The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

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The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 1,631 ratings · 131 reviews

What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it did-and in doing so put at risk everything we know about physics and the fundamental laws of the universe. Most scientists didn't recognize the import of Hawking's claims, but Leonard Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft realized the thre...more

Hardcover, 480 pages

Published July 7th 2008 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 2008)

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Mar 05, 2013 Claudio Arena rated it 5 of 5 stars

An amazing book.
It needs to be said, that this is not for everybody. Even if Leonard Susskind does a perfect job to explain even the more difficult concepts, what he talks about is still incredibly complex.
It needs to be read by somebody that has the basis for physics (but not too much: high school physics is enough to follow the reasoning), and is used to scientific reasoning.

That said, I would say this book is one of the few that classify still as not being technical (as I said before, you don...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Toni Daugherty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 String 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 important...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Bettie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, spring-2012, sciences, published-2008, fraudio, tbr-busting-2012, dip-in-now-and-again

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 22, 2012 OneiroDancer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Premessa: di formazione sono fisico, con tanto di dottorato di ricerca in fisica delle particelle. Premessa n. 2: dall'et�� di otto anni o gi�� di l�� leggo libri di divulgazione scientifica. Premessa n. 3: le edizioni Adelphi sono molto belle, ma decisamente troppo care per i miei gusti. Ciononostante, sono rimasto affascinato da un libro divulgativo su un argomento esoterico come la conservazione dell'informazione nei buchi neri, e ho deciso di comprarlo e leggerlo.

Lo stile �� fresco e scorrev...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Bill Leach rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: informative

Chapter 1 - In 1981, Hawkings postulates that information is lost in black holes.

Chapter 2 - Black holes and the horizon at the Shwartzchild radius described. Einstein rejected black holes. Tidal forces are less at the horizon of large black holes. Einstein Equivalence Principle states that the effects of gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable.

Chapter 3 - Reimann proposed that space may be curved, an idea incorporated into General Relativity. Minkowski space incorporates space and time,...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Lt. rated it 2 of 5 stars

A good introduction to the debate in physics regarding on whether information was lost when it entered a black hole. This was a big deal because conservation of entropy would thereby be threatened if this was, in fact, the case. The current physical theory indicates that this is not so.

I dislike how the emphasis of this book seems to be on this nebulous concept of "information" instead of in the physical states themselves from which this "information" is deduced. The world is made up of physical...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-and-technology-studies, nonfiction

I really wanted to give this book five stars, and the limits of the star mechanism above prevents me from giving it 4.5 stars. I also had issues with how the publisher decided to print the book. The lackluster printing detracted from my reading experience.

I recently critiqued Richard Panek's 4% Universe for what I considered to be poor science writing. Susskind is the antidote. On the whole, he is the clearest expositor of advanced physics concepts that I have encountered, much better than Bria...more I really wanted to give this book five stars, and the limits of the star mechanism above prevents me from giving it 4.5 stars. I also had issues with how the publisher decided to print the book. The lackluster printing detracted from my reading experience.

I recently critiqued Richard Panek's 4% Universe for what I considered to be poor science writing. Susskind is the antidote. On the whole, he is the clearest expositor of advanced physics concepts that I have encountered, much better than Brian Greene - who is not too shabby as my fiancee would say.

That said, the end of the book is a bit of a let down in terms of clarity. I suspect that Professor Susskind was getting tired of the book at the end (it shows). This is not a sharp rebuke as I have had that issue with several papers that I have written. Also, the end of the book discusses material, in particular the Holographic Principle, that really is at the cutting edge of physics and as yet still in the process of being understood. Hence Professor Susskind has not had the time to refine his metaphors, images, and thought experiments to make them more clear. Still, I learned a great deal.

Additionally, as a student of Science and Technology Studies, Susskind demonstrates quite clearly science as a *human* enterprise.

In terms of the book itself, I was struck by its cheapness and indifferent quality. The publisher saw fit to cut corners printing the book. The illustrations seem to be taken directly from Susskind's proof, and are of variable quality. It is up to the publisher to go through the proof illustrations and bring them to a higher standard. They did not do this. His illustrations were acceptable by the standards of a class or conference PowerPoint presentation - not a book. Along the same lines, the text was all so pixellated that I could resolve the dots at ordinary reading distance. It was reading an entire book in greyscale. Text SHOULD BE solid black with no hint of pixellation. It causes fatigue to the eyes and looks shoddy.

