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Authors share the book they re-read every Christmas

A Ladybird Expert Book

Gravity

How does gravity work? Learn from the experts in the ALL-NEW LADYBIRD EXPERT SERIES 
 
Discover the vast and momentus effects of this profound force on the world around us, written by celebrated physicist and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili. 
 
Inside you will learn: 
- What is Gravity? 
- How does it work? 
- And why are there extreme gravitational environments? 
 
Above all, discover how gravity controls the shape of space and the passage of time itself, influencing the history and destiny of the entire Universe. 
 
IT'S SO MUCH MORE THAN 'WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN.' 
 
Gravity is a fascinating and authoritative introduction to a phenomenon as familiar to us as breathing. 
 
Learn about other topics in the Ladybird Experts series including The Big Bang, Quantum Physics, Climate Change and Evolution.

Jim Al-Khalili has done an admirable job of condensing the ideas of quantum physics from Max Planck to the possibilities of quantum computers into brisk, straightforward English

The artwork is gloriously retro, echoing the original Ladybird house style but containing completely up to date information.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE FRS, is a physicist, author and broadcaster based at the University of Surrey. He received his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics in 1989 and has published over a hundred research papers on quantum physics. 
His many popular science books have been translated into twenty-six languages. He is a recipient of the Royal Michael Faraday medal and the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal. 
In 2016 he received the inaugural Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He lives in Southsea, Hampshire, with his wife Julie.

Part of the new Ladybird Expert series, Gravity is an accessible and authoritative introduction to a force as familiar to us as breathing. 
 
Written by celebrated physicist and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili, Gravity proves to be so much more than the adage: 'what goes up must come down'. Stuck to the surface of our planet we experience gravity merely as a force pulling us down to the ground, but we will discover that it is far richer than that. 
 
Inside, you'll learn that gravity is not really a 'force' at all, but something altogether more profound. In fact, gravity controls the very shape of space and the passage of time themselves and, as such, the history and destiny of the entire Universe. 
 
Written by the leading lights and most outstanding communicators in their fields, the Ladybird Expert books provide clear, accessible and authoritative introductions to subjects drawn from science, history and culture. 
 
For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Quantum Mechanics (A Ladybird Expert Book)

What is quantum mechanics? Learn from the experts in the ALL-NEW LADYBIRD EXPERT SERIES 
 
A clear, simple and entertaining introduction to the weird, mind-bending world of the very, very small. 
 
Written by physicist and broadcaster Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Quantum Mechanics explores all the key players, breakthroughs, controversies and unanswered questions of the quantum world. 
 
You'll discover: 
- How the sun shines 
- Why light is both a wave and a particle 
- The certainty of the Uncertainty Principle 
- Schrodinger's Cat 
- Einstein's spooky action 
- How to build a quantum computer 
- Why quantum mechanics drives even its experts completely crazy 
 
'Jim Al-Khalili has done an admirable job of condensing the ideas of quantum physics from Max Planck to the possibilities of quantum computers into brisk, straightforward English' THE TIMES 
 
Learn about other topics in the Ladybird Experts series including The Big Bang, Gravity, Climate Change and Evolution. 
 
Written by the leading lights and most outstanding communicators in their fields, the Ladybird Expert books provide clear, accessible and authoritative introductions to subjects drawn from science, history and culture. 
 
For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Jim Al-Khalili has done an admirable job of condensing the ideas of quantum physics from Max Planck to the possibilities of quantum computers into brisk, straightforward English

Quantum Mechanics is the second book of a new series of titles written for an adult readership and produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. 
 
Written by some of the leading lights and outstanding communicators in their fields, the Ladybird Expert books provide clear, accessible and authoritative introductions, informed by expert opinion, to subjects drawn from science, history and culture.

The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology

Life on the Edge

The startling discovery that the weirdness of quantum mechanics provides the vital spark that ignites life

Hugely ambitious ... the skill of the writing provides the uplift to keep us aloft as we fly through the strange and spectacular terra incognita of genuinely new science.

Physicist Jim Al-Khalili and molecular biologist Johnjoe McFadden explore this extraordinary realm with cogency and wit.

A really original science book about a new field of research ... Groundbreaking.

This thrilling book is an overview of a field that barely exists ... Al-Khalili has a genius for illustrating complex ideas via imaginative sidetracks.

'Life on the Edge’ gives the clearest account I’ve ever read of the possible ways in which the very small events of the quantum world can affect the world of middle-sized living creatures like us. With great vividness and clarity it shows how our world is tinged, even saturated, with the weirdness of the quantum.

