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400 Years Of The Telescope: A Journey Of Science, Technology And Thought by Donald Goldsmith
greeniezona's review
3.0
Okay, well, first of all, let's be totally honest about how I ended up with this book. One day I was getting ready to go out to lunch solo and realized there was no book in my purse. So I went upstairs to check the Science Store for reading material. Well, 98% of the books are aimed at kids, and of the "grown-up" choices, there was a small stack of these (as opposed to just one or two of the others), so I decided to even out the inventory and bought this.
I suppose that it was interesting enough, as I finished it, but it was frightfully dry in places, would have benefited immeasurably by including a few illustrations, and I remain at a loss to understand the logic behind the placement of all (or any) of the sidebars. I do understand that this was "only" the companion book to a PBS program. Perhaps the author believed only those who had seen/were seeing the program would read the book? But as someone who took an optics class fourteen years ago, I was constantly yearning for ray diagrams to show how all the different lenses and lens arrangements actually worked. Not to mention in the more complicated reflector telescopes with compound mirrors and active optics systems... They could have ditched all those stupid sidebars and replaced them with a dozen illustrations and my enjoyment of this book would have doubled.
I did find it interested to learn about all the different types of telescopes and what they are all studying. Then again, I have a degree in physics and friends actively working in astronomy. (And I've visited at least two of the telescopes in this book!) So I would hesitate before recommending this book to anyone else, unless they had a similar level of interest. I hate to say it, but I don't see us selling out of this book anytime soon.
I suppose that it was interesting enough, as I finished it, but it was frightfully dry in places, would have benefited immeasurably by including a few illustrations, and I remain at a loss to understand the logic behind the placement of all (or any) of the sidebars. I do understand that this was "only" the companion book to a PBS program. Perhaps the author believed only those who had seen/were seeing the program would read the book? But as someone who took an optics class fourteen years ago, I was constantly yearning for ray diagrams to show how all the different lenses and lens arrangements actually worked. Not to mention in the more complicated reflector telescopes with compound mirrors and active optics systems... They could have ditched all those stupid sidebars and replaced them with a dozen illustrations and my enjoyment of this book would have doubled.
I did find it interested to learn about all the different types of telescopes and what they are all studying. Then again, I have a degree in physics and friends actively working in astronomy. (And I've visited at least two of the telescopes in this book!) So I would hesitate before recommending this book to anyone else, unless they had a similar level of interest. I hate to say it, but I don't see us selling out of this book anytime soon.
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