SCIENCE science.org 7 JANUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6576 35PHOTO: RUSS UNDERWOOD/LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION
H
idden in the number p (pi)—that
mysterious and elusive ratio between
a circle’s circumference and its diam-
eter—is every word of the book review
you’re about to read. As geneticist
Adam Rutherford and mathematician
Hannah Fry, authors of The Complete Guide
to Absolutely Everything (Abridged): Adven-
tures in Math and Science, point out, “every
possible string of numbers must appear [in
pi] eventually.” By encoding English letters as
the numbers 0 to 25, we arrive at the
fact that every possible book review
appears in there, too, including one
in which said book is panned. This,
however, is not that review. Ruther-
ford and Fry’s eclectic tour through
“life, the universe, and everything” is
a lighthearted, thoroughly entertain-
ing read that delivers many laugh-out-
loud moments.
With wry, irreverent British hu-
mor, the authors tackle a host of big,
albeit seemingly random, questions,
devoting a chapter to each. These
range from the age-old and deep (Do
we have free will? What would aliens
look like?) to the droll (Does my dog
love me? Are we all suckers?). Most
are not definitively answered, but
the quest for solutions is engaging
and enjoyable, peppered with pop
culture, literary, and classical refer-
ences—from Hollywood to Jane Eyre
to Cicero—and easy-to-digest analo-
gies. There is not a boring page in the
bunch, but the book does feel at times
like an assortment of trivia with some
non sequiturs thrown in rather than a
coherent whole.
The authors’ stated theme is that
“much of what you might think you
know is not quite what it seems,”
and science comprises the “best tools ever
invented [to] see things as they really are.”
Rutherford and Fry focus less on objective
scientific truths and more on us: who we
are, how we experience reality, the ques-
tions we ponder, and our historical pursuit
of answers. For example, readers journeythrough human timekeeping, from sundials
to “leap seconds,” and learn how the mod-
ern financial system hinges precariously on
subterranean fiber-optic cables that deliver
atomic time to banks.
Instead of Einstein’s time dilation, expect
to learn about time dilation inside the hu-
man body (time seems to slow when we are
in peril or cut off from sunlight). And Dar-
win’s theory of evolution takes a backseat to
his debunked theories of human emotion. If
you are looking for a hard science explainer
book, this is not it.Despite mostly glossing over technical
details, The Complete Guide does highlight
some fascinating recent scientific findings—
the fact that rats appear to feel regret, for
example, and a case in which a woman ap-
peared to be able to smell Parkinson’s dis-
ease on a patient’s clothing months before
they began exhibiting symptoms—as well
as a number of state-of-the-art experiments.
Among the most awe-inspiring of the latter
is the authors’ account of the Gravity ProbeB experiment, designed to verify Einstein’s
theory of general relativity in space and fea-
turing liquid helium and man-made gyro-
scopes that constitute the closest things to
perfect spheres ever found in the universe.
Rutherford and Fry also shine a
light on important issues that plague
modern science, such as the “File
Drawer Problem,” wherein “shiny
novelties” are prioritized for publi-
cation over essential but less flashy
experiments that verify existing re-
sults, and the related “replication
crisis.” The authors’ discussion of the
cognitive biases that underlie these
problems, such as “belief perse-
verance”—continuing to believe in
something (e.g., a vaccine hoax) in
the face of “overwhelming evidence
to the contrary”—and confirmation
bias, which undergirds the spread of
misinformation online, is timely and
topical. These biases are a product
of our neurobiology, and no one is
immune to them, so Rutherford and
Fry implore us all to “be vigilant...
because your own brain is trying to
trick you.”
The authors close with a bold,
slightly hubristic assertion that sci-
ence is “the only way to compose
the ultimate guide to everything,”
which is ironic, given their own ac-
knowledgment of the limitations of
science (“science cannot help you to
reliably infer how someone feels,” for
example). Still, readers are likely to
finish The Complete Guide with a pocket-
ful of intriguing anecdotes with which to
entertain at cocktail parties (when they
resume) and a feeling of endearment to-
ward humankind, who dare to ask ques-
tions they are “singularly ill-equipped to
answer” and who, despite the “peculiar
failings of human intuition,” have proved
in many respects fairly “clever sausages.” j10.1126/science.abn0901POPULAR SCIENCEBy Megan EngelConfronting age-old questions, big and small
A wry romp through science’s greatest hits and challenges entertains and illuminates
The Complete Guide
to Absolutely Everything
(Abridged): Adventures
in Math and Science
Adam Rutherford
and Hannah Fry
Norton, 2022. 304 pp.The Gravity Probe B space vehicle, designed to verify Einstein’s
theory of general relativity, is assembled in Sunnyvale, California.The reviewer is at the School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Email: [email protected]