The Warped Side of Our Universe

An Odyssey through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel, and Gravitational Waves

31 October 2023

Kip Thorne (Author), Lia Halloran (Artist)

Description

Epic verse and pulsating paintings merge to shed light on time travel, black holes, gravitational waves and the birth of the universe

Nearly two decades in the making, The Warped Side of Our Universe marks the historic collaboration of Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne and award-winning artist Lia Halloran. It brings to vivid life the wonders and wildness of our universe’s “Warped Side”—objects and phenomena made from warped space and time, from colliding black holes and collapsing wormholes to twisting space vortices and down-cascading time. Through poetic verse and otherworldly paintings, the authors explicate Thorne’s and colleagues’ astrophysical discoveries and speculations, with an epic narrative that asks: How did the universe begin? Can anything travel backwards in time? And what weird and marvellous phenomena inhabit the Warped Side? Featuring more than 100 paintings, including a soaring Stephen Hawking, this one-of-a-kind volume, with its multiple gatefolds, takes us on an Odyssean voyage into and through The Warped Side of Our Universe.

Reviews

"A fascinating account of our universe's most bewildering phenomena written entirely in verse... Dimension-defying paintings decorate every page. The textual and visual narrative that emerges is something akin to an epic poem about the nature of spacetime.... The enigmatic concepts discussed in ‘The Warped Side of Our Universe’ are some of the most difficult for humans to understand, but Mr. Thorne’s verse and Ms. Halloran’s art bring these far-out concepts down to earth. Even what the eye can’t see can be beautiful." — Angelina Torre, The Wall Street Journal

"Evocative... an ambitious art-science artifact.. grounded in cutting-edge research" — David Kaiser, Science Magazine

"Physicist Kip Thorne and artist Lia Halloran find a novel approach to exploring these topics in startling detail. The collaboration between the two is just as fascinating as the book itself...Written in verse form, Thorne’s writing is perfectly complemented by Halloran’s vivid illustrations in explaining how that research has pierced a universe that is ‘varied and vast.’ The paintings portray a swirling universe of wonders, explaining a black hole’s characteristics with images of Halloran’s wife being bent by its warped spacetime." — Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press

Also By: Kip Thorne

The Science of Interstellar
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Paperback, 2014
A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s award-winning film, Interstellar, from executive producer and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne.
The Science of Interstellar
Kip Thorne, Christopher Nolan
E Book, 2014
A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s award-winning film, Interstellar, from executive producer and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne.
Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
Kip Thorne, Stephen W. Hawking
E Book, 2014
Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics

Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to...
The Future of Spacetime
Stephen W. Hawking, Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris, Alan Lightman, Richard Price
Paperback, 2003
Where the science of black holes, gravitational waves, and time travel will likely lead us, as reported by spacetime's most important theoreticians and observers.
Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy
Kip Thorne, Stephen W. Hawking
Paperback, 1995
Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics

Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to...