John Gribbin

John Gribbin graduated with his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Sussex in 1966. He then earned his Master of Science (MSc) degree in astronomy in 1967, also from the University of Sussex, and he earned his PhD in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge (1971). In 1968, Gribbin worked as one of Fred Hoyle's research students at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy, and wrote a number of stories for New Scientist about the Institute's research and what were eventually discovered to be pulsars. In 1974, Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann published The Jupiter Effect, which predicted that the alignment of the planets in a quadrant on one side of the Sun on 10 March 1982 would cause gravitational effects that would trigger earthquakes in the San Andreas Fault, possibly wiping out Los Angeles and its suburbs. Gribbin distanced himself from The Jupiter Effect in the 17 July 1980, issue of New Scientist magazine, stating that he had been "too clever by half". In February 1982, he and Plagemann published The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered, claiming that the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption proved their theory true despite a lack of planetary alignment. In 1999, Gribbin repudiated it, saying "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it." In 1984, Gribbin published ''In Search of Schrödinger's Cat. Robert Macfarlane writes that it “was among the best of the first wave of physics popularisations to share in the success of Stephen Hawking’s multi-million-selling A Brief History of Time. Margaret Atwood – who was one of the writers, along with Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Tom Stoppard, to get very exited about the new physics – read it, assimilated it, and credited Gribbin warmly in the back of her subsequent novel, Cat’s Eye''.” Gribbin's book was cited by BBC World News as an example of how to revive an interest in the study of mathematics. Gribbin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. He has been a guest on In Our Time, discussing "Science in the 20th Century" with Mary Midgley. In 2006, Gribbin took part in a BBC radio 4 broadcast as an "expert witness". Presenter Matthew Parris discussed with Professor Kathy Sykes and Gribbin whether Albert Einstein "really was a 'crazy genius. At the 2009 World Conference of Science Journalists, the Association of British Science Writers presented Gribbin with their Lifetime Achievement award. ==Critical response to Gribbin's writings==

The Spectator praised Science: A History as "the product of immense learning, and a lifetime spent working out how to write in a vivacious way about science and scientists". A Wall Street Journal review of Flower Hunters (co-authored with Mary Gribbin) described the writing as "pedestrian", with plenty of domestic detail but a failure to convey a larger cultural context. It stated that the book's chapter-length biographical sketches are too often superficial, and criticised the book for glaring omissions of prominent plant collectors. In a review of The Reason Why, the Times Higher Education states that Gribbin writes on speculative matters and presents some of his theories without supporting evidence, but noted his comprehensive research and lyrical writing. == Selected bibliography ==

