Get a free audiobook
-
Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime
- Narrated by: Benjamin Schumacher
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Categories: Science & Engineering, Science
People who bought this also bought...
-
The Peloponnesian War
- Written by: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Peloponnesian War pitted Athens and its allies against a league of city-states headed by Sparta. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides captured this drama with matchless insight in his classic eyewitness account of what was arguably the greatest war in the history of the world up to that time. These 36 half-hour lectures draw on Thucydides' classic account as well as other ancient sources to give you a full picture of the Greek world in uneasy peace and then all-out war in the late 5th century B.C.
-
-
A well structured and insightful course.
- By Chris Driscoll on 2018-09-14
-
How to Write Best-Selling Fiction
- Written by: James Scott Bell, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: James Scott Bell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most people think the way to write a best seller is to have a lot of talent and even more luck. As you will learn, there is a recipe for success, and luck may be the least important ingredient in creating a best seller. No one has cracked the code better than James Scott Bell. A best-selling author himself, and the author of the number-one best seller for writers, Plot & Structure, Mr. Bell has been teaching the principles of best-selling fiction for over 20 years, principles that apply to any genre or style.
-
-
Worthwhile course
- By Kindle Customer on 2019-07-07
-
Have a Nice Day
- Written by: Billy Crystal, Quinton Peeples
- Narrated by: Justin Bartha, Annette Bening, Dick Cavett, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony and Emmy Award-winner Billy Crystal leads an all-star cast including Oscar winner Kevin Kline (President David Murray) and four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening (First Lady Katherine Murray) in a performance of this hilarious and poignant story about a man desperately scrambling to put his affairs in order: to save his presidency, his marriage, his relationship with his daughter – and possibly his life.
-
-
Radio Theatre @ it's best
- By Happy Camper on 2020-07-03
-
Chickenhawk
- Written by: Robert Mason
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With more than half a million copies sold, Robert Mason's Chickenhawk is one of the best-selling books ever written about the Vietnam War. Fascinated with flying from a young age, Mason earned his private pilot's license even before graduating high school. He enlisted in the army in 1964 and endured an extremely challenging "weeding out" process in an effort to fly helicopters. Sent to Vietnam, he survived more than 1,000 air combat missions despite the violence and brutality exploding all around him.
-
-
Helicopter NAM
- By Marc on 2018-09-19
-
The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
- Written by: Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Don Lincoln
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.
-
-
Needs to be re-recorded
- By WTL on 2019-09-17
-
A Christmas Carol
- Written by: Charles Dickens, R. D. Carstairs - adaptation
- Narrated by: Sir Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Cranham, Miriam Margolyes, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!' Charles Dickens’ ghostly tale of sour and stingy miser Ebenezer Scrooge has captivated readers, listeners and audiences for over 150 years. This Christmas, Audible Studios brings this story to life in an audio drama featuring an all-star cast.
-
-
A True Delight!
- By KittyMcMow on 2020-12-24
-
The Peloponnesian War
- Written by: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Peloponnesian War pitted Athens and its allies against a league of city-states headed by Sparta. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides captured this drama with matchless insight in his classic eyewitness account of what was arguably the greatest war in the history of the world up to that time. These 36 half-hour lectures draw on Thucydides' classic account as well as other ancient sources to give you a full picture of the Greek world in uneasy peace and then all-out war in the late 5th century B.C.
-
-
A well structured and insightful course.
- By Chris Driscoll on 2018-09-14
-
How to Write Best-Selling Fiction
- Written by: James Scott Bell, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: James Scott Bell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most people think the way to write a best seller is to have a lot of talent and even more luck. As you will learn, there is a recipe for success, and luck may be the least important ingredient in creating a best seller. No one has cracked the code better than James Scott Bell. A best-selling author himself, and the author of the number-one best seller for writers, Plot & Structure, Mr. Bell has been teaching the principles of best-selling fiction for over 20 years, principles that apply to any genre or style.
-
-
Worthwhile course
- By Kindle Customer on 2019-07-07
-
Have a Nice Day
- Written by: Billy Crystal, Quinton Peeples
- Narrated by: Justin Bartha, Annette Bening, Dick Cavett, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony and Emmy Award-winner Billy Crystal leads an all-star cast including Oscar winner Kevin Kline (President David Murray) and four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening (First Lady Katherine Murray) in a performance of this hilarious and poignant story about a man desperately scrambling to put his affairs in order: to save his presidency, his marriage, his relationship with his daughter – and possibly his life.
-
-
Radio Theatre @ it's best
- By Happy Camper on 2020-07-03
-
Chickenhawk
- Written by: Robert Mason
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With more than half a million copies sold, Robert Mason's Chickenhawk is one of the best-selling books ever written about the Vietnam War. Fascinated with flying from a young age, Mason earned his private pilot's license even before graduating high school. He enlisted in the army in 1964 and endured an extremely challenging "weeding out" process in an effort to fly helicopters. Sent to Vietnam, he survived more than 1,000 air combat missions despite the violence and brutality exploding all around him.
-
-
Helicopter NAM
- By Marc on 2018-09-19
-
The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
- Written by: Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Don Lincoln
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.
