This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works (Edge Question Series)

I found the title of this book to be unfortunate but not a surprise. I read the detailed description of the book so I didn't expect an explanation for everything. With that in mind I would still give the title a two; however the 'saving grace' were the essays inside. The participants were asked to give their opinion of a "favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation." The theories range from economics, mathematics, biology, psychology to stardust and why the Greeks painted red figures on a black background. Not all of the essays have to do with the sciences though a lot of them are about scientific explanations. The authors state the explanation they like best and then explain the theory. I wondered if most of these authors were instructors because they did a very good job with their explanations. The authors seem to understand their audience might not have the same interest or background. While I have a degree in Biology, I don't know economics or physics as well. One of the reasons I would give this book a five, the contents, is because it made me hunger for more. Some of these theories I only knew in passing and a few I had not heard of at all. I don't know much about social psychology, but I want to learn more about several of the theories I read about and I think that's an amazing thing for a book to do to the reader. The essays were a nice mixture of older theories which lead to modern theory and modern theory. I found most of the essays, about 150, to be very interesting. I didn't find the language difficult. One was just silly, a politically correct word for stupid: Keep it simple. The author simply didn't try. But one of my favorite was Michael Sherman's "The Principle of Empiricism, or See for Yourself." Mr. Sherman reduced the explanation to the most basic form and in so doing his elegant, favorite theory explains everything every science stands for and how culture changed. This is a very good book and I would recommend it to any reader. You don't have to have a math or science background to get a lot out of this work. The essays are short and give the reader time to digest. For those that do have a background in science, math, etc. it will be a nice refresher course.

This Explains Everything is a collection of various experts in a wide variety of fields to "what is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation". The question was posed to dozens of experts across a variety of industries. Those who were asked ranged from hard sciences to the fine arts. Unsurprisingly there were many respondents who overlapped in which explanation they chose- natural selection was a favorite topic. Ideas discussed include the second law of thermodynamics, germ theory, the reason for the color of the sky, gravitation, the formation of snowflakes, cooperative game theory, plate techtonics, theories of dinosoar ancestry, psychology of time, QED, language and its impact on patterns of thought- the list goes on. This explains everything contains modern ideas about a host of critical theories that science and social sciences are based upon. Though each of the topics responded to can fill volumes, the short essays contain a lot of insight in condensed and digestible fashion. One will learn a lot and even if one already knows a lot about the subject/theories discussed, the perspectives given can be illuminating. Often just reading two different respondents reasons as to why the same theory is beautiful/elegant ca be extremely insightful. Not all the explanations of phenomenon included will strike the reader as well thought out, i for one thought some of the respondents answered very unimpressively and with lack of fundamental insight. But i am sure that others will feel the same about some explanations i found excellent and the opposite about the ones I was unimpressed with. I think this has something for everyone. All of the material inside this can and has been expanded upon in other works, so this book can be a catalyst for an interested reader to continue their investigations.

