Cosmology

In the past five years, over 30 books have been published on black holes for a popular audience—testimony to our enduring fascination with these areas of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. Lynn Gamwell, author of Conjuring the Void—a beautiful book that looks at both scientific and artistic images of black holes—talks us through five of her favourites, including a PhD thesis that has not yet been published as a book.

Before Einstein, how the universe began was a question for theologians, not scientists. Over a century later, we know much more, but not enough to do more than guess at what happened at the moment of the Big Bang and immediately after. Astrophysicist Dan Hooper, author of At the Edge of Time—a book that explores dark energy, dark matter and other things we don't yet understand—talks us through books about the Big Bang, and questions whether our entire understanding of the universe is about to be turned upside down.

From Kepler's astronomy to Richard Feynman's quantum electrodynamics, Marcus Chown launches us into the world of cosmology.

David Goldberg, professor of physics at Drexel University, recommends the best books to start learning about cosmology. He explains his choices to high school student, Eric Bolton.

Theoretical cosmologist Sean Carroll recommends five books about space, time and the universe that even the science-shy can understand and enjoy