Black hole is a kind of celestial body that exists in the universe in the perspective of modern general relativity. The gravity of a black hole is so strong that the escape velocity within the event horizon is greater than the speed of light. In 1916, German astronomer Karl schwarzschild obtained a vacuum solution of the Einstein field equations by computing. And the solution shows that if a static spherically symmetric star actual radius is less than a fixed value, and the surrounding will produce a strange phenomenon that is an interface called the “event horizon”. Once it enters in the interface, even light cannot escape. This fixed value is called the Schwarzschild radius, and this “incredible object” was named “black hole” by the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
Here are our top picks as the best books on black hole in 2023.
1. The Universe: The Big Bang, Black Holes, and Blue Whales (Inquire & Investigate)
In this book, readers ages 12 to 15 embark on an exciting journey that starts with the Big Bang and takes them all the way to the end of the universe, with many thrilling stops in between. Take a look billions of years into the past and discover the mind-bending early moments of the universe, the rise of the first stars, and the formation of the earliest galaxies. Explore the birth our sun and solar system and the formation of the only place in the universe known to support life: the earth. Finally, we’ll zoom billions of years into the future to learn about the death of the sun, a colossal collision of galaxies, and even the fate of the universe itself.
The book runs throughout the universe, so that kids encounter essential topics and questions to encourage critical thinking skills, hands-on STEAM activities that encourage creative thinking, graphic novel style illustrations and more! In addition, the book links to online resources and provides a digital learning experience that integrates content with an interactive platform. There are also investigations including using a diffraction grating or prism to examine the properties of light and how. All of these advantages can make a positive effect to readers who are interested in universe.
2. Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Mr. deGrasse Tyson does a great job providing the reader with the history of both the universe as well as the field of astrophysics. The book guides readers through the mysteries of the cosmos with clarity and enthusiasm. Bringing together more than forty of Tyson’s favorite essays, this book explores a myriad of cosmic topics, from what it would be like to be inside a black hole to the movie industry’s feeble efforts to get its night skies right. One of America’s best-known astrophysicists, Tyson is a natural teacher who simplifies the complexities of astrophysics while sharing his infectious fascination for our universe.
It’s nice when a book presents something to think about, something for your mind to stew over. It’s even better when those ideas are presented in an entertaining way. Tyson is funny and his sense of humor shines through the pages. Therefore, Mr. deGrasse Tyson also does a great job with writing in such a way that the layman can catch on to the concepts and ideas he presents, as well as convey his passion for the field, all while adding a little bit of humor here and there as well. So for the casual reader who wants to know a little more about the universe, this is a great book to start with. For some that will be enough, for others it might only be the beginning. Either way, it is a great place to start.
3. Black Hole Survival Guide
This book will take you on a safe black hole trip and an exciting travel story enjoyed from your chair’s event horizon. In this book, the author helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole—perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists—illustrated with original artwork by American painter and photographer Lia Halloran. And Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Therefore, the book is lively, engaging and utterly unique. It is not just informative. Instead, it is a wonderful read from first to last.
It is an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science. With this book, astrophysicist Janna Levin aims to make the science she studies not only easy to understand, but, perhaps more importantly, more interesting to non-scientists. It’s also worth mentioning that the design of the book is also attractive. Its size is so small that you can easily hold it in your hand or carry it in your pocket. And one of the strengths of this book is the interesting illustrations, which help you learn more about black holes vividly. In general, if you’re interested in black holes and supermassive stars, it is a good choice.
4. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy
This is a book about exploration, in particular, the exploration of stars, and how they can form black holes, and even what happens at black holes. In this masterfully written and brilliantly history of science, Dr. Thorne leads the readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, coming finally to a uniquely informed answer to the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know the things they think they know? Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time has been one of the greatest best-sellers in publishing history. Anyone who struggled with that book will find here a more slowly paced but equally mind-stretching experience, with the added fascination of the rich historical and human components.
This book is exceptionally well written, and the text is accompanied by excellent diagrams which help to explain the subject matter. The book is in depth but very readable, which provides an excellent pathway to understanding the theory of black holes with all the elements covered along the way. So the author makes frequent cross-references to other parts of the book to ensure that the reader can follow the narrative (and the science) in a seamless manner. If you are interested in this subject, this is an excellent place to start your journey.
5. Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes
In the book, the author takes readers on an exploration of these and other questions at the cutting edge of astrophysics, as well as the history of black holes’ role in theoretical physics – from confirming Einstein’s equations for general relativity to testing string theory. He blends this history with a poignant account of the phenomena scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: stars swarming like bees around the center of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with visible stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in space-time.
Therefore, the book is an astonishing science of black holes and their role in understanding the history and future of our universe. Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe, and yet they are ubiquitous. Every massive star leaves behind a black hole when it dies, and every galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole at its center. Frighteningly enigmatic, these dark giants continue to astound even the scientists who spend their careers studying them. So more and more scientists are getting involved in studying black holes, and this book is no exception. Because it is clear, compelling, and profound, this book reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it. Believe you will learn more from it.
6. A Black Hole is Not a Hole: Updated Edition
This book updates with an all-new chapter about the first black-hole image ever! So this revised edition brings you a scientific marvel. See the whole image of M87, captured by the groundbreaking Event Horizon Telescope, on page 54 of this book. What are black holes, what causes them, and how the heck did scientists discover them? Acclaimed STEM writer Carolyn DeCristofano’s playful text shares how astronomers find black holes, introduces our nearest black-hole neighbors, and provides an excellent introduction to an extremely complex scientific topic.In the book, gorgeous space paintings supplement real telescopic images, and funny doodles and speech bubbles keep the content light and fun.
It is a very interesting book! This book is especially suitable for children. First of all, there are beautiful pictures on every page, which makes the book very interesting to read. Secondly, besides pictures, there are many tables and ICONS, which can greatly stimulate children’s thinking and imagination ability, and make the complicated things in books easier to understand. This does not mean that there is no depth in the content of the book. On the contrary, the book contains enough information to improve the needs of your children who are interested in astronomy, especially black holes.
7. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe
This book shows how black holes were discovered, and discusses what we’ve learned about their nature and their role in cosmic evolution，which richly illustrated with the images from observatories on the ground and in space, and computer simulations. This thoroughly updated third edition covers new discoveries made in the past decade, including the discovery of gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars, the first close-up images of the region near a black hole event horizon, and observations of debris from stars torn apart when they ventured too close to a supermassive black hole. Avoiding mathematics, the authors blend theoretical arguments with observational results to demonstrate how both have contributed to the subject.
In addition, the book reveals the strange and amazing workings of our universe with clear, explanatory illustrations and photographs. This engaging style is a great way to capture people’s attention and interest. In the process of reading, it is easier to understand the formation and function of black holes. This book is ideal for introductory undergraduate courses, amateur astronomers, and all readers interested in astronomy and physics.
8. Light in the Darkness: Black Holes, the Universe, and Us
This book takes us on Falcke’s extraordinary journey to the darkest corners of the universe. From the first humans looking up at the night sky to modern astrophysics, from the study of black holes to the still-unsolved mysteries of the universe, Falcke asks, in even the greatest triumphs of science, is there room for doubts, faith, and a God? Several chapters in the book focus on Einstein’s theory of relativity, which includes galaxies and black holes. In this section he discusses his life and the process of creating images of black holes, which is an attraction for readers. A plea for curiosity and humility, the book one of the great minds shaping the world today as he ponders the big and pressing questions that present themselves when we look up at the stars.
The reason heino Falk writes the book can date back to an international press conference on April 10, 2019, where heino Falk presented the first ever captured image of a black hole, which is a turning point in astronomy that Science magazine called the scientific breakthrough of the year. This image was taken by an intercontinental team of astronomers who miraculously turned the world into a global telescope. While the image fulfilled Falk’s goal of making black holes “visible” for the first time, he realized that the image itself raised more questions for humanity than it answered. So, this book is full of the author’s exploration of human problems, and you can learn more from it.
9. Black Holes (A True Book: Space)
A True Book: Space series dives into the many components that make each planet distinctive and exceptional, as well as explore many of the other components that make up Space. This series includes an age appropriate (grades 3-5) introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects and a robust resource section that encourages independent study. In this book, it describes how black holes form, their different sizes, how scientists find black holes in space, and if anything can escape from its gravitational pull. In addition, there are a lot of beautiful pictures in this book, which not only attract children’s eyes, but also stimulate their curiosity in order to help to develop children’s thinking ability and the ability to think alone.
