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Timothy Ferris

Timothy Ferris is the best-selling author of ten books, including Coming of Age in the Milky Way (winner of the American Institute of Physics Prize; Pulitzer Prize nomination, 1989; named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsday, and the Los Angeles Times, 1989; honored by The New York Public Library as "a lasting contribution to literature"; and named best nonfiction book of the year by the Bay Area Book Critics Association, San Francisco). The Mind’s Sky (named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, 1992), and The Whole Shebang (named by American Scientist magazine as one of the "100 Books That Shaped a Century of Science"). Coming of Age in the Milky Way and The Whole Shebang were named by The New York Times as two of the best books published in the twentieth century. Ferris is Emeritus Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and is a frequent writer in national publications such as The New Yorker and Scientific American, and commentator for National Public Radio and PBS. He serves as a consultant to NASA on long-term space exploration policy.

The website for his recent PBS film "Life Beyond Earth" is:

http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/index.html

The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report, New York, Simon & Schuster, (main selection, The Book-of-the-Month-Club), 1997; London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997; Barcelona, Editorial Critica, 1997; Munich, Droemer Knaur Verlag, 1998; Taiwan, Business Weekly Publications, 1998; Tel Aviv, Hed Arzi Publishing House, 1998; Poznan, Poland, Rebis, 1998; Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten, 1999; Prague, Aurora, 2000.

The Universe and Eye, with illustrations by Ingram Pinn, London, Pavilion Books, 1993; San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1993.

The Mind's Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context, New York, Bantam Books (selection of The Book-of-the-Month-Club) 1992; London and Sydney, Bantam, 1992; Tel-Aviv, Sifriat Ma'aviv, 1992; Rio de Janeiro, Editorial Campus, 1992; Berlin, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992 (paperback, 1995); Amsterdam, De Haan, 1992; Copenhagen, Gyldendal, 1994. Digital publication, Voyager Enhanced Book, Santa Monica, 1992.

World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics (editor), Boston, Little, Brown, (main selection, The Book-of-the-Month-Club), 1991. Paperback editions, Boston, Little, Brown, 1993, 1999.

Coming of Age in the Milky Way, New York, William Morrow & Co., Inc. (main selection, The Book-of-the-Month-Club), 1988; London, The Bodley Head, 1989; Barcelona, Critica, 1989; Berlin & Basel, Birkhaeuser Verlag, 1989; Tokyo, Kosaku sha Ltd, 1989; New York, Anchor/Doubleday paperback, 1989; Rio de Janeiro, Editorial Campus, 1990; Rome, Leonardo, 1990; Amsterdam, Unieboek/DeHaan, 1990; London, Vintage paperback, 1990; Aman, Jordan Book Center, 1990; Tel-Aviv, Sifriat Ma'aviv, 1990; Paris, Hachette, 1990; Copenhagen, Gylendal, 1990.

The Practice of Journalism (with Bruce Porter), New York, Prentice-Hall, 1988.

SpaceShots, New York, Pantheon Books (featured alternate, The Book-of-the-Month-Club), 1984.

Galaxies, San Francisco, Sierra Club Books (featured alternate, The Book-of-the-Month Club), 1980; London, Thames-Hudson Ltd., 1980; Berlin & Basel, Birkhaeuser Verlag, 1982; Rome, Fabbri, 1982; Tokyo, 1982; New York, Stewart Tabori & Chang, 1982; Paris, Mazarine, 1983; New York, Harrison House, 1987.

Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, with Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, Ann Druyan, Jon Lomberg and Linda Salzman Sagan, New York, Random House (alternate selection, The Book-of-the-Month Club), 1978.

The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe, New York, William Morrow & Co., Inc. (alternate selection, The Book-of-the-Month Club), 1977; London, Transworld, 1978; Stockholm, Forum, 1978; Tokyo, 1979; Budapest, Konyvkaido, Brody Sandor, 1982; Basel, Birkhauser Verlag, 1982; revised edition, Morrow/Quill, June 1983; Amsterdam, De Feniks, 1986; Budapest, Gondolat, 1985.

Narrator and co-writer, "A LIFE BEYOND EARTH", @ two-hour PBS television special, world premier November 10, 1999. http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/index.html

Author and narrator, "THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE", ninety-minute television science special; U.S. premier, PBS network, November 20, 1985; also broadcast in the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Venezuela, and Brazil. Inaugural release, PBS Home Video, 1991; laserdisc release, Pacific Arts Video, 1992; CD-ROM release, The Voyager Company, 1993.

