Today science writer Marcus Chown’s blog tour to promote his book What a Wonderful World: One Man’s Attempt to Explain the Big Stuff, stops here!
Marcus is the cosmology consultant of New Scientist magazine, and has published several successful popular science volumes which have delighted science enthusiasts on cosmology, quantum physics, and other physics concepts, (see my previous posts here and here).
Now Marcus is branching out from just physics. Read on to see a short quiz, and find out how you can win a copy. But first, let Marcus introduce the book to you …
What A Wonderful World is my attempt to explain everything – from finance to thermodynamics, sex to special relativity, human evolution to holography – in straight-forward, accessible, everyday language. My hope is that, if everything has passed you by in a high-speed blur, my book will quickly and painlessly bring you up to speed on how the world of the 21st century works. Of course, I haven’t really covered everything. Think of it as my attempt to explain everything… volume 1!
All this ‘big stuff’ is divided into five parts: How we work, Putting matter to work, Earth works, Deep workings, and The Cosmic Connection. I’ve not quite finished reading the book, so my review will follow – but as non-biologist (I’m a materials scientist by trade), I can confirm that the first section did indeed bring me up to speed in many areas.
Meanwhile, Marcus has supplied me with a little quiz for you – you may find the answers surprising. If you highlight the text at the bottom of the post, they will be revealed.
Q1: The microchips in every phone and pretty much every electronic device in the world were designed in:
a) England
b) USA
c) South Korea
Q2: While reading this question your body will build how many cells?
a) 30 million
b) 30 thousand
c) 30
Q3: There was no improvement in the design of stone hand-axes for:
a) 14,000 years
b) 140,000 years
c) 1.4 million years
* * * GIVEAWAY TIME! * * *
If this has intrigued you, the publishers are kindly supplying three copies of Marcus’s book as a giveaway. Sadly, this is open to UK addresses only. It will close at teatime on October 15th, when my newly teenaged daughter (can you explain where the time goes Marcus?!) will do her pulling the names out of the hat trick.
Just comment below, and if you’d like to share any quirky scientific fact, name your favourite scientist, or make any science-based observation, you’re welcome, but don’t feel obliged to!
It just remains for me to thank Marcus, and wish him all the best with the new book.
* * * * *
The ‘What a Wonderful World Blog Tour‘ continues, visiting these sites:
13th October – Keris Stainton
14th October – Teen Librarian
15th October – Penguin Galaxy
16th October – Open Democracy
Quiz Answers – highlight to reveal: Q1: a) England Q2: a) 30 million Q3: c) 1.4 million years.
Thanks for wonderfull world book
Wow! I only got the first one right so I definitely need bringing up to speed (and I used to be glued to Tomorrow’s World as a child – James Burke was my hero). So yes, please enter me for the draw!
As I got all three questions wrong I think I might be in pretty dire need of this! I have to confess I am a bit of a science philistine! When doing physics O Level my teacher decided my inability to grasp physics concepts was beyond his teaching talents! I spent the time pricing stuff for the school tuck shop! Book sounds great!