Background
Marcus Chown was born on June 9, 1959, in London, England, to Ronald Chown and Patricia Paradine Chown, a homemaker.
Marcus Chown
Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
In 1980, Chown received a Bachelor of Science from Queen Mary University of London.
1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, United States
Chown received a Master of Science from California Institute of Technology in 1984.
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
In 1980, Chown received a Bachelor of Science from Queen Mary University of London.
1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, United States
Chown received a Master of Science from California Institute of Technology in 1984.
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
Marcus Chown
(This is the story of the cosmic background radiation, the...)
This is the story of the cosmic background radiation, the "afterglow" of the Big Bang in which the Universe was born. Fifteen billion years after the event, the afterglow still permeates all of space, making it the oldest relic in creation and providing an imprint of the Universe as it was in its infancy. But the most astonishing thing about the afterglow of creation is that it wasn't discovered until 1965, and then only by accident - despite the fact that it had been predicted in 1948 and the technology to detect it existed during World War II.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0935702407/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i6
1993
(The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of ...)
The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of how scientists unraveled the mystery of atoms, and helped to explain the dawn of life itself. The historic search for atoms and their stellar origins is truly one of the greatest detective stories of science. In effect, it offers two epics intertwined: the birth of atoms in the Big Bang and the evolution of stars and how they work.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195143051/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i8
1999
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/057123545X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i4
2007
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/057122055X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i0
2007
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0571244017/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i9
2009
(Never before have the wonders of our solar system been so...)
Never before have the wonders of our solar system been so immediately accessible to readers of all ages. Award-winning writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown combines science and history to visually and narratively explore our neighboring planets, dwarf planets, moons and asteroids, as well as all of the historical figures who aided in their discoveries. From the explosive surface of the sun to the frosty blue dunes on Mars; from the gargantuan rings of Saturn to the volcanoes of Io; from geological maps of bedrock on the Moon, to a simulation of what the Oort Cloud might look like, Solar System offers a window seat from which to view the beauty and magnificence of space.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579128858/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
2010
(In 140 pages, two masterly popularisers present 140 expla...)
In 140 pages, two masterly popularisers present 140 explanations of the biggest questions in physics - in the form of 10 or so tweets per page. They set themselves the challenge of boiling down what is essential on each subject into sentences of 140 characters, and the results are both entertaining and brilliantly informative. Not a word is wasted. The reader is not patronized and learns something on every page. If only all science writing could be so precise and so economical.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005H0CBK0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i11
2011
(The Dragon, an enormous comet, is on a trajectory that wi...)
The Dragon, an enormous comet, is on a trajectory that will bring it perilously close to an Earth that is still suffering from the scars of a nuclear incident, and from the problems of the Greenhouse Effect. For the optimists - those that remain - it is a sign of change for the better; for others, the comet foreshadows humanity's final doom.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GVFLJZS/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i10
2012
(In What a Wonderful World, Marcus Chown, bestselling auth...)
In What a Wonderful World, Marcus Chown, bestselling author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You and the Solar System app, uses his vast scientific knowledge and deep understanding of extremely complex processes to answer simple questions about the workings of our everyday lives. Lucid, witty and hugely entertaining, it explains the basics of our essential existence, stopping along the way to show us why the Atlantic is widening by a thumbs' length each year, how money permits trade to time travel why the crucial advantage humans had over Neanderthals was sewing and why we are all living in a giant hologram.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E78HGBC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i7
2013
(Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it...)
Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071VWHRT2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i3
2017
(A mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and...)
A mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and wonderful facts about our universe, vividly illuminating the hidden truths that govern our everyday lives.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1YT1MJ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1
2018
(The Big Bang is an accessible, authoritative introduction...)
The Big Bang is an accessible, authoritative introduction for anyone looking to understand how the universe came to be.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07794FMHF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i1
2018
(This is the story of the magicians: the scientists who, u...)
