Enjoy Our Universe: You Have No Other Choice

  • By Alvaro De Rújula
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS: 2018. 224PP. £19.99

Alvaro De Rújula implores readers to enjoy our Universe — and in order to do so, the author tries successfully to condense everything from theoretical physics, to astronomy, to elementary particles and everything in between in a small book meant for the uninitiated. With several chapters a few pages long and frequent humorous but scientifically accurate illustrations, the book is likely to appeal to those with a short attention span but a keen interest in what makes our Universe tick and how it does it.

The Scientific Method: Reflections from a Practitioner

  • By Massimiliano Di Ventra
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS: 2018. 128PP. £13.99

Science, scientists and, perhaps more worryingly, the scientific method itself are being attacked directly and indirectly, leading to a gradual erosion of both the trust and support of people for basic science. Arguably one of the most important achievements of humankind, the scientific method is the focal point of this slim book by Massimiliano Di Ventra. The author tackles concepts like falsifiability, objective facts and observations, and hypotheses — that is, the cornerstones of science — in an effort to expose both the reach but more importantly the limits of science. This is a timely book in an era of fake news and pseudoscience.

Low Frequency Radio Astronomy and the LOFAR Observatory: Lectures from the Third LOFAR Data Processing School

Edited by:
  • Edited by George Heald,
  • John McKean &
  • Roberto Pizzo
SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING: 2018. 244PP. £96.50

Radio astronomy is experiencing a second boom with the advent of large facilities like the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Young radio astronomers are being trained in the practicalities and intricacies of processing, analysing and understanding the complex data products of radio telescope arrays. This book brings together lectures from the third LOFAR Data Processing School, aiming to become the reference book in the field of low-frequency radio astronomy data analysis.