How to Speak Science

Book excerpt: As smartphones, supercomputers, supercolliders, and AI propel us into an ever more unfamiliar future, How to Speak Science takes us on a rollicking historical tour of the greatest discoveries and ideas that make todayÕs cuttingÐedge technologies possible. Wanting everyone to be able to ÒspeakÓ science, YouTube science guru Bruce Benamran explainsÐas accessibly and wittily as in his acclaimed videosÐthe fundamental ideas of the physical world: matter, life, the solar system, light, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, and much more. Along the way, Benamran guides us through the wildest hypotheses and most ingenious ideas of Galileo, Newton, Curie, Einstein, and scienceÕs other greatest minds, reminding us that while they werenÕt always exactly right, they were always curious. How to Speak Science acquaints us not only with what scientists know, but how they think, so that each of us can reason like a physicistÐand appreciate the world in all its beautiful chaos.