Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries

This is a very fun read for all you science nerds... not only being clear and humorous but wide-ranging and careful to build up a number of those necessary building blocks of knowledge but doing it precisely in order to slam you with the good stuff later.

Like how you'd DIE IN A BLACK HOLE... :)

To belabor the obvious by the title. :)

Seriously, this book gives us a ton of great ways to die and not just by black hole. I really appreciated that. :)

I'd characterize this book as an easy to intermediate stage science book that's very far from being dull and it has a minimum of equations. I'm sure everyone has heard of thermodynamics and E=MC squared and Drake's equation, after all, but what really thrilled me about this was the truly wide show more array of subjects and Tyson's conversational tone.

You can tell he is still a very, very good science teacher. :)

I can almost hear him say, "Let's throw out the crap, folks, let's dive right into the good stuff." And he does, ranging from the Big Bang to the Heat Death, kinds of possible life on planets, the building blocks we need to understand science, including a great "stick" analogy for understanding the universe without computers, and he even gets into a bit of politics and religion because let's face it: it's a hot discussion item. But thankfully, it's only there as an afterthought.

I wanted science and I got science, exploring the planets, the sun, even quasars, and especially Black Holes. That's the yummy stuff, after all.

10/10 Black Holes agree! Nom nom nom nom nom.

I totally recommend this for both laymen and the intelligently curious and for anyone else who just likes a bit of the good (science) life. It really, really helps that Tyson's a great writer and clear as glass. The light passes right through it without slowing down at all! Can you believe it? show less

This book is a rarity - a book about astrophysics that is very readable and easy to understand. The author has a sense of humor, and mixes in pop culture references with high quality prose, offering lucid explanations for hard to understand science that bring much needed clarity to a much abused subject. The book is easy to read, and it's fun. I do wish, however, that scientists writing about this topic (or any biological topic, too) would not take on the question of Science and God. That's better left for books dealing specifically with that topic, and while Tyson did not give the religious much to feel good about, there are some words or phrases that could easily be pulled out of context and used (gleefully) by those who seek to show more persuade the easily persuadable that scientists are finding God (Tyson never said anything of the sort, and was quite unequivocal on the fact that there is no compatibility between religion and science as they are currently being done). In addition, it does tend to give the religious the idea that there is something about their obsessions that make them worthy of discussion in a serious science book. However, this book is a truly fine book, and carping aside, I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand what really is "out there" and "bigger than ourselves". (I'll give you a hint: it's known as the universe). show less

I have watched a few documentaries by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and he did a fantastic job of explaining Science concepts in them. He has done an equally exceptional work in this book as well.

We can call this as 'a Science book for the common man', since even people with basic knowledge will have an educating and entertaining experience going through the book. IMHO, this is a book for all ages.

Complicated topics like Quasars, Quantum Theory and Black holes are detailed with utmost simplicity. The book covers a wide range of subjects and takes a deep-dive on many of them.

In most chapters, I was able to paint a mental picture of the material I was reading. Such is the flair of the Author's presentation.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great scientist and writer, and a champion of public engagement and equal opportunities in the sciences (just watch this clip if you don't believe me). Death by Black Hole is a mildly edited selection of his weekly articles from the magazine Natural History. The original articles appeared between 1995 and 2005 and cover a range of topics, although cosmology is their primary focus, what with Neil deGrasse Tyson being, you know, a cosmologist.

