A Brief History of Black Holes - Becky Smethurst ***

Black holes are a perennially interesting topic, so anyone writing a book about them needs to provide a new angle - a USP, if you like. For this mostly interesting book, Becky Smethurst has gone for 'why everything you know about them is wrong.' This reflects the several common misconceptions about black holes, even though some of these have been so thoroughly debunked already that it's hard to believe there are too many left who hold them.

We start with an introduction to the nature of stars, bring in gravitational wells and neutron stars and get on to black holes themselves - though we soon discover they are not black, one of those misapprehensions alongside the idea that they are super gravitational vacuum cleaners, inevitably destroying everything nearby. We're told that black holes don't suck, which is sort of true as we explore the warping of space and time - though the distinction between gravitational attraction and sucking is perhaps fairly trivial if you get too close to a black hole.

Overall, then, what we get here is a fairly high level, approachable introduction to the nature of black holes, where they come from, the role of the supermassive variety in galaxies and more.

Smethurst is a little hazy on some aspects of history - for example, she says that it wasn't until the 1920s that some nebulae were considered to be galaxies, even though Herschel, amongst others, had suggested this significantly earlier. Also, and how many times do we have to say this, she repeats the myth that Giordano Bruno was the first to suggest the the stars were suns in their own right - he appears to have got the idea from Nicholas of Cusa.

It is also worrying that Smethurst seems to put those who 'challenge the existence of dark matter' on a par with flat earthers - 'It came about after over three decades worth of observations and research pointed to no other plausible conclusion' - this simply isn't true. The reality is that dark matter particles have never been detected, while modified gravity theories arguably explain more than dark matter does. Both theories have flaws, but at the moment, it's all too common for popular astronomy/astrophysics books like this to give a casual dismissal of anything but those elusive particles. That simply isn't good science.

As is also common with cosmology/astrophysics books in particular (for some reason), there is a degree of perkiness to the presentation that becomes a little wearing. Take, for instance, this opener to a chapter: 'The recipe for making a black hole is theoretically very simple, yet in practice rather difficult. Essentially, throw enough matter into a small enough space, crush it down and voila! A black hole will result.' So far, tolerable. But then Smethurst changes gear and gives us: 'Now I can't speak for everyone, but my puny noodle arms definitely aren't strong enough to crush matter down in this way, and I imagine neither are yours. I'm sure even veterans of the recipe game like Mary Berry would struggle to follow that one.' It's the kids' TV presenter's approach to science writing, which doesn't sit well with an adult audience. 

This is a perfectly likeable book, but in a crowded marketplace, it struggles a little to stand out.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here