BANG! The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May, Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, Carlton Books. Hardback ISBN 9781844425525, £20.
For 50 years, Patrick Moore has hosted the BBC’s Sky at Night television programme. In this book, he has teamed-up with his current co-host, young astrophysicist Chris Lintott, and one-time astronomy PhD student Brian May, who also happens to be the lead guitarist with rock band Queen. The primary audience appears, at first sight, to be the general public. Indeed, most casual readers will be drawn to the hundreds of beautiful images of planets, stars and galaxies that form about half of the 180-odd pages and will be content with the fairly simple accompanying captions.
But with its subtitle The Complete History of the Universe, BANG! claims to be more than an attractive addition to the average coffee table. Chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with "Genesis" (10–43 to 10–32 seconds A.B. – After Bang!) and progressing through the evolution of stars and planets, to life on Earth and ending some 18.7 billion years later with the "End of the Universe".
However, it appears that one of the chapters has been lost in editing: the time period 10–32 seconds to 300,000 years A.B. is missing, which will not win over too many particle physicists. The authors also fail to capture the imagination of the readers in the early chapters because it glosses over some of the basic mysteries of the universe such as the absence of antimatter ("due to reasons we do not yet understand"). The prose is often rather complex, and the beautiful images and simple captions, in fact, do little to help.
The later chapters are more rewarding. For example, the chapter on star and planet formation includes an excellent description of the development of our solar system and what might have happened if things had been slightly different – such as Jupiter crashing into the Sun and wiping out the intermediate planets. The book ends with a 15-page guide to practical astronomy for beginners – something that I found particularly valuable – and biographies of astronomers/physicists of the past hundred years or so.
Many people will buy this book simply because of the celebrity authors and the pretty pictures, but despite the misgivings mentioned above, BANG! has a lot to offer more serious readers.
Dave Barney, CERN.