In a world of star-quakes, anti-matter, red giants and white dwarfs, a star more massive than our own sum can disappear into a black hold from which not even light can escape. When this happens, the laws of physics have no meaning. Here is one of the great detective stories of modern science, followed to its conclusion by one of today's most respected science writers. It is a totally absorbing investigation of a phenomenon, only recently discovered, that may explain the mysterious 30-megaton blast that flattened a Siberian forest in 1908 — and that may, ultimately, be responsible for the collapse of the present universe.
