Quanta Books to Publish Popular Math and Physics Titles by Terence Tao and David Tong

Quanta Books is delighted to announce two new upcoming books by mathematician Terence Tao and theoretical physicist David Tong.

Six Math Essentials will be Tao’s first math book written for a popular audience. In the book, Tao — a recipient of the Fields Medal and one of the world’s top mathematicians — will explore six ideas that have guided mathematicians throughout history. This short and friendly volume is for all readers, Tao says, because he believes that “mathematics has become unnecessarily intimidating and abstruse to the general public while being more essential than ever in the modern world.” Six Math Essentials will be available internationally, with translated editions in Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Polish and other languages. It will arrive in U.S. bookstores in November 2026.

Tong’s book, Everything Is Fields, will illuminate quantum field theory — the physics that explains the fundamental makeup of the universe — drawing from Tong’s distinguished track record as a quantum field theorist and public communicator. “This book reveals the hidden unity that ties together particles and forces,” says Tong. “Everything — matter, light, even you — are just waves on a restless sea known as a quantum field.”

“Terry Tao and David Tong are intellectual powerhouses and seasoned communicators,” says Thomas Lin, publisher of Quanta Books and founding editor of the Pulitzer Prize­–winning Quanta Magazine. “Their books embody the curiosity and ambition that animate our imprint, and I can’t wait to share them with readers everywhere.”

Quanta Books is an editorially independent subsidiary of the Simons Foundation and a partner imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The imprint publishes books that illuminate and elucidate the central questions and fundamental ideas of modern science for readers, inviting a deeper understanding of the universe through artful storytelling. Quanta Books’ first title, The Proof in the Code by math journalist Kevin Hartnett, will be published in June 2026 and is available for preorder now.

For more information, visit QuantaBooks.org.

Six Math Essentials

In Six Math Essentials, Tao, the world’s most renowned mathematician, introduces readers to six core ideas that have guided mathematicians from antiquity to the frontiers of what we know today. This elegant volume explores: numbers as the gateway to quantitative thinking, algebra as the gateway to abstraction, geometry as a way to go beyond what we can see, probability as a tool to navigate uncertainty with rigorous thinking, analysis as a means to tame the very large or very small, and dynamics as the mathematics of change. Six Math Essentials — Tao’s first popular math book — offers a glimpse into the workings of an incomparable mind and how he thinks about the creativity, beauty, and interconnectedness of the mathematical enterprise. Math, Tao insists, isn’t magic — it’s a powerful way of thinking that anyone can learn.

Everything Is Fields

In Everything Is Fields, Tong leads readers on a lively tour through quantum field theory. Tong, a leading theoretical physicist and University of Cambridge professor, explores Quantum field theory, or QFT. The theory forms the underlying mathematical framework of the Standard Model, the deepest description we have of the fundamental laws of physics. And, as Tong shows, it reveals a startling truth: that, at our most basic level, we are made not of particles or forces, but fields, fluid-like substances stretched throughout the entire universe. With his infectious sense of wonder and characteristic wit, Tong buoys our journey through the most difficult topic in theoretical physics. He revels in all that we’ve learned about our world and illuminates the questions we’re still trying to answer about the stuff that makes up you, me, and everything else.

The Proof in the Code

The Proof in the Code is the definitive account of the birth and rise of Lean, a proof assistant developed at Microsoft that is transforming the enterprise of mathematics and ushering in a new era of human-computer collaboration. Although Lean was originally conceived of as a code-checking program, a small group of mathematicians recognized its potential to become something far more powerful: the “truth oracle” that thinkers have sought for centuries, a tool to definitively verify or refute any mathematical or logical assertion, no matter how complex. This is the story of the grassroots effort to make that dream a reality. Filled with insights about the future of math, computers, and AI, The Proof in the Code is a brilliant work of journalism by Hartnett, a leading math writer whose research and reporting offer a profound answer to a longstanding mystery: Can computers reveal universal truths?