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Paul Kilfoil's World of Sport, Travel & Trivia
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| Science and Astronomy |
17 August 2009 |
Astronomy (and physics, to a slightly lesser extent) has been an interest of mine since I was 10 years old. I am a member of the Southern Peninsula Astronomy Club (SPARC), which was founded in November 2004 by Wolfgang Lange. The club meets once a month in Fish Hoek (a suburb of Cape Town in South Africa) ; contact me if you'd like to join the club or attend one of our meetings.
I've given talks on the following subjects at the Southern Peninsula Astronomy Club:
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| The Life Cycle of Stars | 28 April 2005 |
| Lesser Objects of the Solar System | 27 October 2005 |
| Relativity Demystified | 24 May 2006 |
| The Astronomical Magnitude Scale | 28 February 2007 |
| Black Holes | 26 April 2007 |
| The Big Bang | 31 January 2008 |
| Classifications of Stars | 30 April 2009 |
Want to find out more?
NASA's Spirit rover landed on Mars in 2004.
Follow the Cassini spacecraft as it orbits Saturn.
See the results of the Galileo mission to Jupiter.
There are various lunar spacecraft operating.
What's the latest on the 2001 Mars Odyssey ?
Future missions to Mars are being planned.
Old faithfuls Pioneer and Voyager just keep on going.
What future space missions are being planned ?
Want to know about Planets outside our Solar System (exo-planets) ?
Other links :
- The Nine Planets (a superb site)
- NASA
- NASA's Space Science site
- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
- Space.com
- Space Daily
- Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site
- Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers site
- National Science Foundation (in the USA)
- World Year of Physics 2005
- SA Astronomical Observatory (Sutherland)
- Astronomy Online (a private site)
Astronomy Magazines :
- Astronomy Magazine (from USA)
- Astronomy Now Magazine (from UK)
- Sky & Telescope
- Sky at Night (a BBC publication)
- Popular Astronomy (published by the Society for Popular Astronomy)
Science Magazines :
- Scientific American
- New Scientist
- Popular Science
- Discover Magazine
Still interested? I recommend the following books on astronomy and physics :
| Title |
Author |
Remarks |
| Big Bang |
Simon Singh |
An absolutely superb account of how the Big Bang theory of the universe's creation came to be generally accepted. |
| The Fabric of the Cosmos |
Brian Greene |
An excellent general explanation of the current state of the various theories in physics, from relativity to quantum mechanics to string theory. The main pages of the book are oriented to the layman, but much more detailed and mathematical explanations of many tricky concepts are included in an appendix. |
| Black Holes and Baby Universes |
Kip Thorne |
Everything you ever wanted to know about black holes and how Einstein's theory of general relativity affects them. |
| Warped Passages |
Lisa Randall |
Insightful explanations of some of the weird concepts of quantum physics, as well as an introduction to esoteric ideas such as Brane Theory. |
| The Trouble with Physics |
Lee Smolin |
A layman's overview of some the issues plaguing modern-day theoretical physics, principally concerning String Theory (which is still unproven and seemingly unprovable). |
| The Universe and Life |
G. Siegfried Kutter |
A detailed but readable explanation of cosmic evolution. |
| A Brief History of Time |
Stephen Hawking |
A classic book, written by the most well-known scientist of our era, but unfortunately quite hard to read. |
| The Rough Guide to the Universe |
John Scalzi |
Part of the excellent "Rough Guides" series, this is an outstanding introduction to everything in the known universe. Very good for beginners or if you want to look up something that you can't quite remember. Well structured and laid-out with plenty of photographs, illustrations and diagrams. |
| The Universe - A Biography |
John Gribbin |
A good, very up-to-date summary of everything we know about the universe. The book describes how the universe began, what the early universe looked like, how its structure (stars, galaxies, etc) developed, what emerged to hold it all together and how life as we know it emerged. |
| A Short History of Nearly Everything |
Bill Bryson |
Not strictly-speaking a serious science book, but I've included it because Bryson is an outstanding writer and manages to explain complex issues simply, clearly and with his characteristic sense of humour. |
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