From Quark To Quasar: Notes On The Scale Of The Universe

From the invisibly small world of elementary particles to the inconceivable immensity of the most remote astronomical objects, extremes of size and distance are lmost impossible to imagine. From Quark to Quasar takes the reader on a pictorial journey spanning some 42 orders of magnitude to provide a unique insight into the scale of our universe. Following an introduction to the methods used to measure distances, the book proceeds from familiar, everyday objects on an outward journey in 26 steps, through our solar system and nearby stars, to the very edge of the observable Universe. Each stage of the journey is ten times larger than the preceding one, and the pictures have been carefully selected to highlight the extraordinary variety of exotic objects in the Universe. The reader then returns to the human scale and the journey takes off in the other direction. A fascinating variety of life is portrayed, from birds and mammals through fleas and mites down to the smallest self-replicating structure, the virus. The journey concludes with a study of modules, atoms and sub-atomic particles before the final summary, in which an attempt is made to view the entire Universe.