Unveiling the Edge of Time

"Once the stuff of science-fiction novels, black holes, and their even stranger cosmological counterparts, white holes and worm holes, are now the subject of serious scientific inquiry. Physicists who formerly shunned these astrophysical eccentricities have begun to theorize about them and search for the physical proof of their existence with the zeal of converts. Their unavoidable conclusion of this research is that these "rips in the fabric of spacetime" are not only real, they might actually provide a passage to other universes and travel through time." "Unveiling the Edge of Time tells the fascinating story of the theories and discoveries that have led scientists to these astonishing conclusions. Here, acclaimed science writer John Gribbin tells of the scientists and the ideas behind this revolution in cosmology - from the first notions of an object so large its gravity would trap even light, to the most recent developments in the search for "naked singularities" - the center of a black hole where all known laws of physics break down. Gribbin recounts for us such dramatic stories as how Carl Sagan's science-fiction search for a plausible method of hyperspace travel led a fellow physicist to make some of the most startling recent advances in relativity theory. Taking readers into new universes and across time itself, Gribbin provides remarkable descriptions of what it would be like for astronauts taking trips through each of these spacetime "holes" - what they would see and feel as they are drawn across "event horizons" and where they would arrive after passing through a singularity." "With a scientist's knowledge of the facts and a writer's gift for description, John Gribbin conveys these extraordinary ideas with both excitement and clarity. The result is an intellectual adventure that will take readers to the farthest reaches of today's science."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved