Stories for Grandchildren of All Ages

The final chapter "The End" explains why we must hurry. The book holds the minutest part of what may be lost if we don't; …the impossibility of life, a large brain nourished by a small digestive system, clay tablets holding ancient legends of Neanderthal and, the ancient metallurgy of sword making.

Two centuries before the metric system, one thousandth of a cubic foot of water weighed one ounce. The inch is a twelfth part of some deceased’s foot. A centimetre is a billionth part of the equator-pole distance. Why should such a simple number, 2.54, exactly relate the two?

Lesser known aspects of the inventions that drove the twentieth century are described before going to the ancient Nile, the cradle of applied mathematics. Then to Ancient Greece and Pythagoras’ invention of the musical scale before looking briefly at the bazaar in gas and gravity. After some travel, the later "How it Really Works" chapters aim to bring the non-mathematical up to a level of understanding usually reserved for the theorist. That is, some everyday mechanisms explained in everyday language.