Reviews (11)

Great book, would be great with soln manual
This is a great book (aside from the one by Meriam and Kriege). Illustrations are clear, examples were clear with no steps missing. However...some problems are on the challenging side--great for training engineers, but not cool for homework without a solutions manual for the sticky (and usually even numbered) problems. Recommended nonethless!

Vector Mech Engin Statics
When I receive that book, it is packed with plastic sheet. It seems brand new because it is not opened yet. But, actually it is not because there are a few pages missing at the back of the book. Those pages are assumed as "The Answer Pages" of the problems from the whole book. I had to copy those pages from one of my friends. It is mestery!!!
Very clear and well illustrated
Maybe, I just pick up these concepts easily. I found this book very useful and extremely easy to understand. The sample problems are detailed and very easy follow. The "Solving Problems on Your Own" at the end of the each section provides an excellent review and will be a terrific reference. It is one of the best textbooks I have read.
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Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. Engineering - Mechanical    3. Mechanics - Statics    4. Science    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Mechanical engineering    7. Science / Statics   

Reviews (45)

Add in my five stars please
If you're into the space program and what happened during this era, then I can't think of one reason why this shouldn't be in your library. It's one of my all-time favorite books.

An outstanding account, with one qualification
Jim Lovell's dreams of landing on the moon were literally blown away in April 1970, when an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13's service module exploded less than a day away from lunar orbit, forcing the crew to limp home under perilous circumstances.More than two decades after surviving that mission, Lovell (with his co-author Jeffrey Kluger) has written an excellent account of that ill-fated moon flight.
In the Jaws of Death . . .
This book is a great view inside of an atypical Apollo mission: a near catastrophe in space with few options for the crew and death a real possibility.Death not only of the 3 astronauts but of the entire United States space program.The heroes in this book are many including the astronauts, the men at mission control and the administrators at NASA who virtually saved the American space program.A mission in which NASA had literally years to plan had to be completely revised including the engine firings, trajectory and minute to minute time-lines.A great effort by the controllers indeed.The events reflected on in the movie "Apollo 13" are here in much greater detail along with many more facts that were not touched on in the movie.The only complaint was that the book was written in the third person which seemed to de-personalize the story from Lovell's perspective.This was a very enjoyable read however and is highly recommended ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. History    3. History: American    4. Science    5. Space Exploration    6. Space vehicle accidents    7. United States    8. Film & television screenplays    9. Lovell, Jim   

Reviews (2)

Good but dated
A great introduction to human factors but it shows its age in its focus, its examples, and its recommendations.Nevertheless, this book makes a good starting point.

For the CRM specialist, or those with a keen interest
If you are in senior airline management and are wondering why things happen the way they happen and you really can't figure out why, this book might provide some help. It's the first step towards understanding the human impact in airline operations, be that pilots, cabin crew or ground crews. Far from being an expert in the field I think this work provides great background material, probably to be better understood when you hold a degree in psychology, but also readable for the un-initiated like myself. CRM specialists/trainers, Human Resource Managers etc. should have this book on their shelv(es). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. General    3. Science/Mathematics    4. Technology    5. Transportation    6. Aerospace & aviation technology    7. Technology / Aeronautics & Astronautics   

Editorial Review

The best treatment I have yet encountered about how order emerges naturally -- and possibly even necessarily -- out of chaos. Profoundly important, and considerably more informed than better-known pop-science treatments of chaos theory. Very highly recommended. ... Read more

Reviews (56)

Proposals to Unanswered Questions
Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe is a lay redaction his scientific hypotheses from his Origins of Order, a rich, fascinating, sophisticated, and complementary set of hypotheses added to Darwin's theories of evolution. For the moment, at least, they are the promising fruit of speculative or theoretical biological hypotheses (with physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, mathematics, game theory, and economics thrown in), but they go a long way to filling in many of the gaps that strict Darwinists seem content to ignore. And some of his hypotheses, he readily admits, are heretical.
Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business
Stuart brings the science of complexity and complex adaptive systems to a broad range of topics from evolution to business to learning curves. The book is masterly written to allow you to skim over the formulas without lossing the excitement or to dig into the technology to understand its broad application.

