author
J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
1886–1937
Best known for making difficult scientific ideas feel readable, this English writer moved easily between physics, literature, and music. His books helped early 20th-century readers approach Einstein, mathematics, and Beethoven with curiosity rather than intimidation.
3 Audiobooks
Gallio : or, The tyranny of science
by J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
Atoms and electrons
by J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
Aspects of science
by J. W. N. (John William Navin) Sullivan
About the author
Born in London in 1886, J. W. N. Sullivan was an English popular science writer and literary journalist. He became especially known for clear, non-technical writing about modern physics, including some of the early general-reader accounts of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Sullivan’s interests ranged well beyond science. He also wrote about mathematics and produced a noted study of Beethoven, reflecting the way he linked scientific thought with art, beauty, and intellectual life more broadly.
He was part of the lively London literary world of the 1920s and was acquainted with major writers of the period, including Aldous Huxley, John Middleton Murry, Wyndham Lewis, and T. S. Eliot. He died in 1937.