Items related to The Science of Discworld (Export Only)
Synopsis
The fantastic first book in the Sunday Times bestselling Science of Discworld series
When a wizardly experiment goes adrift, the wizards of Unseen University find themselves with a pocket universe on their Roundworld, where neither magic nor common sense seems to stand a chance against logic.
The Universe, of course, is our own. And Roundworld is Earth. As the wizards watch their accidental creation grow, we follow the story of our universe from the primal singularity of the Big Bang to the internet and beyond.
Through this original Terry Pratchett story (with intervening chapters from Cohen and Stewart) we discover how puny and insignificant individual lives are against a cosmic backdrop of creation and disaster. Yet, paradoxically, we see how the richness of a universe based on rules, has led to a complex world and at least one species that tried to get a grip of what was going on.
Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic , was published in 1983. Raising Steam is his fortieth Discworld novel. His books have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. After falling out with his keyboard he now talks to his computer. Occasionally, these days, it answers back.
www.terrypratchett.co.uk
@terryandrob
Professor Ian Stewart is the author of many popular science books. He is the mathematics consultant for New Scientist and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. He was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize for furthering the public understanding of science, and in 2001 became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Dr Jack Cohen is an internationally-known reproductive biologist, and lives in Newent, Gloucestershire. Jack has a laboratory in his kitchen, helps couples get pregnant by referring them to colleagues, invents biologically realistic aliens for science fiction writers and, in his spare time, throws boomerangs. Jack, who has more letters to his name than can be repeated here, writes, lectures, talks and campaigns to promote public awareness of science, particularly biology. He is mostly retired.
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About the Author
TERRY PRATCHETT is the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Discworld series. He has been appointed OBE and a Knight Bachelor in recognition of his services to literature.
IAN STEWART is a Fellow of the Royal Society, professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, and author of numerous books on math and popular science, as well as science fiction novels co-authored with Jack Cohen.
JACK COHEN is a professor of biology and honorary professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, and has co-authored several books with Ian Stewart.
From Booklist
Since Pratchett began writing about Discworld in 1983, his ideas involving the fanciful flat landscape, which rests on four gargantuan elephants and a turtle, have stretched across 40 novels, multiple stories, and several reference guides. This first of four Science of Discworld companion volumes, originally published in 1999, has now been reissued with updated scientific research that brings the series into the twenty-first century. In alternating chapters, the book adds another whimsical episode to Discworld lore and contrasts the magical “rules” of Pratchett’s realm with the human world’s more logic-oriented science. In the Discworld sections, an experiment at Unseen University goes awry, forcing its wizards to create a new universe where planets, including Roundworld (aka Earth), form into balls instead of discs. The nonfiction science chapters explore such themes as the origin of the universe, tectonic plates, and the evolution of mankind. For Pratchett and Discworld devotees the volume is, of course, compulsory reading, but even science buffs who would normally eschew anything resembling fantasy will find much here to pique their interests. --Carl Hays
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