Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. This book is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization.

Was there a beginning of time?, Could time run backwards? and Is the universe infinite are just some of the questions considered in this book for the non-scientific layman. The author begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein and then delves into the secrets which lie at the heart of space and time.

The 30th anniversary edition of the million copy international bestseller, with a new introduction from the author. As relevant and influential today as when it was first published, this classic exposition of evolutionary thought, widely hailed for its stylistic brilliance and deep scientific insights, stimulated whole new areas of research.

String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy. This text relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind this theory.

This book brings together all the work in a new field of physics, the chaos theory, an extension of classical mechanics. The author shows how computers have been able to help researchers, by mapping the whole plane of solutions of non-linear equations.

Offers an accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. This book demonstrates that evolution by natural selection - the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially non-random process discovered by Darwin - is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist?

The story of a puzzle that every child can understand but has baffled mathematicians for 300 years. Aged ten, Andrew Wiles stumbled across the puzzle, leading to a lifelong obsession with solving the world's greatest mathematical problem. A story of human endeavour and intellectual brilliance, for all readers. First published in 1997.

Codes have influenced events throughout history. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes. Singh investigates codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and the Beale ciphers.

'What is a self, and how can a self come out of inaminate matter?' This book examines this riddle. Linking together the music of J S Bach, the graphic art of Escher and the mathematical theorems of Godel, as well as ideas drawn from logic, biology, psychology, physics and linguistics, it reveals the mysteries of human thought processes.

This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

Every year, readers send in thousands of questions to New Scientist magazine in the hope that the answers to them will be given in the 'Last Word' column. This title presents a collection of the best that have appeared, including: why can't we eat green potatoes; why do airliners suddenly plummet; and, does a compass work in space.

The story of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution, transforming matter and life into consciousness, how science and civilization grew up together and the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. The book aims to make scientific ideas accessible and exciting.

In his work of popular science, Sir Roger Penrose takes us on a fascinating roller-coaster ride through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. This work presents the taped conversations that Feynman's had with his friend Ralph Leighton over a period of years.

Asking questions about human motivation and living and reaching some conclusions, this book aims to be at the heart of things we see and do and the subjects that bedevil us: from parenting to crime, sport to politics, fat to cheating, fear to traffic jams.

Why do memories fade? Why do we lose our tempers? Why do fools fall in love? This work explores the nature and history of the human mind. It looks at the computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us see, think, feel, interact, and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy.

Unravelling the latest amazing breakthroughs in theoretical physics, Stephen Hawking guides the reader through the evolution of Einsteinian physics to a universe of ten dimensions and a so-called theory of everything.

Describes various facets of human language - its biological origin, its uniqueness to humanity, it acquisition by children, its grammatical structure, the production and perception of speech, the pathology of language disorders and the unstoppable evolution of languages and dialects.

The tenth anniversary edition of the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. With a new foreword by astronaut Neil Armstrong.