radio measurement ranges, as well as the design and history of well
known photometric systems. Though the reporting of novel results
forms an important part of the book, there are also reports of
eight discussion sessions covering more general areas, such as
extinction monitoring, the problems of archival storage of
astronomical data, service observation, the role played by
long-term monitoring in graduate teaching and thesis supervision,
the interplay between the great observational effort and theory,
the contribution of LTM to new knowledge of fundamental data, and
the increasing decommissioning of telescopes of modest aperture.
The observation, in 1919 by A.S. Eddington and collaborators, of
the gra- tational de?ection of light by the Sun proved one of the
many predictions of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: The
Sun was the ?rst example of a gravitational lens. In 1936, Albert
Einstein published an article in which he suggested - ing stars as
gravitational lenses. A year later, Fritz Zwicky pointed out that
galaxies would act as lenses much more likely than stars, and also
gave a list of possible applications, as a means to determine the
dark matter content of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It was
only in 1979 that the ?rst example of an extragalactic
gravitational lens was provided by the observation of the distant
quasar QSO 0957+0561, by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann.
A few years later, the ?rst lens showing images in the form of arcs
was detected. The theory, observations, and applications of
gravitational lensing cons- tute one of the most rapidly growing
branches of astrophysics. The gravi- tional de?ection of light
generated by mass concentrations along a light path
producesmagni?cation,multiplicity,anddistortionofimages,anddelaysp-
ton propagation from one line of sight relative to another. The
huge amount of scienti?c work produced over the last decade on
gravitational lensing has clearly revealed its already substantial
and wide impact, and its potential for future astrophysical
applications.
Einstein's general theory of relativity is introduced in this
advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate level textbook.
Topics include special relativity, in the formalism of Minkowski's
four-dimensional space-time, the principle of equivalence,
Riemannian geometry and tensor analysis, Einstein field equation,
as well as many modern cosmological subjects, from primordial
inflation and cosmic microwave anisotropy to the dark energy that
propels an accelerating universe.
The author presents the subject with an emphasis on physical
examples and simple applications without the full tensor apparatus.
The reader first learns how to describe curved spacetime. At this
mathematically more accessible level, the reader can already study
the many interesting phenomena such as gravitational lensing,
precession of Mercury's perihelion, black holes, and cosmology. The
full tensor formulation is presented later, when the Einstein
equation is solved for a few symmetric cases. Many modern topics in
cosmology are discussed in this book: from inflation, cosmic
microwave anisotropy to the "dark energy" that propels an
accelerating universe.
Mathematical accessibility, together with the various pedagogical
devices (e.g., worked-out solutions of chapter-end problems), make
it practical for interested readers to use the book to study
general relativity and cosmology on their own.
The modern Persian word for cosmology is "Keyhan-shenakht," which
is also the title of a Persian book written more than 800 years
ago. The same term can also be found in Old Persian. In spite of
this old tradition, modern cosmology is a new omer within the
scientific disciplines in Iran. The cosmology community' is small
and not yet well established. Given the spectacular recent advances
in observational and theoretical cosmology, the large amount of new
observational data which will become available in the near future,
and the rapid expansion of the international cosmology community,
it was realized that Iran should play a more active role in the
exciting human endeavour which cosmology constitutes. This was the
main motivation to establish a School on Cosmology in Iran. The
plan is to hold a cosmology school every three years somewhere in
Iran. The focus of this First School on Cosmology was chosen to be
structure formation, a rapidly evolving cornerstone of modern
cosmology. The topics of the school were selected in order to give
both a broad overview of the current status of cosmological
structure formation, and an in-depth dis cussion of the key issues
theory of cosmological perturbations and analysis of cosmic
microwave anisotropies. The lectures by Blanchard and Sarkar give
an overview of homogeneous cosmological models and standard big
bang cosmology. In his contribution, Padmanabhan presents a
comprehen sive discussion of the growth of cosmological
perturbations."
This Open Access book gives a comprehensive account of both the
history and current achievements of molecular beam research. In
1919, Otto Stern launched the revolutionary molecular beam
technique. This technique made it possible to send atoms and
molecules with well-defined momentum through vacuum and to measure
with high accuracy the deflections they underwent when acted upon
by transversal forces. These measurements revealed unforeseen
quantum properties of nuclei, atoms, and molecules that became the
basis for our current understanding of quantum matter. This volume
shows that many key areas of modern physics and chemistry owe their
beginnings to the seminal molecular beam work of Otto Stern and his
school. Written by internationally recognized experts, the
contributions in this volume will help experienced researchers and
incoming graduate students alike to keep abreast of current
developments in molecular beam research as well as to appreciate
the history and evolution of this powerful method and the knowledge
it reveals.
This book presents two important new findings. First, it
demonstrates from first principles that turbulent heating offers an
explanation for the non-adiabatic decay of proton temperature in
solar wind. Until now, this was only proved with reduced or
phenomenological models. Second, the book demonstrates that the two
types of anisotropy of turbulent fluctuations that are observed in
solar wind at 1AU originate not only from two distinct classes of
conditions near the Sun but also from the imbalance in Alfven wave
populations. These anisotropies do not affect the overall turbulent
heating if we take into account the relation observed in solar wind
between anisotropy and Alfven wave imbalance. In terms of the
methods used to obtain these achievements, the author shows the
need to find a very delicate balance between turbulent decay and
expansion losses, so as to directly solve the magnetohydrodynamic
equations, including the wind expansion effects.
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