Computing without Computers by Dr Paul Curzon

'It is a good idea to read as much as possible before starting any course. However text books can be daunting (and a bit boring). The booklets and articles contained in this book have been written to be suitable for complete newcomers. I wrote most of them partly for my own amusement - I hope you will find them fun too. You will definitely learn a lot of computer science.' Dr Paul Curzon

This book aims to be a gentle introduction to the main concepts of computer programming and the related subject of data structures and algorithms.

Rather than focussing on particular programming languages that can appear alien and incomprehensible to beginners, it concentrates on the underlying concepts common to a whole range of programming languages. Whatever language you might be learning it should be of use if you are struggling to understand. It is intended primarily for people with little background in the subject and for those for whom programming appears a little scary.

The approach taken is that of understanding by analogy. The idea behind this approach was very clearly captured by Hideki Yukawa: the first Japanese winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, here quoted from (Wilson 1999). “Suppose there is something which a person cannot understand. He happens to notice the similarity of this something to some other thing which he understands quite well. By comparing them he may come to understand the thing which he could not understand up to that moment.” He is discussing how scientists come to understand new areas at the frontiers of science. However, the words are just as applicable to those of us following behind and trying to understand things previously discovered by others. Computer Science text books full of programming fragments can be hard to read. The details of particular languages can obscure the things that are common.

It is the general concepts that matter most if a deep understanding of programming is to be obtained. Here I avoid discussing computer examples directly and instead explain the terminology and concepts using a variety of non-computing examples that should be familiar and understandable to all. By understanding how the concepts apply to everyday examples, I hope it will then be easier to follow the more technical details of a formal text book. Of course analogy has to be treated with care. If pushed too far, the analogy breaks down and we can be left drawing wrong conclusions. By looking at each topic from a variety of different examples and looking at their commonality, I hope that this problem can be at least reduced.

People do not learn just by being told things or reading about them. The fact that I have read a booklet telling me how to juggle does not mean I can then pick up juggling balls and immediately juggle them without dropping them. I can only learn properly by lots of practice. We learn best by actually doing. This book also therefore contains lots of puzzles.

If your aim in reading this book is to learn about programming you will help yourself achieve this if you actually try the puzzles rather than just reading them. If your aim is to learn how to program you will then need to actually go away and write programs. It is my hope that in reading this book before (or at the same time as) learning about programming more conventionally you will understand more deeply than otherwise.

Download the book for free here...

Find out more about Dr Curzon here...

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction. The subject of this strange and wonderful book is what happens when things go wrong with parts of the brain most of us don’t know exist . . . Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be.’

Sunday Times

‘Who is this book for? Who is it not for? It is for everybody who has felt from time to time that certain twinge of self-identity and sensed how easily, at any moment, one might lose it.’

The Times

One book almost everyone interested in psychology will enjoy is Oliver Sack's The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. Sacks, a neurologist by training, describes some of the fascinating patients he has treated over the years.

From the eponymous Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, through The Man Who Fell out of Bed, The Lost Mariner and The Dog Beneath the Skin, each chapter tells the story of ordinary human experience touched by unusual brain diseases.

Mercifully the narrative is devoid of medical terminology as what Sacks is most interested in is the patient's perspective on the world. As a result the reader gains personal, subjective insight into the inability to recognise objects (visual agnosia), the experience of a dense amnesia stretching back decades (Korsakov's), what it feels like to be completely disembodied and many other conditions.


Sacks captures the effects of damage to the brain not by reducing it to diagnoses and categories, but by expanding it to include all the vagaries of the individual. This book is not so much a series of case notes as a collection of parables about the brain.

Each one shows us what certain deficits or excesses can do to our experience - how it can be reduced in one dimension and rapidly expanded in another. Each, ever so gently suggesting that what we take for granted as reality is really just one more dream our brains have manufactured.

Above all, people's stories - for they are stories about real people - are all told with warmth; a kind, philosophical eye, searching not for what has been lost, but for what has been added. A scientist's attention to detail without the stereotypical austerity.

Sacks is most concerned with finding out what his patients can do, what they enjoy, what it is possible for them to get out of life. He realises their personhood is vital to understanding their condition. Sacks is engaged in what he refers to as the 'neurology of identity'.

It's this centrality of human experience and identity that makes this book such a rewarding and frequently touching read. Jeremy Dean, PsyBlog

About the Author

Oliver Sacks is well known as a physician, a neurologist and the author of nine other books. He wrote the book of Awakenings which inspired the Oscar-nominated film.

His most recent writing is Musicophilia:Tales of Music and the Brain which explores the power of music and its influences to the brain based on his patient experiences. Currently, he is living in New York City as a professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University.

Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there by Professor Richard Wiseman

'Experiments that investigate the paranormal are bizarre and entertaining, and Wiseman is a witty guide in what is often a mind-boggling read. Ultimately you'll discover why your brain is far more extraordinary than any of the supernatural claims in this book.'

New Scientist

'People are emotionally drawn to the supernatural. They actively want weird, spooky things to be true . . . Wiseman shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away the psychic fog and lets in the clear light of reason.'

Richard Dawkins

Professor Richard Wiseman is clear about one thing: paranormal phenomena don't exist. But in the same way that the science of space travel transforms our everyday lives, so research into telepathy, fortune-telling and out-of-body experiences produces remarkable insights into our brains, behaviour and beliefs.

Paranormality embarks on a wild ghost chase into this new science of the supernatural and is packed with activities that allow you to experience the impossible. So throw away your crystals, ditch your lucky charms and cancel your subscription to Reincarnation Weekly. It is time to discover the real secrets of the paranormal.

Learn how to control your dreams -- and leave your body behind!

Convince complete strangers that you know all about them!

Unleash the power of your unconscious mind!

About the Author

"Richard Wiseman is arguably the most interesting experimental psychologist working today"
Michael Shermer, Scientific American.

Prof Richard Wiseman is based at the University of Hertfordshire, where he holds Britain's only Chair in the Public Understanding of Psychology. He has gained an international reputation for research into unusual areas of psychology, including luck, deception, and the science of self-help.

There of his books, The Luck Factor, Quirkology and 59 Seconds, have all topped the best-seller lists and have been translated into over thirty languages. He has presented keynote addresses at The Royal Society, Microsoft, Caltech, and Google. Over 2 million people have taken part in his mass participation experiments, and his YouTube channel has received over 11 million views.

He is one of the most frequently quoted psychologists in the British media, and was recently listed in the Independent on Sunday's top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live.

Here's an interview with Professor Wiseman from BBC Breakfast News in March 2011

Want to learn more? Here's a link to Professor Wiseman's website...


Here's a link to the book's website...

Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater

'Makes for fascinating reading, helped along by Slater's charm and resourcefulness' Sunday Telegraph

'The experiments Slater describes are fascinating in their own right, but made more so by the rich social and personal context in which Slater places them' Daily Mail

'An unusual and compelling personal journey combining the emotional and the scientific ... a warm narrative flow achieved through a mixture of research, intuition, anecdote, reconstruction and engagingly haphazard interviews'

Time Out

A century can be understood in many ways - in terms of its inventions, its crimes or its art. In Opening Skinner's Box, Lauren Slater sets out to investigate the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. Starting with the founder of modern scientific experimentation, B.F. Skinner, Slater traces the evolution of the last hundred years' most pressing concerns - free will, authoritarianism, violence, conformity and morality.

Previously buried in academic textbooks, these often daring experiments are now seen in their full context and told as stories, rich in plot, wit and character.

About the Author

Lauren Slater is the author of Welcome to My Country, Prozac Diary and Love Works Like This, and has written articles and contributed pieces to the New York Times, Harper's, Elle and Nerve.

Her essays are widely anthologized and she is a frequent guest on US radio shows, including 'The People's Pharmacy' on NPR.

Read The Guardian review here - ...Box pop - Opening Skinner's Box is an intriguing attempt by Lauren Slater to 'bring to life' 10 psychological experiments...

