On the heels of the year’s most intelligent and imaginative children’s books come the most stimulating science books published this annum. (Step into the nonfictional time machine by revisiting the selections for 2013, 2012, and 2011.) 1. THE ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE “If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from,” Carl Sagan wrote in his timeless meditation on science and religion, “we will have failed.” It’s a sentiment that dismisses in one fell Saganesque swoop both the blind dogmatism of religion and the vain certitude of science — a sentiment articulated by some of history’s greatest...
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