Jim Baggott

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.