The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist by Neil Degrasse Tyson (PDF)

Description

From the author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and the host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,a memoir about growing up and a young man’s budding scientific curiosity.This is the absorbing story of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s lifelong fascination with the night sky, a restless wonder that began some thirty years ago on the roof of his Bronx apartment building and eventually led him to become the director of the Hayden Planetarium. A unique chronicle of a young man who at one time was both nerd and jock, Tyson’s memoir could well inspire other similarly curious youngsters to pursue their dreams.Like many athletic kids he played baseball, won medals in track and swimming, and was captain of his high school wrestling team. But at the same time he was setting up a telescope on winter nights, taking an advanced astronomy course at the Hayden Planetarium, and spending a summer vacation at an astronomy camp in the Mojave Desert.Eventually, his scientific curiosity prevailed, and he went on to graduate in physics from Harvard and to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. There followed postdoctoral research at Princeton. In 1996, he became the director of the Hayden Planetarium, where some twenty-five years earlier he had been awed by the spectacular vista in the sky theater.Tyson pays tribute to the key teachers and mentors who recognized his precocious interests and abilities, and helped him succeed. He intersperses personal reminiscences with thoughts on scientific literacy, careful science vs. media hype, the possibility that a meteor could someday hit the Earth, dealing with society’s racial stereotypes, what science can and cannot say about the existence of God, and many other interesting insights about science, society, and the nature of the universe.Now available in paperback with a new preface and other additions, this engaging memoir will enlighten and inspire an appreciation of astronomy and the wonders of our universe.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson“The Sky Is Not the Limit” is the entertaining biography of astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson. Best-selling author and science icon Neil deGrasse Tyson takes the reader on a journey through his eyes, which is to say the cosmos and many interesting insights of his life. This uplifting 203-page book includes the following seven chapters: 1. Night Vision, 2. Space, the Final Frontier, 3. Scientific Adventures, 4. Dark Matters, 5. Romancing the Cosmos, 6. The End of the World, and 7. God and the Astronomers.Positives:1. Great science writing. Informative, interesting, accessible and fun to read.2. The fascinating life of Neil deGrasse Tyson (NDT), makes for a great biography. “In these pages, I share what I believe to be amusing and playful moments of my life in the cosmos.”3. The book has excellent flow. The pages read themselves.4. NDT’s charm is found throughout the book. He shares his interest in the universe and his life as a black man in America.5. The impact of good teachers on students. “A student’s academic life experience can be constructed from much more than what happens in a classroom. Good teachers know this. The best teachers make sure it happens, and measure their own success as educators not by how many students earned As in their class but by the testimony of whose lives they enriched.”6. Not afraid to provide constructive criticism. “So we have created, and willingly support, an educational system that honors the highest grades in class and on exams, but these same perfect grades bear little or no predictive value for those who will actually express the talent that shapes our contemporary culture.”7. NDT shares his favorite courses. “My favorite between them, and my favorite of them all was simply titled Astronomy Roundtable, which covered the physics and the mathematics of relativity, black holes, quasars, and the big bang.”8. NDT’s philosophy is top notch. “Actually, there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.”9. Shares perspectives on interesting topics like the defense of humanity. “we must colonize space in as many places as possible, which will proportionally reduce the chance of our annihilation from a collision between Earth and a comet or asteroid—we would then no longer have all our eggs in one basket, as it were.”10. The impact of 911 on NDT. “The fires created a furnace hot enough to render molten the steel cores of the World Trade Center towers. Before my apartment received professional cleaning, I collected a vial’s worth to keep as a kind of reliquary—in remembrance of a tragic portal through which we had all passed.”11. Social criticism. “At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, allow me to say that one of society’s greatest ills is the astonishing breadth and depth of its scientific (and mathematical) illiteracy.”12. In defense of the scientific method. “Initial uncertainty is a natural element of the scientific method, yet the scientific method is, without question, the most powerful and successful path ever devised to understand the physical world.”13. So why did Pluto get demoted? Find out.14. Fun tidbits. So what about the metric system? “Last I checked, only four countries are left in the world that do not officially sanction the metric system in their general population: Liberia, Myanmar, South Yemen, and the United States of America.”15. Fascinating look at being black in America. “At no place along that timeline could I recall a black person (who is neither an entertainer nor an athlete) being interviewed as an expert on something that had nothing whatever to do with being black.” “I can summarize my life’s path by noting the following: in the perception of society, my athletic talents are genetic; I am a likely mugger-rapist; my academic failures are expected; and my academic successes are attributed to others.”16. Math and physics. “Equations are not ideas unto themselves. They are just the symbols that represent ideas.”17. The end of the world. “The complete list of corpses may sound familiar: black holes, neutron stars (pulsars), white dwarfs, and even brown dwarfs are each a dead end on the evolutionary tree of stars.”18. Religion versus science, always a fascinating topic. “The claims of science rely on experimental verification, while the claims of religions rely on faith.” “I have yet to see a successful prediction about the physical world that was inferred or extrapolated from the information content of any religious document. Indeed, I can make an even stronger statement. Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.”19. A photo insert.Negatives:1. Very little supplementary visual material on the substance of the narrative.2. No links to notes.3. No formal bibliography.In summary, icons that are genuinely passionate about their work always impress me. NDT loves being an astrophysicist and his engaging words flow beautifully throughout. A fascinating life in a fascinating career, a biography worth reading. I recommend it!Further recommendations: “Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution”, “Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour” and “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Cosmos” Carl Sagan, “The Big Picture” Sean Carroll, “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, and “Wonders of the Solar System” and “Wonders of the Universe” by Brian Cox.

