Sizing Up the Universe reveals an ingenious new way to envision the outsize proportions of space, based on the work of Princeton University professors Richard Gott and Robert Vanderbei. Using scaled maps, object comparisons, and beautiful space photographs, it demonstrates the actual size of objects in the cosmos —from Buzz Aldrin's historic footprint to the visible universe and beyond. The authors offer visual comparisons with astonishing precision and maximum reader-friendliness, conveying clear and understandable explanations of unimaginable vastness. Plus, as an unprecedented bonus, their 1.5-million-selling Map of the Universe is published here for the first time ever in a book—presented on an oversize foldout page that maximizes its eye-popping presentation of satellites, planets, stars, and galaxies. Based on the popularity of the map and of Richard Gott's Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, and offering innovative ways to appreciate the majesty of the universe, this new title should soar.
Richard Gott is Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate in Physics from Harvard in 1969, he received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton in 1973. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and at Cambridge University in England before returning to join the Princeton faculty. He is the author of the popular book Time Travel in Einstein's Universe (Houghton Mifflin, 2001; approx. 50,000 copies in American hard cover and paperback editions sold to date, with 11 other editions around the world).
Robert Vanderbei is Professor and Chair of the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University. A summa cum laude graduate in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976, he received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1981. As an amateur astronomer, Vanderbei has taken, from his own back yard, astonishing and very high-quality photographs of astronomical objects, rivaling the best of those shot from some of our greatest observatories.
“A feast for the eyes and a banquet for the mind."
Neil de Grasse Tyson, best-selling author and NovaScienceNow host
“The genius of Sizing Up the Universe comes directly from the co-authors'
fertile brains. ... It may strike readers, meanwhile, that the authors
must have conjured up some sort of Einsteinian space warp to get so much
information, in such a variety of vivid, gorgeous and conceptually
brilliant forms, into a single book. You can pretty much open it to any
page and have an "aha!" moment that will embed itself in your brain. And
over time, without even noticing, you may even begin to grasp the true
immensity of the universe." ~Michael D. Lemonick, TIME.com
"It may strike readers...that the authors must have conjured up some sort of Einsteinian space warp to get so much information, in such a variety of vivid, gorgeous and conceptually brilliant forms, into a single book." --Time
"You can pretty much open it to any page and have an "aha!" moment that will embed itself in your brain." --Time
"The latest attempt to put the cosmos in perspective, and it may be the most effective yet — even though it takes the retro form of a physical book...it also conveys the relative sizes and distances of cosmic objects in so many different and ingenious ways that it becomes a little dizzying — in the best possible sense." –Time
"This is a wonderful book - one I had been waiting for ever since I was eight years old, and one that would make a memorable gift for imaginations young and old." –New Scientist
“magnified stunning views.” –Book News
“It’s impossible to fathom the scale of the universe, but Princeton professors Robert Vanderbei and J. Richard Gott sure as heck try.” –The Star Ledger (Newark)
