Understanding the Universe: An Inquiry Approach to Astronomy and the Nature of Scientific Research, George Greenstein, Cambridge U. Press, 2013. $65.00 paper (650 pp.). ISBN 978-0-521-14532-9
George Greenstein has been a professor of astronomy at Amherst College in Massachusetts for more than 40 years. For a good part of his career, he has advocated for an inquiry-based approach to the teaching of science. Understanding the Universe: An Inquiry Approach to Astronomy and the Nature of Scientific Research is the result of that long-time commitment.
Understanding the Universe is an introductory textbook to be used in an astronomy course for nonscience majors, and I would definitely recommend it for that purpose. Greenstein writes that his goal is to expose students to the “nuanced treatments of the process of science.” He is not principally interested in having his students simply memorize facts; rather, he invites them to be part of the discovery process, argue hypotheses and theories, and explore implications. He includes numerous discussions about the nature of science that nicely complement his treatment of scientific theories.
I was pleased to read in Greenstein’s accompanying essay posted on the book’s website (under the “Resources” tab at http://www.cambridge.org/greenstein) that instructors “cannot cover everything: if we spend a lot of time on one issue, many other issues will be left out.” Most astronomy textbooks are plagued with an encyclopedic quest to cover the entire subject in a one- or two-semester course. Such an approach is doomed to failure. I agree with Greenstein that the main goal of introductory science courses is not merely to prepare scientists but also to open the minds of college students to the inquisitive and wondrous nature of science. And there is no better way to do that than to guide students to think and inquire about the nature of physical phenomena the way scientists do. In that regard, this book, in my opinion, succeeds to a great extent.
Sections that reappear throughout the book—“Now you do it,” “Detectives on the case,” and “You must decide”—entice students to examine critically what was covered and to elaborate and examine hypotheses by themselves. A nice example of Greenstein’s method is how he constructs a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (relating the absolute luminosity of stars to their effective temperatures) by making an analogy to a plot of vehicle horsepower versus weight.
One shortcoming in this book is its lack of coverage of gravitational-wave astronomy. (There is also no discussion of neutrino astronomy or cosmic rays.) Although gravitational waves have not yet been detected, I feel an opportunity was missed. The feeling does not stem only from my personal involvement in the field; indeed, the quest to detect gravitational waves and the progress in the field so far are ideal subjects for Greenstein’s approach of teaching science by inquiry.
Even now, scientists on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory project and other astronomers are rushing to find an optical counterpart to the first gravitational wave, whenever it is detected. The hypothesis that this first event could originate in the collapse of a binary neutron star system could have illuminated Greenstein’s discussions of the nature of science and the changing of paradigms. Furthermore, the relationship between binary collapse and gamma-ray bursts—the brightest explosions in the universe—is a true mystery, full of suspense and thrill, whose final chapter is yet unknown.
Mario C. Díaz is the director of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Texas at Brownsville, where he teaches introductory astronomy, among other courses. He is also a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) scientific collaboration and the Transient Optical Robotic Observatory of the South (TOROS) project.
