The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true
Richard Dawkins
Magic takes many forms. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting that the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods' bridge to earth. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality - science.
Packed with inspiring explanations of space, time and evolution, laced with humour and clever thought experiments, The Magic of Reality explores a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? What causes tsunamis? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, inspirational detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist too.
Richard Dawkins elucidates the wonders of the natural world to all ages with his inimitable clarity and exuberance in a text that will enlighten and inform for generations to come.
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About Richard Dawkins
Reviews for The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true
Bill Gates
From the first sentence it reads with the force and fluency of a classic ... a luminous, authoritative prose that transcends age differences
The Times
Stunning in appearance ... the book is a triumph
New Scientist
The text is persuasive whatever one's age ... the chapter on rainbows has the clearest explanation of how they appear that I've ever seen
Financial Times
I wanted to write this book but I wasn't clever enough. Now I've read it, I am
Ricky Gervais Prodigiously illustrated and beautifully designed ... I cannot think of a better, or simpler, introduction to science
Guardian
A charming and free-ranging history of science
The Sunday Times
It's the clearest and most beautifully written introduction to science I've ever read. Again and again I found myself saying "Oh! So that's how genes work!" (or stars, or tectonic plates, or all the other things he explains). Explanations I thought I knew were clarified; things I never understood were made clear for the first time
Philip Pullman The Magic of Reality provides a beautiful, accessible and wide ranging volume that addresses the questions that all of us have about the universe...written with the masterful and eloquently literate style of perhaps the best popular expositor of science, Richard Dawkins, and delightfully illustrated by Dave McKean. What more could anyone ask for?
Lawrence Krauss, author of Quantum Man, and A Universe from Nothing This book may be exactly what's needed to increase science literacy for readers of all ages
Publishers Weekly