Mr Tompkins is back!

The mild-mannered bank clerk with the short attention span and vivid imagination has inspired, charmed and informed young and old alike since the publication of the hugely successful Mr Tompkins in Paperback (by George Gamow) in 1965. He is now back in a new set of adventures exploring the extreme edges of the universe—the smallest, the largest, the fastest, the farthest. Through his experiences and his dreams, you are there at Mr Tompkin's shoulder watching and taking part in the merry dance of cosmic mysteries: Einstein's relativity, bizarre effects near light-speed, the birth and death of the universe, black holes, quarks, space warps and antimatter, the fuzzy world of the quantum, the demolition derby of atom smashers, and that ultimate cosmic mystery of all...love.

Mr. Tompkins, the star of these stories, was introduced in a small book, Mr Tompkins in Wonderland, published in 1941. This was followed in 1944 by a second volume, Mr Tompkins Explores the Atom. In 1965 the two books were combined with much updating and a number of new chapters as Mr Tompkins in Paperback (which, despite its title, was published in both paperback and hardcover editions). Mr Tompkins has, for over 50 years, been a constant presence in bookshops the world over, watching his younger (perhaps more flashy) rivals come and go. He is now back to show new generations of delighted readers the way into the physics of the twenty-first century.

From the book