ROGER HIGHFIELD

This sumptuously illustrated celebration of Hawking s life captures perfectly its depth and breadth Marcus Chown A behind the scenes tour of the inner sanctum of one of the world s most prominent scientific thinkers In 2021 the Science Museum made a once in a lifetime acquisition of the contents of Stephen Hawking s office This book delves into that remarkable collection using the seminal papers items and curiosities in his office to explain his theories and reveal more about one of the greatest minds in modern science It s an unprecedented glimpse into the life of the best known scientist of modern times In this unique book Roger Highfield s clear expositions of Stephen Hawking s ideas are supplemented by fascinating illustrations that convey how he lived and worked It s a beautifully presented celebration of Stephen s amazing life how his insights and discoveries were achieved against heavy odds Martin Rees Baron Rees of Ludlow and Astronomer Royal

An irresistible stocking-filler: a hilarious romp through the science of Christmas.This book fizzes with funSunday TelegraphI love itCarol VordemanA perfect present A C Grayling, Financial TimesHow does snow form? Why are we always depressed after Christmas? How does Santa manage to deliver all those presents in one night? (He has, in fact, little over two ten-thousandths of a second to get between each of the 842 million households he must visit.) This book contains information on how drugs might make us see flying reindeer, how pollution is affecting the shape of Christmas trees and the intriguing correlation between the length of our Christmas card list and brain size.

¿Por qué la confianza es rentable? ¿Cómo se genera? ¿Pueden lograrse beneficios gracias al castigo? ¿Es éste de verdad útil, o resulta del todo estúpido? Lo cierto es que quienes obtienen mayores ben

D’où vient la vie? Comment une seule cellule fertilisée peut-elle produire quelque quarante mille milliards de cellules ? Comment ces cellules "savent-elles" fabriquer un humain ?Le développement e

In our century, the subject of time has become an area of serious inquiry for science. Theories that contain time as a simple quantity form the basis of our understanding of many scientific disciplines, yet the debate rages on: why does there seem to be a direction to time, an arrow of time pointing from past to future?In this authoritative and accessible Sunday Times bestseller, physical chemist Dr Peter Coveney and award-winning science journalist Dr Roger Highfield demonstrate that the common sense view of time agrees with the most advanced scientific theory. Time does in fact move like an arrow, shooting forward into what is genuinely unknown, leaving the past immutably behind. The authors make their case by exploring three centuries of science, offering bold reinterpretations of Newtons mechanics, Einsteins special and general theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and advancing the insights of chaos theory. In their voyage through science the authors link apparently irreconcilable subjects, from Einsteins obsession with causality to chaos theory, from Marvells winged chariot to that Monday morning feeling.Finally, drawing together the various interpretations of time, they describe a novel way to give it a sense of direction. And they call for a new fundamental theory to take account of the Arrow of Time.Foreword by Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate.

Quite simply the best book about science and life that I have ever read - Alice RobertsHow does life begin? What drives a newly fertilized egg to keep dividing and growing until it becomes 40 trillion cells, a greater number than stars in the galaxy? How do these cells know how to make a human, from lips to heart to toes? How does your body build itself?Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz was pregnant at 42 when a routine genetic test came back with that dreaded word: abnormal. A quarter of sampled cells contained abnormalities and she was warned her baby had an increased risk of being miscarried or born with birth defects. Six months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy and her research on mice embryos went on to prove that as she had suspected the embryo has an amazing and previously unknown ability to correct abnormal cells at an early stage of its development. The Dance of Life will take you inside the incredible world of life just as it begins and reveal the wonder of the earliest and most profound moments in how we become human. Through Magdas trailblazing research as a professor at Cambridge where she has doubled the survival time of human embryos in the laboratory, and made the first artificial embryo-like structures from stem cells youll discover how early life is programmed to repair and organise itself, what this means for the future of pregnancy, and how we might one day solve IVF disorders, prevent miscarriages and learn more about the dance of life as it starts to take shape.The Dance of Life is a moving celebration of the balletic beauty of lifes beginnings.

EVOLUTION IS OFTEN PRESENTED AS A STRICTLY COMPETITIVE ENDEAVOR. This point of view has had serious implications for the way we see the mechanics of both science and culture. But scientists have long wondered how societies could have evolved without some measure of cooperation. And if there was cooperation involved, how could it have arisen from nature red in tooth and claw? Martin Nowak, one of the worlds experts on evolution and game theory, working here with bestselling science writer Roger Highfield, turns an important aspect of evolutionary theory on its head to explain why cooperation, not competition, has always been the key to the evolution of complexity. He offers a new explanation for the origin of life and a new theory for the origins of language, biologys second greatest information revolution after the emergence of genes. SuperCooperators also brings to light his game-changing work on disease. Cancer is fundamentally a failure of the bodys cells to cooperate, Nowak has discovered, but organs are cleverly designed to foster cooperation, and he explains how this new understanding can be used in novel cancer treatments. Nowak and Highfield examine the phenomena of reciprocity, reputation, and reward, explaining how selfless behavior arises naturally from competition; how forgiveness, generosity, and kindness have a mathematical rationale; how companies can be better designed to promote cooperation; and how there is remarkable overlap between the recipe for cooperation that arises from quantitative analysis and the codes of conduct seen in major religions, such as the Golden Rule. In his first book written for a wide audience, this hugely influential scientist explains his cutting-edge research into the mysteries of cooperation, from the rise of multicellular life to Good Samaritans. With wit and clarity, Nowak and Highfield make the case that cooperation, not competition, is the defining human trait. SuperCooperators will expand our understanding of evolution and provoke debate for years to come.