A mind-bending book about modern physics, quantum mechanics, the fate of stars and the deep mysteries of black holes. What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it did--and in doing so put at risk everything we know about physics and the fundamental laws of the universe. Most scientists didn't recognize the import of Hawking's claims, but Leonard Susskind...

Shares the stories of Big Bang theorists who fought against establishment beliefs about an eternal and unchanging universe to investigate the universe's origins, and continues with an explanation of the Big Bang theory.

"At the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity are a set of equations that explain the relationship among gravity, space, and time--possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics. For over a century, physicists have been exploring, debating, and at times neglecting Einstein's theory in their quest to uncover the history of the universe, the origin of time, and the evolution of solar systems, stars, and galaxies. In this...

A series of lectures on physics and the universe.

"Albert Einstein's universal appeal is only partially explained by his brilliant work in physics, as Andrew Robinson shows in this authoritative, accessible, illustrated biography. The book presents clearly the beautiful simplicity at the heart of Einstein's greatest discoveries, and explains how his ideas have continued to influence scientific developments, such as the big bang, lasers and "theories of everything. It also discusses his life and activities...

"Physicists will tell you that four forces control the universe. Of these, gravity may the most obvious, but it is also the most mysterious. Newton managed to predict the force of gravity but couldn't explain how it worked at a distance. Einstein picked up on the simple premise that gravity and acceleration are interchangeable to devise his mind-bending general relativity, showing how matter warps space and time. Not only did this explain how gravity...

"A wormhole is a tubelike distortion of time and space connecting distant places in the universe. Wormholes have been featured in many movies, but can they really exist? Wormholes are a prediction of scientific theories, and the precision of mathematics allows them to be described, even before they have ever been seen. Untangling complex physics theories with accessible language and captivating imagery, this text explores the development and evaluation...

These twelve half-hour lectures are about what Einstein got wrong. He may have kindled a scientific revolution with his famous theory of relativity and his proof that atoms and light quanta exist, but he balked at accepting the most startling implications of these theories-such as the existence of black holes, the big bang, gravity waves, and mind-bendingly strange phenomena in the quantum realm. In a course that assumes no background in science and...