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Acknowledgments
The idea for this book emerged as I was advising one of my students in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing on her master’s thesis. Camille Carlisle, now an editor at Sky and Telescope magazine, was writing on the Event Horizon Telescope project, a worldwide effort to image the supermassive black hole that sits in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. As we hovered together in my office over her manuscript, I began thinking: while many general-audience books have been written on both the latest theoretical models of black holes and the fascinating behaviors of black holes in this vast universe, few have solely focused on the tumultuous history of getting these bizarre celestial objects recognized in the first place. Moreover, here was a way to celebrate the upcoming hundredth anniversary of the general theory of relativity; black holes played a vital role in bringing Einstein’s highest accomplishment back to the forefront of physics.
Many offered insight and advice as I carried out my research, including scientists, historians, journalists, and a number of people who played a part in the story. I must specifically thank David Cassidy, Frances Chambers, Hong-Yee Chiu, John Dicke, Robert Fuller, Karl Hufbauer, David Kaiser, Roy Kerr, Alan Lightman, Martin McHugh, Charles Misner, Roger Penrose, Joe Polchinski, Albert Rosenfeld, Virginia Trimble, and Barbara Welther. Werner Israel, in particular, provided invaluable guidance as I consulted him a number of times on various aspects of both the science and the history that he himself participated in. Also immensely helpful were the staff and archivists at both the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia and the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland.
As I carried out my explorations into the history of black holes, I included a few of the stories in my column, “Cosmic Background,” in Natural History magazine, where editors Vittorio Maestro and Erin Espelie wielded their magic on my copy. In addition, summary descriptions in this book on Newton’s accomplishments and the physics of relativity were partly drawn from my previous book Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony, which focused on gravity-wave astronomy.
Deep appreciation goes to my literary agents Shannon O’Neill and Will Lippincott, at the Lippincott Massie McQuilkin agency, who found the perfect publishing home for my book at the Yale University Press.
It was simply a delight to work with my editor, Joseph Calamia, who dove into my manuscript from the start with such joyous enthusiasm, keen insight, and journalistic wisdom. Wordsmith extraordinaire Laura Jones Dooley followed up with a copy edit that writers only dream of.
Heartfelt love and gratitude go to my husband, Steve Lowe, for his support, his patience, and his editorial advice over the course of this endeavor. Last, I can’t forget to thank the one who was by my side (literally) throughout the writing process: my dog, Hubble, both a champ and a scamp.
Index
Note: Italic page numbers refer to illustrations.
acceleration, (i), (ii), (iii)
accretion disks, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)
Adams, Walter, (i)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), (i), (ii), (iii)
Anderson, Alexander, (i)
Anderson, Wilhelm, (i)
Andromeda galaxy, (i)
antigravity, (i), (ii), (iii)
antimatter, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)
argon, (i)
Aristarchus of Samos, (i)
Aristotle, (i), (ii)
atomic bombs, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)
atomic nuclei, (i), (ii), (iii)
Baade, Walter, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)n
Babson, Roger, (i), (ii)
Bahnson, Agnew, (i)
Banks, Joseph, (i)
Beckedorff, David, (i)
Bekenstein, Jacob, (i), (ii), (iii)
Bell, Jocelyn, (i)
Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm, (i)
Besso, Michele, (i)
Bethe, Hans, (i), (ii)
Big Bang: cosmic microwave background, (i); and first-generation stars, (i); Stephen Hawking on, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); origin of term, (i); and quasars, (i)
binary stars: and general relativity, (i); and gravity, (i), (ii); John Michell on, (i); and neutron stars, (i), (ii); and white dwarfs, (i); X-rays emissions from, (i); and Yakov Zel’dovich, (i). See also Cygnus X-1; Sirius and Sirius B
blackbodies, (i)
black holes: and accretion disks, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); astronomical observation of, (i); and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and Hong-Yee Chiu, (i), (ii); computer simulations of gravitational collapse, (i), (ii); cultural mystique of, (i), (ii); Cygnus X-1, (i), (ii), (iii); Albert Einstein’s conception of, (i), (ii), (iii); and electric charge, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); as elementary entities, (i); ergospheres of, (i), (ii); explosion of, (i); as frozen stars, (i), (ii); at galaxies’ centers, (i), (ii), (iii); and gravity, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi); and gravity waves, (i), (ii); and Stephen Hawking, (i), (ii); and Lev Landau, (i), (ii); and Pierre-Simon de Laplace, (i); and magnetic fields, (i); and mass, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv), (xv), (xvi); John Michell’s imagining of, (i), (ii), (iii); and Milky Way galaxy, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); miniature, (i); and Newton’s laws, (i), (ii), (iii); and J. Robert Oppenheimer, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); origin of term, (i); particle emissions from, (i), (ii); pulsations of, (i); and quantum mechanics, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and quasars, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); rotation of, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii); and Karl Schwarzschild, (i), (ii); scientific community’s skepticism of, (i), (ii), (iii); and space-time, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi); as stars’ endpoint, (i); supermassive, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); temperature of, (i); and Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, (i); and Kip Thorne, (i), (ii), (iii); and time, (i); X-ray radiation from, (i), (ii). See also event horizon; singularities
Black Holes and Time Warps (Thorne), (i)
Blandford, Roger, (i), (ii)
Bohr, Niels, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)
Bond, George, (i)
Born, Max, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
A Brief History of Time (Hawking), (i), (ii), (iii)
Burbridge, Geoffrey, (i)
calcium, (i)
carbon, (i), (ii)
Carter, Brandon, (i)
Cassidy, David, (i)
Cavendish, Henry, (i), (ii), (iii)
