The Address Book: Our Place in the Scheme of Things
Over the years, millions of school children must have written out their address in the same way – their house number and street, their town, their country, their continent, planet Earth, the universe…
Following this simplest of patterns, taking each line of the address as a starting point, Tim Radford explores our place in the scheme of things – why we are attached to a particular geographical place and what significance do we have when faced with the realms of astronomy and astrophysics.
Fascinating, entertaining and completely original, The Address Book tackles some of the most fundamental questions facing us, and allows us see ourselves completely afresh.
”'One of our finest science writers … Radford’s book builds into a complex and compelling linguistic, poetic, scientific, spiritual and historical survey” - The Times
”'A beautiful, meditative book … showing us that the familiar is stranger than we think, and that the unfamiliar, the cosmos, is even stranger” - Guardian
”'Fascinating … [a] personal slice of popular science” - Evening Standard
”'A miscellany of scientific marvels” - The Times
”'This beautiful, meditative book is a surprise in these clamorous times: one good deed in a naughty world” - Guardian