The Primacy of Doubt

By Tim Palmer,

Book cover of The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World

Book description

“Quite possibly the best popular science book I’ve ever read” (Popular Science) shows how the tools that enabled us to overcome the uncertainty of the weather will enable us to find new answers to modern science's most pressing questions

Why does your weather app say “There’s a 10% chance of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Primacy of Doubt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Brian Clegg

Author

Possibly the best popular science book I’ve ever read.

Palmer explores the nature of mathematically chaotic systems and shows how we can deal better with the uncertainty they embody.

Many real-world systems, from something as complex as the weather to something as simple as a jointed pendulum, are chaotic, meaning that they are hard to predict as very small changes in the way they are set up produce vast differences in outcome.

Palmer covers a whole series of different topics, in several cases giving the best explanation I’ve ever seen. It’s not that this is an easy read. I had…

From Brian's 3 favorite reads in 2023.