Physical Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy (Series of Books in Astronomy)

Rating:
Summary: The basis for introductory astrophysics textbooks
Review: I have owned The Physical Universe for 10 years. While the book is out of date in many ways, it still serves as an excellent overview of many of the basic concepts that astronomers need to learn at the undergraduate level.

The book starts with a basic introduction to physical concepts such as dynamics, thermodynamics, and relativity, then proceeds to overview many of the fundamental concepts about stars, the interstellar medium, galaxies, cosmology, planets, and life in that order. At some times, the book's organization seems a bit eccentric, especially with the last chapters, which stray away from astronomy too much to be used in an astronomy undergraduate class. The book was written so that it could be used with students at various educational levels, so the book uses both written descriptions and mathematics to explain various astronomical concepts. Unfortunately, students without a strong background in mathematics will not benefit from the book as much. The problems, distributed throughout the text of the chapters, are very good at walking students through deriving mathematical equations; I myself consider problem sets I wrote for these problems to be reference material that is as important as the text itself.

The Physical Universe is good for understanding many of the basic concepts of astronomy. I still use this book to look up simple equations, such as magnitude and redshift equations. Nonetheless, the book is out of date. Important new science, especially many space-based observations by IRAS, Hubble, Chandra, ROSAT, and COBE, are missing. New fields of study, such as extrasolar planets, deep-field cosmology, and ultraluminous and luminous infrared galaxies, are unmentioned. The eccentric structure of this book also makes it a bit odd to learn out of or to find information in. Nonetheless, the book is a standard textbook in undergraduate astronomy education, and the structure and material in other books often follows the structure Shu has laid out in this book. I therefore rate this book highly for astronomy undergraduate students (as well as for astronomy graduate students and professionals), but I also recommend considering alternative introductory textbooks as well.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Text
Review: I have this book for 2 years now and it's worth every dollar. I'm an undergrad in theoretical physics and applied mathematics, but astronomy and cosmology are part of my program. This book has really been useful in my studies. It is very easy to use with eloquent philosophical remarks and examples that range from easy to difficult. I recommend this book to anyone starting out in astronomy or astrophysics as it will definitely assist you and allow you to understand the points from their foundation.

Rating:
Summary: The basis for introductory astrophysics textbooks
Review: This is a great book for anyone interested in astronomy. It is fine for anyone who is knew to astronomy, although you would be better off with some background in it first. For people who know more about astronomy, it has optional calculus problems, so it covers people with any level of knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This is a great book for anyone interested in astronomy. It is fine for anyone who is knew to astronomy, although you would be better off with some background in it first. For people who know more about astronomy, it has optional calculus problems, so it covers people with any level of knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: A classic astronomy and astrophysics textbook
Review: This was a superb textbook when it appeared over twenty years ago. It begins with some introductory material about microscopic and macroscopic laws of physics. After that, we learn about stars and their evolution. And binary stars. Next are galaxies and galactic clusters. And cosmology and the hot big bang. Then our planetary system. And we finish with life and intelligence in the universe.

I read this book when it first came out and truly enjoyed it. But I do want to warn folks that it is getting a little out-of-date and definitely needs a new edition. In the past twenty years, we have made plenty of new discoveries. Topics such as dark energy, the accelerating expansion of the universe, cosmic microwave background anisotropies, gamma-ray bursters and soft gamma repeaters, supernova 1987A, ultraluminous infrared galaxies, extrasolar planets and planetary migration, the Big Splat theory of the origin of the Moon, and inflationary models of the big bang are too new to be in this book. Plenty of work on formation of galaxies is too new as well. Descriptions of and recent results from deep space probes and telescopes are not included. That leaves us with much less to discuss about Uranus or Neptune, not to mention recent in situ observations of Mars or questions about water under the icy surface of Europa. And even topics such as artificial intelligence are discussed without the benefit of the past twenty years of perspective.

I still recommend the book. But I wouldn't be able to teach a class on astronomy or astrophysics from this text without supplementing it with a substantial amount of extra material.

Rating:
Summary: I just revisited this book after 10 years ...
Review: This was my text for an astronomy class for non-science majors that required the use of algebra but not calculus, the latter of which I had forgotten in the 3 years between my last math class and this one. Due to a rekindled interest in astronomy, I'm now revisiting the book and am struck by Dr. Shu's fine writing and the way the text can be used by those who are comfortable with advanced mathematics (yes, there are problems featuring calculus for those so equipped) as well as the nonmathematical reader or student. Beginning with the building blocks of physics, it is a fine reference for those who want to explore the theoretical side of astronomy.

