Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

by Kip S. Thorne

Book Overview

Ever since Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915, some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to decipher its mysteries. Some of them--like black holes and time machines--are so unthinkable that Einstein himself rejected them.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393035050
• ISBN13: 9780393035056
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 619 Pages
• Weight: 2.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

First in the Modern Cosmology Trilogy

First great and accessible but satisfactory work, Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps (1994) in my own Modern Cosmology Trilogy. Then Greene's Elegant Universe (1999) and to Kaku's Parallel Worlds (2005). Just from the titles one can observe the content shifting from mid Einstein cosmology (Thorne) to enlightened multiverse alt dimensionalities (Kaku). I've yet to better these three titles respective to their publication dates. Going back any further in publication date misses a lot of important and advanced information. After Kaku in 2005, my preference is for watching. Gets iffy. Great place to start the incredible journey.

From General Relativity to Quantum Gravity.

Kip Thorne's excellent book should be updated every year and kept in national archives for future generations of scientists and historians.It is as much historical as popular scientific masterpiece, teaching us about life of many important mathematicians, theoretical and experimental physicists and astrophysicists, trying to solve the mystery of imploding stars and created later black holes. The author chronicles every character, their successes and failures- with precision, meticulously and painstakingly. Each and everybody is scrutinized , weaknesses and strong sides are exposed. It is a great and often humorous analysis of personalities, for example: "Zel'dovitch, who knew hardly any relativity, had demonstrated it using deep physical inside and crude calculations".I have not had any problem accepting this mixture of science and history, since I like both.Book starts with Einstein and GR (which book of this type would not?), but then continues through almost 90 years of many top relativists' work, John Wheeler's being the most important.Thorne writes with passion and honesty about his predecessors, mentors, team players, colleagues and students. I have never learned so much about scientists, exception perhaps being Guth's book "The Inflationary Universe", how they calculate, develop ideas, announce discoveries, and how they compete, confront each other and make mistakes.For example, you will find that Einstein even at age 33 did not have a clue how to express his theory mathematically and managed to do it only with the help of mathematician Marcel Grossman! Also surprisingly, famous Subrahmanyan Chadrasekhar wrote an excellent summary science book " The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" when he was 73 years old.Especially interesting and dramatic are parts of the book where author writes about ingenious Soviet scientists developing nuclear bombs and at the same time suffering in isolation during the communism in former USSR. The author shows respect and gives them all credits they deserve.His knowledge about life behind the "iron curtain" is impressive and he presents very open minded and unbiased descriptions. When comparing both political systems where cosmology science thrived, he understands his friends in Moscow, who contemplate that (quote): "one (system) is terrorized by KGB and miserable because of the power of incompetent officials and another (in America) is barbaric because of the way they treat poor and lack of medical care for everyone".The author always tried to keep in touch with his colleagues in USSR and was able to travel there in many occasions. This benefited all of them, large group of Russian and American scientists. Book reads often like action packed sensational story where lots is at stake and tensions are high. Kip Thorne immerges as a very colorful, free spirited and amicable person. He describes personal life and achievements with modesty - top notch, "super" scientists are as much humans as we "normal guys" are -

A brilliant introduction for the lay person

The true secrets of universe can only be understood by a deep understanding of highly complicated mathematical and physical concepts. For mere mortals like me, books like these offer a good taste of such pleasures. Kip Thorne, a relativist of very high caliber (coauthor of the classic textbook "Gravitation"), takes the reader through a exciting journey through the history of modern cosmology starting with Einstein's Field Equation.Unlike most popular physics books dealing with such a topic, he actually spends (relatively) little time dwelling on Einstein's work itself (just a couple of chapters) -- there are several books that deal with relativity itself (I'm talking books for the layperson). Instead he quickly starts talking about the "Legacy" of Einstein's great theory. We are led through drama of 20th century cosmology as different solutions were found for the Field Equations which challenged human reason and intuition, ultimately leading to the great crisis: the black hole.As the author himself is a very active and very highly respected member of the scientic community, the book is full of very interesting (and sometime illuminating) anecdotes about various luminories (I love the one about his bet with Stephen Hawking about the existence of Cygnus X-1 black hole).If you are a layperson (as far as modern astrophysics is concerned, probably most are lay people) interested in science in general and astronomy in particular, I'd strongly recommend this book (heck, I'd recommend it for any one who's even mildly curious). This is one of the best books in its field (if not the best) that caters to the lay readers (not unlike Richard Dawkins's "Blind Watch Maker" for evolution).

A GREAT EXPOSITION ON ASTROPHYSICS AND ITS DEVELOPMENT!

Mr. Thorne has managed to write a book that while going into a lot of detail in explaning the history, the people involved and the science behind Black Holes, Wormholes, and Time Travel, he DOES NOT lose the reader [assuming that Astrophysics is of interest to the reader] due to the amount of detail. The illustrations in the book are superb. Mr. Thorne explains the science in such a way that is not intimidating, but doesn't skimp on the details. I found this to be a better book than "The History of Time". It is a complete package. The glossary at the back of the book is VERY helpfull.I cannot stress enough how well Kip Thorne explicates on this subject. The amount of technical and mathematical detail instead of being a deterrent was the strenth and potency of this book. Even the history dimension of the book I found interesting. There is a sense of awe, to a person interesting in Astrophysics, in finding out how these people came to be the best in their field and their contribution as well as an understanding of thier contributions. If I had to recommend one book for someone interested in Black Holes, Time Travel and the like, it would definately be this book! A Cosmic tour-de-force! HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Can a blend of History and Black Holes succeed?

I thought not. I was wrong. The reason: Kip Thorne. I really enjoyed the reading of this book because it offers the theoretical face of the so-called "Black Holes Mechanics" and a very important and delightful part, the history behind the theorems. The book begins with several chapters dedicated almost exclusively to the bases of the Special Theory of Relativity and the General Theory of Relativity, which describes the gravitation field in almost any place of our universe (if you get the book you will see why I say "almost"). Thereafter, the text covers the most important aspects of stellar implosion, which, in fact, brings Black Holes into existence. Once you are immersed in the very topic of the holes, the author studied profoundly their properties with informative boxes, spacetime diagrams, lots of references about discoveries, people and, the great difference with others books, an outstanding and thorough historical background. By the end, the author presents the most excitement predictions about the future use of Black Holes and the yet ill-understood Quantum Gravity Theory (predictions like backward time travel and wormholes). Finally, Kip Thorne closed the book with an excellent glossary of exotic terms and a list of principal characters that appeared throughout the text. I can say, without any doubt, that this is one of the most illustrative and complete books I have ever read, and in my opinion, is a book that every "Black Hole serious student" might have in his/her shelve. If you are looking for a less technical book, I suggest you "Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide" by Clifford Pickover. Nevertheless, if you want a higher challenge, get the book "Gravitation" by Thorne, Wheeler and Misner.

Jam-packed with information!

When I first received the book, I said to myself, "Whoa, 619 pages! It'll take me a while to read this!"...I honestly could not put the book down! Overall, it took me about a week to finish the book. Every page had something interesting on it! Thorne even threw in some neat equations, which were easy enough for a 15-year-old high-school genius to figure out. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be blasted with information about our universe...and others!