The book proved highly controversial in America - read the NY Times review of the controversy here - Unpacking Skinner's Box

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

'Dawkins's first book, was a smash hit... Best of all, he laid out this biology - some of it truly subtle - in stunningly lucid prose. It is, in my view, the best work of popular science ever written.'

H. Allen Orr, New York Review of Books

'A genuine cultural landmark of our time.'

 The Independent

US TV talk-show host Jay Leno, interviewing a passer-by:
Leno: How do you think Mount Rushmore was formed?
Passerby: Erosion?
Leno: Well, how do you think the rain knew to not only pick four presidents — but four of our greatest presidents? How did the rain know to put the beard on Lincoln and not on Jefferson?
Passerby: Oh, just luck, I guess.

Richard Dawkins is the doyen of the new evolutionary biologists, and puts his message across with masterly ease. The topic of evolution is not just one that causes controversies on the news, it is fundamentally important to us all, and when Dawkins wrote this book back in 1976, he was to have a huge impact on the general public. Dawkins writes very smoothly - this is not only a classic of popular science, it is one of the most beautiful examples.

Evolution, and its impact on genetics is indeed crucial to us all, but it has also been fundamentally important to biologists and zoologists. Before evolution they were very much second class scientists, more concerned with collating information and categorizing species than applying any scientific theory to explain what was observed. Because of this, biologists were said to suffer from "physics envy", because they felt inferior to the hard sciences. Evolution was to change all that - which is great, but the only irritating side effect that comes through a little in this book (and more so in the works of some other writers like Daniel Dennett) is the idea that evolution is not only a very important theory, but actually is MORE important than everything else. Dawkins opens the book by saying "If superior creatures from space ever visit earth [sic], the first question they will ask, in order to assess the level of our civilization, is 'Have they discovered evolution yet?'" This is just plain silly. But don't let it put you off the rest of the book, because it is superb.

The only part of the book that is open to significant question is the chapter or memes - Dawkins' idea of a conceptual equivalent of genes that allow anything from ideas to advertising jingles spread through society. It was a nice thought, but has been too often taken as scientific fact in popular science writing, where it is anything but a proven concept. But that's a minor part of the book.

Anyone who has any doubts that "evolution is just a theory" needs to read this. And I stress to read it. All too often, people have just come across the title, or heard it being talked about and assumed that Dawkins is literally suggesting that genes have conscious will, and act in order to make things better for themselves. In fact, Dawkins is master of metaphor, and that's all it was ever intended to be. As he points out, there is no suggestion that we are puppets to our genes, and have to act in a manner that furthers the benefit of our genes. Many of us choose to act differently. But there is equally no doubt of the power of genetic evolutionary pressure. Also, a lot of the problem is that most people have a very poor grasp of probability and statistics, and find it difficult to see evolution, and its impact on genetic action in these terms. Some will always struggle against the concepts here, but everyone should have this book on their reading list.

The Selfish Gene is now in a third edition, also known as the 30th anniversary edition, which has extra prefaces in the front, but unless you are particularly interested in the development of the attitude to evolution and genetics, our advice is to skip these and get onto the main text.

Yes, genes can be selfish - To mark the 30th anniversary of Richard Dawkins’s book, OUP is to issue a collection of essays about his work. Here, professor of psychology at Harvard University, wonders if Dawkins’s big idea has not gone far enough…click here to read what Prof. Steven Pinker has to say on the matter and the man.

Want to find out more? Of course you do. Click here to visit the Richard Dawkins Foundation site.

And you can click here to listen to the man himself discussing the book on the BBC World Service on the 30th anniversary of its first edition.

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet by Oliver Morton

'A fascinating and important book.'

 Ian McEwan

'Everything you could possibly want from a popular science book. There is wonder here, and intellectual excitement; clear explanation and lyrical writing; and much new insight into how the world works, linking the very small and very large.'

 Jon Turney, Independent

'When you are done with this book you will see the world differently and understand it better. Going directly to the most important question of our time - the origin of the carbon/climate crisis - and delving deeply into it, ‘Eating the Sun’ transcends science writing as we usually think of it.'

 Kim Stanley Robinson

'Eating the Sun' is the story of the discovery of a miracle: the source of life itself.

