Physics is at the same time the most fascinating and the hardest to understand of all sciences. Mastering even the fundamentals of any given topic requires many years of specialized and highly technical training. On the other hand, physics deals with some of the most immediately accessible and seemingly intuitive questions: why do objects fall? What is light? What are things made out of? There are, however, even more fundamental questions that physicists deal with, and to many outsiders these seem so fantastic that it’s hard to believe that science could ever give an adequate answer to them.

“The Big Questions – Physics” is a handy little book and the guide to some of the most fundamental questions that Physicist are dealing with. The questions, and possible answers, are very up to date, and this book could serve as a useful glimpse of the state of Physics at this time. Some of the questions covered in this book include “What is time?”, “Is everything ultimately random?”, “Are solids really solid?”, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The author Michael Brooks guides the reader through explanation of what is meant by these questions and how are physicists pursuing the answers to them. Many of them have been settled for a long time, while others elicit a lot of controversy. The book is very readable and non-technical, and you will not need any math in order to understand it.

The book’s is formatted as a hardbound small size notebook, all with an elastic bend to keep it from opening by itself. This is certainly a unique and interesting way to distinguish a book from others in this category, and as far as I am concerned it works.