Reviewing Death by Black Hole
And Other Cosmic Quandries That Baffle Scientists and Laymen Alike
Death by Black Hole (Published by W.W. Norton & Company Inc., Copyright Neil deGrasse Tyson 2007, ISBN:978-0393-33016-8) is actually a collection of the best essays that Tyson wrote as a monthly feature for Natural History magazine from 1995 to 2005.
The title is somewhat misleading, in that the book isn't strictly about what happens to a person when they die in a black hole, although that is the subject of one of the essays. Rather than just being about being spaghettified (the exact term that theoretical physicists have coined for the process) by a blackhole, Death by Black Hole gives the reader a thumbnail sketch of what is known (and unknown) about the universe. The book is loosely organized into seven sections that each contain related essays. There is something of a narrative thread running through the book, which has been added into the essays to bind the work together.
Cataloging Science
The first sections of the book read like a sort of lesson plan, guiding the reader through the basics of science in The Nature of Knowledge, the benefits of study in The Knowledge of Nature, and the basic rules and laws of the cosmos in Ways and Means of Nature.
The second section of the book deals with what learning all the rules, laws and the history of the universe does for humanity first by giving us invaluable information about our place in the universe, detailed in The Meaning of Life and then by teaching us all that we need to know to survive in a hostile reality in When the Universe Goes Bad.
The final portion of the book deals with what science contributes to society in Science and Culture and how humanity reconciles its cherished beliefs with scientific evidence in Science and God.
The Perfect Science Read
By collecting essays rather than writing a popular science book from beginning to end, the author gives his readers a book that is eminently readable, a claim that not all science books can make. Since each essay is basically a magazine style article, edited and fitted into the structure of a larger work, by necessity Tyson gets to his point quickly and lays out his premise concisely.
The short essay form leaves little room for cumbersome prose or overly complex explanation, making it the perfect format for readers who prefer their science straightforward and as easy to understand as theoretical physics can ever be.
Much like Stephen Hawking's Universe in a Nutshell, Death by Black Hole could easily be read in any order at all, as each essay encapsulates a single concept. It does help to read it in the form that Tyson has laid out, however, since he does occasionally reference a previous essay.
If anything, Tyson is somewhat better at explaining the extremely complex concepts involved in theoretical physics than Dr. Hawking is, perhaps because deGrasse is also a regular guest on talk shows and the host of Nova Science Now and is thus more familiar with presenting science to the uninitiated.
There is a current resurgence in the field of popular science books, particularly in the areas of theoretical physics and Neil deGrasse Tyson's Death by Black Hole is a stand out among them.
Death by Black Hole
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