Book Information Page

As James Van Allen writes in his foreword to this book, astronomy permeates our culture. Of all the sciences, astronomy is the one that generates the most public interest. There are hundreds of thousands of amateur astronomers, two monthly astronomy magazines with healthy circulations, and television specials about important astronomical discoveries. The Pathfinder landing on Mars in July 1997 got headline coverage in newspapers and was featured on newscasts. The Pathfinder web site received 40 million hits in a single day. Part of the public interest in astronomy is due to the dramatic scope of the science. Part, I am sure, is because non-professionals can not only understand astronomical discoveries, but also make some of those discoveries. Amateur astronomers regularly carry out important astronomical observations, often with telescopes they have made themselves. A recent example was David Levy’s co-discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

I wrote this book as a text for an introductory course in astronomy for college students. I have taught such courses for more than 25 years at the University of Iowa. One of my main goals in those courses, and one of my main goals in this book, is to provide my students with a broad enough, deep enough background in astronomy that they will be able to follow current developments years after they finish my course. This book is current with regard to recent developments, such as the discoveries made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the results from Pathfinder and Galileo. But I want my students to continue to learn about astronomy long after these developments have been followed by newer, even more exciting, ones. I hope that years from now my students, and the readers of this book, will be able to read and understand astronomy articles in Scientific American and watch television specials with confidence that they know what is going on. I can guarantee that future astronomical discoveries will occur at least as often as they do today, and I want my students to be prepared to enjoy future discoveries.

This book, like my course, presumes that most of its readers are not science majors and that they probably have not had a college-level science or mathematics course. the book provides a complete description of current astronomical knowledge, neither at an extremely technical level nor at a level that fails to communicate the quantitative nature of physical science. I have used equations where they are relevant but follow the equations with boxes containing one or more worked examples. the examples in the boxes show how and when to use each equation and tell why the equation is important. The reader’s mastery of the equations can be tested by the Problems at the end of each chapter. The Problems require numerical calculations, whereas the Conceptual Questions require qualitative verbal answers, and the Figure-Based Questions require the reader to extract the answer from a particular graph or figure in the chapter.

Throughout the book I have emphasized the historical development of astronomy to show that astronomy, like other sciences, advances through the efforts of many scientists and to show how our present ideas developed. Every chapter begins with an introduction designed to give the historical and scientific setting for the chapter material. In the main body of the text there are many comparisons of what was once known about a particular phenomenon to what we now know about it. These historical comparisons are used to illustrate the cycle of observation, hypothesis, and further observation, which is the essence of the scientific method of discovery.

I hope that all the explanations and descriptions in the book won’t obscure the awe and sense of wonder that all astronomers feel when they pause in their work and think about the beauty of the universe. People have felt that awe since prehistory and our wonderment has increased as we understand more about the order and underlying structure of the universe. If this book helps its readers to value both the sheer beauty of planets, stars, and galaxies and the equally beautiful principles that organize the universe, it will be a success.

I would be grateful for any suggestions and advice for improving this book. If you have any ideas to offer, please contact me at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 or by e-mail at john-fix@uiowa.edu.

Instructional Supplements

The second edition of Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier has a new set of ancillary material. They include the following:

For Students

Free INTERACTIVE CD-ROM This hybrid CD-ROM will include: chapter summaries, chapter opening questions, chapter specific animations and simulations, chapter-based quizzes, links to chapter-based internet resources, end-of-chapter conceptual questions and problems, and planetarium software.

For Instructors

Instructor’s Manual by John Fix. This print manual is a rich compilation of teaching ideas and resources. It includes chapter outlines, goals and strategies, listings of outstanding transparency acetates, key terms, the answers to all end-of-chapter questions and problems, and additional multiple choice questions by chapter with answers. Also included are sample syllabi for one- and two-semester courses and recommendations for video lecture demonstrations and additional readings.

MICROTEST COMPUTERIZED TESTING SYSTEM This state-of-the-art test generation software is available for PC (DOS and Windows) and Macintosh. Microtest offers an impressive array of features, including a two-track design (Easytest for the novice and Fulltest for the expert); full editing capabilities; ability to import text and graphics from conventional word processors and graphics programs; test generation by review, question number, criteria, or formula; support for special symbols and characters; support for over 700 printers; and full mouse support.

THE WCB/MCGRAW-HILL ASTRONOMY TRANSPARENCY COLLECTION to accompany journey to the cosmic frontier This collection contains 200 overhead transparencies of conceptually based artwork. The enlarged reproductions contain figures from Astronomy: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier as well as other sources. A detailed guide arranged by topic accompanies the collection.

VISUAL RESOURCE LIBRARY The VRL is a Kudo catalog of images that can be used to create in classroom presentations as well as a PowerPoint presentation that includes art from each chapter. This is provided in a format that instructors can use to create their own presentation materials if they so choose. There are 200 images taken from the text which make up this library.

Web site: auth.mhhe.com/fix. This text specific web site is designed to benefit both instructors and students. This site will include updated imagery from the world’s best telescopes, explorations, and observatories as they become available. These images, plus additional www resources, will be organized around the chapters and themes of the text. Additionally, we have on-line quizzing for each chapter. The address is: http://auth.mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/fix/quizindex.mhtml.