From the intricacies of its molecular processes to the beauty of the nature that it supports, 'Eating the Sun' is a wondering tribute to the extraordinary process that has allowed plants to power the earth for billions of years.

Photosynthesis is the most mundane of miracles. It surrounds us in our gardens and parks and countryside; even our cityscapes are shot through with trees. It makes nature green -- the signature of the pigments with which plants harvest the sun; wherever nature offers us greenery, the molecular machinery of photosynthesis is making oxygen, energy and organic matter from the raw material of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

We rarely give the green machinery that brings about this transformation much thought, and few of us understand its beautifully honed mechanisms. But we are dimly aware that those photosynthetic mechanisms are the basis of our lives twice over: the ultimate source of all our food and the ultimate source of every breath we take.

'Eating the Sun' will foster and enrich that awareness. And by connecting aspects of photosynthesis that are vital to our lives, to the crucial role its molecular mechanisms have played through more than two billion years of the earth's history, 'Eating the Sun' will change the way the reader sees the world.

Click here to go to Oliver Morton's blog and get some free samples from the book. You can follow him on Twitter if that's you kind of thing @Eaterofsun.

Don't trust us? Quite right too...Read the Guardian review here... and the review from The Times here...

In Defense of Self: How the Immune System Really Works by William Clark

Our immune system is the only thing standing between us and a sea of microbial predators that could send us to an early and ugly death.

Equipped with genetic, chemical and cellular weapons, it evicts unwelcome microrganisms that find the human body a delightful place to live, carefully admitting only the few microbes that our bodies need to help us digest food and process vitamins.

When the system works successfully, the vast majority of disease-causing microbes - bacteria, viruses, molds and a few parasites - are kept at bay. But the immune system isn't perfect. The same system that could save us in the event of a bioterrorist attack, prevents us from accepting potentially life-saving organ transplants. It overreacts at times, turning too much force against foreign invaders, causing serious - occasionally lethal - collateral damage to our tissues and organs.

Worse yet, our immune systems may decide we ourselves are foreign and begin snipping away at otherwise healthy tissues, resulting in autoimmune disease. And the system itself is the target of one of the most deadly viruses humans have ever known: HIV, the agent of AIDS.

In In Defense of Self, William Clark invites you on a whirlwind tour of your immune system. Along the way, he introduces some of most important medical advances and challenges of the past hundred years, from the development of vaccines and the treatment of allergies, autoimmunity and cancer, to prolonging organ transplants and combating AIDS.

William Clark not only explains how a vital part of our bodies works to "serve and protect," he also provides background for the exciting research themes of today that will produce the medical breakthroughs of tomorrow.

As recommended by the Alleyn's School Biology Department!

Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life by Georgina Ferry

Dorothy Hodgkin was a remarkable woman, a researcher who reached the top of her field at a time when women were rarities in science: she remains the only British woman to have won a science Nobel prize.

She revealed the hidden structure of important biological molecules such as penicillin and insulin, while having a full life as a mother and grandmother and campaigning passionately for peace and East-West understanding. This book, which was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award, tells her story with a narrative energy that brings her vividly to life.

'This life of Hodgkin is in the top rank of scientific biographies, hooking the reader from the first page and keeping you absorbed to the end.' John Gribbin, Sunday Times

'Ferry has brilliantly captured the flavour of a century of science' New Scientist

'Georgina Ferry gives us a genuinely illuminating account of Hodgkin s life, neatly balancing the personal with the scientific... This agreeable and well-written biography... deserves great success.' Janet Browne, Times Literary Supplement

"The lives of scientists, considered as lives, 

almost always make dull reading".

Georgina Ferry has taken it upon herself to defy the late Peter Medawar's words with this delightful life of Dorothy Hodgkin. Dorothy who?

Precisely Ferry's point. This book represents a first for both women. Surprisingly this is the first biography of Hodgkin, who devoted her life to solving the structure of large complex molecules such as insulin, penicillin and vitamin B12 and for which she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964. It is also the first book by Ferry, a burgeoning talent in the field of science journalism. That both women emerge with their reputations considerably enhanced goes some way to compensating for previous neglect.

