This stunning collection of images & essays surveys the key breakthroughs that have shaped our understanding of the universe ...

Internationally renowned theoretical physicist & bestselling author Lawrence Krauss offers provocative revelatory answers to the biggest philosophical questions: Where did our universe come from? Why does anything exist? & how is it all going to end? ' Why is there something rather than nothing?' is the question atheists & scientists are always asked & until now there has not been a satisfying scientific answer. Today exciting scientific advances provide new insight into this cosmological mystery: not only can something arise from nothing but something will always arise from nothing. A mind-bending trip back to the beginning of the beginning A Universe from Nothing authoritatively presents the most recent evidence that explains how our universe evolved
- & the implications for how it's going to end. It will provoke challenge & delight readers to look at the most basic underpinnings of existence in a whole new way. In the words of Richard Dawkins: this could potentially be the most important scientific book since Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
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Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time was a publishing phenomenon. Translated into thirty languages it has sold over nine million copies worldwide. It continues to captivate & inspire new readers every year. When it was first published in 1988 the ideas discussed in it were at the cutting edge of what was then known about the universe. In the intervening years there have been extraordinary advances in our understanding of the space & time. The technology for observing the micro- & macro-cosmic world has developed in leaps & bounds. During the same period cosmology & the theoretical sciences have entered a new golden age. Professor Stephen Hawking has been at the heart of this new scientific renaissance. Now in The Universe in a Nutshell Stephen Hawking brings us fully up-to-date with the advances in scientific thinking. We are now nearer than we have ever been to a full understanding of the universe. In a fascinating & accessible discussion that ranges from quantum mechanics to time travel black holes to uncertainty theory to the search for science's Holy Grail
- the unified field theory (or in layman's terms the 'theory of absolutely everything') Professor Hawking once more takes us to the cutting edge of modern thinking. Beautifully illustrated throughout with original artwork commissioned for this project The Universe in a Nutshell is guaranteed to be the biggest science book of 2001.
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Built from the debris of exploding stars that floated through space for billions of years home to a zoo of tiny aliens & controlled by a brain with more possible connections than there are atoms in the universe the human body is the most incredible thing in existence. In the sequel to his bestselling Inflight Science Brian Clegg explores mitochondria in-cell powerhouses which are thought to have once been separate creatures; how your eyes are quantum traps consuming photons of light from the night sky that have travelled for millions of years; your many senses which include the ability to detect warps in space & time & why meeting an attractive person can turn you into a gibbering idiot. Read THE UNIVERSE INSIDE YOU & you'll never look at yourself the same way again. ...

Built from the debris of exploding stars that floated through space for billions of years home to a zoo of tiny aliens & controlled by a brain with more possible connections than there are atoms in the universe the human body is the most incredible thing in existence. In the sequel to his bestselling Inflight Science Brian Clegg explores mitochondria in-cell powerhouses which are thought to have once been separate creatures; how your eyes are quantum traps consuming photons of light from the night sky that have travelled for millions of years; your many senses which include the ability to detect warps in space & time & why meeting an attractive person can turn you into a gibbering idiot. Read THE UNIVERSE INSIDE YOU & youll never look at yourself the same way again. ...