10. Black Holes and Baby Universes: And Other Essays
Stephen Hawking literally transformed the way we think about physics, the universe, reality itself. In these thirteen essays and one remarkable extended interview, the man widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein returns to reveal an amazing array of possibilities for understanding our universe. Building on his earlier work, Hawking discusses imaginary time, how black holes can give birth to baby universes, and scientists’ efforts to find a complete unified theory that would predict everything in the universe. With his characteristic mastery of language, his sense of humor and commitment to plain speaking, Stephen Hawking invites us to know him better—and to share his passion for the voyage of intellect and imagination that has opened new ways to understanding the very nature of the cosmos.
In this book, Hawking sprinkles his explanations with a wry sense of humor and a keen awareness that the sciences today delve not only into the far reaches of the cosmos, but into the inner philosophical world as well. In addition, it reveals Hawking variously as the scientist, the man, the concerned world citizen, and-always-the rigorous and imaginative thinker. And Hawking’s wit, directness of style, and absence of pomp characterize all of them; calling for adequate education in science that will enable the public to play its part in making informed decisions on matters such as nuclear disarmament; exploring the origins of the future of the universe; or reflecting on the history of “A Brief History of Time. Black Holes and Baby Universes is an important work from one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.
11. Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics
This book is about the autobiography of one of the preeminent figures in twentieth-century physics. He studied with Niels Bohr, taught Richard Feynman, and boned up on relativity with his friend and colleague Albert Einstein. John Archibald Wheeler’s fascinating life brings us face to face with the central characters and discoveries of modern physics. He was the first American to learn of the discovery of nuclear fission, later coined the term “black hole,” led a renaissance in gravitation physics, and helped to build Princeton University into a mecca for physicists. From nuclear physics, to quantum theory, to relativity and gravitation, Wheeler’s work has set the trajectory of research for half a century. His career has brought him into contact with the most brilliant minds of his field. Fermi, Bethe, Rabi, Teller, Oppenheimer, and Wigner are among those he called colleagues and friends.
In this rich autobiography, Wheeler reveals in fascinating detail the excitement of each discovery, the character of each colleague, and the underlying passion for knowledge that drives him still. It’s also interesting to hear Americans, generations later, talk about the time between the two world wars. This book should be read by anyone interested in the history of physics.
12. The Black Hole War
The book is a thrilling story of their united effort to reconcile Hawking’s revolutionary theories of black holes with their own sense of reality — effort that would eventually result in Hawking admitting he was wrong, paying up, and Susskind and t’Hooft realizing that our world is a hologram projected from the outer boundaries of space. This is because 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 and Gerard t’Hooft realized the threat, and responded with a counterattack that changed the course of physics.
Therefore, the book is a brilliant book about modern physics, quantum mechanics, the fate of stars and the deep mysteries of black holes. It is very interesting and will make it easier to understand Hawking’s ideas and theories. In addition, good structure and language skills are added to the book highlights. So, if you have an interest in theoretical physics you won’t be disappointed by this.
13. Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved
The author shows how the black hole helped revive Einstein’s greatest achievement, which is the general theory of relativity. Not until astronomers discovered such surprising new phenomena as neutron stars and black holes did the once-sedate universe transform into an Einsteinian cosmos, filled with sources of titanic energy that can be understood only in the light of relativity. This book explains how Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other leading thinkers completely changed the way we see the universe. That is for more than half a century, physicists and astronomers engaged in heated dispute over the possibility of black holes in the universe. The strange notion of a space-time abyss is not even light escapes seemed to confound all logic, which attracts scientists and readers.
The book does an excellent of describing Newton’s laws, special relativity and general relativity of Einstein, and some of the follow up concepts, such as Schwarzschild singularity, Oppenheimer’s unusual finding and so on. Moreover, the description is very readable and understandable. Therefore, it is an excellent book for anyone with just a casual interest in the concept of a black hole and the theories and discoveries clearly identifying that these exist. Because not only does the author have a good grasp of the subject, she writes the story of a major scientific advance in a very engaging and interesting way, connecting scientists, their ambitions and their foibles. The book is fun to read, which is not strange. In a way, this book can get you deeper into it.
