This Will Change Everything

This is a collection of short essays in which more than 150 scientists, writers and thinkers each take on the same challenge: name an idea, discovery or development that could change the world as we know it. The contributors include novelist Ian McEwan, psychologist Steven Pinker, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, animal cognition researcher Irene Pepperberg, neuroscientist Sam Harris and risk thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The book was assembled by John Brockman, who gathers responses to a single big question from leading minds, and it opens with an introduction by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. Because each piece is brief and written from a different field and temperament, the book can be dipped into at random or read straight through as a wide-ranging look at where science and thought may be heading.