Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Excellent Reading, 18 Sep 2008
As soon as I saw this book and read the reviews I had to buy it, On receiving the book you can tell immediately a lot of hard work and thought has gone into it, the book itself is beautifully put together the front cover has a striking hologram on the front, it's a well executed graphical representation of the Big Bang and is a really nice bonus.

I liked how the book puts forward fairly complicated astronomy and science in an easy and enjoyable way, without the feeling you're being spoken down to.

The book is ideal for a younger audience too as it's layout is striking while at the same time being useful and intuitive, there seems to be a very good reason for everything in this book. The science, the layout, the graphics and the stunning illustrations are all top class.

five stars, 29 Nov 2007
this book is basically a history of the universe, starting from the planck time-length through to 13,700,000,000 years later and the present day, which is where the speed of light limits its scope.

it's told in language that is easy to understand, although it does skim over the details a little (i'm actually quite interested in the maths of molecule-making), and all-in-all is a thoroughly fascinating read.

the pictures, photos and diagrams are highly informative and gorgeous to look at. i can't imagine what the up-to-date version of this book has to offer, but the first published one i bought was great.

An entertaining outline, 10 Jan 2007
On first reading this book it appears to be a fairly exhaustive account of the Universe from the big bang, through the present day and on to the ultimate end of the Universe. Consider it a little further however and you realise it is only scratching the surface of what is known or believed about the origins and ultimate destiny of the Universe. I found the treatment of Hawking radiation, for example, cursory to say the least, and caused me to ask obvious questions not dealt with in the text.

This isn't a bad thing, however. It is an accessible summary that completely avoids the use of mathematics. It provides sufficient detail to capture one's interest and provides a solid foundation from which you can begin to consider the more obscure details.

Starmaking Machinery, 31 Dec 2006
It has taken 13.7 billion years, but the Universe has finally produced a coffee-table quality book to commemorate the Big Bang and its consequences. _Bang! The Complete History of the Universe_ (Carlton Books) by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott is not massive, as coffee-table books go, but its big format is perfect for the dramatic sorts of pictures that the Hubble Space Telescope or the larger Earth-bound telescopes can give us. It isn't just pictures, however. The text does an exemplary job of covering a huge amount of information. Necessarily, in 190 pages laid over with photos, details are skipped; on one page are both the disaster of the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous Extinction (wiping out the dinosaurs) 65 million years ago. There is the most detail in the earliest pages of the book, dealing with the events before around 700 million years ago, when there started to be discrete objects like galaxies that we could have actually seen, had we been there at that time. (In a sense, we do see them at that time, as the Hubble's lovely deep field images can show.) This is also the part of the book that makes the least sense to those of us who are stuck in a Newtonian world. There are books with fuller explanations of the strangeness of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, but none quite so much fun.

For fun is obviously part of the trip the three authors have taken, and it starts right on the cover, which above the book's title shows a huge, glowing, fragmented fireball, obviously the Big Bang in progress. "Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this." Not only that, but it could never have been seen at such a distance, because there was no such distance; space did not exist except within that Bang. There are still gaps in our understanding of the Big Bang and how it produced all we are and all we see. "We must remember that it is impossible to prove a theory, and all one can hope to do is ensure it is consistent with all the available evidence." The evidence isn't all in, and they remind us, "...we would be amazed if in a few years time our book would not need to be substantially re-written." Given all the confirmatory data, it is hard to imagine that the big picture given here would be in error in any large way. After the main text of the book, there are a useful glossary, capsule biographies of the modern astronomers and cosmologists who have added to our understanding of the Big Bang, and a basic primer on practical astronomy that includes good directions about the topic "How to become an astronomer". This is upbeat, compared to the final chapter which has to do with the end of the Universe.

Much has been made in the British press about the personalities who produced the book, although _Bang!_ would easily stand on its own without famous authors. The least known is Chris Lintott, a working astrophysicist who assists Sir Patrick Moore in presenting a famous monthly BBC show _The Sky at Night_, which is now the longest-running science program in the world. Moore himself, because of his show and his hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books, is possibly the world's best known astronomer. The surprise author, for those who do star-gazing of the celebrity rather than astronomical type, is Brian May, who as a kid was inspired by one of Moore's books to take up astronomy. He was a founding member of the famous rock group Queen and a guitarist of some note. May was doing his PhD studies in interplanetary dust when Queen took off (he wrote such songs as "We Will Rock You"). He is currently updating and completing his thesis in between musical activities, although he does already have an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. If a little celebrity power gets people interested in the book, and interested in the huge amount of scientific thinking it reflects, I think it makes up for the additions to our culture made by, say, Britney Spears. _Bang!_ is a wonderful summary for adults and would be a terrific book for any reading young person.

I Learned So Much From This Book !, 25 Dec 2006
I am a Creationist who knew nothing about astronomy, physics and the history of the universe. Brian May's input into this book was very helpful to me because he wrote about very profound topics in a manner that I could understand. For that matter, Bang has helped me to remain a Creationist while finally becoming open to evolution and scientific theories in reference to space, time, and the beginning and the lurking end of the universe. Bang is a book for scientists and normal people who want to learn about the universe and our planet. Brian May is amazing. He is a guitar virtuoso, wildlife conservationist, animal welfare activist, a scientist and a fantastic author. The people who helped him with this book also merit plaudits. They are very cerebral luminaries.

To write a book to explain in simple, non-mathematical terms what superstring theory is is not a simple task. In The Elegant Universe Brian Greene, a physicist who works in the area, does a very good job. Superstrings are a theory of particle physics that lays claim to being the ultimate "Theory of Everything", merging Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics into an understanding of the physics of the very small and very large in the Universe. Hence to understand superstrings relativity, quantum mechanics have to be explained as well. In this Brian Greene does a very good job, giving one of the best explanations of relativity I have read in the process. Superstring theory is still very much in its infancy and The Elegant Universe does not claim that all the problems have been solved, in fact a point is made of pointing out all the present deficiencies of the theory.

Probably not a book for the very beginner but anyone who has read popular accounts of particle physics and relativity should gain a lot from reading this book. In places not an easy read, not for style reasons(which was generally very easy) but simply for the difficulty of some of the concepts involved. Superstring theory may or may not be the theory of everything but this book will certainly tell you what we think we know so far. Definitely recommended but don't expect to read it in a weekend. --Simon Goodwin

Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Excellent Reading, 18 Sep 2008
As soon as I saw this book and read the reviews I had to buy it, On receiving the book you can tell immediately a lot of hard work and thought has gone into it, the book itself is beautifully put together the front cover has a striking hologram on the front, it's a well executed graphical representation of the Big Bang and is a really nice bonus.

I liked how the book puts forward fairly complicated astronomy and science in an easy and enjoyable way, without the feeling you're being spoken down to.

