Einstein's Monsters

Impey skilfully weaves a fascinating tale out of the work and ideas of the scientists who... pieced together the history of black holes by understanding the evolution of stars and how they can, depending on their mass, end up as white dwarfs, ultra-dense neutronstars, rapidly spinning pulsars or as an exploding supernova. -- Financial Times Astronomer Impey's accessible approach breaks down complex scientific concepts with ease and flair, name-checking everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to Pink Floyd as he lays out what we think we know about black holes-and what remains mysterious. -- Discover Impey does an admirable job describing multiple facets of the often contradictory field of black hole astrophysics... Einstein's Monsters will be sure to capture the imagination of most who pick it up, simultaneously convincing the reader that these monsters, while in fact quite certainly real, should be loved and not feared. -- Science In Einstein's Monsters, Impey provides a history of black holes and an overview of investigations into their supremely counter-intuitive behaviour...[he] addresses the seeming absurdities of [the] subject with authority and wit. -- Nature Black holes were originally flights of theoretical fancy, difficult for even professional physicists to wrap their brains around. In Einstein's Monsters, Chris Impey shows how modern astronomy has brought them into vivid focus, and conveys how much more we're learning about these extreme beasts with every passing year. -- Sean Carroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself