Discovering The Cosmos

"Astronomy is a big subject, spanning the multi-billion light-year extent of the cosmos, and the entirety of human history. It’s no easy task to encapsulate all this in a single text. The new edition of Bob Bless’s book provides the best all-around treatment of the subject that I’ve found at the undergraduate level, including a thorough yet concise survey of astronomy’s rich history, as well as rigorous but accessible explanations of diverse astrophysical phenomena. It’s an admirable achievement." -John Blakeslee, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory "This new edition of Discovering the Cosmos by R.C. Bless is the best liberal arts introduction to astronomy available. Its emphasis is on understanding rather than memorizing the science. Bless includes a generous historical account in his text. And despite the limited use of explicit mathematics, this book provides excellent coverage of the science. The problem sets, observation projects, and references are excellent. Discovering the Cosmos has been my favorite introductory astronomy text since the first edition hit the market." -Richard Hilt, Colorado College Based on the very popular liberal arts course Bob Bless has taught at University of Wisconsin for many years, this book provides a rich, historical approach to introductory astronomy. It is ideal for use in an introductory astronomy course for non-majors covering stars and galaxies. This book aims to give an overview of astronomy, but in such a way that the non-science major can get a feeling for how science actually developed-with its false starts and wrong turns-and how observational evidence eventually corrected those false starts. The new edition also describes many remarkable recent developments in our understanding of the physical universe.