To the publisher I would appreciate it if the publisher could produce an audio adaptation of this book. I would love to listen to this while I drive to work and to let my 16 month old son listen to it as a bedtime story. Arnold D Veness

No one writes science as Zeldovich! The physics is always at the forefront, by the use of clever models and analogies. Either whether you start your General Relativity here or read this book in parallel to more standard texts, you'll be a much better practitioner. The treatment of neutron stars, for instance, is "just elegant", as Marilyn Monroe would say.

Don't be too swayed by the word "outrageous" in the title of this book. That may be there to attract attention, but needless to say, physicist Kip Thorne does a good job of explaining the more bizarre aspects of the universe in this book. Thorne's writing style is very accessible and down to earth, as he explains relativity, black holes, quantum mechanics, and even time warps. However, you'll still need to be really on the ball to understand many of these extremely complicated topics. I was impressed by Thorne's ability to explain bizarre concepts like gravitational time dilation and Einstein's theory of relativity to non-eggheads. But some of the more arcane aspects of quantum gravity or unified field theories will be beyond even the most well tuned laymen who read this book. Thorne also keeps the mood light by giving us the human side of advanced physics research, focusing on the friendships, rivalries, and personalities of the world's leading minds. This extends from Einstein in the beginning to Hawking in the present, and dozens of other less famous but almost as brilliant minds in between.

Watch out for some inconsistency in this book however, as Thorne sometimes gets into too much sentimental detail about the scientists' social lives (including his own), while the middle of the book sags as it digresses into the mechanical specs of radio telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. Also, beware of Thorne's suspiciously enthusiastic endorsements of gravitational wave research in chapter 10, as this is his own field of research, and I suspect he's trying to promote the need for funding. There's also a little intellectual arrogance here, as several times Thorne proclaims that the laws of quantum mechanics, as they are currently understood (which isn't much), are "indisputable" or "incontrovertible." Scientists used to say the same thing about Newton's laws until they were weakened by Einstein. Then the theories of Einstein (worshipped by every physicist in this book) were weakened by quantum mechanics. You never know, the knowledge presented in this book may someday be overthrown as well. But in the meantime, Thorne does a great job of explaining it to those of us who are interested but don't have multiple PhD's.

Let's start off by saying that this book is not for everyone. This is, however, a beautifully written book that should be read by anyone that intends to go into relativity physics.

Professor Thorne wonderfully combined the history development of Black Holes, along with enough ancedotes to satisfy science seekers. There are tons of diagrams, background stories, and enough to keep the reader going.

However, it may be too complex of a book for the layman. It is very hardcore, and may be a little slow for casual readers, with enough details to confuse a reader the first time through.

The book also demonstrates the futuristic predictions and applications of Black Holes, from being a power plant, to wormholes in space. It was easily understood.

Bottom Line: If you're into physics, or have a lot of time, go out and buy this book, because it's worth every penny. This gives a good background history on the slow progress of Black Holes, and includes ancedotes from Hawkings to Landau. It is highly recommended if you want to learn more than just "What is a Black Hole?" As others have suggested, "Gravitation" by Thorne, Wheeler and Misner would be a more complex book if you have the background for it.

I thought not. I was wrong. The reason: Kip Thorne. I really enjoyed the reading of this book because it offers the theoretical face of the so-called "Black Holes Mechanics" and a very important and delightful part, the history behind the theorems. The book begins with several chapters dedicated almost exclusively to the bases of the Special Theory of Relativity and the General Theory of Relativity, which describes the gravitation field in almost any place of our universe (if you get the book you will see why I say "almost"). Thereafter, the text covers the most important aspects of stellar implosion, which, in fact, brings Black Holes into existence. Once you are immersed in the very topic of the holes, the author studied profoundly their properties with informative boxes, spacetime diagrams, lots of references about discoveries, people and, the great difference with others books, an outstanding and thorough historical background. By the end, the author presents the most excitement predictions about the future use of Black Holes and the yet ill-understood Quantum Gravity Theory (predictions like backward time travel and wormholes). Finally, Kip Thorne closed the book with an excellent glossary of exotic terms and a list of principal characters that appeared throughout the text. I can say, without any doubt, that this is one of the most illustrative and complete books I have ever read, and in my opinion, is a book that every "Black Hole serious student" might have in his/her shelve. If you are looking for a less technical book, I suggest you "Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide" by Clifford Pickover. Nevertheless, if you want a higher challenge, get the book "Gravitation" by Thorne, Wheeler and Misner.

