The Hardest Stuff, Simplified

What This Book Covers

1. Prologue
2. Chapter One - Spaghetti, but with Math
3. Chapter Two - The WiFi of the Universe
4. Chapter Three - The Universe Doesn’t Care About Your Straight Lines
5. Chapter Four - The Proof That Shattered Mathematics
6. Chapter Five - The Secret Code
7. Chapter Six - Gravity Bends the Rules
8. Chapter Seven - Carbon's Big Party Trick
9. Chapter Eight - The Mathematics of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
10. Chapter Nine - How Hard Is This, Really?
11. Chapter Ten - Who's Actually in There?
12. Chapter Eleven - How to Think Three Moves Ahead in Real Life
13. Chapter Twelve - The Things Too Big to See, But Too Real to Ignore
14. Chapter Thirteen - What Happens When You Bend the Rules of Space
15. Chapter Fourteen - The Final Boss of Mathematics

Excerpt

PROLOGUE LET’S GET THIS out of the way: You’ve been lied to. You’ve been told that some things are just too hard to understand. That only a handful of people on Earth can “grasp” string theory, or general relativity, or the true nature of numbers. And you believed it. Because they said it with enough math symbols and dry voices that your brain tapped out and your spirit went to sleep. But here’s the truth: They’re not actually that hard. They’re just not explained like you’re a human being. This book is different. This is not a textbook. It’s not an academic paper. And it’s definitely not written to impress anyone in a blazer. This is a hangout. A couch talk. This is me, you, maybe Neil...