How the world works

Science & the cosmos

Physics, biology and the universe, explained for the curious.

Read your way in

  1. A black hole can have a temperature — Stephen Hawking · A Brief History of TimeA glance
  2. Much of your material is older than Earth — Carl Sagan · CosmosA glance
  3. Some ants cultivate a crop they cannot live without — Merlin Sheldrake · Entangled LifeA glance
  4. Natural selection is a filter, not an engineer — Richard Dawkins · The Selfish GeneA glance
  5. The ocean moves heat without staying still — Carl Sagan · CosmosA glance
  6. The seafloor records a field that keeps reversing — Carlo Rovelli · Seven Brief Lessons on PhysicsA glance
  7. A gene is not a sealed instruction for a life — Siddhartha Mukherjee · The Gene: An Intimate HistoryA glance
  8. A selfish gene does not make a selfish creature — Richard Dawkins · The Selfish GeneA glance
  9. A monastery garden made inheritance countable — Siddhartha Mukherjee · The Gene: An Intimate HistoryA glance
  10. Zebra stripes helped move the continents — Carlo Rovelli · Seven Brief Lessons on PhysicsA glance
  11. Ask what a model had to leave outside — Stephen Hawking · A Brief History of TimeA glance
  12. A map of ocean colour can be a map of life — Merlin Sheldrake · Entangled LifeA glance

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The books behind it

  • Stephen Hawking, 1988. Why this book: Hawking makes the unresolved meeting of gravity, time and quantum theory genuinely approachable.
  • Carl Sagan, 1980. Why this book: Sagan joins scientific scale to humane wonder without treating either as decoration.
  • Merlin Sheldrake, 2020. Why this book: A field mycologist reveals fungi as active partners, decomposers and makers of worlds.
  • Richard Dawkins, 1976. Why this book: The gene's-eye view remains a lucid, provocative route into natural selection.
  • Carlo Rovelli, 2014. Why this book: Rovelli compresses modern physics without pretending its deepest disagreements are settled.
  • Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2016. Why this book: A careful history of heredity that keeps scientific power beside its ethical consequences.