This video was taped at Vanderbilt University as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Earlier videos in this series:
Part 1: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=9307
Part 2: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10029
Part 3: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10033
Dr. Weintraub is author of How Old Is the Universe? You can read an excerpt of this book here.
Continued »This video was taped at Vanderbilt University as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Earlier videos in this series:
Part 1: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=9307
Part 2: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/?p=10029
Dr. Weintraub is author of How Old Is the Universe? You can read an excerpt of this book here.
Continued »This video was taped at Vanderbilt University as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
To see the first in this series, check out this earlier blog post.
Dr. Weintraub is author of How Old Is the Universe? You can read an excerpt of this book here.
Continued »
Don’t miss your chance to see Professor Ray Jaywayardhana, author of Strange New Worlds, on April 3, 2011 at the California Institute of Technology, Caltech Campus, hosted by The Skeptic Society. Ray Jaywayardhana is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, as well as an award-winning science writer. His new book Strange New Worlds provides an insider’s look at the cutting-edge science of today’s planet hunters, our prospects for discovering alien life, and the debates and controversies at the forefront of extrasolar-planet research.
Date: Sunday, April 3, 2011.
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Baxter Lecture Hall @ Caltech Campus, 332 S. Michigan Avenue, Pasadena, CA.
More Info: Here.
Tickets: First come, first served at the door. Seating is limited. $8 for Skeptics Society members and the JPL/Caltech community, $10 for nonmembers.
Be sure to check out Strange New Worlds’ Facebook Page for book news and upcoming events!
Continued »This video was taped at Vanderbilt University as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Continued »If you haven’t read it already, be sure to check out Ray Jayawardhana’s op-ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times, “Alien Life, Coming Slowly Into View.” Here’s a sneak peak:
I REMEMBER the first time the concept of another world entered my mind. It was during a walk with my father in our garden in Sri Lanka. He pointed to the Moon and told me that people had walked on it. I was astonished: Suddenly that bright light became a place that one could visit.
Schoolchildren may feel a similar sense of wonder when they see pictures of a Martian landscape or Saturn’s rings. And soon their views of alien worlds may not be confined to the planets in our own solar system.
After millenniums of musings and a century of failed attempts, astronomers first detected an exoplanet, a planet orbiting a normal star other than the Sun, in 1995. Now they are finding hundreds of such worlds each year. Last month, NASA announced that 1,235 new possible planets had been observed by Kepler, a telescope on a space satellite. Six of the planets that Kepler found circle one star, and the orbits of five of them would fit within that of Mercury, the closest planet to our Sun.
By timing the passages of these five planets across their sun’s visage — which provides confirmation of their planetary nature — we can witness their graceful dance with one another, choreographed by gravity. These discoveries remind us that nature is often richer and more wondrous than our imagination. The diversity of alien worlds has surprised us and challenged our preconceptions many times over.
In a delightful article at Wonders and Marvels, Michael Hoskin, author of the definitive biography of William and Caroline Herschel, describes how Caroline wrought a lasting and posthumous revenge on an oppressive mother by “writing her out of history.” Click through and have a read.
If you would like to sample Discoverers of the Universe, try this free excerpt on our web site: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9403.pdf
Continued »We have recently published the most authoritative and comprehensive biography of not only William Herschel, but also his companion and sister Caroline Herschel (who is the first professional female astronomer on record).
I found this video on Astroguyz where they review Discoverers of the Universe saying: “This fascinating book covers the life and times of astronomers William and Caroline Herschel and the eventual hand off of the mantle of British astronomy to William’s son John. Much has been written about the pursuits of the Herschels, but Discoverers gives it to you in the kind of detail that we observational astronomers love.”
The author of Discoverers of the Universe: William and Caroline Herschel, Michael Hoskin, is featured in the video above around the half-way mark. You can read a free excerpt from the biography at this link: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9403.pdf.
Continued »Read the complete article here.