Even if you already know quite a lot about space and Physics there's plenty to learn within the collection, or at least re-learn in interesting ways. My own qualifications in the field extend to an A-level in Physics and, more importantly, being a former member of the show more erstwhile Boston Astronomers Society as a ten-year-old Lee. Yet even with that prodigious pedigree I had things to learn. Like the fact that Uranus was originally called George (I challenge you not to be amused by the notion of the solar system's eight planets being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and George). Also: the reason clockwise is the direction that it is is because the first clocks were sundials, and they were invented in the Northern hemisphere. Since in this hemisphere the sun travels from east to west across the south of the sky the shadow moves clockwise around the sundial and this direction was inherited by those new-fangled clocks upon their invention centuries later. And then of course there was the revelation that quarks were named after a line in [b:Finnegans Wake|11013|Finnegans Wake|James Joyce|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1336408055s/11013.jpg|322098]: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” corrsponding with the three flavours of quark that were initially proposed. This was perhaps the greatest surprise in the book, since I had no idea that anyone had read Finnegans Wake. (Although it turns out this etymology might be somewhat inaccurate. The term “quark” for the subatomic particle was apparently chosen on a whim by Murray Gell-Mann, who wasn't sure whether to pronounce it so as to rhyme with Spark or with Spork. He eventually chose the former because he saw the line in Finnegans Wake and figured that James Joyce had meant his “quark” to rhyme with Mark.)

As mentioned earlier, the collection is made up of mildly edited versions of some of Neil deGrasse Tyson's weekly articles. And therein lies the only real problem with the book – it would really have benefitted from some more substantial editing. Given that the magazine articles are spread over eleven years it makes sense that in them certain topics are repeated. Expecting the reader of the February 2003 issue of Natural History to have both read and memorised every article from 1995 onwards would be folly. But expecting the reader of page 203 in a medium-sized paperback to have read and remembered all the previous pages is not such a stretch. Sure, certain ideas are worth repeating to hammer them home, but after a while you're not banging home ideas any more, you're just hitting wood. As it were. The section on where elements come from (spoiler: the answer is space) is particularly guilty of this. Half of every article in the section is devoted either to the explanation of how all the elements up to iron are crafted in stars, or else how complex molecules form in the vast dust clouds of space. I've not heard anyone say "we are all made of stars" so much since I listened to that Moby track. The only concession to this is the occasional use of the phrase “as we saw earlier” or sometimes “as we will see later”.

This criticism is a criticism borne from love, though. Neil deGrasse Tyson writes really well and with eleven years worth of articles to choose from there were presumably essays that he could have included that he didn't include, on topics that end up not being mentioned. So when you read yet another article about where the heavier elements come from you have to wonder where these other essays argon.

Argon! Geddit? Okay, what about: when you read yet another article about where the heavier elements come from you have to wonder what other essays Neil wrote, and why he chose to barium.

Barium! Bury ’em! Geddit? Ah, forget it. show less

A fascinating collection of essays on many of the wonders of the cosmos. Each essay is short enough not to overwhelm you, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has that all-important knack of explaining complex ideas in simple ways without feeling like he is talking down to you. His enthusiasm is infectious and while his writing does not have much flair, it has warmth, lucidity and brevity, which are perhaps more important.

Most importantly, the book makes you want to learn more. This for me has always been one of the most appealing things about popular science, particularly astrophysics: "… the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas…" (pg. 305). You understand more and more about the show more universe and, rather than feeling like a god, you actually show more and more humility. show less

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great scientist and writer, and a champion of public engagement and equal opportunities in the sciences (just watch this clip if you don't believe me). Death by Black Hole is a mildly edited selection of his weekly articles from the magazine Natural History. The original articles appeared between 1995 and 2005 and cover a range of topics, although cosmology is their primary focus, what with Neil deGrasse Tyson being, you know, a cosmologist.

Even if you already know quite a lot about space and Physics there's plenty to learn within the collection, or at least re-learn in interesting ways. My own qualifications in the field extend to an A-level in Physics and, more importantly, being a former member of the show more erstwhile Boston Astronomers Society as a ten-year-old Lee. Yet even with that prodigious pedigree I had things to learn. Like the fact that Uranus was originally called George (I challenge you not to be amused by the notion of the solar system's eight planets being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and George). Also: the reason clockwise is the direction that it is is because the first clocks were sundials, and they were invented in the Northern hemisphere. Since in this hemisphere the sun travels from east to west across the south of the sky the shadow moves clockwise around the sundial and this direction was inherited by those new-fangled clocks upon their invention centuries later. And then of course there was the revelation that quarks were named after a line in [b:Finnegans Wake|11013|Finnegans Wake|James Joyce|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1336408055s/11013.jpg|322098]: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” corrsponding with the three flavours of quark that were initially proposed. This was perhaps the greatest surprise in the book, since I had no idea that anyone had read Finnegans Wake. (Although it turns out this etymology might be somewhat inaccurate. The term “quark” for the subatomic particle was apparently chosen on a whim by Murray Gell-Mann, who wasn't sure whether to pronounce it so as to rhyme with Spark or with Spork. He eventually chose the former because he saw the line in Finnegans Wake and figured that James Joyce had meant his “quark” to rhyme with Mark.)

