Wait, How Do We Know That?

Everyone has heard the famous numbers: the size of the Earth, the speed of light, the age of the planet. Almost nobody has heard how anyone worked them out. Wait, How Do We Know That? gathers 120 surprising facts, organized in eight parts: The Sky and the Earth, The Body and Medicine, Animals and Plants, Numbers and Chance, History and Languages, Inventions and Technology, The Mind and Behavior, and Deep Time. Each capsule gives the fact that sounds made up, the story of who found it out, the common mistake about it and how it was checked, with an illustration in the style of a scientific plate and the sources so you can follow the trail yourself. Each part opens with a short introduction and its own plate. When the evidence falls short, the book says so. A book to dip into one capsule at a time, to give to the person who always asks "Wait, who says so?", and to bring back a great story to the table.