READINGS

R.B. Tully and I.R. Fisher, Nearby Galaxies Atlas (Cambridge University press). A fascinating view of the universe is provided in this set of maps of the galaxy distribution of the known nearer objects out to distances of about 300 megaparsecs—or about a billion light years.

T.P. Snow, The Dynamic Universe (Third edition; West Publishing). One of many excellent up-to-date elementary textbooks on astronomy. Section VI gives a good introduction to the concepts covered in this article.

F. Graham-Smith and B. Lovell, Pathways to the Universe (Cambridge University Press). Gravitation, stellar evolution, supernovas, quasars, and some applications to the solar system are included in this overview of modern astronomy.

E. Chaisson, Relatively Speaking (Norton).Chaisson explains general relativity and many of the associated astronomical phenomena, including those discussed in this article.

P. Davies, God and the New Physics (Simon & Schuster). This is a thought-provoking book on the philosophical implications of many of the new discoveries in physics. Included are discussions of fundamentalist and atheistic positions, both of which are explained and demolished.

W.H. Press and D.N. Spergel, "Cosmic Strings: Topological Fossils of the Hot Big Bang" in Physics Today, March 1989, pages 29-35. If you track down this article, you'll find the latest thinking on how dark matter and cosmic strings could have formed in the early universe.

A. Dressier, "Large Scale Streaming of Galaxies," in Scientific American, 257, No. 3, page 46 (1987). Fellow Samurai Dressier provides an excellent popular account of the Seven Samurai results thus far and the significance of our findings.