This is a humorous but informative book talking about everything from why Aristotle was an idiot to quantum mechanics. I found it best in small doses. It could also be a great supplemental resource for the high school years for homeschooling science.

If you're a STEM person or want to store some fun facts and basics in your brain because you're surrounded by STEM people, this book is pretty good.

Nonfiction
Adult
So let’s start with the science I know – I understand gravity and molecular structure, I kinda get electricity and nuclear fission, I love that the periodic table of elements is in order of weight (but also in order of plentifulness in our universe), I think I have a very superficial understanding of relativity, but I don’t even try to get how television works. About once or twice a year I find myself poking through a book to try and fill some of the many gaps in my knowledge of science, and this one caught my eye with an appealing cover and great subtitle: “Gravity, Relativity, and Other Ideas that Were Crazy Until Proven Brilliant.” The book’s intent is to help you understand science by understanding a bit of the history of great ideas, both right and wrong, that have propelled scientists seeking to find answers to questions, from the time of Aristotle to current day. Benamran is a French computer scientist with a popular YouTube channel; in this book, first published in France in 2015 and now brilliantly translated by Stephanie Delozier Strobel, he traces the history of important science concepts in an engaging and fun narrative, sans any illustrations or math. The book opens with a brief explanation of correlation and causality, and then an explanation of why in science models are important, but that they are NOT the same as reality. Lots of theoretical stuff, but Benamran delivers the info in a casual and friendly style that put me in mind of a lecture from your favourite prof: “[S]tay with me here, you can sleep when we’re done” (p.23). There are nine major sections: Matter (getting down to the atom and nucleus stuff); Light; Electromagnetism (this is where they usually lose me); The Solar System; Classical Mechanics, which covers force, momentum and stuff like that; Life (biology, including blowing away the idea that artist are “left-brained” and why we sometimes jerk when falling asleep); Thermodynamics (transferring heat and making stuff move and change); Special Relativity; and General Relativity. He does his best with the last two topics but it’s still terribly challenging! My favourite section is the one on light – not only did I learn why the sky is blue, but also how eyes work, and a lovely discussion on the mind-bending idea that at the atomic level, two different atoms must repel each other (Coulomb’s law) so contact between your body and the floor isn’t possible. That’s the atomic level – of course we feel contact at our level. But still a fun thing to mull over. I also really enjoyed the section on the solar system, which kind of unifies science for me, combining chemistry and math and life, and I suppose a bit of physics too. While the best way to read the book is start to finish, it also lends itself easily to dipping and exploring a topic here and there. As an arts major who worked in a major university’s Science faculty, I wish I’d had this book six years ago! Bermanan is quite funny and makes the process fairly painless. I even laughed at a couple of footnotes – in encouraging the reader keep trying to grasp special relativity, he says “…take your time, there’s no hurry. This is important, it’s how your universe works.” Indeed. As with The Physics of Everyday Things, I did find it occasionally tough reading (my last science classes were, quite honestly, in the last century) but generally it’s an accessible and fun book that will up the cocktail party game for any Arts major. Lots of appeal for young would-be scientists too. My thanks to The Experiment Publishing for the advance reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39952583

The best way to describe this book is to declare it as fun. The author makes the subject enjoyable and easy to read and digest. This would be an excellent book to engage students into the study of science.

Terrific look at science, with lots of humor

I loved this book. Bruce Benamran uses his great sense of humor (including sarcasm and puns) to explain physics and some biology. Even many of the footnotes are funny. On the way, he also covers the history of science quite well. Benamran uses a very conversational tone and explains everything clearly, until relativity where his explanations became more complex. I must congratulate Stephanie Delozier Strobel for a great translation. I strongly recommend this book.

Hmmmm… Lots of information here. As a post graduate student I could have used this as background material.'
Additionally,this is super for lesson supplements. My students (at all levels) would have benefitted from this wealth of information. As a sit down and read? Fine, in smaller doses. All in all, good book for teaching for both science and non-science educators !


Many Thanks to the publisher,The Experiment, and Netgalley for an interesting and informative source book.

I picked up this book because my students are so interested in science....and I'm so not....that it seemed like a good crossover book for us to discuss together. Instead, I found myself bored. to. tears. So, why, you might ask, did I give it four stars? I did so because I gave it over to my students to read, and they absolutely loved it! If you're not really thrilled by science, this isn't the book for you. It seems like it would be, based on the title, and there are a few interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout, but for the most part, this is a book about the history of science....the people and concepts that modern science builds upon. Some will love it; others won't.