A fascinating look at self-organization
We see a great deal of order in living systems.Where does this order come from?Is it entirely from natural selection?The author says no.He explains that much of the order we see in the world is spontaneous, such as in the symmetry of snowflakes, and that much of the order needed for the origination of life and in living organisms is of this spontaneous nature.
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Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Evolution (Biology)    3. Fiction    4. Life    5. Life Sciences - Evolution    6. Literature: Classics    7. Molecular evolution    8. Origin    9. Philosophy & Social Aspects    10. Physics    11. Science    12. Science/Mathematics    13. Self-organizing systems    14. Life Sciences    15. Science / Cosmology   

Subjects:  1. Astronomy - General    2. History    3. Physics    4. Science    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Astronomy, Space & Time   

Editorial Review

Stephen Hawking, science's first real rock star, may be the least-read bestselling author in history--it's no secret that many people who own Read more

Reviews (165)

Of all of Hawkings' books, I recommend this one
Of all of the 10's of books I've read, The Universe in a Nutshell best describes Relativity (both general and special) and is worth its money just for that explanation.The 3D computer generated illustrations in this book are fantastic and make the concepts almost simple to grasp.
The pictures are worth a thousand words
I an am engineer with a few semesters of physics/chemistry background, and I found this book very difficult to understand and grasp.Nevertheless, it was a fascinating read with very far-reaching ideas in it.
A treat
Hawking's book is a real treat to read. It's a lavish exploration of matter, the universe, and our place in it. From quantum mechanics to black hole thermodynamics, Hawking is an expert in revealing the vast expanse of the universe, from the micro to the macro, in language spiced with humour and simplicity. Typical of Hawking's style is his attempt to make the book interesting to a wide audience, from high school students to every kind of adult layman, and he suceeds impressively in doing so.
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Subjects:  1. Astrophysics & Space Science    2. Cosmology    3. Quantum Theory    4. Science    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Science / Astrophysics & Space Science   

Reviews (15)

An unfortunate Perspective
A good, thorough analysis. It's unfortunate that the author(s) felt it unavoidable that they should fill the book with Christian propaganda. It really took away from the objectivity.

Solid but not Spectacular
"Comm Check..." tells the story of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.If you are expecting a top-level, academic analysis, like the one found in Diane Vaughan's "The Challenger Launch Decision", then this book is not for you.It is a well written book with lots of human interest anecdotes about the people and the organizations involved in the tragedy. It is factual and reasonably well organized but is written with a sense of drama that I found both distracting and unnecessary.At times, the continual stream of mini-biographies made it hard to follow the book's main theme.While interesting, I gained little from the litany of who went to which school and who had flown so-many thousands of hours in jet fighters.Even the the climactic chapter "Re-Entry Revisited" was light duty in terms of the technical information and overly dramatized events from the astronauts perspective.
Excellent Read
Being a space nut, and being very impacted by the Columbia disaster, this book was exactly what I was looking for.
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Subjects:  1. Accidents    2. Astrophysics & Space Science    3. Aviation - History    4. Columbia (Spacecraft)    5. General    6. History    7. Investigation    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Science    10. Science/Mathematics    11. Space flights    12. Space vehicle accidents    13. Current Events / General   

Reviews (2)

A good book
The book is very precise and gives a lot of mathematical related things that's relevant to Navigation and Guidance. I somehow liked it's approach, mainly because it avoids a lot of descriptory jargons and talks straight in mathematics: the language of scientists and engineers! Before reading the book, a good hold of the mathematics related to linear system theory would be a definite plus, even though the it has an introductory chapter for the related mathematics.

A good book
The book is very precise and gives a lot of mathematical related things that's relevant to Navigation and Guidance. I somehow liked it's approach, mainly because it avoids a lot of descriptory jargons and talks straight in mathematics: the language of scientists and engineers! Before reading the book, a good hold of the mathematics related to system theory would be a definite plus. However, the book has an introductory chaper for the relevant mathematics too. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Aids to air navigation    2. Applied    3. Astrophysics & Space Science    4. Aviation - Piloting & Flight Instruction    5. General    6. Inertial navigation    7. Inertial navigation (Aeronauti    8. Inertial navigation (Aeronautics)    9. Mathematics    10. Research    11. Science/Mathematics    12. Technology & Industrial Arts    13. Astronautics   

Reviews (4)

excellent book
This book is really excellent book among all books about astrodynamics, they give us the details about how to solve problems step by step. i like Algorithm part.
One of the most widely cited texts in the field - for a reason
This is one of the most thorough, well-written, accessible texts on astrodynamics that I've seen. The coverage of spherical harmonics (zonal, sectorial and tesseral) in Chapter 8 is very well done and welcomed.Beginners (or those who need a refresher) will also appreciate the very accessible coverage of Kalman filtering in Chapter 10.
Aerospace Engineering Student
As a student taking a graduate-level course in astrodynamics, this book has been a fantastic resource.It has (for the most part), the same material as Prussing & Conway, but it really develops the topics much more.The algorithms Dave Vallado outlines in his book have helped me tremendously in my research.I have found this book to be the most comprehensive astrodynamics book I have ever come across - a definate must have for anyone studying astrodynamics! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. Algorithms    3. Astrodynamics    4. Technology    5. Technology / Aeronautics & Astronautics   

Subjects:  1. Astronomy - General    2. Science    3. Science/Mathematics    4. Astronomy, Space & Time    5. Science / Astronomy   

