Most Popular Books by John Gribbin

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the first scientist in the modern use of the term. Instead of relying on the works of Aristotle, he actually carried out experiments to test theories – legend has it that one of his experiments involved throwing weights off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. His astronomical observations with the telescope shattered the idea that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe, and led to his trial for heresy. He had a great lust for life, three children by a woman he never married, a biting, sarcastic with and the friendship of princes and (in spite of his run in with Pope Urban VIII) cardinals. An introduction, afterword and clear chronological table place Galileo’s work in the context of the development of scientific knowledge.

In 1972, when James Lovelock first proposed the Gaia hypothesis--the idea that the Earth is a living organism that maintains conditions suitable for life--he was ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Today Lovelock''s revolutionary insight, though still extremely controversial, is recognized as one of the most creative, provocative, and captivating scientific ideas of our time. James Lovelock tells for the first time the whole story of this maverick scientist''s life and how it served as a unique preparation for the idea of Gaia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Lovelock himself and unprecedented access to his private papers, John and Mary Gribbin paint an intimate and fascinating portrait of a restless, uniquely gifted freethinker. In a lifetime spanning almost a century, Lovelock has followed a career path that led him from chemistry, to medicine, to engineering, to space science. He worked for the British secret service and contributed to the success of the D-Day landings in World War II. He was a medical experimenter and an accomplished inventor. And he was working with NASA on methods for finding possible life on Mars when he struck upon the idea of Gaia, conceiving of the Earth as a vast, living, self-regulating system. Deftly framed within the context of today''s mounting global-warming crisis, James Lovelock traces the intertwining trajectories of Lovelock''s life and the famous idea it brought forth, which continues to provoke passionate debate about the nature and future of life on our planet.

Renowned science writers John and Mary Gribbin team up with one of the most historic scientific sites in the world--the Royal Observatory, Greenwich--to take readers on a stunning visual tour of the universe. This riveting journey moves from our home planet outwards to the Moon, Sun, Inner and Outer Solar Systems, Milky Way, and other galaxies. Not only do the Gribbins discuss the always-intriguing topic of alien life, but they divulge little-known facts (Venus is the only planet in our solar system to rotate backwards), as well as all the basics beginning armchair astronomers need to know. Dramatic four-color photographs complement the informative text, giving readers a sense of what it might be like to be an astronaut...and go where no one has gone before.

During the late 1920s Edwin Hubble postulate d that the universe is expanding. Gathered together in this study are photographs that concur with the theory, whilst th e authors explain for the layman the awesome implications of the Big Bang and our origin ''

The day of ice and fire, that brings in its wake devastation to the world. Dr Robert Graham, noted nuclear physicist, has campaigned hard and long for disarmament. Now his patience is at an end. With an ill-assorted handful of desperate, like-minded ''terrorists'', he plans to hold the human race to ransom. His bargaining power is terrifying - nothing short of Ragnarok itself. The world governments must listen - or the countdown to nuclear winter has already begun . . .

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that “Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Count Rumford are the greatest minds that America has produced,” and indeed, Rumford was a peer of theirs, and arguably contributed more to the scientific canon, and yet is nowhere near as well known. Born in the British Americas as Benjamin Thompson, he died a count and a knight, and lived a fascinating, eventful life in between, founding the Royal Institution in London, inventing a better chimney (still in widespread use) for open fires, finding time along the way to invent the coffee percolator and the enclosed oven, and most importantly pioneering our modern understanding of heat. White Knight, Red Heat tells the story of this notable figure in book form for the first time in over twenty years. Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford, was an American-born British physicist, government administrator, and a founder of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. His investigations of heat overturned the theory that heat is a liquid form of matter and established the beginnings of the modern theory that heat is a form of motion. Loyal to the British crown, he served as a spy after the outbreak of the American Revolution, but in 1776 he was forced to flee to London, leaving his wife and daughter behind. Knighted by King George III in 1784, Thompson introduced numerous social reforms and brought James Watt’s steam engine into common use... He was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1791. Interest in gunpowder and weaponry stimulated his physical investigations, and in 1798 he began his studies of heat and friction, making one of the earliest measurements of the equivalence of heat and mechanical energy.

The definitive scientific icon of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein is remember for one equation, E=mc2, and the image of a white-haired, pipe-smoking professor who didn’t wear socks. But the equation comes from a time when all of his great work was done. The real Albert Einstein – the high school drop-out who won the Nobel Prize along with the hearts of so many young women – was young, handsome, dark haired and a natty dresser. And his greatest piece of work was so poorly understood at the time that the Nobel Committee, who couldn’t understand it, but in a panic felt they ought to give him a prize for something, honoured him for something else. An introduction, afterword and clear chronological table place Einstein’s work in the context of the development of scientific knowledge.

2005 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein''s three papers which were the basis for the Theory of Relativity, and that are referred to in the science community as the "Annus Mirabilis."

Gribbin presents the recent dramatic improvements in experimental techniques that have enabled physicists to formulate and test new theories about the nature of light. He describes these theories not in terms of hard-to-imagine entities like spinning subnuclear particles, but in terms of the fate of two small cats separated at a tender age and carried to opposite sides of the universe.

"This books takes us into the heart of the quantum revolution. He tells the story of Schrödinger''s surprisingly colorful life (he arrived for a position at Oxford University with both his wife and mistress). And with his trade mark accessible style and popular touch explains the fascinating world of quantum mechanics, which underpins all of modern science"--