Black Holes
The Key to Understanding the Universe
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Black Holes
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Narrated by:
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Professor Jeff Forshaw
About this listen
At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly, not even light can escape its grasp. Its secrets lie waiting to be discovered. It’s time to explore our universe’s most mysterious inhabitants
Black HolesAt the heart of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole 4 million times more massive than our Sun. A place where space and time are so warped that light is trapped if it ventures within 12 million km. According to Einstein, inside lies the end of time. According to 21st-century physics, the reality may be far more bizarre.
Black holes lie where the most massive stars used to shine and at the edge of our current understanding. They are naturally occurring objects, the inevitable creations of gravity when too much matter collapses into not enough space. And yet, although the laws of nature predict them, they fail fully to describe them.
Black holes are places in space and time where the laws of gravity, quantum physics and thermodynamics collide. Originally thought to be so intellectually troubling that they simply could not exist, it is only in the past few years that we have begun to glimpse a new synthesis; a deep connection between gravity and quantum information theory that describes a holographic universe in which space and time emerge from a network of quantum bits, and wormholes span the void.
In this groundbreaking book, Professor Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw take you to the edge of our understanding of black holes; a scientific journey to the research frontier spanning a century of physics, from Einstein to Hawking and beyond, that ends with the startling conclusion that our world may operate like a giant quantum computer.
©2022 Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
‘An AMAZING thing to read. So SATISFYING, I REALLY RECOMMEND reading this book…FASCINATING’ Jeremy Vine
‘FASCINATING… a MIND BOGGLING new book’ Afternoon Edition with Nihal Arthanayake, BBC Radio
‘There are few better than Cox at turning tricksy, potentially dense subjects into captivating “edutainment” for the masses – be it in BBC documentaries, live shows or books. Not for nothing did Sir David Attenborough once proclaim: “If I had a torch I would hand it to Brian Cox.”’ Guy Kelly, Daily Telegraph
‘A spellbinding cosmic exploration that resists collapsing under the weight of jargon.’ Kirkus Reviews
What listeners say about Black Holes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anthony
- 04-02-23
Mine opened
Baffling Brilliant Beautiful! This book is a masterpiece of modern science and thinking a must for all science fans
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- William Quinn
- 01-11-22
A lot to take in
I think I need to go through it again very enjoyable and informative
Thanks for the food for thought.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- robotband
- 17-10-22
fascinating but relies heavily on diagrams
I think this may be one of those audiobooks that just doesn't quite work in the format. of course there is a PDF included with the audiobook, containing all the diagrams that are referenced in the body of the text... but I was hoping I could listen without constantly referring to the diagrams.
I think the physical copy of this book would work far, far better
with that out of the way, I should say that the content in this book is fascinating. I felt like I followed most of it until the quantum stuff at the end :-) but it really was very intriguing and felt very up-to-date, with the most recent papers being cited from 2019
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- @ZennyReadsAlot
- 09-10-22
Space is awesome including the non-existent partic
Black Holes by @ProfBrianCox & Jeff Forshaw. A wonderfully and explosively 💥 dynamic book 🔭. It will grab you by the tail and shake the unofficiated members of the scientific community awake. This is a beautiful deep-dive into the world of the ultra unknown📚 5/5🌟#bookreview
Follow me on Twitter for more awesome reviews @Zennyreadsalot
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Reg Ward
- 22-04-23
Doesn't work
This sounds a fascinating book but I'll have to get the kindle version and there are too many diagrams references for an audiobook.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. Martin
- 05-05-23
Challenging and inspiring
I don’t have a science background (my last O level physics lesson was in the mid 80s) so this is not an easy subject matter for me to get my head around. I had to listen to a few chapters a couple of times but I think this book has really helped my understanding. It’s a challenging listen but I would definitely recommend it. I am looking forward to re-listening to it, once I have dusted myself down.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- John
- 24-10-22
Only for physics and maths boffins
Hard going for anyone not with a physics (or high-powered maths) as a background. Probably profound but hard to be sure!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Clembo.
- 09-01-24
Simply put and excitingly explanationary.
If you start listening without a hard copy at hand, keep a pencil close by. It’s read in such a way that you could easily recreate the diagrams. They greatly enhance your understanding.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Upal
- 19-10-22
needed the supporting documentation to follow
needed the supporting documents to follow the explanations . without that it was difficult to keep up
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Robert
- 29-04-23
Tough but rewarding for space/physics dabblers
At the very limit of what a popular science book can be. It's light(ish) on maths but heavy on ideas and concepts which are well illustrated with diagrams and drawings throughout (a 72 page pdf with the audiobook version). I had to read a couple of chapters more than once to understand them, but am happier to do this than to read a book which I feel doesn't cover a subject thoroughly enough. You can't level that accusation against this book - it seems (as far as I can tell anyway) to take the reader to the limits of what we currently know about black holes in language which is (just about) understandable to someone who doesn't work in the field. Not an easy read, but there's a lot of amazing stuff in this book. Would definitely recommend if space/physics is something that interests you and you want something more challenging than your average read or TV documentary.
As others have said, doesn't work as an audiobook unless you have easy access to the pdf as you're listening. But I did, so 5* all round. Professor Jeff Forshaw's narration (and his accent) were excellent. And I enjoyed the cricketing analogies.
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