Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled On by Hawking Became Loved

252 Pages·2015·1.48 MB·English

by  Marcia Bartusiak

Black Hole
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B L AC K H O L E
H OW A N I D E A
A B A N D O N E D BY
N E W TO N I A N S ,
H AT E D BY E I N S T E I N ,
A N D G A M B L E D O N BY
H AW K I N G B E C A M E
LOV E D
M A R C I A B A R T U S I A K
New Haven & London
Copyright © 2015 by Marcia Bartusiak.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
and 108 of the US Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public
press), without written permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational,
business, or promotional use. For information, please e- mail sales.press@
yale.edu (US offi ce) or [email protected] (UK offi ce).
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bartusiak, Marcia, 1950–
Black hole: how an idea abandoned by Newtonians, hated by Einstein,
and gambled on by Hawking became loved / Marcia Bartusiak.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-21085-9 (clothbound : alk. paper)
1. Black holes (Astronomy). 2. Discoveries in science.
3. Science—Social aspects. I. Title.
QB843.B55B37 2015
523.8'875—dc23 2014038950
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to my students, past and present, in the Graduate
Program in Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, who daily inspire me
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Contents
Preface ix
1
It Is Therefore Possible That the Largest Luminous
1
Bodies in the Universe May Be Invisible
2 16
Newton, Forgive Me
3
One Would Then Find Oneself . . . in a Geometrical
35
Fairyland
4
There Should Be a Law of Nature to Prevent a Star from
44
Behaving in This Absurd Way!
5 60
I’ll Show Those Bastards
6 70
Only Its Gravitational Field Persists
7
I Could Not Have Picked a More Exciting Time in
87
Which to Become a Physicist
8 110
It Was the Weirdest Spectrum I’d Ever Seen
9 122
Why Don’t You Call It a Black Hole?
10 142
Medieval Torture Rack
11
Whereas Stephen Hawking Has Such a Large
Investment in General Relativity and Black Holes
148
and Desires an Insurance Policy
CONTENTS
12 163
Black Holes Ain’t So Black
175
Epilogue
183
Timeline
189
Notes
209
Bibliography
224
Acknowledgments
227
Index
viii
Preface
The very notion of a black hole is so alluring. It combines the
thrill of the unknown with a sense of lurking danger and abandon. To
imagine a journey to a black hole’s outer boundary is like approaching
the precipice of Niagara Falls, contemplating the vertical plunge to
the churning waters below, yet remaining secure in the knowledge
that we’re positioned behind a sturdy fence to keep us from peril.
Even in the real world, we know we’re safe, as the closest black holes
to Earth are thankfully hundreds of light- years distant. So, we experi-
ence the dark, celestial adventure vicariously.
For any astrophysicist at a cocktail party, it’s the cosmic object
they’re most likely to be asked about. And for good reason: a black
hole is wackily weird. As noted black-h ole expert and Caltech theorist
Kip Thorne has written, “Like unicorns and gargoyles, black holes
seem more at home in the realms of science fi ction and ancient myth
than in the real Universe.”
University of Texas astrophysicist J. Craig Wheeler calls them a
cultural icon. “Nearly everyone understands the symbolism of black
holes as yawning maws that swallow everything and let nothing out,”
he says.
And it was the same stark and alien weirdness, now celebrated,
that kept physicists from accepting black holes for decades on end.
According to a famous saying, often quoted, “All truth passes through
ix