Publisher's Leaflet: Mr Tompkins Learns the Facts of Life

Date:
[1953]
Reference:
PP/CRI/I/3/4
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Publisher's Leaflet: <i>Mr Tompkins Learns the Facts of Life</i>. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CYRIL GEORGE HENRY TOMPKINS was born at a comparatively late age, apparently in 1939. He is pretty thoroughly accounted for, genetically and otherwise, in this book, which gives, we may justifiably say, his inside story. Externally he is a bank clerk, married, with one son; he dresses informally, has always had a tendency to baldness, and supports a melancholy moustache. It was in 1939 that a hard day's work, topped by a Professor's lecture on the problems of modern physics, first led Mr Tompkins to confuse waking and dreaming. He found himself in a small, but expanding universe, where the time scale was rather more obviously relative than usual. More lectures and more dreams gave him a first-hand acquaintance with the velocity of light, the curvature of space, the quanta of energy and the Professor's daughter Maud, whom he married. (See MR TOMPKINS IN WONDERLAND) His achieve ments were officially recognised by the theoretical physicists G. Gamow and E. Teller who, in their article 'On the Origin of Great Nebulae' ( Phys. Rev. 55, 654-7, I 939)> expressed their gratitude to him for suggesting the topic. Mr Tompkins might now have seemed to need no more lectures; he had his father-in-law to listen to, morning, noon and night. But nightmares are hard to escape, and Mr Tompkins was always eager to learn. So the Professor got to work again, and Mr Tompkins found himself in another series of microcosmic adventures with Maud, which nearly led to his total annihilation. (See MR TOMPKINS EXPLORES THE ATOM ) In this latest series of adventures Maud hardly appears. Mr Tompkins had to promise her to steer clear of physics, but he is still curious, and there are other things to learn. Those who are born middle-aged may well raise questions about the facts of life : they have something to catch up with. George Gamow's three books about Mr Tompkins are published by CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS BENTLEY HOUSE, 200 EUSTON ROAD, LONDON N.W.I U.S.A.: 32 EAST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK 22, N.Y. CANADA: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED, TORONTO The picture on the front of the leaflet shorn Mr Tompkins considering his X-chromosome The lady is the gene who is responsible for his curiosity Printed in Great Britain