Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe, by Brian Cox (author), Jeff Forshaw (author, narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780062936721, March 2023

In this book, read by Jeff Forshaw, Forshaw and Brian Cox discuss black holes, and how they affect every part of our universe, and indeed are key to understanding the physics and history of our universe.

Black holes are famously where general relativity and quantum physics meet but can't be made to work together. Is relativity wrong? is quantum physics wrong? So far, they each enable serious discoveries in their fields. They don't seem to be wrong. We most likely are just missing something important.

Black holes can destroy anything else they encounter; they've never themselves been observed to die. But LIGO instruments have detected gravitational waves from what seems to have been the collision of two black holes. Some scientists think this could be evidence of two black holes connecting and forming wormhole--potentially connecting our universe to another universe. Right now, they see no natural way that the wormhole could be stable enough for us to pass through, even if we were there. And yet. What if there's a sufficiently advanced civilization that is able to stabilize the wormhole?

And the stress that black holes put on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity highlight it as the key to understanding the fundamentals of our universe in ways nothing else does.

Cox and Forshaw love this kind of physics, and convey that excitement in a way that makes you want to hear, or read, more. Well worth your time to listen!