madbadgalaxyman
10-03-2013, 04:27 PM
Here is the draft of my amazon.com book review of "The Oxford Companion to Cosmology", by Andrew Liddle and Jon Loveday. (Oxford University Press, 2008 & 2009)(ISBN: 9780199560844)
I probably could (or should) have given it 2 stars out of 5, because of many errors in the book, but amazon's algorithm gives your book review a Low Impact if you rate a book as 2 stars!
This book is all too typical of several of today's ‘respected’ astronomy books, in which an overspecialized author makes a mess of concepts outside of his own specialty!! Another example of this is the 100 page section on galaxies in "An Introduction to Galaxies and Cosmology" by Jones and Lambourne.
[[ My amazon.com reviews of astronomy books can be found by "Googling" on "Amazon.com profile for R. A. Lang" ]]
______________________
‘Three stars’(out of 5) due to its unique concept & reasonable execution. It could get 2 stars, due to many errors. See end of this review, which lists some serious inaccuracies.
Firstly, some positives…..This book bravely sets out to explain cosmology in a series of long encyclopedia-style entries, without excessive 'technical' jargon that is unexplained in the other entries, and with only the odd equation at about the college/high-school/beginning-university level. On these terms, it succeeds in giving the persistent amateur astronomer, the science-oriented member of the general public, the educator, or the beginning physics/astrophysics/astronomy or applied-mathematics student, a good general grounding in the concepts & ideas of cosmology and in the application of physics & math to our observations ( measurements) of the universe. It also simplifies and explains much of the complex history, lore, and ‘obscure field-specific jargon’ of cosmology & astronomy. Furthermore, it provides a “reasonably good or very good”(depending on the area) coverage of current observational data & instruments which are relevant to cosmology, e.g. redshift surveys, large-sky-area imaging Sky Surveys, Space Observatories, very large optical telescopes, astronomical distance measurement techniques, the magnitude system, the Hubble diagram, the Cosmic Microwave Background, etc.
Another strong positive (unusual in a popular-level science book!) is that the authors clearly distinguish between fact and theory and informed speculation. I really like the ‘agnostic’ tone that the authors adopt when they indicate their much less than 100 percent certainty about a concept (!), especially when they write about currently-not-fully-explainable cosmological concepts like the point-sized ‘singularity’ from which the entire universe is said to have arisen and the ‘dark energy’ that is said to influence the rate of cosmic expansion. While accepting the standard Hot Big Bang theory, the authors are not afraid to say that astrophysicists and cosmologists do not fully understand what is going on at the beginning of the universe and that cosmologists do not fully understand the way that the universe and its constituent galaxies have evolved to their current state. The authors also explain some of the wilder speculations in detail (e.g. braneworld cosmology, cosmic strings, 9-dimensional space), and they clearly state when there is no existing evidence for one of these ideas, leaving the reader to draw his/her own conclusions as to whether a specific concept is scientific or theological!
While this book does not explain things fully (which would require a university course in astronomy & cosmology) its main strength is that it provides a broad, extremely detailed, and reasonably-well-written introduction to the concepts and ‘mindset’ of the cosmologists. Full marks to the authors for taking on this demanding teaching task, but it must be said that they are very far from being masters of scientific prose…..their explanations, while giving the reader ‘a fair idea of how something works’, quite often do not generate a Very Clear structural/physical understanding of mathematics & physics concepts. (The old masters of scientific prose, such as Hoyle & Gamow & Asimov, proved that it is possible to clearly explain Detailed math & physics concepts by means of crystalline-clear prose, thereby bridging the divide between physical and verbal thinking.)
Now for some strong negatives:
It is a pity, given the excellent general concept and workmanlike execution of this encyclopedia, that this book contains a lot of information about galaxies and clusters of galaxies that is downright wrong. The authors make a mess of a good number of simple and essential facts about: galaxy clusters, AGNs, galaxy classification & morphology, stellar populations in galaxies, & galaxy kinematics. Because they don’t get some of these intuitively understandable ‘nuts and bolts’ concepts right, it is very difficult to have confidence in the accuracy of their statements about more difficult and abstruse mathematical concepts such as the origin and geometry of the universe! There are many incorrect statements about astronomy in this book. To give a few examples of elementary mistakes made in this book:
- They incorrectly state that the Coma Cluster of Galaxies is the second closest cluster after the Virgo Cluster, conveniently forgetting about the Fornax Cluster, Puppis Cluster, Abell 3627, etc.
