Hot Science Series

AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.

The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. In this book, astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale “signatures” it produces, and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the solar system or on the many “exoplanets” now being discovered by the Kepler and TESS missions.

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own “utility”. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to “cognitive biases” with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

The volumes of data we now access can give unparalleled abilities to make predictions, respond to customer demand, and solve problems. But Big Brother’s shadow hovers over it. Although big data can set us free and enhance our lives, it has the potential to create an underclass and a totalitarian state. With big data ever present, you can’t afford to ignore it. In this book, acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg - a habitual early adopter of new technology - brings big data to life.

In the late 1940s, a handful of visionaries were working to steer Europe toward a more peaceful future through science, and CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, was duly born. James Gillies tells the gripping story of particle physics, from the original atomists of ancient Greece through the people who made the crucial breakthroughs to CERN itself, one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings of our time, and its eventual confirmation of the Higgs boson.

As end-of-the-world scenarios go, an apocalyptic collision with an asteroid or comet is the new kid on the block, gaining respectability only in the last decade of the 20th century with the realization that the dinosaurs were wiped out by just such an impact. Now the science community is making up for lost time, with worldwide efforts to track the thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects and plans for high-tech hardware that could deflect an incoming object from a collision course.

Four decades after Viking and almost half a century after Apollo, technology has improved beyond recognition - as has politics. As private ventures like SpaceX seize center stage from NASA, Mars has undergone a seismic shift - it’s become the prime destination for future human expansion and colonization. But what’s it really like on Mars, and why should anyone want to go there? How do you get there, and what are the risks? Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May answers these questions and more, as he traces the history of our fascination with the Red Planet.

Nearly 60 years ago, Nobel Prize winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled across a mysterious hiss of faint radio static that was interfering with their astronomical observations. In it, they had found the key to unravelling the story of the big bang and the origin of our universe. That signal was the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest light in the universe, released 379,000 years after the big bang. This is the enthralling story of the quest to understand the CMB radiation and what it can tell us of the origins of time and space.

Computer technology has improved exponentially over the last 50 years. But the headroom for bigger and better electronic solutions is running out. Our best hope is to engage the power of quantum physics. “Quantum algorithms” had already been written long before hardware was built. These would enable, for example, a quantum computer to exponentially speed up an information search or crack the mathematical trick behind internet security.

In 2003, Russian physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov found a way to produce graphene - the thinnest substance in the world - by using sticky tape to separate an atom-thick layer from a block of graphite. Their efforts would win the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics, and now the applications of graphene and other two-dimensional substances form a worldwide industry.

Billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson have long trumpeted plans to make space travel a possibility for ordinary people, and those ideas are inching ever closer to reality. At the same time, other companies plan to mine the Moon for helium-3 and asteroids for precious metals. Popular-science writer Andrew May takes an entertaining, in-depth look at the triumphs and heroic failures of our quixotic quest to commercialize the final frontier.

On September 14, 2015, after 50 years of searching, gravitational waves were detected for the first time, and astronomy changed forever. Up until then, investigation of the universe had depended on electromagnetic radiation: visible light, radio, X-rays, and the rest. But gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of space and time - are unrelenting, passing through barriers that stop light dead.

Brian Clegg was always fascinated by Isaac Asimov’s classic Foundation series of books, in which the future is predicted using sophisticated mathematical modeling of human psychology and behavior. Only much later did he realize that Asimov’s "psychohistory" had a real-world equivalent: game theory. Originating in the study of probabilistic gambling games that depend on a random source—the throw of a dice or the toss of a coin—game theory soon came to be applied to human interactions: essentially, what was the best strategy to win whatever you were doing?

Providing a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide acknowledges that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of a disastrous, all-pervasive climate breakdown that will come. Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis, painting a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in, a world that we catch only glimpses of today.

Since the 1950s, scientists have attempted to harness nuclear fusion—the process that creates the Sun's energy—to generate near-limitless amounts of electricity. But the fact that we still have no fusion power plants is testament to the complexities of the challenge. Now, the deepening climate crisis means that researchers around the world are in a race to create a mini-Sun here on Earth. The glittering prize is an energy source that emits no greenhouse gases and could solve energy equity and supply issues at a stroke.

In this bundle, astrophysicist Andrew May take a deep dive into space exploration and our continued and evolving fascination with the cosmos. Astrobiology: May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale signatures it produces, and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the Solar System. Destination Mars: May traces the history of our fascination with the Red Planet. The Space Business: May provides an in-depth look at the triumphs and heroic failures of quixotic quests to commercialize the final frontier.

Entertaining and enlightening, this collection is an insightful guide to how computer science shapes and influences not just our day-to-day lives but also our future. Quantum Computing: Brian Clegg explains algorithms and their quantum counterparts. Big Data: Though big data can set us free and enhance our lives, it has the potential to create an underclass and a totalitarian state. Acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg brings big data to life. Artificial Intelligence: AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day.