The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything | 
pickSoft pick for me - an scientific history of how our understanding of gravity has changed from Newton to Einstein to quantum theory to string theory. A little background in physics is helpful, but expertise is not needed (I took an intro level college class in 2007, so…). Some sections dragged a bit (the chapter on tides 🫠), but I thought the last third was a great intro to quantum theory and string theory, which I knew very little about.
“But Newton made another approximation to crank out predictions from his theory of gravity. He assumed that the Sun alone pulls on Earth, and the Earth alone pulls on the Moon. The breakdown of this assumption can be seen in the case of the tides, where both the Moon and the Sun affect the Earth. And this is a general feature of the real world: bodies are pulled on by more than one other body.”
Needed to get out of the house, so I‘m enjoying an egg and cheese biscuit and iced tea while starting a new book 📖 Might take a little stroll later to enjoy the nice weather ☀️
pick5 ⭐️s!
A mind-blowing look at how our understanding of the universe continues to change drastically by leaps and bounds. The last two chapters, where it gets into quantum and string theory, I admit I will have to reread to fully absorb, but that‘s a fault on my end, not the author. Chown communicates scientific ideas in a way any layman can understand, even quoting famous rockstars and the great Douglas Adams to help illustrate his points.
I doubt I‘ll be able to hit the full twenty hours this weekend, but I‘m always optimistic! 😅 @Andrew65 is hosting the new #20in4 and my goals are to finish the tagged book and hopefully finish Mr. Penumbra‘s 24 Hour Bookstore.
Bonus round if I finish these first two: finish another book before the end of January and try for a bingo. 🤪😬
Leroy is as excited as I am to move on to the Einstein bit! I never stopped to think how truly fascinating gravity is. It does a lot more than make stuff fall down and keep us stuck to the planet.
Did you know about “land tides”, science predicting Neptune existing before we actually saw it, or that we might have a “Planet Nine” out there that was stolen from another young solar system?
My brain is eager for more delicious factoids from this book!
Devouring more of this book for the SciManDan book club along with a delicious strawberry/banana/blueberry/raspberry smoothie made by the hubby. ❤️🤤
❤️ this!!! 😍
I may be developing a Newton crush at this point... Darwin will always be my intellectual boyfriend, but oof...that brain! 🤤❤️
Getting ready to settle in with the tagged read. 🤓📖
1. Cut the hubby‘s hair. (I‘ve done it for years, it‘s not a Covid development.)😄✂️
2. I ate the last of my gourmet pretzels from @BookNAround and am now having withdrawals they were so good! 🤤❤️
3. All the time? 😅 Weekdays it‘s in the evening after dinner, but I love waking up on weekends and having my morning coffee while I read.
#MotivationalMonday @Cupcake12
Tagged if you want to play!
