Big Picture

‘Fascinating’ – Brian Cox, Mail on Sunday Books of the YearWhere are we? Who are we? Do our beliefs, hopes and dreams hold any significance out there in the void? Can human purpose and meaning ever fit into a scientific worldview?Award-winning author Sean Carroll brings his extraordinary intellect to bear on the realms of knowledge, the laws of nature and the most profound questions about life, death and our place in it all.From Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness and the universe itself, Carroll combines cosmos-sprawling science and profound thought in a quest to explain our world. Destined to sit alongside the works of our greatest thinkers, The Big Picture demonstrates that while our lives may be forever dwarfed by the immensity of the universe, they can be redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning.

‘It’s very much in the tradition of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which is one of my all-time favourite science books. Books like that are not only about science, they put science in the wider context of our society…they explain and present not only the things we’ve learned about a relatively esoteric subject, but link those discoveries to our experience. Learning about nature teaches us about ourselves and how we should behave. I think that the best science books make that connection.’, ‘An extraordinarily ambitious synthesis of science and philosophy…The Big Picture impresses. Carroll is a lively and sympathetic author who writes as well about biology and philosophy as he does about his own field of physics.’, ‘Bold...rich in detail and absorbing.’, ‘Sean Carroll’s lucid The Big Picture reveals how the universe works and our place in it. Carroll, a philosophically sophisticated physicist, discusses consciousness without gimmicks, and deftly shows how current physics is so solid that it rules out ESP for ever.’, ‘A humane and compelling story for our increasingly secular age.’

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. In addition to the Royal Society Winton Prize, he has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics. He lives in Los Angeles.