A review by jasonfurman
سیاهچاله by Marcia Bartusiak

4.0

This very good book is well described by its subtitle: "How an idea abandoned by Newtonians, hated by Einstein, and gambled on by Hawking became loved." It is a history of the theory and evidence for black holes, beginning with Newton and going through 2013. It is on the lighter side (by the standards of popular physics) with a blend of biography and science. But what was particularly interesting was how well it conveyed the ways in which physicists consistently tried to avoid an idea that was clearly coming out of their models and also how general relativity spent several decades in obscurity before it was revived by greater contact with data and the realities of astrophysics.