Marcus Chown – författare

Look around you. The reflection of your face in a window tells you that the universe is orchestrated by chance. The iron in a spot of blood on your finger tells you that somewhere out in space there is furnace at a temperature of 4.5 billion degrees. Your TV tells you that the universe had a beginning. In fact, your very existence tells you that this may not be the only universe but merely one among an infinity of others, stacked like the pages of a never-ending book.Marcus Chown, author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, What a Wonderful World and The Solar System, takes familiar features of the world we know and shows how they can be used to explain profound truths about the ultimate nature of reality. His new book will change the way you see the universe: with Chown as your guide, cutting-edge science is made clear and meaningful by a falling leaf, or a rose, or a starry night sky... We Need To Talk About Kelvin: What Everyday Things Tell Us About The Universe is a hugely accessible exploration of quantum theory, relativity, cosmology, biology and chemistry. Taking our everyday experiences, Marcus Chown quickly and painlessly explains the unltimate truths of reality.

Stephen Hawking described it as 'the discovery of the century, if not of all time', yet the scientists who first detected the cosmic radiation that was identified as the afterglow of the big bang had to admit that it was more by accident than intention. At first its discoverers mistook the readings for the disruption caused by the droppings of pigeons that had nested in their telescope, and yet they went on to win the Nobel prize. In the mid-1990s New Scientist writer Marcus Chown drove across America to interview the key scientists who had made this astonishing discovery. Their account and Chown's description of their achievement was published to much acclaim. But now, over a decade later, in this new and fully revised edition he goes behind the hype and the hysteria to provide a clear and lively explanation of one of the biggest discoveries in modern science - and a brilliant picture of what happened next.

With wit, colour and clarity, What A Wonderful World quickly and painlessly brings us up to speed on how the world of the 21st century works. From economics to physics and biology to philosophy, Marcus Chown explains the complex forces that shape our universe. Why do we breathe? What is money? How does the brain work? Why did life invent sex? Does time really exist? How does capitalism work - or not, as the case may be? Where do mountains come from? How do computers work? How did humans get to dominate the Earth? Why is there something rather than nothing?In What a Wonderful World, Marcus Chown, bestselling author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You and the Solar System app, uses his vast scientific knowledge and deep understanding of extremely complex processes to answer simple questions about the workings of our everyday lives. Lucid, witty and hugely entertaining, it explains the basics of our essential existence, stopping along the way to show us why the Atlantic is widening by a thumbs' length each year, how money permits trade to time travel why the crucial advantage humans had over Neanderthals was sewing and why we are all living in a giant hologram.

The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einstein's general theory of relativity. Together, they explain virtually everything about the world we live in. But, almost a century after their advent, most people haven't the slightest clue what either is about.Did you know that there's so much empty space inside matter that the entire human race could be squeezed into the volume of a sugar cube? Or that you grow old more quickly on the top floor of a building than on the ground floor? And did you realize that 1% of the static on a TV tuned between stations is the relic of the Big Bang? Marcus Chown, the bestselling author of What A Wonderful World and the Solar System app, explains all with characteristic wit, colour and clarity, from the Big Bang and Einstein's general theory of relativity to probability, gravity and quantum theory. 'Chown discusses special and general relativity, probablity waves, quantum entanglement, gravity and the Big Bang, with humour and beautiful clarity, always searching for the most vivid imagery.' Steven Poole, Guardian

The spellbinding stories of the scientists whose eureka! breakthroughs in modern physics reveal science's astonishing predictive power.'An excellent popular science book.'DARA Ó BRIAIN'A thoroughly informative and entertaining read.'ANNA BURNS, Booker Prize-winning author of Milkman'One of the best-written books about phsyics I have ever come across.'POPULAR SCIENCE'Highly entertaining and accessible.' IRISH TIMES'Fascinating, life enhancing entertainment.' PROSPECT'Thoroughly enjoyable . . . Chown has done it again.' BBC SKY AT NIGHTBreakthrough takes us on a breathtaking, mind-altering tour of the eureka! moments of modern physics. Charting the spellbinding stories of the scientists who predicted and discovered the existence of unknown planets, black holes, invisible force fields, ripples in the fabric of space-time, unsuspected subatomic particles and even antimatter, Marcus Chown reveals science's greatest mystery: its astonishing predictive power.***Breakthrough was previously published in 2020 in hardback under the title The Magicians.

The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year 2017'Does Einstein proud . . . Eminently readable' Guardian'No one has covered the topic with such a light touch and joie de vivre . . . a delight' Brian CleggGravity was the first force to be recognised and described yet it is still the least understood. If we can unlock its secrets, the force that keeps our feet on the ground holds the key to understanding the biggest questions in science: what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from?Award-winning writer Marcus Chown takes us on an unforgettable journey from the recognition of the 'force' of gravity in 1666 to the discovery of gravitational waves in the twenty-first century. And, as we stand on the brink of a seismic revolution in our worldview, he brings us up to speed on the greatest challenge ever to confront physics.

A mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and wonderful facts about our universe, vividly illuminating the hidden truths that govern our everyday lives. Fact: You could fit the whole human race in the volume of a sugar cube. Fact: The electrical energy in a single mosquito is enough to cause a global mass extinction.Fact: You age more quickly on the top floor than on the ground floor. So much of our world seems to make perfect sense, and scientific breakthroughs have helped us understand ourselves, our planet, and our place in the universe in fascinating detail. But our adventures in space, our deepening understanding of the quantum world, and our leaps in technology have also revealed a universe far stranger than we ever imagined. With brilliant clarity and wit, bestselling author Marcus Chown examines the profound science behind fifty remarkable scientific facts that help explain the vast complexities of our existence.

