I've recently purchased a swag of new astronomy/cosmology books, and now need to thin out my collection a little due to overflowing bookcases and under-flowing bank account.
Items for sale are as follows:
1. Build Your Own Telescope
(Richard Berry, 2000, 287 pages, hardcover) As new, purchased from Bintel in early 2008 for $49. Has satisfied my curiosity re how telescopes are made & optically tested, but I unfortunately dont currently have the time to build one. Includes detailed plans to build a variety of scopes (4 f/10 reflector on inverted fork mount, 6 f/8 Dobsonian reflector, 6 f/8 equatorial reflector, 10 f/6 Dobsonian reflector, 6 f/15 refractor). $30
2. State of the Universe: A Primer in Modern Cosmology
(Pedro Ferreira, 2007, 320 pages) Up to date book which explains the development of modern cosmology, as well as the reasoning behind the current models including dark matter and dark energy. A mandatory textbook for the Swinburne Online Astronomy degree program (unit ET605: Theories of Space and Time). $15
3. Einstein: The Life and Times
(Ronald Clark, 1996, 672 pages) Probably the most widely read biography on Einstein. Review below from Amazon describes the book well:
This is a deeply moving overview of the life of the world's greatest scientist, not just as a theoretical physicist, but as a human being struggling to be true to himself in trying times. Although Clark does explain a bit about special and general relativity, he does so only to aid one's understanding of why Einstein's contributions were so crucial. You will see Einstein as a curious boy, as a troubled student, as a young man making his way in the world, and then as a post office clerk who worked on physics when his bosses weren't looking.
You will see the tide slowly turn as physicists of his day began to take this uncredentialled but highly original thinker seriously. And then the day dawns when an experiment proves that gravity indeed bends light....and Einstein wakes up famous.
The book is also full of those charming anecdotes one loves to hear about Einstein, ever the absent-minded professor and "dropper of conversational bricks," such as the performance in which, armed with a violin but off rhythm, the greatest living physicist is chided by the director: "Einstein, can't you count?"
What comes through best is Einstein as a great-hearted and humble man who wanted "to know God's thoughts"; a man of conscience troubled by the wars and other injustices of his time and (unlike most of us) actively trying to do something productive about them; and most of all, a profound man whose central mood, known to every child but never to be outgrown in the inwardly alive adult, was his loving awe of the unknown. $15
4. How We Believe: Science, Scepticism, and the Search for God
(Michael Shermer, 2003, 330 pages) Shermer, worldwide director of the Skeptics Society, sensibly discusses faith ... why religion is still very widespread despite huge advances in science/cosmology over the past century, and why many people tend to be more "belief/intuition" based rather than "evidence" based in their convictions. $10
Or $60 for the lot.
Total weight is approx 2.5kg, and postage to a few major Aust cities would be as follows:
Sydney/Canberra/Adelaide/Brisbane/Hobart $12
Melbourne $7
Perth $16
