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| Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution | 
| Authors: Neil Degrasse Tyson, Donald Goldsmith
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.92
You Save: $7.03 (39%)
New (32) from $10.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 135200
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0393327582
Dewey Decimal Number: 523.1
EAN: 9780393327588
ASIN: 0393327582
Publication Date: October 24, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: No remainder marks; shelfwear.;
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 24 | | NEXT » |
Interesting but Simple June 23, 2008
I purchased this book to have something to read on an airplane ride to Europe. I had already read and enjoyed Death By Black Hole so I figured I would give this a try.
I'm a physics grad student and have an interest in cosmology, but have only taken freshmen level Astronomy courses. That said, I found myself somewhat too informed beforehand to properly enjoy reading this book. It is clearly written to appeal more to a mass audience with little to no knowledge on the subject.
The writing style, as noted in many of the reviews, is fairly simple, at times bordering on silly with its painful attempts at "science humor". This made it somewhat difficult to enjoy the book, as I found that I already knew much of what Tyson was saying, if not more.
People looking for an introductory, easy to read survey on the subject of cosmology will like this book. Those of you with any knowledge on the subject, no matter how basic it might be, would probably be better off reading Death By Black Hole (that book being a compilation of Tyson's articles written for a slightly more scientific audience). Anyone looking for an even more substantial popular science book could try Elegant Universe by Greene, although I admit that book was too abstract for me at times.
 Good Overview August 23, 2007
This is the best summary of our cosmic history, written for the intelligent laymen. Dr. Tyson is a master at bringing things down to a intellectually respectable level without resorting to baby talk.
Origins Review July 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Highly recommend. Prof. Tyson is good teacher, and despite his position and impressive curriculum vitae, personally responded to some questions that arose from reading the book. Inspirational topic and author.
A science masterpiece! Breaks new ground in presentation of material. May 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Here it is about 10 years since Carl Sagan passed away, and we are now being treated to works by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I believe that Tyson can be mentioned in the same breathe as Sagan without suffering by the comparison.
If you are a science fan, you owe it to yourself to read this one. There is an economy, style and comprehensiveness here that appear flawless. The Hundred Greatest Stars Reading the Mind of God Cosmos Horizons: Exploring the Universe (with TheSky CD-ROM, AceAstronomy?, and Virtual Astronomy Labs)
How it all began April 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Imagine a time in the future when space travel is perfected: you can zip between the stars in a day, rather than the millennia it would currently take. You decide to go on a "road" trip and tour the Milky Way. Even with super fast travel, if you visited only one star per day, it would still take you millions of years to complete your tour. And that's just the Milky Way; if you wanted to see the whole universe, a trillion years wouldn't be enough. The universe is that big and has that much stuff in it; more stunning is that all the stars and planets take up only a very small fraction of the total space. The cosmos is an awesome place and Origins by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith discusses how it all began and what our place is in this vastness.
Logically enough, the book pretty much starts at the beginning, namely at the Big Bang. Actually, it starts slightly later, when the universe was 10 to the minus 43 seconds old; before that, things are shrouded in mystery. From there, we see how the universe evolved, from a haze of pure energy and subatomic particles to one where matter, well...mattered. We then read of the formation of galaxies, then of stars and planets, and finally of life itself.
Are all the answers known? No, of course not, but certain theories have been dismantled (such as the steady state theory of the origin of the universe), others are still sketchy (like how the Earth and other planets formed and a few are really speculative (like how much intelligent life there is beyond the Earth). Somehow, though, the fact that there are still mysteries out there is more pleasantly tantalizing than frustrating.
There can be alternate explanations involving supernatural entities which may provide simpler answers but are not really theories as they cannot pass scientific scrutiny. Tyson and Goldsmith touch on these alternatives, but mainly just on their inadequacy from a scientific standpoint. That is to say, if you believe in "creation science", this is probably not the book for you.
If you have read a lot about astronomy and cosmology already, such as Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, then Origins will not offer much that you don't already know. This book is designed more for the layperson whose knowledge of these fields is more limited. On the other hand, the authors write with a lot of wit and clarity, so even if you know most of the information within, it is presented in a refreshing enough manner to still make it worth your while.
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