Some of you may have seen Brian Cox’s magnificent recent series Universe, broadcast on BBC 4. The programme on black holes was mind-bending, as Cox explained how all the workings of space-time cease completely at the event horizon of these “monsters,” which swallow up all neighbouring stars and even smaller black holes. Located at the heart of galaxies, they are the super-controlling, sculpting forces in the universe, like weird holes in its fabric. Then near the end of all the overpowering imagery, the camera unexpectedly came to focus on a beautiful, roofless ruin of a Gothic cathedral, set in green fields, as Cox walked through it. It then zoomed in to a vault under the old nave where Cox was sitting, and from where he proceeded to sum up all that had been presented about black holes.