The book is ideal for a younger audience too as it's layout is striking while at the same time being useful and intuitive, there seems to be a very good reason for everything in this book. The science, the layout, the graphics and the stunning illustrations are all top class.

five stars, 29 Nov 2007
this book is basically a history of the universe, starting from the planck time-length through to 13,700,000,000 years later and the present day, which is where the speed of light limits its scope.

it's told in language that is easy to understand, although it does skim over the details a little (i'm actually quite interested in the maths of molecule-making), and all-in-all is a thoroughly fascinating read.

the pictures, photos and diagrams are highly informative and gorgeous to look at. i can't imagine what the up-to-date version of this book has to offer, but the first published one i bought was great.

An entertaining outline, 10 Jan 2007
On first reading this book it appears to be a fairly exhaustive account of the Universe from the big bang, through the present day and on to the ultimate end of the Universe. Consider it a little further however and you realise it is only scratching the surface of what is known or believed about the origins and ultimate destiny of the Universe. I found the treatment of Hawking radiation, for example, cursory to say the least, and caused me to ask obvious questions not dealt with in the text.

This isn't a bad thing, however. It is an accessible summary that completely avoids the use of mathematics. It provides sufficient detail to capture one's interest and provides a solid foundation from which you can begin to consider the more obscure details.

Starmaking Machinery, 31 Dec 2006
It has taken 13.7 billion years, but the Universe has finally produced a coffee-table quality book to commemorate the Big Bang and its consequences. _Bang! The Complete History of the Universe_ (Carlton Books) by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott is not massive, as coffee-table books go, but its big format is perfect for the dramatic sorts of pictures that the Hubble Space Telescope or the larger Earth-bound telescopes can give us. It isn't just pictures, however. The text does an exemplary job of covering a huge amount of information. Necessarily, in 190 pages laid over with photos, details are skipped; on one page are both the disaster of the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous Extinction (wiping out the dinosaurs) 65 million years ago. There is the most detail in the earliest pages of the book, dealing with the events before around 700 million years ago, when there started to be discrete objects like galaxies that we could have actually seen, had we been there at that time. (In a sense, we do see them at that time, as the Hubble's lovely deep field images can show.) This is also the part of the book that makes the least sense to those of us who are stuck in a Newtonian world. There are books with fuller explanations of the strangeness of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, but none quite so much fun.

For fun is obviously part of the trip the three authors have taken, and it starts right on the cover, which above the book's title shows a huge, glowing, fragmented fireball, obviously the Big Bang in progress. "Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this." Not only that, but it could never have been seen at such a distance, because there was no such distance; space did not exist except within that Bang. There are still gaps in our understanding of the Big Bang and how it produced all we are and all we see. "We must remember that it is impossible to prove a theory, and all one can hope to do is ensure it is consistent with all the available evidence." The evidence isn't all in, and they remind us, "...we would be amazed if in a few years time our book would not need to be substantially re-written." Given all the confirmatory data, it is hard to imagine that the big picture given here would be in error in any large way. After the main text of the book, there are a useful glossary, capsule biographies of the modern astronomers and cosmologists who have added to our understanding of the Big Bang, and a basic primer on practical astronomy that includes good directions about the topic "How to become an astronomer". This is upbeat, compared to the final chapter which has to do with the end of the Universe.

Much has been made in the British press about the personalities who produced the book, although _Bang!_ would easily stand on its own without famous authors. The least known is Chris Lintott, a working astrophysicist who assists Sir Patrick Moore in presenting a famous monthly BBC show _The Sky at Night_, which is now the longest-running science program in the world. Moore himself, because of his show and his hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books, is possibly the world's best known astronomer. The surprise author, for those who do star-gazing of the celebrity rather than astronomical type, is Brian May, who as a kid was inspired by one of Moore's books to take up astronomy. He was a founding member of the famous rock group Queen and a guitarist of some note. May was doing his PhD studies in interplanetary dust when Queen took off (he wrote such songs as "We Will Rock You"). He is currently updating and completing his thesis in between musical activities, although he does already have an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. If a little celebrity power gets people interested in the book, and interested in the huge amount of scientific thinking it reflects, I think it makes up for the additions to our culture made by, say, Britney Spears. _Bang!_ is a wonderful summary for adults and would be a terrific book for any reading young person.

I Learned So Much From This Book !, 25 Dec 2006
I am a Creationist who knew nothing about astronomy, physics and the history of the universe. Brian May's input into this book was very helpful to me because he wrote about very profound topics in a manner that I could understand. For that matter, Bang has helped me to remain a Creationist while finally becoming open to evolution and scientific theories in reference to space, time, and the beginning and the lurking end of the universe. Bang is a book for scientists and normal people who want to learn about the universe and our planet. Brian May is amazing. He is a guitar virtuoso, wildlife conservationist, animal welfare activist, a scientist and a fantastic author. The people who helped him with this book also merit plaudits. They are very cerebral luminaries.

How science should be presented, 30 Dec 2008
"The Elegant Universe" is unashamedly hard science. It is an attempt by one of the movers and shakers of string theory to explain what this promising would-be successor to both quantum mechanics and general relativity is all about.

This sort of science is not easy, but the book is very well written and the obvious enthusiasm of the author helps. To my mind this book has one of the clearest explanations of Einstein's general theory of relativity that I have read.

I stayed up all night reading it it, but I suspect that some people might well find themselves lost in some of the more complex aspects. Nonetheless I found it an enjoyable read, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what science is really about.

The best popular science book of the past 20 years - flawless, 15 Dec 2008
I found "A Brief History of Time" a bit too dry (not being as well versed in the requisite mathematics at the time) and "Universe in a Nutshell" too flashy and lacking in depth (being up on the maths by then). Greene's book lands right in the middle: it is absolutely engaging to the non-technical reader and still carries enough meat to satisfy those who can see behind the metaphors.

I first read it after being lent it by my physics teacher (thanks, John Fazakerley!) at the age of 17 and found it totally comprehensible; Greene's explanations are brilliantly conceived and render the often subtle and confusing material completely open to understanding. He is always patient, often using multiple angles when discussing especially esoteric material, and each topic dealt with only made me want to read more. I came away from that first reading carrying a curiosity that lasts to this day.

I re-read TEU around two years ago (being 23 at the time), this time armed with significantly better understanding of the maths hiding behind all the metaphors, and I was again not disappointed, thanks to the substantial appendices that include details of the equations governing the various phenomena. If you have any kind of familiarity with this sort of maths then these appendices really enrich your experience and serve to explain what's going on at its most basic level. I also appreciated how deep the book goes; generic explanations can often skate over the more subtle details (as UiaN did).

The book is presented in a much friendlier way than most of this type, with some really nice little illustrations that pop up at exactly the right time. An interest in physics is thus the only pre-requisite - 10/10

A ripping yarn!, 12 Sep 2008
This book makes me wish I'd carried on studying. Greene has a gift for putting accross a very exoteric subject in accessible language. He avoids hand-waving and bogging you down in technical terms. I couldn't put this book down... which is saying something for a popular science book.

Great Explanation of Superstrings and More!, 23 Aug 2008
I am an engineer by education and experience. Like many engineers I am fascinated with the subject of quantum mechanics, superstrings, hidden dimensions, the quest for the theory of everything, parallel universes and more. Much of it isn't easy to understand, but it sure is fun!