By size and content, this book ranks as one of the largest in physics . Not only does it give an excellent discussion of all of the concepts in gravitational physics, but it gives clear presentations of the relevant mathematics, not hesitating at all to employ useful diagrams and pictures. Truly a classic, it is a work that is sure to be read by future generations of students in gravitational physics. I can still remember the excitement I felt when picking the book up for the first time. The authors are giants in the field, and it is great that they chose to take the time to write such an excellent book. It is readily apparent that they care a great deal about what the reader will take away after reading such a large book, as the presentation is always crystal clear and a great joy to read.

Space prohibits a thorough review, so I will instead highlight the parts of the book that I found particularly exceptional: 1. The example of how coordinate singularities arise: the "cells of the egg crate" squashed to zero volume. 2. The beautiful illustration of the Roll-Krotkov-Dicke experiment. 3. The "physics demo" of a local inertial frame of reference (it is not very difficult to construct this demonstration for actual use in a classroom). 4. The presentation of a 2-form as a honeycomb of tubes with a sense of circulation. Such an explanation is lacking in the general mathematical literature. 5. The flying ring demonstration illustrating Faraday stresses. This demonstration is done very often in physics classes, and is simple to set up. 6. The excellent discussion (with illustrations) of the covariant derivative and the Schild ladder construction. 7. The presentation of parallel transport around a closed curve. 8. The treatment of Riemann normal coordinates. These are typically presented in a purely formal way in most texts on general relativity, ignoring their status as providing a local inertial frame in curved spacetime. 9. The (philosophical) discussion on the principal of general covariance in the context of Newtonian gravity in tensorial form. 10. The illustration, with accompanying discussion, on a situation where two events can be connected by more than one geodesic. The authors mention the relation of this example to the Morse theory of critical points. 11. The discussion of the Bianchi identities and the topological result on the boundary of a boundary being empty. 12. The discussion on the gravity gradiometer. 13. The exceptional discussion on six routes to the Einstein field equation. 14. The variational principle and the initial value problem in the Einstein equation. 15. The connection between the Gauss-Weingarten equations and extrinsic curvature. 16. The ADm formulation of the dynamics of geometry. 17. The discussion on Mach's principle. 18. The radial oscillations of a Newtonian star. 19. The Hamilton-Jacobi description of motion and its employment in analyzing the central force problem. 20. The effect of the value of the cosmological constant on cosmological models and evolution of the universe. 21. The cosmological redshift and its explanation via the expansion of the universe. 22. The mathematics of the Mixmaster cosmology. 23. The dynamics of the Schwarzschild geometry. 24. The discussion on the global properties of spacetime and singularity theorems. 25. The short biographies of Hawking and Penrose. 26. The quadrupole nature of gravitational radiation. 27. The experimental justification of general relativity, particularly the description of Pound-Rebka experiment on the gravitational redshift.

This volume is absolutely neccesary for any serious student of gravitational physics. Although their are sections suitable for an upper division undergrad, this is a tome for the graduate student in Physics. The mathematical expertise required for the advanced Track-2 portions of the book are predominently graduate level and above. However, it is those very sections where the exotic topics of black-hole thermodynamics and quantum cosmology are addressed in all their splendor. There are areas of interest to students of math such as the introduction of differential forms and tensor index-slinging. All students of Physics should have at least cracked the cover of this book once before they receive their B.Sci. This is a thorough if dated (1975) exposition that deserves a place along side Peeble's 'COSMOLOGY' and Dirac's 'QUANTUM MECHANICS' in a list of 'must have' volumes for any Physicist (even those far removed from general relativity). With the possible exception of S. Hawkings, Misner, Thorne and Wheeler show their collective expertise on GTR with rigor and style. Even the typsetting, diagrams and the liberal use of explanitory boxes all serve to give the work a feel of completion. It is no wonder that in the physics literature it is often cited simply as MTW.

