What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it d...
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Sep 05, 2011
Dick
rated it: 
Thanks, John, for buying this thought provoking book for me for Christmas. Leonard Susskind has written a fascinating book which combines the sociology of physics with a thoughtful discussion of the implications of quantum mechanics, Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and string theory. Susskind describes black holes, which are objects which are so massive that they push through the fabric of the universe, creating a hole (perhaps into an alternate universe) from which no object can esca
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Aug 04, 2011
Terry
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The Hole War follows the scientific debate regarding whether or not black hole formation and evaporation represents true loss of information as told from the winning side by Leonard Susskind.
Susskind follows the events, developments, and personalities of the debate with a strong insider's knowledge and near reverence for the minds involved. He tends to go into lengthy asides about people and hits on string theory a bit harder than I think is needed but this is his book from his perspe More...
Susskind follows the events, developments, and personalities of the debate with a strong insider's knowledge and near reverence for the minds involved. He tends to go into lengthy asides about people and hits on string theory a bit harder than I think is needed but this is his book from his perspe More...
Jun 21, 2010
Alan
rated it:
First, let me say that Ray Porter does a superb job narrating this book. He breathes life into a production that could boring with another narrator.
For the most part this book is a conversational discussion of many complicated concepts such as black holes, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Gravity, and Sting Theory. There are times when it finds itself a bit long-winded. At times I get tired of Susskind blowing his own horn. There are times when I don't quite follow the explanations, but More...
For the most part this book is a conversational discussion of many complicated concepts such as black holes, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Gravity, and Sting Theory. There are times when it finds itself a bit long-winded. At times I get tired of Susskind blowing his own horn. There are times when I don't quite follow the explanations, but More...
Oct 20, 2009
Toni
rated it:
Could the King of physics be wrong about black holes? For 30 years Hawking and Susskind debated whether or not information disappears once it is sucked into a black hole. I commend Susskind for his courage not in debating Hawking, but in explaining concepts like Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Gravity, and Sting Theory to regular people like me. If you want to learn more about your universe and you don't want to spend a lot of time on the math - this is the book.
These black hole ideas are im More...
These black hole ideas are im More...
Sep 28, 2009
S
rated it: 
About 60% (and that's a conservative estimate) went over my head, despite Susskind's valiant effort to dumb it down. In a nutshell, he explains how he and a group of like-minded theoretical physicists ultimately proved Stephen Hawking wrong.
What was the issue? Hawking said he had proven that information that enters a black hole is lost forever. Susskind disagreed, mainly because that would mean that one of the fundamental tenets of physics -- that matter is never destroyed -- woul More...
What was the issue? Hawking said he had proven that information that enters a black hole is lost forever. Susskind disagreed, mainly because that would mean that one of the fundamental tenets of physics -- that matter is never destroyed -- woul More...
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Sep 05, 2009
Stephen
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May 27, 2009
Johnny
rated it: 
I think the world is intruiged by Stephen Hawking. He reached cult status years ago, the butt end of many jokes on SNL or TV shows. That being said he's regarded as THE physicist of physicists. Who knew much more than he had a book to help the layman? Or that he was in a battle about Black Holes? I certainly didn't.
As a whole the book has too much science in it. I know I know, it's a book about Quantum Mechanics, thermal energy, space-time, partical difublators and time machines (not real More...
As a whole the book has too much science in it. I know I know, it's a book about Quantum Mechanics, thermal energy, space-time, partical difublators and time machines (not real More...
Apr 07, 2009
Kathy
rated it:
This book was like a summary of everything I love about physics; the thought experiments, the elegant mathematics, the condensing of everyday reality into really bizarre activities on a subatomic level and the necessity of thinking in a completely new way to even begin to understand it all. The only thing I didn't like about this book is the continual regret that I do not have the mathematical chops to follow the math he didn't include.
Susskind not only follows the progression of some ext More...
Susskind not only follows the progression of some ext More...
Jul 20, 2009
Isk
rated it:
Started a year ago, finally finished! Hate Susskind's writing -- shut the fuck up with your inane and bloated "war" metaphor that appears every other page. And no, you don't need to constantly remind that why you were always so sure you were right and that you couldn't believe all the other physicists were too dense to see why the war was important. But the cool physics is inside.
Hawking: seemed to prove that information is irretrievably lost in a black hole. Also, empty sp More...
Hawking: seemed to prove that information is irretrievably lost in a black hole. Also, empty sp More...
Jun 05, 2010
Mike
rated it:
This is another case where I would like to be able to give a 4.5 instead of a "lowly" 4. To be brief, if you like engaging non-fiction, this is a great book.
This is a very well written book about a lengthy debate in the scientific community about the rules of physics and their "universality", in a manner of speaking. Granted we really on get one side of the "argument", but he presents the opposition fairly and with enough detail to let the reader unders More...
This is a very well written book about a lengthy debate in the scientific community about the rules of physics and their "universality", in a manner of speaking. Granted we really on get one side of the "argument", but he presents the opposition fairly and with enough detail to let the reader unders More...
