"An engaging voyage into some of the great mysteries and wonders of our world." --Alan Lightman, author of Einstein's Dream and The Accidental Universe "No one is better at making the recondite accessible and exciting." --Bill Bryson Brain Pickings and Kirkus Best Science Book of the Year Every week seems to throw up a new discovery, shaking the foundations of what we know. But are there questions we will never be able to answer--mysteries that lie beyond the predictive powers of science? In this captivating exploration of our most tantalizing unknowns, Marcus du Sautoy invites us to consider the problems in cosmology, quantum physics, mathematics, and neuroscience that continue to bedevil scientists and creative thinkers who are at the forefront of their fields. At once exhilarating, mind-bending, and compulsively readable, The Great Unknown challenges us to consider big questions--about the nature of consciousness, what came before the big bang, and what lies beyond our horizons--while taking us on a virtuoso tour of the great breakthroughs of the past and celebrating the men and women who dared to tackle the seemingly impossible and had the imagination to come up with new ways of seeing the world.

Author Biography

Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, a position previously held by Richard Dawkins, and the bestselling author of The Music of the Primes. He has received the Berwick prize, given to Britain's most outstanding young mathematician, and the Royal Society's Faraday Prize for excellence in communicating science. Amember of a theatre group who is speaks frequently about the ties between art and science, he contributed thoughts on time to Simon McBurney's Encounter and created the codes for Lauren Child's Ruby Redfort detective series. He has written and presented more than a dozen popular television series, including The Story of Maths, The Code, and Music of the Primes. He was made an Officer of the British Empire by the Queen for his services to Science.