For years I had been hearing about superstrings. I have read In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, books on Einstein's theories, and more. I have also read articles on these subjects, watched several amazing TV shows and movies. Some teased the idea of superstrings, but I never came away with a feeling that the concept had been explained properly.

Brian Green's book the Elegant Universe, and the subsequent PBS show does just that! It gives the best explanation of superstrings I have read (and seen) to date. Green also does a great job explaining parallel universes, hidden dimensions, quest for the ultimate theory and more.

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking


Not a "light" read, 18 Jun 2008
Brian Greene has a talent for conveying complex ideas in a way that is easy to understand. He is constantly using word pictures (and sometimes actual pictures) to explain relativity, quantum theory, and other topics that are utterly fascinating but are sometimes difficult to get your brain around. Elegant Universe is not a light read, but for those looking to get a moderate understanding of the subject matter I highly recommend it.

Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos with its questions about the limits of space and time and the texture of reality certainly looks a bit daunting to the uninitiated. Cosmic ripples, 11 dimensions to the universe and string theory that is somehow connected to a "Theory of Everything" are all a bit alien if you never really got to grips with Newton, let alone Einstein. It might look very heavyweight, but Greene is an excellent communicator and what he's writing about is perhaps the greatest intellectual challenge we face.

There is no doubt that speculation about the nature of the heavens is very ancient. After centuries of thought "we still can only portray space and time as the most familiar of strangers". But enormous advances in understanding have been made especially over the last few decades. Whether we are high-flying city slickers or impoverished cattle-herders in the third world, speculation about space-time "takes on an almost mystical quality: we're considering the fate of the very things that dominate our sense of reality" according to Greene.

Over the last century we have become much better acquainted with previously hidden features of the Universe, especially thanks to Einstein. Greene summarises these as

"the slowing of time, the relativity of simultaneity, alternative slicings of spacetime, gravity as the warpings and curving of space and time, the probabilistic nature of reality, and long range entanglement were not on the list of things that even the best of the world's nineteenth-century physicists would have expected to find just around the corner."

And yet they are attested to by both experimental results and theoretical explanations. Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, is one of the foremost players in contemporary string theory and authored a bestselling book The Elegant Universe for which he won the Aventis Prize in 2000.

In The Fabric of the Cosmos Green avoids mathematical formulae, which can be an immediate turnoff for most general readers. Clearly he knows that visually we can deal with abstract and/or difficult concepts much better than when they are presented in words. Consequently, he uses a very clever selection of excellent and well designed illustrations to help get his ideas across. There is an excellent index, plenty of notes and suggestions for further reading, which will allow those more in the know to take matters further. And, there is a glossary for us ordinary mortals who need every now and again to check up on our understanding of things such as quarks, Higgs particles, braneworld scenario and M-theory. --Douglas Palmer

Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Excellent Reading, 18 Sep 2008
As soon as I saw this book and read the reviews I had to buy it, On receiving the book you can tell immediately a lot of hard work and thought has gone into it, the book itself is beautifully put together the front cover has a striking hologram on the front, it's a well executed graphical representation of the Big Bang and is a really nice bonus.

I liked how the book puts forward fairly complicated astronomy and science in an easy and enjoyable way, without the feeling you're being spoken down to.

The book is ideal for a younger audience too as it's layout is striking while at the same time being useful and intuitive, there seems to be a very good reason for everything in this book. The science, the layout, the graphics and the stunning illustrations are all top class.

five stars, 29 Nov 2007
this book is basically a history of the universe, starting from the planck time-length through to 13,700,000,000 years later and the present day, which is where the speed of light limits its scope.

it's told in language that is easy to understand, although it does skim over the details a little (i'm actually quite interested in the maths of molecule-making), and all-in-all is a thoroughly fascinating read.

the pictures, photos and diagrams are highly informative and gorgeous to look at. i can't imagine what the up-to-date version of this book has to offer, but the first published one i bought was great.

An entertaining outline, 10 Jan 2007
On first reading this book it appears to be a fairly exhaustive account of the Universe from the big bang, through the present day and on to the ultimate end of the Universe. Consider it a little further however and you realise it is only scratching the surface of what is known or believed about the origins and ultimate destiny of the Universe. I found the treatment of Hawking radiation, for example, cursory to say the least, and caused me to ask obvious questions not dealt with in the text.

This isn't a bad thing, however. It is an accessible summary that completely avoids the use of mathematics. It provides sufficient detail to capture one's interest and provides a solid foundation from which you can begin to consider the more obscure details.

Starmaking Machinery, 31 Dec 2006
It has taken 13.7 billion years, but the Universe has finally produced a coffee-table quality book to commemorate the Big Bang and its consequences. _Bang! The Complete History of the Universe_ (Carlton Books) by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott is not massive, as coffee-table books go, but its big format is perfect for the dramatic sorts of pictures that the Hubble Space Telescope or the larger Earth-bound telescopes can give us. It isn't just pictures, however. The text does an exemplary job of covering a huge amount of information. Necessarily, in 190 pages laid over with photos, details are skipped; on one page are both the disaster of the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous Extinction (wiping out the dinosaurs) 65 million years ago. There is the most detail in the earliest pages of the book, dealing with the events before around 700 million years ago, when there started to be discrete objects like galaxies that we could have actually seen, had we been there at that time. (In a sense, we do see them at that time, as the Hubble's lovely deep field images can show.) This is also the part of the book that makes the least sense to those of us who are stuck in a Newtonian world. There are books with fuller explanations of the strangeness of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, but none quite so much fun.

For fun is obviously part of the trip the three authors have taken, and it starts right on the cover, which above the book's title shows a huge, glowing, fragmented fireball, obviously the Big Bang in progress. "Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this." Not only that, but it could never have been seen at such a distance, because there was no such distance; space did not exist except within that Bang. There are still gaps in our understanding of the Big Bang and how it produced all we are and all we see. "We must remember that it is impossible to prove a theory, and all one can hope to do is ensure it is consistent with all the available evidence." The evidence isn't all in, and they remind us, "...we would be amazed if in a few years time our book would not need to be substantially re-written." Given all the confirmatory data, it is hard to imagine that the big picture given here would be in error in any large way. After the main text of the book, there are a useful glossary, capsule biographies of the modern astronomers and cosmologists who have added to our understanding of the Big Bang, and a basic primer on practical astronomy that includes good directions about the topic "How to become an astronomer". This is upbeat, compared to the final chapter which has to do with the end of the Universe.

Much has been made in the British press about the personalities who produced the book, although _Bang!_ would easily stand on its own without famous authors. The least known is Chris Lintott, a working astrophysicist who assists Sir Patrick Moore in presenting a famous monthly BBC show _The Sky at Night_, which is now the longest-running science program in the world. Moore himself, because of his show and his hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books, is possibly the world's best known astronomer. The surprise author, for those who do star-gazing of the celebrity rather than astronomical type, is Brian May, who as a kid was inspired by one of Moore's books to take up astronomy. He was a founding member of the famous rock group Queen and a guitarist of some note. May was doing his PhD studies in interplanetary dust when Queen took off (he wrote such songs as "We Will Rock You"). He is currently updating and completing his thesis in between musical activities, although he does already have an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. If a little celebrity power gets people interested in the book, and interested in the huge amount of scientific thinking it reflects, I think it makes up for the additions to our culture made by, say, Britney Spears. _Bang!_ is a wonderful summary for adults and would be a terrific book for any reading young person.

