First Look at a Black Hole


Book Description

"On-point historical photographs combined with strong narration bring the story of the first photograph of a black hole to life. Kids will learn why it was so hard to take a photo of something so dark it does not reflect light, and so far away it could barely be reached. Primary source quotations bring the amazing accomplishment to life"--




The Black Hole War


Book Description

What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it did, and in doing so put at risk everything we know about physics and the fundamental laws of the universe. Most scientists didn't recognize the import of Hawking's claims, but Leonard Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft realized the threat, and responded with a counterattack that changed the course of physics. The Black Hole War is the thrilling story of their united effort to reconcile Hawking's revolutionary theories of black holes with their own sense of reality -- effort that would eventually result in Hawking admitting he was wrong, paying up, and Susskind and t'Hooft realizing that our world is a hologram projected from the outer boundaries of space. A brilliant book about modern physics, quantum mechanics, the fate of stars and the deep mysteries of black holes, Leonard Susskind's account of the Black Hole War is mind-bending and exhilarating reading.




First Look at a Black Hole


Book Description

On-point historical photographs combined with strong narration bring the story of the first photograph of a black hole to life. Kids will learn why it was so hard to take a photo of something so dark it does not reflect light, and so far away it could barely be reached. Primary source quotations bring the amazing accomplishment to life.




Einstein's Monsters


Book Description

“[A] skillfully told history of the quest to find black holes.” —Manjit Kumar, Financial Times Black holes are the best-known and least-understood objects in the universe. In Einstein’s Monsters, distinguished astronomer Chris Impey takes readers on a vivid tour of these enigmatic giants. He weaves a fascinating tale out of the fiendishly complex math of black holes and the colorful history of their discovery. Impey blends this history with a poignant account of the phenomena scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: stars swarming like bees around the center of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with visible stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in space time. Clear, compelling, and profound, Einstein’s Monsters reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it.




Black Hole Chasers


Book Description

In Black Hole Chasers, award-winning investigative journalist Anna Crowley Redding presents the riveting true story of one of the most inspiring scientific breakthroughs of our lifetime—the Event Horizon Telescope team's reveal of the first image of a super massive black hole. In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope Team unveiled the first ever image of a super massive black hole. This inspiring scientific breakthrough took years of hard work, innovative thinking, and a level of global cooperation never seen before. The challenge was immense. The goal was impossible. They would need a telescope as big as the earth itself. The technology simply didn’t exist. And yet, a multi-national team of scientists was able to show the world an image of something previously unseeable. Based off extensive research and hours interviews with many of the team's ground-breaking scientist, physicists, and mathematicians, Black Hole Chasers is a story of unique technological innovation and scientific breakthroughs, but more importantly, it's a story of human curiosity and triumph.




Black Hole


Book Description

The award-winning science writer “packs a lot of learning into a deceptively light and enjoyable read” exploring the contentious history of the black hole (New Scientist). For more than half a century, physicists and astronomers engaged in heated dispute over the possibility of black holes in the universe. The strange notion of a space-time abyss from which not even light escapes seemed to confound all logic. Now Marcia Bartusiak, author of Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony and The Day We Found the Universe, recounts the frustrating, exhilarating, and at times humorous battles over one of history’s most dazzling ideas. Bartusiak shows how the black hole helped revive Einstein’s greatest achievement, the general theory of relativity, after decades of languishing in obscurity. Not until astronomers discovered such surprising new phenomena as neutron stars and black holes did the once-sedate universe transform into an Einsteinian cosmos, filled with sources of titanic energy that can be understood only in the light of relativity. Black Hole explains how Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other leading thinkers completely changed the way we see the universe.




Einstein's Shadow


Book Description

Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of reality Photographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that. With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes created to study black holes. He witnessed the team’s struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and, along the way, Fletcher explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes: Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought theory of everything? Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy endeavor of science really works. Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.




Exploring Black Holes


Book Description




Physics of Black Holes


Book Description

One of the most exciting predictions of Einstein's theory of gravitationisthat there may exist 'black holes': putative objects whose gravitational fields are so strong that no physical bodies and signals can break free of their pull and escape. Even though a completely reliable discovery of a black hole has not yet been made, several objects among those scrutinized by astrophysicists will very likely be conformed as black holes. The proof that they do exist, and an analysis of their properties, would have a significance going far beyond astrophysics. Indeed, what is involved is not just the discovery of yet another, even if extremely remarkable, astrophysical object, but a test of the correctness of our understanding the properties of space and time in extremely strong gravitational fields. Theoretical research into the properties of black holes and into the possible corollaries of the hypothesis that they exist, has been carried out with special vigor since the beginning of the 1970s. In addition to those specific features of black holes that are important for the interpretation of their possible astrophysical manifestations, the theory has revealed a nurober of unexpected characteristics of physical interactions involving black holes. By now, a fairly detailed understanding has been achieved of the properties of the black holes, their possible astrophysical manifestations, and the specifics of the various physical processes involved. Furthermore, profound links were found between black-hole theory and such seemingly very distant fields as thermodynamics, information theory, and quantum theory.




What Does a Black Hole Look Like?


Book Description

A sophisticated introduction to how astronomers identify, observe, and understand black holes Emitting no radiation or any other kind of information, black holes mark the edge of the universe—both physically and in our scientific understanding. Yet astronomers have found clear evidence for the existence of black holes, employing the same tools and techniques used to explore other celestial objects. In this sophisticated introduction, leading astronomer Charles Bailyn goes behind the theory and physics of black holes to describe how astronomers are observing these enigmatic objects and developing a remarkably detailed picture of what they look like and how they interact with their surroundings. Accessible to undergraduates and others with some knowledge of introductory college-level physics, this book presents the techniques used to identify and measure the mass and spin of celestial black holes. These key measurements demonstrate the existence of two kinds of black holes, those with masses a few times that of a typical star, and those with masses comparable to whole galaxies—supermassive black holes. The book provides a detailed account of the nature, formation, and growth of both kinds of black holes. The book also describes the possibility of observing theoretically predicted phenomena such as gravitational waves, wormholes, and Hawking radiation. A cutting-edge introduction to a subject that was once on the border between physics and science fiction, this book shows how black holes are becoming routine objects of empirical scientific study.