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Stuff Matters
- Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
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Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik is constantly asking himself. A globally renowned materials scientist, Miodownik has spent his life exploring objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, uncovering the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world. From the teacup to the jet engine, the silicon chip to the paper clip, the plastic in our appliances to the elastic in our underpants, our lives are overflowing with materials. Full of enthralling tales of the miracles of engineering that permeate our lives, Stuff Matters will make you see stuff in a whole new way.
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Dated but good
- By stephen taylor on 09-05-21
By: Janine M. Benyus
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What Einstein Didn't Know
- Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions
- By: Robert L. Wolke
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.
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A funny thing happened on the way to a great book
- By Joseph on 10-01-12
By: Robert L. Wolke
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Proof
- The Science of Booze
- By: Adam Rogers
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A spirited narrative on the fascinating art and science of alcohol, sure to inspire cocktail party chats on making booze, tasting it, and its effects on our bodies and brains. Drinking gets a lot more interesting when you know what's actually inside your glass of microbrewed ale, single-malt whisky, or Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. All of them begin with fermentation, where a fungus called yeast binges on sugar molecules and poops out ethanol. Humans have been drinking the results for 10,000 years. Distillation is a 2,000-year-old technology - invented by a woman - that we're still perfecting today.
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Great listening to all about booze
- By Atila on 08-02-14
By: Adam Rogers
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The Second Book of General Ignorance
- Everything You Think You Know Is (Still) Wrong
- By: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong.
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It's all stuff from QI
- By Bonnie Kennedy on 04-07-21
By: John Lloyd, and others
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The Book of General Ignorance
- By: John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
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Interesting.
- By A. Hawkbird on 12-07-08
By: John Mitchinson, and others
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No Immediate Danger
- Carbon Ideologies, Volume One
- By: William T. Vollmann
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age. Now, Vollmann turns to a topic that will define the generations to come - the factors and human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger by examining and quantifying the many causes of climate change, from industrial manufacturing and agricultural practices to fossil fuel extraction, economic demand for electric power, and the justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort.
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Look at the brightside always and die in a dream!
- By Darwin8u on 04-14-19
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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Ignition!
- An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
- By: John Drury Clark, Isaac Asimov - foreward
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Ignition! is the story of the search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. This search was a hazardous enterprise carried out by rival labs who worked against the known laws of nature, with no guarantee of success or safety. John Drury Clark writes with irreverent and eyewitness immediacy about the development of the explosive fuels strong enough to negate the relentless restraints of gravity. The resulting volume is as much a memoir as a work of history, sharing a behind-the-scenes view of an enterprise that eventually took men to the moon.
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Science man lists names of chemicals for 9 hours
- By Adrian on 05-06-19
By: John Drury Clark, and others
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Rust
- The Longest War
- By: Jonathan Waldman
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
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In Rust journalist Jonathan Waldman travels from Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to meet the colorful and often reclusive people concerned with corrosion. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks with a brave artist and nearly gets kicked out of Can School. Across the Arctic he follows a massive high-tech robot, hunting for rust in the Alaska pipeline.
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Almost too geeky for geeks
- By Norman B. Bernstein on 03-26-15
By: Jonathan Waldman
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The Complete (Short) Guide to Absolutely Everything
- Adventures in Math and Science
- By: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
- Narrated by: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
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Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide listeners through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe.
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A great listen and fun way to learn some things
- By R. Mueller on 06-10-23
By: Adam Rutherford, and others
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant.
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The Only Book I reread imediatley after reading
- By Andrew on 11-09-09
By: Bill Bryson
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Chernobyl 01:23:40
- The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster
- By: Andrew Leatherbarrow
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories.
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Lost in his own navel
- By Christopher on 10-17-16
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Five Billion Years of Solitude
- The Search for Life Among the Stars
- By: Lee Billings
- Narrated by: Lee Billings
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Since its formation nearly five billion years ago, our planet has been the sole living world in a vast and silent universe. Now, Earth's isolation is coming to an end. Over the past two decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of "exoplanets" orbiting other stars, including some that could be similar to our own world. Studying those distant planets for signs of life will be crucial to understanding life's intricate mysteries right here on Earth. In a firsthand account of this unfolding revolution, Lee Billings draws on interviews with top researchers.
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Bloated
- By Dr A on 01-09-14
By: Lee Billings
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Great Book, Great Narration, But...
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Interesting facts, but the narrator's lacking
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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future. In Material World, Ed Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates.
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The Joy of Chemistry
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The key to getting kids to understand science isn't to dumb it down...it's to make it fun and relatable. Read on to discover the secret. Science - and chemistry in particular - is the key to understanding the world, and it’s every bit as important as learning to read and balance numbers. Can your kids honestly say that they enjoy science lessons? The Joy of Chemistry explains the fundamental building blocks of all the sciences to your kids in a truly relatable and engaging way.
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I LOVE IT, Elizabeth Wiley is the BEST narrator!
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The Clockwork Universe
- Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
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The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.
