1. Beginnings -- The big bang / Marcus Chown -- Secret life of the brain / Douglas Fox -- From zero to hero / Richard Webb -- Heal thyself / Jo Marchant -- 2. Mysteries -- The day time began / Paul Davies -- Placebo power / Michael Brooks -- Wastes of space? / Laura Spinney -- Banishing consciousness / Linda Geddes -- 3. Making sense of it all -- Out of thin air / Per Eklund -- Busy doing nothing / Jonathan Knight -- The hole story / Richard Webb -- Into the void / Nigel Henbest -- Zero, zip, zilch / Ian Stewart -- 4. Surprises -- The turbulent life of empty space / Paul Davies -- When mind attacks body / Helen Pilcher -- Ride the celestial subway / Ian Stewart -- Vacuum packed / David Harris -- Nothing in common / Ian Stewart -- 5. Voyages of discovery -- Absolute zero / Michael de Podesta -- Boring-ology: a happy tedium / Valerie Jamieson -- Putting the idle to work / David E. Fisher -- Get up, get out of bed / Rick A. Lovett -- 6. Conclusions -- The workout pill / Andy Coghlan -- The world of superstuff / Michael Brooks -- Pathways to cosmic oblivion / Stephen Battersby.

Zero, zip, nada, zilch. It's all too easy to ignore the fascinating possibilities of emptiness and non-existence, and we may well wonder what there is to say about nothing. But scientists have known for centuries that nothing is the key to understanding absolutely everything, from why particles have mass to the expansion of the universe - so without nothing we'd be precisely nowhere. Absolute zero (the coldest cold that can exist) and the astonishing power of placebos, light bulbs, superconductors, vacuums, dark energy, 'bed rest' and the birth of time - all are different aspects of the concept of nothing. The closer we look, the bigger the subject gets. Why do some animals spend all day doing nothing? What happens in our brains when we try to think about nothing? With chapters by 20 science writers, including top names such as Ian Stewart, Marcus Chown, Nigel Henbest, Michael Brooks, Paul Davies and David Fisher, this fascinating and intriguing book revels in a subject that has tantalised the finest minds for centuries, and shows there's more to nothing than meets the eye.