First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe - Hardcover

Preston, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871132001 ISBN 13: 9780871132000

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, 1987

Synopsis

First Light is perhaps the best book about astronomy ever written. It tells the story of the men and women at the Palomar Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains of California who peer through the amazing Hale Telescope at the farthest edges of space, attempting to solve the riddle of the beginning of time. "Science is a lot weirder and more human than most people realize," Preston writes in his foreword to this revised and updated edition of his first book, and he skillfully weaves together stories of the eccentricities of his characters and the technical wonders of their work to create a riveting narrative about what scientists do and why they do it.

About this title

Review

"There is a saying among astronomers that five billion people concern themselves with the surface of the Earth, and ten thousand with everything else," writes Richard Preston, best-selling author of The Hot Zone. And if you think these professional stargazers spend most of their time serenely peering into the night sky, guess again. Today's astronomers are world-class gadgeteers who scurry about giant (and often frigid) observatories tinkering with the mechanical and electronic tools of their trade. In First Light, they tangle with the Hale Telescope, one of the world's oldest and largest. This beautifully written book is highly recommended for anybody interested in astronomy.

From the Publisher

"Remarkably readable and illuminating....Beautifully depicts astronomers' deepened understanding of earth as the merest speck in time and space."
--The New York Times Book Review

"This is Preston's best book, and it is the best book ever written about astronomers and the things they do. The science is accurate, the portraits of the human characters are true to life, and the story whizzes along like a ride on a roller-coaster."
--Freeman Dyson

"Preston is a master storyteller, pure and simple. When he turns his talents to science writing, the result is spellbinding. First Light gives a novelist's feeling for the scientific enterprise and its characters."
--Alan Lightman

"I love First Light more than any book of its kind. It's the only book I've ever studied to learn what makes it so hypnotically absorbing. I've not yet unlocked its secrets, but whatever Richard Preston does to breathe life into his world of astronomers and their mountaintop machinery, his gifts transcend mere talent."
--Robert Kanigel

"First Light was Richard Preston's bright first light, now renewed. All the intelligence and brio that would blaze from The Hot Zone was there all along. Read First Light--you'll see stars!"
--Richard Rhodes

"First Light is first of all a love letter to the Palomar Observatory and to a handful of astronomers and civilians who are using it to plumb a few of the details of our situation here in the universe. It is one of the finest accounts of scientists at work that I have read. Most writers say they want their books to read like a novel, but Preston actually delivers."
--Dennis Overbye

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0871132001
• ISBN 13: 9780871132000
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 263