Bestselling author Marcus Chown explores some of the most profound and important science about us, our world and the universe with fifty fascinating and mind-bending facts.Our adventures in space, our deepening understanding of the quantum world and huge leaps in technology over the last century have revealed a universe far stranger than we could ever have imagined. With brilliant clarity and wit, bestselling author Marcus Chown examines the profound science behind fifty remarkable scientific facts that help explain the vast complexities of our existence. Did you know that you could fit the whole human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or that the electrical energy in a single mosquito is enough to cause a global mass extinction? Or that, out there in the universe, there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies of this? Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand is a mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and wonderful facts about our universe, vividly illuminating the hidden truths that govern our everyday lives.

From gravity to black holes, special relativity to global warming, this authoritative and entertaining book from bestselling author Marcus Chown breaks down complex science into manageable chunks, explaining the one thing you really need to know to get to grips with the subject.Rather than trying to bend your mind around all the vast and confounding details of things such as gravitational waves, electricity and black holes, wouldn’t it be easier to understand just one central concept from which everything else follows?If you’ve ever found yourself fascinated by the idea of quantum computing but feel a little overwhelmed by the mindblowing subject of quantum mechanics or concerned by climate change but haven’t been able to get to grips with the details of global warming, this book is for you. Let’s take atoms, for example – what on earth are they? Well, if you start to think of them less like things you can’t see with complex little nuclei and more like the alphabet of nature, which in different configurations can make a rose, a galaxy or a newborn baby, they might start to feel a little more understandable. Or gravitational waves – they sound poetic, but why are they creating so much excitement? Think of them as the voice of space, vibrations on the drumskin of space-time – before delving into all their complexities. In twenty-one short and engaging chapters, Chown explains the one thing you need to know to understand some of the most important scientific ideas of our time. Packed full of astounding facts, scientific history and the entertaining personalities at the heart of the most pivotal discoveries about the workings of our universe, this is an accessible guide to all the tricky stuff you’ve always wanted to understand more about.

From gravity to black holes, special relativity to global warming, bestselling author Marcus Chown breaks down complex science into manageable chunks, explaining the one thing you really need to know to get to grips with the subject.Rather than trying to bend your mind around all the vast and confounding details of things such as gravitational waves, electricity and black holes, wouldn’t it be easier to understand just one central concept from which everything else follows?If you’ve ever found yourself fascinated by the idea of quantum computing but feel a little overwhelmed by the mindblowing subject of quantum mechanics or if you are concerned by climate change but haven’t been able to get to grips with the details of global warming, this book is for you. Let’s take atoms, for example – what on earth are they? Well, if you start to think of them less like things you can’t see with complex little nuclei and more like the alphabet of nature, which in different configurations can make a rose, a galaxy or a newborn baby, they might start to feel a little more understandable. Or gravitational waves – they sound poetic, but why are they creating so much excitement? Think of them as the voice of space or vibrations on the drumskin of space-time, before delving into all their complexities.In twenty-one short and engaging chapters, Chown explains the one thing you need to know to understand some of the most important scientific ideas of our time. Packed full of astounding facts, scientific history and the entertaining personalities at the heart of the most pivotal discoveries about the workings of our universe, this is an accessible guide to all the tricky stuff you’ve always wanted to understand more about.

What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind’s most enduring questions may lie in science’s greatest enigma: black holes.A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can occur when a star approaches the end of its life. Unable to generate enough heat to maintain its outer layers, it shrinks catastrophically down to an infinitely dense point. When this phenomenon was first proposed in 1916, it defied scientific understanding so much that Albert Einstein dismissed it as too ridiculous to be true. But scientists have since proven otherwise. In 1971, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster discovered the first black hole: Cygnus X-1. Later, in the 1990s, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found that not only do black holes exist, supermassive black holes lie at the heart of almost every galaxy, including our own. It would take another three decades to confirm this phenomenon. On 10 April 2019, a team of astronomers made history by producing the first image of a black hole.A Crack in Everything is the story of how black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage. As a journalist, Marcus Chown interviews many of the scientists who made the key discoveries, and, as a former physicist, he translates the most esoteric of science into everyday language. The result is a uniquely engaging page-turner that tells one of the great untold stories in modern science.

What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind’s most enduring questions may lie in science’s greatest enigma: black holes.A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can occur when a star approaches the end of its life. Unable to generate enough heat to maintain its outer layers, it shrinks catastrophically down to an infinitely dense point. When this phenomenon was first proposed in 1916, it defied scientific understanding so much that Albert Einstein dismissed it as too ridiculous to be true. But scientists have since proven otherwise. In 1971, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster discovered the first black hole: Cygnus X-1. Later, in the 1990s, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found that not only do black holes exist, supermassive black holes lie at the heart of almost every galaxy, including our own. It would take another three decades to confirm this phenomenon. On 10 April 2019, a team of astronomers made history by producing the first image of a black hole.A Crack in Everything is the story of how black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage. As a journalist, Marcus Chown interviews many of the scientists who made the key discoveries, and, as a former physicist, he translates the most esoteric of science into everyday language. The result is a uniquely engaging page-turner that tells one of the great untold stories in modern science.