BlackHoles&TimeWarps_Einstein\'sOutrageou.epub

BLACK HOLES AND TIME WARPS Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy KIP S. THORNE THE FEYNMAN PROFESSOR OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY A volume of THE COMMONWEALTH FUND BOOK PROGRAM under the editorship of Lewis Thomas, MD. W • W • NORTON & COMPANY New York London The Commonwealth Fund Book Program gratefully acknowledges the assistance of The Rockefeller University in the administration of the program I dedicate this book to J OHN A RCHIBALD W HEELER , my mentor and friend. Contents Foreword by Stephen Hawking Introduction by Frederick Seitz Preface what this book is about, and how to read it Prologue: A Voyage among the Holes in which the reader, in a science fiction tale, encounters black holes and all their strange properties as best we understand them in the 1990s 1. The Relativity of Space and Time in which Einstein destroys Newton’s conceptions of space and time as Absolute 2. The Warping of Space and Time in which Hermann Minkowski unifies space and time, and Einstein warps them 3. Black Holes Discovered and Rejected in which Einstein’s laws of warped spacetime predict black ho......