In the 1920s, famed British physicist Arthur Eddington smugly asserted that only two people then alive understood Einstein's relativity theories: himself and Einstein. But Eddington was wrong, and Einstein, too, for neither admitted that the theories required the existence of black holes. "Implosion Is Compulsory" is the title of one Thorne chapter, and by the time he tells how and why physicists proved it, he has pulled readers into his account as inevitably as if the book itself were a black hole.
For it is almost a quantum jump in science writing for laypeople, one that sets a challenge to all interested in the physics of the weird objects by nobly disdaining dumb-down tendencies like eliminating exponents and equations. But words and drawings remain the principal medium through which Thorne propagates the intellectual paths by which physicists attained their understanding of gravity's extremes. Not often can experts descend to popular understanding without being condescending; and Thorne's palpable eagerness to impart the concepts he helped develop as a world-class physicist at Caltech elevates this into a compelling human discovery as well as a revolution in science. Simultaneously demanding and rewarding, this is a landmark book fit to beckon Hawkingphiles. Gilbert Taylor