A tale of an unexpected friendship an unlikely hero & an improbable journey Alex's story treads the fine line between light & dark laughter & tears. & it might just strike you as one of the funniest most heartbreaking novels you've ever read. Alex Woods knows that he hasn't had the most conventional start in life. He knows that growing up with a clairvoyant single mother won't endear him to the local bullies. He also knows that even the most improbable events can happen
- he's got the scars to prove it. What he doesn't know yet is that when he meets ill-tempered reclusive widower Mr Peterson he'll make an unlikely friend. Someone who tells him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make the best possible choices. So when aged seventeen Alex is stopped at Dover customs with 113 grams of marijuana an urn full of ashes on the passenger seat & an entire nation in uproar he's fairly sure he's done the right thing.. .
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A tale of an unexpected friendship an unlikely hero & an improbable journey Alex's story treads the fine line between light & dark laughter & tears. & it might just strike you as one of the funniest most heartbreaking novels you've ever read. Alex Woods knows that he hasn't had the most conventional start in life. He knows that growing up with a clairvoyant single mother won't endear him to the local bullies. He also knows that even the most improbable events can happen
- he's got the scars to prove it. What he doesn't know yet is that when he meets ill-tempered reclusive widower Mr Peterson he'll make an unlikely friend. Someone who tells him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make the best possible choices. So when aged seventeen Alex is stopped at Dover customs with 113 grams of marijuana an urn full of ashes on the passenger seat & an entire nation in uproar he's fairly sure he's done the right thing.. .
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A tale of an unexpected friendship an unlikely hero & an improbable journey Alexs story treads the fine line between light & dark laughter & tears. & it might just strike you as one of the funniest most heartbreaking novels youve ever read. Alex Woods knows that he hasnt had the most conventional start in life. He knows that growing up with a clairvoyant single mother wont endear him to the local bullies. He also knows that even the most improbable events can happen
- hes got the scars to prove it. What he doesnt know yet is that when he meets ill-tempered reclusive widower Mr Peterson hell make an unlikely friend. Someone who tells him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make the best possible choices. So when aged seventeen Alex is stopped at Dover customs with 113 grams of marijuana an urn full of ashes on the passenger seat & an entire nation in uproar hes fairly sure hes done the right thing.
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A tale of an unexpected friendship an unlikely hero & an improbable journey... This novel might just strike you as one of the funniest most heartbreaking novels you've ever read. This is the story of seventeen-year-old Alex Woods
- born to a clairvoyant mother & a phantom father victim of an improbable childhood accident
- who is stopped at Dover customs in possession of 113 grams of marijuana & the ashes of his best friend Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson. What follows is a highly original & compelling account of Alex's life & the strange series of events that brought him here.

The Universe Versus Alex Woods is part of the Richard & Judy Summer 2013 Book Club. Find out how you can get involved with Britain's biggest & best book club. Visit the brand new Book Club website Â- ...

In The Universe Within" Neil Shubin one of the worlds leading experts reveals to us the extraordinary cosmic & evolutionary adventure of our own bodies. During the past 13.7 billion years (or so) since the Big Bang our universe has evolved stars have formed & died & our planet congealed from the matter in space. For aeons the earth has circled the sun while mountains seas & entire continents have come & gone. Against this epic backdrop humanitys place in the cosmos can look tiny & insignificant. But as Neil Shubin shows in this revelatory new book the one place where universe solar system & planet merge is inside your body. Shubin shows how the origin of the Moon is tied to our internal body clocks; how the vast amounts of water on Earth & inside all living creatures crossed the deepest stretches of space to us; how strange fluctuations in the orbits within our solar system have led to our irregular ice-ages; & how tiny imbalances in the chaos immediately after the Big Bang can explain why matter exists at all. Delving below the earths surface & into the frozen Arctic exploring the smallest atomic structures & the vast reaches of space Neil Shubin uncovers a sublimely beautiful almost magical truth: that in every one of us lies the most profound story of all
- how we & our world came to be. " Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist but a wonderfully lucid & elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher.. .a science writer of the first rank". (Oliver Sacks). Neil Shubin is a palaeontologist in the great tradition of his mentors Ernst Mayr & Stephen Jay Gould. He has discovered fossils around the world that have changed the way we think about many of the key transitions in evolution & has pioneered a new synthesis of expeditionary palaeontology developmental genetics & genomics. He trained at Columbia Harvard & Berkeley & is currently a Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology & Anatomy at the University of Chicago. His previous book is " Your Inner Fish: The Amazing Discovery Of Our 375-Million-Year-Old Ancestor"."
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