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Recently published Star Formation book; galaxyman's review!!
Dear all,
I mentioned in my previous post in this forum, the excellent and highly-detailed (but still understandable) introduction to Star Formation by Michael D. Smith ("The Origin Of Stars"), which is definitely accessible to at least some upper-level amateur astronomers.
I have recently read, and I have reviewed at amazon.com, another introductory and highly-detailed book on star formation.
This book which I have just reviewed was published this year, and it is definitely a step or two more difficult than the Smith book...... it probably requires a unit or two of university maths and physics before it begins to make reasonable sense, plus a really good background in the conventions and jargon and contents of astronomy.
Anyhow, here is a reprint of my amazon review:
“The Formation and Early Evolution of Stars : From Dust to Stars and Planets”(2012)
(2nd Edition), by Norbert S. Schulz, Published by Springer-Verlag. ISBN: 9783642239250
Rating: Three-and-a-half stars (see the end of this review for the reasons why).
An interesting mix of material. Some sections of this book are accessible to people having only modest mathematics and physics, for instance they can be understood (with effort!) by certain “super advanced level” amateur astronomers and by the sort of people who remember their advanced-level school & college physics. In other words, these sections are accessible to readers who orient strongly towards graphs and diagrams and densely-technical material. These easier sections of this book combine relatively simple equations with easy-to-appreciate (easy, at least, for numerically literate people!) graphical displays of Numerical Relations and long Prose Descriptions that do not require extensive knowledge of the jargon and conventions of astronomy. In contrast there are many other, much harder, sections of this book which require that the reader already has at least a few university units in mathematics and physics, preferably in addition to having a solid astronomical background; for instance, knowledge of some astrophysics and also knowledge of specialized astronomical jargon & symbols.
Be warned, this is NOT a basic book for a general readership or typical amateur astronomers, and it is likely to be too high brow even for the typical Very Enthusiastic reader of popular-level science magazines. However, graduates and senior undergraduates and young researchers will find that this book is a very useful & fully-referenced summary of a vast amount of research about star formation. Nonetheless, this book has been very cleverly written so as to be accessible to readers with various levels of knowledge; therefore, a physics or astronomy -savvy student beginning her/his university studies should be able to understand some chapters.
Reason for rating:
Despite the fact that this is a very recent (2012) second edition, the chapters on molecular clouds, cores, and protostars have not really taken into consideration the vast legacy of the last 6 years of research; this is a wasted opportunity in a book which aims to be useful up to the graduate level! This book is fully referenced, but I have had to mark it down because of:
(1) some deficiencies in the clarity of the explanations
(2) the book aims fundamentally for a very high level of detail and completeness, at nearly the “professional astronomer” level in some of its hardest sections; therefore, as judged by this high standard, it fails to cover much of the Star Formation research done since 2007 (for instance, sections about Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel Space Observatory research are virtually non-existent)
(3) Given the high ambitions of this book to encompass the unusual concept of “an introductory treatment that includes full explanations for serious students of astrophysics plus some simpler explanations for people with less physical and astronomical knowledge”, the lack of a really comprehensive glossary of terms and symbols is a major deficiency that will hinder the understanding of its intended readers.
In fairness to the author, this work is a brave attempt to cover the entirety of a truly vast field of astronomical knowledge, and this volume is one of the few reasonably accessible introductions to star formation that does not oversimplify and does not shirk complexity. Such is the current pace of Star Formation research that any book originally written in 2004 now virtually requires a rewrite!
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