I Learned So Much From This Book !, 25 Dec 2006
I am a Creationist who knew nothing about astronomy, physics and the history of the universe. Brian May's input into this book was very helpful to me because he wrote about very profound topics in a manner that I could understand. For that matter, Bang has helped me to remain a Creationist while finally becoming open to evolution and scientific theories in reference to space, time, and the beginning and the lurking end of the universe. Bang is a book for scientists and normal people who want to learn about the universe and our planet. Brian May is amazing. He is a guitar virtuoso, wildlife conservationist, animal welfare activist, a scientist and a fantastic author. The people who helped him with this book also merit plaudits. They are very cerebral luminaries.

How science should be presented, 30 Dec 2008
"The Elegant Universe" is unashamedly hard science. It is an attempt by one of the movers and shakers of string theory to explain what this promising would-be successor to both quantum mechanics and general relativity is all about.

This sort of science is not easy, but the book is very well written and the obvious enthusiasm of the author helps. To my mind this book has one of the clearest explanations of Einstein's general theory of relativity that I have read.

I stayed up all night reading it it, but I suspect that some people might well find themselves lost in some of the more complex aspects. Nonetheless I found it an enjoyable read, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what science is really about.

The best popular science book of the past 20 years - flawless, 15 Dec 2008
I found "A Brief History of Time" a bit too dry (not being as well versed in the requisite mathematics at the time) and "Universe in a Nutshell" too flashy and lacking in depth (being up on the maths by then). Greene's book lands right in the middle: it is absolutely engaging to the non-technical reader and still carries enough meat to satisfy those who can see behind the metaphors.

I first read it after being lent it by my physics teacher (thanks, John Fazakerley!) at the age of 17 and found it totally comprehensible; Greene's explanations are brilliantly conceived and render the often subtle and confusing material completely open to understanding. He is always patient, often using multiple angles when discussing especially esoteric material, and each topic dealt with only made me want to read more. I came away from that first reading carrying a curiosity that lasts to this day.

I re-read TEU around two years ago (being 23 at the time), this time armed with significantly better understanding of the maths hiding behind all the metaphors, and I was again not disappointed, thanks to the substantial appendices that include details of the equations governing the various phenomena. If you have any kind of familiarity with this sort of maths then these appendices really enrich your experience and serve to explain what's going on at its most basic level. I also appreciated how deep the book goes; generic explanations can often skate over the more subtle details (as UiaN did).

The book is presented in a much friendlier way than most of this type, with some really nice little illustrations that pop up at exactly the right time. An interest in physics is thus the only pre-requisite - 10/10

A ripping yarn!, 12 Sep 2008
This book makes me wish I'd carried on studying. Greene has a gift for putting accross a very exoteric subject in accessible language. He avoids hand-waving and bogging you down in technical terms. I couldn't put this book down... which is saying something for a popular science book.

Great Explanation of Superstrings and More!, 23 Aug 2008
I am an engineer by education and experience. Like many engineers I am fascinated with the subject of quantum mechanics, superstrings, hidden dimensions, the quest for the theory of everything, parallel universes and more. Much of it isn't easy to understand, but it sure is fun!

For years I had been hearing about superstrings. I have read In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, books on Einstein's theories, and more. I have also read articles on these subjects, watched several amazing TV shows and movies. Some teased the idea of superstrings, but I never came away with a feeling that the concept had been explained properly.

Brian Green's book the Elegant Universe, and the subsequent PBS show does just that! It gives the best explanation of superstrings I have read (and seen) to date. Green also does a great job explaining parallel universes, hidden dimensions, quest for the ultimate theory and more.

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking


Not a "light" read, 18 Jun 2008
Brian Greene has a talent for conveying complex ideas in a way that is easy to understand. He is constantly using word pictures (and sometimes actual pictures) to explain relativity, quantum theory, and other topics that are utterly fascinating but are sometimes difficult to get your brain around. Elegant Universe is not a light read, but for those looking to get a moderate understanding of the subject matter I highly recommend it.

If I had a bible, this would be it!, 06 Jan 2009
This book is the most incredible book I've ever read. Okay, so it took me two years to get through it but that was because after every page, I'd have to put the book down to really try to get to grips with the ideas it was presenting. But the writing is clear, and the examples accessible (if you like the Simpsons that is!), and it is probably the best lay-man's explanation of the concepts of space and time that you're ever going to get. It is also structured really well - almost an historical account of the development of ideas - so that you feel your understanding of the concepts growing as they did throughout history itself.

It's just a great book, even though I'm still left with the feeling that I need to reread it several times to truly understand the fabric of the cosmos.

Fascinating and enjoyable!, 29 Dec 2008
Uttererely fascinating for any one interested even slightly in astronomy,physics,the workings of the universe or just where the world came from.Written for the general/layman reader,the author writes in a fascinating and easy to understand way.He explains even difficult concepts, in an extremely interesting and accesible way and will give an advance warning when harder material is coming up allowing you to skip it and read a basic summary given at the end of the section.In fact of all the authors i'v read on this topic,to me,he is by far the best at communicating and explaining in a crystal clear manner.Packed full with more information than a lot of other books i'v read on this topic put together,and with the potentialy to change your veiws on the world and life forever,I recomend this book over even stephen hawkings 'breif history of time' or 'universe in the nutshull'.
After this book you might never be the same again.

Exceptionally well written, 12 Nov 2008
I should start by pointing out that I approached this book as a complete physics novice. Having read reports about the Large Hadron collider, my goal was to gain a better understanding of what those CERN scientists were hoping to achieve, and to acquire a deeper understanding of cosmology in general. As a beginner, I didn't know the first thing about Newton, never mind quantum mechanics and string theory.

Given that background, I am happy to say that I finished The Fabric of the Cosmos with a much greater and more rounded understanding of the subject than when I started. This book is extensive and covers a lot of ground, but from the beginner's point of view, that's a good thing - you're not left with all those unanswered questions that can sometimes hamper your overall grasp of a subject. Certainly there's a lot to take in, and concentrating (and note-taking) will be preferable to reading it on a packed train, believe me. Finishing the book may take longer than you'd anticipated, but that's no black mark against it.

This book is exceptionally well written. What makes it a success is the manner in which the chapters progress - methodically, building your knowledge bit by bit. The author writes clearly with a helpful and sympathetic tone that is obvious from the outset, but without ever being dumbed down. Greene is astute enough to appreciate that, having described a new concept over several paragraphs, some people may still have trouble grasping it, and he is not afraid to then elaborate with "OK, let me make this even clearer..." type writing. You get the sense that he really is walking you through the learning process, reassuring you (for example) not to worry that you can't visualize a 5 dimensional universe - because neither can the physicists.

