Finding Our Place in the Universe: How We Discovered Laniakea - the Milky Way's Home (Mit Press)

Gave as a gift...great feedback

This is a pleasant and interesting summary of the Cosmicflows research programme, an effort to map the distribution and motion of galaxies and clusters in our local cosmic neighbourhood. It is, however, a rather short book, and lacks the depth of other works in the genre. For example, JR Gott's recent work 'The Cosmic Web', is far more informative. For a semi-popular introduction to cosmology, one would also do better to read Jean-Pierre Luminet's work, 'The Wraparound Universe'.Courtois' work also suffers from the type of gender bias which is increasingly de rigueur. The role of numerous men in the field is suppressed, and the work of several women is amplified. In particular, portraits are written of five female astronomers. "This recognition," write Courtois, "is meant to illustrate that neither place of birth or gender matters."Clearly, however, all five are white females, so these portraits simply serve to emphasise that place of birth really does matter. There are no black women, Islamic women, or Asian women here, so far from signalling a new era of diversity and equality, it suggests simply that one group of affluent, white, middle-class professionals is in the process of replacing another group in a position of privilege, power and status.

Really great book.

Un mapa es la mejor manera de representar nuestra situación en un momento dado, siempre ha sido así a lo largo del deambular de la humanidad, ahora toca saber donde nos encontramos en el Cosmos, o por lo menos una idea aproximada. En este magnífico libro la autora, astrofísica, relata su investigación en su fascinante viaje para lograrlo, dando al lector la posibilidad de imaginar cuan enorme es el Universo y lo maravilloso de poder descubrirlo. Profusamente ilustrado. Laniakea es nuestro hogar.