Written in an informal and engaging style, this volume traces the discoveries that led to our understanding of the size and structure of the Milky Way, and the conclusive evidence for a massive black hole at its center. Robert H. Sanders, an astronomer who witnessed many of these developments, describes how we parted the veil of interstellar dust to probe the strange phenomena within. We now know that the most luminous objects in the Universe - quasars and radio galaxies - are powered by massive black holes at their hearts. But how did black holes emerge from being a mathematical peculiarity, a theoretical consequence of Einstein's theory of gravity, to become part of the modern paradigm that explains active galactic nuclei and galaxy evolution in normal galaxies such as the Milky Way? This story, aimed at non-specialist readers and students and historians of astronomy, will both inform and entertain.

Relativistic cosmology has in recent years become one of the most exciting and active branches of current research. In conference after conference the view is expressed that cosmology today is where particle physics was forty years ago, with major discoveries just waiting to happen. Also gravitational wave detectors, presently under construction or in the testing phase, promise to open up an entirely novel field of physics.
It is to take into account such recent developments, as well as to improve the basic text, that this second edition has been undertaken. The most affected is the last part on cosmology, but there are smaller additions, corrections, and additional exercises throughout.
The books basic purpose is to make relativity come alive conceptually. Hence the emphasis on the foundations and the logical subtleties rather than on the mathematics or the detailed experiments per se. Aided by some 300 exercises, the book promotes a deep understanding and the confidence to tackle any fundamental relativistic problem.

Before Paulo Coelho and Eckhart Tolle came Rodney Collin. A huge 462 page book full of essential knowledge. How To Become Supernatural Man, The Universe and Cosmic Mystery is an exploration of the universe and man's place in it. Rodney Collin examines 20th-century scientific discoveries and traditional esoteric teachings and concludes that the driving force behind everything is neither procreation nor survival, but expansion of awareness. Collin sets out to reconcile the considerable contradictions of the rational and imaginative minds and of the ways we see the external world versus our inner selves. For readers familiar with Gurdjieff's cosmology will here find further examinations of the systems outlined in by Ouspensky in Search of the Miraculous.