A Crack In Everything - How Black Holes Came In From The Cold And Took Cosmic Centre Stage
Just finished reading "A Crack In Everything - How Black Holes Came In From The Cold And Took Cosmic Centre Stage" by Marcus Chown, published by Head Zeus Books in 2024.
In "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage" begins with Einstein and Schwarzschild and traces the evolution of theory and observation about Black Holes and the related science to the present.
Except for Einstein, for the most part it is a story developed by outsiders. In 1930, Indian physicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, on a voyage to England, calculated that if at the end of its life a star had a mass about 1.4 time the mass of the sun it would collapse into a Black Hole. Still, there was skepticism. Schwarzschild’s work was for a stationary star, but stars rotate. In 1963, New Zealand physicist Roy Kerr at a fledging Austin Texas Physics Department worked out the mathematics for a spinning Black Hole. Confirming observations followed, and here, in a male-dominated science, women distinguished themselves. In 1967, Jocelyn Bell discovered White Dwarf or Neutron Stars. In 1973, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster deduced the presence of the first Black Hole from a rapidly orbiting star. In 2015, Gabriela Gonzalez led a team who identified Gravity Waves produced with the collision of two Black Holes (99 years after Einstein’s original prediction) with the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (“LIGO”).
Chown has written an enjoyable history of how black holes were theorized and proven to be real.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1804544337/...
In "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage" begins with Einstein and Schwarzschild and traces the evolution of theory and observation about Black Holes and the related science to the present.
Except for Einstein, for the most part it is a story developed by outsiders. In 1930, Indian physicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, on a voyage to England, calculated that if at the end of its life a star had a mass about 1.4 time the mass of the sun it would collapse into a Black Hole. Still, there was skepticism. Schwarzschild’s work was for a stationary star, but stars rotate. In 1963, New Zealand physicist Roy Kerr at a fledging Austin Texas Physics Department worked out the mathematics for a spinning Black Hole. Confirming observations followed, and here, in a male-dominated science, women distinguished themselves. In 1967, Jocelyn Bell discovered White Dwarf or Neutron Stars. In 1973, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster deduced the presence of the first Black Hole from a rapidly orbiting star. In 2015, Gabriela Gonzalez led a team who identified Gravity Waves produced with the collision of two Black Holes (99 years after Einstein’s original prediction) with the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (“LIGO”).
Chown has written an enjoyable history of how black holes were theorized and proven to be real.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1804544337/...
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