Showing results by author "Martin Rees" in All Categories

There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the "Big Bang", determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were "untuned", there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws. 

Ripples in Spacetime is an engaging account of the international effort to complete Einstein's project, capture his elusive ripples, and launch an era of gravitational-wave astronomy that promises to explain, more vividly than ever before, our universe's structure and origin. The quest for gravitational waves involved years of risky research and many personal and professional struggles that threatened to derail one of the world's largest scientific endeavors.

In this captivating, insightful book, acclaimed physicists Alan Lightman and Martin Rees illuminate the life and work of numerous scientists in order to demystify the scientific process and show that scientists are concerned citizens, just like the rest of us. “Remarkable. . . . Illuminating...

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees shows in this bite-sized science classic how the behaviour and origins of the universe can be explained by just six numbers. How did a single genesis event create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble - here on Earth and perhaps on other worlds - into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins?

Cosmology was once a field of bold speculation and baffling unknowns, but new instrumentation and insights are turning it into a precision science. Where does our knowledge end and uncertainty stretch away? Martin Rees has spent more than sixty years at the centre of this transformation, as a...

Science is not just for scientists: if it were, it could never save us from the multiple crises we face. For science can save us, if its innovations mesh carefully into society and its applications are channeled for the common good. As Martin Rees argues in this expert and personal analysis of the scientific endeavor on which we all depend, we need to think globally, we need to think rationally and we need to think long-term, empowered by twenty-first-century technology but guided by values that science alone cannot provide.

This audiobook narrated by Martin Rees and Samuel West offers a provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes—good...

People may say that I couldn't sing. But no one can say that I didn't sing.' Despite lacking pitch, rhythm or tone, Florence Foster Jenkins became one of America's best-known sopranos, celebrated for her unique recordings and her sell-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Born in 1868 to wealthy...

This is the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins—now the basis of a major motion picture starring Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep! She was a woman with a dream. Nobody believed in her talent. But nothing could stop her. . . She had no pitch, no rhythm, and no tone. Still, Florence...

People may say that I couldn't sing. But no one can say that I didn't sing.' Despite lacking pitch, rhythm or tone, Florence Foster Jenkins became one of America's best-known sopranos, celebrated for her unique recordings and her sell-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Born in 1868 to wealthy...