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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Where did we come from? Before there was life there had to be something to live on - a planet, a solar system. During the past 200 years, astronomers and geologists have developed and tested several different theories about the origin of the Solar System and the nature of the Earth. Did the Earth and other planets form as a by-product of a natural process that formed the Sun? Did the Solar System come into being as the result of a catastrophic encounter of two stars? The three volumes that together make up A History of Modern Planetary Physics present a survey of these theories.

The age of the Earth has been one of the most disputed numbers in science since the 17th century. Although most earth scientists and astronomers accept the Earth's age to be 4.55 billion years, much significance lies in the manner in which that figure was determined. Transmuted Past follows the development of theories of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis in the 20th century and describes radiometric methods for estimating the age of the Earth.

(Extracted from the back cover)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Illustrations.

-Preface.

-Part I. Earth/History.

-1.1 Introduction.
-1.2 History and Geology as Ways of Studying the Past.
-1.3 Kelvin and Geological Time.
-1.4 Planetary Science: From Underground to Underdog.

-Part II. Time and the Elements.

-2.1 Cosmic Evolution of Matter.
-2.2 Geochronology in the 20th Century.
-2.3 Stellar Evolution and the Origin of the Elements.

-Abbreviations.

-Reference List and Citation Index.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

Continuing with the historical analysis of the planetary physic sciences, specially those having to do with Earth, Brush examines the theories for dating the age of our planet just like they were formulated during the last century. The precision of the magical figure thus reached, some 4.5 billions of years old, is of a paramount importance for Science, since it serves as a reference framework for many other considerations. The revolution in the use of radioactivity as a reliable method for the dating of rocks, of an enormous importance, can be said to have opened new horizons to better understand the place where we are and where we have evolved as a species. Up to this point, however, the way has been long, and Brush makes it known to us in full detail.

The work, which is part of a three-volume set, despite its brevity, deals with the already mentioned issue in depth, and also with that of the stellar evolution, as well as, in an intimate relationship, that of the mechanism by which the stars function. The adequate knowledge of these fundamental facts has allowed for the scientists to approach the global dating of our Solar System with a great accuracy, as well as perhaps the dating of the Universe itself. The author, in this case, labours to divulge the sometimes controversial ways which have given place to this conclusion.