Astronomy • (1976) Astronomy for the Amateur, Macmillan, • (1976) Our Changing Universe: The New Astronomy, Dutton, • (1977) White Holes: Cosmic Gushers in the Universe, Delacorte Press/E. Friede, • (1979) Timewarps, Delacorte Press/E. Friede, • (1980) The Death of the Sun, Dell Publishing (also as The Strangest Star: The Scientific Account of the Life and Death of the Sun, 1980, Athlone Press, ) • (1981) Future Worlds, Springer, • (1983) Spacewarps: Black Holes, White Holes, Quasars, and the Universe, Delta, • (1988) The Omega Point: The Search for the Missing Mass and the Ultimate Fate of the Universe , Bantam, • (1991) Blinded by the Light: The Secret Life of the Sun, Bantam, • (1992) In Search of the Edge of Time: Black Holes, White Holes, Worm Holes, Bantam Books, (US title Unveiling the Edge of Time, Three Rivers Press. 1994 reprint: ) • (1996) Companion to the Cosmos, John and Mary Gribbin, Little: • (1998) The Case of the Missing Neutrinos: And Other Phenomena of the Universe, Fromm Intl. • (1998) Watching the Universe, Constable, • (2001) Stardust: Supernovae and Life: The Cosmic Connection (with Mary Gribbin) • (2001) Hyperspace: The Universe and Its Mysteries (also pub as Space: Our Final Frontier), DK ADULT, • (2007) The Universe: A Biography, Allen Lane, • (2008) Galaxies: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA. • (2008) From Here to Infinity: The Royal Observatory Greenwich Guide to Astronomy (with Mary Gribbin), National Maritime Museum, ; republished in 2009 as ''From Here to Infinity: A Beginner's Guide to Astronomy'', Sterling • (2011) Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique, John Wiley & Sons, • (2018) "Alone in the Milky Way: Why we are probably the only intelligent life in the galaxy", Scientific American, vol. 319, no. 3 (September 2018), pp. 94–99. Biology • (1985) In Search of the Double Helix, McGraw-Hill, • (1985) The Redundant Male: Is Sex Irrelevant in the Modern World? (with Jeremy Cherfas) Paladin, • (1988) The One Percent Advantage: The Sociobiology of Being Human, Blackwell Publishers, • (1990) Children of the Ice: Climate and Human Origins, Blackwell Publishers (with Mary Gribbin) • (1993) Being Human: Putting People in an Evolutionary Perspective, J.M .Dent & Sons (with Mary Gribbin) • (2003) The Mating Game (revised edition of The Redundant Male), Barnes and Noble, • (2003) The First Chimpanzee: In Search of Human Origins ( with Jeremy Cherfas), Barnes and Noble, Children's books on science • (1997) ''Time and the Universe (What's the Big Idea?)'' (with Mary Gribbin) Hodder & Stoughton, • (2000) Eyewitness: Time & Space (with Mary Gribbin) DK Children, • (2003) Big Numbers: A Mind Expanding Trip to Infinity and Back (with Mary Gribbin) , Wizard Books (children's imprint of Icon Books) 2005 edition • (2003) How far is up? : Measuring the Size of the Universe (with Mary Gribbin) , Icon Books, 2005 edition • (2003) The Science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (with Mary Gribbin) Introduction by Philip Pullman. • (2008) Time Travel for Beginners (with Mary Gribbin), Hodder Children's, Cosmology • (1986) In Search of the Big Bang, Bantam, • (1989) Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology (with Martin Rees) Bantam, • (1993) In the Beginning: The Birth of the Living Universe (In the Beginning, Viking, • (1994) In the Beginning: After COBE and before the Big Bang, Bulfinch Press, • (1997) ''Origins: Our Place in Hubble's Universe, Constable and Robinson (as Empire of the Sun'', '98; as Cosmos '06) • (1998) The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everything, Little, Brown and Company, • (2001) The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe, Yale University Press, (2009 edition ) • (2010) In Search of the Multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Ultimate Quest for the Frontiers of Reality, Wiley, • (2015) 13.8: The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and the Theory of Everything, Icon Books, Environmental science • (1975) Our Changing Climate, Faber and Faber, • (1976) ''Forecasts, Famines, and Freezes: Climates and Man's Future'', Wildwood House Ltd, • (1977) Our Changing Planet, Wildwood House Limited • (1978) Climatic Change, Cambridge University Press • (1978) ''The climatic threat: What's wrong with our weather?'', Fontana • (1979) Climate and Mankind, Earthscan, 56 pp • (1979) This Shaking Earth (aka Earthquakes & Volcanoes) Sidgwick & Jackson, • (1979) Weather Force: Climate and Its Impact on Our World (with John Man), Putnam Pub Group, • (1981) Carbon Dioxide, Climate, and Man, Intl Inst for Environment, 64 pp. • (1982) Future Weather and the Greenhouse Effect, Delacorte Press, • (1985) Weather, Macdonald Education, 48 pp. • (1986) The Breathing Planet (editor) Blackwell Publishers, • (1988) ''The Hole in the Sky: Man's Threat to the Ozone Layer'' (rev. ed, 1993) Bantam, • (1989) Winds of Change, Hodder Arnold, • (1990) Hothouse Earth: The Greenhouse Effect and Gaia, Random House, • (1992) Too Hot to Handle? Greenhouse Effect, Corgi, • (1996) Watching the Weather, Trafalgar Square, General Science • (1999) ''Almost Everyone's Guide to Science: The Universe, Life, and Everything'', Yale University Press, • (1999) Get a Grip on New Physics, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. • (1999) The Little Book of Science, Barnes and Noble, • (2004) Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order To Chaos And Complexity, Random House, 2004, History of Science • (2003) Science: A History 1543–2001, Gardners Books, (published in the US as The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors), Random House, • (2005) Annus Mirabilis: 1905, Albert Einstein, and the Theory of Relativity (with Mary Gribbin), Chamberlain Bros. (includes DVD) • (2006) The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution, Allen Lane, (the story of the Royal Society) • (2006) History of Western Science, 1543-2001, Folio Society, London [2nd edition of Science: A History, 1543-2001, with minor amendments and a new preface by the author]. • (2009) Flower Hunters, Oxford University Press, (with Mary Gribbin) • (2016) ''Einstein's Masterwork: 1915 and the General Theory of Relativity'', Pegasus Books • (2017) (with Mary Gribbin) • (2022) ''On The Origin of Evolution: Tracing 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea' from Aristotle to DNA'' (with Mary Gribbin) Quantum physics • (1984) ''In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality'', Bantam Books, (reprinted in 2012 by Random House ) • (1995) ''Schrödinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality'', Back Bay Books, • (1998) Q Is for Quantum: An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics, Free Press, • (2002) Quantum Physics (Essential Science), Dorling Kindersley, • (2007) La physique quantique, Pearson Education, • (2014) Computing with Quantum Cats: From Colossus to Qubits, Prometheus Books, • (2019) ''Six Impossible Things: The 'Quanta of Solace' and the Mysteries of the Subatomic World'', Icon Books, Science Fiction • (1980) The Sixth Winter (with ) Simon & Schuster • (1982) Brother Esau (with Douglas Orgill) Harper & Row • (1988) Double Planet (with Marcus Chown) Victor Gollancz • (1990) Father to the Man Tor Books • (1991) Ragnarok (with D.G. Compton) Gollancz • (1991) Reunion (with Marcus Chown) Gollancz • (1993) Innervisions Penguin Books • (2009) Timeswitch PS Publishing • (2011) The Alice Encounter PS Publishing Biographies • (1992) Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science (with Michael White), National Academies Press , 2002 edition: • (1993) Einstein : A Life in Science (with Michael White), Simon & Schuster • (1995) Darwin: A Life in Science ( with Michael White), Dutton Adult • (1997) Darwin in 90 Minutes (with Mary Gribbin), Constable and Robinson (Part of a series including: Curie , Einstein , Faraday , Galileo , Halley , Mendel , Newton ) • (1997) Richard Feynman: A Life in Science (with Mary Gribbin), Penguin Books • (2003) ''FitzRoy: The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast'' (with Mary Gribbin), Yale University Press • (2009) He Knew He Was Right: The Irrepressible Life of James Lovelock and Gaia (with Mary Gribbin), Allen Lane. • (2009) Not Fade Away: The Life and Music of Buddy Holly (with Mary Gribbin) Icon, • (2013) Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution, Wiley, == References ==