Mar 05, 2009
Peter
rated it:
Susskind writes well. However, the theoretical physics he addresses, without all the equations (and graphics) must be the most difficult to translate to layman’s language. He has done a good job, but has not made the presentation for which I had hoped.
Equivocation is my issue again. When physicists talk about the curvature of space-time, do then mean space? In spatial dimensions curves are familiar. However, the notion of curvature of time is not analogous to anything I can think of. More...
Equivocation is my issue again. When physicists talk about the curvature of space-time, do then mean space? In spatial dimensions curves are familiar. However, the notion of curvature of time is not analogous to anything I can think of. More...
Feb 05, 2009
Cosmology has been sexy since Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Hawking stormed onto the scene three decades ago, popularizing science for the masses. In The Black Hole War, Susskind plays on our insatiable appetite for the gee-whiz moment, combining lucid explanations for some complex ideas with stories that tend to confirm the eccentricities of the highly intelligent. In fact, it's the author's knack for teaching and his conversational prose that make the book accessible and therefore a
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Jan 21, 2010
Lightreads
rated it:
A cheerful, chatty, kind of goofy account of the author's battle with Hawking to prove that information is not permanently lost in black holes. Largely non-mathematical and easy to follow, even though I'm far less comfortable with quantum mechanics than general relativity. And I mostly didn't have my usual problem with popular physics books and their reliance on mind-bending physics revelations by analogy. I actually stopped reading and went "ha!" when Susskind explained to me why I've
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Aug 09, 2009
Brad
rated it:
This is a terrific introduction to the bleeding edge of theoretical physics. While the main story is about the author's "battle" with Stephen Hawking about whether or not black holes destroy entropy (information) or whether they preserve it (the latter is probably true), the discussion touches on relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, black holes, the inflationary universe, and the latest ideas about our universe really being a hologram.
The author also interjects pe More...
The author also interjects pe More...
Mar 28, 2010
Marcus
rated it:
There is a point in the expanding universe where things are moving away from us at the speed of light. Since nothing can exceed the speed of light, we can know nothing of what lies beyond that point. Not only that, but any currently known object that speeds beyond that horizon is lost to us forever. The only other way an object in space can disappear forever is by being sucked into the strangest type of star, a black hole. This second way of vanishing is the topic of controversy in Susskind's Bl
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Jan 09, 2009
Mike
rated it:
I liked this book very much because it has many good qualities. The author does a really good job explaining the latest in scientific thought about quarks, strings, black holes, entropy, information, Planck mass/size/time and gravity, among others. He spends a lot of time on black holes, their temperature, whether they lose information, Hawking radiation, evaporation, and what happens at their horizon. He does all of this without requiring you to know any math, and he manages to be informed, int
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Aug 24, 2011
Heather
rated it:
Wow. Amazing. It helped, I'm sure, that the narrator of the audiobook was fantastic. There were some concepts I didn't fully grasp, but it wasn't so much that I couldn't follow most of it. I can't believe he was able to take something so mind-blowingly complicated and make it understandable. I'm just amazed. In awe.
I finished the book in tears because the content is so powerful.
My only trouble is that I have to just trust that the math he refers to is "right." F More...
I finished the book in tears because the content is so powerful.
My only trouble is that I have to just trust that the math he refers to is "right." F More...
Sep 29, 2009
Dale
rated it:
When I was around middle-school-aged, I thought astrophysicist was a good potential career choice and I enjoyed flipping through Omni magazine. By the time I got to college I had already somehow become a dyed-in-the-wool English major, but in order complete my science-realted graduation requirements I took both Astronomy and Cosmology. Glean from all of that what you will, but basically I was sentimentally predisposed to like this book and it did not disappoint. It made my head spin a bit wit
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Jan 14, 2011
Steve
rated it:
I found this book quite interesting, if a little over-focussed and breathless in its description of the battle between Susskind and Hawking. It was really, apparently, a fairly peaceable difference of opinion that Susskind eventually won. No matter, the book delves into some of the insanity that is quantum gravity, quantum chromodynamics, string theory, relativity, the holographic principle, and most importantly, black holes. It certainly reminded me why I was so hell-bent on being a physicist w
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Jan 22, 2009
Scott
rated it: 
Was I not smart enough to understand the book, or did the author lack the skill necessary to communicate high-level physics to the layman? Well, surely the answer is a mix of the two, which brings us to the more important question: who gets blamed?
Obviously not me. I'm going to be optimistic and assume that it's possible to make clear why this conservation of information theorem is so important, and why the holographic principle is worth calling a principle. And thus Susskind, i More...
Obviously not me. I'm going to be optimistic and assume that it's possible to make clear why this conservation of information theorem is so important, and why the holographic principle is worth calling a principle. And thus Susskind, i More...
Aug 11, 2011
Despite being an insanely long book, I found it absolutely fascinating. It was written to interest a wide spectrum of people, from the human interest readers to those who really just want to hear string theory in layman's terms, or to those who enjoy physics humour. If it weren't so ridiculously long I would read it again, but I have other books to read. I find it strange however (warning: this is a matter of opinon) that Susskind and many other physicists he speaks of cannot even begin to recon
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Jul 30, 2009
DJ
rated it: 
Light on "science" and heavy on "popular", this is the kind of "popular science" that makes me cringe.