I would without question read other books by this author. (less)

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Mar 01, 2013 Lage von Dissen rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this book, Leonard Susskind does a great job winning a bet against Stephen Hawking. Decades ago, Stephen Hawking made the assertion that anything that goes into a black hole is lost forever. Specifically, Hawking argued that there is no way to tell what went into the black hole, and thus any information (e.g. quantum states, etc.) are lost forever. This flies right in the face of the conservation of information, a fundamental postulate of quantum mechanics. According to QM, all of the informa...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Dick Gullickson rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 escape...more 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 escape. Stephen Hawking, who contributed much to the theory of black holes, had postulated that information is lost when an object falls into a black hole and passes the event horizon. Because nothing can escape a black hole, Hawking proposes that information is “swallowed” in apparent contradiction to quantum mechanics and thermodyamics. Susskind also introduces the holographic principle (invited by Nobel laureate Gerald ‘t Hooft of Utrecht University) that a volume in space (i.e. the interior of a black hole) can be fully described by the two dimensional surfaces that surrounds it, just as a 2D holographic plate can be used to reconstruct a 3D object. He also points out the complementarity principle which implies that there is no absolute reality since an observer falling into a black hole experiences a different reality from one observing from the outside. Susskind also describes how string theory, used to represent elementary particles through the vibration of strings (where frequency and amplitude determine energy and mass) leads to multiple universes. By the way, this has led to another fascinating idea from Andrew Hamilton of the University of Colorado that one can think of what happens by objects falling into a black holes as the “Big Bang” in reverse. 13.7 billion years ago, our universe was created with a massive explosion arising from a singularity (all matter and energy in a spot with no dimensions) which spewed forth elementary particles which ultimately became the building blocks of our bodies and our universe. Hamilton postulates that a black hole in our universe may product a big bang event which creates another universe.
Getting back to the Susskind – Hawkings debate, Susskind ultimate prevails in convincing the scientific community (and perhaps Hawking – this isn’t clear) that his quantum mechanically consistent viewpoint of information conservation prevails.
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Aug 04, 2011 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, biographies, history

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 perspective and h...more

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Jun 21, 2010 Alan Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: studied-emulated

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 on the whole i...more

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Sep 28, 2009 asteroidbuckle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

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 -- would be wrong. And...more

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Sep 05, 2009 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I enjoyed this book and read it in only a few days.

It disappointed me in a couple of places, however. In the "Battle of Santa Barbara" Susskind introduces the Black Hole Complementarity Theory. Part of the theory uses the Equivalence Principle to describe what would happen to someone who falls throught the Horizon.
"Obviously, at least one of the endings must be wrong since they say opposite things. Nevertheless, I have come to tell you the impossible: Neither story is false. They are bothe true...more I enjoyed this book and read it in only a few days.

It disappointed me in a couple of places, however. In the "Battle of Santa Barbara" Susskind introduces the Black Hole Complementarity Theory. Part of the theory uses the Equivalence Principle to describe what would happen to someone who falls throught the Horizon.
"Obviously, at least one of the endings must be wrong since they say opposite things. Nevertheless, I have come to tell you the impossible: Neither story is false. They are bothe true -- in complementary ways."

The Equivalence Principle is simply not absolutely true. (Note 1) It can be a good approximation for some calculations. But measurement of tidal forces (or gravitational gradient) within any frame of reference will identify whether the frame of reference is an accelerating frame far away from gravity sources or whether it is in a strong gravitational field. Even the difference between a free-falling frame of reference and a frame in a distant orbit can be determined because the falling one has a much higher time-rate-of-change of the gravitational gradient than the orbital one. So "Equivalence" in my mind is a "flat-earth" approximatation, quite useful in block-size civil engineering, but unacceptable when building the Channel Tunnel. (See Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong."

I expected some discussion from Susskind about how Equivalence isn't strictly true, but it is still good enough at the Horizon. But he seemed to treat Equivalence as a rock solid principle that will not be invalidated near a black hole. Maybe it won't, but some discussion is needed.

