| Acknowledgments |
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xv | |
| Foreword |
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xvii | |
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PART A EVIDENCE FOR BLACK HOLES, LARGE AND SMALL |
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1 | (120) |
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3 | (27) |
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An English Clergyman Imagines Dark Stars |
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3 | (2) |
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A Great French Mathematician Weighs In |
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5 | (2) |
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Understanding the Fabric of Space-Time |
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7 | (5) |
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A Singularity and a Life Cut Short |
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12 | (2) |
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The Master of Implosions and Explosions |
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14 | (2) |
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Coining the Perfect Term for the Inscrutable |
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16 | (2) |
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A Genius Struggles with Gravity and Disease |
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18 | (5) |
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23 | (3) |
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The Golden Age of Black Hole Theory |
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26 | (4) |
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2 Black Holes from Star Death |
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30 | (27) |
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The Forces of Light and Darkness |
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30 | (3) |
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Gravity and Darkness Are the Final Victors |
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33 | (5) |
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Finding the First Black Swan |
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38 | (2) |
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Weighing the Invisible Dance Partner |
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40 | (3) |
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Black Holes with Gold-Plated Credentials |
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43 | (4) |
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Using Gravitational Optics |
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47 | (3) |
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Physics at the Edge of the Maelstrom |
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50 | (4) |
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A Tour of the Binary Star Bestiary |
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54 | (3) |
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3 Supermassive Black Holes |
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57 | (31) |
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The Only Radio Astronomer in the World |
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57 | (4) |
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Galaxies with Bright Nuclei |
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61 | (1) |
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Radio Astronomy Comes of Age |
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62 | (6) |
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A Dutch Astronomer Discovers Quasars |
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68 | (3) |
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Astronomers Harvest Distant Points of Light |
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71 | (3) |
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Hypothesizing Massive Black Holes |
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74 | (3) |
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Mapping Radio Jets and Lobes |
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77 | (4) |
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The Zoo of Active Galaxies |
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81 | (4) |
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85 | (3) |
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88 | (33) |
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The Big Black Hole Next Door |
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89 | (4) |
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Stars at the Edge of the Ahyss |
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93 | (2) |
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The Dark Core in Every Galaxy |
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95 | (5) |
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Baron Rees of Ludlow Tames the Beast |
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100 | (3) |
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Using Quasars to Probe the Universe |
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103 | (3) |
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Weighing Black Holes by the Thousand |
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106 | (7) |
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Accretion Power in the Cosmos |
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113 | (3) |
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Massive Black Holes Are Not Scary |
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116 | (5) |
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PART B BLACK HOLES, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE |
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121 | (124) |
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5 The Lives of Black Holes |
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123 | (30) |
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123 | (2) |
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First Light and First Darkness |
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125 | (4) |
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Black Hole Birth by Stellar Cataclysm |
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129 | (4) |
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Finding the Missing Links |
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133 | (4) |
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Simulating Extreme Gravity in a Computer |
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137 | (6) |
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How Black Holes and Galaxies Grow |
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143 | (5) |
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The Universe as a Black Hole |
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148 | (2) |
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Making Black Holes in the Lab |
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150 | (3) |
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6 Black Holes as Tests of Gravity |
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153 | (28) |
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Gravity from Newton to Einstein and Beyond |
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154 | (4) |
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What Black Holes Do to Space-Time |
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158 | (4) |
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How Black Holes Affect Radiation |
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162 | (4) |
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166 | (2) |
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X-Rays Flickering Near the Abyss |
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168 | (3) |
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When a Black Hole Eats a Star |
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171 | (3) |
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Taking a Black Hole for a Spin |
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174 | (3) |
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The Event Horizon Telescope |
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177 | (4) |
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7 Seeing with Gravity Eyes |
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181 | (38) |
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A New Way of Seeing the Universe |
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181 | (4) |
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185 | (3) |
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An Eccentric Millionaire and a Solitary Engineer |
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188 | (6) |
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194 | (3) |
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The Most Precise Machine Ever Built |
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197 | (7) |
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Meet the Maestro of Gravity |
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204 | (3) |
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Viewing the Universe with Gravity Eyes |
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207 | (6) |
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Collisions and Mergers of Massive Black Holes |
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213 | (3) |
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216 | (3) |
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8 The Fate of Black Holes |
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219 | (26) |
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219 | (5) |
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224 | (3) |
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227 | (3) |
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The Biggest Black Holes in the Universe |
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230 | (4) |
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The Era of Stellar Corpses |
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234 | (2) |
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A Future of Evaporation and Decay |
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236 | (3) |
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239 | (6) |
| Notes |
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245 | (38) |
| Index |
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283 | |