The Black Hole War is a book that fears offending any reader by asking them to think for an entire chapter. Genuinely interesting yet shallow islands of physics are sprinkled in a vast sea of mundane travel stories, idle cultural speculations, and weakly veiled self-aggrandizement.
The central physical question of the book, the black hole inf More...
The Black Hole War is a book that fears offending any reader by asking them to think for an entire chapter. Genuinely interesting yet shallow islands of physics are sprinkled in a vast sea of mundane travel stories, idle cultural speculations, and weakly veiled self-aggrandizement.
The central physical question of the book, the black hole inf More...
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Feb 10, 2009
Ron
rated it:
One of the first popular books I have read about physics, written by a physicist. Susskind is a good writer, and this provided a good in depth discussion of the physics of the black hole horizon.
For some of the book you have to wonder how much is slanted toward the author's theories, but without knowing, it seems to provide a good discussion of each side of the arguments.
My only slight complaint is the books tendency to provide this war as important as Quantum Mechanics an More...
For some of the book you have to wonder how much is slanted toward the author's theories, but without knowing, it seems to provide a good discussion of each side of the arguments.
My only slight complaint is the books tendency to provide this war as important as Quantum Mechanics an More...
Feb 02, 2009
Kiri
rated it:
Another good quantum physics book!
Wow. And I mean, WOW. I am VERY impressed with Leonard Susskind's ability to make a very opaque subject surprisingly understandable. The Black Hole War in question was between Susskind and Stephen Hawking, and the disagreement was about whether information that is "sucked" into a black hole is destroyed (i.e. disappears from the universe) or is preserved and radiated back out. Susskind held that it was preserved, and he presents his pos More...
Wow. And I mean, WOW. I am VERY impressed with Leonard Susskind's ability to make a very opaque subject surprisingly understandable. The Black Hole War in question was between Susskind and Stephen Hawking, and the disagreement was about whether information that is "sucked" into a black hole is destroyed (i.e. disappears from the universe) or is preserved and radiated back out. Susskind held that it was preserved, and he presents his pos More...
Jun 02, 2011
Tony
rated it:
For the average Joe, Susskind addresses the secrets of the universe -- as the world's physicists understand it -- in plain English. He tunes into focus the big picture of time, space and black holes as well as the elementary level of quarks and gluons. It was (somewhat) easy to follow, and fascinating to experience the thought experiments developed by physicists, past and present.
Regardless of Susskind's accessibility and storytelling method of explaining complex thought, there were s More...
Regardless of Susskind's accessibility and storytelling method of explaining complex thought, there were s More...
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Jan 05, 2010
Jrohde
rated it:
a very readable account of a very difficult subject. I have tried lots of books on modern physics - none as readable as this. and to boot, it is an account of a 25 year disagreement with Hawking that Susskind wins in the end, over whether information that falls into a black hole is lost forever - it is not! in the process one learns in an understandable way about the unbelievably tiny, sub atomic world, and the cosmic dimensions of relativity. Well worth the read and the insights - one that
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Oct 30, 2011
Jason
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One of the best popular physics books I have read in a long time. Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War spends 450 pages focused on one question: what happens when information is absorbed by a black hole? It is a debate between Stephen Hawking and other general relativists who think that the information is lost and Gerard 't Hooft, Leonard Susskind and others, who are deeply uncomfortable with the conclusion that black holes can violate the second law of thermodynamics by reducing entropy.
In the More...
In the More...
Dec 21, 2011
Jack
rated it:
Another fine read for physics fans. This one was recommended by blogger Sean Carroll. There were several places where it seemed very clear that Susskind was following someone's advice to include personal anecdotes to make the book more appealing to general readers. It might have worked. The anecdotes mostly don't detract from the main thrust of the book, but I don't think they add very much either.
What Susskind does really well is discuss some very abstruse physics in a clear and c More...
What Susskind does really well is discuss some very abstruse physics in a clear and c More...
Jul 06, 2011
Amanda
rated it:
I found this book interesting, Susskind seems to be a bit egotistical, but it is my understanding that that is a common trait among physicists and seeing as his claim is finally winning the war with Stephen Hawking (a name in physics known even to the general populace) I don't suppose I can really fault him for that. This book isn't for the faint of heart, but if you have the time (and energy!) to put into comprehending strange abstract physics concepts (String Theory anyone?) then it can really
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Sep 10, 2010
Nick
rated it:
This was one of the most delightful, fascinating physics reads I've come across in a long time. Dr. Susskind does a phenomenal job of mixing modern physics with analogies so helpful for visualization as well as breaking things up with fun backstory and wit. He does an amazing job of working toward "rewiring" the reader's mind for grappling with the obscure worlds of Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, Black Hole Dynamics, and (subject of the book) the Holographic Principle.
Fr More...
Fr More...
