Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I am no scientist and the knowledge I have in astrophysics is that I learned by reading divulgative literature such as this book. I am fascinated by this topic.

Unfortunately, this book is too complicated and not written for a wide audience. I could not understand most of it and the word "nutshell" in the title I think it's misleading. I wish it would have been a tiny bit more for dummies and not so full of extremely bizarre explanations.

A Pretty Tough Nutshell for a Nutshell Book

This book is oddly organized, and the content borders on random. It's generally interesting, and mostly accessible, but still feels almost like someone collected all of the little sidebars and factoid panels and introductions and digressions from a textbook and then just randomly lined them up.

As to organization, we start with a multi-chapter section about "the tools in the astrophysicist's toolbox". That's fine, but a few pages in we are going over micrometry, spectroscopy, and the formula, (V=c x 1/R), for calculating Doppler speed shifts. Really? In a nutshell? And then we start to calculate angular distances using the "appropriate" spherical trigonometry formula, and measure parallax angles with a theodolite. We conclude with many pages setting out all of the different star catalogues, starting with the Babylonians around 1200BCE. All of this is wrapped up with a final section titled "Key Points", which would be helpful except that lots of the key points are one sentence statements about matters that were never addressed, or only obliquely addressed, in the preceding chapter.

The balance of the book is organized into sections, or "Parts", that address the Sun, the Planetary Systems, the Stars, the Galaxy, and the Cosmic Structure. Each part has multiple chapters, and again we just sort of bounce around touching on this and that in more or less detail.

There is a lot that's of interest here. (The chapter on solar structure is fascinating and you can skip over the adiabatic lapse rate and go right to the P-P fusion cycle.) It's just that the book doesn't follow the usual nutshell pattern of either leading a reader from simpler to more complex topics, or guiding the reader through an overview that reflects a consistent level of knowledge or background. This book is basic and intermediate and even slightly advanced, (or very, very advanced once we get to cosmology), sometimes switching tone and content from paragraph to paragraph. I found it interesting as a browseable source of interest, but I wouldn't count on it as a satisfying overall introduction, or even a refresher, for the field.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I have absolutely no knowledge in astrophysics but have always wanted to know more as it seems so fascinating.

Unfortunately, I thought this book would be more accessible and perhaps less technical. I would not call it a "nutshell" book as I would interpret that to mean it would be clearly explained from a beginner's POV and build on that basic knowledge throughout. I did try to keep up with the terms but it was a little out of my reach to be honest. Lots of the maths problems were beyond me but I found the charts helpful.

This would be good for those who are already somewhat familiar with the topic but it was not as straightforwardly accessible as I understood the title to mean.

I think that this is probably a great astrophysics book, but some of its info goes far beyond what i consider "nutshell" level. I think of a nutshell as an intro for beginners to the concept, which is true for some but definitely not all of the info in this book.

This book was not really well organized, and sometimes the description of various topics pertaining to astrophysics went from very basic to something pretty difficult and almost seemed to be written for a different audience. The author and publisher could have done a better job on pinning down exactly who their audience was for this book (high school/college students, laymen, teachers, professionals in a semi-related field). Some topics were done spot-on to give readers a "nutshell" approach on a fairly basic level of concepts and terms, but others were way over my head (and I am pretty knowledgeable of some aspects of astrophysics).

I requested this book because I had read a book about astrophysics before this year and think that it's hella cool topic to know stuff about. The only thing is: I really have not a single clue what I just read. I am a total beginner in physics and was really happy when I understood some little parts of the book (and loved the one about the northern lights because I will go see them next year and though that that is really cool). But other than that, I did not get the rest of the book. That doesn't mean that I did not learn anything from it. I am now more aware of the size of the universe and the planets and the sun and all of the stars and other galaxies. That really amazes me a lot, it amazes me so much that I cannot begin to imagine how big it all is, because it's just crazy. Sometimes I wished for a bit more of explanation and easy language to understand the topics a bit better, because most of the time I was just very lost.

So I'd say that it's a good book, but that's it's not really suited for people with beginner-level physics knowledge. If you want to read and understand this book at the same time, I'd say either have physics or astrophysics knowledge beforehand or be prepared to look up a lot of stuff. A real lot.

I have zero background in college-level/advanced physics and found this book hard to access. While I'm not afraid of formulas, it seemed that the first few chapters flaunted them without any benefit to the reader. The writing style I also found dry―perhaps this is the type of book for those who get easily absorbed by textbooks. There is not much of a 'scientific journalism'-type tone, and I would prefer for the various astrophysics terms to be defined rather than thrown about left and right.

One of the most thorough book I have read on astrophysics. Backed by diagrams, figures and formulas this book goes a step beyond The Origin Story by David Christian or Neil Degrasse Tyson's book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Be warned though that it is a little bit more technical for a layman wanting to explore field of astrophysics. Perhaps above mentioned books may serve as a stepping stone for this book but once you feel comfortable with the level of complexity you are sure to enjoy it. The book addresses the field of astrophysics from its history to current state. The content is thoroughly explored and explained.

