Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful book about the moon and its genesis
Review: Dana Mackenzie has created that rare combination of a book both consistently entertaining and scientifically excellent. His theme is the evolution of theories about the origins of the moon. He sweeps the reader from Anaxagoras and Pythagoras to Newton to modern times. Explanation of the moon's creation was only recently made possible in part through powerful computer modeling and the Apollo space program's physical recovery and analysis of moon rocks. The story is fascinating and enlivened throughout by scientific mini-biographies, pithy discussions about the history of astronomy, and highly intelligent explanations of relevant principles of geology, celestial mechanics, physics, chemistry, and related sciences. The "Big Splat" refers to the overwhelming event which much evidence indicates really did create the moon - the oblique collision of another planet (the impactor) with the earth over 4 billion years ago, shortly after the genesis of the solar system. The evidence in support of this interpretation is compellingly presented, and the event itself summarized clearly and dramatically.
Those interested in science, astronomy, and the history of thought should place this book high on their reading list. It is hard to put down until finished. After reading this volume, few of us will ever again look at the moon without greater interest, understanding, and awe.
Rating: 
Summary: Good history...No discussion of Design
Review: Expertly written by skilled freelance science writer Dana Mackenzie (whose articles have appeared in the magazines "Science," "Discover," "American Scientist," "Astronomy"), The Big Splat Or How Our Moon Came To Be presents lunar scientific theory in a format that is ideal for the non-specialist general reader, and outlines the latest hypotheses concerning how the Earth's moon came to be. From views humans have had of the Moon throughout history, to an informative reconstruction of cosmic events before the dawn of life on earth, The Big Splat Or How Our Moon Came To Be is an absorbing and informative account which would be an ideal addition to personal, school, and community library Astronomy reference collections.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: In this fascinating book, author and scientist Dr. Dana Mackenzie traces man's "scientific" study of the Moon from the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, through the Pythagoreans, Aristotle, Kepler, Newton, and on to the present. Along the way, you get to see the flowering of modern science, and how advances helped and hindered the various explanations for how the Moon came into being. In the final chapters, the author examines the newest theory, and that is that the Moon was created by a collision between the Earth and another planet (which some have tentatively named Theia).This is a book that really exercises the mind. It is highly informative, and brings the reader right up-to-date on the latest thinking on the nature and origin of the Moon. If you are at all interested in the Moon or the history of our solar system, then I highly recommend that you get this book. As an added bonus, the book has an appendix that seeks to refute the theory that the lunar landings were merely a hoax, perpetrated by NASA. Overall, I thought that this was a well-written piece, but feel that anyone who believes in such a conspiracy theory probably wouldn't read this book anyway. That said, it gives you an interesting little thing to read when done with the book.
Rating:
Summary: Moonies, meteors and tidal mechanics
Review: There's no greater reading pleasure than good science writing. By combining ingredients from history, stirring in good data, adding some spice of characterisation, a recipe of adventure and inquiry becomes a delicious result. Dana Mackenzie has produced a confection suited to any reader's taste in this account of thinking about our neighbour in space. Tracing the history of thought on our satellite, he travels down the centuries to reach an earth-shaking conclusion. It's difficult today to view the Moon as the ancients did. Once, it was considered a disc. Even whether its light came from the sun or originated from the lunar surface was disputed. The nature of the markings, Mackenzie explains, was equally contentious. The dark areas were finally deemed "seas" and the Latin "maria" remains with us today. After Galileo determined the moon was cratered, the origins of these enigmatic forms opened new discussion. Volcanoes held sway as their origin, although no Earth vulcanism had produced caldera of such size. Meteor impact was viewed with suspicion in an age when catastrophic events were looked on with cautious scorn. The moon's effect on the oceans was realised in ancient times, brought strongly to further awareness as Europe sent ships to far shores. Tidal predictability became a normal calculation, but much about tidal forces remained mysterious, Mackenzie reminds us. Examining tidal action would help lay the foundation for the most likely mechanism of the Moon's formation. Although Mackenzie introduces us to many thinkers on the lunar phenomenon, the key figure is Ralph Baldwin. In the midst of growing debate about the lunar craters, Baldwin had the temerity to suggest that one impact had formed a significant part of the lunar surface. The debate was resolved, of course, by the Apollo landings. Among the rocky souvenirs brought back from those explorations were some green, glassy samples. These objects can only be formed by