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Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime cover art

Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime

Written by: Benjamin Schumacher, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Benjamin Schumacher
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Publisher's Summary

It all started with Newton’s apple. Or did it? Gravity controls everything from the falling of an apple to the rising of ocean’s tides to the motions of the heavens above. If you’ve ever wondered how this most puzzling force works across our entire universe, you will be delighted by this 24-part course that is accessible to any curious person, regardless of your science education. No other product on the market presents the subject of gravity in as much detail as this course, which will follow the past 400 years of research and experimentation in the field.

Your guide is Professor Schumacher, an award-winning educator, prominent theoretical physicist, and protégé of John Archibald Wheeler, the distinguished gravity theorist who first coined the term “black hole”.  

• Explore the intriguing features of gravity, including: why a hammer does not fall faster than a feather (neglecting air resistance, of course!); how astronauts float in space when they are still within reach of Earth’s gravitational pull; and how gravity shapes the four-dimensional fabric of the universe.

• Become immersed in the fascinating study of gravity, experiencing the scientific breakthroughs alongside the great minds of physics: Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Einstein, Hubble, Hawking, and more.

• Examine a recent discovery: that the expansion of our universe is accelerating due to an as-yet-unexplained cosmic antigravity known as dark energy.

• Delve into the Holy Grail of contemporary physics: the search for a theory that encompasses both gravity, which extends its reach across the cosmos, and quantum mechanics, which governs events at the smallest possible scale.

In Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime, you will travel to the very edges of modern physics to explore several revolutionary theories and discover that physics is just as exciting today as it was when Newton sat by that fateful apple tree.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2013 The Great Courses (P)2013 The Teaching Company, LLC

What listeners say about Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime

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Spectacular

Amazing illustration, wonderful insights and practical insights .
This book can be listened to over and over it’s rad easy to understand and delight to listen to.

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really freaking cool

loved it, the first audiobook on gravity that takes time to explain the many accepted theories about what gravity is, how it is formed and what our universe/physical domain may be governed by

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Fascinating. Better than I expected.

For some reason I went in assuming it would be a lot less comprehensive than it turned out to be and I was pleasantly surprised.

The subject matter of course cannot be fully groced by simply listening to this in the background, I think you really have to spend some time doing your own research and really internalizing the concepts being introduced here, but this course tickles the imagination and points you in the right direction for a lot of wonderful conceptions of gravity, light, space time, and the universe.

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Very Nice Step By Step Topic Coverage

I found that even though the topics covered got rather complex, each chapter (or "lecture") built on the previous in such a way that I was able to follow along right through till the end of the book.

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Brilliant, easy to follow lectures

Like sitting in the world's best lecture hall, whenever you feel like it, taking Gravity 101. Finally gave context to what worse teachers failed to give a high level explanation for. Now I get to appreciate Einstein's general theory, but even much simpler concepts, like pressure and orbital mechanics, are more intuitive and layman.

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Hard to find a better story.

it's the story of gravity, from Galileo to Einstein. a brake down of the work and explanations as they go.

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