Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12299 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

The Times
'Singh has that rare gift of being able to make the complex simple'

Daily Telegraph
'Great clarity and a narrative peppered with anecdotes and personal histories'

The Mail on Sunday
`An excellent introduction to what is arguably science's most important idea...popular science writing at its best.'

Customer Reviews

The best Science book ever!
This is by far the best book on science I have ever read.

Singh weaves a character led history of the most important aspects of modern science and the many different characters that went into telling this beautiful story.

My particular favorite is the way Singh decribes the characters personality - such as the humour of the scientist George Gamow. He, along with two other scientists Ralph Alpher and Hans Bethe produced an article so, you may have guessed it, it could have the authors titled as Alpher, Bethe and Gamow!

It is the way that Singh brings the human side to it - so refreshing especially in the light of scientists being criticized for being too 'materialistic' by certain vested interests recently!

Big Bang
I LOVE this book! Never have I started a review like this, but boy do I love this book. I read a LOT of books and this one had me gripped from the first page and kept me engrossed and stimulated the whole way through. Singh manages to explain complex ideas and theories in such a way that they are rendered clear and coherent and allow you to understand the difficult themes surrounding cosmology and the big bang theory. This book starts by looking at Copernicus, Galileo, Newton etc and showing how their ideas lead to modern cosmology research and development, it explores the development of telescopes and other measuring apparatus (more interesting than it sounds!) and how discoveries were made about galaxies millions of km's away from earth. It looks at opposing theories and the controversies surrounding them and how each theory gained ground and was either disproved or confirmed. This book is littered with anecdotes and humorous asides that add to the enjoyment of reading, as well as increasing your understanding. You also get a real feel for the excitement of discovery and of the various protagonists of the various theories and debates. At the end of each chapter you get a wonderfully illustrated and condensed summary that allows you to solidify the knowledge gained before going on to the next chapter, as well as allowing you to go back to this book and refreshing your memory. It has loads of clear tables and illustrations to explain particular points and various photos to compliment the text. Rarely have I enjoyed a book as much as this in the past few years and i've loved the sense of wonder and trains of thought it has lead me on. I could gush about this book for ages (as you may be able to tell!) but needless to say it comes HIGHLY recommended indeed.

Great pop Science book.
Simon Singh details the Scientific journey which produced the discovery and acceptance of the Big Bang.
The book is a chronological story. Singh begins with the foundations. He gives a clear overview of the early Aristotelian view of celestial bodies, followed by Copernicus' and Gallieo's Sun centered view and then Einstein's relativity. After this Le Maitre comes along, who showed the universe was expanding. This really is a critical stage as once its understood the universe is expanding, its more intuitive it had small beginnings. One senses the imminent Eureka!

But there's more! Hubble's discovery of other galaxys, the increased atomic understanding and the manifestation of reliable nuclear fusion theories. Singh ties them all together and explains how the Gaman, Alpher
and Herman came upon their Big Bang Hypotheisis.

However, things are never simple in such a ground breaking Scientific discovery. The theory wasn't complete and competiting with it was the Steady State Model. The cosmological community was divided.

Piece by the piece, step by step the Big Bang clawed it's way ahead of the Steady State model and eventually became widely accepted.
Some key moments:

1. The age of the universe was recalibrated - Baade and Sandage
2. Hoyle explained how heavier elements were formed upon the death of stars.
3. Radio Astromoney showed far galaxies and an uneven nature to the universe.
4. Penzias and Wilson discovered the CMB radiation predicted by Gaman, Alpher and Herman.
5. In 1992, the Cobe Satellite indicated variations in CMB radiation which indicated variations in densitiy in the early universe which would have created the early galaxies in the Big Bang Model.

The writing style is clear, concise and passionate. Got an interest in pop Science books? Put this on your shelf.