This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works by John Brockman (Editor)

Among the collections of responses to the Edge.org’s yearly questions, this is one of the best.
As usual, the editor roughly collects and juxtapose them for broad topic correlation when not for coincidence—which happens to be interesting as well, as it is normally not intended that two of the invited writers have the same response, and even when they do they always present it in a personal way with different shades of details and perspective. Here the question was about a simple, deep and beautiful explanation. An open question which ushered the usual flow of intellectually nourishing and provoking and stimulating short notes. Most of them read as snippets or trailers from books or works of respective authors, others are more personal forays into collateral fields bringing a fresh self-taught spirit to the enterprise.
It gets you really on the verge of wonder and illumination when some of these tough guys makes you think that there indeed was the need itself to explain something in the first place even in cases where the subject matter is deemed trivial and, for this very reason, given and not even disputed. By the same token, reversal of causal relations between previously supposed cause(s) and effect(s) are aplenty and always refreshing, especially when they can make better sense of known data or hint at patterns behind previously disordered data.
Such tight compilations of smart thoughts and dense reflections truly make you wonder of the richness of the human experience; and is a fantastic ride over intellectual landscapes one may not even imagine to exist. Highly recommended.