Thursday's Universe

Bartusiak is a specialist in astrophysics who in 1982 won the American Institute of Physics Writing Prize. Buffs of the genre will welcome her attempt to render the history of this century's astrophysics, up to its merger with quantum particle physics and cosmology, for the book is freshly angled with inside lore and lab legend about the serendipitous discoveries and one-shot speculations of physicists and astronomers normally passed over by science writers. Too, Bartusiak is knowledgeable about the most sophisticated technology that has permitted the amazing growth of knowledge about pulsars, quasars, ""radio galaxies'' and much more. Her detailed scenario ranges from our new awareness of stellar evolution to recent findings relating the world of quarks and their kin to bizarre speculations called GUTs (Grand Unified Theories), which take science beyond the Big Bang virtually intometaphysics? Bartusiak shows how science confronts a cosmos incredibly vaster and more violent than ever imagined. Photos. (November 10)