Producer, Voyager phonograph record, archive of Earth's music carried aboard the Voyager interstellar spacecraft, launched from Kennedy Space Center 1977. Released in CD-ROM format, Warner New Media, 1992.

Author and narrator, audiotape editions of The Whole Shebang, 1997; The Red Limit, 1996; The Mind's Sky, 1992; Coming of Age in the Milky Way, 1988 (Los Angeles, Dove Books).

Writer, "STARPOWER," IMAX film being produced by Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater & Science Center and Four Square Productions, San Diego.

Writer and narrator, segments on The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, PBS television: "Exploding Stars and the Origins of Human Civilization, October 21, 1993; "Pipe Organs and Particle Accelerators," June 8, 1993; "Columbus Day," October 7, 1992; "The Voyager Encounter With Neptune," August 22, 1989.

Executive producer, "Galaxies," original sound track recording of music by Kevin Braheny, San Francisco, Hearts of Space Music, 1988.

Author, narrator and director, "Galaxies," internationally syndicated planetarium program; world premier, Hansen Planetarium, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 18, 1987.

Recent Articles & Essays:

"The Light and the Dark," Automobile, March 2000.

"A Space Station?" The New York Times Magazine, November 28, 1999. Reprinted in MAX Magazine, Germany, 1999.

"If Forced to Choose," American Scientist, November-December 1999.

"The Cruel Sport," Talk, November 1999.

"The Last Bit: Is Information Theory the Answer to Everything?" Forbes ASAP Big Issue IV, October 4, 1999.

"Personal Places," National Geographic Traveler, October 1999.

"How to Predict Everything," The New Yorker, July 12, 1999.

Introduction to The Scientific American Book of Astronomy, The Lyons Press, 1999.

"Whine of the Region: If You Want to Know Why a Ferrari is a Ferrari, Just Drive One in its Homeland," Automobile, July 1999.

"Interstellar Spaceflight," Scientific American Presents: The Future of Space Exploration, Spring 1999.

"Communication With High-Performance Automobiles," Wired, January 1999.

"NASA’s Mission to Nowhere," Op-ed page, The New York Times, Sunday, November 29, 1998.

"The Three Immensities," Forbes ASAP Big Issue III, November 30, 1998.

"Seeing in the Dark," The New Yorker, August 10, 1998.

"Not Rocket Science," The New Yorker, July 20, 1998.

"Flight of the Bumblers,@ Op-ed page, The New York Times, September 24, 1997.

AThe Space Gamble,@ The New York Review of Books, September 25, 1997; reprinted in Le Recherche, Paris, November 1997.

AInflating the Cosmos,@ Astronomy, July 1997.

AThe Wrong Stuff,@ The New Yorker, April 14, 1997.

AThe Risks and Rewards of Popularizing Science,@ The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 4, 1997; reprinted in The Informal Science Review, May/June 1997.

AThe Moon=s Big Splash,@ Natural History, March 1997.

AIs This the End?@ The New Yorker, January 27, 1997; reprinted in Germany and Australia and in McGraw-Hill=s Quantitative Reasoning Workbook., 1997.

AWeirdness Makes Sense,@ The New York Times Magazine, Sept. 29, 1996.

AA Message From Mars,@ The New Yorker, August 19, 1996.

AExpress Train of the Sky,@ Op-Ed page, San Francisco Examiner and other newspapers, June 4, 1996.

Foreword, Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann, The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics, Rutgers University Press, 1996.

AAlien Ambition,@ The New Yorker, February 12, 1996.

"Apollo 13 and the Strip-Mining of American Culture," Newsday, July 11, 1995; reprinted in the Washington Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Phoenix Gazette, other papers.

"At the Cosmological Conference," The New Yorker, May 15, 1995.

"The Interpreter," lead essay in Ted Anton and Rick McCourt, editors, The New Science Journalists: The Future of Our Planet, Our Species, and Our Psyches, From the Most Renowned Literary Science Journalists Working Today, New York, Ballantine, 1995.

"Science and Genesis," chapter in Clifford N. Matthews and Roy Abraham Varghese, editors, Cosmic Beginnings and Human Ends: Where Science and Religion Meet, Chicago, Open Court, 1995.