Breakthrough: Spectacular stories of scientific discovery from the Higgs particle to black holes

The spellbinding stories of the scientists whose eureka! breakthroughs in modern physics reveal science's astonishing predictive power.

'An excellent popular science book.'
DARA Ó BRIAIN

'A thoroughly informative and entertaining read.'
ANNA BURNS, Booker Prize-winning author of Milkman

'One of the best-written books about phsyics I have ever come across.'
POPULAR SCIENCE

'Highly entertaining and accessible.' IRISH TIMES
'Fascinating, life enhancing entertainment.' PROSPECT
'Thoroughly enjoyable . . . Chown has done it again.' BBC SKY AT NIGHT

Breakthrough takes us on a breathtaking, mind-altering tour of the eureka! moments of modern physics. Charting the spellbinding stories of the scientists who predicted and discovered the existence of unknown planets, black holes, invisible force fields, ripples in the fabric of space-time, unsuspected subatomic particles and even antimatter, Marcus Chown reveals science's greatest mystery: its astonishing predictive power.

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Breakthrough was previously published in 2020 in hardback under the title The Magicians.

About the Author

Marcus Chown is an award-winning science writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is now cosmology consultant for the New Scientist. His acclaimed books include What a Wonderful World, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, We Need to Talk about Kelvin and The Ascent of Gravity (Sunday Times Science Book of the Year 2017). He is also the author of Solar System for iPad, which won The Bookseller 2011 Digital Innovation of the Year.