Astro-Physics: New Theories & Layman's Book Recs

[FawkesCa]

can anyone give me a good book recommendation for the newest theories in astro-physics? in reletively layman's terms

 

[Ken Natton]

I strongly suspect that this thread should be on, and will very shortly find itself moved to, the science books forum. A book focussed particularly on astro-physics I can’t help you with, but as is frequently pointed out these days, the physics of the truly vast and the physics of the incredibly tiny are turning out to be much the same. If you want to understand how stars and planets form, why suns shine, how they have figured out what happened in the early period after the big bang, all those kind of questions on the astrological scale, the answers lie in how subatomic particles interact and in all the kind of questions you ask at the quantum scale. A book I can recommend that gives an excellent overview of these things on both scales is ‘Quantum – A Guide for the Perplexed’ by Jim Al Khalili. It is very accessible, very clearly explained and superbly illustrated. I don’t suggest for a moment that it will have all of the answers you want. But it should be an excellent start point, and should guide you on what specifics you want to investigate more deeply.