Overall, I found this book worth reading with my interest in Astrophysics. If you are a budding scientist or have a general interest in astrophysics and want to take it up a notch, I highly recommend this book.

Sometimes when I'm sitting in bed at two am, I have some pretty bizarre interests. One particular evening I was contemplating whether there was a "For Dummies" book about Astrophysics, and almost as if someone had picked up the signal I came across Knowledge in a Nutshell: Astrophysics. Author Sten Odenwald takes readers through the weird and wonderful world of physics and space with simplicity, while keeping it in context for a regular reader.  Odenwald discusses subjects such as how a star evolves, the influence of weather in space (especially the sun), the basics of the theory of relativity, and how background cosmic radiation tells us about the universe.

Don't let the first few chapters fool you if you're not a math person; move through them and get to some of the incredible mysteries of space. I absolutely adored the information in this book.

Knowledge in a Nutshell: Astrophysics is now available from Arcturus Publishing.

This was an easy and educational read about astrophysics that anyone could enjoy, whether science is enjoyable to them or not. The author made a sometimes difficult to understand topic entertaining and accessible to readers at all knowledge points.

3.5

This book was a little more technical and in-depth than I was expecting. I have read other books on astronomy and astrophysics that lay things out pretty simply and in easy to understand terms. This book was in a more advanced category. While there were some things I already knew, there was plenty that was discussed that I didn’t know, and there were several things I had to re-read because I wasn’t quite getting it. There were a lot of charts and mathematical equations included in the book. While the charts helped with explaining certain ideas, a lot of the math was over my head. It’s been a while since I’ve taken college level math, so there were times that I skimmed over those parts.

I think that this is a book that’s better for people who already have a good background in the subject material, as it may be too much for the casual reader.

I will this book in its paper version, because I find it the perfcet little handbook to read some other non fiction books, which keep for granted a lot of notions (about physics, cosmology, math, etc.etc.). The author keeps the information to the minimum so to avoid useless complications and the pictures are great.

Appena questo libro verrá pubblicato, me lo compreró in forma cartacea, perché é il bignamino perfetto per leggere altri libri sia saggi che sci-fi, dove spesso e volentieri gli autori danno per scontato che i lettori siano giá in possesso di una serie di nozioni varie (fisica, cosmologia, matematica, etc.). L'autore limita al massimo le informazioni in modo da non creare confusione e le fotografie ed i disegni sono molto belli.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

This is a fun book in which you will learn what an astronomical unit is (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) and what a parallax angle is (57.3 distance in meters degrees). As you can see it is not an easy read but it is very informative.

Knowledge in a Nutshell is a interesting and informative book. Astrophysics is a complex and fascinating subject. This book is well written and informative.

While I just couldn’t wrap my head around these extremely complex concepts, I had a deep appreciation for the genius of the author. It reads as a great introduction for those with a scientific mind and a zest for facts.

Every now and again I science up my brain, just so it stays in good shape. This, however, I might have overshot with, though it was quite a workout. It seemed like one of those brief yet comprehensive volumes that covers all you need to know on the subject and in a way it is, but it’s entirely too scientific or not even that, it’s entirely too much like a condensed textbook. It is accessible to general population, especially those with some basic knowledge on astronomy and physics, but it’s still fairly heavy reading with maths and formulas to back it up. Which is to say there will be sentences worth rereading two or three times. Which makes the reading experience longer and much more labor intensive that one might initially expect. Good overview, but much too technical for most laypersons interested in the subject. Educational and I’m glad I read it (and also kinda proud of myself for making it all the way through), but work, this was work, like taking an abbreviated crash course in astrophysics. Saddle up, crash test dummies. This is tough business. And to think in a way it still mostly only covers the 4.6% of the universe that is understood. The rest remains a mystery, conveniently named dark matter and dark energy. Still no grand unifying theory. The more you learn, the more you realize the insufficiency of available information. But learning is always good. Thanks Netgalley.

My son is studying astrophysics in college, and I routinely forget how the Theory of Relativity works before understanding it again, so this was an obvious book for me to enjoy. The reader goes through things they already knew existed (the formation of the planets) and will learn things that never crossed their mind before (space weather?). The summaries are kept simple so that even those of us who studied liberal arts will comprehend them and no longer have a blank look on our faces when our sons or daughters try to explain something regarding relativity.

This is not a light read and has a serious/academic feel. It has lots of great images (although none in color) and a lot of history and a little math, good summaries, and is written in clear, accessible language. It's not metaphysical or entertaining like Tyson's Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. But you learn some interesting info, and if you want solid knowledge of Astrophysics (and more), check this one out.