- They say that clusters of galaxies are dominated by elliptical galaxies, when in fact many clusters (e.g. the Hercules Cluster) are dominated by spirals. (and I won’t even mention their ridiculous Luminous Mass estimate for the Virgo Cluster)
- They incorrectly state that it is the dust component of Earth’s atmosphere that scatters and reddens light from the sun and stars.
- They incorrectly define a galaxy group as an association of galaxies, when it is actually a gravitationally-bound structure.
- They incorrectly state that starbursts occur in knots in the outer parts of spiral galaxies, when they actually occur near the center of a galaxy.
- Their discussion of distance modulus includes subtle cosmological corrections such as the K-correction, but the very important ‘practical’ correction for foreground Galactic extinction is left out.
- The section on Galaxy Rotation Curves absurdly states that all spiral galaxies have outer rotation maxima of about 100 km/s, includes a ‘dodgy’ diagram, and states that the redshifted side of a rotating Disk Galaxy necessarily has a larger rotation velocity than the blueshifted side.
- The section on Galaxy Classification repeats many ‘myths and prejudices’ about galaxies that may have been OK in a textbook written in 1960, but which are today known to be incorrect, e.g. that elliptical galaxies do not and cannot contain disks, that all elliptical galaxies are ‘old’ stellar systems, that the bar component of a disk galaxy is in essence an elongated bulge, that E7 galaxies exist (most of them are actually S0 galaxies), that type Sd galaxies have small bulges (they normally have no bulge!).
- They misinterpret Dr Kenneth C. Freeman’s very important (1970) work on the constant or characteristic Surface Brightness of the centres of the disks of spiral galaxies, giving the impression that Freeman’s conclusion is wrong, when it is actually correct in the statistical sense.
I probably could (or should) have given it 2 stars out of 5, because of many errors in the book, but amazon's algorithm gives your book review a Low Impact if you rate a book as 2 stars!
This book is all too typical of several of today's ‘respected’ astronomy books, in which an overspecialized author makes a mess of concepts outside of his own specialty!! Another example of this is the 100 page section on galaxies in "An Introduction to Galaxies and Cosmology" by Jones and Lambourne.
[[ My amazon.com reviews of astronomy books can be found by "Googling" on "Amazon.com profile for R. A. Lang" ]]
______________________
‘Three stars’(out of 5) due to its unique concept & reasonable execution. It could get 2 stars, due to many errors. See end of this review, which lists some serious inaccuracies.
Firstly, some positives…..This book bravely sets out to explain cosmology in a series of long encyclopedia-style entries, without excessive 'technical' jargon that is unexplained in the other entries, and with only the odd equation at about the college/high-school/beginning-university level. On these terms, it succeeds in giving the persistent amateur astronomer, the science-oriented member of the general public, the educator, or the beginning physics/astrophysics/astronomy or applied-mathematics student, a good general grounding in the concepts & ideas of cosmology and in the application of physics & math to our observations ( measurements) of the universe. It also simplifies and explains much of the complex history, lore, and ‘obscure field-specific jargon’ of cosmology & astronomy. Furthermore, it provides a “reasonably good or very good”(depending on the area) coverage of current observational data & instruments which are relevant to cosmology, e.g. redshift surveys, large-sky-area imaging Sky Surveys, Space Observatories, very large optical telescopes, astronomical distance measurement techniques, the magnitude system, the Hubble diagram, the Cosmic Microwave Background, etc.
