Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is currently cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist. His most recent book is Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You (2007), of which The Times said ‘readers will experience happy eureka moments.’ His previous book, The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead (2007), was called ‘a limousine among popular science vehicles’ by the Guardian, ‘a masterpiece’ by Astronomy Now, and described as ‘like being at a party … with an almost perfect DJ’ in the Independent. Marcus Chown has also written a book for children, Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil (2008).
Visit Marcus Chown's website
Read Marcus Chown's interview with Metro
Read a review from The Independant on The Never Ending Days of Being Dead
BOOKS
The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead: Dispatches from the Front Line of Science
What happens when you die? According to one prominent physicist, you will be instantaneously resurrected - despite trillions upon trillions of years having passed - in the dying days of the Universe. Stretching before you will be a subjective eternity of existence: the never-ending days of being dead ... This is just one of the strange but wonderful scientific ideas, each from the mind of one of the world's most daring and imaginative scientists - in Marcus Chown's superbly readable new book. Learn how the big bang may have been spawned by a collision between 'island universes'; where we came from; will we ever find ET and many more.
Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe
The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einstein's general theory of relativity. Together, they explain virtually everything about the world we live in. But, almost a century after their advent, most people haven't the slightest clue what either is about. Did you know that there's so much empty space inside matter that the entire human race could be squeezed into the volume of a sugar cube? Or that you grow old more quickly on the top floor of a building than on the ground floor? And did you realize that 1% of the static on a TV tuned between stations is the relic of the Big Bang?
Felicity Frobisher and the Three-headed Aldebran Dust Devil
The trouble with Three-Headed Aldebran Dust Devils is they dust things up and if you happen to have one as a friend it's always you that gets the blame on account of them being totally invisible. Travelling through worm-holes, beating the school bullies, using the Pan-galactic Speaking Dictionary to wow her French teacher, and even visiting an International Space Station - it's all possible when you are friends with a Three-Headed Aldebran Dust Devil.
Marcus Chown explores the quantum physics of ageing
Watch more of Marcus Chown's videos here ...