I’m also curious what would happen if you started making your star with less hydrogen and more helium… or heavier elements – for example, what would happen if you tried to make a black hole out of iron?

I’ve been reading your posts every day for about two years now, and I think this is one of the best you’ve done. Not because I’m a black hole fan – they’re ok, but I generally prefer the quantum world – but because of the way you’ve 1) reminded us of some of your previous great content and 2) tied that content up into a bigger (but still somewhat detailed) bigger picture.

With respect to item #1, I’m pretty sure I’ve read all of those previous articles at some point. But they were likely written at different times of year and not in series. I enjoyed them, but never put the time into considering how they were tied together. That leads to point 2 – in this post, you’ve told the higher-level story of a black hole (but still fairly detailed – no “lots and lots of mass makes black holes” hand waving). You don’t get into too much detail, instead, you defer to your previous, more detailed posts on the subject.

It’s great to see how the things we’ve been reading from you over the years tie together into one longer, more interesting story. Would love to see more articles authored using this approach.

Cheers!