Description

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 scientific expertise, Conlon reveals the origins of our universe through two long-form poems – ‘Elements’ and ‘Galaxies’. Journeying from the Big Bang to the edges of our ever-expanding cosmos, Origins offers a delightful and revelatory adventure through contemporary physics.

Publisher Review

‘Brilliant, “restructuring the known existing facts”, to make this admirable, entertaining, attractive account of the origin of the Universe.’ – Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell ‘The universe is intrinsically poetic, but rarely does someone with expert credentials endeavor to describe it in that mode. Joseph Conlon’s two extended poems offer a glimpse into the workings of the universe in galloping verse rich with imagery.’ -Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe ‘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. “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