A review by cheyrivera
30-Second Theories: The 50 Most Thought-provoking Theories in Science, Each Explained in Half a Minute by Robert Matthews, Michael Brooks, Paul Parsons, Susan Blackmore, Martin J. Rees, Christian Jarrett, Jim Al-Khalili, Jon Gribbin, Mark Ridley, Bill McGuire

4.0

A friend lent me this book a few days ago, so I put `Demon-Haunted World’ on-hold for a while. Like the cover says, this book contains 50 of the most popular theories in physics, psychology, geology, evolution, astronomy, and biology explained in a small paragraph of just 300 words. It's a very ambitious idea, and so you get a very simplified summary of the theories, but it's a great place to start. And if, like me, you are already familiar with some of them, it will be a fun memory refresher. My favorites were The Theory of Relativity, Out of Africa, Natural Selection, The Origin of Language, Continental Drift, The Big Bang, Dark Matter, Parallel Worlds, and The Fate of the Universe. It's a short book of less than 200 pages, and it's full of pictures, so it's a very quick read. I especially recommend the sections: Human Evolution, Planet Earth, and The Universe.