THE WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

This is the book of the brilliant TV series.  The book is both easy and difficult to read.  I found it quite hard to try to read it from cover to cover because I'd seen the programmes anyway. But it is a brilliant book for dipping into.  SO IF YOU DON'T REALLY LIKE READING, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU! There are lots of interesting details. My favourite thing was learning what a "geoid" was for the first time. So - a great book to borrow, dip into and bring back.

EINSTEIN FOR BEGINNERS

This is the book I used to learn Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's back to my favourite cartoon book series. I used to own a copy but lent it to a girl called Rebecca in 1993.  I never saw it again.  But what stuck with me was the way in which Einstein did thought experiments to figure out what was going on.  I still teach about the way in which Einstein went about answering this question: if I am travelling at the speed of light, can I still see my reflection in a mirror that I am holding in front of my face?  This is the book that sorted it all out for me.  You should read it too!

THE DOUBLE HELIX by James Watson

This is almost the perfect science book.  OK, so it is clearly about Biology because it is about the discovery of the structure of DNA.  But a lot of what goes on looks like Chemistry to me.  And there is a lot of Physics involved. In fact, Watson and his fellow researcher, Francis Crick, worked in the Cambridge Physics labs. Crick WAS  a Physicist. The main tool for looking at molecules in those days was called X-ray diffraction - making X-rays spread out and interfere through the gaps between molecules and then working out what it meant. Sir Lawrence Bragg, who ran the laboratory, had won the Nobel Prize for Physics.  He has a Wigton connection - his father, the Nobel Prize for Physics winner William Bragg, was born in Westward, 5 miles from here.

The book is fast paced and easy to read. It is really more about the process of scientific research and the personalities involved. I read it in a week. It is brilliant. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking

Everyone knows who Stephen Hawking is, but this is the book that made him famous. It was the best selling book in the UK 25 years ago - a first for a book about Physics. The book is the story of the Universe from the beginning of time up to the present - yes, there was a start to time, and therefore, before that, there was no time at all. It's OK to get part way in and not finish it. That happens to most people. I've never got all the way through because I keep going off to research areas from it that have inspired me. Maybe it's a Sixth Form book, but there's no harm in reading Sixth Form books when you are younger - that's how I developed my thinking in Year 9!

THE SELFISH GENE by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is one of the most controversial and brilliant scientists in the country. He is controversial because he argues strongly against religion. I am a religious man and yet I find his science both brilliant and compelling. You really should read this, the most famous of his books. He explains that we are basically machines created by our genes to make sure that they are copied into future generations. It is Darwinism on a genetic scale. OK, so his views have developed a bit since this early book, but if you want a brilliant summary of how life works from a scientific point of view, this is it!

WHY DOES E=MCsquared? by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

Yes, that's right.  It is the Brian Cox who is all over BBC doing Physics programmes.  He knows what he's talking about. 

I really enjoyed this book.  It explains a lot about Albert Einstein's famous theory of Relativity.  When you travel much faster, close to the speed of light, time starts to stretch like elastic so that if someone were watching you, they would think that your seconds lasted much longer than theirs.  Also distance start to shrink, and things start to get heavier

It's not a cartoon book but I found it quite readable and it explained things so well that it improved my own understanding.

So go on!  You really should read it!