In Search of the Edge of Time: Black Holes, White Holes, Wormholes (Penguin science)

by JohnGribbin (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $3.54

  Once the stuff of science-fiction novels, black holes, and their even stranger cosmologican counterparts, white holes and wormholes, are now the subject of serious inquiry. Physicists who formerly shunned these astrophysical eccentricities have begun to theorize about them and search for the physical proof of their existence with the zeal of converts. The unavoidable conclusion of this research is that these rips in the fabric of spacetime are not only real, they might actually provide a passage to other universes and travel through time. This book tells the story of the theories and discoveries that have led scientists to these conclusions.

• Used

  Paperback
  1993

  $3.25

  Time travel involves those ultimate concentrations of matter and gravity, black holes. A black hole is, among other bizarre things, a place where time literally comes to a stop - an edge of time. In this book John Gribbin takes the reader over that edge, to a place where time runs backwards and everyday rules of common sense no longer apply. The book begins with the 17th-century cleric who first suggested that black holes might exist, and along the way it involves meetings with key historical characters, including the lazy philosopher who found inspiration in the flight of a fly, the mathematicians who invented a new kind of geometry in which parallel lines can cross each other, and physicists who didn't believe their own theories until confronted by new astronomical discoveries which they should have predicted but didn't. John Gribbin is a regular contributor to The Times , The Guardian and New Scientist . His other books include The Hole in the Sky , Hothouse Earth and the award-winning In Search of Schroedinger's Cat .