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Black Holes

The Key to Understanding the Universe

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Black Holes

By: Professor Brian Cox, Professor Jeff Forshaw
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About this listen

A Brief History of Time for the 21st Century

At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly, not even light can escape its grasp. Its secrets lie waiting to be discovered. It’s time to explore our universe’s most mysterious inhabitants

Black Holes

At the heart of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole 4 million times more massive than our Sun. A place where space and time are so warped that light is trapped if it ventures within 12 million km. According to Einstein, inside lies the end of time. According to 21st-century physics, the reality may be far more bizarre.

Black holes lie where the most massive stars used to shine and at the edge of our current understanding. They are naturally occurring objects, the inevitable creations of gravity when too much matter collapses into not enough space. And yet, although the laws of nature predict them, they fail fully to describe them.

Black holes are places in space and time where the laws of gravity, quantum physics and thermodynamics collide. Originally thought to be so intellectually troubling that they simply could not exist, it is only in the past few years that we have begun to glimpse a new synthesis; a deep connection between gravity and quantum information theory that describes a holographic universe in which space and time emerge from a network of quantum bits, and wormholes span the void.

In this groundbreaking book, Professor Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw take you to the edge of our understanding of black holes; a scientific journey to the research frontier spanning a century of physics, from Einstein to Hawking and beyond, that ends with the startling conclusion that our world may operate like a giant quantum computer.

Astronomy & Space Science Cosmology Physics Science Black Hole Thought-Provoking Mathematics Astronomy

Critic reviews

‘An AMAZING thing to read. So SATISFYING, I REALLY RECOMMEND reading this book…FASCINATING’ Jeremy Vine

‘FASCINATING… a MIND BOGGLING new book’ Afternoon Edition with Nihal Arthanayake, BBC Radio

‘There are few better than Cox at turning tricksy, potentially dense subjects into captivating “edutainment” for the masses – be it in BBC documentaries, live shows or books. Not for nothing did Sir David Attenborough once proclaim: “If I had a torch I would hand it to Brian Cox.”’ Guy Kelly, Daily Telegraph

‘A spellbinding cosmic exploration that resists collapsing under the weight of jargon.’ Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Professors Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

‘They have blazed a clear trail into forbidding territory, from the mathematical structure of space-time all the way to atom bombs, astrophysics and the origin of mass.’ New Scientist

'Inspirational' Buzz Aldrin

‘A scientific match made in heaven’ Observer

‘Cox and Forshaw stand together at the cutting edge of their discipline … Despite their elevated status, both men remain tiggerishly excitable about their subject’ Financial Times

‘Mindblowing’ Sunday Times

‘I can think of no one, Stephen Hawking included, who more perfectly combines authority, knowledge, passion, clarity, and powers of elucidation than Brian Cox.’ Stephen Fry, 2009

‘Admirably shies away from dumbing down’ Economist

‘They do a great job of bringing a difficult subject to life’ The Times

‘If you're not a physicist (or not yet a physicist) and you want to understand what Einstein and relativity theory are all about, you would do well to read this book. The writing is clear, sparkling in places, and totally without vanity … [A] delightful little book’ Huffington Post

‘Readers will enjoy this engaging, ambitious and creative tour of our quantum universe’ Guardian

All stars
Most relevant
I think this may be one of those audiobooks that just doesn't quite work in the format. of course there is a PDF included with the audiobook, containing all the diagrams that are referenced in the body of the text... but I was hoping I could listen without constantly referring to the diagrams.

I think the physical copy of this book would work far, far better

with that out of the way, I should say that the content in this book is fascinating. I felt like I followed most of it until the quantum stuff at the end :-) but it really was very intriguing and felt very up-to-date, with the most recent papers being cited from 2019

fascinating but relies heavily on diagrams

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Baffling Brilliant Beautiful! This book is a masterpiece of modern science and thinking a must for all science fans

Mine opened

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Didn’t understand a lot of it the book may have come in handy but I enjoyed it anyway

Heavy listening

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I’ve been reading about the Big Bang, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics for many years. I’m only hampered by my lack of mathematical knowledge. This book, though mentally challenging, is incredibly well written and supported by diagrams that helped me to understand the underlying physics. I’ve been a fan of Brian Cox for many years and having Jeff Foreshaw reading the book made listening easy and very clear. I think this has been my most enjoyed audible book.

A fascinating listen

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Hard going for anyone not with a physics (or high-powered maths) as a background. Probably profound but hard to be sure!

Only for physics and maths boffins

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