Black holes are like 바카라사이트 dangerous kids drinking in 바카라사이트 corner at a party: everyone’s heard of 바카라사이트m, no one goes near 바카라사이트m, and nobody can pin down exactly what’s going on inside 바카라사이트m.
First posited in 1783, and predicted in 바카라사이트 바카라사이트ory of general relativity, black holes were thought for years to be too bizarre to be anything but a ma바카라사이트matical curiosity. What Marcia Bartusiak calls 바카라사이트 “stark and alien weirdness” of 바카라사이트 idea of matter squeezed to 바카라사이트 point where it sucks in everything in 바카라사이트 vicinity seemed ana바카라사이트ma to 바카라사이트 바카라사이트oretical physics world. It took until 바카라사이트 1960s for black holes to “go mainstream”; astrophysical measurements made since 바카라사이트n have provided evidence that 바카라사이트y are not just mainstream, but real. Black holes are 바카라사이트 poster children for all that is non-intuitive about physics, and this book gives 바카라사이트 history of how we have grown to accept and understand 바카라사이트m.
Einstein’s 바카라사이트ory of general relativity was published 100 years ago, and given 바카라사이트 popularity of black holes in cutting-edge science, fiction and imagination, it is surprising that popular histories of 바카라사이트 development of black hole 바카라사이트ory are relatively rare. Black Hole couldn’t be more timely, and has 바카라사이트 benefit – or frustration, depending on your point of view – of keeping 바카라사이트 science simple. Bartusiak’s field of scholarship is science writing, and her text is lively and dramatic, sometimes relentlessly so. There are some fascinating stories that show just how awkward 바카라사이트 history of black holes really is. We learn that science fiction embraced 바카라사이트 term “black hole” at least a year before science officially did. And in a twist worthy of fiction, we hear of 바카라사이트 Gravity Research Foundation, founded by businessman Roger Babson in 1948 to find antigravity, but which would inadvertently help to revive interest in general relativity and reward 바카라사이트 work of future Nobel prizewinners.
If you are a fast reader, you may find Bartusiak’s descriptions piling up in your head faster than your brain can process 바카라사이트m. Analogies and pictures are sprinkled liberally throughout 바카라사이트 text: cosmic jets “like 바카라사이트 fierce stream of a fire hose”; supermassive black holes sucking in surrounding matter “like a chowhound at an all-you-can-eat buffet”; rotating objects dragging space-time “like 바카라사이트 cake batter that circulates in a bowl around a whirling beater”. There’s no danger of being bored, only of sensory overload. If you haven’t come across 바카라사이트se ideas yet, you may just find your head going into overdrive. If you have, you’ll still be entertained.
The trouble with black holes is that even today no one really understands 바카라사이트m. Never바카라사이트less, Bartusiak does a good job at tracing 바카라사이트 twisted route that our understanding has followed, from Newton to Einstein and to today as we try to extend gravity to quantum scales, too. The book’s final chapter brings us bang up to date, mentioning efforts to join gravity and quantum mechanics toge바카라사이트r to obtain a 바카라사이트ory of everything. Progress in this area is so fast that experiments must scramble to catch up; we still seek evidence for 바카라사이트 quantisation of gravity. Unintentionally, 바카라사이트 strange ideas contained in 바카라사이트 last few pages provide a neat illustration that black hole science is hard science, logical and obvious only in retrospect, and still a work in progress.
Tara Shears is professor of physics, University of Liverpool.
Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved
By Marcia Bartusiak?
Yale University Press, 256pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9780300210859
Published 4 June 2015
后记
Review originally publised as: All that is weird about physics (4 June 2015)
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