Professor Neil F. Comins is on the faculty of the University of Maine. Born in 1951 in New York City, he grew up in New York and New England. He earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at Cornell University, a master’s degree in physics at the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University College, Cardiff, Wales, under the guidance of Bernard F. Schutz. Dr. Comins’s work for his doctorate, on general relativity, was cited in Subramanyan Chandrasekhar’s Nobel laureate speech. He has done theoretical and experimental research in general relativity, observational astronomy, computer simulations of galaxy evolution, and science education. The fourth edition of Discovering the Universe was the first book in this series that Dr. Comins wrote, having taken over following the death of Bill Kaufmann in 1994. He is also the author of four trade books, What If the Moon Didn’t Exist?, Heavenly Errors, The Hazards of Space Travel, and What If the Earth Had Two Moons? His book What If the Moon Didn’t Exist? has been made into planetarium shows, been excerpted for television and radio, translated into several languages, was the theme for the Mitsubishi Pavilion at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, and has been a show at a resort since 2006. Heavenly Errors explores misconceptions people have about astronomy, why such misconceptions are so common, and how to correct them. Dr. Comins has appeared on numerous television and radio shows and gives many public talks. Although he has jumped out of airplanes while in the military, today his activities are a little more sedate: He is a licensed pilot and avid sailor, having once competed against Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

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