It's Not Rocket Science (Ben Miller)

It's Not Rocket Science
Ben Miller
Sphere
Nonfiction, Humorous Nonfiction/Science
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Science. It's all over the news, from climate change to DNA to space exploration to Higgs bosons, but how many of us really understand that stuff? Let's be honest; somewhere on the path between basic arithmetic and quantum physics, many of us got lost in the brush. Fear not: British comedian Ben Miller is here to help. By cutting out several years' worth of tedium and background equations and experimentation, he offers the edited, exciting-bits-only reel of modern science.

REVIEW: Miller presents a spread of science dishes, from evolution to relativity, even including rocket science, made palatable for the average reader who may have an interest in science but feels intimidated by it. Naturally, many details are necessarily glossed over, but this book states at the outset that it's just offering an introduction, a way to make sense of some of the terms that float through the news feeds these days, and perhaps spark curiosity for further personal exploration. Once in a while, I got the sense that some of what was cut out altered the topic under discussion in a subtle yet fundamental way, but - being an undereducated idiot myself, and a product of American public schools to boot - this isn't something I can quantify, just a sense I had that some subjects felt a trifle skewed or bubble-wrapped, though never overtly warped. Miller being a British comedian, his references sometimes slid just to the side of my American background, though the overall humor comes through. (Also, being from 2012, it has a sense of optimism about the future of science in Britain and America that looks almost quaint when viewed in 2019, given alterations in trajectories for both nations - particularly the latter.) Still, it delivers precisely what the cover promises, complete with a bibliography for further reading.

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