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Calculus Ergo Modernity
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Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design
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When his missionary brother renounced faith in favor of atheism, Perry Marshall was plunged into crisis and doubt. He decided: “I”m going to let science make this decision for me.” He asked: “Is the hand at the end of my arm purposeful? Or is it purposeless?” He leapt into the void of evolution and the origin of life. He could not have begun to anticipate what he was about to discover. Living things were far more sophisticated than textbooks were saying.
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Ideas worthy of deep consideration
- By Kevin on 07-31-19
By: Perry Marshall
What listeners say about Stuff Matters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- D. MacLeod
- 01-29-15
Surprisingly good
Any additional comments?
I didn't expect a book on Materials Science to be so interesting. Especially, I was surprised by the psychology of materials -- how things sound or feel, as opposed to purely functional features.
I'm often nervous about buying audio books on technical topics that may require illustrations on the printed page to understand. But this book comes across well in narration.
I learned a lot and was entertained.I listened to several chapters twice, in order to reflect and let it sink in.
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205 people found this helpful
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- Silicon Valley Geek
- 07-04-16
Audible missing chapter descriptions
I like to relisten to audio books but the chapters are missing descriptions. I found the list in hopes this is helpful.
Introduction ix
1 indomitable
2 Trusted
3 Fundamental
4 delicious
5 Marvelous
6 imaginative
7 invisible
8 Unbreakable
9 re ned
1 0 immortal
1 1 Synthesis
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180 people found this helpful
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- Bird Lady 147
- 02-12-15
Facts Made Fun! Who knew?!
Narration was excellent. I don't think it could have been narrated any better. The subject matter could very well have been boring and dry but instead time flies as you learn about how and why things we don't often think about came to be with the why and then the how it was done answers. All in a great interesting story lines for each thing spoken about.
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88 people found this helpful
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- Matthew
- 09-21-16
Interesting, but...
The Good – I bought the book on one of the sales for $ 4.95 because it had been sitting in my wish list for about a year and I just wasn’t convinced that it would be worth a full credit. I was correct and made a wise choice in this regard. The best and most interesting part of the book is the chapter about ‘glass’.
The Not So Good – The book is just not as interesting as you assume it would be. The author spent more time discussing historical issues that only marginally apply to the actual subject matter than the 'matter' itself! I get it that this type of information can be pretty dry, but if written correctly it can work.
The Bad – There is a section of the book where the author decides it would be a good idea to enact some of the stories as if putting on a “play”. This part of the book is excruciatingly annoying! It is so bad, in fact, that I nearly stopped listening and returned it.
The Narration – The narration is fairly decent. No complaint in this regard with the sole exception that the voice imitations done for the “play” are very annoying making the annoying ‘play’ even more so. Hence, three stars for the Performance. I don't blame the narrator for that though.
The Overall – Had I purchased this book at full price or even used a credit I would have stopped listening and returned it. The only factor that kept me going was the minimal cost. It was worth it at the cost paid, but not at any higher price. I learned just a little bit from the book, but at the price I feel like I got what I paid for.
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53 people found this helpful
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- Peter
- 10-15-14
Engaging, fun, and educational
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This book did a great job of telling stories, while providing great information
What does Michael Page bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The narration feels like it matches the author and writing style well. I was able to really get into this book.
Any additional comments?
I wish there was more content. It was so good that I was disappointed when it ended.
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43 people found this helpful
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- Cheryl
- 05-12-15
Surprisingly interesting and concise - Excellent
On occasion I'll buy a business book or self-help type book only to put it down after an hour due to the repetitiveness of the material and the terrible narration. This book is neither repetitive or hard to listen to. The material is really interesting and the narrator does a great job of conveying the material in a light hearted - fun manner. I've found myself saying "Hey did you know..." Graphite and glass were my favorite materials.
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38 people found this helpful
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- Bernie Cullen
- 02-28-15
Understanding the material world
Where does Stuff Matters rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I have listened to many great audiobooks and this is among them.
Any additional comments?
I would urge anyone who is studying chemistry, or anyone who wishes to develop a better understanding of the material world in which we live to listen to this book. It is amazingly straightforward and engaging, illustrating the mechanisims of our material existance. I was amazed by how little I knew about the physical world around me and the basic materials that I handle and use on a daily basis. I wish all my audiobooks were this intersting and informative.
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38 people found this helpful
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- Mario
- 09-05-14
I loved the way the autor exposes the subject
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Amazing how the author can explain everything that’s interesting about an element. He goes down to the detail without being boring, explaining in everyday language exactly what we want to know. I loved especially the chapters about steel, glass and graphite.
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28 people found this helpful
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- Andy
- 09-19-14
good core material
Interesting book about a wide range of materials, there properties and how they do what they do. A few ramblings into the authors personal life are a bit of a distraction, but tolerable.
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22 people found this helpful
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- Wayne
- 04-12-18
Interesting info on random stuff
Stuff Matters is interesting and informative. It is also disorganized or maybe it is just randomly organized. The book is written for the layman rather than the scientist; I suspect that was done to broaden its appeal. I listened to Michael Page's narration while reading the Kindle version. The photos and illustrations in the Kindle version were not especially helpful. Stuff Matters did not provide the level of detail I would like, but it is an excellent book.
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19 people found this helpful