»Death by Black Hole
This book covers a topic not readily found in popular-science books: cosmology. With its attendant complications of physics, chemistry, and philosophy, cosmology is a difficult topic to ravel into a book. In this collection, Neil deGrasse Tyson addresses fundamental questions of the development and organization of the universe with just the right amount of detail: the enthusiasm he shows for his topic while discussing how stars form, or the very early timeline of the universe, makes this book very enjoyable. It kept me awake at night, wondering about where the initial energy for the Big Bang originated.
The book suffers from two problems: the author's unfortunate sense of humor, which leads to many flip remarks; and from poor editing. Drawing from the author's years as a magazine columnist, the book collects articles without providing coherence. Thus, the reader hears anew every few pages about who Copernicus was, or Kapteyn, or why carbon so easily and abundantly bonds to other atoms; the book also has a handful of embarrassing typographical errors ("it's" for "its", et c.), but I now find this unsurprising about any book, article, or weblog rant recently published. The flippancy detracts from the otherwise-admirable flow of each article; I was especially impressed with the discussion of Lagrange points, where the author's ability to elegantly explain a complex mathematical and physical concept shined.
Cosmology is a rich but challenging topic, for the reader but especially for the author. Unlike Steven Weinberg's lucid but technical "The First Three Minutes", "Death By Black Hole" is gripping, enchanting in much the way that the cosmos itself is: replete with mystery and bursts of illumination. I did not understand enough of Stephen Hawking's writing, and too many other writers on the topic bring a lack of expertise or any elegance to their erudition.
Tyson, a cosmologist at the Natural Museum of History in New York City, also published a pleasant photoessay on stars in New York City online.
