Size
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  • Published: 4 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241997413
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

Size

How It Explains the World

Formats & editions
Paperback
6 Feb 2024
EBook
26 Jan 2023
Audiobook
4 May 2023
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A mind-expanding exploration size, the measure of all things, from the New York Times bestselling author

100 words: The New York Times bestselling author returns with a mind-opening exploration of how size defines life on Earth.

Explaining the key processes shaping size in nature, society and technology, Smil busts myths around proportions - from bodies to paintings and the so-called golden ratio - tells us what Jonathan Swift got wrong in Gulliver's Travels - the giant Brobdingnagian's legs would buckle under their enormous weight - and dives headfirst into the most contentious issue in ergonomics: the size of aeroplane seats.

It is no exaggeration to say this fascinating and wide-ranging tour de force will change the way you look at absolutely everything.

10 words: Size, an omnipresent scalar, is the measure of all things.

1 word: Size.
  • Published: 4 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241997413
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00
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Also by Vaclav Smil

How to Feed the World
How the World Really Works
Numbers Don't Lie
Invention and Innovation
Growth
Power Density
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Praise for Size

In a world of specialized intellectuals, Smil is an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences . . . They're among the most data-heavy books you'll find, with a remarkable way of framing basic facts

Wired

There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like Smil

Guardian

An endlessly entertaining career through fascinating territory

Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph

Vaclav Smil is a phenomenon with an appetite for facts over prejudice and fashion. Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future

eminent architect, Lord Norman Foster

Both informative and entertaining . . . I suspect that many Physics World readers would be delighted to find this book waiting for them under the Christmas tree. Indeed, it would be perfect reading material for anyone who enjoys a mathematical analysis of the world around them

Physics World
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