-
-
Needs to be re-recorded
- By WTL on 2019-09-17
-
A Christmas Carol
- Written by: Charles Dickens, R. D. Carstairs - adaptation
- Narrated by: Sir Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Cranham, Miriam Margolyes, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!' Charles Dickens’ ghostly tale of sour and stingy miser Ebenezer Scrooge has captivated readers, listeners and audiences for over 150 years. This Christmas, Audible Studios brings this story to life in an audio drama featuring an all-star cast.
-
-
A True Delight!
- By KittyMcMow on 2020-12-24
-
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- Written by: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s startling book led, almost 30 years later, to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the "Fall of the Wall". One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brilliantly portrays a single day, any day, in the life of a single Russian soldier who was captured by the Germans in 1945 and who managed to escape a few days later. Along with millions of others, this soldier was charged with some sort of political crime, and since it was easier to confess than deny it and die, Ivan Denisovich "confessed" to "high treason" and received a sentence of 10 years in a Siberian labor camp.
-
-
A survival story
- By erinn c white on 2018-09-18
-
Good Morning, I Love You
- Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire Your Brain for Calm, Clarity, and Joy
- Written by: Shauna Shapiro PhD
- Narrated by: Shauna Shapiro
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Good Morning, I Love You, Dr. Shauna Shapiro brings alive the brain science behind why we feel the way we do - about ourselves, each other, and the world - and explains why we get stuck in thinking that doesn’t serve us. It turns out that we are hardwired to be self-critical and negative! And this negativity is constantly undermining our experience of life.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Heather Reid on 2020-10-22
-
Odyssey
- An Arisen Standalone
- Written by: Michael Stephen Fuchs
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One Tier-1 Naval Special Warfare Operator, trained at the highest levels of any military, with 20-plus years of operational experience. One ex-cop civilian survivalist, who lived through two years of post-apocalyptic hell, unlike seven billion of her fellow humans. And an entire continent heaving with 400 million dead guys. To save the lives of his children, and rejoin Alpha team and the fight to save humanity, Homer must journey across a thousand miles of undead North America with Sarah Cameron, battling heavily armed bands of marauders who shoot first and ask questions never.
-
-
A great stand alone in a great series
- By Kevin C on 2019-06-22
-
Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition
- Written by: Richard Wolfson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Richard Wolfson
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"It doesn't take an Einstein to understand modern physics," says Professor Wolfson at the outset of these 24 lectures on what may be the most important subjects in the universe: relativity and quantum physics. Both have reputations for complexity. But the basic ideas behind them are, in fact, simple and comprehensible by anyone. These dynamic and illuminating lectures begin with a brief overview of theories of physical reality starting with Aristotle and culminating in Newtonian or "classical" physics.
-
-
I enjoyed it. Educational.
- By ron on 2019-03-16
-
The Shadow over Innsmouth
- Written by: H. P. Lovecraft
- Narrated by: Richard Coyle
- Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Shadow Over Innsmouth tells the first-person story of a young historian, Robert Olmstead, who, while investigating his family genealogy in New England, is intrigued to learn about a hated and mysterious fishing town called Innsmouth. When he visits he finds the place to be run-down and near-deserted, with a cult-like religion and a strange, degenerate population. His investigation soon turns into a race to escape the town and the the evil creatures he sees emerging from the sea.
-
-
A very good story
- By JohnS on 2020-12-28
-
Breaking the Chains of Gravity
- The Story of Spaceflight Before NASA
- Written by: Amy Shira Teitel
- Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
NASA's history is a familiar story, culminating with the agency successfully landing men on the moon in 1969. But NASA's prehistory is a rarely told tale, one that is largely absent from the popular space-age literature but that gives the context behind the incredible lunar program. America's space agency wasn't created in a vacuum; it was assembled from preexisting parts, drawing together some of the best minds the non-Soviet world had to offer.
-
Into Thin Air
- Written by: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Philip Franklin
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley. This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.
-
-
Amazing
- By Tia on 2019-12-20
-
Stress and Your Body
- Written by: Robert Sapolsky, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Sapolsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Feeling stressed? You're not alone. Stress is an inherent aspect of life that can have tremendous negative effects on your mental and physical health. This makes coping with stress a critical part of how well we live.Once you understand the inner workings of your stress response system, you'll possess powerful knowledge that will help you understand and better deal with this common aspect of your busy life.
-
-
good info, an little repititious
- By Tom on 2018-11-12
-
Tiny Habits
- The Small Changes That Change Everything
- Written by: BJ Fogg PhD
- Narrated by: BJ Fogg PhD
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world’s leading expert on habit formation shows how you can have a happier, healthier life: by starting small. Myth: Change is hard. Reality: Change can be easy if you know the simple steps of behavior design. Myth: It’s all about willpower. Reality: Willpower is fickle and finite, and exactly the wrong way to create habits. Myth: You have to make a plan and stick to it. Reality: You transform your life by starting small and being flexible.
