Black holes (Astronomy) |
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Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Searching... Elizabeth Taber Library | 523.8 LEV | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Mansfield Public Library | 523.8 L | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
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.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"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. (Nov.)
Kirkus Review
A short, lively account of one of the oddest and most intriguing topics in astrophysics. Levin, a Guggenheim fellow and professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, knows her subject well, but her goal is appreciation as much as education, and there is much to admire in a black hole. Before Einstein, writes the author, scientists believed that the force of gravity influenced the speed of moving objects. They also knew that light always travels at exactly the speed of light. This combination made no sense until 1915, when Einstein explained that gravity is not a force but a curving of space (really, space-time) near a body of matter. The more massive the matter, the greater it curves the space in its vicinity; other bodies that approach appear to bend or change speed when they are merely moving forward through distorted space-time. Einstein's equations indicated that, above a certain mass, space-time would curve enough to double back on itself and disappear, but this was considered a mathematical curiosity until the 1960s, when objects that did just that began turning up: black holes. Light cannot emerge from a black hole, but it is not invisible. Large holes attract crowds of orbiting stars whose density produces frictional heating and intense radiation. No writer, Levin included, can contain their fascination with the event horizon, the boundary of the black hole where space-time doubles back. Nothing inside the event horizon, matter or radiation, can leave, and anything that enters is lost forever. Time slows near the horizon and then stops. The author's discussions of the science behind her subject will enlighten those who have read similar books, perhaps the best being Marcia Bartusiak's Black Hole (2015). Readers coming to black holes for the first time will share Levin's wonder but may struggle with some of her explanations. An enthusiastic appreciation of a spectacular astrophysical entity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Most of us will never get anywhere near a black hole, but Levin, a physics and astronomy professor at Barnard and author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space (2016), takes readers on a hypothetical journey into the heart of one of the universe's greatest curiosities in this absorbing exploration. Levin posits the reader as an astronaut on a deep-space station in the proximity of a black hole, then provides an in-depth explanation of what a person would see approaching it and what the experience of being pulled into one would feel like, what would be visible from inside the black hole, and, finally, what a person would endure being "simultaneously flayed, shredded, and pulverized to death." In the latter half of the book, Levin delves into contemporary research into black holes, including the theoretical creation of a microscopic one in a laboratory and what's going on at the quantum level in a black hole, making for somewhat denser reading. Armchair astronomers will find this a fascinating and illuminating read.
Library Journal Review
In this engrossing work, astrophysicist Levin (Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space) delves into the world of black holes, one of the most incomprehensible phenomena in the universe. As noted by Levin, black holes do not consist of atoms, light, or particles; rather, they are a warp in spacetime. Their existence was not even accepted by a large number of scientists throughout much of the 20th century, but today they are essential to understanding the structure of the cosmos. They are numerous and incredibly dense; for example, a black hole a mere six kilometers across would have the same mass as the sun. They are so strong that light cannot escape them. They will also play a key role in the end of the universe, as eventually, the sun and the rest of the matter in the universe will fall into a black hole. Levin describes the subject matter in an accessible writing style that is both entertaining and poetic. She even describes what would happen to the courageous individual willing to be absorbed by a black hole. VERDICT Recommended for nonscientists and those seeking to understand the cosmos better.--Dave Pugl, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL