Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

By: Janna Levin

Narrated by: Janna Levin

The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves—by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.


From the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the epic story of the scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe.

Black holes are dark. That is their essence. When black holes collide, they will do so unilluminated. Yet the black hole collision is an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe. The profusion of energy will emanate as waves in the shape of spacetime: gravitational waves. No telescope will ever record the event; instead, the only evidence would be the sound of spacetime ringing. In 1916, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, his top priority after he proposed his theory of curved spacetime. One century later, we are recording the first sounds from space, the soundtrack to accompany astronomy’s silent movie.

In Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, Janna Levin recounts the fascinating story of the obsessions, the aspirations, and the trials of the scientists who embarked on an arduous, fifty-year endeavor to capture these elusive waves. An experimental ambition that began as an amusing thought experiment, a mad idea, became the object of fixation for the original architects—Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Ron Drever. Striving to make the ambition a reality, the original three gradually accumulated an international team of hundreds. As this book was written, two massive instruments of remarkably delicate sensitivity were brought to advanced capability. As the book draws to a close, five decades after the experimental ambition began, the team races to intercept a wisp of a sound with two colossal machines, hoping to succeed in time for the centenary of Einstein’s most radical idea. Janna Levin’s absorbing account of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks in this unfolding story offers a portrait of modern science that is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Exceptional Story of Black Holes Colliding--Listen

Wow! I saw an interview on PBS news hour with the author and decided that such a significant event as hearing two black holes merge had to be an interesting read. Believe me, it was and I am not a scientist. Janna Levin is a scientist but she is also a wonderful interpreter of complex information, shares an ability to describe complex scientists, and allow the reader to understand the politics and frustration of being one of a very few people who can perceive this concept. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in November 1916 and a few scientists wanted to build a device to capture the event...if in fact there was such an event. After much political arguments, changes of the guard, and lots of ego battles, two receptors were built. One in Louisiana and one in Washington. The two had been fully locked in place only a few weeks, when the wave came. The fact was kept secret until it could be verified, and re-verified, and then published. The chirp of the two black holes merging was captured. You can hear the chirp if you research black hole mergers on the Internet. This is a remarkable piece of writing and I recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about this major scientific event. Makes you wonder what more is out there in space. Let's keep looking. Now that Juno is circling Jupiter, who knows what we will find. I listened to the author read the book on Audible and recommend it.

Write more books Janna!

I love Janna Levin but enjoyed her previous book more. I just wish she'd done more of the speculative comment she devoted herself to in the two final chapters instead of detailing the story of the men who made it happen.

how everything came together

I found it to be a very interesting book after watching a documentary on black holes.

Spirited Scientists

Interesting perspective of how a new area of science was created and the successful challenges facing the spirited scientists to continue..

Awesome

Loved it. Absolutely awesome. Gripping narrative of events leading to detection of gravitational waves. A must read.