high speed impact of solid bodies. Deep in the past, The Moon had bombarded by meteors. Some of the bolides had been large, and their origin remained in question. One object had far greater impact than anything the lunar surface implies. It was the body that had led to the formation of the Moon itself. Mackenzie's "great splat" is the analysis of lunar material that revealed the Moon is made up of Earth-like surface material. The Moon doesn't have the iron core typical of rocky planets. The reason for this is that the Moon didn't co-form when the Earth did. The Moon was the result of a Mars-size planetoid striking the Earth shortly after its formation. The impact drove a mass of material into space which coalesced to form our satellite. Mackenzie's lively account is an excellent read and highly informative. He deals ably with some tough questions and cantankerous characters. Scientific dispute is often entertaining, particularly when the reader has little stake in the outcome. Yet, anything that advances research should be given attention and this book deserves yours. In demonstrating that questions about the Moon are still with us, Mackenzie's final chapter examines the strange story of conspiracy theorists who contend none of the Apollo landings took place. It's easy to dismiss this kind of thinking until you become aware of how many accept the notion. He deals with it carefully, asking the questions and dismissing the idea with carefully developed answers. This finale is almost worth the price of the book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: Moonies, meteors and tidal mechanics
Review: There's no greater reading pleasure than good science writing. By combining ingredients from history, stirring in good data, adding some spice of characterisation, a recipe of adventure and inquiry becomes a delicious result. Dana Mackenzie has produced a confection suited to any reader's taste in this account of thinking about our neighbour in space. Tracing the history of thought on our satellite, he travels down the centuries to reach an earth-shaking conclusion. It's difficult today to view the Moon as the ancients did. Once, it was considered a disc. Even whether its light came from the sun or originated from the lunar surface was disputed. The nature of the markings, Mackenzie explains, was equally contentious. The dark areas were finally deemed "seas" and the Latin "maria" remains with us today. After Galileo determined the moon was cratered, the origins of these enigmatic forms opened new discussion. Volcanoes held sway as their origin, although no Earth vulcanism had produced caldera of such size. Meteor impact was viewed with suspicion in an age when catastrophic events were looked on with cautious scorn. The moon's effect on the oceans was realised in ancient times, brought strongly to further awareness as Europe sent ships to far shores. Tidal predictability became a normal calculation, but much about tidal forces remained mysterious, Mackenzie reminds us. Examining tidal action would help lay the foundation for the most likely mechanism of the Moon's formation. Although Mackenzie introduces us to many thinkers on the lunar phenomenon, the key figure is Ralph Baldwin. In the midst of growing debate about the lunar craters, Baldwin had the temerity to suggest that one impact had formed a significant part of the lunar surface. The debate was resolved, of course, by the Apollo landings. Among the rocky souvenirs brought back from those explorations were some green, glassy samples. These objects can only be formed by high speed impact of solid bodies. Deep in the past, The Moon had bombarded by meteors. Some of the bolides had been large, and their origin remained in question. One object had far greater impact than anything the lunar surface implies. It was the body that had led to the formation of the Moon itself. Mackenzie's "great splat" is the analysis of lunar material that revealed the Moon is made up of Earth-like surface material. The Moon doesn't have the iron core typical of rocky planets. The reason for this is that the Moon didn't co-form when the Earth did. The Moon was the result of a Mars-size planetoid striking the Earth shortly after its formation. The impact drove a mass of material into space which coalesced to form our satellite. Mackenzie's lively account is an excellent read and highly informative. He deals ably with some tough questions and cantankerous characters. Scientific dispute is often entertaining, particularly when the reader has little stake in the outcome. Yet, anything that advances research should be given attention and this book deserves yours. In demonstrating that questions about the Moon are still with us, Mackenzie's final chapter examines the strange story of conspiracy theorists who contend none of the Apollo landings took place. It's easy to dismiss this kind of thinking until you become aware of how many accept the notion. He deals with it carefully, asking the questions and dismissing the idea with carefully developed answers. This finale is almost worth the price of the book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: wonderful read
Review: This book is a wonderful read, detailing various theories of teh origins of the moon. More interesting to me was the history of these theories. Very few science books spend time talking about how ideas evolved, and in particular how ideas as recent as 30 years ago have changed. This book was fun and easy to read, and Dr. Mackenzie does a great job explaining the science and conveying the excitement he clearly feels for the topic!
