Join the cutting edge of physics

It is a collection of essays by leading researchers in cosmology and quantum gravity, who do not hesitate to throw a bit of mathematics at the reader.

If this makes some people follow up the equations, then this book will have done its job.

In a popular science milieu where readers have superstring theory parcelled up and simplified as the "final theory of everything," the importance of a book introducing the most advanced approach to quantum gravity to a popular audience, perhaps for the first time, cannot be overstated.

The book contains substantial essays by two leading practitioners of non-commutative geometry, Shahn Majid and its pioneer Alain Connes.

Majid explains how a notion of "quantum spacetime" is provided by looking at the operations that work on spacetime, while Connes explains how these ideas can be used to include fundamental subatomic particles in gravity.

Also featuring Roger Penrose on what came "before" the big bang, John Polkinghorne on how time unfolds, Andrew Taylor on the search for dark matter and Michael Heller on theology, philosophy and spacetime, On Space And Time is a rich, challenging and fascinating introduction, for student and general reader alike, to the cutting edge of modern theoretical physics.

BRIAN PRECIOUS