Center for Relativity (Austin), (i)
Chadwick, James, (i)
Chandrasekhar, Balakrishnan, (i)
Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan: and black holes, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); conflict with Arthur Eddington, (i), (ii); and neutron stars, (i), (ii); photograph of, (i); and quasars, (i); and white dwarfs, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)
Charles II (king of England), (i)
Chiu, Hong-Yee, (i), (ii), (iii)n
Clark, Alvan, (i)
Clark, Alvan Graham, (i)
Colgate, Sterling, (i)
collapsars. See black holes
comets, (i), (ii), (iii)
Connally, John, (i)
continental drift, (i)
Copernicus, Nicolaus, (i)
corpuscles, (i)
cosmic microwave background radiation, (i), (ii), (iii)
cosmic static, (i), (ii)
Crab Nebula, (i)
curvature of space-time: and general relativity, (i); and gravity, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and mass, (i), (ii), (iii); and Karl Schwarzschild, (i); and stars, (i)
Cygnus A, (i)
Cygnus X-1, (i), (ii), (iii)
dark matter, (i), (ii)
dark stars. See black holes
Darwin, Charles, (i)
Darwin, Erasmus, (i)
degeneracy pressure, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
Descartes, René, (i)
DeWitt, Bryce, (i), (ii), (iii)
Dicke, Robert, (i)
differential geometry, (i)
dimensionality, (i)
Dirac, Paul, (i), (ii), (iii)
discontinuity, (i)
Dog star. See Sirius and Sirius B
Doppler effect, (i). See also redshift
double stars. See binary stars
Draper, Henry, (i)
Dyson, Freeman, (i), (ii), (iii)
Eddington, Arthur: conflict with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, (i), (ii); and general relativity, (i); and Mercury’s orbital motion, (i), (ii); photograph of, (i); and Schwarzschild singularities, (i), (ii); and Sirius and Sirius B, (i); and stellar composition, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
Einstein, Albert: conception of black holes, (i), (ii), (iii); conception of space-time, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii); development of general theory of relativity, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and general relativity’s equations, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi)n; and gravitational redshift, (i); and gravity waves, (i); and Newton’s laws of gravity, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii); photograph of, (i); and response to general relativity, (i); and special relativity, (i); and time, (i), (ii), (iii); and unified theory of relativity, (i)
Einstein (spaceborne observatory), (i)
Eisenstaedt, Jean, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)
electric charge: and black holes, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and cosmic static, (i), (ii); and gravitational collapse, (i), (ii), (iii); and neutrons, (i); and photons, (i); and radio waves, (i)
electrodynamics, (i)
electromagnetic forces, (i), (ii)
electromagnetic waves, (i), (ii)
electrons: and cosmic static, (i), (ii); and neutron stars, (i), (ii), (iii); and spin, (i), (ii); and white dwarfs, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
elliptical orbits, (i), (ii)
entropy, (i)
ergospheres, (i), (ii)
ether theory, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
Euclid, (i)
event horizon: and black holes’ particle emissions, (i), (ii); and black holes’ rotation, (i), (ii); conditions at, (i), (ii); and ergosphere, (i), (ii); as ever-increasing, (i), (ii); and gravity, (i), (ii), (iii); and light, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and quantum mechanics, (i); and quasars, (i); and singularities, (i), (ii), (iii); and time, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and unified theory of forces, (i)
&nbs
p; Ewing, Ann, (i)
experimentation, (i), (ii)
Exposition du système du monde (Laplace), (i)
Feynman, Richard, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
Finkelstein, David, (i), (ii)
Fornax A galaxy, (i)
40 Eridani, (i)
Fowler, Ralph, (i), (ii), (iii)
Fowler, William, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
frame dragging, (i)
Franklin, Benjamin, (i)
frozen stars, (i), (ii)
Fuller, Robert, (i)
galactic collisions, (i)
galaxies: formation of, (i), (ii), (iii); radio galaxies, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v). See also specific galaxies
gamma rays, (i), (ii), (iii)
Gamow, George, (i), (ii)
general theory of relativity: and acceleration, (i), (ii); astronomers’ training in, (i); and astrophysics, (i); ban on Physical Review articles concerning, (i), (ii); and black holes, (i); and Arthur Eddington, (i); and Albert Einstein, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv); and elementary particle physics, (i); and gravitational collapse, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and gravitational redshift, (i); and gravity, (i), (ii), (iii); and gravity waves, (i); improved instrumentation for verifying, (i); and mathematics, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)n; and Mercury’s orbit, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and neutron stars, (i), (ii), (iii); and quantum mechanics, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi); and radio galaxies, (i); resurgence of interest in, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and Karl Schwarzschild, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)n; and singularities, (i); stagnation of interest in, (i), (ii), (iii); and time, (i), (ii); and John Archibald Wheeler, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and white dwarfs, (i)
Giacconi, Riccardo, (i)
Gilbert, William, (i)
Ginzburg, Vitaly L., (i)
Global Positioning System (GPS), (i), (ii)
Gold, Thomas, (i)
Goudsmit, Samuel, (i), (ii)
gravitational collapse: and black hole as term, (i); and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, (i), (ii), (iii); and Arthur Eddington, (i); and Albert Einstein, (i); and electric charge, (i), (ii), (iii); and event horizon, (i); and general relativity, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and iron stellar cores, (i); and Werner Israel, (i); and Roy Kerr, (i); and Lev Landau, (i), (ii), (iii); and nuclear forces, (i), (ii); and J. Robert Oppenheimer, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi)n; and quasars, (i), (ii), (iii); and rotation, (i), (ii); and Karl Schwarzschild, (i); scientific community’s skepticism of, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and singularities, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv); and Hartland Snyder, (i), (ii); and stellar irregularities, (i); and supermassive black holes, (i); and John Archibald Wheeler, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi); and Yakov Zel’dovich, (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v); and Fritz Zwicky, (i)
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