Weak. I suppose this book may have been relevant for the average layperson when it was published and it even foresaw some things that would be generally confirmed just a couple of decades later, but he was also wrong on some things and while I've enjoyed some of his sci fi - naturally - I've always viewed him as a very inconsistent writer (some books in a series might be worth 5 stars while others will be worth 2), not that great of an original sci fi author (example: In the Foundation series, after a character flies a spaceship a very long way to the universe's capital city/planet, when he gets off, he goes and picks up a PAPER newspaper to read on a bench, and since this is supposed to be taking place a million years or so in the future, the fact that Asimov could envision starships - which seems rather rudimentary to me for sci fi writers - but couldn't imagine a universe a million years from now where reading is done in other ways and formats than mid-1900s Earth newspapers? Philip K Dick, a contemporary of his, seems to have been far more vivid in his imagination, far more creative, and if this doesn't sound too absurd, far more "realistic" in imagining a sci fi-type world off in the future...), and a rather tepid "scientist," certainly not an original thinker or researcher, better equipped to teach high school science courses than to be taken seriously such as a Planck, a Niels Bohr, or any serious researcher of significance. It's not that he wasn't intelligent. It's merely that he was overrated, at least in terms of his originality and any perceived brilliance, which his more "scientific" writings don't seem to bear out. Well, if you're an Asimov fan, I suppose you might like this book, or if you want to read old, outdated and in some cases, simply wrong cosmology texts, this is the book for you. Otherwise, not recommended. ( )

Having gained interest in black holes with the advent of the Hadron Collider I needed to seek out more information about them. I found The Collapsing Universe by Isaac Asimov to be a very good jumping off point, a black holes 101 so to speak. This book begins to explain black holes by first giving the reader a fast track study of miniscule atoms and moving outward toward planets, stars, neutron stars, black holes and finally white holes and wormholes, both purely speculative in 1977, the year this book was published.
Asimov writes in a very understandable to laymen fashion. Although he throws in a few scientific equations for good measure, the reader can get by without understanding the math behind the idea. Undoubtedly groundbreaking when first published some of the book is conjecture and so many questions remain, my interest however has been peaked non the less and I look forward to reading further books on this subject. ( )

The Collapsing Universe is a nonfiction Asimov work that focuses on the birth, life, and death of stars, explains the creation and physics of black holes, and discusses the birth and potential death of the universe. Asimov's straightforward writing style, which can be a hindrance when he writes fiction, works to the book's benefit here, as the concepts, ideas, and facts are presented in a clear and easy to follow manner.

Though the book was published in the 1970s, and scholarship concerning the subject matter of the book has changed in some ways, the fundamentals of the field have not. As this book doesn't seek to do more than educate the readers on those fundamentals, the science discussed by and large remains accurate. Those who are already well-versed in physics won't find anything new or particularly insightful here: Asimov's science books were mostly intended to introduce an untrained person to the field and educate them to a reasonable understanding of the subject. The book is very math-light, as befits the introductory nature of the book.

For someone who wants a decent, non-math intensive introduction to cosmology this book would be an excellent resource. For someone already knowledgeable in the field, it would be nothing more than a diversion. If you have studied cosmology before, you can give this a pass. If you want an introduction to the subject, this book is a good way to start.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About other Worlds. ( )

4/6/22

Weak. I suppose this book may have been relevant for the average layperson when it was published and it even foresaw some things that would be generally confirmed just a couple of decades later, but he was also wrong on some things and while I've enjoyed some of his sci fi - naturally - I've always viewed him as a very inconsistent writer (some books in a series might be worth 5 stars while others will be worth 2), not that great of an original sci fi author (example: In the Foundation series, after a character flies a spaceship a very long way to the universe's capital city/planet, when he gets off, he goes and picks up a PAPER newspaper to read on a bench, and since this is supposed to be taking place a million years or so in the future, the fact that Asimov could envision starships - which seems rather rudimentary to me for sci fi writers - but couldn't imagine a universe a million years from now where reading is done in other ways and formats than mid-1900s Earth newspapers? Philip K Dick, a contemporary of his, seems to have been far more vivid in his imagination, far more creative, and if this doesn't sound too absurd, far more "realistic" in imagining a sci fi-type world off in the future...), and a rather tepid "scientist," certainly not an original thinker or researcher, better equipped to teach high school science courses than to be taken seriously such as a Planck, a Niels Bohr, or any serious researcher of significance. It's not that he wasn't intelligent. It's merely that he was overrated, at least in terms of his originality and any perceived brilliance, which his more "scientific" writings don't seem to bear out. Well, if you're an Asimov fan, I suppose you might like this book, or if you want to read old, outdated and in some cases, simply wrong cosmology texts, this is the book for you. Otherwise, not recommended. ( )