Ferry manages the near-miraculous in explaining the theory behind X-ray crystallography in clear and accessible terms that do not demand the powers of concentration that were perhaps Hodgkin's own greatest asset. Her personal life was characterised by distance; her childhood was spent mostly separated from her parents, she lived mainly apart from her husband Thomas although the marriage lasted until his death in 1982, and the intellectual commitment she gave to her work inevitably affected the time she had for her children. However, she maintained a lifelong friendship with her mentor J.D. "Sage" Bernal--legendary for his Marxism, voracious mind and even more voracious appetite for women--and until her death in 1994 she believed passionately in resolving international disputes through dialogue which led her to become president of the anti-nuclear group Pugwash and even to lobby a former student of hers--a certain Margaret Thatcher.

Ferry treats her revelations regarding Hodgkin's relationships with an understated tact of which Hodgkin herself would have been proud. It is this skilful sensitivity that not only enables her to coax the quietly inspirational scientist out from the laboratory but also to challenge the notion that science and scientists cannot be extraordinary. David Vincent

About the Author

Georgina Ferry is a science writer and broadcaster. Formerly a staff editor on New Scientist, she has written four books that explore the lives and historical contexts of 20th century scientists.

To find out more about Georgina Ferry and her other books click here to visit her website...

Here's Georgina explaining X-ray crystallography for the Wellcome Institute

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks

'If you did not think that gallium and iridium could move you, this superb book will change your mind’ The Times

'Uncle Tungsten is really about the raw joy of scientific understanding . . . Sacks perfectly captures the sheer thrill of finding intelligible patterns in nature’ The Guardian

‘His boyhood passion was for chemistry: and this is a marvellous memoir of his early “love affair” with it . . . It is rare to read so rich and honest a description of an intellectual coming of age’ Daily Telegraph

In Uncle Tungsten Sacks evokes, with warmth and wit, his upbringing in wartime England. He tells of the large science-steeped family who fostered his early fascination with chemistry. There follow his years at boarding school where, though unhappy, he developed the intellectual curiosity that would shape his later life. And we hear of his return to London, an emotionally bereft ten-year-old who found solace in his passion for learning. Uncle Tungsten radiates all the delight and wonder of a boy’s adventures, and is an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary young mind.

About the Author


Oliver Sacks, M.D. is a physician, a best-selling author, and professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center. In 2007, he was named the first Columbia University Artist, in recognition of his contributions to the arts.

He is best known for his collections of neurological case histories, including The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (1985), Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007) and The Mind’s Eye (2010). Awakenings (1973), his book about a group of patients who had survived the great encephalitis lethargica epidemic of the early twentieth century, inspired the 1990 Academy Award-nominated feature film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. The New York Times has referred to him as “the poet laureate of medicine.”

Dr. Sacks is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

To find out more about other books by Oliver Sacks click on his website here...

Charlie Rose: January 28, 2002 - If you fast-forward to the 43 minute mark you’ll see Charlie Rose interview Dr. Sacks about his memoir "Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood", which explores his large family of doctors and scientists.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

'If one book was all that could be passed on to the next generation of scientists it would undoubtedly have to be Six Easy Pieces' 

New Scientist

'If you're a Physics geek you can't beat Six Easy Pieces.'
Miss Ottey 

An outstanding communicator, Richard P. Feynman inspired a generation of students with his energetic, unorthodox style of teaching. Drawn from his celebrated and landmark text Lectures on Physics, Six Easy Pieces reveals Feynman's distinctive style while introducing the essentials of physics to the general reader. The topics explored include atoms, the fundamentals of physics and its relation to other sciences, the theory of gravitation and quantum behaviour.

Six Easy Pieces is a compilation of six of Dr. Feynman’s lectures all dealing with the easier aspects of physics.  These lectures come from the famous Lectures on Physics that contains all of the lectures that Dr. Feynman used to teach his students at Caltech University.  Feynman was different from most physics teachers of his time, he was a revolutionary; he taught an approach that was less mathematical and more theoretical, but many feel he makes it easier to learn the concepts.  His diagrams, famous throughout the science world, detail his every word and give visual assistance to the struggling student. 