Vanderbilt University Professor of Astronomy David A. Weintraub will present a two-part lecture series titled “How Old is the Universe?” at the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. The first lecture will take place on Tuesday, March 8, and the second lecture on Tuesday, May 3. Both lectures take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The lecture series will examine just how astronomers have determined that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Weintraub, author of the just-published How Old is the Universe? and also of Is Pluto a Planet?, explains it all for astronomy buffs in an engaging way.
For location and more details, please visit Vanderbilt News.
Continued »
From the book, Beyond UFOs: In 1543, Nicholas Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (“Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), a book in which he made the radical suggestion that Earth was not in fact the center of the universe, but instead was one of the planets going around the Sun. It was not an entirely new idea; some 1,800 years earlier, a Greek philosopher named Aristarchus (c. 310–230 b.c.) had proposed the same thing, and Copernicus was aware of Aristarchus’s work when he wrote his book. However, while Aristarchus had little success in convincing any of his contemporaries of the idea’s validity, Copernicus started a revolution. It took a few decades and the help of people like Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, but by the mid-1600s the idea of an Earth-centered universe was essentially dead.
Beyond UFOs:
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future
By Jeffrey Bennett
The quest for extraterrestrial life doesn’t happen only in science fiction. This book describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. Jeffrey Bennett takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? How can life be recognized on distant worlds? Is it likely to be microbial, more biologically complex–or even intelligent? What would such a discovery mean for life here on Earth?
Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars.
We invite you to read chapter one online:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8594.html
This week’s book giveaway is How Old is the Universe? by David A. Weintraub. The Kepler solar telescope continues to amaze us with its findings and seems to have put astronomy on everyone’s mind these days. So, how old is the universe?
Astronomers have determined that our universe is 13.7 billion years old. How exactly did they come to this precise conclusion? How Old Is the Universe? tells the incredible story of how astronomers solved one of the most compelling mysteries in science and, along the way, introduces readers to fundamental concepts and cutting-edge advances in modern astronomy.
“Astronomer David Weintraub explains . . . how we know that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, a finding that has had an impact on science, philosophy and religion. By looking at the various ways in which the age of the cosmos has been established over the centuries–from the lifecycles and pulsations of stars to galactic structures and cosmology–he reveals the process of scientific enquiry and shows how astronomers gather evidence to grapple with deep questions.”–Nature
All our Facebook followers who have LIKED us are automatically entered in our weekly book giveaways. Drawings are on Fridays.
Can’t get enough? Then check out the Facebook page for the book: http://www.facebook.com/pages/How-Old-Is-The-Universe-by-David-A-Weintraub/110112432368279
How Old is the Universe? by David A. Weintraub.
Continued » |
Recent articles in Princeton Global Science include:
A response from Louise Barrett to Nicholas Wade’s article for the New York Times on dog cognition. Louise is the author of the forthcoming book Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds which will revolutionize how we think about and define intelligence. Richard Crossley Unplugged provided some hints on becoming a better birder and tips on identifying birds by size. We also saw some early reviews for this revolutionary bird ID guide. PUP author Roland Kays (Mammals of North America, 2nd edition) began his stint as a guest-blogger for the New York Times. David Weintraub, author of How Old Is the Universe?, is interviewed by Sean Moncrieff on Ireland’s Newstalk radio. Josh Bloom has a book launch for What Are Gamma-Ray Bursts? at the American Astronomical Society conference. Our jacket designers give us a glimpse into the creativity that goes into a striking cover like the one for The Silicon Jungle by Shumeet Baluja, a novel of deception and mystery that gets at the heart of privacy issues and the googlization of information. And lastly, Eugene Kaplan, author of What’s Eating You?: People and Parasites, invites you to become an adventurous eater.
|
Like Princeton Global Science? Subscribe to our RSS Feed here: http://press.princeton.edu/blog/category/pgs/feed/.
Continued »Featuring commentary and interviews from Princeton University Press authors, the PUP Blog is a highly respected, timely and indispensable source for learning, understanding and reflection.
|
Substance Over Spin
|
|
March Mathness
Fill out your brackets and play along. |