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Once the stuff of science-fiction novels,
black holes, and their even stranger cosmological counterparts,
white holes and wormholes, 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 signularity.
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.
John Gribbin is the author of many books
of popular science, including In Search of Schrodinger's
Cat, In Search of the Big Bang, and Blinded
by the Light.
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