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      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.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      

       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

      

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      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