Books by John D. Barrow

'If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.'John von NeumannMathematics can tell you things about the world that can't be learned in any other way.

* How can sprinter Usain Bolt break his world record without running any faster?* Why do high-jumpers use the Fosbury Flop? Barrow shows how maths can give us surprising and enlivening insights into the world of sports - essential reading for competitors, armchair enthusiasts and maths-lovers alike.

This is a book about universes. It tells a story that revolves around a single extraordinary fact: that Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity describes a series of entire universes.

The constants of nature are the numbers that define the essence of the Universe. For the first time astronomical observations are suggesting that some of the constants of Nature were different when the Universe was younger.

What is it like to live in a Universe where nothing is original, where you can live forever, where anything that can be done, is done, over and over again?These are some of the deep questions that the idea of the infinite pushes us to ask.

Where does it begin and where does it end?From the zeros of the mathematician to the void of the philosophers, from Shakespeare to the empty set, from the ether to the quantum vacuum, from being and nothingness to creatio ex nihilo, there is much ado about nothing at the heart of things.

The Holy Grail of modern scientists is 'The Theory of Everything', which will contain all that can be known about the Universe - the magic formula that Einstein spent his life searching for and failed to find. In this elegant and exciting book, John D. Barrow challenges the quest for ultimate explanation.