“It is said that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of black holes. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers.” In 2016 Professor Stephen Hawking delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on a subject that fascinated him for decades – black holes. In these flagship lectures the legendary physicist argued that if we could only understand black holes and how they challenge the very nature of space and time, we could unlock the secrets of the universe.

The legendary physicist explores his favorite subject in a pair of enlightening, accessible, and cleverly illustrated essays for curious readers, originally delivered as BBC lectures. “It is said that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of black holes. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science-fiction writers, but they are firmly matters of science fact.” For decades, Stephen Hawking has been fascinated by black holes. He believes that if we understood the challenges they pose to the very nature of space and time, we could unlock the secrets of the universe. In these conversational pieces, Hawking’s sense of wonder is infectious as he holds forth on what we know about black holes, what we still don’t know, and theoretical answers to more specific questions, such as: What would happen if you ever got sucked into one? Annotated and with an introduction by BBC News science editor David Shukman, featuring whimsical and illuminating illustrations, Black Holes offers a candid peek into one of the great scientific mysteries of all time. Praise for Stephen Hawking “[Hawking] can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and wit. . . . His is a brain of extraordinary power.”—The New York Review of Books “Hawking clearly possesses a natural teacher’s gifts—easy, good-natured humor and an ability to illustrate highly complex propositions with analogies plucked from daily life.”—The New York Times “A high priest of physics, one of a handful of theorists who may be on the verge of reading God’s mind.”—Los Angeles Times

In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Rhorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking.

Part of the reissued Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences series, this book was first published in 1983, and has swiftly become one of the great modern classics of relativity theory. It represents a personal testament to the work of the author, who spent several years writing and working-out the entire subject matter. The theory of black holes is the most simple and beautiful consequence of Einstein's relativity theory. At the time of writing there was no physical evidence for the existence of these objects, therefore all that Professor Chandrasekhar used for their construction were modern mathematical concepts of space and time. Since that time a growing body of evidence has pointed to the truth of Professor Chandrasekhar's findings, and the wisdom contained in this book has become fully evident.

Black holes have turned out to be the cornerstone of both physics and popular belief. But what if we were to realize that exact black holes cannot exist, even though their existence is apparently suggested by exact general relativistic solutions, and Roger Penrose won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics ‘for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity’? While it might seem far-fetched to claim so, it will be worth remembering that the finest theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein and Paul Dirac did not believe in black holes, and Stephen Hawking finally thought that there are no exact black holes. While the black hole paradigm has become commonplace in popular consciousness, in the last decade, noise has consistently grown about the many physical effects which can inhibit the formation of exact mathematical black holes. In The Rise and Fall of the Black Hole Paradigm, Abhas Mitra shows us how, much before these developments, he had proven why the so-called black holes must only be black hole pretenders. He identified these black hole candidates to be Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Objects (MECOs) and, along with Darryl J. Leiter and Stanley L. Robertson, generalized them. Recent evidence for the existence of strong magnetic fields around so-called black holes may provide confirmations of his claim.

A black hole is the ultimate manifestation of a region of strong gravity.The pull of gravity in a balack hole is so strong that even light cannot escape from it and time stands still.This book is a simple yet meticulous study of the circumstances under which a black hole is formed and its strange properties.

The International Bestseller On April 10, 2019, award-winning astrophysicist Heino Falcke presented the first image ever captured of a black hole at an international press conference—a turning point in astronomy that Science magazine called the scientific breakthrough of the year. That photo was captured with the unthinkable commitment of an intercontinental team of astronomers who transformed the world into a global telescope. While this image achieved Falcke’s goal in making a black hole “visible” for the first time, he recognizes that the photo itself asks more questions for humanity than it answers. Light in the Darkness takes us on Falcke’s extraordinary journey to the darkest corners of the universe. From the first humans looking up at the night sky to modern astrophysics, from the study of black holes to the still-unsolved mysteries of the universe, Falcke asks, in even the greatest triumphs of science, is there room for doubts, faith, and a God? A plea for curiosity and humility, Light in the Darkness sees one of the great minds shaping the world today as he ponders the big, pressing questions that present themselves when we look up at the stars.