Rating:
Summary: You'll never look at the moon the same way again
Review: This book is not just for moon fans. It's packed with historical gems and scientific treats presented in an easy-going style. A real page turner for anyone who has ever wondered how our solar system go to be the way it is. The characters really came alive and the science was completely transparent. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Unconventional
Review: This book stands on its own as a terrific work on science, both informative and compelling. Its ability to offer the big picture as well as technical questions is probably what makes it so interesting to laymen (like myself). But it has a distinctive stamp when compared to a great work that has become the gold standard in popular astronomy, Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Overall, the two books probably have more in common than not. And the Big Splat does share Sagan's great theme of science as a self-correcting project with a long history, one characterized both by truth and errors. But science is painted a little differently here. In Carl Sagan's works, unmanned exploration of space comes across as the chief scientific success of the space program, and Sagan himself was a critic of manned space flights. In The Big Splat, it is the Apollo landing on the moon that shines as the pinnacle of scientific gain. The moon rocks returned to earth, culled on the lunar surface by astronauts trained in what to look for, told scientists that old theories about the moon's formation were untenable, and provided the key to the new and widely accepted theory; the rocks did something very similar for theories about the origin of craters. Moreover, the sheer size and visibility of the Apollo program revived lunar science when it had fallen out of favor with the scientific mainstream and was ebbing. Very few people today know that NASA's space program has had such a profound effect on any scientific field or question. The author notes himself that the impact theory of lunar formation, though widely accepted since 1984, has made only slow progress into mainstream national culture. He also notes that if the impact theory is true - and it has fewer weaknesses than any of the three principal previous theories were known to have when they were each first proposed - then few people even today have heard about what is arguably the most important event in earth's history. It was certainly the largest impact in earth's geological history, upon which all biological and social history developed; and though The Big Splat does not get into it, the presence of lunar tides may have been a key to the development of life on our globe. If the philosophy behind Cosmos has become the new, mainstream view of science, The Big Splat differs from it in at least one more important way. It does not rely greatly on the common theme of science-versus-religion (though that theme does appear). Science is presented as having its own fashions and dogmas, such as the onetime disinclination to take lunar science seriously, and the widespread prejudice against theories proposing large-scale impacts. The chief prejudice is one against lifeless planets: in the author's words, scientists as well as laymen had always proposed that there was life on the moon because "it was just too hard for the human intellect to grasp a place that was utterly devoid of life." In Carl Sagan's works, the greatest challenge to the human mind, and the largest opportunity to extend human knowledge, is said to be the possible discovery, by science, of extraterrestrial life; and religion in particular is portrayed as challenged by such possibilities. In this book, the role of that which is hardest for the human intellect to comprehend goes not to the discovery of life but of lifelessness: the discovery by Apollo that the moon was and always had been a lifeless body. To read this book is to put yourself in the shoes of the past, to work out particular scientific questions step by step, in relation to larger cultural questions - that is, as the people of the past worked them out. That may be the book's greatest strength.
Rating:
Summary: Unconventional
Review: This book stands on its own as a terrific work on science, both informative and compelling. Its ability to offer the big picture as well as technical questions is probably what makes it so interesting to laymen (like myself). But it has a distinctive stamp when compared to a great work that has become the gold standard in popular astronomy, Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Overall, the two books probably have more in common than not. And the Big Splat does share Sagan's great theme of science as a self-correcting project with a long history, one characterized both by truth and errors. But science is painted a little differently here. In Carl Sagan's works, unmanned exploration of space comes across as the chief scientific success of the space program, and Sagan himself was a critic of manned space flights. In The Big Splat, it is the Apollo landing on the moon that shines as the pinnacle of scientific gain. The moon rocks returned to earth, culled on the lunar surface by astronauts trained in what to look for, told scientists that old theories about the moon's formation were untenable, and provided the key to the new and widely accepted theory; the rocks did something very similar for theories about the origin of craters. Moreover, the sheer size and visibility of the Apollo program revived lunar science when it had fallen out of favor with the scientific mainstream and was ebbing. Very few people today know that NASA's space program has had such a profound effect on any scientific field or question. The author notes himself that the impact theory of lunar formation, though widely accepted since 1984, has made only slow progress into mainstream national culture. He also notes that if the impact theory is true - and it has fewer weaknesses than any of the three principal previous theories were known to have when they were each first proposed - then few people even today have heard about what is arguably the most important event in earth's history. It was certainly the largest impact in earth's geological history, upon which all biological and social history developed; and though The Big Splat does not get into it, the presence of lunar tides may have been a key to the development of life on our globe. If the philosophy behind Cosmos has become the new, mainstream view of science, The Big Splat differs from it in at least one more important way. It does not rely greatly on the common theme of science-versus-religion (though that theme does appear). Science is presented as having its own fashions and dogmas, such as the onetime disinclination to take lunar science seriously, and the widespread prejudice against theories proposing large-scale impacts. The chief prejudice is one against lifeless planets: in the author's words, scientists as well as laymen had always proposed that there was life on the moon because "it was just too hard for the human intellect to grasp a place that was utterly devoid of life." In Carl Sagan's works, the greatest challenge to the human mind, and the largest opportunity to extend human knowledge, is said to be the possible discovery, by science, of extraterrestrial life; and religion in particular is portrayed as challenged by such possibilities. In this book, the role of that which is hardest for the human intellect to comprehend goes not to the discovery of life but of lifelessness: the discovery by Apollo that the moon was and always had been a lifeless body. To read this book is to put yourself in the shoes of the past, to work out particular scientific questions step by step, in relation to larger cultural questions - that is, as the people of the past worked them out. That may be the book's greatest strength.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful history, and a fun story.
Review: This is a stimulating and entertaining account of the big impactor theory of lunar formation. The author skillfully sets the stage and then delivers the goods. Nicely done. A fun read.
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