Brian Clegg

Brian Clegg is the award-winning writer of more than 40 popular science books. ‘Far too many people were put off by the way science is taught at school,’ he says. ‘I was inspired to present science to the public in a way that I hope is accessible and interesting.’...

Born in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1955, Clegg studied physics at Cambridge before working as an operational researcher for British Airways. He then set up his own consultancy, offering courses on creative problem solving for clients including the BBC, the Met Office, the Treasury and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Writing was always something he wanted to pursue though, and the desire to have his work published focused his attention on reaching specific audiences. His first books emerged from his consultancy practice and included titles such as Imagination Engineering: A Toolkit for Business Creativity (with Paul Birch, 1996) and Creativity and Innovation for Managers (1999), and he has continued to publish on business subjects alongside his science books.

Following the release of Light Years: The Extraordinary Story of Mankind’s Fascination with Light in 2001, and A Brief History of Infinity in 2003, which was longlisted for the Royal Society Prize, many more books on the history of science followed. Aware of how his own interest in science was often enhanced by knowing more about the people involved, Clegg has also penned three biographies: The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon (2003), The Man Who Stopped Time , about the Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge (2007), and Professor Maxwell’s Duplicitous Demon, on the mathematician James Clerk Maxwell (2019).

Clegg’s recent titles include The Reality Frame: Relativity and Our Place in the Universe (2017) and Scientifica Historica (2019), an illustrated account of the greatest science books from antiquity to the present. He has also written three books in Ivy Press’s Crash Course series: Quantum Theory, Physics and, with Peet Morris, Mathematics (all 2019).

A popular lecturer, Brian Clegg also writes for newspapers and magazines including The Times, The Observer, the Wall Street Journal, Nature, BBC History and Physics World, and in 2015 he ventured into fiction with A Lonely Height, the first of eight mysteries featuring the crime-solving vicar Stephen Capel.

Brian Clegg lives in Wiltshire with his wife, and says he gets his best ideas while taking their golden retriever for a walk.