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Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Randall Munroe · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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The Grand Design

Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow · 200 pages

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent grand design of our universe evidence for a benevolent creator who set things in motion? Or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design, the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe is presented, in language marked by both brilliance and simplicity. The G

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The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

Richard Dawkins · 272 pages

What are things made of? What is the sun? Why is there night and day, winter and summer? Why do bad things happen? Are we alone? Throughout history people all over the world have invented stories to answer profound questions such as these. Have you heard the tale of how the sun hatched out of an emu's egg? Or what about the great catfish that carries the world on its back? Has anyone ever t

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A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · 560 pages

A Short History of Nearly Everything by American author Bill Bryson is a popular science book that explains some areas of science, using easily accessible language that appeals more so to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject. It was one of the bestselling popular science books of 2005 in the United Kingdom, selling over 300,000 copies. A Short History deviates from

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We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe

Jorge Cham, Daniel Whiteson · 368 pages

Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore--there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson team up to explore everything we don't know about the universe, and while introducing the biggest mysteries in physics, they also helpfully demystify many complicated things we do know. A

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The Science Book

Adam Hart-Davis · 352 pages

The Science Book is an inventive visual take on astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics. With eye-catching artwork, step-by-step diagrams, and illustrations that break down complicated ideas into manageable concepts, The Science Book will have readers conversant in genetic engineering, black holes, and global warming in no time. Along the way are found mini-biographies of the most well

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Chemical Chaos

Nick Arnold · 160 pages

**Science with the squishy bits left in!** *Chemical Chaos* could make your brain explode! Are you burning to find out: why glass eyes aren't really made of glass? what would make the worst stink bomb ever? how to make your own toothpaste? If you think you can stomach the *sick* side of Science, then read on as chaotic chemistry is put to the test. Find out about some extraordinary experiment

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The Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie: A Book About Germs

Joanna Cole · 30 pages

Ralphie's sick and can't host the Frizzle News Network TV show on health--until Ms. Frizzle and the gang travel inside his bloodstream to learn how the human body fights germs.

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The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book About Food Chains: A Book About Food Chains

Patricia Relf, Joanna Cole, Bruce Degen · 32 pages

A class trip to the beach becomes an underwater lesson about food chains when Arnold and Keesha are challenged to discover what a tuna fish sandwich and some smelly green pond scum have in common.

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Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements

Hugh Aldersey-Williams · 430 pages

"In the spirit of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, an energetic and wide-ranging book of discovery and discoverers, of exploitation and celebration, and of superstition and science, all in search of the ways the chemical elements are woven into our culture, history, and language"--

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How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond

John Powell · 264 pages

John Powell, a scientist and musician, answers questions about harmony, timbre, keys, chords, loudness, musical composition, and many more in this intriguing and original guide to acoustics.

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Mapping The Mind

Rita Carter · 224 pages

This book shows how the latest scans, which reveal thoughts, memories - even our moods - as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones, can be used to help explain aspects of our behaviour, and how behavioural eccentricities can be traced to abnormalities in an individual brain. Dyslexia, for example, may be caused by a short-circuit in the messages converting sound to visual cues ; addiction, eating d

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The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Sam Kean · 391 pages

The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. --from publisher description

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Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Neil deGrasse Tyson · 352 pages

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Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

Mark Miodownik · 272 pages

"Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paperclip bend? Why does any material look and behave the way it does?With clarity and humor, world-leading materials scientist Mark Miodownik answers all the questions you've ever had about your pens, spoons, and razor blades, while also introducing a whole world full of materials you've never even heard of: the diamond five times

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The New Way Things Work

David Macaulay

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Introducing Quantum Theory

J.P. McEvoy, Oscar Zarate · 175 pages

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The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science

Matt LaMothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski · 160 pages

A science book like no other, The Where, the Why, and the How turns loose 75 of today's hottest artists onto life's vast questions, from how we got here to where we are going.

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Chaos: Making a New Science

James Gleick · 360 pages

The author describes how scientists studying the growth of complexity in nature are discovering order and pattern in chaos. He explains concepts such as nonlinearity, the Butterfly Effect, universal constants, fractals, and strange attractors, and examines the work of scientists such as Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, Edward Lorenz, and Benoit Mandelbrot.

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Origins: 14 Bllion Years of Cosmic Evolution

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Donald Goldsmith · 336 pages

"Drawing on the current cross-pollination among geology, biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the universe while capturing the importance of such extraordinary events as the first image of a galaxy being born and the exploration of Martian frontiers by Spirit Rover. Distilling complex science into clear and lively prose, coauthors N

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Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Carlo Rovelli · 96 pages

An introduction to modern physics by a founder of the loop quantum gravity theory shares seven succinct lessons on topics ranging from general relativity and quantum mechanics to elementary particles and black holes.

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