John Gribbin
Encyclopedia
John R. Gribbin is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and a visiting Fellow in astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 at the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....

.

Biography

John Gribbin graduated with his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

 from the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....

 in 1966. Gribbin then earned his master of science
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...

 (M.Sc.) degree in astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 in 1967, also from the Univ. of Sussex, and he earned his Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

 from the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 (1971).

As a science writer, he has worked for the science journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

, and the magazine New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...

 and has written for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and the Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

as well as their Sunday counterparts and BBC radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

.

He is best known for his book In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
In Search of Schrödinger's Cat is a book written by physicist John Gribbin on quantum theory, discussing in layman's terms its logic and many interpretations. Gribbin explains the body of evidence leading up to the development of quantum physics and summarises the historical context in which it...

(1984).

In 1974, Gribbin published, along with Stephen Plagemann, a book titled The Jupiter Effect
Jupiter effect
The Jupiter Effect was a best-selling book by John Gribbin, Ph.D., and Stephen Plagemann that predicted that an alignment of the planets of the solar system would create a number of catastrophes, including a great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, on March 10, 1982...

, that predicted that the alignment of the planets in quadrant on one side of the on Sun March 10, 1982 would cause gravitational effects that would trigger earthquakes in the San Andreas fault
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...

, wiping out Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and its suburbs.
Gribbin repudiated The Jupiter Effect in the July 17, 1980, issue of New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...

magazine in which he stated that he had been "too clever by half".

In an article in the scientific journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

(February 1988), Gribbin was the first scientist to publicly suggest that the upcoming greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...

 might be reduced by adding large amounts of pulverized iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 to the oceans of the world as a fertilizer for the aquatic plant
Aquatic plant
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or aquatic macrophytes. These plants require special adaptations for living submerged in water, or at the water's surface. Aquatic plants can only grow in water or in soil that is...

s.

Designer Universe

John Gribbin is a proponent of the Designer Universe theory, which should not be confused with the Intelligent Design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...

 idea. He has discussed this theory in a Daily Telegraph article and his 2009 book In search of the multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Ultimate Quest for the Frontiers of Reality, where he suggests that the universe could have been made deliberately by a member or members of a technologically advanced civilization in another part of the multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...

, but that it was left to its own devices after the big bang.

This should not be confused with the intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...

 movement, as the artificial universe idea accepts evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 and natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

 as the processes which produced life on earth. As a result, it is an idea that is compatible with Intelligent Design in the broad sense, but not a view all Intelligent Design proponents would accept or advocate.

Gribbin also argued in this book that the designers of the universe could create new universes by manufacturing black holes. He describes in detail how this could be done in three different levels of operation which do not contradict the laws of physics.

In August 2010 Gribbin wrote an article for the Daily Telegraph titled “Are we living in a designer universe?”.
In the article Gribbin argued that in the debate over if there is a creator for the universe or not, one possibility has been ignored:

One possibility has been almost ignored – the idea that the universe around us was created by people very much like ourselves, using devices not too dissimilar to those available to scientists today.

Works

  • (1974) The Jupiter Effect: The Planets As Triggers of Devastating Earthquakes (coauthor Stephen H. Plageman), Random House
    Random House
    Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

    : ISBN 0-3947-2221-3; revised edition published as The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered, Vintage Books
    Vintage Books
    Vintage Books is a publishing imprint founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf. Its publishing list includes world literature, fiction, and non-fiction...

     (New York, NY), 1982, ISBN 0-3947-0827-X.
  • (1976) Astronomy for the Amateur
  • (1976) Forecasts, Famines, and Freezes: Climates and Man's Future
  • (1976) Galaxy Formation: A Personal View
  • (1976) Our Changing Universe: The New Astronomy
  • (1977) Our Changing Planet, Wildwood House Limited. ISBN 0-6900-1693-X.
  • (1977) White Holes: Cosmic Gushers in the Universe
  • (1978) Climatic Change (Editor and contributor)
  • (1978) This Shaking Earth (aka Earthquakes & Volcanoes)
  • (1978) What's Wrong with Our Weather? The Climatic Threat of the Twenty-first Century
  • (1979) Climate and Mankind
  • (1979) Future Worlds
  • (1979) Timewarps
  • (1979) Weather Force: Climate and Its Impact on Our World
  • (1980) The Death of the Sun (also as The Strangest Star: The Scientific Account of the Life and Death of the Sun)
  • (1981) Carbon Dioxide, Climate, and Man
  • (1981) The Sixth Winter(with Douglas Orgill)(novel)
  • (1982) Genesis: The Origins of Man and the Universe
  • (1982) Cosmology Today (editor and contributor)
  • (1982) Brother Esau (with Douglas Orgill) (novel)
  • (1982) Future Weather and the Greenhouse Effect
  • (1982) The Monkey Puzzle: A Family Tree (coauthor Jeremy Cherfas), Pantheon Books
    Pantheon Books
    Pantheon Books is an American imprint with editorial independence that is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.The current editor-in-chief at Pantheon Books is Dan Frank.-Overview:...

