John Gribbin – Four Way Interview

John Gribbin is one of Britain’s foremost science writers. John gained a PhD from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (then under the leadership of Fred Hoyle) before working as a science journalist for Nature and later New Scientist. He is the author of a number of bestselling popular science books, including In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat, In Search of the Multiverse, Science: A History and The Universe: A Biography. He is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex and in 2000 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His most recent book is Computing with Quantum Cats.

Why science?

From my earliest memories I have been interested in how things (things at large) work, and where it all comes from. I was specifically turned on to science by reading the Sf magazine Astounding (as it then was) from about the age of 8 or 9. Each issue included a “Science Fact” article. This led me to non-fiction by Asimov and Clarke. The rest is history.

Why this book?

Long-standing interest in quantum physics, merged with interest in the quantum group at Sussex University, leaders in the ion trap technology. Turing’s 100th birthday was the specific trigger.

What’s next?

Keeping it under my hat as not yet signed contracts.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

Quantum computing! This is not so obvious as it might seem, since usually by the time a book comes out I have moved on. But the field is developing faster than I can write about it. I’m also intrigued by hints of asymmetry in the cosmic background radiation, but this is very speculative as yet.

Comments

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

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Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

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John and Mary Gribbin - Five Way Interview

Mary and John Gribbin are bestselling authors and science writers. As a pair, they have written several science books, including Being Human, Fire on Earth, major biographies of Richard Feynman and Robert Hooke plus Edmond Halley , and the 'in 90 minutes' series of biographies. Mary is a previous winner of the TES Junior Information Book Award and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex. John’s title Six Impossible Things was shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize and he is also a Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex. Their latest book is Against the Odds . Why this book? We enjoy writing biographies of scientists, which gives us particular scope to collaborate, with Mary rooting out the biographical background and John focussing on the science (although neither role is exclusive). We hadn't done one for a while, and particularly wanted to highlight a female scientist this time. But we had great troubl...

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