Skip to main content

The Milky Way - Moiya McTier ****

For some reason, our home galaxy has relatively light coverage in popular science, so it was good to read Moiya McTier's book last year (less good to have forgetten about it until now - this is probably due to the aversion mentioned at the end of the review).

After an introductory chapter, we start by looking at early ideas and myths about the sky pattern referred to most often now as the Milky Way, long before it was realised that this was our galaxy. We are then taken through the Milky Way's formation (and along with that information on stars and other components that go together to make up a galaxy) and McTier goes on to do everything from pull apart Star Trek's dodgy navigational coordinates to what remain mysteries to current science. (Unusually for a simplifying popular science book, we do hear a bit about alternatives to dark matter, though McTier does dismiss MOND using arguments that are weaker than those that could be used to dismiss dark matter particles.)

So far, so good. One thing that it is essential to cover is the subtitle. The second word is not 'biography', but 'autobiography'. The book is written from the viewpoint of the Milky Way as if it were a conscious entity. I must applaud this in the sense that it's a different way of looking at astronomy/astrophysics. Any book of this sort benefits from taking a different approach, because mostly it will have been done before. But.

For me, personally, the approach was one where I really had to suppress the cringe reflex. The first chapter begins 'Take a look around you, human. What do you see?.. Everything you've ever seen or touched is part of me. Yes, even you, you vain, filthy animal.' I don't know why, but this does feel ever so slightly condescending for an adult audience. And it's a bit odd - given we are effectively part of the Milky Way in terms of our constituents, why would it call us filthy? But then, on the whole, galaxies don't call people anything.

Anthropomorphising is, of course, an age-old technique. I used to watch a TV show called Tales of the Riverbank when I was four that featured, for instance, a talking guinea pig and loved it. But while I accept the originality of the approach as popular science, I still had to fight down my aversion as an adult. Perhaps the main potential problem in non-fiction is where to draw the line between the fiction of the talking galaxy and the reality of the science. For example, McTier's galaxy is quite boastful. It comments 'I am the greatest galaxy who has ever lived.' But the Milky Way is neither the biggest galaxy nor does it contain the most stars, making this a dubious boast at best.

As long as I had this tendency under control, there was plenty to enjoy here - and that's why I'm giving the book four stars. But I can't ignore it, nor do I think that it will work for every reader. But if you won't be put off by the approach, this is an excellent book on an essential topic.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune )   underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...
Post a Comment
Read more

E=mc2: A biography of the world’s most famous equation – David Bodanis *****

David Bodanis is a storyteller, and he fulfils this role with flair in E=mc2. The premise of the book is simple – Einstein himself has been biographed (biographised?) to death, but no one has picked out this most famous of equations, dusted it down and told us what it means, where it comes from and what it has delivered. Allegedly, Bodanis was inspired to write the book after hearing see an interview with actress Cameron Diaz in which she commented that she’d really like to know what that famous collection of letters was all about. Although the book had been around for a while already when this review was written (September 2005), it seemed a very apt moment to cover it, as the equation is, as I write, exactly 100 years old. So when better to have a biography? Bodanis starts off by telling us about the individual elements of the equation. What the different letters mean, where the equal sign comes from and so on. This is entertaining, though he seems to tire of the approach on...
Post a Comment
Read more