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Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes [Pehme köide]

(University of Arizona in Tucson)
  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 304 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 211x140x20 mm, kaal: 259 g, 68 illustrations
  • Ilmumisaeg: 17-Sep-2019
  • Kirjastus: WW Norton & Co
  • ISBN-10: 0393357503
  • ISBN-13: 9780393357509
Teised raamatud teemal:
  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 304 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 211x140x20 mm, kaal: 259 g, 68 illustrations
  • Ilmumisaeg: 17-Sep-2019
  • Kirjastus: WW Norton & Co
  • ISBN-10: 0393357503
  • ISBN-13: 9780393357509
Teised raamatud teemal:
“[ A] skillfully told history of the quest to find black holes.” —Manjit Kumar, Financial Times

Black holes are the best-known and least-understood objects in the universe. In Einstein’s Monsters, distinguished astronomer Chris Impey takes readers on a vivid tour of these enigmatic giants. He weaves a fascinating tale out of the fiendishly complex math of black holes and the colorful history of their discovery. Impey blends this history with a poignant account of the phenomena scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: stars swarming like bees around the center of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with visible stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in space time. Clear, compelling, and profound, Einstein’s Monsters reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it.

Arvustused

"Black holes were originally flights of theoretical fancy, difficult for even professional physicists to wrap their brains around. In Einstein's Monsters, Chris Impey shows how modern astronomy has brought them into vivid focus, and conveys how much more we're learning about these extreme beasts with every passing year." -- Sean Carroll "In Einstein's Monsters, Impey provides a history of black holes and an overview of investigations into their supremely counter-intuitive behaviour...[ he] addresses the seeming absurdities of [ the] subject with authority and wit." -- Nature "Impey skilfully weaves a fascinating tale out of the work and ideas of the scientists who... pieced together the history of black holes by understanding the evolution of stars and how they can, depending on their mass, end up as white dwarfs, ultra-dense neutronstars, rapidly spinning pulsars or as an exploding supernova." -- Financial Times "Einstein's Monsters cuts through the "fiendishly complex" mathematics to set out the evidence for black holes, and how they are born and die." -- Times Higher Education "Impey does an admirable job describing multiple facets of the often contradictory field of black hole astrophysics... Einstein's Monsters will be sure to capture the imagination of most who pick it up, simultaneously convincing the reader that these monsters, while in fact quite certainly real, should be loved and not feared." -- Science "The book gives an awe-inspiring account of the complexity and beauty of black holes that were there before our Galaxy formed and will probably be there after everything else has been shredded apart by the forces of an ever-expanding Universe." -- Nature "Astronomer Impey's accessible approach breaks down complex scientific concepts with ease and flair, name-checking everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to Pink Floyd as he lays out what we think we know about black holesand what remains mysterious." -- Discover

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