| DEATH FROM THE SKIES! These are the Ways the World Will End Philip Plait New York: Viking Penguin, October 2008 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-670-01997-7 | ||||
| ISBN 0-670-01997-6 | 326pp. | HC/BWI | $25.95 | |
| Page 2: | "With the invention of the telescope, and cameras to fit onto them, the sky was found to be more than just a reflection of our superstitions." |
| Number error: S/B "and cameras to fit onto it". |
| Page 46: | "...one extraordinary flare launched a blast of protons that reached the Earth in just 15 minutes, indicating they were traveling at one-third the speed of light." |
| Math error: S/B "one-half the speed of light". Since the Sun is 8 light minutes away from Earth, these protons took twice as long as light to reach us. To nitpick, light takes 8' and 20" to reach Earth, so the speed of these protons was 8.3/15 C or 0.553 C. |
| Page 49: | "...so these satellites may also survive a nuclear detonation in space (as long as debris and heat from the blast doesn't reach them.)" |
| Number error: S/B "don't". |
| Page 61: | "...there are stories of birds literally freezing to death sitting in branches." |
| Typo: S/B "on". |
| Page 149: | "That means it had to be a black hole; a 7-solar-mass star would have been be easy to detect." |
| Extra word: S/B "would have been". |
| Page 162: | "There would be an enormous shock wave,similar to a nuclear detonation, which would wreak all sorts of havoc—if there were anything left to be wreaked upon." |
| Usage: S/B "to be wreaked havoc upon" or better still "to have havoc wreaked upon it".1 |
| Page 205: | Second footnote: "Currently, the Sun loses only about 10-14 (one one hundred-trillionth) of its mass every year. Obviously this is an incredibly small number." |
| Imprecise: S/B "this is an incredibly small part of its total mass". It must be a large number in absolute terms. The mass of the Sun is roughly 2x1030 kg, so the yearly loss would be 2x1030 * 10-14 = 2x1016 kg. Q.E.D. |
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