Black Holes

The Key to Understanding the Universe

By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw

Narrated by: Jeff Forshaw

By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe.

At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly it can bend space, throwing vast jets of radiation millions of light years out into the cosmos. Its kind were the very first inhabitants of the universe, the black holes.

Today, across the universe, at the heart of every galaxy, and dotted throughout, mature black holes are creating chaos. And in a quiet part of the universe, the Swift satellite has picked up evidence of a gruesome death caused by one of these dark powers. High energy X-ray flares shooting out from deep within the Draco constellation are thought to be the dying cries of a white dwarf star being ripped apart by the intense tides of a supermassive black hole – heating it to millions of degrees as it is shredded at the event horizon.

They have the power to wipe out any of the universe’s other inhabitants, but no one has ever seen a black hole itself die. But 1.8 billion light years away, the LIGO instruments have recently detected something that could be the closest a black hole gets to death. Gravitational waves given off as two enormous black holes merge together. And now scientists think that these gravitational waves could be evidence of two black holes connecting to form a wormhole – a link through space and time. It seems outlandish, but today’s physicists are daring to think the unthinkable – that black holes could connect us to another universe.

At their very heart, black holes are also where Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity is stretched in almost unimaginable ways, revealing black holes as the key to our understanding of the fundamentals of our universe and perhaps all other universes.

Join Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw in exploring our universe’s most mysterious inhabitants, how they are formed, why they are essential components of every galaxy, including our own, and what secrets they still hold, waiting to be discovered.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Incredible book

The author did a great job explaining complicated subject matter to a general audience. It does not dumb things down, which makes the book unique

Not a good audiobook

while the book itself is very good, describing interesting phenomena of black holes in easy to understand way, the descriptions rely too much to assumption that one can look the accompanying pictures. There is zero effort to make the book really an audiobook. Buy paper or pdf or similar, don't try to listen.

not really a good audio book for active listeners

I usually listen to books while walking, running, or biking. Given the subject, I should have known better than to purchase this book. It relies heavily on graphics to explain each point.

Excellent

Professor Cox & Professor Forshaw strike again. Hitting the nail on the head is a cliché description but it’s undoubtedly accurate. The content discussed in this book isn’t necessarily beyond someone that lacks a Physics background. The knowledge thereof, however, whether it be from college courses or casual reading of general relativity & quantum mechanics, will help soften the blow of digesting abstract concepts that don’t apply to the everyday life of an average human being. Ultimately this is a great read with an accompanying PDF for a visual breakdown. Enough cannot be said. 5 stars!

Slow Down

Good story and I love the topic, but the performer read too quickly. The recording sounds choppy.