Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth

'Combines science with journalism to weave a captivating account of the most extraordinary objects in the universe: black holes. A superior account.' Marcus Chown 'Facing Infinity is an especially attractive introduction to a wonderfully attractive subject.' Frank Wilczek From the 18th century vicar who was the first to look up at the night's sky and suggest there was something very dark and extraordinarily heavy that was moving the stars, to the first actual photograph of a black hole, 250 years later, Jonas Enander has travelled the world, visited telescopes and observatories, interviewed world-leading space researchers, and delved deep into the archives to investigate how our relationship with black holes has changed over time. Throughout this journey, Enander explores how our desire to answer the question of the origin of the universe inadvertently led to the invention of WiFi and the calibration of GPS; how our looking outward gave us critical evidence of our impact on climate change that could be the key to the future of all humanity and how colonialism sparked the race for discovery, affecting those most vulnerable, creating a ripple effect being felt to this day. Discover how black holes work, where they come from, and what role they play in the universe. How is it even possible to know that we are on a 230 million year journey around the Milky Way with an enormous black hole at its centre? How is it possible to determine that this black hole has a mass equivalent to four million suns? What happens when black holes collide? Are we living in a black hole? And how do we even know any of this? Based on interviews with over 20 leading black hole researchers, including several Nobel Laureates, Facing Infinity deciphers the most mind-bending science whilst retaining a sense of wonder, in an approachable and spellbinding journey into the universe's greatest mysteries.