Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. 1. It Is Therefore Possible That the Largest Luminous Bodies in the Universe May Be Invisible 1
5. 2. Newton, Forgive Me 16
6. 3. One Would Then Find Oneself . . . in a Geometrical Fairyland 35
7. 4. There Should Be a Law of Nature to Prevent a Star from Behaving in This Absurd Way! 44
8. 5. I’ll Show Those Bastards 60
9. 6. Only Its Gravitational Field Persists 70
10. 7. I Could Not Have Picked a More Exciting Time in Which to Become a Physicist 87
11. 8. It Was the Weirdest Spectrum I’d Ever Seen 110
12. 9. Why Don’t You Call It a Black Hole? 122
13. 10. Medieval Torture Rack 142
14. 11. Whereas Stephen Hawking Has Such a Large Investment in General Relativity and Black Holes and Desires an Insurance Policy 148
15. 12. Black Holes Ain’t So Black 163
16. Epilogue 175
17. Timeline 183
18. Notes 189
19. Bibliography 209
20. Acknowledgments 224
21. Index 227