My one quarrel with the book is that it doesn't include or offer a solutions manual for the problems. An explanation of how the problems are done would greatly add to its value.

Rating:
Summary: A good textbook
Review: To the publisher I would appreciate it if the publisher could produce an audio adaptation of this book. I would love to listen to this while I drive to work and to let my 16 month old son listen to it as a bedtime story. Arnold D Veness

Rating:
Summary: Shu's Lectures on Astrophysics
Review: Yes, I nicknamed that book like the well-known The Feynman Lectures on Physics. With regard to Feynman, I have no doubt that if Richard Feynman himself is to write a book and give lectures on Astrophysics, he will end up wrote a book similar to this book.

I am a graduate physics student working in experimental high energy physics, but I have always found myself curious about astrophysics. Back in my home country, the literature on astronomy is so rare that I only can manage to borrow and read an old edition of Abell's Exploration of the Universe. It was a good book, but I need more physics to cater my curiosity in astrophysics.

I've heard about this book quite some time, but not until I arrived in USA that I can buy this book through Amazon and start to read it. With my background in graduate level physics, this book is quite an easy read for me.

The book was written with multiple audience in mind: humanities and liberal arts majors who are interested in astrophysics but don't want to use too much mathematics; freshman students with great curiosity but not much mathematical skills; biology, life-science, and pre-med students with interest in astrobiology and the origin of life; general science and engineering students with strong math and physics background but have no intention to have a career in science; and ultimately to those thoughtful, astronomers-astrophysicist-physicist-wanna-be students. Perhaps those are exactly the same kind of audience Shu ever has in Berkeley: Berkeley is famous for diversity.

The book is self-contained, in the sense that (almost) all the necessary scientific concepts and backgrounds are explained: mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, microbiology, genetics, even there are some discussions in supersymmetry and grand unification. There are some parts and problems that requires calculus and advanced undergraduate physics but the reader doesn't have to read those part to understand the results. I was lucky to have all the necessary physics to fully understand the book, but this should not stop laymen and common people to read this book.

The book is divided into four parts.

Part I (Chapter 1-4). Basic Principles.

This part explains the origin and history of astronomy and astrophysics, and the basic physical principles behind astrophysics: mechanics, relativity, optics, telescopes, quantum mechanics, atomic theory, and thermodynamics.

Part II (Chapter 5 - 10). Stars.

This part discuss stars as a basic constituents of our universe. Starting with the Sun as an example, the book goes with the energy generations and physical mechanism behind stars, birth, life, and death of stars, star classifications, stellar clusters, and binary stars.

Part III (Chapter 11 - 16). Galaxies and Cosmology.

This part starts with discussing materials between stars in our Galaxy, then our own Galaxy the Milky Way, further galaxies outside Milky Way, an introduction to Einstein's concepts of gravitation, cosmology, and ends with the Big Bang theory as the current Standard Model of Cosmology.

Part IV (Chapter 17 - 20). The Solar System and Life.

This part discuss the Solar System and the Planets, origins of the Solar System, and finally: the origin of life on Earth, and later the Life and Intelligence in our Universe. In my opinion, not much astronomy/astrophysics book discuss this subject, and in this sense this book make itself clearly stands out among the other.

Although it's 20 years now after the original publication, about 90% of the material are still relevant and interesting.
I personally suggest that Shu take a thorough revision and include some latest results on astrophysics in his book:
the dark energy and cosmic expansion, cosmic microwave background anisotropy, quark stars, extrasolar planets, large extra-dimensional particle theory, genetic engineering etc.
This would certainly bring the book back up-to-date for the 21st century.

I, without doubt, heartily recommend this book for all of you who are interested in astronomy and astrophysics, whatever background you have. A special recommendation is for physics student who wants to do astronomy in grad school but never take any astronomy/astrophysics courses. By buying, reading, and studying this book alone, combined with a mastery of upper-level undergraduate physics (analytical mechanics, thermodynamics & stat phys, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and math methods), I believe you will be ready for your grad-level astrophysics courses and even may have some advantages due to your physics background.