An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics

This book is incredibly ambitious. It strives to teach you just about the entirety of Modern Astrophysics in one comprehensive text. Any further pursuits would simply be delving into more detail of one of the topics covered. Therefore, it's the ideal reference book for anyone interested in the subject. After surveying what's currently available and what's being used by professors, it's widely agreed to be the proper text to prepare you for a graduate pursuit of the subject. For those reasons, I picked it up because I wanted the best book to teach myself Astrophysics. With a decent background in physics, and mathematical competency in the Calc III/DE area, I was able to follow along very well, and completed the book in about 4 months (but skipped many of the problems). As a whole the book is supreme in content, organization, clarity, and level of detail considering the range of information it covers. My only complaint throughout (and primarily because I was studying it on my own) is that there are no solutions provided or available to the general public. Nevertheless, the problems are challenging and fun to think about. As you go through them and the chapters, Carroll & Ostlie will bring you to the brink of what's known in the areas being described, will be clear about what's still being dealt with in the field, and will leave you wanting to look into each of the current unresolved issues at a deeper level. Because of these reasons, Introduction to Modern Astrophysics 2nd ed. achieved what I've only encountered once before in regards to a text of such astronomical proportions (the other being Molecular Biology of the Cell 4th ed.), that even after 1200+ pages, it left me wanting much, much more.

Any instructor who has used the first edition of this book can attest to its fine quality of presentation and its didactic power. The second edition continues this tradition, and in addition offers more material that reflects the many discoveries and developments in astrophysics that have taken place since the first edition. The observational tools in astronomy have become even more refined over the years since the first edition along with computing power, and these two facts combined with a robust community of theoreticians have pushed the limits of astrophysical knowledge. This book is of course a sizable one, and this reviewer did not read it in its entirety, but instead focused on those sections that addressed the new developments since the first edition. One of the interesting topics that are discussed in the book whose explanation was not found in the first edition is that of gamma ray bursts. After a brief historical discussion of their first detection, the authors address the question as to the origin of the bursts, i.e. whether galactic or extragalactic. They perform some rudimentary calculations that show how energetic the bursts must be if they were located in the solar system or from a distant galaxy. Early thinking on the cause of gamma ray bursts associated them with neutron stars, but the authors explain the problems with this explanation, and most interestingly, give arguments that support the assertion that there is an edge to the distribution of the gamma sources. Clever observational techniques resulted in the conclusion that gamma ray bursts are extragalactic. The `collapsar' and `supranova' models of gamma ray bursts are discussed, but the discussion is way too brief for those who want the in-depth details of these models. However the authors give up-to-date references for readers who want to dig deeper. From a perusal of these references it is apparent that the supranova model has gained the most popularity at the present time, even though some of the observations cannot as yet be reconciled with this model. Another topic of great current interest is that of dark matter, which is discussed in the last chapter of the book, and which the authors describe as one of the most important theoretical issues in cosmological astrophysics. This discussion is also short, but references are given, and its inclusion since the first edition reflects the theoretical interest. The paucity of experimental evidence for the candidates of dark matter has stymied theoretical developments, with most of the effort devoted to putting bounds on the candidates, such as axions and weakly interacting massive particles. No doubt this book will continue to be used in the classroom in years to come, and new discoveries will be included in future editions. With the CERN collider coming on line in the next few years, everyone interested will see the interplay between high-energy physics and astrophysics. The collider will give the theoretical astrophys

The number of books suitable for undergraduate courses in Astrophysics is not great. But of them all, this, called BOB (Big Orange Book) is the best. This new second edition, badly needed since the first edition is now ten years old. In these ten years, there seems to have been just about as much discovered as in the centuries before. To list just a few: extrasolar planets, objects bigger than Pluto but further out (but the book was finished before the IAU decided to downgrade Pluto from being a planet), Spirit and Opportunity have been roving on Mars, discoveries like the universe is not slowing down but, rather, is actually accelerating, Dark energy wasn't even imagined at that time (and isn't easy to imagine now). The book is aimed at the advanced undergraduate level after the student has had several previous physics classes and mathematics through differential equasions. The one problem most often reported about BOB is its size, 1400 pages. This allows for a series of different courses to be taught using the same book by selecting appropriate chapters. Alternatively a full year course can be taught to cover most of the book.

There are very few comprehensive astrophysics text books at the junior/senior level. In trying to find a book which surveys most of the field I found only three possibilities. Two were good (Astrophysical Concepts by Harwitt and Astrophysics by Bowers and Deeming) but this one is EXCELLENT. The level of presentation is mathematically accessible to advanced undergrads in physics, math, comp sci, and engineering while the underlying physics is reviewed before it is applied. The exercises are interesting and complete and include several nice computer based problems in each chapter.For a one semester survey class the size and scope of this book will induce heart attacks in your students but the organization and clear layout of the text allows the instructor to select a set of topics which (a) cover a wide range of astrophysical ideas and (b) don't depend strongly on the omitted material.Highly recommended.

The book is a comprehensive book which guides you to the every corner of modern astrophysics.From Kepler's Law to Relativity, from the geocentric model to modern cosmology, this book gives very clear descriptions of every aspect that you might be interested in.The mathematical equations and formulaes are clear and tidy, wordings are simple enough to understand.Therefore, not only if you are to take an astrophysics course at university, even if you just a high-school student or an amateur who is interested in knowing more about our universe, well, maybe in an mathematical way, this is a book for you.