As the book progresses from chapter to chapter, Feynman takes the reader deeper into the heart of physics, while still relating each concept to something that the general public will understand.  His use of analogies and thorough explanation makes the material easier to comprehend.  Still, the book is by no means easy reading; only through careful analysis and attentiveness was I able to grasp the messages that Feynman was attempting to convey.  In the sixth chapter, “Quantum Behavior,” Feynman gives the reader a taste of his passion, as he expounds on the field with which he devoted much of his career to. 

Obviously, Feynman wanted to use this novel to educate the minds of people who have some interest in the field of science.  He wanted to give the reader a taste of what physics has to offer; he does not intend to teach the reader everything about physics, even he says that there is too much material to teach it all to a student in even four years of college.  Still, there is more than enough information for the reader to gain a general idea of what can be learned through physics,

About the Author

Richard P. Feynman was one of this century's most brilliant and original thinkers.

He taught at Cornell and the California Institute of Technology and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was born in 1918 in Brooklyn; in 1942 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton.

Already displaying his brilliance, Feynman played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb through his work in the Manhattan Project.  In 1945 he became a physics teacher at Cornell University, and in 1950 he became a professor at the California Institute of Technology.  He, along with Sin-Itero and Julian Schwinger, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.

Another great achievement of Dr. Feynman’s was the creation of a mathematical theory that accounts for the phenomenon of super fluidity in liquid helium.  Along with Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman did fundamental work with weak interactions like beta decay.  Years later, Dr. Feynman was an important part of the development of quark theory by putting forward his parton model of high-energy proton collision processes. 

Furthermore, Dr. Feynman introduced new computational techniques and notations into physics, most importantly, the Feynman diagrams that perhaps more than any formality in recent scientific history, have altered how basic processes of physics are calculated and conceptualized. Feynman was considered a superb teacher, and received many awards and honors, the one he admired most being the Oersted Medal for Teaching, which was awarded to him in 1972.  Critics and fellow scientists around the world held many of his publications in high esteem, and his some of his works were written for the general public, so that all people might have an opportunity to grasp the basic concepts of physics.  His more advanced writings have become important assets to researchers and students; some of his works have even made their way into textbooks.

Another of his most famous contributions is his work in the Challenger investigation when it crashed in 1986.  His notorious demonstration of the O-rings to cold was during this research, an experiment that required no more than a glass of ice water.  However, less known to the public was Feynman’s efforts on the California State Curriculum Committee in the 1960’s when he fought against the mediocrity of current textbooks.  Sadly, Richard Feynman died on February 15, 1988, in Los Angeles. 

To find out more about the author click here to go to the site dedicated to furthering his work...

In this fun and informative video archive of the BBC television program Horizon, we see physicist Richard Feynman's quick, sharp wit, his devotion to his work, and his unwillingness to bow to social pressure or convention.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1 of 5) by theobservereffect

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

'Feynman's lectures are like Mozart's symphonies. The more demanding they are, the more exhilarating the result. Hearing the Master's voice and rereading these magnificent lectures is one of the great rewards for being scientifically literate at the end of the twentieth century.' David L. Goodstein 

These SIX NOT-SO-EASY PIECES are drawn from Feynman's celebrated introductory course of lectures on physics. They delve into the most revolutionary discovery of twentieth-century physics: Einstein's theory of relativity.

'In these lectures everything you've ever heard about Feynman's wit and genius comes true.' John Horgan

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces makes learning physics a joyful experience!

Richard P. Feynman was more than a Nobel Prize-winning physicist; he was a prankster, a wit, and one of the greatest science teachers of all time.

In this second collection of his Caltech lectures, he brings the difficult, anti-intuitive theories of Einstein down to earth for the science student and science-conscious layperson.

When it comes to explaining science, nobody does it better than Feynman. Or the Alleyn's School Physics Department...

