How the Universe Got Its Spots
Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space

This book is pretty easy to read. There is some geometry but almost no formulas; the reading level is like Scientific American. The author is a master of making a complex subject easy to understand with analogies and simple diagrams. The book is structured as a series of letters to the author’s moth......more

I thought this little primer on physics was perfectly delightful. I've never seen anyone explain physics in quite this way before, but it was absolutely charming. The biggest points (for me) were on the topology of the universe. Geometry trumps General Relativity. For, as we know, neither General Re......more

In short: Janna Levin explains scientific theory so well that she may have just changed my freakin life. I'm kidding. Kind of. But we'll get there. First Dimension: this is an exceptionally lucid piece of writing. Levin, a cosmologist who here argues for a finite universe, traces the lineage of her t......more

You might have come across Janna Levin's How the Universe Got Its Spots the same way that I did—by seeing it show up in io9's "20 Science Books Every Scifi Fan (and Writer) Should Read", or some such similar list of "must read" science books. Of Levin's book, io9's Annalee Newitz writes: Levin is a p......more

I like physics. And this is a cool look at how the universe may actually be finite.......more