If anyone remembers the controversy around 2007’s “New Seven Wonders of the World” announcement, you realize that making a top seven list about any of the amazing sites — man-made or natural — found on Earth is going to be contentious and difficult. Now try expanding the list to include the entire universe. How could you pick?
In Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), author C. Renée James doesn’t go for the conventional. Don’t grab your telescope and take this book outside hoping to observe these objects — this book isn’t about night sky targets. Instead, James picks seven abstract concepts: night, light, stuff, gravity, time, home, and wonder. Confused? So was I when I first picked up the book. But I soon learned that this is a great read for any science buff, and especially those with young students or children.
James’ writing is witty and conversational, and she explains the seven concepts as if she were assisting you while you define them to a young child through demonstrations and “interpretive dance” (although my favorite is the cereal box spectroscope). It’s a clever way to help out casual readers without making them feel like James — a physics professor at Sam Houston State University — is talking down to them. Instead, she’s self-deprecating and a bit of a comedian. She comes off as a friend in this book, not a teacher, even though you end up learning a lot about the universe from her (I’ve never understood gravity better in my life).
And then there’s one of James’ biggest assets in Seven Wonders of the Universe: her illustrator Lee Jamison. As she acknowledges in her preface, the book is filled with cartoon sketches instead of spectacular images. But those illustrations do a lot more than a photo ever could; after all, there’s no great still-shot of gravity or darkness. Jamison’s cartoons bring even more humor to the book’s concepts, from the electromagnetic spectrum’s “microwave eyes” to the “evil twin” antimatter (which would look great as wall art in my Astronomy office). They are placed perfectly to change up the pace just when you think an explanation might be getting too “scientific.”
Regardless if you think you know everything there is to know about light, time, etc., or you just have a passing curiosity about how the world around you works, I strongly recommend picking up Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted. You’ll never look at the cosmos the same way again.