As I say, don't misinterpret that user-friendliness as dumbing down - the book is challenging, but the explanations are excellent, and at no point did I feel any of it to be contradictory, which sometimes happens when approaching new material. The way the author summarizes and draws different concepts together greatly helps it all make sense. I didn't understand absolutely everything in those 500 or so pages, but by the end of it, I did know a LOT more about cosmology, relativity, quantum theory, etc than I did at the outset.

As a previous reviewer noted, the diagrams - certainly in the paperbook version I bought - are indeed a little too small, though still legible enough to make the point, and it would be harsh to mark the review down a star just for that. The notes section at the back is extremely comprehensive but it's certainly not essential that you read it all. Someone mentioned the analogies being a bit annoying and US-centric. As a Brit, I didn't have a problem with them. They did their job.

This book will make you appreciate just how utterly weird everything really is, and how different the universe is compared to the reality we intuitively experience on a day-to-day basis.

Overall, this is a truly mindblowing guide to current thinking of how everything works, and I highly recommend it for anyone new to the subject matter. Extremely rewarding: any further reading you choose to do on this topic will be that much easier as a result of having read this book.

A good introductory survey of modern Cosmology, 13 Aug 2008
Related to his book The Elegant Universe, a pop-sci account of string theory, this book goes through many fundamental parts of physics and cosmology that lead up to the current day understanding and the quest for the deeper underlying principles that string theory is tackling. It's a little dry in spots, but the handling of the early physics material is very well done and approachable.

Fantastic Guide to Physics for Beginners, 11 Jul 2008
Brian Greene has managed to do the impossible. He has written a guide to physics from Newton to String Theory, that is not only easy to read but is also entertaining. This is what I should have had as my physics textbook in school. Whilst using simple everyday examples and avoiding the dreaded equations, he manages to explain the most complex and even bizzare ideas that physics has so far come up with.

Reading it felt much like opening my eyes to the weird but wonderful universe out there.
A trully excellent book.

Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Excellent Reading, 18 Sep 2008
As soon as I saw this book and read the reviews I had to buy it, On receiving the book you can tell immediately a lot of hard work and thought has gone into it, the book itself is beautifully put together the front cover has a striking hologram on the front, it's a well executed graphical representation of the Big Bang and is a really nice bonus.

I liked how the book puts forward fairly complicated astronomy and science in an easy and enjoyable way, without the feeling you're being spoken down to.

The book is ideal for a younger audience too as it's layout is striking while at the same time being useful and intuitive, there seems to be a very good reason for everything in this book. The science, the layout, the graphics and the stunning illustrations are all top class.

five stars, 29 Nov 2007
this book is basically a history of the universe, starting from the planck time-length through to 13,700,000,000 years later and the present day, which is where the speed of light limits its scope.

it's told in language that is easy to understand, although it does skim over the details a little (i'm actually quite interested in the maths of molecule-making), and all-in-all is a thoroughly fascinating read.

the pictures, photos and diagrams are highly informative and gorgeous to look at. i can't imagine what the up-to-date version of this book has to offer, but the first published one i bought was great.

An entertaining outline, 10 Jan 2007
On first reading this book it appears to be a fairly exhaustive account of the Universe from the big bang, through the present day and on to the ultimate end of the Universe. Consider it a little further however and you realise it is only scratching the surface of what is known or believed about the origins and ultimate destiny of the Universe. I found the treatment of Hawking radiation, for example, cursory to say the least, and caused me to ask obvious questions not dealt with in the text.

This isn't a bad thing, however. It is an accessible summary that completely avoids the use of mathematics. It provides sufficient detail to capture one's interest and provides a solid foundation from which you can begin to consider the more obscure details.

Starmaking Machinery, 31 Dec 2006
It has taken 13.7 billion years, but the Universe has finally produced a coffee-table quality book to commemorate the Big Bang and its consequences. _Bang! The Complete History of the Universe_ (Carlton Books) by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott is not massive, as coffee-table books go, but its big format is perfect for the dramatic sorts of pictures that the Hubble Space Telescope or the larger Earth-bound telescopes can give us. It isn't just pictures, however. The text does an exemplary job of covering a huge amount of information. Necessarily, in 190 pages laid over with photos, details are skipped; on one page are both the disaster of the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous Extinction (wiping out the dinosaurs) 65 million years ago. There is the most detail in the earliest pages of the book, dealing with the events before around 700 million years ago, when there started to be discrete objects like galaxies that we could have actually seen, had we been there at that time. (In a sense, we do see them at that time, as the Hubble's lovely deep field images can show.) This is also the part of the book that makes the least sense to those of us who are stuck in a Newtonian world. There are books with fuller explanations of the strangeness of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, but none quite so much fun.

For fun is obviously part of the trip the three authors have taken, and it starts right on the cover, which above the book's title shows a huge, glowing, fragmented fireball, obviously the Big Bang in progress. "Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this." Not only that, but it could never have been seen at such a distance, because there was no such distance; space did not exist except within that Bang. There are still gaps in our understanding of the Big Bang and how it produced all we are and all we see. "We must remember that it is impossible to prove a theory, and all one can hope to do is ensure it is consistent with all the available evidence." The evidence isn't all in, and they remind us, "...we would be amazed if in a few years time our book would not need to be substantially re-written." Given all the confirmatory data, it is hard to imagine that the big picture given here would be in error in any large way. After the main text of the book, there are a useful glossary, capsule biographies of the modern astronomers and cosmologists who have added to our understanding of the Big Bang, and a basic primer on practical astronomy that includes good directions about the topic "How to become an astronomer". This is upbeat, compared to the final chapter which has to do with the end of the Universe.

Much has been made in the British press about the personalities who produced the book, although _Bang!_ would easily stand on its own without famous authors. The least known is Chris Lintott, a working astrophysicist who assists Sir Patrick Moore in presenting a famous monthly BBC show _The Sky at Night_, which is now the longest-running science program in the world. Moore himself, because of his show and his hundreds of fiction and nonfiction books, is possibly the world's best known astronomer. The surprise author, for those who do star-gazing of the celebrity rather than astronomical type, is Brian May, who as a kid was inspired by one of Moore's books to take up astronomy. He was a founding member of the famous rock group Queen and a guitarist of some note. May was doing his PhD studies in interplanetary dust when Queen took off (he wrote such songs as "We Will Rock You"). He is currently updating and completing his thesis in between musical activities, although he does already have an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. If a little celebrity power gets people interested in the book, and interested in the huge amount of scientific thinking it reflects, I think it makes up for the additions to our culture made by, say, Britney Spears. _Bang!_ is a wonderful summary for adults and would be a terrific book for any reading young person.

I Learned So Much From This Book !, 25 Dec 2006
I am a Creationist who knew nothing about astronomy, physics and the history of the universe. Brian May's input into this book was very helpful to me because he wrote about very profound topics in a manner that I could understand. For that matter, Bang has helped me to remain a Creationist while finally becoming open to evolution and scientific theories in reference to space, time, and the beginning and the lurking end of the universe. Bang is a book for scientists and normal people who want to learn about the universe and our planet. Brian May is amazing. He is a guitar virtuoso, wildlife conservationist, animal welfare activist, a scientist and a fantastic author. The people who helped him with this book also merit plaudits. They are very cerebral luminaries.

