书名：The Magic of Reality自然的魔法
作者：Richard Dawkins
出版社名称：Black Swan
出版时间：2012
语种：英文
ISBN：9780552778909
商品尺寸：11 x 1.7 x 17.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：272
The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true《自然的魔法:我们怎么知道什么是真的》是会讲故事的科普大师、《自私的基因》作者理查德•道金斯为你量身订做的21世纪经典科普书。我们怎么知道什么才是真的？看完本书你会有更宽广的世界观！如果你具备科学素养，世界在你眼中会截然不同，在这个真实的世界，科学才是大自然的魔法！

媒体评论：
“常有人要我为年轻人推荐科学读物。从现在起，我用不着犹豫了。《自然的魔法》就是一部优美而可读的作品，它解释了我们对宇宙的五花八门的问题，区分了我们不熟悉的事实和我们听惯了的虚构。就因为这一点，它应该成为不同年龄读者的知识源泉，何况我们的科普作家道金斯以文学的风格，写得那么优美和流畅，还有什么比它更好的吗？”
——Lawrence Krauss，亚利桑那州立大学教授、起源计划主持人，《量子人》和《从虚无生出的宇宙》的作者

Magic takes many forms. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting that the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods' bridge to earth. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality - science.
Packed with inspiring explanations of space, time and evolution, laced with humour and clever thought experiments, The Magic of Reality explores a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? What causes tsunamis? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, inspirational detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist too.
Richard Dawkins elucidates the wonders of the natural world to all ages with his inimitable clarity and exuberance in a text that will enlighten and inform for generations to come.

Review
"Dawkins has a gift for making science enjoyable ... [He is] one of the greatest scientific writers/explainers of all time." (Bill Gates)

"A charming and free-ranging history of science."(Sunday Times)

"Prodigiously illustrated and beautifully designed ... I cannot think of a better, or simpler, introduction to science."(The Guardian)

"The text is persuasive whatever one's age ... the chapter on rainbows has the clearest explanation of how they appear that I've ever seen." (The Financial Times)

"It's the clearest and most beautifully written introduction to science I've ever read. Again and again I found myself saying "Oh! So that's how genes work!" (or stars, or tectonic plates, or all the other things he explains). Explanations I thought I knew were clarified; things I never understood were made clear for the first time." (Philip Pullman)
“魔法”是五花八门的。在科学方法出现之前，我们祖先用超自然的魔来解释世界。古埃及人说女神奴特吞噬了太阳才有黑夜，维京人相信彩虹是神通向地球的桥梁，日本人猜想世界被驮在一只巨大鲶鱼的背上，当它摇摆尾巴时，地震就发生了。这些都是奇异的魔法故事。但还有一种魔法，它在我们发现那些问题的真正答案的愉悦里，那就是自然的——科学的魔法。

《自然的魔法》融合了清晰的思想实验、眼花缭乱的插图和稀奇古怪的事实，解释了奇异多彩的自然现象。物质是什么构成的？宇宙有多老？为什么大地像零碎的拼图？海啸是怎么来的？为什么有那么多动物和植物？第1个人是谁？这是一本令人爱不释手的图解探秘故事，它不仅从各门学科寻找线索，还让读者学会像科学家那样去思考。

道金斯是世界闻名的进化生物学家，也是科普教育的热情倡导者，为了向成人读者说明科学的奇迹，他花费了大量心血。不过，这回他重新闪亮登场，与老少读者共同分享科学的魔法。对世界有过好奇的任何人，都会将本书作为珍藏。道金斯和麦基恩为我们神秘的世界——还有我们外面的宇宙——绘制了一幅蓝图，它将指引着你，给你知识，也给你快乐。
理查德·道金斯（Richard Dawkins），因为《自私的基因》赢得世界名声，接着又出版了系列令读者喜爱的书，包括著名的《上帝的错觉》（The God Delusion）。道金斯是英国皇家学会会员、皇家文学学会会员，赢得过无数大奖。他是牛津大学教授，至今还是新学院的董事。他还编写和出品了几部电视纪录片，包括《达尔文的基因》（2008）和《信仰学校的威胁》（2010）。

Richard Dawkins has written a string of bestselling books, including the phenomenal The God Delusion. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature, and has won numerous awards. He was a professor at Oxford University until 2008 and he remains a fellow of New College.
REALITY IS EVERYTHING that exists. That sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Actually, it isn’t. There are various problems. What about dinosaurs, which once existed but exist no longer? What about stars, which are so far away that, by the time their light reaches us and we can see them, they may have fizzled out?
We’ll come to dinosaurs and stars in a moment. But in any case, how do we know things exist, even in the present? Well, our five senses — sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste — do a pretty good job of convincing us that many things are real: rocks and camels, newly mown grass and freshly ground coffee, sandpaper and velvet, waterfalls and doorbells, sugar and salt. But are we only going to call something ‘real’ if we can detect it directly with one of our five senses?
What about a distant galaxy, too far away to be seen with the naked eye? What about a bacterium, too small to be seen without a powerful microscope? Must we say that these do not exist because we can’t see them? No. Obviously we can enhance our senses through the use of special instruments: telescopes for the galaxy, microscopes for bacteria. Because we understand telescopes and microscopes, and how they work, we can use them to extend the reach of our senses — in this case, the sense of sight — and what they enable us to see convinces us that galaxies and bacteria exist.
How about radio waves? Do they exist? Our eyes can’t detect them, nor can our ears, but again special instruments — television sets, for example — convert them into signals that we can see and hear. So, although we can’t see or hear radio waves, we know they are a part of reality. As with telescopes and microscopes, we understand how radios and televisions work. So they help our senses to build a picture of what exists:
the real world — reality. Radio telescopes (and X-ray telescopes) show us stars and galaxies through what seem like different eyes: another way to expand our view of reality.
Back to those dinosaurs. How do we know that they once roamed the Earth? We have never seen them or heard them or had to run away from them. Alas, we don’t have a time machine to show them to us directly.