Popular Science Books That Show How Things Work

Andrew Blum traces a weather forecast back through the observations and numerical models that produce it. He gives the people and systems that share data enough attention to explain why no forecast could be made from a single place. Choose this for a sense of how many measurements stand behind the weather you see on a screen.

David Eagleman asks how the brain arrives at the world you seem to see immediately. His examples put ordinary confidence in perception under pressure and give you a way to think about the work behind it. Start here if descriptions of the brain make more sense to you when they begin with an experience you can recognize.

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons describe the now-famous experiment in which a person in a gorilla suit passes through a scene viewers are watching for something else. The useful part is the explanation of what a demanding task does to attention. The book gives everyday certainty about what we saw a more interesting test than surprise alone.

Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden look at cases where quantum processes may help explain what living systems do. A bird's ability to orient itself gives them a concrete question about where a proposed mechanism could matter. Read it with a distinction in mind between a measured ability and a proposed explanation for it.

Sam Kean uses the gases we breathe to explain why a seemingly empty space can contain a mixture with different properties. Follow the stories of researchers trying to distinguish one gas from another. Those sections make the character of the atmosphere more memorable than the title's wager about one famous breath.