bojnberry's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed the conversational tone of this book. It spoke of some pretty heady concepts, but they were laid out in a way that even without a scientific background they were accessible. The diagrams were silly, but were still informative.
vasha's review against another edition
2.0
Anyone who's been paying attention to online discussions about science and science fiction will have heard there is such a thing as geek culture, and that geek culture is extremely hostile to women. Sadly this book is a good case in point. The authors proudly paint themselves, and their readers, as stereotypical geeks who have no social skills, never get dates, and are always pushed into lockers by the bigger boys in high school; in fact they have a bewildering preoccupation with high school given that they, and presumably the audience, are well past that age. Talk about a source of misplaced pride. Emphatically, it is the eternal high school boy that reigns here; they introduce half a dozen hypothetical characters to illustrate physics concepts, and not a single one is female, not even ones that are aliens from other galaxies. When they talk about physicists, they never talk as if they could be female. The only time that women come up are in the occasional sex joke -- e.g. saying that astronomers hope to find life on other planets in hope of finding sexy space babes, or noting that what they particularly liked about the movie Contact was that, by starring Jodie Foster, it gave the impression that astronomy departments might be populated by "smoking hotties" (really, that was your takeaway from the movie?)
All this juvenility and puerile misogyny is not only infuriating in itself, it is sad, because the authors actually are good at explaining physics concepts in clear, understandable ways. They go through modern physics at a good pace, with just enough detail. But in spite of that I can't recommend the book.
All this juvenility and puerile misogyny is not only infuriating in itself, it is sad, because the authors actually are good at explaining physics concepts in clear, understandable ways. They go through modern physics at a good pace, with just enough detail. But in spite of that I can't recommend the book.
yaj's review against another edition
4.0
Explains relativity, quantum mechanics and particle physics via a series of dad jokes. Goofy but more fun than the typical physics book.
islandhopper's review against another edition
3.0
Informative, charming, and occasionally chuckle-worthy. That's probably the easiest way to explain this title. I enjoyed reading it and, while I wouldn't call it quite as charming as a Neil Degrasse Tyson book, it was a fun read. The science is also explained in a way that makes everything fairly easy to understand while sounding a bit like an entertaining school lecture.
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