    . ISBN 0-394-52794-1.
  • (1983) Beyond the Jupiter Effect, Macdonald. ISBN 0-3560-8686-0.
  • (1983) Spacewarps: Black Holes, White Holes, Quasars, and the Universe
  • (1984) In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality
    In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
    In Search of Schrödinger's Cat is a book written by physicist John Gribbin on quantum theory, discussing in layman's terms its logic and many interpretations. Gribbin explains the body of evidence leading up to the development of quantum physics and summarises the historical context in which it...

    , Bantam Books
    Bantam Books
    Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...

    . ISBN 0-5533-4253-3.
  • (1984) The Redundant Male: Is Sex Irrelevant in the Modern World? (coauthor Jeremy Cherfas)(rev., The Mating Game, 2001)
  • (1985) In Search of the Double Helix,Bantam. ISBN 0-5533-4432-3.
  • (1985) Weather
  • (1986) The Breathing Planet (editor)
  • (1986) In Search of the Big Bang, Bantam. ISBN 0-5533-4617-2.
  • (1987) The Omega Point, Bantam. 0-5533-4515-X.
  • (1988) Double Planet (with Marcus Chown) (novel)
  • (1988) The Hole in the Sky: Man's Threat to the Ozone Layer (rev. ed, 1993)
  • (1988) The One Percent Advantage: The Sociobiology of Being Human
  • (1989) Cosmic Coincidences, Bantam paperback: ISBN 0-5533-4740-3, New Age paperback: ISBN 0-5530-5730-8.
  • (1989) Father to the Man (novel)
  • (1990) The Cartoon History of Time (with Kate Charlesworth)
  • (1990) Children of the Ice: Climate and Human Origins
  • (1990) Hothouse Earth: The Greenhouse Effect and Gaia
  • (1991) Blinded by the Light: The Secret Life of the Sun
  • (1991) The Matter Myth (coauthor Paul Davies)
  • (1991) Ragnarok (with D.G. Compton) (novel)
  • (1991) Reunion (with Marcus Chown) (novel)
  • (1992) In Search of the Edge of Time: Black Holes, White Holes, Worm Holes (US title Unveiling the Edge of Time), Three Rivers Press. 1994 reprint: ISBN 0-5178-8170-5.
  • (1992) Stephen Hawking A Life in Science (coauthor Michael White
    Michael White (author)
    Michael White is a British writer based in Sydney, Australia. He has been a science editor of British GQ, a columnist for the Sunday Express in London and, 'in a previous incarnation', he was a member of the band the Thompson Twins and Colour me Pop...

    ), National Academies Press
    National Academies Press
    National Academies Press was created by the United States National Academies, to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. It publishes nearly 200 books a year on a wide range...

    . ISBN 0-452-26988-1, 2002 edition: ISBN 0-3090-8410-5.
  • (1992) Too Hot to Handle? Greenhouse Effect
  • (1993) Innervision (novel)
  • (1993) Being Human: Putting People in an Evolutionary Perspective
  • (1993) Einstein : A Life in Science (coauthor Michael White), Simon & Schuster
    Simon & Schuster
    Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...

    : ISBN 0-6710-1044-1.
  • (1994) In the Beginning: After COBE and before the Big Bang
    Big Bang
    The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...

  • (1994) Time and Space
  • (1995) Darwin
    Charles Darwin
    Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

    : A Life in Science
    (coauthor Michael White)
  • (1996) Schrödinger
    Erwin Schrödinger
    Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist and theoretical biologist who was one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, and is famed for a number of important contributions to physics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933...

    's Kittens and the Search for Reality
    , Back Bay Books
    Little, Brown and Company
    Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...

