Ebook: Death by black hole: and other cosmic quandaries

Prologue: The beginning of science -- Section 1: The nature of knowledge : the challenges of knowing what is knowable in the universe. Coming to our senses ; On Earth as in the heavens ; Seeing isn't believing ; The information trap ; Stick-in-the-mud science -- Section 2: The knowledge of nature : the challenges of discovering the contents of the cosmos. Journeys from the center of the Sun ; Planet parade ; Vagabonds of the solar system ; The five points of Lagrange ; Antimatter matters -- Section 3: Ways and means of nature : how nature presents herself to the inquiring mind. The importance of being constant ; Speed limits ; Going ballistic ; On being dense ; Over the rainbow ; cosmic windows ; Colors of the cosmos ; Cosmic plasma ; Fire and ice ; Section 4: The meaning of life : the challenges and triumphs of knowing how we got here. Dust to dust ; Forged in the stars ; Send in the clouds ; Goldilocks and the three planets ; Water, water ; Living space ; Life in the universe ; Our radio bubble. Section 5: When the universe turns bad : all the ways the cosmos wants to kill us ; Chaos in the solar system ; Coming attractions ; ends of the world ; Galactic engines ; Knock 'em dead ; Death by black hole -- Section 6: Science and culture : the ruffled interface between cosmic discovery and the public's reaction to it. Things people say ; Fear of numbers ; On being baffled ; Footprints in the sands of science ; Let there be dark ; Hollywood nights -- Section 7: Science and God : when ways of knowing collide. In the beginning ; Holy wars ; The perimeter of ignorance.;According to astrophysicist Tyson, director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, size does matter when it comes to black holes, although the chances of your surviving the encounter aren't good in any case. Tyson takes readers on an exciting journey from Earth's hot springs, where extremophiles flourish in hellish conditions, to the frozen, desolate stretches of the Oort Cloud and the universe's farthest reaches, in both space and time. Tyson doesn't restrict his musings to astrophysics, but wanders into related fields like relativity and particle physics, which he explains just as clearly as he does Lagrangian points, where we someday may park interplanetary filling stations. He tackles popular myths (is the sun yellow?) and takes movie directors--most notably James Cameron--to task for spectacular goofs. In the last section the author gives his take on the hot subject of intelligent design. Readers of Natural History magazine will be familiar with many of the 42 essays collected here.;The nature of knowledge: the challenges of knowing what is knowable in the universe -- The knowledge of nature: the challenges of discovering the contents of the cosmos -- Ways and means of nature: how nature presents herself to the inquiring mind -- The meaning of life: the challenges and triumphs of knowing how we got here -- When the universe turns bad: all the ways the cosmos wants to kill us -- Science and culture: the ruffled interface between cosmic discovery and the public's reaction to it -- Science and God: when ways of knowing collide.