Else please refer to the site map below to visit our text-only website .

Abramowicz, M.A. "Black Holes and the Centrifugal Force Paradox." Scientific American, March 1993. This fascination article discusses the paradoxical prediction that an object orbiting near a black hole feels a centrifugal force pushing inward rather than outward.

Begelman, M., and Rees, M. Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe. Scientific American Library, 1996. Two distinguished astrophysicists explain the most exotic objects in the universe in clear, lucid prose.

Davies, P. "Wormholes and Time Machines." Sky and Telescope, January 1992. This intriguing article by a noted scientist discusses some of the fanciful aspects of black holes.

Jeffries, A., and others. "Gravitational Wave Observatories." Scientific American, June 1987. This article, which includes an excellent description of gravitational radiation, explains how lasers can be used to detect gravitational waves.

Kaufmann, W. Black Holes and Warped Spacetime. W. H. Freeman, 1979. This slim book gives a non-technical overview of black holes and general relativity.

Cosmic Frontiers f General Relativity. Little, Brown, 1977. This book describes many fascinating aspects of black holes, including views that might greet an astronaut who plunges through a wormhole connecting our universe with another.

McClintock, J. "Do Black Holes Exist?" Sky and Telescope, January 1988. This well-written article presents evidence for black holes in certain X-ray binaries, especially A0620-00.

Taylor, E. F., and Wheeler, J. A. Spacetime Physics, 2nd edition. W. H. Freeman, 1992. This classic volume is an excellent introduction to the ideas of the special and general theories of relativity, Only a minimum of mathematics is needed.

Thorne, K. S. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. W. W. Norton, 1994. A well-known expert in general relativity presents a lucid explanation of Einstein's theory and modern observations.

Weisberg, J., Taylor, J., and Fowler, L. "Gravitational Waves from an Orbiting Pulsar." Scientific American, October 1981. This article explains how orbital changes in the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16 result from gravitational radiation emitted by the system.

Wheeler, J. A. A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime. Scientific American Library, 1990. One of the leading experts in the general theory of relativity explains the subtleties of this remarkable theory of gravitation.

World Wide Web

A number of websites provide help in visualizing the seemingly paradoxical ideas of the theories of relativity. One of the best has been created by Roberto Salgado at Syracuse University (http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/LIGHTCONE/).

Two spacecraft missions, STEP and Gravity Probe B, are designed to test the predictions of general relativity with unparalleled precision. These missions, scheduled for launch around the turn of the century, are described at a website at Stanford University (http://einstein.stanford.edu/).

There are also websites for each of the experiments designed to detect gravitational radiation: LIGO (http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/), VIRGO (http://www.pg.infn.it/virgodoc/), and LISA (http://www.estec.esa.nl/spdwww/future/html/lisa.htm and http://www.lisa.uni-hannover.de/), as well as a master list of all current and planned experiments (http://www.roma1.infn.it/rog/others/others.html).