John Gribbin - In Search of the Edge of Time

John Gribin In Search of the Edge of Time PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd. 27 Wnghts Lane. London W8 5TZ. England Penguin Putiiam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York KH114. USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood. Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd. 10 Aicoro Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd. Private Bag 102902, NSMC, Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd. Registered Offices: Hanniindsworth, Middlesex. England First published by Bantam Press, a division ofTransworld Publishers Ltd, 1992 Published 111 Penguin Books 1995 Reprinted wnh Introduction 1998 3579 10 a 642 Copyright ©John and Mary Gnbbin. 1992. 1998 Ail rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Printed in England by Clays Lid, Si Ives pie Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in'any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without .1 similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION: Why Time Travel is Possible CHAPTER ONE: Ancient History Let Newton be'; On ye shoulders of Giants; Three laws and a theory of gravity; The test of time; Across the Solar System; Black hole pioneers; Waves and particles: towards twentieth-century science CHAPTER TWO: Warping Space and Time From Euclid to Descartes; Beyond Euclid; Geometry comes of age; The geometry of relativity; Einstein's gravitational insight; The relativity of geometry; Schwarzschild's singular solution CHAPTER THREE: Dense Stars Dwarfish companions; Degenerate stars; The white dwarf limit; The ultimate density of matter; Inside the neutron star; Beyond the neutron star; Puzzling pulsars; Zwicky was right: neutron stars revealed CHAPTER FOUR: Black Holes Abound Red shifts and relativity; Radio galaxies; Quasars; Cosmic powerhouses; X-ray stars; Celestial powerhouses; The prime candidate; A profusion of possibilities IN SEARCH OF THE EDGE OF TIME CHAPTER FIVE: Darkness at the Edge of Time New maps of space and time, Black holes in a spin, Singularities rule. Defeating [he cosmic censor, Black holes are cool. Exploding horizons. Centrifugal confusion, A one-way time machine CHAPTER SIX: Hyperspace Connections The Einstein connection. Charging through hyperspace. Bridging the universes, The blue-shift block. Parting the blue sheet, Journey into hyperspace, Wormhole engineering. Making antigravity. The string-driven spaceship a practicable proposition5 CHAPTER SEVEN: Two Ways to Build a Time Machine

Paradoxes