Reviews (2)

The best in its area
This is a rather complete presentation of the knowledge of controls and dynamics needed to design, specify, and analyze spacecraft control sytems.No navigation or guidance is covered.Of course no reference to same is made in the title.The book is primarily a composition of basic control background including modern topics like H-infinity.The H-infinity control discussion is the most understandable out there and its limitations are spelled out clearly, perhaps for the first time.The structural dynamics and controls sections are outstanding with some novelty.Interleaving is not unique to this book, however.Bryson covers it in Control of Spacecraft and Aircraft.Quite frankly, at this point in time most of the spacecraft controller design methodologies are handbook in nature and what is most needed is a good background in the basics that extends into the actual design domain enough to be useful.Bong Wie has provided that in this book for controller design to a greater extend than any other written thus far.

A great addition to the literature
Bong Wie's "Space Vehicle Dynamics and Control" is, by far, one of the best books ever published in the AIAA Education Series. It packs a lot ofinfo on a multitude of subjects which don't usually come togetherin a single book. The mathematical preliminaries and the sections ondynamics and control of flexible structures are particularly well done.(This is perhaps the first time a textbook covers the interlacing propertyof poles & zeros of certain transfer functions, particularly thoseassociated with flexible structures.) In addition, the inclusion of the"H-infinity" topic the way the author did it is very good since,in general, books do not feature the subject in such a concise, objective,useful way. The same is true of the section on halo orbits, as well. Bestof all, Wie's having included Kharitonov's theorem comes as a blessing,since the issue is rarely seen in non-European texts.Read more

Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. Astrophysics & Space Science    3. Control systems    4. Dynamics    5. Science    6. Space Vehicles    7. Technology & Industrial Arts    8. Transportation    9. Aerospace & aviation technology    10. Astronautics    11. Mathematical modelling   

Reviews (12)

Universe
We have purchased several of these books - one for ourselves and the others as gifts.It is awesome.

AWESOME!
This is a truly awesome and inspiring book. The gorgeous photographs and the informative text will challenge your imagination to the breaking point! Best of all, this book will strengthen your faith in our awesome Creator God, and in the Bible - His word of truth to all mankind.
Disappointing to say the least
I wanted to buy this book for a long time and waited until the price was right. When I bought it, I couldn't check inside because it was wrapped in plastic. So when I brought it home and opened it, I was very disappointed with the photos. I was expecting super high quality photos and instead found tons of OLD photos of galaxies and stars that have been available in other books (which I have or have read) since the 1960s and 1970s. Or worse, photos seemingly taken directly from websites, with web quality, ie: not very good.
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Subjects:  1. Astronomy    2. Astronomy - General    3. Astronomy - Universe    4. Photoessays & Documentaries    5. Photography    6. Pictorial works    7. Science    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Photography / Color   

Reviews (2)

Powers of Ten -- a Flipbook
Charles and Ray Eames give us a photographic tour of the universe we can hold in our hands.Starting with a picture of the dark emptiness of at the edge of the universe, each page brings us closer to our galaxy, solar system, planet, and down to the one power of ten on which we humans live.But then we continue to dive deeper -- skin deep -- shrinking smaller and smaller through the cells, molecules, and finally sub-atomic space of which we are composed... finding the empty space within the atom to be eerily reminiscent of outer space itself.It's an exciting, thought-provoking five-minute journey you'll want to take again and again.

A Wonderful Ride Through The Powers Of Ten.
With a start at 10e+25 meters, from the far end of the universe (~1 billion light years), the book takes 1 power of ten steps downward to the subatomic level, about 10e-16 meters - or smaller than a hydrogen atom.A very good book to get lost in the comparison from one power to the next - be it higher (bigger) or lower (smaller). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cosmology    2. General    3. Miscellanea    4. Powers of ten (Motion picture)    5. Powers of ten--a film dealing    6. Powers of ten--a film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero (Motion picture)    7. Science    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Universe   

Reviews (18)

Epic tale of space exploration
This is a fascinating book that takes you inside NASA and the JPL and details just how incredibly hard the modern business of space exploration is.To accomplish something as successful as the two mars rovers have been is nothing short of miraculous.An endless chain of complicated technical, budgetary and scientific challenges awaited the brilliant engineers and scientists on this project.
Fascinating and inspiring
I loved this book and couldn't put it down.What a great story!And the best part is it's true.

