Just Finished Reading Cosmic Queries by Neil deGrasse Tyson and James Trefil

In 2021 Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, science popularizer, host of the television series Cosmos and ongoing podcaster with his audio show StarTalk, published a new book that he co-wrote with physicist James Trefil titled Cosmic Queries (subtitled StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going)...I just finished reading it.  It's great popular science reading, exploring the current state of research in just about any area you can imagine: quantum mechanics, the universe's origin, fundamental forces and particles, the nature of life, computer science, basics of astronomy, all about planets, stars, and their births and deaths, the history of scientific inquiry and investigation, the different theories concerning life elsewhere in the cosmos, multiverses, supervolcanoes (there are 20 in the world), mass extinctions and the end of the universe, to mention a few items.  What really got to me was the more detailed exposition of quantum mechanics and its bizarre depiction of fundamental forces in terms of exchange of "virtual" particles, as well as two completely different, well-documented versions of the universe's age...12.5 or 13.8 billion years, each conclusion backed by accurate experimental data: how can this be?  The topics hop around from chapter to chapter in no discernible pattern, but that worked for me: I was happy to just sit back and let the information rain down.  The book is also loaded with many useful illustrations and diagrams to help with understanding the various concepts presented.  Also, interspersed with the text are pithy, witty Tweets from Tyson relating to the ongoing content...in books like this you don't know how much the headline author wrote and how much his collaborator, in this case James Trefil, contributed...but it all fit together seamlessly.  I thought Cosmic Queries was both entertaining and informative, and it introduced me to the StarTalk podcast hosted by Tyson, which I can listen to on my smartphone's TuneIn Radio app.  I don't intend to become a physicist anytime in the near future, and you most likely won't either.  But deliberate and regular exposure to scientific thought processes is one thing we can do to inoculate ourselves from the onrush of really bad ideas currently infecting our society through social and mass media...