⭐This is a fantastic, but all too brief autobiography of perhaps the greatest current science popularizer. Tyson discusses his early childhood experiences getting hooked on astronomy after a family trip to a planetarium, despite living in the light-polluted big city. He shares some hilarious personal stories, as well as some balanced, thoughtful discussions on touchy subject of race, which come across as informative, personal, and matter-of-fact. There are only two complaints to be made about his book, one, that it is too short! Tyson is a charming, humorous storyteller, and I read this book in two nights and was left wanting more, and two, there is not one single embarrassing baby picture or awkward teenager with bad hair photo in the book! Bottom line, buy this book for yourself, but more importantly, buy this book for your young teens, or watch his new version of Cosmos and read this book at bedtime to your younger children. Inspirational, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable no matter what age, skin tone, education level…just get this book!

⭐I read anything Neil deGrasse Tyson writes and see him on television every chance I get. This book is particularly interesting because he relates who he is and how he became an astrophysicist, a role which he picked for himself. I especially appreciate people who think for themselves and do their own thing, regardless of what others think and would dissuade him from pursuing his own dream.Another great attribute of Tyson is that he is so smart, but at the same time admits he doesn’t know everything, and I appreciate that because I want to know everything (of course, I don’t), but the desire is the willingness to learn – a trait I think we share. Plus he has a great sense of humor!

⭐Neil conveys the story we know of the cosmos (well, the very basics, you’ll understand it all if you’ve taken an Astro 100 class) in a hilarious yet informative way. I can never get enough of him, it seems. His memoir provided an interesting perspective of the world, and he had a lot of funny personal stories.And oh my gosh, his views on parenting? This was actually the main reason I got the book, because I heard that he talked about it a little and I’m a big fan of his so I knew most of the astrophysics stuff, though it was fun to read again. I absolutely love the parenting advice, and plan to implement that when I have children. He respects them as human beings and that is just something I see so rarely. I especially enjoyed his jokes at the expense of Mary Poppins.If you love astrophysics and silly nerdy stories, (it’s best if you have a little knowledge on the subject first so you can just sit back and enjoy) you will love reading the stories of a man who shares your same passion.

⭐Having recently attended a lecture by Dr. Tyson, I was curious to know how the passion he possesses for his field of study was nurtured in its inception and developed through training and experience. This book went a long way in satisfying my curiosity as Dr. Tyson described childhood experiences, parental encouragement, and chance encounters that he seized to advance his knowledge and opportunities. It provided an interesting read and conveyed a sense of the exuberant personality of the author. This is a book that parents, mentors, and budding astrophysicists should enjoy, more because of the inspiration it offers than for scientific information. All of us need to be reminded occasionally how much simple words of encouragement and unselfish guidance can mean to a younger person. Dr. Tyson reminds us of how important that can be by sharing stories of the generosity of many people who took the time to help him along his path to success.

⭐A very well told story of Neil De Grasse Tysons life and discoveries along the wayHe explains much that could be hard to grasp easily. He makes no excuses that he does not come from a deprived background, but also tells of a life of hard work endurance and belief that not only helped him obtain his goal but gives everyone a belief that they too can realise their dreams. Funny thoughtful and enjoyable. Great read

⭐Bought as a present – excellent condition, no complaints – will definitely buy from again.

⭐Great book, so inspiring. His writing is excellent and entertaining.

⭐Wenn ein hochkarätiger Naturwissenschaftler ehrlich, anregend und nicht ohne Humor aus seinem Leben plaudert und dabei nebenbei Grundsätzliches zu bildungs- und sozialpolitischen Themen einbringt, dann kommt er oder sie vermutlich aus den angelsächsischen Sprachraum. Man muss hoffen, dass bald viele weitere Menschen, die so aussehen wie Neil Tyson, in der Öffentlichkeit wahrgenommen werden, obwohl sie nicht in der Unterhaltungsindustrie tätig sind.

⭐

⭐Interesting, well written. Will read more from Neil Degrasse Tyson.

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