Showing results by narrator "Marcus Chown" in All Categories

Author of tens of popular science books loved by adults and children alike, Chown has been explaining gravity, the universe and quantum theory to the masses for years. Following his science education at prestigious universities, Chown has made it his aim for people to be as engaged and fascinated by science as he is, whether through reading books, watching television shows or even listening to radio comedy. Marcus Chown talks to us about his latest book, why quantum theory is stranger than science fiction and the only book for which he’s ever left an Amazon review. 

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 we are all, in fact, living in a giant hologram? Or perhaps, most importantly of all, out there in the universe there are an infinite number of copies of you reading an infinite number of copies of this? 

The journey from prediction to proof transports us from seats of learning in Paris and Cambridge to the war-torn Russian front, to bunkers beneath nuclear reactors, observatories in Berlin and California and huge tunnels under the Swiss-French border. From electromagnetism to Einstein's gravitational waves to the elusive neutrino, Marcus Chown takes us on a breathtaking, mind-altering tour of the major breakthroughs of modern physics and highlights science's central mystery: its astonishing predictive power.