Reviews

This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works by Kevin P. Hand, V.S. Ramachandran, James J. O'Donnell, Carl Zimmer, George Dyson, Andrei D. Linde, Jonathan Gottschall, John Brockman, Richard H. Thaler, Armand Marie Leroi, Gino Segrè, Judith Rich Harris, A.C. Grayling, Thomas Metzinger, Aubrey de Grey, Satyajit Das, Sean Carroll, Jennifer Jacquet, Richard Dawkins, David G. Myers, Paul Saffo, Hugo Mercier, Susan Blackmore, Freeman Dyson, Matt Ridley, Robert R. Provine, Martin J. Rees, David Eagleman, Jeremy Bernstein, Frank Wilczek, Max Tegmark, Robert M. Sapolsky, Joel Gold, Mahzarin Banaji, Daniel C. Dennett, Carlo Rovelli, Steven Pinker, Paul J. Steinhardt, Clay Shirky, David M. Buss, Shing-Tung Yau, Dan Sperber, Scott Atran, Anton Zeilinger, Alan Alda, Gerd Gigerenzer, Stewart Brand, Haim Harari, Howard Gardner, Leonard Susskind, Rebecca Goldstein

jstuartmill's review against another edition

4.0

Book is very dense and takes an eternity to read but it's well worth it. I learned more from this book than any science classes I took in college (I wasn't a science major).

bibliocyclist's review

3.0

"Everything not reported remains the same."

adiamond's review

3.0

I wanted to like this book, but it fell short of the title's promise on too many counts. The biggest problem was that so many of the theories were not adequately and certainly not elegantly explained. As other reviewers point out, many of the one- to three-page explanations from experts in various fields read like unedited emails.

If a reader can't summarize a three page article after a single pass, it often means the article wasn't very clear. The elegance of elegant theories usually comes from their clarity and simplicity. A better title for this book might be This Explains a Few Things: Ramblings from My Inbox.

It is a good bathroom reader, though. The better articles make you think. The muddled ones remind you it's time to get on with your day.

UPDATE Jan. 5, 2020: Upgraded from two stars to three. While the book is uneven, there are a few thought-provoking pieces here and there.

tofugirl's review

1.0

Disappointing. Inaccessible to the non-academic man on the street. Don't bother.