The world would be less beautiful if this book didn't exist. What a remarkable feat! The sequence that leads from the very basic concept of spacetime to the computation of the components of Riemann tensor by using forms and the Cartan equations is unparalleled. A lot of mathematical formulas follow from simple reasoning and ... drawings! The introduction of Schild's ladder to motivate the axioms for a (torsionless) connection is very clever. The introduction of curvature by means of geodesic deviation is very intuitive. The derivation of the expression for the geodesic deviation (and, consequently, of the expression for the Riemann tensor) is, again, completely intuitive. The chapter on spinors is very beautiful and useful. Still, I would never recommend this book for a beginner. For it is absolutely non-linear. I have been told that this corresponds to the ideas of Wheeler's concerning learning. Sometimes an argument at chapter 4 (say) depends on something that is intr! oduced in chapter 8. Also, the three tracks (first, second and boxes)interfere all the time, requiring much discipline from the reader. If, however, you already learned the basics (for instance, in Landau, Lifshitz), so that you know what you are looking for, "Gravitation" is unbeatable, of a class apart. I've seen mathematicians adopting the language introduced by them to explain tensors: a slot for each argument of the multilinear machine! Last, not the least, the Index and the References are of the highest quality. This shows respect for the readers. Drs. Misner, Thorne and Wheeler are to be congratulated.

It is incredible how they trust blindly in EVERY aspect of General Relativity. Space-time warpages and singularities happens ONLY in mathematics! There is no way out. It is funny how Scientific American gives credibility to such a kind of science-fiction. It is time to stop lying to the public!

Hawking and Thorne, grasp it: Time-travel is physically IMPOSSIBLE.

Time travel appears pretty impractical based on this book. Maybe it's mathematically possible to fold time and punch wormholes in it in theory, but I don't think NASA or Greyhound is going to be offering trips back and forth through our lives. However, it's always intriguing to read what really smart people come up with, because they make a lot of it seem so obvious, even though I could never come up with it on my own.

I'm usually wary of books that are collections of essays, especially essays by several different people. Like many such books, The Future of Spacetime is something of a hodgepodge. Still, when I saw that the authors included Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, Timothy Ferris, Alan Lightman and Igor Novikov, it seemed to be worth taking a look. That decision was very well rewarded.

The five essays in The Future of Spacetime were first presented as talks for a celebration of the 60th birthday of Kip Thorne, a leading theoretical physicist. Three of them, plus a brief introduction by physicist Richard Price, deal with relativity, and especially with the possibility and implications of "closed timelike curves" in spacetime--time travel for short. In addition, Tim Ferris writes insightfully about why it is so important for scientists and science writers to do a better job of informing people about scientific theories and discoveries, but even more importantly clueing them in about how science works. He points out that it may take 1,000 years for a concept to penetrate to the core of society. Since modern science is at best 500 years old, there's lots left to be accomplished. Alan Lightman, who is both a physicist and a novelist, beautifully describes the creative process that lies at the heart of both science and creative writing. Scientists and novelists, he argues, are simply seeking different kinds of truths.

The three physics essays are gems. Each sheds at least some light on the nature of spacetime, on the possibility (or impossibility, or improbability) of time machines and time travel, and on intimately related issues such as causality and free will. Novikov, for example, concludes that the future can influence the past, but not in such a way as to erase or change an event that has already happened. Hawking argues that time travel is happening all the time at the quantum level, but that nature would protect against an attempt to use a time machine to send a macroscopic object, such as a human being, back in time. I was particularly impressed by Kip Thorne's essay, in which he makes a series of predictions concerning what physicists and cosmologists will discover in the next thirty years. He explains the importance of the gravity-wave detectors that are now starting to come on line. They promise to let us read the gravitational signals of such primordal events as the collision of black holes and even the big bang itself. It is as fascinating to get to piggyback on how these great minds think as it is to read their conclusions.

In short, The Future of Spacetime is a bit of a salad, but an extremely delicious and satisfying one.

Robert E. Adler, author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley & Sons, 2002).