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Oh how I loathe this sort of writing about physics. You know, as a person who has been at physics for 80% of his nearly 50 year life, I can tell you that what makes it exciting has nothing to do with this sort of sensationalism. It has to do with people like Halton Arp, and Paul Dirac. And real ideas. It's not the circus. It's not a freakshow.

I wish there were some way I could steer people away from this drivel. But it's hopeless.

-drl

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Dude, nice attitude.

Modern sciences are very specialized and technical subjects. Whenever a specialist has tried to make their subject more accessible to the general public, somebody else (who has, no doubt, much at stake in their erudite position) has accused them of sensationalism. It happened to Carl Sagan, it happened to Isaac Asimov.

Modern astrophysics is a very technical subject. Most people on CN can probably tell you that a black hole is a region where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, but in order to completely describe it with mathematical rigor, you need to go into general relativity and quantum physics. However, to say that anything less is "drivel" is elitist. It says that nobody who has not spent years at the graduate level studying advanced physics and mathematics has the right to enjoy and benefit from all of the advances in modern astronomy.

Let's apply the same criteria to amateur astronomy. Let's tell all of the CN members whose telescopes aren't university quality, research capable instruments, that they are nothing more than toys, and they have no right to be viewing the same celestial objects as the professional astronomers, since the professionals have spent 80% of their lives studying them and they are doing fundamental research, while the amateurs are just playing with their toys.

The benefit of books such as Death by Black Hole is that they take the scientific research and make it accessible to the interested layperson with a high school diploma. Is it rigorous? No. Can you use it as a reference in a scientific paper? Probably not. But that's not what it's meant for.

Even people who have studied advanced physics and mathematics can enjoy it. I have a master's degree in engineering and 20 years of professional experience. I also have two children and six months of unread technical journals in my own field to catch up on. I'm not afraid to mix it up with the advanced physics or mathematics, but this isn't my field, and a book like this allows me to keep up with developments in what is, after all, just my hobby.

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What Mike said!!

David

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A few scopes and mounts.
Proud Member; PAS NOLA,

Life expectancies would go WAY up if green vegetables smelled like bacon...

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