Discovering the Cosmos, second edition

Based on the very popular liberal arts course Bob Bless hastaught at University of Wisconsin for many years, thisbook provides a rich, historical approach to introductoryastronomy. It is ideal for use in an introductory astronomycourse for nonmajors. In the fifteen years since the first edition of this textwas published, several new concepts such as dark matter, dark energy, andan incredible expansion of the universe (inflation) have been developed. Furthermore, many of the exotic effects predicted by General Relativity(e.g. black holes, warped space) have gone from being interesting theoreticalspeculations to useful practical tools for understanding the universe. Thisbook aims to give an overview of astronomy, but in such a way that thenon-science major can get a feeling for how science actually developed with itsfalse starts and wrong turns, which observational evidence eventually corrected,and also to describe the incredible recent developments in our understanding ofthe physical universe. Severalchapters of this 2nd edition have been extensively revised to includethese recent developments. Because it has become increasingly difficult to "cover" all ofastronomy in a one-semester course, this edition has largely omitted coverage ofthe physical nature of the objects in our, and other, planetary systems,although a discussion of the possibility of life elsewhere closes the book.