14. The Little Book of Black Holes: Science Essentials
The book dives into a mind-bending exploration of the physics of black holes. Black holes, predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity more than a century ago, have long intrigued scientists and the public with their bizarre and fantastical properties. Although Einstein understood that black holes were mathematical solutions to his equations, he never accepted their physical reality―a viewpoint many shared. This all changed in the 1960s and 1970s, when a deeper conceptual understanding of black holes developed just as new observations revealed the existence of quasars and X-ray binary star systems, whose mysterious properties could be explained by the presence of black holes. Black holes have since been the subject of intense research―and the physics governing how they behave and affect their surroundings is stranger and more mind-bending than any fiction.
After introducing the basics of the special and general theories of relativity, this book describes black holes both as astrophysical objects and theoretical “laboratories” in which physicists can test their understanding of gravitational, quantum, and thermal physics. From Schwarzschild black holes to rotating and colliding black holes, and from gravitational radiation to Hawking radiation and information loss, Steven Gubser and Frans Pretorius use creative thought experiments and analogies to explain their subject accessibly. They also describe the decades-long quest to observe the universe in gravitational waves, which recently resulted in the LIGO observatories’ detection of the distinctive gravitational wave “chirp” of two colliding black holes―the first direct observation of black holes’ existence. Therefore, the book takes readers deep into the mysterious heart of the subject, offering rare clarity of insight into the physics that makes black holes simple yet destructive manifestations of geometric destiny.
15. Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
In this book, Janna Levin recounts the fascinating story of the obsessions, the aspirations, and the trials of the scientists who embarked on an arduous 50-year endeavor to capture these elusive waves. An experimental ambition that began as an amusing thought experiment, a mad idea, became the object of fixation for the original architects – Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever. Striving to make the ambition a reality, the original three gradually accumulated an international team of hundreds. As this audiobook was written, two massive instruments of remarkably delicate sensitivity were brought to advanced capability. As the audiobook draws to a close, five decades after the experimental ambition began, the team races to intercept a wisp of a sound with two colossal machines, hoping to succeed in time for the centenary of Einstein’s most radical idea.
Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole collision is an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe. The profusion of energy will emanate as waves in the shape of space-time: gravitational waves. No telescope will ever record the event; instead, the only evidence would be the sound of space-time ringing. Therefore, Janna Levin’s absorbing account of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks in this unfolding story offers a portrait of modern science that is unlike anything we’ve seen before. From this, you can know that this is an authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.
16. A User’s Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty
This is an indispensable guide to physics that offers readers an overview of the most popular physics topics written in an accessible, irreverent, and engaging manner while still maintaining a tone of wry skepticism. Even the novice will be able to follow along, as the topics are addressed using plain English and (almost) no equations. Veterans of popular physics will also find their nagging questions addressed, like whether the universe can expand faster than light, and for that matter, what the universe is expanding into anyway. Moreover, it gives a one-stop tour of all the big questions that capture the public imagination including string theory, quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and the beginning of time Explains serious science in an entertaining, conversational, and easy-to-understand way. It includes dozens of delightfully groan-worthy cartoons that explain everything from special relativity to Dark Matter.
Filled with fascinating information and insights, this book will both deepen and transform your understanding of the universe. The author has a great sense of humor, and the book uses lots of funny examples and helpful illustrations to help us understand. Most importantly, there is only one mathematical formula in the book, which greatly reduces the problem of dyslexia and comprehension difficulties. So, if you want to truly understand more about the strange universe in which we live and have ball along the way, this book is for you.
17. Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines
The book captures the new ideas and discoveries made in physics since the publication of the best-selling first edition. While retaining the popular format and style of its predecessor, this edition explores the latest developments in high-energy astroparticle physics and Big Bang cosmology. Moreover, the book continues to make the ideas and theories of modern physics easily understood by those who are researchers or students or general science enthusiasts. Taking you on a journey through space and time, author Jim Al-Khalili covers some of the most fascinating topics in physics today, including Black holes, Space warps, The Big Bang, Time travel, Wormholes and Parallel universes.
Professor Al-Khalili explains often complex scientific concepts in simple, nontechnical terms and imparts an appreciation of the cosmos, helping you see how time traveling may not be so far-fetched after all. Therefore, it is a highly enjoyable and very interesting read. It can be strongly recommended to teenagers and to anyone who wants a non-technical account of some very topical areas of modern physics. Quite a lot of important details are included and discussed, giving an extremely good up-to-date overview of the subject matter. Even academic physicists who are not engaged in these areas can find here the kind of clear and straightforward explanations that may be helpful in answering students’ questions.
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