Origins

The Cosmos in Verse

Joseph Conlon

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English

Oneworld Publications
04 February 2025

Poetry; Poetry by individual poets; Cosmology & the universe; Galaxies & stars; Atomic & molecular physics

There raged a thumping cosmic ballyhoo, A manic dance – a rumpus to arouse The universe: of Higgs and W, Electrons, gluons, muons, Zs and taus… For centuries, poetry and science have been improbable, yet constant, bedfellows. Chaucer was an amateur astronomer; Milton broke bread with Galileo; and before turning to the arts Keats was a doctor. Meanwhile, scientific luminaries like Ada Lovelace and James Clerk Maxwell moonlighted as poets, composing verse between experiments and equations. Following in this tradition, theoretical physicist Joseph Conlon spins a dazzling intergalactic epic. Drawing on his own scientific expertise, Conlon reveals the origins of our universe, through two long-form poems – ‘The Elements’ and ‘The Galaxies’. Journeying from the Big Bang to the edges of our ever-expanding cosmos, Origins offers a delightful and revelatory adventure through contemporary physics.

By: Joseph Conlon
Imprint: Oneworld Publications
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 100g
ISBN: 9780861549115
ISBN 10: 0861549112
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 04 February 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Joseph Conlon is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford and a fellow of New College. His research spans particle physics, string theory, cosmology and astrophysics. He is the author of Why String Theory?, a Physics World Book of the Year in 2016, and has authored over seventy scientific papers.

Reviews for Origins: The Cosmos in Verse

"'Brilliant, ""restructuring the known existing facts"", to make this admirable, entertaining, attractive account of the origin of the Universe.' —Jocelyn Bell Burnell 'Joe Conlon is a marvel. His subject – the origin of the universe and our efforts to comprehend it – is vaster and stranger than anything in English poetry. But these fizzy, nonchalantly rhymed, eminently readable poems are also a masterclass in simile. Rhyming ""fun"" with ""Eddington"" and comparing the expansion of space to a sourdough starter, ""Elements"" and ""Galaxies"" will tell you about the structure of a hydrogen atom, various intriguing characters in the history of modern physics, and why galaxies’ quantum origins (""rough seas of storm-tossed noise"") might resemble Twitter.' —Hannah Sullivan, T. S. Eliot Prize-winning author of Three Poems"