Black Hole Survival Guide
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4.7 • 11 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space—an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science.
"[Levin will] take you on a safe black hole trip, an exciting travel story enjoyed from your chair’s event horizon.” —Boston Globe
Through her writing, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused on making the science she studies not just comprehensible but also, and perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist. In this book, she helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole—perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists—illustrated with original artwork by American painter and photographer Lia Halloran. Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative—it is, as well, a wonderful read from first to last.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Black holes are special because there's nothing there," astrophysicist Levin (How the Universe Got Its Spots) observes playfully at the start of her enthusiastic cosmic survey. She begins with how Einstein's general theory of relativity, in predicting that gravity can bend light and space, laid the groundwork for first the conceptualization, and later the discovery, of collapsed stars so massive that their gravity prevents even light from escaping. Then, with palpable excitement, Levin goes over facts and features of black holes, from the event horizon and the bizarre quantum mechanics involved when black holes "evaporate," to their surprisingly common occurrence throughout the universe; the Solar System currently orbits one at the center of the Milky Way, while simultaneously being pulled toward another in the Andromeda galaxy. She shares plenty of vivid details, from how quasars represent "the entire core of an ancient galaxy shining energetically billions of light-years," to how producing the first image of a black hole was equivalent to "reading the date on a quarter in San Francisco from New York City." Readers couldn't hope for a more fascinating intro to a family of cosmic objects whose existence promises still more wonders to be discovered.
Customer Reviews
Really enjoyed it
I learned of Jenna watching StarTalk with Neil Degrasse Tyson. I enjoy her knowledge an passion for black holes. This book, short but so informative left me with a lot more desire to explore and learn about black holes.