How science should be presented, 30 Dec 2008
"The Elegant Universe" is unashamedly hard science. It is an attempt by one of the movers and shakers of string theory to explain what this promising would-be successor to both quantum mechanics and general relativity is all about.

This sort of science is not easy, but the book is very well written and the obvious enthusiasm of the author helps. To my mind this book has one of the clearest explanations of Einstein's general theory of relativity that I have read.

I stayed up all night reading it it, but I suspect that some people might well find themselves lost in some of the more complex aspects. Nonetheless I found it an enjoyable read, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what science is really about.

The best popular science book of the past 20 years - flawless, 15 Dec 2008
I found "A Brief History of Time" a bit too dry (not being as well versed in the requisite mathematics at the time) and "Universe in a Nutshell" too flashy and lacking in depth (being up on the maths by then). Greene's book lands right in the middle: it is absolutely engaging to the non-technical reader and still carries enough meat to satisfy those who can see behind the metaphors.

I first read it after being lent it by my physics teacher (thanks, John Fazakerley!) at the age of 17 and found it totally comprehensible; Greene's explanations are brilliantly conceived and render the often subtle and confusing material completely open to understanding. He is always patient, often using multiple angles when discussing especially esoteric material, and each topic dealt with only made me want to read more. I came away from that first reading carrying a curiosity that lasts to this day.

I re-read TEU around two years ago (being 23 at the time), this time armed with significantly better understanding of the maths hiding behind all the metaphors, and I was again not disappointed, thanks to the substantial appendices that include details of the equations governing the various phenomena. If you have any kind of familiarity with this sort of maths then these appendices really enrich your experience and serve to explain what's going on at its most basic level. I also appreciated how deep the book goes; generic explanations can often skate over the more subtle details (as UiaN did).

The book is presented in a much friendlier way than most of this type, with some really nice little illustrations that pop up at exactly the right time. An interest in physics is thus the only pre-requisite - 10/10

A ripping yarn!, 12 Sep 2008
This book makes me wish I'd carried on studying. Greene has a gift for putting accross a very exoteric subject in accessible language. He avoids hand-waving and bogging you down in technical terms. I couldn't put this book down... which is saying something for a popular science book.

Great Explanation of Superstrings and More!, 23 Aug 2008
I am an engineer by education and experience. Like many engineers I am fascinated with the subject of quantum mechanics, superstrings, hidden dimensions, the quest for the theory of everything, parallel universes and more. Much of it isn't easy to understand, but it sure is fun!

For years I had been hearing about superstrings. I have read In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, books on Einstein's theories, and more. I have also read articles on these subjects, watched several amazing TV shows and movies. Some teased the idea of superstrings, but I never came away with a feeling that the concept had been explained properly.

Brian Green's book the Elegant Universe, and the subsequent PBS show does just that! It gives the best explanation of superstrings I have read (and seen) to date. Green also does a great job explaining parallel universes, hidden dimensions, quest for the ultimate theory and more.

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking


Not a "light" read, 18 Jun 2008
Brian Greene has a talent for conveying complex ideas in a way that is easy to understand. He is constantly using word pictures (and sometimes actual pictures) to explain relativity, quantum theory, and other topics that are utterly fascinating but are sometimes difficult to get your brain around. Elegant Universe is not a light read, but for those looking to get a moderate understanding of the subject matter I highly recommend it.

If I had a bible, this would be it!, 06 Jan 2009
This book is the most incredible book I've ever read. Okay, so it took me two years to get through it but that was because after every page, I'd have to put the book down to really try to get to grips with the ideas it was presenting. But the writing is clear, and the examples accessible (if you like the Simpsons that is!), and it is probably the best lay-man's explanation of the concepts of space and time that you're ever going to get. It is also structured really well - almost an historical account of the development of ideas - so that you feel your understanding of the concepts growing as they did throughout history itself.

It's just a great book, even though I'm still left with the feeling that I need to reread it several times to truly understand the fabric of the cosmos.

Fascinating and enjoyable!, 29 Dec 2008
Uttererely fascinating for any one interested even slightly in astronomy,physics,the workings of the universe or just where the world came from.Written for the general/layman reader,the author writes in a fascinating and easy to understand way.He explains even difficult concepts, in an extremely interesting and accesible way and will give an advance warning when harder material is coming up allowing you to skip it and read a basic summary given at the end of the section.In fact of all the authors i'v read on this topic,to me,he is by far the best at communicating and explaining in a crystal clear manner.Packed full with more information than a lot of other books i'v read on this topic put together,and with the potentialy to change your veiws on the world and life forever,I recomend this book over even stephen hawkings 'breif history of time' or 'universe in the nutshull'.
After this book you might never be the same again.

Exceptionally well written, 12 Nov 2008
I should start by pointing out that I approached this book as a complete physics novice. Having read reports about the Large Hadron collider, my goal was to gain a better understanding of what those CERN scientists were hoping to achieve, and to acquire a deeper understanding of cosmology in general. As a beginner, I didn't know the first thing about Newton, never mind quantum mechanics and string theory.

Given that background, I am happy to say that I finished The Fabric of the Cosmos with a much greater and more rounded understanding of the subject than when I started. This book is extensive and covers a lot of ground, but from the beginner's point of view, that's a good thing - you're not left with all those unanswered questions that can sometimes hamper your overall grasp of a subject. Certainly there's a lot to take in, and concentrating (and note-taking) will be preferable to reading it on a packed train, believe me. Finishing the book may take longer than you'd anticipated, but that's no black mark against it.

This book is exceptionally well written. What makes it a success is the manner in which the chapters progress - methodically, building your knowledge bit by bit. The author writes clearly with a helpful and sympathetic tone that is obvious from the outset, but without ever being dumbed down. Greene is astute enough to appreciate that, having described a new concept over several paragraphs, some people may still have trouble grasping it, and he is not afraid to then elaborate with "OK, let me make this even clearer..." type writing. You get the sense that he really is walking you through the learning process, reassuring you (for example) not to worry that you can't visualize a 5 dimensional universe - because neither can the physicists.

As I say, don't misinterpret that user-friendliness as dumbing down - the book is challenging, but the explanations are excellent, and at no point did I feel any of it to be contradictory, which sometimes happens when approaching new material. The way the author summarizes and draws different concepts together greatly helps it all make sense. I didn't understand absolutely everything in those 500 or so pages, but by the end of it, I did know a LOT more about cosmology, relativity, quantum theory, etc than I did at the outset.

As a previous reviewer noted, the diagrams - certainly in the paperbook version I bought - are indeed a little too small, though still legible enough to make the point, and it would be harsh to mark the review down a star just for that. The notes section at the back is extremely comprehensive but it's certainly not essential that you read it all. Someone mentioned the analogies being a bit annoying and US-centric. As a Brit, I didn't have a problem with them. They did their job.

This book will make you appreciate just how utterly weird everything really is, and how different the universe is compared to the reality we intuitively experience on a day-to-day basis.

Overall, this is a truly mindblowing guide to current thinking of how everything works, and I highly recommend it for anyone new to the subject matter. Extremely rewarding: any further reading you choose to do on this topic will be that much easier as a result of having read this book.