About the Author

'This is the stuff of A-level Physics and beyond. Happy, happy days. I'm excited just thinking about it!' Miss Ottey

Richard P. Feynman was one of this century's most brilliant and original thinkers.

He taught at Cornell and the California Institute of Technology and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was born in 1918 in Brooklyn; in 1942 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton.

Already displaying his brilliance, Feynman played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb through his work in the Manhattan Project.  In 1945 he became a physics teacher at Cornell University, and in 1950 he became a professor at the California Institute of Technology.  He, along with Sin-Itero and Julian Schwinger, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.

Another great achievement of Dr. Feynman’s was the creation of a mathematical theory that accounts for the phenomenon of super fluidity in liquid helium.  Along with Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman did fundamental work with weak interactions like beta decay.  Years later, Dr. Feynman was an important part of the development of quark theory by putting forward his parton model of high-energy proton collision processes. 

Furthermore, Dr. Feynman introduced new computational techniques and notations into physics, most importantly, the Feynman diagrams that perhaps more than any formality in recent scientific history, have altered how basic processes of physics are calculated and conceptualized. Feynman was considered a superb teacher, and received many awards and honors, the one he admired most being the Oersted Medal for Teaching, which was awarded to him in 1972.  Critics and fellow scientists around the world held many of his publications in high esteem, and his some of his works were written for the general public, so that all people might have an opportunity to grasp the basic concepts of physics.  His more advanced writings have become important assets to researchers and students; some of his works have even made their way into textbooks.

Another of his most famous contributions is his work in the Challenger investigation when it crashed in 1986.  His notorious demonstration of the O-rings to cold was during this research, an experiment that required no more than a glass of ice water.  However, less known to the public was Feynman’s efforts on the California State Curriculum Committee in the 1960’s when he fought against the mediocrity of current textbooks. Richard Feynman died on February 15, 1988, in Los Angeles. 

To find out more about the author click here to go to the site dedicated to furthering his work...

In this fun and informative video archive of the BBC television program Horizon, we see physicist Richard Feynman's quick, sharp wit, his devotion to his work, and his unwillingness to bow to social pressure or convention.

Feynman's work lives on in quantum physics, computer design, and nanotechnology; like any great scientist, he asked more questions than he answered, to give future generations the pleasure of finding things out.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1 of 5) by theobservereffect

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

'Lucid, thoughtful and, above all, entertaining.'

The Scotsman

'This most enjoyable of books ... A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide.'

The Times

'...fantastic [it] should be read by every GCSE student as they move from Year 10 to 11. It should be the law. Fact. A combination of all three Sciences - but the Physics, particularly Fundamental Particles (quarks, leptons, bosons) and the Astrophysics is particularly well explained...I love it.'

Miss Ottey

The legions of fans who buy Bill Bryson's travel books and voted him a favourite author for World Book Day won't quite know what to make of the amiable traveller's latest offering. Transworld has dubbed it "for all those who couldn't understand A Brief History of Time" (and on that basis, if they all buy a copy it will be an instant bestseller). Bryson applies his naturally enquiring mind and his way with words which is both informative and entertaining, to "understand and appreciate, marvel at, enjoy even, the wonder and accomplishments of science at a level that isn't too technical or demanding, but isn't entirely superficial either". This is popular science in the true meaning of the phrase and repays diligent reading.

What on earth is Bill Bryson doing writing a book of popular science - A Short History of Almost Everything? Largely, it appears, because this inquisitive, much-travelled writer realised, while flying over the Pacific, that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created, populated and continue to maintain the vast body of water beneath him.

In fact, it dawned on him that "I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on". The questions multiplied: What is a quark? How can anybody know how much the Earth weighs? How can astrophysicists (or whoever) claim to describe what happened in the first gazillionth of a nanosecond after the Big Bang? Why can't earthquakes be predicted? What makes evolution more plausible than any other theory? In the end, all these boiled down to a single question--how do scientists do science? To this subject Bryson devoted three years of his life, reading books and journals and pestering the people who know (or at least argue about it); and we non-scientists should be pretty grateful to him for passing his findings on to us.

