John Gribbin

Matters of Gravity

The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity

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Little, Brown 304pp £20 order from our bookshop

Next year sees the centenary of Albert Einstein’s formulation of the general theory of relativity (which he published in 1916); Pedro Ferreira has got in early with his contribution to the commemorations. However, rather than focusing on the events of 1915, he concentrates on the development of the general theory since then, in particular over the past fifty years, during which it has blossomed into full flower. All the topical buzzwords get a mention – pulsars, quasars, black holes, Hawking radiation, dark energy and more.

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