Black Hole Survival Guide

'Astrophysics at its sexiest ... packed with revelations ... hugely enjoyable' Sunday Times

What would happen if you fell into a black hole?

Black holes are the most extraordinary phenomenon in the universe, but they are a riddle that confounds our intuitions.

Anything that enters them can never escape, and yet they contain nothing at all. They are bigger on the inside than the outside suggests. They are dark on the outside but not on the inside. They invert time into space and space into time.

Black holes are found throughout the universe. They can be microscopic. They can be billions of times larger than our sun. Our solar system is currently orbiting a black hole 26,000 light years away at a speed of 200 km per second.

In Black Hole Survival Guide physicist and novelist Janna Levin takes you on a journey into a black hole, explaining what would happen to you in there and why. In the process you'll come to see how their mysteries contain answers to some of the most profound questions ever asked about the nature of our universe.

** A SUNDAY TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020**

Astrophysics at its sexiest ... Just like its subject this book is a seemingly miraculous compression of a vast amount of material into an implausibly small space. It's packed with revelations ... hugely enjoyable ? Sunday Times

Wonderful ... Janna Levin has a talent for explaining mind-boggling concepts ... the language is conversational and, in places, rather poetic ... Perhaps the book's greatest draw is the book's survival guide element ... This book will really get you thinking, scratching your head, and eventually understanding the nature of black holes ? BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Gripping, heartbreaking, brilliant ? Sunday Times (on Black Hole Blues)

Spectacular ... a near-perfect balance of science, storytelling and insight ? New Statesman (on Black Hole Blues)

Astonishing ... a splendid book that I recommend to anyone with an interest in the power of human imagination ? Wall Street Journal (on Black Hole Blues)

Janna Levin is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University and Director of Sciences at Pioneer Works, a centre for art and innovation in Brooklyn. She has contributed to the understanding of black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions and gravitational waves. She was the first scientist-in-residence at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford University with an award from NESTA, and was a Guggenheim fellow. Her previous books are How the Universe Got Its Spots, a novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, which won the PEN/Bingham prize, and Black Hole Blues, the first book to describe the detection of gravitational waves in 2016. She has also appeared at TED and contributes to numerous radio and television programmes.