Many of those who purchase and then begin to read this book will learn, for the first time, about Edge.org, a website offering an abundance of resources. John Brockman is the Editor of This Will Make You Smarter (2012) and This Explains Everything (2013). He is also the Editor and Publisher of Edge. As he explains, its purpose is to "arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves." He goes on to suggest, "Edge is a Conversation: Edge is different from the Algonquin Roundtable or Bloomsbury Group, but it offers the same quality of intellectual adventure. Closer resemblances are the early seventeenth-century Invisible College, a precursor to the Royal Society. Its members consisted of scientists such as Robert Boyle, John Wallis, and Robert Hooke. The Society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation. Another inspiration is The Lunar Society of Birmingham, an informal club of the leading cultural figures of the new industrial age -- James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestly, and Benjamin Franklin." Last year, those involved with Edge were asked to respond to a question also proposed by Steven Pinker: 'What scientific concept would improve everyone's cognitive toolkit?" Here's The Edge Question 2012: "WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?" There were more than 200 online responses that were then reviewed before Brockman produced an edited selection. "In the spirit of Edge, the contributions presented here [in This Explains Everything] embrace scientific thinking in the broadest sense: as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything -- including such fields of inquiry as philosophy, mathematics, economics, history, language, and human behavior." Brockman then adds, "The common thread is that a simple and nonobvious idea is proposed as the explanation for a diverse and complicated set of phenomena." Here in Dallas near the downtown area, there is a Farmer's Market at which a few merchants offer slices of fresh fruit as samples. In that spirit, I now offer a few brief excerpts from contributions to The Edge Question 2012: o Matt Ridley after realizing that DNA is a code: "Never has a mystery seemed more baffling in the morning and an explanation more obvious in the afternoon." (Page 4) o Richard Dawkins: "Natural selection is an averaging computer, detecting redundancies - repeat patterns - in successive worlds (successive through millions of generations) in which the species has survived (averaged over all members of the sexually reproducing species." (8) o Aubrey de Grey: "Reflective equilibrium gets my vote for the most elegant and beautiful explanation, because of its immense breadth of applicability and also its lack of dependence on other controversial positions. Most important, it rises above the question of cognitivism, the debate over whether there is anything such as objective morality." (15+16) o Joel Gold: "The dark matter of the mind, the unconscious, has the greatest psychic gravity. Ignore the dark matter of the universe and anomalies appear. Ignore the dark matter of the mind and our irrationality is inexplicable." (23) o Paul Steinhardt: "More recently, colleagues and I have found evidence that quasi crystals may have been among the first minerals to have formed in the solar system...Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned: While elegance and simplicity are often useful criteria for judging theories, they can sometimes mislead us into thinking we are right when we are actually infinitely wrong." (33) 0 Keith Devlin: "And why is self-organization so beautiful to my aesthetic self? Because if complex adaptive systems don't require a blueprint, they don't require a Blueprint Maker. If they require lightning bolts, they don't require some hurtling lightning bolts." (98) o Howard Gardner on the importance of individuals: "In a planet occupied now by nearly 7 billion inhabitants, I am amazed by the difference one human being can make. Think of classical music without Mozart or Stravinsky; of painting without Caravaggio, Picasso, or Pollock; of drama without Shakespeare or Beckett." (137) o Christine Finn: "I admire this explanation of cultural relativity [`dirt is a matter of place'], by the anthropologist Mary Douglas, for its clean lines and tidiness. I like its beautiful simplicity, the way it illuminates dark corners of misreading, how it highlights the counterconventional. Poking about in the dirt is exciting, and irreverent. It's about taking what is out if bounds and making it relevant. Douglas's explanation of `dirt' makes us question the very boundaries we're pushing." (168) o Lisa Randall: "The beauty of science - in the long run -is its lack of subjectivity. So answering the question `What is your favorite, deep, or beautiful explanation' can be disturbing to a scientist, since the only objective words in the question are `what,' `is,' `or,' and in an ideal world) `explanation." (212) o Michael I. Norton: "Randomized experiments are by no means a perfect tool for explanation. Some important questions simply do not lend themselves to randomized experiments, and the method in the wrong hands can cause harm...But their increasingly widespread application speaks to their flexibility in informing us how things work and why they work that way." (333) These are but a few of hundreds of observations that caught my eye. I realize that no brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the scope of material that is provided in this volume but I hope that I have at least suggested why I think so highly of it. I also highly recommend the aforementioned This Will Make You Smarter and, especially, checking out the ever-increasing wealth of resources at Edge.org. Thank you, John Brockman, for the thought leadership you and your Edge colleagues continue to provide. Bravo!

This is one of many of John Brockman's "Edge Series" books in which some sort of open-ended, scientific or intellectual question is posited to hundreds of his favorite, hipster, in-vogue intellectuals, and they each respond with about one page to four page answers. These books are somewhat appealing for browsing through current "intellectual land". This was not my favorite of these books, but it was o.k. The only one of these articles that is really staying with me from this book is Dimitar Saaselov's "Frame of Reference". The idea is that we all see things uniquely from the multiple paths and influences we have been tossed into by fate, e.g. where and when we were born, what our parents did for a living, their education, the schools they sent us to; etc. etc. There are overlaps, practically all persons born in America in the year 1950, will have some elements in common in their world view, for instance. But then no two persons frame of reference is anywhere near being the same; and it is not static , it evolves as a person makes his or her way through life. I think this is a good concept to keep in mind when we find we are having a difficult time understanding each other.

