Welcome to jimbaggott.com


Jim is an award-winning popular science writer and author, with more than 20 years’ experience writing on topics in the physical, chemical and biological sciences. His articles have appeared in online and offline media, and he has made many appearances on radio and television.

On this site you can learn more about Jim’s books, read related articles and discussions, listen to podcasts and radio interviews or maybe watch a few videos. You can find out when and where Jim is giving his next talk, and stay up to date with the latest news.

About Jim Baggott


Jim Baggott is an award-winning science writer. He trained as a scientist, completing a doctorate in chemical physics at the University of Oxford in the early 80s, before embarking on post-doctoral research studies at Oxford and at Stanford University in California.

He gave up a tenured lectureship at the University of Reading after five years in order to gain experience in the commercial world. He worked for Shell International Petroleum for 11 years before leaving to establish his own business consultancy and training practice. He won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Marlow Medal for his contributions to scientific research in 1989.

Jim writes about science, science history and philosophy in what spare time he can find, and has published articles and book reviews in Aeon Magazine, Prospect, New Scientist, Nature, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Chemistry in Britain, Chemistry Review, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and other periodicals. His feature article on the discovery of buckminsterfullerene won the prestigious Glaxo Science Writers’ Award in 1992. His book Mass (2017) won the ‘Cosmos’ prize for science writing in 2020.

His books have been highly acclaimed and include A Beginners Guide to Reality (2005), Atomic (2009), The Quantum Story (2011), Higgs (2012), Farewell to Reality (2013), Origins (2015), Mass (2017), Quantum Space (2018), The Quantum Cookbook (2020), and Quantum Reality (2020). His latest book, Quantum Drama, co-authored with distinguished science historian John Heilbron, will be published on 25 April 2024 by Oxford University Press.

Latest Updates


Latest Video

Coming to Terms with your Personal Reality

Jim’s career spans both academic science and business. But he is also an award-winning popular …

Latest Audio

Science Shambles: Quantum Physics is Weird

On this episode of Science Shambles, Robin tries to get his head further around quantum …

Latest Article

At the Centre of the Shadow, on Jim Baggott's Substack

How do you prove how nature works? I want to try to answer this question by reference …

Books By Jim Baggott


Front Cover

Quantum Drama

It was not a question of whether light should be pictured as waves or particles, or atoms as solar ...

9780198830153

Quantum Reality

Quantum mechanics is an extraordinarily successful scientific theory. It is also completely mad. A ...

Quantum Cookbook

The Quantum Cookbook

The Quantum Cookbook provides a unique bridge between popular exposition and formal textbook prese ...

Quantum Space Cover

Quantum Space

Quantum gravity is the holy grail for modern theoretical physicists – a single structure that br ...

9780198759713

Mass

Modern science has undermined all our preconceptions about the physical universe, and especially t ...

Origins

Origins

There is no such thing as an ‘authorised’ or ‘official’ version of the scientific story of ...

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Atomic

Jim Baggott tells the monumental history of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon, ...

Farewell_1

Farewell to Reality

A controversial popular science title in which Jim Baggott asks whether all that we currently know ...

Higgs

Higgs

What is the Higgs boson and why does it matter? Jim Baggott tells the story of the recent discover ...

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The Quantum Story

Jim Baggott presents a celebration of this wonderful yet wholly disconcerting theory, with a histo ...

Reality_1

A Beginner’s Guide to Reality

Jim Baggott explores reality at social, perceptual and physical levels. He leads us down the rabbi ...

9780198529279

Beyond Measure

Jim Baggott looks at the history and philosophy of quantum mechanics and the continuing experiment ...

Perfect Symmetry

Perfect Symmetry

In this account, prize-winning science writer Jim Baggott tells the compelling story of buckminste ...