    . ISBN 0-3163-2819-7.
  • (1996) Companion to the Cosmos, Little
  • (1996) Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind (coauthor Mary Gribbin), St Martins Press. ISBN 0-3121-5529-8.
  • (1996) Watching the Weather
  • (1997) Origins: Our Place in Hubble's Universe (as Empire of the Sun, ’98; as Cosmos ’06)
  • (1997) Time and the Universe (children's)
  • (1997) Darwin in 90 Minutes (series including, Newton, Curie, Einstein, Faraday, Galileo, Mendel, Halley)
  • (1997) Richard Feynman: A Life in Science (coauthor Mary Gribbin), Penguin Books
    Penguin Books
    Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

    . ISBN 0-14-025334-3.
  • (1998) The Case of the Missing Neutrinos: And Other Phenomena of the Universe
  • (1998) The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everything
  • (1998) Q Is for Quantum: An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics, Free Press
    Free Press (publisher)
    Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...

    . ISBN 0-6848-5578-X.
  • (1998) Watching the Universe
  • (1999) Almost Everyone's Guide to Science: The Universe, Life and Everything, Yale University Press
    Yale University Press
    Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....

    . ISBN 0-3000-8460-9.
  • (1999) Get a Grip on Physics
  • (1999) The Little Book of Science
  • (1999) The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe
  • (2000) Eyewitness: Time & Space, DK Children
    Dorling Kindersley
    Dorling Kindersley is an international publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 51 languages. It is currently part of the Penguin Group....

    . ISBN 0-7894-5578-1.
  • (2000) Stardust: Supernovae and Life—The Cosmic Connection(coauthor Mary Gribbin), Yale University Press. ISBN 0-3000-9097-8
  • (2001) The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe, Yale University Press. ISBN 0-3000-8914-7.
  • (2001) XTL: Extraterrestrial Life and How to Find It
  • (2001) Hyperspace: The Universe and Its Mysteries (also pub as Space: Our Final Frontier)
  • (2001) Ice Age
  • (2002) Quantum Physics
  • (2003) Science: A History 1543-2001, Gardners Books
    Gardners Books
    Gardners Books is the largest book wholesaler in the United Kingdom. Based in Eastbourne, East Sussex, Gardners supplies books to a number of British retailers including Waterstone's, Tesco.com Books, TheHut.com, The Book Depository, Play.com and WHSmith...

    . ISBN 0-1402-9741-3.
  • (2003) FitzRoy: The Remarkable Story of Darwin's Captain and the Invention of the Weather Forecast, Yale University Press. ISBN 0-3001-0361-1.
  • (2003) The First Chimpanzee: In Search of Human Origins (coauthor Jeremy Cherfas)
  • (2003) The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors, Random House
    Random House
    Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

    . ISBN 0-8129-6788-7.
  • (2003) Big Numbers: A Mind Expanding Trip to Infinity and Back (coauthor Mary Gribbin), Wizard Books (children’s imprint of Icon Books) 2005 edition. ISBN 1-84046-661-8.
  • (2003) How far is up? : Measuring the Size of the Universe (coauthor Mary Gribbin), Icon Books 2005 edition. ISBN 1-8404-6439-9.
  • (2004) The Science of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials
    His Dark Materials
    His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman comprising Northern Lights , The Subtle Knife , and The Amber Spyglass...

  • (2004) Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity, Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6256-X.
  • (2005) Annus Mirabilis: 1905, Albert Einstein, and the Theory of Relativity (coauthor Mary Gribbin), Chamberlain Bros. ISBN 1-5960-9144-4 (includes DVD)
  • (2005) Dazzling Discoveries
  • (2006) The Origins of the Future: Ten Questions for the Next Ten Years, Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3001-2596-2.
  • (2006) The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution, Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9745-1 (the story of the Royal Society
    Royal Society
    The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

    ).
  • (2007) La physique quantique, Pearson Education
    Pearson Education
    Pearson Education is an international educational publishing and technology company providing textbooks and other educational material, such as multimedia learning tools...

    , ISBN 978-2-7440-7263-5.
  • (2008) Time Travel for Beginners (children's, with Mary Gribbin)
  • (2008) Galaxies: A Very Short Introduction
  • (2008) The Universe: A Biography, Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9857-1.
  • (2009) From Here to Infinity: A Beginner's Guide to Astronomy
  • (2009) He Knew He Was Right: The Irrepressible Life of James Lovelock
    James Lovelock
    James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...

     and Gaia
    Gaia
    - Mythology :* Gaia , the primal Greek goddess of the Earth* Gaia, the Earth in New Age Gaian spirituality- Science :* Gaea , a crater on Amalthea, a moon of Jupiter* Gaia hypothesis, concerning the stability of Earth's natural systems...

    (co-author Mary Gribbin), Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1-846-14016-7
  • (2009) Not Fade Away
  • (2009) In Search of the Multiverse
  • (2009) Timeswitch (novel)
  • (2011) The Alice Encounter (novella)
  • (2011) The Reason Why: The Miracle of Life on Earth

External links

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