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