Coherence is just one of the complex phenomena that Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden set out to teach the reader. They succeed by using delightfully revealing analogies and similes, some borrowed from their prior work, that make slippery concepts sit still for study.

This illuminating account of an important new field is a wonderfully educative read.

The great virtue of this book is its thesis – it sets out a clear and enthusiastic argument for the importance of quantum biology.

The book elegantly opens up a new way of looking at nature.

The volume is clearly written, showcases cutting-edge research and provides ample basic science background on topics like genetic inheritance, the origin of life and the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics ... Al-Khalili and McFadden's book provides a valuable service by giving us a fascinating look at what is undoubtedly one of the central philosophical mysteries of science - the emergence of complex properties such as life and consciousness from the reductionist world of atoms and molecules.

Fascinating... The breadth of the science and scholarship presented in the book is outstanding. Most readers will be yearning for a sequel in a few years.

Life on the Edge is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that combines solid science, reasonable extrapolation from the known into the unknown, and plausible speculation to give an accessible overview of a revolutionary transformation in our understanding of the living world … The authors have an easily accessible style, free from jargon, that can make complex issues clear even to the non-scientist.

Physicist Al-Khalili is joined by the geneticist McFadden to describe quantum biology: an explosive field that barely exists yet. As this trhilling overview explains, it is the study of the spark of life itself.

Life on the Edge takes us on a tour of ideas spanning quantum physics, biology and biochemistry ... surprising and intriguing ... an important book and one I found hard to put down.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE is an academic, author and broadcaster. He is a leading theoretical physicist based at the University of Surrey, where he teaches and carries out research in quantum mechanics. 
 
 Professor Johnjoe McFadden is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey and is the editor of leading text books on both molecular biology and systems biology of tuberculosis. For over a decade, he has specialised in examining tuberculosis and meningitis.

Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how does it work? Even in this age of cloning and synthetic biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we missing a vital ingredient in its creation? 
 
 Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another. 
 
 Each chapter in Life on the Edge opens with an engaging example that illustrates one of life’s puzzles – How do migrating birds know where to go? How do we really smell the scent of a rose? How do our genes manage to copy themselves with such precision? – and then reveals how quantum mechanics delivers its answer. Guiding the reader through the maze of rapidly unfolding discovery, Al-Khalili and McFadden communicate vividly the excitement of this explosive new field of quantum biology, with its potentially revolutionary applications, and also offer insights into the biggest puzzle of all: what is life?

The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics

Paradox

'This book is about my own personal favourite puzzles and conundrums in science' Jim al-Khalili

The wizardry of Jim Al-Khalili is irresistible. Marvel at the mind-bending Zeno’s paradox! The amazing ambiguity of Schrödinger’s Cat! The preposterous postulations of perpetual motion! The extraterrestrial extrapolations of Fermi’s paradox! and other wonders of physics, philosophy, even poetry. “I have had tremendous fun writing this book,” says Professor Jim. Reading it is the best fun you can have beyond a pop-science comic book and a home particle accelerator

Al-Khalili leads into the harder science, but does so with such deceptive ease that before you know it you’re mulling over the expanding universe, staring down quantum theory and pondering Schrödinger’s Cat – and enjoying it

Al-Khalili is the ideal guide through these seeming mysteries of modern science

[A] field guide to some of the most important and fascinating conundrums in physics

Readers who enjoy mental challenges and scientific mysteries will have fun with Al-Khalili's lighthearted, accessible discussion.

intriguing and refreshing... Paradox is a workout for all but the supplest of minds and an entertaining illustration of the power of science to solve the seemingly unsolvable

Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE is an academic, author and broadcaster. He is a leading theoretical physicist based at the University of Surrey, where he teaches and carries out research in quantum mechanics. He has written a number of popular science books, translated so far into 20 languages, with his most recent being Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science. He has presented several television and radio documentaries, including the BAFTA-nominated Chemistry: A Volatile History and The Secret Life of Chaos. He presents the weekly programme The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4. He was awarded the 2007 Royal Society Michael Faraday medal and the 2011 Institute of Physics Kelvin medal, both for his science communication work.

Jim Al-Khalili is about to untangle the world's greatest science conundrums... 
___________ 
 
How does the fact that it gets dark at night prove the Universe must have started with a big bang? 
 
Where are all the aliens? 
 
Why does the length of a piece of string vary depending on how fast it is moving? 
 