A good introductory survey of modern Cosmology, 13 Aug 2008
Related to his book The Elegant Universe, a pop-sci account of string theory, this book goes through many fundamental parts of physics and cosmology that lead up to the current day understanding and the quest for the deeper underlying principles that string theory is tackling. It's a little dry in spots, but the handling of the early physics material is very well done and approachable.

Fantastic Guide to Physics for Beginners, 11 Jul 2008
Brian Greene has managed to do the impossible. He has written a guide to physics from Newton to String Theory, that is not only easy to read but is also entertaining. This is what I should have had as my physics textbook in school. Whilst using simple everyday examples and avoiding the dreaded equations, he manages to explain the most complex and even bizzare ideas that physics has so far come up with.

Reading it felt much like opening my eyes to the weird but wonderful universe out there.
A trully excellent book.

Intriguing but fantastical and requires a large pinch of salt, 29 Dec 2008
I would cautiously recommend this book to people interested in the possible ramifications of some of the shocking interpretations of Quantum Theory. There are numerous fascinating ideas and concepts put forward in this book and it certainly provides food for thought. The downside is that the author is a non-scientist and this is abundantly apparent in both his incomplete presentation of the physics underpinning the Holographic Model (including just the bits that do agree with his argument) and also in occasional examples of appallingly bad science presented as either objective fact or plausible hypotheses based on fact. Simple investigation of the sources referenced in this book reveal some really quite dubious supporting evidence for the author's claims and this can break the spell that is easily cast by his highly engaging style of writing.

What is missing from this book is true accuracy with respect to the underlying physics and also perspective of what it does present compared to the alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics and why they have actually accrued more supporters amongst experts. The author dismisses this situation as being symptomatic of the arrogance and ignorance of institionalised science but this is far from the truth - don't forget these are the same people who in the last century have revolutionised the fundamental concepts of space, time, matter and energy. Closed-minded they are emphatically not. It is just a cheap shot from someone who feels they are not being listened to.

Overall I think the book is definitely interesting and worthy, but that the reader should follow-up on some of the author's quoted references and that it should be read in conjunction with other, more scientifically accurate, texts such as Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind", and "Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists" by Ken Wilber. Also Googling "James Randi" might yield valuable counter-points to some of the more extreme supernatural claims made in this book (claims which, ironically, damage the scientific integrity of the Holographic Model and make it even less likely to be investigated further).

Mind-blowing!, 21 Dec 2008
This must be one of the most fascinating, if not the most fascinating book I have ever read, and it is a must-read for anyone who is even remotely curious about who and what we really are or who wants to see spirituality meeting science. The claims that are made are backed up by numerous scientific studies, but it doesn't blow you away with scientific jargon. It's written in an easy-to-read style and the different chapters are split up into subsections, which also helps. Michael Talbot explains what a hologram is and then goes on to argue that the holographic model can be used to explain multiple personality disorders (extraordinary! - if you know nothing about MPD, then you absolutely must read this section), psychokinesis, miracles, the human energy field (or energy bodies), past/present/future existing seemlessly together, near death experiences (NDEs), UFO sightings and much more. Whether you accept the holographic theory or not, just reading the results of the various scientific studies mentioned in the book is fascinating and for me, personally, as a poet and author, it was also inspiring. The idea that everything is interconnected in this holographic universe of ours and is part of the same continuum inspired me, for example, to write a poem called 'My Life' to try and make sense of it ('...all that I see and don't see, hear and don't hear, touch and don't touch, smell and don't smell, taste and don't taste I am - I am the eternal energy of everything...'), whilst the story of the woman in the NDE chapter who said that 'she hadn't danced enough yet', making the being of light she was talking to laugh heartily and enabling her to return to physical life, gave me an idea for a children's story. In short, I found the book riveting and inspirational - jam-packed full of extraordinary scientific fact way more mind-blowing and thrilling than any science fiction I've ever read - and I am now reading it for a second time and will probably read it a third and fourth time as well!

Amazing!, 20 Mar 2008
Your brain is a hologram. The cosmos is a hologram. Your body is a hologram. Your mind is a hologram. Dreams are holograms. The world you perceive around you is a hologram. There is an underlying order to everything from which reality is projected. This implicate order is also known as 'the zero point energy field'. It's like a piece of holographic film on which the universe is printed. Each part contains the whole. This book is a must read for anyone trying to do anything parapsychological, whether it's psychokenisis, remote viewing, spiritual healing, or predicting the future, what you are dealing with is a hologram. As an amature music recording artist, the part I found most interesting was the bit about using holography to create 3-D surround sound through a standard pair of earphones! do an internet search for 'cetera holophony algorithm'. This book has something for everyone in it.

LOVE THIS BOOK, 11 Feb 2008
The book not only provides a perspective of looking at the universe as holographic, but also provides an avalanche of very interesting stories.

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist, and a firm believer that there are no limitations to what we can experience and the changes we can create in our bodies and in our lives, even on genetic level, I wanted to share one of the stories from this book:

"Brocq's disease involves a horribly disfiguring hereditary condition. Victims of Brocq's disease develop a thick, horny covering over their skin that resembles the scales of a reptile. The skin can become so hardened and rigid that even the slightest movement will cause it to crack and bleed.

Brocq's disease was incurable until 1951 when a sixteen-year-old boy with an advanced case of the affliction was referred as a last resort to a hypnotherapist named A.A. Mason at the Queen Victoria Hospital in London. Mason discovered that the boy was a good hypnotic subject and could easily be put into a deep state of trance.

While the boy was in trance, Mason told him that his Brocq's disease was healing and would soon be gone. Five days later the scaly layer covering the boy's left arm fell off, revealing soft, healthy flesh beneath. By the end of tend days the arm was completely normal.

Mason and the boy continued to work on different body areas until all of the scaly skin was gone. The boy remained symptom-free for at least five years, at which point Mason lost touch with him.

This is extraordinary because Brocq's disease is a genetic condition, and getting rid of it involves more than just controlling autonomic processes such as blood flow patterns and various cells of the immune system. It means tapping into the masterplan, the DNA programming itself. So, it would appear that when we access the right strata of our beliefs, our minds can override even our genetic makeup.

Reality as Illusion, 09 Jul 2007
I merely scraped a C grade in GCE O Level Physics but I had hoped that this book would be accessible for the layman interested in the radical implications of quantum theory. However I found "The Holographic Universe" to be a difficult read full of weighty philosophical and scientific theorising and a lot of it didn't make sense to me. The author starts off by proposing the existence of a holographic universe , apparently based on the fact that subatomic particles are actually insubstantial waveforms until they are observed at which stage only then do they become particles. Therefore our consciousness must in some way create what appears to be a solid reality out of nothing. I can accept that argument but I must admit that I found it hard to get my head around the fact that the universe is some kind of interactive 3D photographic projection.Most of "The Holographic Universe" uses this theory to explain away a wide variety of paranormal phenomena from stigmatism to telekinesis , from synchronicities to out of body and near death experiences. The author puts forward an impressive body of evidence to support the existence of these fascinating phenomena but I must admit that I didn't understand how this proved his theory of the holographic nature of the universe. This book would be of interest to those with a broad knowledge of physics and those with a deep knowledge of mystical ,esoteric philosophies, however I found it all to be a bit too obscure and deep to fully comprehend and enjoy. Perhaps someone might get round to writing a dumbed down version of this book to help us all to get enlightened !

Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help non-scientists understand fundamental questions of physics and our existence: where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to deal with these questions (and where we might look for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; the concepts are so vast (or so tiny) that they cause mental vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking for as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God". --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com

Must have!, 31 Dec 2008
I bought a telescope, and after a couple of weeks, it went into a cupboard to gather dust. For the uninitiated, there's an awfull lot of dull stuff in the sky.
Then I was given this for my birthday. Suddenly, it turns out there are a profusion of binary stars that you can see even in a misty urban sky like mine. There are open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and with the help of this book, you can find lots of them, even with a small telescope (and mine was 3 inches).
The book is precise, easy to understand, and gives ratings out of five for each item, so you can select the ones that seem most spectacular. It also gives more detailed stuff for those with bigger and better telescopes. From being a hidden relic, it's transformed my telescope into something I use all the time, and now I want a better one.
Quite simply, it's a must for anyone buying or even contemplating buying a telescope, and if you know someone who's in the situation I was, hopelessly trawling the skies, trust me, it's the perfect gift.
I gave it five out of five, but it's probably worth seven.

Invaluable night sky reference, 13 Nov 2008
I read somewhere that all telescopes should come with this guide and once you start using it you'll realise why. As I have mostly a south-westerly view of the sky I like to make the most of what I have so I turn to 'Turn Left...' and follow the easy diagrams and text to pick out the best of the constellation I am interested in.
The book gives you diagrams of what you'll see in the viewfinder as well as the telescope and although it can be a bit confusing to the novice when you first start you soon get the hang of star hopping and be delighted when you discover the gems above.
In fact having used this book quite often I find myself hopping around without it on my favourite sights. For example the other night I found the ring nebula in Lyra by remembering the steps and estimating the distance between the stars in the constellation. Sure enough it popped into view.

get someone to buy it for you, 28 Apr 2008
if you are interested in imaging, forget it. there is no info on what the variouse targets can look like when photographed, only how to find them. a companion book on how too image and what to use is recomended.

The Novice Stargazer's Bible, 06 Mar 2008
Ask any amateur astronomer what the first book they would recommend to a novice, and the majority will tell you this very book.

Written in a style that is user friendly yet not patronising, it carefully details the highlights of the night sky (by season), giving ratings for each target. All the information on how to find that elusive nebula or galaxy etc is here, along with realistic sketched views through the scope (and finderscope) from a 'normal' viewing site.

Rather than showing each target as a HST or large observatory scope photograph, leading to frustration from the novice, this book is refreshingly honest at what the back garden stargazer will see.

Along with the catalogue of targets (with excellent descriptions of what you are looking at), there is plenty of information on how to set up scopes, what equipment to use and other general advice needed for the novice/amateur astronomer.

I've yet to see a book that covers amateur observations so well.



All that the novice needs, 22 Nov 2006
Put simply, if a novice astronomer with ANY size of telescope buys only one book to assist them, then this should be it (or at least the most recent version of it should be). I'm actually a fairly experienced amateur astronomer with an appalling inability to navigate my way round the skies - at least I did have until I had this book bought for me. Broken down into seasonal sections with indications of the right conditions to go looking for particular objects, I can't think of anything that could make the task easier (short of someone actually finding the objects for you!). It is such a good book I can forgive it a few typos and some lapses of English grammar.

My advice - buy this book!

Excellent Reading, 18 Sep 2008
As soon as I saw this book and read the reviews I had to buy it, On receiving the book you can tell immediately a lot of hard work and thought has gone into it, the book itself is beautifully put together the front cover has a striking hologram on the front, it's a well executed graphical representation of the Big Bang and is a really nice bonus.

I liked how the book puts forward fairly complicated astronomy and science in an easy and enjoyable way, without the feeling you're being spoken down to.

The book is ideal for a younger audience too as it's layout is striking while at the same time being useful and intuitive, there seems to be a very good reason for everything in this book. The science, the layout, the graphics and the stunning illustrations are all top class.

five stars, 29 Nov 2007
this book is basically a history of the universe, starting from the planck time-length through to 13,700,000,000 years later and the present day, which is where the speed of light limits its scope.

it's told in language that is easy to understand, although it does skim over the details a little (i'm actually quite interested in the maths of molecule-making), and all-in-all is a thoroughly fascinating read.

the pictures, photos and diagrams are highly informative and gorgeous to look at. i can't imagine what the up-to-date version of this book has to offer, but the first published one i bought was great.

An entertaining outline, 10 Jan 2007
On first reading this book it appears to be a fairly exhaustive account of the Universe from the big bang, through the present day and on to the ultimate end of the Universe. Consider it a little further however and you realise it is only scratching the surface of what is known or believed about the origins and ultimate destiny of the Universe. I found the treatment of Hawking radiation, for example, cursory to say the least, and caused me to ask obvious questions not dealt with in the text.

This isn't a bad thing, however. It is an accessible summary that completely avoids the use of mathematics. It provides sufficient detail to capture one's interest and provides a solid foundation from which you can begin to consider the more obscure details.

Starmaking Machinery, 31 Dec 2006
It has taken 13.7 billion years, but the Universe has finally produced a coffee-table quality book to commemorate the Big Bang and its consequences. _Bang! The Complete History of the Universe_ (Carlton Books) by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott is not massive, as coffee-table books go, but its big format is perfect for the dramatic sorts of pictures that the Hubble Space Telescope or the larger Earth-bound telescopes can give us. It isn't just pictures, however. The text does an exemplary job of covering a huge amount of information. Necessarily, in 190 pages laid over with photos, details are skipped; on one page are both the disaster of the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago and the Cretaceous Extinction (wiping out the dinosaurs) 65 million years ago. There is the most detail in the earliest pages of the book, dealing with the events before around 700 million years ago, when there started to be discrete objects like galaxies that we could have actually seen, had we been there at that time. (In a sense, we do see them at that time, as the Hubble's lovely deep field images can show.) This is also the part of the book that makes the least sense to those of us who are stuck in a Newtonian world. There are books with fuller explanations of the strangeness of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, but none quite so much fun.

For fun is obviously part of the trip the three authors have taken, and it starts right on the cover, which above the book's title shows a huge, glowing, fragmented fireball, obviously the Big Bang in progress. "Our cover artwork is for fun only. There is no suggestion that any part of the Big Bang ever looked like this." Not only that, but it could never have been seen at such a distance, because there was no such distance; space did not exist except within that Bang. There are still gaps in our understanding of the Big Bang and how it produced all we are and all we see. "We must remember that it is impossible to prove a theory, and all one can hope to do is ensure it is consistent with all the available evidence." The evidence isn't all in, and they remind us, "...we would be amazed if in a few years time our book would not need to be substantially re-written." Given all the confirmatory data, it is hard to imagine that the big picture given here would be in err