History in the making - what more do you want?
Mr. Squyres does not aspire to the heights of great literature, but he does manage to maintain absolute clarity across the many varied and technical aspects of the Mars rover missions - a truly remarkable feat that makes the book accessible to everyone.Because of his account, we learn about the intriguing mission selection process, the critical mission stopping engineering problems, and the seemingly arcane science that drives those missions. Most of all, Steve answers my most perplexing question, i.e., what did we accomplish on Mars with the rovers.
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Subjects:  1. Astronomy - General    2. Astronomy - Solar System    3. Exploration    4. Extraterrestrial Biology    5. Mars (Planet)    6. Science    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Space Exploration    9. Space flight to Mars    10. Planets & asteroids    11. Science / Nanostructures   

Reviews (1)

For the Professional Rocket Scientist
This book is essentially an update of the author's previous work, The Satellite Thermal Control Handbook, and is the collective writings of dozens of engineers who specialize in the design and analysis of spacecraft thermal control systems.While his first book focused on thermal control systems for unmanned Earth orbiting satellites, this new book expands on this information and includes interplanetary probes, the space shuttle and the most recent advances in thermal control system hardware.
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Subjects:  1. Aeronautics & Astronautics    2. Astrophysics & Space Science    3. Cooling    4. Military Science    5. Science/Mathematics    6. Space vehicles    7. Technology    8. Technology & Industrial Arts    9. Thermodynamics    10. Aerospace & aviation technology    11. Satellite communication    12. Space science   

Subjects:  1. Astronomy - General    2. Mathematical Physics    3. Painleve equations    4. Painlevâe equations    5. Physics    6. Science    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Differential equations    9. Mathematics for scientists & engineers    10. Science / Mathematical Physics   

Reviews (9)

An excellent update to a classic introduction to modern phys
My introduction to the world of the mild-mannered bank clerk with an interest in modern Physics came through copies of the original 1940s books rescued from a school library "disposal" pile. Unlike the school librarian I treasured those books, which presented hard science in a humorous, accessible way, and learned a lot from them.
Physics=awesome!
I normally do not like to read, but i didn't mind reading this. It only took a week, which is good for someone who does not like to read. Never before had I had such an incredible grasp of physics. This really helped to understand the concept of space-time and other areas. This is Gamow's best and everyone is encouraged to to read it. Take it from someone who does not read often. For those of you who may be misunderstanding the concepts and experiments in physics, this book will help you. It mentions a topic more than once and allows one to understand it. Thanks Mr. Gamow for writing this book. I would also like to thank my physic's teacher, Mr.Mike Lanham of Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Georgia, for developing love and passion of physics and reading!

Good Book but Needs an Index & Bibliography
This was an enjoyable book, but it would profit by an index and bibliography. I keep wanting to refer to material read earlier, and foundd it difficult to find. I finally used the glosary as the basis of an index. When I thought there was a term in the book that might also be in the glossary, I wrote the page number down in the glossary. It'll be useful when I return to the book, which I'm sure I will. I can understand why they didn't provide a bibliography, but even a one pager would help. It only needed to be topic driven and not historically driven. Don't need a chronicle of events. I'm sure they didn't want to add to the expense or turn the book into something of an academic book.Read more

Subjects:  1. Cosmology (Astronomy)    2. Physics    3. Science    4. Science/Mathematics    5. Theoretical Physics    6. Atomic & molecular physics    7. Science / Cosmology   

Subjects:  1. Cosmology    2. Relativity    3. Science    4. Science/Mathematics    5. Cosmology & the universe    6. General relativity    7. Science / Cosmology   

Reviews (1)

a magnificent subject
A fun read if you are already keen on astronomy. But even if you are not, Seeds has presented an introductory course on the subject in an attractive and clear manner. Heavily illustrated with colour diagrams of many topics, you can find both a centuries long history, and the latest research observations. Especially for interplanetary exploration, for which there has been an enduring fascination by the public.
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Subjects:  1. Astronomy - General    2. Science    3. Science/Mathematics    4. Astronomy, Space & Time    5. Science / Astronomy   

Editorial Review

Plenty of books try to explain the origin of the universe, but despite the ascendance of the Big Bang theory, numerous details of that theory remain in flux as new observations are made and new hypotheses formed (and then confirmed or rejected). Timothy Ferris's Read more

Reviews (58)

good overview
A very good overview of the current state of cosmology (even if now almost a decade old).The author though puts his philosphy into a number of parts of the book - which can be quite frustrating at times (hence 4 stars and not 5).If you can walk through these or are of similar mindset this book is a very good place to start your education into cosmolgy. Ithas a very good index, glossary of terms and references at the back of the book, it is just a shame did not also include a list of books to read in short section at the end - rather than having to go through the references.But on the whole recommended.

one of the best cosmology books I've ever read
Every year I read about 5 books about cosmology and physics. So I know what I'm saying: this book really is great.
The Book of the UNIVERSE
Now there is a plenty of the books of the authors of every possible calibers from various schools and predecessors. All of them are good in own way.Read more

Subjects:  1. Astronomy - Universe    2. Cosmology    3. Cosmology (Astronomy)    4. History    5. Science    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Universe    8. Cosmology & the universe    9. Science / Astronomy