A lively and entertaining introduction to the 25 big ideas that could change your view of life, the universe and everything.

From the Big Bang to the Theory of Everything, Sunday Telegraph Science Correspondent Robert Matthews takes us on a tour of twenty-five of the biggest ideas in modern science. Along the way, he explains how the theory that proved Einstein wrong might one day make teleportation possible, how the principles of mathematics could be used to broker peace treaties, and why the key to understanding some of the deepest mysteries of the universe could be linked to the barcode on your groceries. The book also covers the major personalities in the history of science, from World War Two code breaker Alan Turing and his test for artificial intelligence to modern scientists and theories such as Richard Dawkins, the selfish gene, Stephen Hawking and quantum mechanics. With glossaries of key terms and a timeline charting the key discoveries and milestones, this entertaining guide to the cutting edge of science also includes chapters on the nature vs nurture debate, plate tectonics, consciousness, dark matter and chaos theory, and will be suitable for readers of all backgrounds.

Contents
1. Ourselves - and others
Consciousness
Small world theory
Game theory
2. Doing the impossible
Artificial Intelligence
Information Theory
GM technology
3. Life
Out of Africa
Nature versus Nurture
The Selfish Gene
4. The Earth
Catastrophism
Plate Tectonics
5. Mathematics
Bayes's Theorem
Chaos Theory
Cellular Automata
Extreme Value Theory
6. In sickness and in health
Evidence-based medicine
Epidemiology
7. The physics of reality
Special relativity
Entanglement
The Standard Model
The Theory of Everything
8. The universe - and our place in it
The Big Bang
Dark Energy
Parallel Universes
The Anthropic Principle