About this ebook
The year 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the key papers on stellar nucleosynthesis, universally referred to as the B2FH paper. This book is a timely survey of how a new discipline — nuclear astrophysics — was born, and how it has matured. Almost completely non-technical, the book remains scientifically rigorous, and thereby fills an important gap.
Science is not a linear process, as the ill-named “scientific method” might suggest to the unwary. The author emphasizes the meanders, the dead ends and the obsessive dogmas which have guided researchers through the 20th century. He also makes it clear that our understanding of where the elements come from has come through discoveries in diverse, not necessarily related, disciplines.