As mentioned earlier, the collection is made up of mildly edited versions of some of Neil deGrasse Tyson's weekly articles. And therein lies the only real problem with the book – it would really have benefitted from some more substantial editing. Given that the magazine articles are spread over eleven years it makes sense that in them certain topics are repeated. Expecting the reader of the February 2003 issue of Natural History to have both read and memorised every article from 1995 onwards would be folly. But expecting the reader of page 203 in a medium-sized paperback to have read and remembered all the previous pages is not such a stretch. Sure, certain ideas are worth repeating to hammer them home, but after a while you're not banging home ideas any more, you're just hitting wood. As it were. The section on where elements come from (spoiler: the answer is space) is particularly guilty of this. Half of every article in the section is devoted either to the explanation of how all the elements up to iron are crafted in stars, or else how complex molecules form in the vast dust clouds of space. I've not heard anyone say "we are all made of stars" so much since I listened to that Moby track. The only concession to this is the occasional use of the phrase “as we saw earlier” or sometimes “as we will see later”.

This criticism is a criticism borne from love, though. Neil deGrasse Tyson writes really well and with eleven years worth of articles to choose from there were presumably essays that he could have included that he didn't include, on topics that end up not being mentioned. So when you read yet another article about where the heavier elements come from you have to wonder where these other essays argon.

Argon! Geddit? Okay, what about: when you read yet another article about where the heavier elements come from you have to wonder what other essays Neil wrote, and why he chose to barium.

Barium! Bury ’em! Geddit? Ah, forget it. show less

Ever since Carl Sagan died, there has been a real lack of scientists who can explain science to the general public, and have "star power" to promote science. Not everyone in this world eagerly turns on "Science Friday" on NPR every Friday, for instance. Carl had a gift, sometimes derided by his fellow scientists, for making science interesting and fun for the layperson and impressionable young minds. (Mine, for instance).

In that void after Carl's death, a number of scientists have tried. The Late Stephen Gould wrote wonderfully about Evolution and matters biological, however he never had a TV presence. The physicist Brian Greene makes String Theory lucid, or at least as lucid as it is going to get for someone without degrees in show more mathematics and physics.

And then there's Tyson. He certainly works the media: I've seen him on the Daily Show, and he's been on Science Friday, amongst other places. He's managed to cause a firestorm, when he "demoted" Pluto in the Rose Center from a full fledged planet. He's a colorful, larger than life personality that is sometimes brash, and very much a New Yorker.

Turns out he can write fairly well, too. Death by Black Hole collects a bunch of his essays on matters astrophysical and astronomical, in bite sized chunks of a form I first encountered in the personage of Isaac Asimov.

Death by Black Hole contains the titular essay, as well as essays ranging from the journey of a photon in the sun from creation to its emission, to lagrange points, to the implausiblity of most movie aliens, to the dangers and stupidity of teaching intelligent design as science. His sense of humor can sometimes take getting used to, as well as his brashness. Still, although I don't think he approaches Sagan's (or Asimov's) olympian ability to elucidate strange and exotic concepts, he does a pretty good job. The essays are meant for an educated layperson, and I think are accessible to the general public.

My only quibble, and I think its his tendency to try and write to the general public, is that Tyson seems to not like to write in scientific notation. Seeing numbers like 0.0000000005 K or conflations of millions and billions was a bit irksome to me.

Still, I would definitely buy further collections of Tyson's essays as he gets them written and put together. show less