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• Archive: $214.95 $38 - Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime-Understanding Gravity - Benjamin Schumacher The force of gravity rules the universe.
• It governs our everyday lives on Earth and it controls the motions of the heavens above.
• Yet it is one of the least understood of all the forces of nature.
• To endeavor to understand this fundamental force is to experience anew something as simple as getting out of bed, throwing a ball, or diving into a pool; and it gives deep insight into the central organizing principle of the cosmos.Consider these crucial aspects of gravity:Gravity governs the rising and falling of tides—not only tides in the ocean, but tides in the solid rock of Earth itself.Gravity molds the sun and planets into spheres, and it holds celestial objects in their orbits.Gravity ignites the nuclear fires inside each star, then fights a billion-year battle to determine its fate.Gravity collects stars into galaxies and causes galaxies to collide in intricate mergers that we can model with supercomputers.Without gravity, everything would dissolve into a gas of randomly interacting atoms.
• It is the only truly universal force, affecting not just matter but also light, time, and, at a basic level, all information.