Big Bang

The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About it

Simon Singh

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2005

First published by Fourth Estate 2004

Copyright © Simon Singh 2004

Diagrams copyright © Raymond Turvey 2004

PS section copyright © Louise Tucker 2005,

except‘The Missing Pages’ by Simon Singh © Simon Singh 2005

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Simon Singh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007152520

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007375509

Version: 2017-01-04

From the Reviews of Big Bang

‘Singh is a very gifted storyteller who never misses the chance to make his subject clearer or more entertaining’

SCARLETT THOMAS, Independent on Sunday

‘This very well-written book conveys the ideas underpinning cosmological theory with great clarity’

Nature

‘Singh uses beautifully simple analogies and clearly explained dia grams to enable even the most mathematically hobbled of us to recapitulate the history of man’s intellectual engagement with the dark spaces around him’

Sunday Telegraph

‘If you are intrigued by the story but wary of mathematics, do not worry; Simon Singh spares us most of the maths, and he juggles big ideas with tact and care’

Daily Mail

A model of clarity’

Economist

‘Singh tells his tale well, with chatty anecdotes leavening the astro physics’

Guardian

‘An epic tale brilliantly told, packed with courage and tragedy, heroes and martyrs’

Daily Telegraph

‘Even if the cosmologists don’t know where the universe is going, at least they have found out where it has come from. Anybody who wants to understand this wonderful achievement will not do better than start with Singh’s book’

Mail on Sunday

‘An excellent introduction to the way modern science works’

The Times Higher Education Supplement

Dedication

This book would not have been possible without Carl Sagan, James Burke, Magnus Pyke, Heinz Wolff, Patrick Moore, Johnny Ball, Rob Buckman, Miriam Stoppard, Raymond Baxter, and all the science TV producers and directors who inspired my interest in science.

Epigraph

Place three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.

JAMES JEANS

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

STEVEN WEINBERG

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.

PAUL DIRAC

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

From the Reviews of Big Bang

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1 IN THE BEGINNING

Chapter 2 THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Chapter 3 THE GREAT DEBATE

Chapter 4 MAVERICKS OF THE COSMOS

Chapter 5 THE PARADIGM SHIFT

Epilogue

Keep Reading

What is Science?

Glossary

Further Reading

Index

P.S.

About the Author

About the Book

Read on

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

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