The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything

NY: Harcourt, Inc.. As New in As New dust jacket. 2001. Stated First Edition. First Printing. Hard Cover. 015100398X . Quarter bound in publisher's yellow cloth over blue boards, red lettering on spine. Illustrated with several drawings by David Barker. "Nothing is as big a mystery as nothing. From the hatred the digit "zero" inspired in the ancient church and the horror vacui suffered by thinkers such as Aristotle to the tantalizing singularity of black holes, nothing packs quite a wallop. People, not nature, abhor a vacuum but are often fascinated by what repels them. Cole (The Universe and the Teacup), a science columnist for the L.A. Times, prods at the infinite properties and manifestations of nothing, trying to get a handle on it without boxing it in. Definitions make something out of nothing, but then, she indicates, everything did come out of nothing. Comprising an expansive set of topics from the history of numbers to string theory, the big bang, even Zen, the book's chapters are broken into bite-sized portions that allow the author to revel in the puns and awkwardness that comes with trying to describe a concept that no one has fully grasped. It is an amorphous, flowing, mind-bending discussion, written in rich, graceful prose.. As clear and accessible as Hawking's A Brief History of Time, this work deserves wide circulation, not just among science buffs." - Publishers Weekly. K.C. Cole (born 1946) is an American science writer, author, radio commentator, and professor. She has authored eight nonfiction books, notably the bestseller "The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty," which has been translated into a dozen languages, and her memoir about her late mentor, Frank Oppenheimer, "Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up." In 1995, she was awarded the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award and has covered science for The Los Angeles Times since 1994. She is currently a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. . Both the volume and the unclipped dust jacket are in perfect, pristine condition; unread, unmarked, tight, square, and clean. AS NEW/AS NEW.. B&W Drawings. 8vo 8" - 9" tall. 274 pp .