Another weak spot in his story was what does "Steve" observe of the Black Hole and its horizon and environments as he approaches and falls throught it. He is undergoing time dialation before falling in, and he would have to report some of those affects if he were reprieved at the last moment.

And what was completely missing is what does "Dave" (my invention) see who is sentenced only to orbit the Black Hole eliptically and pass very close to the Horizon and return to report his observations.

The book made me think.

Note 1:
(From Wikipedia:Equivalence Principle: So the original equivalence principle, as described by Einstein, concluded that free-fall and inertial motion were physically equivalent. This form of the equivalence principle can be stated as follows. An observer in a windowless room cannot distinguish between being on the surface of the Earth, and being in a spaceship in deep space accelerating at 1g. This is not strictly true, because massive bodies give rise to tidal effects (caused by variations in the strength and direction of the gravitational field) which are absent from an accelerating spaceship in deep space.

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May 27, 2009 Johnny Story rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 really som...more

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Apr 07, 2009 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 extremely...more

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Jul 20, 2009 Isk rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 space full of super-flee...more

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Jun 05, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone

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 understand the gravity (pun intended) of the situ...more 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 understand the gravity (pun intended) of the situation and draw their own inferences as the war progresses.

I have not read Susskind's earlier book, but after finishing this, you can be sure that I will be adding it to my "To Read" list.

Although this book deals with very important, tricky and deep topics that span cosmology, quantum theory, relativity, and string theory, there is remarkably little math involved. Instead, Susskind has created detailed and graphic conceptual models ("stories" if you like) that present and illustrate the key ideas and points that he must get the audience to understand to follow the physics. While I may have preferred a few more equations and technical descriptions, I readily acknowledge the beauty of his approach and his skill in presenting the material.

Although Susskind himself is not a Cosmologist, the primary focus of the book, and indeed the "war", is the black hole. Which, as most people are aware is commonly formed by stars more massive (at least 2.2 times as massive) as our own local star, the Sun. But it draws (as did the eventual solution of the problem) on the differences between many theories that are used to describe or model the observed universe.

If you have any interest in learning a bit about many facets of modern particle and quantum physics, this is a great book. It has one of the best presentations of string theory (both that of the hadrons and fundamental strings) that I have ever come across. So, don't be fearful that the material is too hard. The concepts may be difficult to think through, but the way it is parceled out and written will make it as painless as possible.

On the other hand, if you have any background or have kept up with layman's books on physics and cosmology, this book is a great edition to your mental mindset. I don't think you'll miss the equations or derivations either. Plus, there is a good bibliography if you want to learn more (along with many useful footnotes).

PS I'm told that Susskind has a series of videos in which he presents physics to an adult education audience. I'm sure that if he has developed a method of communicating for that audience, it only improved his ability to write for the popular press. As he says in the book, he was told that for every equation he included he would lose 10,000 sales. In any event the number is small enough that it should not worry you. Check out the man in action on You Tube (I will, too!)(less)

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Mar 05, 2009 Peter Namtvedt rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who can't think of more things to do that are beneficial to their lives.

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. This does i...more 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. This does is not improved upon by the combined concept space-time.

I have always, since my first encounter with Einstein’s thought, in college, that the foundational concept is that by observation, like everything else a beam of light obeys the law of gravity. Thus the only clues as to where things are located – light or reflected light – can bend sufficiently and may have originated long enough ago that the source of the light no longer exists. Therefore setting out on a trip to the most distant visible object would be doomed either by not finding anything there, or losing one’s way due to the twists in the road.

Apparent contradictions, which are like itches that need to be scratched, should never be declared to be end-points or answers. There may be several reasons for contradictions or paradoxes, such as light as particles or waves. Perhaps the definitions of particle and wave are incorrect. When photons are found to behave like waves or waves found to have particle-like properties, it is time to call them opposites. When it becomes clear that the location and velocity of a particle cannot be determined simultaneously (due to the effect of the measuring process) it is not correct to say that particles cannot have a velocity and a location. Underdetermination is not a place to stop, the thing must be scratched, more research and/or thinking is needed to come to a true resolution.

