Black Holes: The End of Time or a New Beginning?
November 14, 2012
Dr. Roger Blandford (Kavli Institute, Stanford University)
Listen (mp3 file, 32.9 MB)
While black holes are popularly associated with death and doom, astrophysicists increasingly see them as creators, not destroyers — playing a major role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets. Dr. Blandford (whose research interests include black holes, galaxies, and cosmology) summarizes why scientists now think that black holes of various sizes actually do exist, describes some of their strange properties, and explains their “environmental impact” on the universe at large.