This compelling book describes how the Big Bang theory arose, how it has evolved, and why it is the best theory so far to explain the current state of the universe.

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This book, which describes the descendants of a civilisation that has converted the material in its planets into a giant ringlike structure around its sun, was inspired by Freeman Dyson's idea that a truly technologically advanced species would endeavour to capture as much light as possible by building a spherical shell around its central star.

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This approach that the author of the book describes of collaboration with a community in order to make solutions that will really work struck me as being very different than what is presented in KONY 2012.

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Eli Pariser describes all this in great detail in his excellant book, The Filter Bubble.

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But the Russian people and any sense of what it felt like to live through the tumultuous times he describes are largely absent from this book.

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