Susskind does a find job most of the time, showing the frustration that paradoxes can cause. He describes several times, am impatience and urge to move on, to work on the conflicting theories or observations. Sometimes it seems to require talking about it, other times, sleeping on it. It’s at times a long struggle, such as the nine-year period in the late seventies (I think it was) when hardly anything was published about black holes, and what a relief it was to come up with something new to say on the topic.

I must admit that the theory of black holes (any version at all) as presented by physicists, while obviously preferred to how non-scientists portray it, is amazing in that so little can actually be said to have been observed directly, compared to how much knowledge about black holes the theory is built on. I dare say this comes close to being too much conjecture. I am also amazed that such a huge controversy could have taken place as the main story of whether or no information disappears forever in black holes, even if the holes emit stuff and shrink or possibly even disappear.

Among the real gems I found in this book is the information on how Relativity began with Galileo, and the great description of General Relativity on panges 203-209.

The bumper sticker quote at the start of chapter 18 was truly delicious: “Subvert the dominant paradigm.” We can probably all think of times when that could have been a mistake. The trend is your friend is often the rule, until the overwhelming majority get just a little too enthusiastic about it, such as a dot com bubble or housing bubble, or climate change gloom and doom.

This book is chock-full of analogies. Many are straight-out funny, few are convincing that our government grants are well-spent. I have no idea how they really acquire their knowledge of what goes on above or at or just below the horizon, let alone, within a black hole. They have not yet topped Lewis Carroll.

Meanwhile, I am turning my attention to something more down-to-earth: my research into the Big Bank Theory.
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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

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

...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Lightreads rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction

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 always th...more

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Mar 28, 2010 Marcus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, physics

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...more 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 Black Hole War. Is something really completely lost when it goes into a black hole? Does it matter? Stephen Hawking (the other side in the "war") believed the radiation that escapes from black holes is entirely uniform, devoid of information, and that once something crossed the horizon of a black hole, it was truly lost. Susskind, and a few others believed this theory of information loss was so dangerous that it undermined and threatened all we think we know about post-newtonian physics.

Not to spoil the ending, but as you might expect, Susskind won. Information isn't annihilated in black holes and the laws of physics prevail. But in Black Hole War, the journey is the show. In the battles on the way to discovering how black holes work, there is plenty to appreciate. For example, the holographic principle which says that the amount of information that can be contained in an area of space is equal to the amount of information that can be encoded in its perimeter. So if I take a sphere of space, maybe the one that includes your house and computer and you, I can know everything about what is in that sphere based solely on the information found on the outside of the sphere. It's weird. It's counter-intuitive I still don't really get it. Strange as it is, having fairly solid evidence of its truth was so important that was after Juan Maldacena, an Argentine physicist, showed strong evidence for it, a version of the song Macarena was written for him by another physicist, Dr. Jeffrey Harvey, and performed at a conference. Here's the last verse:

M-theory is finished
Juan has great repute The black hole we have mastered Q.C.D. we can compute Too bad the glueball spectrum is still in some dispute
Ehhhh! Maldacena!

Bits like this make Black Hole War a fun, readable, first-hand account of a historical debate among the titans of physics that lasted years and led to a profusion of extremely fascinating research.
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Jan 09, 2009 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

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...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Heather Denkmire rated it 5 of 5 stars

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." For the most part, though, he relie...more

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Sep 29, 2009 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

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 with e...more

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Jan 14, 2011 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

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...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

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, in failing to mak...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Josi added it

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...more

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Jul 30, 2009 DJ rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: only my worst enemies

Shelves: popular-physics

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 information paradox, is a very fascinating issue that has...more

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Feb 10, 2009 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cosmology, astronomy, non-fiction, physics, 2009

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 and the General Relativi...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science

An absolutely fascinating recounting of the process to reconcile our understanding of Einstein's General Relativity and gravity with Quantum Mechanics and the surprising discoveries in String Theory that made it possible. This reader has always been fascinated with physics and is always on the lookout for works like this that explore the current state of our understanding of the universe and how it works. The author does a masterful job of explaining complex concepts in simple terms using word p...more

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About Leonard Susskind

Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Phys...more

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Books by Leonard Susskind

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design

An Introduction to Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics

This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works

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“There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.” — 28 people liked it

“There is so much to groak; So little to groak from.” — 2 people liked it

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The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

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