Product Description

Bridging the gap between physics and astronomy textbooks, this book provides step-by-step physical and mathematical development of fundamental astrophysical processes underlying a wide range of phenomena in stellar, galactic, and extragalactic astronomy. The book has been written for upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students, and its strong pedagogy ensures solid mastery of each process and application. It contains over 150 tutorial figures, numerous examples of astronomical measurements, and 201 exercises. Topics covered include the Kepler–Newton problem, stellar structure, binary evolution, radiation processes, special relativity in astronomy, radio propagation in the interstellar medium, and gravitational lensing. Applications presented include Jeans length, Eddington luminosity, the cooling of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect, Doppler boosting in jets, and determinations of the Hubble constant. This text is a stepping stone to more specialized books and primary literature. Password-protected solutions to the exercises are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9780521846561.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #546552 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 536 pages

Review
'The author’s engaging writing style makes this a very enjoyable book. Each topic starts with interesting observational material, then goes to a discussion of the physical concepts, amplified by mathematics, and very good figures, and then ties it up by finishing with more observational applications, either solving the problem posed at the beginning of the chapter or presenting new ones. This is a perfect book for seniors.' Marc L. Kutner, author of Astronomy: A Physical Perspective

'A lucid introduction to a selection of basic topics in astronomy, explaining the physics behind the astrophysics. Radiative processes are treated with just the right level of rigor that students learn how to carry out useful computations while developing their physical intuition. I have successfully used portions of this book for my first-year graduate class.' Eugene Chiang, Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley

'This excellent book takes 12 areas of astrophysics, starting with Newton and Kepler and ending with gravitational lensing and sets out the underlying physics in clear fashion. … Highly recommended.' Guy Pooley, The Observatory

Review of Astronomy Methods, also by Hale Bradt: '… a brilliant addition to the pedagogy. It is timely, focused, well written, and at the appropriate level … Astronomy Methods will be useful to all students of astronomy and astrophysics, irrespective of whether they intend to specialize in observational astronomy. The material can be adapted easily for various related courses, which makes the book even more valuable.' Physics Today

About the Author
Hale Bradt is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his forty years on the faculty, he carried out research in cosmic ray physics and X-ray astronomy and taught courses in physics and astrophysics. Bradt founded the MIT sounding rocket program in x-ray astronomy, and was a senior or principal investigator on three missions for x-ray astronomy. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Science Medal for his contributions to HEAO-1 (High Energy Astronomical Observatory), the 1990 Buechner Teaching Prize of the MIT Physics Department, and shared the 1999 Bruno Rossi prize of the American Astronomical Society for his contributions to the RXTE (Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer) program. His previous book, Astronomy Methods: A Physical Approach to Astronomical Observations, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2004.

Customer Reviews

Higly recommended!
I would recommend this book.
The text is very clear and complete. Picture and tables are very useful for understanding texts. very nice photographs. Some recent tasks are presented in a very clear way (variable stars thermodynamics, cosmic microwave background, compact objects, ecc...)
Recommended! I am now buying the previous one.

gem
This book goes together with Hale Bradt's previous, and the pair make for an indispensible reference set for interested scientists and engineers (like myself). Set aside a lot of time though, these are DENSE comprehensive books, and I am not even mentioning the exercises. Honestly I have not read everything, it is not exactly bedtime reading plus I am not professionnally involved in astronomy, but I like the subject and I must say this guy knows his stuff, he can write, and he provides a new angle in the cornucopia of astronomy/astrophysics books I have seen (many of them from Cambridge University Press). Recommended !