Discovering the Age of the Universe

You've heard the number 13.8 billion years a hundred times. Have you ever wondered how anyone could possibly know it?

This audiobook follows the clues the way a good detective story should. One calm, warm narrator takes you from reading Earth's age in ancient rocks to timing the lives of stars, measuring a cosmos that is still expanding, and catching the faint afterglow of the Big Bang. Each chapter builds one big idea, with vivid comparisons in place of number lists and a short recap so nothing slips away. The story ends at today's live disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding, told honestly as one of the most exciting open questions in science.

By the last chapter you will understand where that number comes from, and you may look at your own hands differently, since the atoms in them carry the whole history. Press play and start following the evidence.