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Breakthrough

How to Think Like a Scientist, Learn to Fail and Embrace the Unknown
Brief Description
What can we learn about the world and ourselves if we think like scientists? A scientist's journey from observation to discovery is anything but straightforward. It is littered with failure, unexpected diversions, and joyous realisations. Science helps us to understand ourselves in a world where we... Read More
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What can we learn about the world and ourselves if we think like scientists?

A scientist's journey from observation to discovery is anything but straightforward. It is littered with failure, unexpected diversions, and joyous realisations. Science helps us to understand ourselves in a world where we often feel like strangers—but what we know about the world around us, what has already been explored and discovered, is only half of science's story.

Dr Camilla Pang looks at some of the biggest mysteries facing science today and how some of the best cutting-edge scientists can illuminate our own approaches to observation, hypothesis, exploration, troubleshooting, and discovery in our lives.

Breakthrough explores the frontier between what we do and don't know about the world—where knowledge meets mystery, complexity overwhelms certainty, and the vastness of our universe unspools the logic of science's established laws.

The stability of science was originally a safety blanket for her survival with Autism; after becoming a scientist herself, Camilla quickly realises that it is the complete opposite. Scientific research, much like life—beset by new technology and ubiquitous information—is constantly changing. Part of its curse but also of its beauty.

There's a scientist hidden inside all of us. Science's greatest gift to us is not formulae but enabling the urge to discover that makes us truly human.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241545348

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 06 March 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Viking

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 17.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 199.0mm

Weight: 182g

Pages: 256

About the Author

Dr Camilla Pang holds a PhD in biochemistry from University College London and is a postdoctoral scientist specializing in translational bioinformatics. At the age of eight, Camilla was diagnosed with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and ADHD at twenty-six years old. Her career and studies have been heavily influenced by her diagnosis and she is driven by her passion for understanding humans, our behaviours and how we work. Her first book, Explaining Humans, won the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Also by Camilla Pang

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  • Explaining Humans
    How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about human behaviour WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2020 How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people's motivations, their behaviour, or even their facial expressions? And, when do we learn the social cues that dictate human behaviour? Diagnosed with Autism...
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  • A Perfectly Weird Guide to Being Perfectly You
    I definitely feel better about myself, about being me, after reading this book. - 11-year-old reader, Toppsta Discover how scientific concepts can help you navigate everyday human interactions, and grow up to be your HAPPIEST YOU! As a child, Camilla loved patterns and putting things in order. She was obsessed with Stephen Hawking, and the only language she really understood...
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  • Breakthrough
    What can we learn about ourselves if we think like scientists? A scientist's journey from observation to discovery is anything but straightforward. It is littered with failure, unexpected diversions, and joyous realisations. Science helps us to understand ourselves in a world where we often feel like strangers; but what we know about the world around us, what has already been...
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