08/21/2023

This mind-bending outing by physicist Rovelli (Anaximander) explores the possibility of the existence of white holes, the hypothesized inverse of black holes. He explains that black holes were first proposed as a consequence of Einstein’s equations on general relativity, but because the equations “do not specify a direction for time,” it’s possible to run them with “the sign of the time variable flipped,” meaning that there may a point at which a black hole “rebounds and retraces its previous route in time, like a basketball bouncing.” After a black hole passes such a point, it becomes a white hole. If humans were able to survive inside a black hole, Rovelli suggests, they could reach the bottom and then “cross through and emerge into a white hole where time is reversed,” spending no more than a few seconds inside but emerging billions of years later due to the dilation of time. Rovelli does a solid job of making the underlying science accessible, even if some of the finer points may go over general readers’ heads, such as his explanation of why “you can only enter a black hole, and you can only exit a white hole.” Still, those with a background in physics will be sucked in. Photos. (Oct.)

It doesn't take a degree in astrophysics or expertise on Albert Einstein to appreciate White Holes. . . . a book that says as much about imagination and exploration as it does about physics. . . . Rovelli helps readers grasp how important imagination is to seeing the universe in new ways, for both artists and scientists.” —Associated Press
 
“If you want to remember why you once fell in love with the idea of the cosmos, or want to fall in love with that idea for the first time, then this book is for you. For my part, I found myself following Rovelli into a weird and wonderful new universe and I was very content to be there.” —Observer (UK)

“It is always worth reading Rovelli. He writes like he believes you are as learned and clever as he is. Yet he also writes with such care for your ignorance that it feels every page is urging and coaxing you—a non-physicist—to see what he can see.” —TThe Times (UK)

"White Holes edifies, excites, and even transforms me. Rovelli summons us to novel forms of knowledge while also breathing life into questions that affect all sentient beings, such as: how do we proceed when our guides no longer suffice? I’m grateful for the warm invitation to the journey." —Maggie Nelson

“Meet the new Stephen Hawking.” —The Sunday Times (UK)
 
“No one writes about the cosmos like theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli.” —The Washington Post

“Carlo Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator. . . . What I love about this writing is that it always comes back to people—people interacting with other people, who are interacting with their world. This is the place where science comes to life.” —Neil Gaiman
 
“The physicist known for making complex science intelligible.” —Financial Times

“One of the warmest, most elegant and most lucid interpreters to the laity of the dazzling enigmas of his discipline.” —John Banville, The Wall Street Journal

Narrator Harry Lloyd's affable narration echoes physicist Carlo Rovelli's casual writing style. Their conversational approach to the concept of white holes allows a variety of listeners to engage with complex physics regardless of how much knowledge they start with. Simply put, white holes cannot be entered but allow information to escape; they are the opposite of black holes, which can be entered but do not allow information to escape. Discussions of the timeline of Rovelli's research accompany comparisons to Dante's journey in his INFERNO. Lloyd narrates in an English accent and a tone full of wonder and astonishment, a contagious effect for listeners. The accompanying pdf of portraits, maps, and figures is essential to the listener's understanding of the topics. A.K.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

2023-06-20
The bestselling author and theoretical physicist looks at “the elusive younger siblings of black holes.”

Since white holes may be an inevitable consequence of black holes, Rovelli, the author of Seven Brief Lessons in Physics and Reality Is Not What It Seems, begins with an explanation, noting that white holes are essentially the reverse of a black hole. Since the 18th century, scientists knew that, as a universal force, gravity from an extremely massive star should slow its light’s speed to zero. That concept made little sense until Einstein showed that light never slows but that gravity distorts space, so light near a massive body appears to curve. The more massive the body, the greater the curve until the light doubles back. Einstein insisted that no such body existed, but his equations permit it, and they eventually turned up. All stars eventually run out of fuel and collapse. Average stars like our sun end up as tiny, immensely dense dwarfs. The largest stars, however, continue to collapse, ultimately to an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point. Their light doubles back, resulting in a black hole, from which nothing that enters can leave. Even time stops dead at its edge, or “event horizon.” Mathematics, Einstein’s included, doesn’t work when dimensions are infinitely small or large, so physicists don’t know what happens when a black hole forms. That hasn’t stopped them from speculating, and Rovelli leads one school favoring the production of white holes, a bizarre concept that is still purely theoretical. Calling on quantum mechanics, which deals with minuscule phenomena, he explains that the collapsing star never becomes infinitely small but “bounces,” leading to a white hole. There, matter can leave but never enter; “a white hole is a black hole with time reversed.” Rovelli works hard, sometimes successfully, to explain matters, but he is dealing with phenomena so complex that he often gives readers permission to skip ahead.

Heavy-duty popular science not for the faint of heart.