The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged)

by Adam Rutherford
The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged)
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-01-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1324051035
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The complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it (minus the boring parts). Despite our clever linguistic abilities, humans are spectacularly ill-equipped to comprehend what’s happening in the universe. Our senses and intuition routinely mislead us. The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged) tells the story of how we came to suppress our monkey minds and perceive the true nature of reality. Written with wit and humor, this brief book tells the story of science—tales of fumbles and missteps, errors and egos, hard work, accidents, and some really bad decisions—all of which have created the sum total of human knowledge. Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide readers through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe. Rutherford and Fry shine as science sleuths, wrestling with some truly head-scratching questions: Where did time come from? Do we have free will? Does my dog love me? Hilarious sidebars present memorable scientific oddities: for example, hypnotized snails, human-sized ants, and the average time it takes most animals to evacuate their bladders. (A surprisingly consistent twenty-one seconds, if you must know.) Both rigorous and playful, The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged) is a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans, and the joys and follies of scientific discovery.

Rutherford and Fry's Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged)

by Adam Rutherford
Rutherford and Fry's Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged)
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: Corgi
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-10-13
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780552176712
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In Rutherford and Fry's comprehensive guidebook, they tell the complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it - skipping over some of the boring parts. This is a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans and the fact that amid all the mess, we can somehow make sense of life. Our brains have evolved to tell us all sorts of things that feel intuitively right but just aren't true- the world looks flat, the stars seem fixed in the heavenly firmament, a day is 24 hours... This book is crammed full of tales of how stuff really works. With the power of science, Rutherford and Fry show us how to bypass our monkey-brains, taking us on a journey from the origin of time and space, via planets, galaxies, evolution, the dinosaurs, all the way into our minds, and wrestling with some truly head-scratching questions that only science can answer- What is time, and where does it come from? Why are animals the size and shape they are? What is a thought? How horoscopes work (Spoiler- they don't, but you think they do) Does my dog love me? Why nothing is truly round Do you need your eyes to see?

The Mathematics of Love

by Hannah Fry
The Mathematics of Love
Author: Hannah Fry
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2015-02-03
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1476784884
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"A mathematician pulls back the curtain and reveals the hidden patterns--from dating sites to divorce, sex to marriage--behind the rituals of love ... applying mathematical formulas to the most common yet complex questions pertaining to love: What's the chance of finding love? What's the probability that it will last? How do online dating algorithms work, exactly? Can game theory help us decide who to approach in a bar? At what point in your dating life should you settle down?"--Amazon.com.

Hello World

by Hannah Fry
Hello World
Author: Hannah Fry
Publisher: Black Swan Books, Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9781784163068
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_______________ 'One of the best books yet written on data and algorithms. . .deserves a place on the bestseller charts.' (The Times) You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determined your fate - a human or an algorithm? An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence. Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions - in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even who we send to prison. So how much should we rely on them? What kind of future do we want? Hannah Fry takes us on a tour of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us. In Hello World she lifts the lid on their inner workings, demonstrates their power, exposes their limitations, and examines whether they really are an improvement on the humans they are replacing. A BBC RADIO 4- BOOK OF THE WEEK SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE AND 2018 ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

The Book of Humans

by Adam Rutherford
The Book of Humans
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-09-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780297609414
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Around 45,000 years ago, something happened. We dragged ourselves away from our origins by creating culture, with tools and art and abstract thought and our newly minted minds. The cognitive revolution gave us a sense that we are special, and specially created, distanced from nature. Writers, scientists, philosophers and religions have marvelled at our brilliance for millennia. Yet we are apes, wedded to the rest of creation by genes, anatomy, and physiology, all rooted in a shared evolution. All species are unique, but are we moreunique than other animals?This question is at the root of who we are. Things we once lorded as uniquely human are not. We are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, solves puzzles, has fashions, plans for the future, regrets past decisions, goes to war, grieves for lost lives, farms, uses manipulative mind control, and has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. We arethe only ones who do all of these things.The Book of Humansis a guidebook to this paradox: what sets us apart from nature, but places us within it. Darwin began the process of inching us back into the natural world but in this dazzling new book, Adam Rutherford will look at how we occupy an exceptional place within the animal kingdom, demystify the complex behaviours we once thought just belonged to us and, in turn, enrich our understanding of what it means to be human.

Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics

by Adam Rutherford
Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2022-11-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1324035617
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How did an obscure academic idea pave the way to the Holocaust within just fifty years? Control is a book about eugenics, what geneticist Adam Rutherford calls “a defining idea of the twentieth century.” Inspired by Darwin’s ideas about evolution, eugenics arose in Victorian England as a theory for improving the British population, and quickly spread to America, where it was embraced by presidents, funded by Gilded Age monopolists, and enshrined into racist American laws that became the ideological cornerstone of the Third Reich. Despite this horrific legacy, eugenics looms large today as the advances in genetics in the last thirty years—from the sequencing of the human genome to modern gene editing techniques—have brought the idea of population purification back into the mainstream. Eugenics has “a short history, but a long past,” Rutherford writes. The first half of Control is the history of an idea, from its roots in key philosophical texts of the classical world all the way into their genocidal enactment in the twentieth century. The second part of the book explores how eugenics operates today, as part of our language and culture, as part of current political and racial discussions, and as an eternal temptation to powerful people who wish to improve society through reproductive control. With disarming wit and scientific precision, Rutherford explains why eugenics still figures prominently in the twenty-first century, despite its genocidal past. And he confronts insidious recurring questions—did eugenics work in Nazi Germany? And could it work today?—revealing the intellectual bankruptcy of the idea, and the scientific impossibility of its realization.

The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us

by Adam Rutherford
The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1615195327
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“Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review Publisher’s Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal. In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.

The Present

by Spencer Johnson, M.D.
The Present
Author: Spencer Johnson, M.D.
Publisher: Crown Business
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307424057
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Another Spencer Johnson #1 Bestseller #1 New York Times Business #1 Wall Street Journal #1 BusinessWeek From the Author of Who Moved My Cheese? Dr. Spencer Johnson’s stories of timeless, simple truths have changed the work and lives of millions of readers around the world. Now comes an insightful new tale of inspiration and practical guidance for these turbulent times. Good Things Happen To Those Who Open The Present The Gift That Makes Your Work And Life Better Each Day! For over two decades, Spencer Johnson has been inspiring and entertaining millions with his simple yet insightful stories of work and life that speak directly to the heart and soul. The Present is an engaging story of a young man’s journey to adulthood, and his search for The Present, a mysterious and elusive gift he first hears about from a great old man. This Present, according to the old man, is “the best present a person can receive.” Later, when the young boy becomes a young man, disillusioned with his work and his life, he returns to ask the old man, once again, to help him find The Present. The old man responds, “Only you have the power to find The Present for yourself.” So the young man embarks on a tireless search for this magical gift that holds the secret to his personal happiness and business success.It is only after the young man has searched high and low and given up his relentless pursuit that he relaxes and discovers The Present—and all of the promises it offers. The Present will help you focus on what will make you happier and more successful in your work and in your personal life, today! Like the young man, you may find that it is the best gift you can give yourself. www.ThePresent.com

The Human Swarm

by Mark W. Moffett
The Human Swarm
Author: Mark W. Moffett
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 602
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1541617290
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The epic story and ultimate big history of how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into the sprawling civilizations of a world-dominating species If a chimpanzee ventures into the territory of a different group, it will almost certainly be killed. But a New Yorker can fly to Los Angeles--or Borneo--with very little fear. Psychologists have done little to explain this: for years, they have held that our biology puts a hard upper limit--about 150 people--on the size of our social groups. But human societies are in fact vastly larger. How do we manage--by and large--to get along with each other? In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity--and what it will take to sustain them.