-
-
Instant change is possible
- By James Meldrum on 2020-02-12
-
The Call of the Wild
- Written by: Jack London
- Narrated by: Pablo Schreiber
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rediscover one of literature’s most beloved classics, richly reissued in a pivotal new audio recording. Emmy and Tony Award-nominated actor Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, Orange Is the New Black) delivers a stirring performance of Jack London’s fierce yet tender tale of loyalty between man and beast, told from the point of view of a dog.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Ingrid on 2019-04-21
-
The Story of Human Language
- Written by: John McWhorter, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: John McWhorter
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Jesslovescoffee on 2018-11-23
-
In the Black
- My Life
- Written by: B. Denham Jolly
- Narrated by: Tim Puckett
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the Black traces B. Denham Jolly's personal and professional struggle for a place in a country where Black Canadians have faced systematic discrimination. He arrived from Jamaica to attend university in the mid-1950s and worked as a high school teacher before going into the nursing and retirement-home business. Though he was ultimately successful in his business ventures, Jolly faced both overt and covert discrimination, which led him into social activism.
-
-
Canadian history that we all need to know
- By Melissa L Krull on 2018-09-19
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.
More from the same
What listeners say about Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mandi
- 2019-05-05
Excellent Lectures about Gravity (Physics)
I just finished listened to these lecture series by Prof Benjamin Schumacher. I enjoyed learning about the history of our understanding about gravity. While I am familiar with the physics from classical mechanics, I was glad to go into detail about the physics from general relativity. The included pdf (220 pages) was a nice addition to the lectures. Here are some of my favorite quotes: “But a solid body held together by gravity, by a long-range attractive force between all masses, will tend to pull itself into a spherical shape. Every piece of the body is attracted to every other, even the pieces on the other side. And a sphere is the shape that minimizes the distances between all the pieces. The more massive the body, the stronger this tendency will be. But gravity is so weak that a solid body has to be many hundreds or even a thousand kilometers across before this sphere-making proclivity of gravity will win out.” In explaining the tidal effect, Prof Schumacher instructs students to “imagine the fall of a spherical cloud of apples.” And then with a simple explanation from Newton’s law of universal gravitation he explains the mysterious force that squeezes in from the sides and also stretches out along the up-and-down direction the cloud as it falls freely. Many lectures are ended with a preview or teaser of the next lecture, followed by a kind remark to the students, “And I’ll see you then.” I can imagine Prof Schumacher given this remark in the university. The questions and answers on the pdf document are well though-out. The most thought-provoking question to me was Question 1 of Lecture 9: “How can we tell whether a piece of anomalous data requires us to change our basic theory?” I recommend this lecture series to anyone interested in understanding gravity, tides, and black holes. I’m sure a future recording of the same lectures will be updated to include the important LIGO discovery in 2017.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 2019-12-19
Einstein explained for the non physicist
This is the best explanation of Einstein's theory of relativity that I have heard along with excellent discussions of many other related topics.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jamie
- 2019-10-18
Not the best for audio-only
Like all the Great Courses books (that I've read/listened to) the content of this is fascinating and the professor is engaging. Like many 'sciencey' books this one has an accompanying PDF - but this one is 164 pages long! A good bit of the content was the description of equations on how to calculate the unfathomably large or small numbers encountered in the cosmological realm. I listen to audiobooks primarily while I'm driving so this made referring to the pdf to 'see' the manipulation of these equations impractical. Even so, the professor never referred to the pdf as a reference for something being discussed in the lecture (it really wouldn't have mattered on my Android phone because you can only navigate the pdf using a "Next Page" button and with a 164-page document that was never going to happen) In fact this particular course would likely be much easier to consume as a video series.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ron A. Parsons
- 2019-01-29
Good freshman high school lecture
The information presented in these lectures Spans the years 1600-1980 Nothing in the lectures covering the last 35 years, if you are totally unfamiliar with the Topic it offers an historical perspective
38 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erik
- 2019-10-16
best physics lectures ever.
this guy is a genius communicator. if you are interested in physics, highly recommend. I often find popular science books a little too simplistic, or feel like the authors have some disdain for the readers. but not this course. I wish there was more.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chris
- 2019-06-23
Great book!
Loved the content, the performance and all of it. I was happy to hear about entropic gravity.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ouida Brumit
- 2019-09-24
Simple enough for all, but deep enough for grads
Easy to listen to professor. Covers the "so what" very well. Also goes over equations and shows how simple they are relative to what they are saying.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jim L.
- 2019-08-18
In a word. EXCELLENT
Loved it and will listen again and again. This is the 4th or 5th book on the subject I have listened to. Each book enlightens the last. Wish I had started the journey years ago. Michio Kakus (sp?) Einsteins Relativity might be a beter place to start is you know nothing at all. It lays some good ground work that this one builds on.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DaveCassidy
- 2019-10-05
Excellant
My only regret is that I am not much of a mathimatition, therefore I was unable to get the full value from the course.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mishi
- 2020-10-03
Interesting but the math is difficult...
I’m a very casual learner when it comes to science. I want to learn it but I do not want to have to do the math. So this listen was difficult at times. (Lots of equations.) But what I learned was great nonetheless.
1 person found this helpful