Its contributors included Peter Galison, Robert May, Baron May of Oxford, Oliver Morton, Roger Penrose, Christine Sutton, Steven Weinberg and Frank Wilczek.
It explores the relationship between mathematics and the search for the laws of physics, and highlights the contributions of several theoretical physicists, natural philosophers and mathematicians, notably Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein and Paul Dirac, before focussing on key developments on the mathematics-physics interface from the 1970s.
[4] The book emphasizes conflicts between scientific opportunity and political or managerial direction, featuring Rudolf Peierls, Niels Bohr, James Chadwick, John Cockcroft, Otto Frisch, Vannevar Bush and Robert Oppenheimer.
He was responsible for a variety of initiatives, mostly concerning the presentation of contemporary science and technology in events and exhibitions, notably the planning and delivery of the Wellcome Wing and the Dana Centre.
Farmelo has often given talks that feature the participation of an actor playing the protagonist, for example Leó Szilárd in 'Dawn of the Nuclear Age', Edinburgh Science Festival, 1993; Michael Faraday in lecture at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1994, and Paul Dirac in 'The Religion of Mathematical Beauty', Stirling Lecture, University of Durham, 2010.
He worked there until 1990, writing texts and making television programmes on various course teams, chairing the production of the University’s Science Foundation Course (1986–1989).