When the light learned to walk

Order book

Almost 9 years after its publication, the fixed price for my book Als das Licht laufen lernte has now been dropped. I was able to get hold of a few remaining copies and am offering them for sale here for €19.99 (instead of €49.99) plus shipping costs. If you like, I will sign or personally dedicate the book to you.

If you are interested, simply send me an e-mail to: hello [at] danielaleitner.de

  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe | Book cover
  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe | Book cover
  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | Foreword by Harald Lesch
  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe | Blurb
  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe | ribbon marker
  • Daniela Leitner | When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe | Red shift of paper
What happens when someone who thought physics was terrible at school decides to dedicate their dissertation to the subject? This is exactly the experiment I dared to conduct. The result is a book that has turned my life completely upside down …

Daniela Leitner
Als das Licht laufen lernte | Eine kleine Geschichte des Universums
(When the light learned to walk | A brief history of the universe)
With a foreword by Harald Lesch
Hardcover book, paperback with dust jacket, 864 pages, 15.0 x 22.7 cm
illustrated throughout in color
ISBN: 978-3-570-10184-1

Verlag: C. Bertelsmann
Publication date: November 15, 2013

The history of the universe – explained within your own four walls

Als das Licht laufen lernte (When light learned to walk) is a journey into the world of physics, backwards in time, on the trail of light, from today to the Big Bang. I stage the physical phenomenon of light as a daily routine in my apartment, backwards from going to bed to getting up, and explain the various topics using objects that are present in the individual rooms. For example, I demonstrate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle with flying socks, nuclear fusion with oranges in fruit bowls or the Big Bang with clothes, glass balls and lots of soap bubbles right in front of my bed. I wrote all the texts myself, explained them in a way that is understandable for the layman and salted them with a good dose of humor. In order to entice even the most hardened “physics deniers” out of their shells, the text/image ratio is more than balanced, and all the texts are always presented in gentle chunks. In seven chapters, I first deal with the world of the very smallest, which is described by quantum mechanics, followed by a look at the speed of light and the special theory of relativity. Our sun, the formation of the solar system and the very first stars that existed in our universe are examined in detail in further chapters. The comprehensive book ends with the “light curtain”, the moment when light learned to walk, and the beginning of everything, the Big Bang.

→ watch book trailer
→ view table of contents
→ read foreword
→ reading sample: Chapter 1 / The uncertainty principle

  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 1: Wave rider / The light and its double life
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The double-slit experiment in the bathtub
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 1 / Quote from Richard Feynman
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Photons in the bedroom
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 2: Back to the past / Why nothing is faster than light
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The principle of causality and the speed of light
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 3: Cold, small and alone / The sun as a lower mediocrity
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 3 / From one element to the next / Why nuclear reactions are worthwhile
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Cross-section Sun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 4: Cloudburst / From cool crumbs to a shining star
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 4 / Solar system
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Comparison protosun – sun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 5: The dark times are over / The first star turns on the light
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 5 / Proton capture
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 6: Curtain up / The light learns to walk
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Background radiation
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 6 / The curtain of light
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 7: The day without yesterday / A logical catastrophe and its consequences
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Helium is created in primordial nucleosynthesis
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Chapter 7 / The GUT force splits into the electroweak force and the strong force

Everything is so beautifully red and purple here!

The “red thread” of the project is the so-called red shift. The further light travels from the depths of space to us, the redder it becomes. And as the universe expands, light appears redder and redder the further it comes from and the deeper its origin is in the past. Accordingly, the paper color of the individual chapters, which lead from the present further and further into the past, gradually changes from violet to red and the colors of the photographs also adapt.

The red shift of the paper
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Research
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The double-slit experiment / Interference
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The double-slit experiment / The role of the observer / Particle properties
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The Heisenberg uncertainty principle with socks
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The Heisenberg uncertainty principle / Spatial blurring
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The Heisenberg uncertainty principle / Impulse blurring
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The boson showdown
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The relativity of motion
  • blank
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The twin paradox
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The magnetic field of the sun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The convection zone in the sun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The protosun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Population III star destroys hydrogen bonds
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / From a 200-solar-mass star to a red supergiant
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Red Giant – Population-III-Star – Sun
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Black hole swallows photons
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Spacetime curvature due to dark matter
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Dark and luminous matter in the era of galaxies
  • When the light learned to walk / A brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / The microwave background
  • When the light learned to walk / a brief history of the universe / Daniela Leitner / Overview of the epochs of the universe shortly after the Big Bang

How physics came to me

The basis for this book was an extremely intensive research phase in which I acquired specialist knowledge of physics completely voluntarily and without initially knowing why I was doing it. The physicist Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch, who triggered a strange awakening in me with his program alpha-Centauri on the subject of “What is light?”, was to blame for all of this. Because before that, the subject of physics was an absolute horror for me (as it probably was for so many people)… Harald Lesch voluntarily supervised my work, even though I was not a student at his university, and also wrote the foreword for it.

→ to the “ultimate adulation” of Harald Lesch – and how it all began …

Als das Licht laufen lernte — the ultimate adulation by Harald Lesch

Awards

blank

Nominated for the Opus Primum Award

Als das Licht laufen lernte was nominated for the Volkswagen Foundation’s Opus Primum Award for the best young academic publication of the year.

blank

Nominated for Knowledge Book of the Year

Als das Licht laufen lernte was nominated for Knowledge Book of the Year 2014 in the Aesthetics category.

blank

Shortlist of the most beautiful German books

Als das Licht laufen lernte was shortlisted as one of the best 108 books in the 2014 selection of the most beautiful German books.

blank

German Design Award Special Mention

Als das Licht laufen lernte received the Special Mention award from the German Design Council in 2013 as part of the German Design Award 2014.

blank

Silver nail at the ADC

Als das Licht laufen lernte was awarded a Silver Nail at the ADC Young Talent Competition in 2013 in the final thesis category.

blank

Red Dot Design Award

Als das Licht laufen lernte was honored with the Red Dot Award: Communication Design.

blank

Diploma with honors

For my diploma thesis, Als das Licht laufen lernte, which was supervised by Prof. Sven Voelker, Prof. Urs Lehni and “voluntarily” by Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch, I received a final grade of 1 with honors.

Press reviews

“The book offers entertainment and knowledge at a high level. The ‘little history of the universe’ is a great success.”

Bild der Wissenschaft

“A book that will inspire even the most vehement physics fanatics and children.”

ORF.at

MORE

Research on ice
Infographic quantum physics
Book trailer: When the light learned to walk
Infographic power and impulse
Brochure 90 years 90 heads
Cover & infographic: The intelligence of plants
             
←

Book trailer: When the light learned to walk

             
→

Infographic heart

Daniela Leitner
  • Dipl. Designer for Visual Science Communication
Design meets Science
  • Daniela Leitner
  • Ferdinand-Brandt-Str. 3
  • 95326 Kulmbach, GERMANY

  • hello [at] danielaleitner.de
  • +49(0)9221 6917555
  • (voice mail – I will call you back)
WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner