The Physics of Stars (Manchester Physics Series)

Rating:
Summary: Clear and Concise presentation
Review: This book is one of the set texts for the Third Level Open University course, "The Energetic Universe" and provides a good introduction to the subject of Astrophysics.

Drawing upon a number of basic principles within Physics, such as heat transfer, the fundamental properties of matter, radiation physics, thermonuclear reactions, and nucleosynthesis, the author applies them to explain the birth, evolution and death of stars.

What I like about this book is that the emphasis is on the basic physical principles, bringing them together by means of well explained and simple theoretical models, and then applying them to the high energy systems of stellar structure. The Maths is kept to the necessary minimum, and several "rough" calculations are given to show the relevance of the models to observation.

The problems at the end of the chapters together with hints help to underpin the physical concepts covered. There is at the end of the book also a useful bibliography of other relevant reading.