Nearly everyone has heard of black holes, but few people outside of complex scientific fields understand their true nature and their implications for our universe. This lecture course makes this cosmological subject graspable, with 12 lavishly illustrated lectures by veteran Great Courses Professor Alex Filippenko, a distinguished astronomer and award-winning teacher at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Stephen Hawking has dazzled readers worldwide with a string of bestsellers exploring the mysteries of the universe. Now, for the first time, perhaps the most brilliant cosmologist of our age turns his gaze inward for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution.
 
My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking’s improbable journey, from his postwar London boyhood to his years of international...

Black holes are a constant source of fascination to many due to their mysterious nature. ThisVery Short Introduction, addresses a variety of questions, including what a black hole actually is, how they are characterized and discovered, and what would happen if you came too close to one. --Publisher

Traces the efforts of an elite scientific team who tested Einstein's theory of relativity during a historic mission to photograph a black hole, addressing key questions about time, space, and the nature of the universe.

"A fascinating and thought-provoking investigation into the nature of black holes-a blend of the spiritual, the philosophical, and the scientific-from the premier German astrophysicist who made history in 2019, capturing the first one on film"--

"From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space--an authoritative, wholly accessible, fascinating guide to the most challenging phenomena of contemporary science, which is now the anchor of our understanding of the cosmos. Throughout her career, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused, alongside her research, on making the science she studies not just accessible, but, perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist....

"In 1916, Einstein became the first to predict the existence of gravitational waves: sounds without a material medium generated by the unfathomably energy-producing collision of black holes. Now, Janna Levin, herself an astrophysicist, recounts the story of the search, over the last fifty years, for these elusive waves--a quest that has culminated in the creation of the most expensive project ever funded by the National Science Foundation ($1 billion-plus)....

Eating too much cake causes Llama to rip his dancing pants, opening a black hole and threatening the entire universe.

"Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to decipher the mysteries bequeathed by that theory, a legacy so unthinkable in some respects that even Einstein himself rejected them." "Which of these bizarre phenomena, if any, can really exist in our universe? Black holes, down which anything can fall but from which nothing can return; wormholes, short...