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Heavenly errors
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Heavenly errors

Heavenly errors

Misconceptions about the real nature of the universe

Neil F. Comins

244 pages, parution le 01/07/2001

Résumé

Do you think you know what a black hole is? Do you really know what causes the seasons to change, or what makes the sun shine? One of the great paradoxes of modern times is that the more scientists understand the natural world, the more we discover that our everyday beliefs about it are wrong. Astronomy, in particular, is one of the most misunderstood scientific disciplines. With the participation of thousands of undergraduate students, Neil F. Comins has identified and classified, by origin and topic, over 1,500 commonly held misconceptions. Heavenly Errors provides access to all of them and explores many of them, including:
· Black holes suck in everything around them.
· The sun shines by burning gas.
· Comets have tails trailing behind them.
· The moon alone causes tides.
· Mercury, closest planet to the sun, is the hottest planet.
In the course of correcting these errors, he explains that some occur through the prevalence of pseudosciences such as astrology and UFO-logy. Perhaps most important, Professor Comins presents the reader with the methods for identifying and replacing incorrect ideas - tools with which to probe erroneous notions so that we can begin to question for ourselves . . . and to think more like scientists.

Contents

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Fun in the Sun: Some Misconceptions Close to Home
  • Blame It on Someone Else: External Origins of Incorrect Beliefs
  • Creating Your Own Private Cosmos: Internal and Mixed Origins of Incorrect Beliefs
  • Survival in a Misperceived World: How Well Did Our Ancestors Do Without Understanding Nature?
  • Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Misconceptions are Hard to Replace
  • The Sage on the Stage or the Guide by Your Side: A Peek Behind the Effort to Help You Unlearn Misconceptions
  • Let the Buyer Beware: How to Avoid Future Misconceptions
  • Conflicts and Dangers: The Problems That Misconceptions Create
  • Epilogue: False Personal Cosmologies
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Index

L'auteur - Neil F. Comins

Professor Neil F. Comins is on the faculty of the University of Maine. Born in 1951 in New York City, he grew up in New York and New England. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics at Cornell University, a amster's degree in physics at the University of Maryland, and a PhD in astrophysics from University College, Cardiff, Wales, under the guidance of Bernard F. Schutz. dr. Comins's work for his doctorate, on general relativity, was cited in Subramanyan Chandrasekhar's Nobel laureate speech.

He has done theoretical and experimental research in general relativity, observational astronomy, computer simulations of gaalxy evolution, and science education. The fourth edition of Discovering the Universe was the first textbook that Dr. Comins wrote for W.H. Freeman and Company, having taken over following the death of Bill Kaufmann in 1994. This has been followed by 9 others. he is also the author of three trade books, What If the Moon Didn't Exist ?, Heavenly Errors, and The hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist's Guide.

Autres livres de Neil F. Comins

Caractéristiques techniques

  PAPIER
Éditeur(s) Columbia University Press
Auteur(s) Neil F. Comins
Parution 01/07/2001
Nb. de pages 244
Format 16 x 23
Couverture Relié
Poids 505g
Intérieur Noir et Blanc
EAN13 9780231116442

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