Death by Black Hole

Book by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Death by Black Hole : And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Author| Neil deGrasse Tyson
Subject| Astrophysics
Publisher| W.W. Norton

Publication date

| 2007
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (Hardcover)
Pages| 384
ISBN| 978-0393062243
LC Class| QB982 .T965 2007
Preceded by| Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
Followed by| The Pluto Files

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries is a 2007 popular science book written by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is an anthology of several of Tyson's most popular articles, all published in Natural History magazine between 1995 and 2005,[1] and was featured in an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.[2][3]

## Summary

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Death by Black Hole is divided into seven sections: The Nature of Knowledge, The Knowledge of Nature, Ways and Means of Nature, The Meaning of Life, When the Universe Turns Bad, Science and Culture, and Science and God.

Section 1 comprises five chapters:

* Chapter 1, "Coming to Our Senses", discusses how important the augmentation of our five basic senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) is for expanding scientific knowledge. Tools that convert (seemingly) latent aspects of our environment into quantities we can sense greatly ease scientific discovery. For example, night vision goggles convert the near-infrared spectrum into the visible spectrum, making it easier for biologists to observe nocturnal animal behavior.
* Chapter 2, "On Earth as in the Heavens", addresses the history of physics and how it came to be known that physical laws observed on Earth are also observed on the sun and the other planets. In short, how physics became a study of the universal rather than just the terrestrial.
* Chapter 3, "Seeing Isn't Believing", hints at the pitfalls of generalizing from too little evidence. It begins by making the point that although we know the Earth is round, it appears flat when one observes only a small, local portion of it.
* Chapter 4, "The Information Trap", observes that we can view our surroundings at many different scales, and may find different phenomena at different scales. For instance, on a macroscopic scale classical mechanics describes the physical behaviors we observe, while on a smaller scale, quantum mechanics comes into play.
* Chapter 5, "Stick-in-the-Mud Science", guides the reader through a series of experiments based primarily on watching how the shadow of a stick, stuck upright in the earth, changes as time passes. For example, one can observe that, in the northern hemisphere, over the course of a day, the shadow of the stick will trace out a semi-circle as it moves clockwise.

## External links

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* WorldCat.org record for this book
* Book TV author talk about this book

## References

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1. ^ deGrasse Tyson, Neil (2007). Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. W.W. Norton. p. Preface. ISBN 978-0-393-33016-8.
2. ^ "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Neil deGrasse Tyson". www.haydenplanetarium.org. Archived from the original on 2018-05-28. Retrieved 2015-12-05.
3. ^ "Death by Black Hole | Big Think". Big Think. 24 February 2014. Retrieved 2015-12-05.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson

Books|

* Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries (2007)
* The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet (2009)
* Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier (2012)
* Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour (2016)
* Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017)
* Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military (2018)

TV shows|

* 400 Years of the Telescope (2009)
* Nova ScienceNow (2006–2011)
* The Universe (2005–2008)
* Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014)
* StarTalk (2015–2019)
* Cosmos: Possible Worlds (2020)

Other|

* StarTalk (podcast) (2009–present)
* 13123 Tyson
* "Flatline"
* Manhattanhenge

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