Brian Cox Books

Initially, physics was the study of certainty. Newton’s vision of a clockwork Universe held that if you knew the positions and velocities of all particles at one instant, you could, in principle, predict the entire future and reconstruct the past. This view dominated science for two centuries, and i...

From The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen

If there is one experiment that encapsulates quantum mechanics, it is the double-slit experiment. When we fire particles like electrons or photons through two slits onto a screen, we see an interference pattern — evidence of wave behavior. But observe which slit each particle passes through, and the...

From The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen

To appreciate E=mc², we first must place ourselves in the historical context that gave rise to Einstein’s special relativity. For centuries, physicists lived comfortably within Newtonian mechanics, a framework that explained planetary motion, falling apples, and tides with extraordinary clarity. Yet...

From Why Does E=mc²?: And Why Should We Care?

Once the constancy of light is accepted, reality itself needs new dimensions of meaning. Space and time—once considered independent backdrops against which physics played out—merge into a continuum known as spacetime. Here, motion through space affects the flow of time, and vice versa. Moving clocks...

From Why Does E=mc²?: And Why Should We Care?

Whenever we begin a journey through the solar system, we must begin where everything begins—with the Sun. It is both a symbol and a reality of creation. At the heart of this star, the simplest elements in nature—hydrogen atoms—fuse under unimaginable pressure and temperature to form helium, releasin...

From Wonders of the Solar System

The solar system began not as a neat arrangement of planets but as chaos—a vast collapsing cloud of gas and dust roughly 4.6 billion years ago. From turbulence and gravitational instability arose the disk that would become our home. Dust particles clumped, forming larger masses in a process we call ...

From Wonders of the Solar System