New Books in Popular Culture Marcus Chown, "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage" (Apollo, 2025)
Nov 7, 2025
Marcus Chown, a former radio astronomer and science writer, dives into the fascinating world of black holes in his new book. He shares how these cosmic enigmas transitioned from theoretical oddities to central figures in our understanding of the universe. Chown recounts pivotal discoveries, like the identification of Cygnus X-1, and explains the common misconceptions surrounding black holes. He also discusses how gravitational waves are reshaping our understanding of these entities, making black holes a key focus in modern astrophysics.
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Roy Kerr's Maverick Breakthrough
- Roy Kerr, a New Zealander from humble origins, solved the rotating black hole metric and described realistic spinning black holes.
- His maverick background and independent thinking enabled the breakthrough.
Ergosphere Enables Energy Extraction
- A spinning black hole adds an ergosphere outside the event horizon where space-time is dragged and energy can be extracted.
- Penrose's mechanism and observed relativistic jets show nature taps that rotational energy on giant scales.
How Cygnus X-1 Was Found
- Paul Murdin and Louise Webster identified Cygnus X-1 by combining X-ray catalogs with optical spectroscopy showing a massive unseen companion.
- Their orbital measurements implied an invisible object too heavy to be a star, the first convincing black hole detection.
