As James Van Allen writes in his foreword to this book, astronomy permeates our culture. Of all the sciences, astronomy is the one that generates the most public interest. There are hundreds of thousands of amateur astronomers, two monthly astronomy magazines with healthy circulations, and television specials about important astronomical discoveries. The Pathfinder landing on Mars in July 1997 got headline coverage in newspapers and was featured on newscasts. The Pathfinder website received 40 million hits in a single day. Part of the public interest in astronomy is due to the dramatic scope of the science. Part, I am sure, is because non-professionals cannot only understand astronomical discoveries, but also make some of those discoveries. Amateur astronomers regularly carry out important astronomical observations, often with telescopes they have made themselves.
THE GOALS OF ASTRONOMY: JOURNEY TO THE COSMIC FRONTIER
I wrote this book as a text for an introductory course in astronomy for college students. I have taught such courses for many years at the University of Iowa and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. One of my main goals in those courses, and one of my main goals in this book, is to provide my students with a broad enough, deep enough background in astronomy that they will be able to follow current developments years after they finish my course. This book is current with regard to recent developments, such as the discoveries made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the results from Mars Global Surveyor and Galileo. But I want my students to continue to learn about astronomy long after these developments have been followed by newer, even more exciting, ones. I hope that years from now my students, and the readers of this book, will be able to read and watch stories about astronomy, in any of the print or visual media available to them, with confidence that they know what is going on. I can guarantee that future astronomical discoveries will occur at least as often as they do today, and I want my students to be prepared to enjoy future discoveries.
PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES
New Electronic Media Integration <a onClick="window.open('/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=gif:: ::/sites/dl/free/0072482621/59259/applet.gif','popWin', 'width=350,height=190,resizable,scrollbars');" href="#"><img valign="absmiddle" height="16" width="16" border="0" src="/olcweb/styles/shared/linkicons/image.gif"> (11.0K)</a> These NEW Interactives offer students a fresh and dynamic approach to learn the astronomy basics. Available on the Online Learning Center and Essential Study Partner CD-ROM, these Interactives are referenced in the text by this icon near the corresponding figures and sections.
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Chapter Introduction
Every chapter begins with an introduction designed to give the historical and scientific setting for the chapter material. The overview previews the chapter’s contents and what you can expect to learn from reading the chapter. After reading the introduction, browse through the chapter, paying particular attention to the topic headings and illustrations so that you get a feel for the kinds of ideas included within the chapter. Also included in the chapter introduction are questions to explore while reading the text.
Historical Emphasis
Throughout the book I have emphasized the historical development of astronomy to show that astronomy, like other sciences, advances through the efforts of many scientists and to show how our present ideas developed. In the main body of the text there are many comparisons of what was once known about a particular phenomenon to what we now know about it. These historical comparisons are used to illustrate the cycle of observation, hypothesis, and further observation, which is the essence of the scientific method of discovery.
Worked Examples Boxes
This book, like my course, presumes that most of its readers are not science majors and that they probably have not had a college-level science or mathematics course. The book provides a complete description of current astronomical knowledge, neither at an extremely technical level nor at a level that fails to communicate the quantitative nature of physical science. I have used equations where they are relevant, but follow the equations with boxes containing one or more worked examples. The examples in the boxes show how and when to use each equation and tell why the equation is important.
End of Chapter Material
Chapter Summary: The summary highlights the key elements of the chapter. Key Terms: Terms are defined in context and found in the glossary. Conceptual Questions: The Conceptual Questions require qualitative verbal answers. Problems: The reader’s mastery of the equations can be tested by the Problems at the end of each chapter. The problems require numerical calculations. Figure-Based Questions: The Figure-Based Questions require the reader to extract the answer from a particular graph or figure in the chapter. New! Planetarium Exercises: The planetarium exercises require the reader to investigate key ideas of the chapter using the planetarium software on the CD that accompanies the book. New! Group Exercises: The group exercises require readers to work in groups to discuss different viewpoints on issues in the chapter or to carry out small group projects. End-of-Text Material
At the back of the text you will find appendices that will give you additional background details, charts, and extensive tables. There is also a glossary of all key terms, an index organized alphabetically by subject matter, and a look at the constellations printed on the inside covers for reference use.
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