This is the story of the magicians: the scientists who, using mathematics, predicted the existence of unknown planets, black holes, invisible force fields, ripples in the fabric of space-time, unsuspected subatomic particles, and even antimatter.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z5CSPD2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i5
2020
Marcus Chown was born on June 9, 1959, in London, England, to Ronald Chown and Patricia Paradine Chown, a homemaker.
In 1980, Chown received a Bachelor of Science from Queen Mary University of London and a Master of Science from California Institute of Technology in 1984.
Marcus Chown was a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He was a regular guest on the BBC4 comedy-science show, It’s Only A Theory, with Andy Hamilton and Reginald D. Hunter, and often appeared on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. He has appeared at a variety of events from the Cheltenham Literary Festival to the Sydney Writers Festival, from the National Theatre to the Wilderness Festival. And he has done stand-up comedy at a variety of venues from an upturned inflatable cow on London’s South Bank to a glass-bottomed boat in a shark tank at the Brighton Sealife Centre.
His books include The Ascent of Gravity, What A Wonderful World, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil, and We Need to Talk to Kelvin and Afterglow of Creation. Marcus has also tried his hand at Apps and won The Bookseller Digital Innovation of the Year for the Solar System for iPad.
Currently, Chown is a cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist.
Marcus Chown is known as a scientist who writes both science fiction and books on science fact. He is the author of the bestselling Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, The Never Ending Days of Being Dead and The Magic Furnace. His work The Ascent of Gravity was The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year 2017, while We Need to Talk to Kelvin and Afterglow of Creation were both runner-ups for the Royal Society Book Prize.
Chown also wrote The Solar System, the bestselling app for iPad, which won the Future Book Award in 2011.
(In What a Wonderful World, Marcus Chown, bestselling auth...)
2013(This is the story of the magicians: the scientists who, u...)
2020(The Dragon, an enormous comet, is on a trajectory that wi...)
2012(A mind-bending journey through some of the most weird and...)
2018(The Magic Furnace, an eloquent, extraordinary account of ...)
1999(In 140 pages, two masterly popularisers present 140 expla...)
2011(The Big Bang is an accessible, authoritative introduction...)
2018(This is the story of the cosmic background radiation, the...)
1993(Never before have the wonders of our solar system been so...)
2010(Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it...)
2017Chown is a political activist, and in 2014 announced that he was running as a candidate for a Member of the European Parliament for the National Health Action Party in the UK. In August 2015 the Labour Party turned down his application to join their register of supporters.
Chown writes on subjects as diverse as unknowable numbers, multiple universes, and the possibility of time running backward. His first popular science book, Afterglow of Creation: From the Fireball to the Discovery of Cosmic Ripples, describes the events from the time just before the Big Bang to the year 1992, when the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE) confirmed that radiation from the Big Bang was still with us in the form of microwaves.
Chown describes the discoveries - and the rediscoveries - that gave birth to the current view of the universe. Based on his own professional knowledge of cosmology and astrophysics, and on personal interviews with participants, Chown relates a nicely strung chain of interesting stories told in chronological order that trace the development of the universe, from the detection of the expansion of the universe to the measurement of the background ‘fossil’ radiation.
Chown recounts the development of theories of the earliest state of the universe as a densely compact place of nothing but protons, neutrons, and photons which erupted in a "primeval fireball". He also describes the persons and personalities involved in the discoveries, from early theorists and experimenters to Amo Penzias and Robert Wilson, who didn’t realize that the noise picked up by the first satellite communication antenna was fossil radiation, but whose radioastronomy experiments in 1965 almost accidentally identified the remnant of the Big Bang. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1978 for their discoveries in the field. In the more contemporary part of the story of background radiation, Chown does future generations the favor of untangling the who-did-what.
Quotations: "Ideas are what excite me. He calls suppose I am an ideas junkie. I am constantly amazed that science is so much stranger than anything we could invent."
Marcus is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and Caltech Alumni Association.
Perhaps Chown should be called the 'no-use-to-man-or-beast consultant' since he generally writes about things that are no use to man or beast.
On December 24, 1991, Chown married Karen Chilver.
May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model.
