From AudioFile
[Editor's Note: The following is a combined review with THE MIND'S SKY.]--Scientifically oriented minds will rejoice at having more high-quality thinking available on audio. Since the author is speaking, he uses the opportunity to bring home his points with personal emphasis. Being a professor at UCLA, editor of ROLLING STONE, and a frequent contributor to THE NEW YORKER gives the author/reader eclectic credentials. He has done his research well and synthesized the stodgy facts into a palatable and digestible format. Synthesizer music occasionally fades in and out to separate chapters, possibly a pernicious Rolling Stones melody. The presentation is pleasantly academic without alienating listeners who are not scientists. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. The Red Limit is the tale of this discovery, its ramifications, and the passionately competitive astronomers who charted the past, present, and future of the cosmos.


Book Info
For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. Softcover.


About the Author
Timothy Ferris, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee, is the author of nine books, including The Whole Shebang, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and The Mind's Sky. He is currently professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Acclaimed by Carl Sagan as "a new style of science book - an extremely rich and ably presented discussion of the universe as a whole," The Red Limit tells the story of how the expansion of the universe was discovered by a band of scientists whose rivalries and emotions played as important a role as their intellectual brilliance.

The discovery of galaxies, quasars, and the "edge of the universe," is here recounted with clarity, simplicity, and stylistic elegance that has inspired critics to hail Timothy Ferris as "the greatest science writer in the world."

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile