What is Death by Black Hole about?

Death by Black Hole is a collection of essays by Neil deGrasse Tyson drawn from his "Universe" column in Natural History magazine. The forty-two essays are organized into seven sections covering the nature of the cosmos, scientific tools and methods, scientific blunders, the laws of physics, the dark side of the universe, science literacy, and the intersection of science and culture. The collection is more varied and personal in tone than Tyson's more focused books, reflecting the essay format's capacity for digression and wit.

The title essay is a highlight: a detailed, viscerally descriptive account of what would actually happen to a human body approaching a stellar-mass black hole, beginning with gravitational tidal forces that stretch the body from feet to head (spaghettification), moving through radiation fluxes and time dilation, and ending with an honest assessment of which cause of death arrives first. The analysis combines rigorous physics with Tyson's gift for making abstract phenomena concrete and slightly absurd.

The science literacy essays are among the most substantive. Tyson argues that a scientifically illiterate population is poorly equipped to evaluate policy claims, susceptible to pseudoscience, and likely to make bad collective decisions about energy, medicine, and technology. He critiques not just popular misconceptions — the idea that we use only 10% of our brains, the notion that stars twinkle — but also the tendency of scientists to communicate badly and the tendency of schools to teach facts rather than the scientific method.

The book is not a systematic account of any single topic. It is best read as a collection of vignettes from a scientist who finds the universe endlessly surprising, and who is as likely to write about the astrophysics of Star Wars as about the nature of dark matter. The voice is entertaining, sometimes didactic, and occasionally edgy.