The core of this book concerns supernovae, my principal research interest, but the broader theme is the connection of these cosmic catastrophes with the sweep of intellectual ferment in astrophysics. The story leads from the birth, evolution, and death of stars to the notion of complete collapse in a black hole, to wormhole time machines, the possible birth of new universes, and the prospect of a conceptual revolution in our views of space and time in a ten-dimensional string theory. It is all one glorious, interconnected Universe, both physically and intellectually. Or maybe there are more than one.

In terms of astrophysical connections, the book reaches back to the origins of stars and how they evolve, treats the mechanisms of supernovae, and then moves forward to the compact progeny of supernovae – neutron stars and black holes. Neutron stars are presented in all the variety we know today – pulsars, millisecond pulsars, binary pulsars, magnetars, and X-ray sources both steady and transient. The concrete manifestation of black holes in observational astronomy, especially in binary stellar systems, is described. Topics that have come to light as the book was being written, soft gamma-ray repeaters and the revolution in cosmic gamma-ray bursts, are presented. The scientific background is given in order to understand what kind of supernovae are used to produce the radical notion of the acceleration of the Universe, and how and why. Similar background aids in making the connection between flaring gamma-ray sources and compact objects.