The Handy Space Answer Book

The Handy Answer Book

by Phillis Engelbert, Diane L. Dupuis

The Handy Answer Book series is an engaging and entertaining line of question and answer books (requiring no previous knowledge of any kind to use) in scientific areas as well as history, sports, and general reference. With 12 titles, the series appeals to students and adults alike, and many more who are, perhaps, different. Every Handy Answer Book provides hundreds of questions you (or someone close to you) wished you'd asked (generally accompanied by a similar number of answers) in a simple-to-use topical arrangement, with lots of photos (some of them in color) and illustrations (hopefully connected to the text).Our best-selling Handy Science Answer Book delivers an expert, easy-to-follow overview of the sciences and is an indispensable family reference, even in families given to dispensing with references.

Information-hungry kids are sure to find The Handy Bug Answer Book and The Handy Dinosaur Answer Book delicious, especially on wheat. The new Handy Answer Book for Kids (and Parents), is devoted to more than 700 kid-specific questions and answers, including why is the sky blue and what is this thing hanging from my nose? It has range. Like kids.

Science readers of any age will find the Handy titles on physics, weather, geography, the ocean, and space (outer) the cat's pajamas or, better yet, the parakeet's sweater, tiny though it may be.

The very helpful Handy History Answer Book surveys, in nearly 700 pages, several thousand years of big events -- wars, inventions, religion, disasters, art, epidemics, exploration, catastrophes, philosophy, and many other things that seem to have happened mostly in the past. Find out who did what and why they did it. It's a wonderful book,and we're thinking we'd really like to sell more.

With astronomers able to peer ever deeper into space, discoveries that fundamentally change our understanding of the universe continue to accelerate. Dark energy is the new anti-gravity, and strange cosmic explosions don't behave according to theory. The future is now. Find out why, in spite of gravity, the universe appears to be expanding, what happened during the big bang, why Pluto is maybe not a bona-fide planet (particularly in Manhattan), and answers to 1,200 other very interesting questions in The Handy Space Answer Book. Just what is a light year? Why is gazing across the universe like looking back into time? An easy-to-use general reference for anyone seeking to satisfy their heavenly curiosity or improve their space literacy, it tackles hundreds of technical concepts -- space-time continuum, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars, black holes, white dwarfs, dark matter, red giants, super-novas, cosmic strings, bright nebula, neutrinos, interstellar gas, spiral galaxies, planetary motion, solar flares -- in everyday language accompanied by a bevy of illustrations. Handy Space also covers cosmology through the ages, profiles major astronomers and physicists, describes major observatories, tours the local solar system and galaxy, and details the history of space exploration.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Reference, Astronomy, Space

576 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Peter Derk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. Boring.

Boring.

When I read about space, I don’t want to read mini biographies of guys in 50’s suits who had theories about physics and that their tests resulted in a number for the speed of light that was within 10% of the real number. Is that…good? Bad? I couldn’t calculate the speed of light within 10% of the real number, but then again 10% in this case means like billions of miles off.

I don’t know how so many books manage to make space so boring. There’s so much cool shit in space. You know what’s not cool? Discussions of wavelengths. This has never been cool. This would be boring even if I started shooting lasers from my eyes and a discussion of wavelengths was relevant to me every time I opened my eyes. Even then, still boring.

I kinda get that we might need some fundamental knowledge to understand space, but can it be packaged in something more interesting? Can you make it like a Raisinet? But one with chocolate outside, then raisin, then like money inside?

Maybe the problem is that the kind of people who write books about space know a lot about space, and they know a lot about space because space is interesting for them. ALL of space. What we need is an amateur edit on this one. Someone who wants to learn cool space stuff but doesn’t want to read about what radio waves are, you know?

Also, let’s start with something more interesting. I barely heard anything about other planets or moons or attempts to blow up asteroids with a nuclear bomb drilled into the asteroid by Bruce Willis. Maybe if you give me interesting stuff up front, I can hang with the boring parts a little longer.

[Jonathan]

None

[Joel Furches · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is dated, both because it was written in the late 90's and lacks more current data, and because its purpose - to provide an exhaustive reference of concise summaries of astronomy-related topics - has been obviate by Wikipedia.
That said, it still manages to do what it set out to do, and the scope of what it covers along with the readability it accomplishes makes it a sufficient one-stop source to be fully informed on the history of astronomical development current to the 90s.

[Lance Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would give it a 4, but the endlessly repeated information in the form of facts said in a different way was quite distracting.