Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program)
by Kip S. Thorne
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kip S. ThorneForeword: Stephen Hawking
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1995-01
ISBN: 0393312763
Number of pages: 619
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program)
Book Review: The people behind the Science
Summary: 4 Stars
Kip Thorne is the author of one of the most authoritative texts on Gravitation and Astrophysics. ?aeBlack Holes and Time Warps? is meant to bring these recent advanced discoveries in cosmology to the masses. What makes this book most valuable is that it not only devotes many pages explaining the physics in simple terms, but also introduces the major players in the field, telling the stories of their lives, and describing in detail how they achieved their discoveries. The book is therefore very inspiring to young scientists. It is written in a highly narrative style that keeps up a heightened suspense as one wonders what the next discovery will be, what it?(tm)s impact is one our world vision, and which scientist will bring about such a breakthrough.
We read about the life story of Einstein, and how he worked hard and long hours in between babysitting his children so as to come up with his masterpieces on relativity. We then read about Chandrasekhar, the young student from India, who with nothing more than his own brain and a crude mechanical calculator achieved what is perhaps one of the greatest theoretical discoveries of the 20th centuries: black holes. It would be years before astronomers concur and document the existence of these beasts, years in which Chandrasekhar had to suffer rejection and alienation from his peers in the scientific community. We read about the wonderful experiments physicists set up to understand the world: from massive arrays of radio telescopes for listening to the furthest reaches of the universe, to cosmic ray detectors to measure the minute remnants of supernova explosions. We read about the atomic and H-bombs, about Oppenheimer and his own personal feelings about his creation. Here, the attitude of the author ?" himself a leading scientist and contributor to human knowledge ?" is far from passive acceptance of all that science brings. He understands perhaps more than anyone else that science can be applied for evil purposes as well as beneficial purposes, and he does not shy away from discussing these ethical dilemmas he and his peers had to confront at some points in their lives.
Coming closer towards the end of the 20th century, Thorne discusses the complexities black hole research has led us into: apparent paradoxes and strange objects defying understanding ?" ?aesingularities? in scientific lingo. We read eagerly about the competition between leading scientists such as Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose to expand our limits of knowledge on black holes. We read also about the role of the cold war in advancing ?" or suppressing ?" scientific knowledge.
This wonderful book is augmented by an enormous number of simple illustrations explaining the concepts discussed, as well as photographs of the various people involved in this unending quest for knowledge. The book also boasts of a useful glossary at the end, as well as a timeline, a bibliography, a good set of notes, and a people as well as a subject index. It is definitely a book worth reading, one of the few books on science that admit that science is more than just numbers, but is also about people and is an integral part of the human story. I give it a 4 because I thought the book is too long, and tends to get wordy at times. A concise edition would be a useful contribution. The bibliography also suffers from bloatedness ?" it is so bulky and with no comments such that the interested reader will have difficulty deciding what to read next.
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Summary of Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program)
In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Thorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking.Astrophysics & Space Science Books
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