Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

by Kip S. Thorne (Author), Stephen W. Hawking (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $8.62

  Ever since Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity burst upon the world in 1915, some of the world's most brilliant minds have sought to decipher the mysteries bequeathed by that legacy. Einstein himself was resistant to its implications, but physicists, astronomers and cosmologists have argued over his theory ever since. This volume is a history of Einstein's ideas as they made their way through the increasingly political world of science. Kip Thorne is the co-author (with John Wheeler and Charles Misner) of Gravitation .

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $9.58

  During the last 30 years Kip Thorne has had the joy of participating in a great quest. The quest to understand Einstein's general theory of relativity and its predictions about the universe, and the quest to discern where and how Einstein's theory fails and what then replaces it. This quest has lead him through the labyrinths of exotic objects: black holes, white dwarfs, neutron stars, singularities, gravitational waves, worm-holes and yes, even time machines. The quest, with its hundreds of participants scattered over the globe has led him to appreciate the international character of science, the different ways that scientific enterprise is organized in different societies, and the inexorable manner in which science bas been intertwined with political currents, especially the Soviet/American conflict. This book is the author's attempts to share these insights with lay readers, and the scientists who work in fields other than his. A book of many interlocking themes held together by a thread of history; the history of the development of our times about curved space and warped time, and most especially black holes.