Discovering the Universe by Neil F. Comins - Eleventh Edition, 2019 from Macmillan Student Store
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Discovering the Universe

Eleventh  Edition©2019 Neil F. Comins

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Discovering the Night Sky
Chapter 2 Gravitation and the Motion of the Planets
Chapter 3 Light and Telescopes
Chapter 4 Atomic Physics and Spectra
Chapter 5 Exoplanets and the Formation of Planetary Systems
Chapter 6 Formation of the Solar System
Chapter 7 Earth and the Moon
Chapter 8 The Other Terrestrial Planets
Chapter 9 The Outer Planets
Chapter 10 Vagabonds of the Solar System
Chapter 11 The Sun: Our Extraordinary Ordinary Star
Chapter 12 Characterizing Stars
Chapter 13 The Lives of Stars from Birth Through Middle Age
Chapter 14 The Deaths of Stars
Chapter 15 Black Holes: Matters of Gravity
Chapter 16 The Milky Way Galaxy
Chapter 17 Galaxies
Chapter 18 Quasars and Other
Chapter 19 Cosmology
Chapter 20 Astrobiology

Neil F. Comins

Professor Neil F. Comins is on the faculty of the University of Maine. Born in 1951 in New York City, he grew up in New York and New England. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics at Cornell University, a master's degree in physics at the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University College, Cardiff, Wales, under the guidance of Bernard F. Schutz. Dr. Comins's work for his doctorate, on general relativity, was cited in Subramanyan Chandrasekhar's Nobel laureate speech. He has done theoretical and experimental research in general relativity, optical and radio observational astronomy, computer simulations of galaxy evolution, and science education. He is also the author of five trade books, What if the Moon Didn't Exist?, Heavenly Errors, The Hazards of Space Travel, What if the Earth Had Two Moons?, and The Traveler’s Guide to Space. What if the Moon Didn't Exist? has been made into planetarium shows, been excerpted for television and radio, translated into several languages, and was the theme for the Mitsubishi Pavilion at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. Dr. Comins has appeared on numerous television and radio shows and gives many public talks. Although he has jumped out of airplanes while in the military, today his activities are a little more sedate: he is a licensed pilot and avid sailor, having once competed against Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

William J. Kaufmann

William J. Kaufman III was author of the first four editions of Universe.  Born in New York City on December 27, 1942, he often visited the magnificent Hayden Planetarium as he was growing up.  Dr. Kaufmann earned his bachelor's degree magna cum laude in physics from Adelphi University in 1963, a master's degree in physics from Rutgers in 1965, and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Indiana University in 1968.  At 27 he became the youngest director of any major planetarium in the United States when he took the helm of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.  During his career he also held positions at San Diego State University, UCLA, Caltech, and the University of Illinois.  Throughout his professional life as a scientist and educator, Dr. Kaufmann worked to bridge the gap between the scientific community and the general public to help the public share in the advances of astronomy.  A prolific author, his many books include Black Holes and Warped Spacetime, Relativity and Cosmology, The Cosmic Frontiers of General Relativity, Exploration of the Solar System, Planets and Moons, Stars and Nebulas, Galaxies and Quasars, and Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science.  Dr. Kaufmann died in 1994.