Another strong positive (unusual in a popular-level science book!) is that the authors clearly distinguish between fact and theory and informed speculation. I really like the ‘agnostic’ tone that the authors adopt when they indicate their much less than 100 percent certainty about a concept (!), especially when they write about currently-not-fully-explainable cosmological concepts like the point-sized ‘singularity’ from which the entire universe is said to have arisen and the ‘dark energy’ that is said to influence the rate of cosmic expansion. While accepting the standard Hot Big Bang theory, the authors are not afraid to say that astrophysicists and cosmologists do not fully understand what is going on at the beginning of the universe and that cosmologists do not fully understand the way that the universe and its constituent galaxies have evolved to their current state. The authors also explain some of the wilder speculations in detail (e.g. braneworld cosmology, cosmic strings, 9-dimensional space), and they clearly state when there is no existing evidence for one of these ideas, leaving the reader to draw his/her own conclusions as to whether a specific concept is scientific or theological!
While this book does not explain things fully (which would require a university course in astronomy & cosmology) its main strength is that it provides a broad, extremely detailed, and reasonably-well-written introduction to the concepts and ‘mindset’ of the cosmologists. Full marks to the authors for taking on this demanding teaching task, but it must be said that they are very far from being masters of scientific prose…..their explanations, while giving the reader ‘a fair idea of how something works’, quite often do not generate a Very Clear structural/physical understanding of mathematics & physics concepts. (The old masters of scientific prose, such as Hoyle & Gamow & Asimov, proved that it is possible to clearly explain Detailed math & physics concepts by means of crystalline-clear prose, thereby bridging the divide between physical and verbal thinking.)
Now for some strong negatives:
It is a pity, given the excellent general concept and workmanlike execution of this encyclopedia, that this book contains a lot of information about galaxies and clusters of galaxies that is downright wrong. The authors make a mess of a good number of simple and essential facts about: galaxy clusters, AGNs, galaxy classification & morphology, stellar populations in galaxies, & galaxy kinematics. Because they don’t get some of these intuitively understandable ‘nuts and bolts’ concepts right, it is very difficult to have confidence in the accuracy of their statements about more difficult and abstruse mathematical concepts such as the origin and geometry of the universe! There are many incorrect statements about astronomy in this book. To give a few examples of elementary mistakes made in this book:
- They incorrectly state that the Coma Cluster of Galaxies is the second closest cluster after the Virgo Cluster, conveniently forgetting about the Fornax Cluster, Puppis Cluster, Abell 3627, etc.
- They say that clusters of galaxies are dominated by elliptical galaxies, when in fact many clusters (e.g. the Hercules Cluster) are dominated by spirals. (and I won’t even mention their ridiculous Luminous Mass estimate for the Virgo Cluster)
- They incorrectly state that it is the dust component of Earth’s atmosphere that scatters and reddens light from the sun and stars.
- They incorrectly define a galaxy group as an association of galaxies, when it is actually a gravitationally-bound structure.
- They incorrectly state that starbursts occur in knots in the outer parts of spiral galaxies, when they actually occur near the center of a galaxy.
- Their discussion of distance modulus includes subtle cosmological corrections such as the K-correction, but the very important ‘practical’ correction for foreground Galactic extinction is left out.
- The section on Galaxy Rotation Curves absurdly states that all spiral galaxies have outer rotation maxima of about 100 km/s, includes a ‘dodgy’ diagram, and states that the redshifted side of a rotating Disk Galaxy necessarily has a larger rotation velocity than the blueshifted side.
- The section on Galaxy Classification repeats many ‘myths and prejudices’ about galaxies that may have been OK in a textbook written in 1960, but which are today known to be incorrect, e.g. that elliptical galaxies do not and cannot contain disks, that all elliptical galaxies are ‘old’ stellar systems, that the bar component of a disk galaxy is in essence an elongated bulge, that E7 galaxies exist (most of them are actually S0 galaxies), that type Sd galaxies have small bulges (they normally have no bulge!).
- They misinterpret Dr Kenneth C. Freeman’s very important (1970) work on the constant or characteristic Surface Brightness of the centres of the disks of spiral galaxies, giving the impression that Freeman’s conclusion is wrong, when it is actually correct in the statistical sense.