The Mysteries of Black Holes
Priyamvada Natarajan
About the Course
Black holes hold a privileged place within the popular imagination. We all know what they are, but there is still much we don't understand. How do they form? What happens when things fall in? And what's inside a black hole? Join recent winner of the Liberty Science Center ‘Genius Award’ and Chair of Astronomy at Yale, Priya Natarajan, as she explores her recent discoveries about how black holes grow, form, and evolve, and how we can measure one of the most mysterious phenomena in the universe.
By the end of the course, you will have learned:
- How black holes form and the processes that lead to their creation.
- The growth and evolution of black holes over cosmic time.
- What happens to matter and information that falls into a black hole.
- The structure and properties of black holes, including their event horizons and singularities.
- Techniques for observing and measuring black holes.
As part of the course there are in-video quiz questions to consolidate your learning and discussion boards to have your say.
IAI Academy courses are designed to be challenging but accessible to the interested student. No specialist knowledge is required.
About the Instructor
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Priyamvada Natarajan
“I was always attracted by the cosmos— the deep, dark mysteries it held have always seduced me.”
Priyamvada Natarajan is a professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of Yale. She is the author of the pioneering work 'Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos.' She was also the first woman in Astrophysics to be elected as a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge.
Natarajan is widely regarded for her work on the cutting-edge of physics that includes mapping dark matter, dark energy, and particularly her work in gravitational lensing.
'She has pioneered the mapping and modeling of the universe’s invisible contents.' - Quanta Magazine
Course Syllabus
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Part 1: The evolution of our understanding of the starsHow are black holes distributed around the galaxy? Why do some stay in place while others wander?
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Part 2: Modern progress into black holesHow does the new space telescope help us understand the formation of the first black holes and the creation of supermassive black holes?
Suggested Further Readings
- Natarajan, P., Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos, (New York: HarperCollins, 2016).
- Hawking, S., A Brief History of Time, (New York: Bantam, 1988).
- Thorne, K. S., Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994).
- Carroll, S., Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity, (San Francisco: Addison-Wesley, 2019).
- Misner, C. W., Thorne, K. S., & Wheeler, J. A., Gravitation, (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1973).
- Rees, M., Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, (New York: Scientific American Library, 1999).
- Greene, B., The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
- Penrose, R., The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, (London: Vintage, 2005).