Our subject is 'perceived paradoxes' - questions or thought-experiments that on first encounter seem impossible to answer, but which science has been able to solve. 
 
Our tour of these mind-expanding puzzles will take us through some of the greatest hits of science - from Einstein's theories about space and time, to the latest ideas of how the quantum world works. Some of our paradoxes may be familiar, such as Schrödinger's famous cat, which is seemingly alive and dead at the same time; or the Grandfather Paradox - if you travelled back in time and killed your grandfather you would not have been born and would not therefore have killed your grandfather. Other paradoxes will be new to you, but no less bizarre and fascinating. 
 
In resolving our paradoxes we will have to travel to the furthest reaches of the Universe and explore the very essence of space and time. Hold on tight.

The Golden Age of Arabic Science

Pathfinders

In Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. 
 
 For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. Surveying the golden age of Arabic science, Jim Al-Khalili reintroduces such figures as the Iraqi physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who practised the modern scientific method over half a century before Bacon; al-Khwarizmi, the greatest mathematician of the medieval world; and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian polymath to rival Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 'Jim Al-Khalili has a passion for bringing to a wider audience not just the facts of science but its history ... Just as the legacy of Copernicus and Darwin belongs to all of us, so does that of Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Independent 
 
 'He has brought a great story out of the shadows' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Literary Review 
 
 'His command of Arabic and mathematical physics invests his story with sympathy as well as authority' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Guardian 
 
 'A fascinating and user-friendly guide' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'This captivating book is a timely reminder of the debt owed by the West to the intellectual achievements of Arab, Persian and Muslim scholars' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times 
 
 Jim Al-Khalili OBE is Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey, where he also holds the first Surrey chair in the public engagement in science. He was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for science communication in 2007, elected Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and has also received the Institute of Physic's Public Awareness of Physics Award. Born in Baghdad, Jim was educated in Iraq until the age of 16 and it was there, being taught by Arabic teachers in Arabic that he first heard and learnt about the great Arab scientists and philosophers.

Brings alive the bubbling invention and delighted curiosity of the Islamic world ... his command of Arabic mathematical physics invests his story with sympathy as well as authority

A fascinating and user-friendly guide to this whole scientific movement

Jim Al-Khalili has a passion for bringing to a wider audience not just the facts of science but its history ... Just as the legacy of Copernicus and Darwin belongs to all of us, so does that of Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham. To think otherwise, as this book so powerfully reveals, is to do disservice to the tradition to which they belong

Spry, informative and timely ... Al-Khalili takes the reader through a brisk survey of the highlights of the period

A fascinating introduction to a neglected area. His approachable style and ability to distil extensive knowledge into simple narrative makes Pathfinders an absorbing read

Enjoyable and informative ... provides ample evidence for the compatibility of Islam and science

He has brought a great story out of the shadows

This captivating book is a timely reminder of the debt owed by the West to the intellectual achievements of Arab, Persian and Muslim scholars

For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In Pathfinders, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten, inspiring pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world during the golden age of Arabic science, including Iraqi physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who practised the modern scientific method over half a century before Bacon; al-Khwarizmi, the greatest mathematician of the medieval world; and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian polymath to rival Leonardo da Vinci.

Jim Al-Khalili

The cutting edge 'what-if' thriller from the celebrated scientist and BBC broadcaster

'Excellent, exactly how good science fiction should be: gripping story, beautifully told, while at the same time being scientifically well-informed.' tweeted RICHARD DAWKINS. 
 
'Reminiscent of vintage Arthur C. Clarke . . . has a chilling, nail-biting authenticity' said JAMES LOVEGROVE in the Financial Times. 
 
From renowned theoretical physicist, broadcaster and author Jim Al-Khalili, comes this thrilling debut novel drawing on cutting-edge science and set in a near-future full of dazzling technologies. 
 
2041 and the world as we know it grinds to a halt. Our planet seems to be turning against itself - it would appear that the magnetic field, that protects life on Earth from deadly radiation from space, is failing . . . 
 
Desperate to quell the mass hysteria that would surely follow, world governments have concealed this rapidly emerging Armageddon. But a young Iranian hacktivist stumbles across the truth, and it becomes a race against time to reactivate the earth's core using beams of dark matter. 
 
As a small team of brave and brilliant scientists battle to find a way of transforming theory into practice, they face a fanatical group intent on pursuing their own endgame agenda: for they believe mankind to be a plague upon this earth and will do anything, commit any crime, to ensure that the project fails . . . 
 
And so bring about humanity's end.

Jim Al-Khalili

Sunfall

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