First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe

First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe

by Richard Preston
First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe

First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe

by Richard Preston

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Overview

Seven years before Richard Preston wrote about horrifying viruses in The Hot Zone, he turned his attention to the cosmos. In First Light, he demonstrates his gift for creating an exciting and absorbing narrative around a complex scientific subject—in this case the efforts by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains of California to peer to the farthest edges of space through the Hale Telescope, attempting to solve the riddle of the creation of the universe.

Richard Preston's name became a household word with The Hot Zone, which sold nearly 800,000 copies in hardcover, was on The New York Times's bestseller list for 42 weeks, and was the subject of countless magazine and newspaper articles. Preston has become a sought-after commentator on popular science subjects.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780812991857
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 10/29/1996
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 671,091
Product dimensions: 5.99(w) x 8.93(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Richard Preston received The Overseas Press Club of America's 1995 Whitman Bassow Award for "best reporting in any medium on environmental issues" for The Hot Zone. First Light, Preston's first book, won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Preston lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and children.

Hometown:

Hopewell, New Jersey

Date of Birth:

August 5, 1954

Place of Birth:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Pomona College, 1976; Ph.D. in English, Princeton University, 1983

Read an Excerpt

Part 1
(Continues…)



Excerpted from "First Light"
by .
Copyright © 1996 Richard Preston.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Foreword: To Readers and Teachersxi
Part 1Big Eye1
Part 2The Shoemaker Comets65
Part 3Gadgeteers133
Part 4Discoveries213
Appendix 1Main Characters267
Appendix 2Glossary269
Credits273
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