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A review by drewmiller_
This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works by John Brockman
4.0
If TED talks ever move to a paper format, they'll have some stiff competition. Edge.org, the site behind this tome of beautiful and explanatory ideas, has picked a rich assortment of thinkers and topics. There are some extremely interesting ideas (e.g. the pigeonhole principle) and some clunkers (such as Scott Atran's wholly unpersuasive insistence that morality can't spring from nature). But on the whole, this book will tickle parts of your cerebrum you didn't even know you had.
As Paul Saffo notes in his piece on plate tectonics, "[e]legant explanations are the Kuhnian (referring to [b:The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|61539|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|Thomas S. Kuhn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1396422530s/61539.jpg|1748176]) solvent that leaches the glue from old paradigms, making space for new theories to take hold." This book is a vibrant selection of paradigms that continue to amaze and impress us, written by some of today's greatest thinkers.
As Paul Saffo notes in his piece on plate tectonics, "[e]legant explanations are the Kuhnian (referring to [b:The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|61539|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|Thomas S. Kuhn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1396422530s/61539.jpg|1748176]) solvent that leaches the glue from old paradigms, making space for new theories to take hold." This book is a vibrant selection of paradigms that continue to amaze and impress us, written by some of today's greatest thinkers.