The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged): Adventures in Math and Science

The complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it (minus the boring parts).

Despite our clever linguistic abilities, humans are spectacularly ill-equipped to comprehend what’s happening in the universe. Our senses and intuition routinely mislead us. The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged) tells the story of how we came to suppress our monkey minds and perceive the true nature of reality. Written with wit and humor, this brief book tells the story of science―tales of fumbles and missteps, errors and egos, hard work, accidents, and some really bad decisions―all of which have created the sum total of human knowledge.

Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide readers through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe.

Rutherford and Fry shine as science sleuths, wrestling with some truly head-scratching questions: Where did time come from? Do we have free will? Does my dog love me? Hilarious sidebars present memorable scientific oddities: for example, hypnotized snails, human-sized ants, and the average time it takes most animals to evacuate their bladders. (A surprisingly consistent twenty-one seconds, if you must know.)

Both rigorous and playful, The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged) is a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans, and the joys and follies of scientific discovery.

17 illustrations

Adam Rutherford is the author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. He lives in London, UK.

Hannah Fry is Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at Cambridge University and the author of Hello World. With Adam Rutherford, she hosts the BBC Radio 4 show The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry. She lives in London.