The Universe Made Simple

The books, in order

1. 1

   Science · 16 min

   Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

   Neil deGrasse Tyson

   The same physical laws that hold in your neighborhood hold in any distant galaxy, and that consistency is what lets astronomers study stars far beyond the reach of any human trip.

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2. 2

   Technology and the Future · 15 min

   Physics of the Impossible

   Michio Kaku

   In 2008, Kaku noted that in robotics the mechanical body was advancing faster than common sense: it was easier to teach an arm to weld than to teach a machine to notice that a full glass can tip over.

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3. 3

   Science · 16 min

   Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

   Carlo Rovelli

   Every generation thought it was finally seeing the limits of the universe, and the next one discovered it was only seeing the nearest wall.

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4. 4

   Science · 17 min

   Billions and Billions

   Carl Sagan

   For centuries we imagined the world had only four corners, because one person's direct experience reached only a small patch of territory.

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5. 5

   Science · 17 min

   Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

   Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith

   The amount of matter left over in the universe after matter and antimatter collided was small enough to fit in a ratio of one in a billion, and even so, it is what makes up everything that exists today.

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6. 6

   Science · 15 min

   The Universe in a Nutshell

   Stephen Hawking

   According to Hawking's theoretical prediction, not yet directly observed, quantum effects make a black hole slowly give off radiation: even the darkest object in the universe wouldn't be completely black.

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7. 7

   Science · 17 min

   The Order of Time

   Carlo Rovelli

   According to Rovelli's bet, time may not be a basic ingredient of the universe, just an effect that shows up when we look at a system from far away.

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8. 8

   Science · 16 min

   The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

   Brian Greene

   The two best-tested theories in physics, the one about gravity and the one about the quantum world, agree on almost everything, except what happens inside a black hole or at the instant the universe was born.

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9. 9

   Science · 15 min

   Thinking in Numbers

   Daniel Tammet

   Mathematics becomes less intimidating when we understand that numbers are a language of imagination and beauty, not just mechanical formulas.

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10. 10

    Science · 15 min

    Brief Answers to the Big Questions

    Stephen Hawking

    Black holes emit a faint radiation and can evaporate, which raised the puzzle of what happens to the information that falls into them.

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