We Need to Talk About Kelvin by Marcus Chown

In recent years, Marcus Chown has made his name thanks to his quirky take on the physical sciences. His previous book, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, was a runaway success and its follow-up We Need to Talk About Kelvin continues in the same vein. This time, Chown concentrates more on cosmology, though he does so via a recap of some ground covered in his previous book to help the uninitiated.
Parodying the title of the novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, Chown delivers a enjoyable selection of musings on modern cosmology, astronomy and quantum theory in 11 chapters. He attempts to show how everyday observations tell us profound things about the Universe.
Chown writes with ease about some of the most brain-bending of concepts and makes you really think about science. He is at his most admirable when he is tackling the subjects that many others avoid, such as the information content of the Universe and how this means that a million universes could fit on a 1GB data stick.
Inevitably, in the effort to be constantly surprising, some of Chown’s connections do not work quite as easily. For example, is the static on a badly tuned television set really telling us that the Universe began in a big bang when only one per cent of it comes from that primordial fireball? Nevertheless, the joy of Chown is that he writes with a unique voice, ensuring that you are never left feeling you could be reading any old book about cosmology.
We Need to Talk About Kelvin offers plenty to keep you entertained and thinking. It will almost certainly become one of those books that you find yourself dipping in and out of, long after you read it the first time.

Dr Stuart Clark is the author of Galaxy: Exploring the Milky Way