Review of "Travellers in Space and
Time", Author Patrick Moore.Published by Collins, November
1983.
Reviewer Colin Keay
On one dark, moonless night in the country, far from city
lights, I discovered the stars. Maybe it was something like a
religious conversion - I wouldn't know. But to a holidaying
schoolboy, on the brink of the teens, it was a profound
revelation. The stellar jewels set in velvet blackness were
beckoning beacons to the imagination: not even my Buck Rogers
comics could satisfy a sudden longing to soar through space and
time. My thirst for more knowledge of stars, planets and
galaxies led me to the marvellous- books on astronomy written by
Sir James Jeans, a famous professional astronomer with a talent
for making astronomy understandable.
Sir James, alas, is no longer alive, but we are fortunate to
have in Patrick Moore a leading amateur astronomer with a gift
for bringing astronomy into the living room, whether by
television (on the BBC) or through the countless books he has
written. Patrick's latest book, Travellers in Space and Time, is
a wonderful introduction to the wonders of the Universe for
anyone from nine to ninety. It is full of up to date, very
easily digestible facts presented as a natural background to a
tour of the imagination through the cosmos from planets, to
stars and onward to the outer limits.
There is little I can find to criticise in the book. A
theoretician in relativity studies would be upset at the way
Patrick chooses to travel at the speed of light and look back to
witness events in the Earth's history (a doubly impossible feat)
but Patrick would be the first to claim that he is no Einstein!
Progress in astronomy is now so rapid that any new book will
contain some outmoded information before it leaves the printing
press: for example, the recent discovery of a ring of matter
around Vega slightly spoils Patrick's tour-guide description.
Readers down under may be confused by the references to
stars, etc, visible in a certain season. Remember that a star
best seen in winter in the northern hemisphere will be a summer
star here, and so on for other seasons.
Beautifully illustrated in full colour, Travellers in Space
and Time is great value and a perfect present for any person
with an imaginative mind.