Broadly, his investigations deal with seven topics, all of enormous interest and significance: the origins of the universe; the gradual historical discovery of the size and age of the earth (and the beginnings of the awesome notion of deep time); relativity and quantum theory; the present and future threats to life and the planet; the origins and history of life (dinosaurs, mass extinctions and all); and the evolution of man. Within each of these, he looks at the history of the subject, its development into a modern discipline and the frameworks of theory that now support it. This is a pretty broad brief (life, the universe and everything, in fact), and it's a mark of Bryson's skill that he is able to carve a clear path through the thickets of theory and controversy that infest all these disciplines, all the while maintaining a cracking pace and a fairly judicious tone without obvious longueurs or signs of haste. Even readers fairly familiar with some or all of these areas o! f discourse are likely to learn from A Short History. If not, they will at least be amused--the tone throughout is agreeable, mingling genuine awe with a mild facetiousness that often rises to wit.

One compelling theme that appears again and again is the utter unpredictability of the universe, despite all that we think we know about it. Nervous page-turners may care to omit the sensational chapters on the possible ways in which it all might end in disaster--Bryson enumerates with cheerful relish the kind of event that makes you want to climb under the bedclothes: undetectable asteroid colliding with the earth; superheated magma chamber erupting in your back garden; ebola carrier getting off a plane in London or New York; the HIV virus mutating to prevent its destruction in the mosquito's digestive system. Indeed, the chief theme of this sprightly book is the miraculous unlikeliness, in a universe ruled by randomness, of stability and equilibrium--of which one result is ourselves and the complex, fragile planet we inhabit. Robin Davidson

Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter:

HOW TO BUILD A UNIVERSE

NO MATTER HOW hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is a proton. It is just way too small.

A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, which is itself of course an insubstantial thing. Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot on this i can hold something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of them, rather more than the number of seconds contained in half a million years. So protons are exceedingly microscopic, to say the very least.

Now imagine if you can (and of course you can't) shrinking one of those protons down to a billionth of its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous. Now pack into that tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You are ready to start a universe.

I'm assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe. If you'd prefer instead to build a more old-fashioned, standard Big Bang universe, you'll need additional materials. In fact, you will need to gather up everything there is--every last mote and particle of matter between here and the edge of creation—and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally compact that it has no dimensions at all. It is known as a singularity.

In either case, get ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe place to observe the spectacle. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to retire to because outside the singularity there is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won't be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space it creates as it goes.

It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no "around" around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there—whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for it to emerge from.

And so, from nothing, our universe begins.


About the Author

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. Settled in England for many years, he moved to America with his wife and four children for a few years ,but has since returned to live in the UK. His bestselling travel books, include The Lost Continent, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His mammoth work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize. His latest book is A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

To find out more click here to link to the author's comprehensive website...

And here's an excerpt from a presentation Bryson gave to Gresham College where he discusses some of the ideas contained in this book.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

'This is the book Richard Dawkins needed to write and many need to read ... clear, absorbing and vivid.' Bishop Richard Harries

'Dawkins combines an artist's wonder at the virtuosity of nature with a scientist's understanding of how it comes to be.'

 Matt Ridley

'Whether it’s Lenski’s bacteria or our own ancestors, Richard Dawkins discusses the evidence for evolution with his usual charm, style, clarity and brilliance.' Simon Singh

Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later.

Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity.


In The Greatest Show on Earth Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of ‘Intelligent Design’ and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the ‘time clocks’ of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics.

All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution.

The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense. At the same time he shares with us his palpable love of the natural world and the essential role that science plays in its interpretation. Written with elegance, wit and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing and totally convincing.

Extract from Chapter One

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin.

Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defence against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it...

...The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word “evolution” systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into “change over time”. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom — abetted by the official commitment to “multiculturalism” and the terror of being thought racist.

Richard Dawkins on The Greatest Show on Earth

Click here to listen to Richard Dawkins talk about why it's time for a book setting out the evidence for evolution, when calling someone ignorant isn't an insult, and how the media have made him into a militant atheist

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2009/sep/21/richard-dawkins-greatest-show-earth