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T
HE
L
UCENT
L
IBRARY
OF
S
CIENCE
AND
S
CIENCE
AND
T
ECHNOLOGY
Black
by Don Nardo
San Diego • Detroit • New York • San Francisco • Cleveland • New Haven, Conn. • Waterville, Maine • London • Munich
T
HE
L
UCENT
L
IBRARY
OF
T
ECHNOLOGY
Holes
On cover: Of the three bright dots in the middle of this photo of the center of our galaxy, the one on the left, known
as Sagittarius A*, is thought to be a supermassive black hole.
© 2004 by Lucent Books. Lucent Books is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc.,
a division of Thomson Learning, Inc.
Lucent Books
®
and Thomson Learning™ are trademarks used herein under license.
For more information, contact
Lucent Books
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by
any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web dis-
tribution or information storage retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Nardo, Don, 1947–
Black holes / by Don Nardo.
p. cm. — (The Lucent library of science and technology)
Summary: Discusses the history and current state of scientific understanding of black
holes, exploring what they are, how they are formed, potential uses, and what they tell
us about the fate of the universe.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-59018-101-8 (alk. paper)
1. Black holes (Astronomy)—Juvenile literature. [1. Black holes (Astronomy)] I. Title.
II. Series.
QB843.B55N37 2004
523.8'875—dc22
2003015069
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Foreword
4
Introduction
7
Facing the Ultimate Unknowable
Chapter 1
12
Gravity and Early Predictions of Black Holes
Chapter 2
26
Dying Stars and the Formation of Black Holes
Chapter 3
40
Properties and Potential Uses of Black Holes
Chapter 4
54
Detecting Black Holes Through Indirect Means
Chapter 5
67
Giant Black Holes and the Fate of the Universe
Chapter 6
80
Can Black Holes Be Used as Cosmic Gateways?
Notes
93
Glossary
96
For Further Reading
99
Major Works Consulted
101
Additional Works Consulted
103
Index
106
Picture Credits
111
About the Author
112
Foreword
“The world has changed far more in the past 100 years
than in any other century in history. The reason is not
political or economic, but technological—technologies
that flowed directly from advances in basic science.”
revolution that British physicist Stephen Hawking
describes in the above quote has transformed virtually
every aspect of human life at an unprecedented pace.
Inventions unimaginable a century ago have not only
become commonplace but are now considered neces-
sities of daily life. As science historian James Burke
writes, “We live surrounded by objects and systems
that we take for granted, but which profoundly affect
the way we behave, think, work, play, and in general
conduct our lives.”
For example, in just one hundred years, transporta-
tion systems have dramatically changed. In 1900 the
first gasoline-powered motorcar had just been intro-
duced, and only 144 miles of U.S. roads were hard-
surfaced. Horse-drawn trolleys still filled the streets of
American cities. The airplane had yet to be invented.
Today 217 million vehicles speed along 4 million miles
of U.S. roads. Humans have flown to the moon and
commercial aircraft are capable of transporting passen-
gers across the Atlantic Ocean in less than three hours.
The transformation of communications has been
just as dramatic. In 1900 most Americans lived and
worked on farms without electricity or mail delivery.
Few people had ever heard a radio or spoken on a tele-
phone. A hundred years later, 98 percent of American
4
— Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History
of Relativity,”
Time,
2000
T
he twentieth-century scientific and technological
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