ARTHUR I. MILLER is emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London. He is the author of several acclaimed books, the most recent of which are EINSTEIN, PICASSO (Basic, 2001) and EMPIRE OF THE STARS (Little, Brown/Houghton Mifflin, 2005), which was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books. An experienced broadcaster, lecturer and biographer, he is particularly interested in the relationship between science and creativity, and noted for being able to write engagingly about complex social and intellectual dramas, weaving the personal with the scientific to produce page-turners that read like novels.

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DECIPHERING THE COSMIC NUMBER
The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung

Arthur I. Miller is a master at capturing the intersection of creativity and intelligence. He did it with Einstein and Picasso, and now he does it with Pauli and Jung. Their shared obsession with the number 137 provides a window into their genius – Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of EINSTEIN: His Life and Universe

A fascinating and an unlikely story, one that Miller follows exceedingly well through its twists and turns. His style is both brisk and accessible, making the book exciting to read as well as informative – Gino Segrè, Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, and the author of FAUST IN COPENHAGEN, A Struggle for the Soul of Physics

His accessible account should bring this odd couple to a wider readership... His ability to approach his subject from the perspective of both the sciences and the humanities is a great strength – Georgina Ferry, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Gives you a sense of how scientists’ minds work: by leaps of intuition that are quite as irrational and excitable as any poet’s or psychologist’s – Sam Leith, DAILY MAIL

Captivating, succinct and accessible – Marianne Freiberger, PLUS magazine

[Miller] writes in the smooth and engaging voice of an experienced teacher, conveying an infectious sense of wonder that makes even the more obscure scientific explanations (and there are a few) pleasurable to read – Sophia Carroll, BOOKSLUT

This is the story of two mavericks: Wolfgang Pauli, the eminent physicist who – unlike his peers – was fascinated by the inner reaches of his own psyche and not afraid to dabble in the occult; and Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst who was sure that science held answers to some of the questions that tormented him. Both made enormous and lasting contributions to their fields. But in their many conversations over dinner and wine at Jung’s Gothic mansion on the shores of Lake Zurich, they went much further, striking sparks off each other as they explored the middle ground between their two subjects.

DECIPHERING THE COSMIC NUMBER tells a tale of a remarkable friendship between two equally brilliant yet very different men. Indeed Jung spent many hours analysing the dream imagery of Pauli, for the great scientist’s unconventional and wild life brought him to the brink of a mental breakdown. Pauli obsessed over how he had made his greatest discovery, feeling that he had tapped into something beyond physics – in particular archetypal numbers that seemed to hint at a deeper meaning to the universe.

In recounting this extraordinary meeting of minds, the historian of science Arthur I. Miller encompasses many of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, as well as taking readers back to the roots of modern science, steeped as they are in mysticism and ancient history. He explores how physicists discover fundamental concepts, probes the relationship between mathematics, the mind and the real world, and reveals how one man’s discoveries pushed him beyond the fundamental assumptions of scientific rationalism into what Jung described as ‘the no-man’s land between Physics and the Psychology of the Unconscious… the most fascinating yet the darkest hunting ground of our times’.

Publisher: Norton (US & UK)
Pub date: 27 April 2009 (US)/5 June 2009 (UK)
Length: 368 pages

All rights available excluding:
World English Language (Norton), Germany (DVA), Greece (Travlos), Italy (RCS), Japan (Soshisha)

EMPIRE OF THE STARS
Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes

Shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books

Remarkable… a story that needed to be told – Sir Roger Penrose

A fascinating book – SIr Martin Rees, SUNDAY TIMES

Fascinating… a quite brilliant account… based on meticulous and thoughtful research – Graham Farmelo, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Ever since the evocative term was coined in 1967, black holes have assumed an almost mystical appeal for the public. EMPIRE OF THE STARS is the first book to tell the story of their discovery – a remarkable tale of friendship, rivalry and betrayal.

In August 1930, the twenty-year-old Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chadrasekhar (Chandra) calculated that certain stars could end their lives by collapsing indefinitely to a point of infinite density. But Sir Arthur Eddington, the grand-old man of British astronomy, ridiculed the idea at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1935. Chandra abandoned his work and emigrated to the US. Although his discovery was eventually recognized with a Nobel Prize in 1983, the episode damaged Chandra professionally and personally and set back astrophysics for forty years.

EMPIRE OF THE STARS teases out the major implications of this infamous event, setting it against the backdrop of the turbulent growth of astrophysics. As such, it also follows the rise of the two great theories of twentieth-century science – relativity and quantum mechanics – which meet head on in black holes. In the ensuing clash of personalities, epochs and nationalities, the book reveals the deep-seated psychological and philosophical prejudices at work in the acceptance and rejection of new scientific ideas: prejudices that create resistance to the idea of black holes even today.

Publisher: Little, Brown (UK)/Houghton Mifflin (US)
Pub date: 17 March 2005 (UK)/25 April 2005 (US)
Length: 400 pages

All rights available excluding:
UK & Commonwealth, US, France (Jean-Claude Lattes), Germany (DVA), Greece (Travlos), Italy (Codice Edizioni), Japan (Soshisha), Korea (Prunsoop), Poland (Albatros)