Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand

Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand: Fifty Wonders That Reveal an Extraordinary Universe

Written and Narrated By: Marcus Chown

Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins

It sooo inspires Creative Thinking about Life, the Universe, EVERYthing… I felt like a total boob only paaaart of the time…!!!

So here’s the thing, see: I’m fairly intelligent, but Jiminy H. Freaking Cricket, am I poorly educated, or what?!? Nooo fault o’ my teachers throughout public schooling, but I was in a verrrrry bad way whenst I attended UTAustin on a scholarship. Jeez, a Medical Withdrawal to go with an eventual Incomplete. And were I silly enough to seek out Formal Enlightenment, I do b’lieve m’ GPA would be entered around 1.95.

Yup, blew m’ chances.

Now see, not only did Big Sis take full advantage of her Education, she’s a deeeep thinker on her own, is vastly intelligent and is able to see the Universe and Life Beyond This Life in Infinity. So >PHEW< and Hallelujah that I took on Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand at a point when she’s listened to it, like, a gazillion (And six!) times and has gotten something new and inspiring at each go. Huzzah and Oh Thank Good Golly Gosh that what plethora of confusing technical jargon could be explained or reframed; and Oh YAY! I even had a few fresh thoughts of my very own!!! Can you imagine just how delightful such a conversation could be? AWESOME!!!

Popular science writer Marcus Chown takes 50 (Count ‘em, 50!) massive concepts, and he does his own Reframing. Saaaay as in: If you squished all the empty space outta people, the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube. Not a huuuuge sugar cube, just a suPREMEly dense and heavy one. Now, see: even I can picture that.

While I did thrash and flail when Chown does indeed get into the Technical, I didn’t worry or berate m’self too terribly much as I have my very own Big Sis, Educated/Thinker on this Stuff. I mean, she told me not to worry when I couldn’t line up all my dots and dashes about electrons and neutrinos; and then, while Chown does his very best to liken such things to the Everyday Known World, it took B. Sis to repeat it and expand upon it, light dancing in her eyes.

Yessss, I felt like a Complete Boob, but only for part of the time. Because then, and these were my favorite parts: Chown writes sections such as: Solar System Things, Fundamental Things (The much-loved Infinity included!), Extraterrestrial Things, and Cosmic Things. I may blow most basically on the Microcosm, but I do soooo love the Macrocosm!

Chown narrates this himself, and this is where I have to just come out and say it: He has a lisp, or a garble, or SOMEthing. It made it impossible to listen at anything but x1. Not that I woulda jacked my speed up, far too complicated and intricate thinking for that, but I do sooo love to dabble, and I very much canNOT delay gratification, so yes, indeed I do wanna hear What’s This All About, Really? when it comes to, say, Solar System Things (EsPECially when, after hearing some conjecture, the very next day an article came out about a new discovery from the James Webb Space Telescope!). Still, he is, nary a doubt to be had, soooo enthusiastic about each snippet of info that one can’t help but be engaged.

And the constant reframing to the familiar certainly helped this layperson… as did the cheeky good humor!

All in all? When you can listen to a Science audiobook and have a conversation that runs the gamut between The Big Bang miiiiiiiight indicate we’re all One Soul having Individual Experiences… all the way to P’raps the dips in the mesh of Space/Time from Black Holes indicate that, should reincarnation be valid, Time isn’t necessarily linear but perhaps we go back, go off to a different plane or what have you: Just anywhere that’ll provide us with the conditions necessary to learn what we need to? If you can have conversations like THAT?!?

Then, my dear Fellow Accomplice, your mind can truly be said to have been BLOWN within the 5 1/2-hours of run time.

Bravo, Sir!