I have had the great fortune of knowing Mark Seltman through his work as a palm reader for three decades. He has read hands at parties for me and my hands on many occasions. Rarely have I met any reader who was as accurate. His book confirms what I already knew about him through direct experience--he truly is gifted and knows his field. But beyond that his insights are exceptional. His book speaks about how our character is revealed in our palms. It identifies our strengths and weaknesses as seen in each palm/finger helping us accept who we are, self-esteem being acceptance of each side of our nature, and from there making reasonable choices for our life path. He speaks of how our hand changes as our life does. But knowing, despite free will, that we each possess certain proclivities that enhance or detract prospects helps us better navigate the myriad of choices and face them with greater self-awareness. It’s like looking at proof directly in your hands, which is reassuring or of concern, both of which are helpful to know about. It also helps us understand others better. Hand Book is thorough, easy to follow, well depicted and entertaining. Mark opens up about his own journey, setbacks and successes, sharing intimate details that help us understand how he came to discover his purpose. I can vouch for the compassionate empathy he brings to clients as a result of his own challenges. He explains why from his daughter's hand at birth, he received guidance on the importance of helping her self-esteem, impacting on her index finger's final length with the attendant empowering results. Hand Book is an invaluable tool for understanding what is hard to change, and making peace with that, but also how free will can be used to improve what we already have. The hand can also expose past and current trends and sometimes make future projections (excluding what can never be known--the length of life). It is a useful tool in determining compatibility, temperament, physical constitution etc. Everyone would benefit from reading this very professional guide. I for one certainly have. Knowing mark for so long, it doesn't surprise me that Mark has once again hit the mark. Thank you for the effort expended. We can all benefit greatly. Laura Rothfeld

This little book is perfect for those who want to get a mini workout for the mind while keeping up with the various disciplines that ponder such issues. The eternal search since I was in graduate school at NYU many years ago, has been for the unifying theory. The one explanation that unlocks all other dark areas of the universe whether they be in the material or metaphysical realm. In physics it was the ever elusive string theory. In the social sciences, it was the final human paradigm, explaining what distinguishes man from all other forms of protoplasm. I give this book as a gift to those whom I feel would appreciate the stretch into the remote corners of the mind and relish developing that elasticity that comes from thinking outside of comfortable bounds. What I especially appreciated was seeing how creatively the central question on identification of a beautiful, elegant explanatory principle, was answered by those in as far ranging fields as ethology to macroeconomics. It is the kind of book you can read in a weekend, or digest slowly, taking time to look up each author, their fields, the Gordian knots they unravel in the labyrinth that is 21st century academia. It is a way to keep abreast of cutting edge epistemology without having to plow through a textbook. Still you will find that even the most arcane theory will come to life in this little tome. If only one Aha moment emerges, it will have been worth the journey.

Most of these essays are pretty well written and I learned a bit from them. The topics are wide ranging, from physics to economics to philosophy, but as expected, most are about the "hard" sciences. Some require prior knowledge to understand what the author is saying, but 85% of the essays are written for laypeople. Reading the Kindle edition was great because I could easily search unfamiliar terms, and more importantly, it was easy to look up more in-depth explanations, some of which would divert me for an hour at a time. This gives this book great "bang for the buck." The editor did a nice job of "curating" the pieces, providing a gentle flow from topic to topic without seeming compartmentalized. This probably helps ensure readers read the whole book because they won't skip over topics they are less familiar with.

When a host of celebrated brains are asked to wax eloquent about their favorite theories, you can expect pretty stimulating stuff. And in "This Explains Everything" you get eactly that. In retrospect, I made a mistake - before reading the book, I should have spent a few minutes thinking about what I would call my own personal favorite "deep, beautiful and elegant" theory. Maybe it would have enhanced the experience of reading these essays. As it was, one came across some expected theories and some insanely interesting ones that one didn't even know existed. The sheer breadth of subject areas covered here are a delight, and make this pretty much the perfect non-fiction reading. The minor side-effect though, is that one can't always connect with every subject area. There are inevitably going to be some essays here that are either beyond your zone of interest, or your zone of competence. But despair not, venture forth - I promise, something you find stunningly beautiful is just a page turn away.