Bøger af Marcus Chown

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, its gravity intensifying to the point of collapse. 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. 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.In A Crack in Everything, award-winning writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown - author of the bestselling Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You - reconstructs this extraordinary journey, a triumph of scientific theory and physical observation. Featuring in-depth interviews with key scientists at the forefront of mind-bending research, this is a compelling and brilliant work of popular science, with all of Chown's trademark lightness of touch, wit and enthusiasm.

Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists. Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And penetrating that enigma promises to answer 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 2015. 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.

The spellbinding stories of the scientists whose eureka! breakthroughs in modern physics reveal science's astonishing predictive power.'An excellent popular science book.'DARA O 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 down 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.

"Published in partnership with Touch Press, creators of The elements and Solar system for iPad; Faber and Faber; and Planetary Visions."

Bestselling author Marcus Chown explores some of the most profound and important science about us, our world, and beyond by examining some astonishing facts that reveal the vast complexities of the universe. Perfect for fans of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and A Brief History of Time.

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.

In 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the heat afterglow of the big bang. - How Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein in 1924 predicted the existence of a weird state of matter close to absolute zero in which trillions of atoms behave as a single entity.

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-boggling facts.

Why the force that keeps our feet on the ground holds the key to understanding time and the origin of the universe

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.

The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einstein's general theory of relativity.