The Magic of Reality summary

You’ve surely heard of Einstein’s theory of relativity. But how on earth did he come up with something so complex prior to the invention of calculators?

In order to better understand things that are beyond our immediate understanding, scientists make up models that describe how they think these things might work. These models can be based on a hunch or a guess, or they may be the result of years of careful consideration.

We all know the story of the princess who kissed the frog, magically turning it into a handsome prince. Though this is just a fairytale, there is a process in nature that is equally enchanting and transformative: evolution. But how precisely does evolution work?

Well, members of a species aren’t uniform. Each individual has variations, some of which are beneficial for survival.

At some point, you’ve probably seen a tree of life, which depicts the relationship of all living things on its leaves and branches. But how do we know which leaves connect to which branches, let alone where they all connect on the trunk?

One way is by looking into the fossil records buried beneath the earth in various layers of rock sediment.

When you stub your toe on a piece of furniture, there’s no doubt in your mind as to the solidity of that object. Strangely, however, even the things we think of as totally solid are mostly just empty space – at the atomic level, at least.

Atoms are among the smallest objects in the universe. A substance that consists of only one kind of atom is called an element.

So, we know that everything is made of atoms. But where did the rich diversity of atoms originate? The answer is in the stars.

All planetary bodies, including stars, exert a gravitational pull on each other. This is what causes Earth to orbit the sun and the moon to orbit Earth.

Have you ever stayed up all night and watched the sunrise the next morning? Remember how, as the sun warmed you up, the world seemed to come alive around you? Indeed, the sun’s rays are critical for life on Earth.

Plants use the sunlight to produce energy in the form of sugar. This process, called photosynthesis, also requires water, minerals and carbon dioxide; but the sun's energy acts as the fuel that makes this transformation possible.

Few things in nature are more beautiful than the scattered light that forms rainbows. But what other things are hidden in the sun’s white light?

Let’s start by looking at the structure of light. Light, like sound, can be thought of as vibrations, but in this case electromagnetic vibrations of different wavelengths that traverse space.

We’re all familiar with the sound that cars make when they zoom past, the sound starting at a higher pitch as they approach and then getting lower as they get further away. But did you know that this bizarre phenomenon – known as the Doppler effect – can help us understand when the universe began?

We can look at the light a star emits to determine what it is composed of and how far away it is. Scientists do this with a spectroscope, a machine through which the light of a star is seen as a spectrum of colors.

If you’ve ever heard someone tell a story a number of times, chances are you noticed that it became more and more fantastic with each telling. So, they exaggerated. But that’s okay; it’s only human.

Most of us love retelling stories of strange coincidences, and it’s only logical, considering the vast number of people on the planet, that sometimes crazy and unlikely events will befall some of us.

Some things, what we call “miracles” or “supernatural events,” seem inexplicable. But are they truly? Considering alternative explanations of miracles, and comparing the likelihood of these competing explanations, is a good way to go about discerning how and why seemingly mystifying things happen.

David Hume, the famous Scottish philosopher, put forward a clever heuristic for thinking about miracles: an unlikely event should only be considered a “miracle” if all other possible explanations of the event are even less likely, and therefore even greater miracles.