What are the Stars?

Abstract

This is the first volume in the series-The Present Revolution in Astronomy authored by G Srinivasan. The outstanding question in astronomy at the turn of the twentieth century was: what are the stars and why are they as they are? In this volume, the story of how the answer to this fundamental question was unravelled is narrated in an informal style, with emphasis on the underlying physics. It also gives an overview of the topics that will be covered in later volumes—white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, galaxies and the universe at large. I know of no comparable book in the present-day literature that so Successfully conveys the excitement of the development of ideas pertaining to the physics of stars, including the newest discoveries and at the same time explains the fundamentals so well.