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New Scientist: The Origin of (Almost) Everything cover art

New Scientist: The Origin of (Almost) Everything

By: New Scientist, Graham Lawton, Stephen Hawking
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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Summary

Does Anything Eat Wasps? meets Information Is Beautiful: a journey through life, the universe and everything. From what actually happened in the big bang to the accidental discovery of Post-it notes, science is packed with surprising discoveries.

Did you know, for instance, that if you were to get too close to a black hole it would suck you up like a noodle (it's called spaghettification), why your keyboard is laid out in QWERTY (it's not to make it easier to type) or whether the invention of the wheel was less important to civilisation than the bag (think about it)? New Scientist does.

And now they want to take you on a whistle-stop journey from the start of our universe (through the history of stars, galaxies, meteorites, the moon and dark energy) to our planet (through oceans and weather to oil) and life (through dinosaurs to emotions and sex) to civilisation (from cities to alcohol and cooking) and knowledge (from alphabets to alchemy), ending up with technology (computers to rocket science). Witty essays explore concepts that zoom from how many people have ever lived to showing you how a left-wing brain differs from a right-wing one.

©2017 New Scientist (P)2017 John Murray Press

What listeners say about New Scientist: The Origin of (Almost) Everything

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Coffee table science reading

The book is ok, it's really a very basic overview of scientific theories and opinions. I found the constant misprunounciations of scientific terms quite annoying. The book jumps from subject to subject with no apparent link and this gives a very scattergun feel to the book. The author makes some very basic assumptions as if they're indeed fact, the chapter on genetic politics is unintentionally hilarious. If you read science books regularly give this one a miss. There may be the occasional morsel of information that you can chew on but the rest of the literary meal is so bland and underdone that it's not worth it.

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9 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not bad

This book was remarkably similar to Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harar only less detailed and though provoking. I liked the upbeat narrating style though.

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1 person found this helpful

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5*

Hooked from start to finish - I very much enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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very enjoyable

excellent narrative and overall very enjoyable book. highly recommended for science enthusiast, lots of details and variation

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    4 out of 5 stars

if you are not fully into everything then beware.

I liked the book overall and the reader was great! but I have to say some parts didn't interest me at all for ex. the dinosaurs.
So even though some parts I enjoyed some parts I had to painfully go through. so I guess it's a good idea to know if you want to invest time in a book that might only 50% interest you.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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A Must Read

I found this book hilarious and thoroughly interesting, what more you possibly want? If you enjoy learning this books a must.

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half hearted and shallow

I purchase audio books as driving and hard copies just doesn't seem to stimulate. this book skims the people and the content of topics that are peppered liberally with characters and ideas. this is a poir replica of bill brysons a brief history of nearly everything.

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highly enjoyable

should be a part of every curriculum. would go easily say more rewarding than any religious document.

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