Blinkist Summary Book

2021-10-02 06:39:43 Emotional Intelligence
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cially for audio. This is the reason why the text version might differ from the audio version. If you’re trying to decide whether to listen or to read we highly recommend listening!
Emotions are important; they help us learn new things understand others and push us to take action.
Do our emotions hold us back? Would we do better if our emotions were removed and we became unfeeling logical creatures?
In fact emotions are vital to us as they provide us with advantages that help us to lead fulfilled lives.
One such advantage is the way emotions help us learn from our memories.
When our brain stores experiences it doesn’t just collect facts. It also records our feelings and these feelings help us to learn from our experiences. For example if a little boy touches a hot stove he will experience intense pain. The thought of touching another stove in the future will carry with it the memory of that searing pain. Thus his emotions will hopefully keep him from doing it again.
Another v Open / Comment

2021-10-02 06:39:43 Emotional Intelligence
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What is in it for me?
Some people think emotions play a role only in romantic situations or in the heat of a physical fight. Yet in fact emotions are everywhere: they form our decisions help us understand the world and are crucial in any interaction with others.
This book explains in detail what impact emotions have on your everyday life. It shows how they can help you but also how they lead you astray. It also highlights the role that emotional intelligence plays in allowing us to use emotions to create positive outcomes and avoid situations where they can harm us.
It explains how emotional intelligence makes it possible to create a balanced interaction between the emotional brain and the rational brain. It also shows us how this capacity can be acquired and expanded.
Finally it answers these interesting questions: How does emotional intelligence develop in individuals and why is this capacity so important for society as a whole?
A note to readers: this Blink was redone espe Open / Comment

2021-10-02 06:39:43 Emotional Intelligence
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Emotional Intelligence (1995) outlines the nature of emotional intelligence and reveals its vast impact on many aspects of life. By presenting the ways emotional intelligence evolves and explaining how it can be improved it offers an alternative to the overly cognition-centered approaches to the human mind that formerly prevailed in the psychological establishment. Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:40:00 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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e posits that an electron is a particle but it’s one that you can explain in the same way as a wave. The principle also explains how it’s only possible to either know where an electron currently is or know its path and speed. It’s not possible to know both its position and its path. All this means is that you can’t really predict where an electron will be; you can only guess its probability of being somewhere. 
Quantum theory is tricky to understand but it helps explain very small entities. It can’t be used to explain the big things in the universe – things like gravity and time. On the flip side the theory of relativity is great for understanding the larger forces in the universe. It’s hopeless however at explaining the subatomic world. Science is therefore left with two theories: quantum physics and the theory of relativity. No one has yet found a theory that explains everything.
There are four unique criteria that make life on planet Earth possible.
The next time you leave yo Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:40:00 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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trons should fizzle out of energy very quickly. The positively charged protons crammed into the nucleus should repel each other. In other words atoms shouldn’t exist at all. 
To come to grips with this bizarre atomic world a new branch of science was needed – this is what became known as quantum theory . An important figure in the development of quantum theory was Werner Heisenberg. In 1926 he developed the concept of quantum mechanics . 
At the heart of his theory was the uncertainty principle. Here’s how the principle works. When physicists first measured electrons as they spun around an atom’s nucleus they witnessed something strange: sometimes the electrons behaved like they were a wave and sometimes the electrons behaved like they were a particle. The physicists were confused. How could they be two things at once? They could either be a wave or a particle. They couldn’t be both right? 
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle solved this conundrum. Put simply the uncertainty principl Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:40:00 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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eer off course. It will start to follow the slope made by the heavier object. Soon the marble will end up going around and around the curve in the rubber sheet – just as the planets orbit the sun.
In one elegant theory Einstein explained to the world how gravity functions!
Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle helps explain how particles move.
As we’ve just discovered Albert Einstein helped us understand huge phenomena like time and gravity. But what about the smallest things in the universe? What about atoms molecules and particles? Do Einstein’s theories work on this tiny scale? Not quite.
The key message here is: Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle helps explain how particles move.
An atom consists of a nucleus filled with neutrons and positively charged protons. Around this nucleus spin negatively charged electrons. The behavior of an atom’s protons and electrons confused the early scientists who studied them. By the conventional laws of physics the spinning elec Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:39:59 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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nsion: time. In other words space and time are elements of the same entity.
It can be quite hard to imagine the strange concept of spacetime. One helpful analogy is to think of it as a sheet of stretched rubber. This sheet is flat but it’s malleable – it can warp and bend.
Among other things the idea of spacetime completely changed how we think about gravity. Gravity is actually the curving of spacetime. 
Here’s how it works. Objects with mass bend spacetime. Objects with more mass curve it more. As smaller objects pass through spacetime they end up following these curves; this basically put is gravity.
Let’s go back to our sheet of rubber. If you place a big round object – say a bowling ball – in the middle of the sheet the sheet will stretch and sag. This is how massive objects like the sun stretch and curve spacetime.
Now imagine you roll a marble across the sheet. It will try its best to travel in a straight line. However as the marble nears the bowling ball it will begin to v Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:39:59 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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f potential energy contained within all the atoms and molecules in your body. If you were to unleash all the energy in your body you’d generate an explosion equivalent to 30 hydrogen bombs. 
And this energy isn’t just found in our bodies. Everything with mass – every rock life-form and planet – has a huge amount of potential energy.
Albert Einstein described this connection between mass and energy in his most famous equation: E =m c2 or energy equals mass times the speed of light squared . 
Put very very simply E = mc2 explains how mass and energy are pretty much the same thing. Mass is simply potential energy ready to be unleashed. But this wasn’t Einstein’s final discovery.
The key message in this blink is: Einstein’s general theory of relativity totally changed how we look at gravity.
Published in 1917 Einstein’s general theory of relativity proposed the revolutionary concept of spacetime . As the name suggests spacetime combines the three dimensions of space with a fourth dime Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:39:55 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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nside the speeding train would sound warped and slowed down like a record playing at the wrong speed. If you were to see any clocks inside the train you’d discover they were running slower than the station clock on the platform. 
So far so weird. But here’s the stranger thing. Everyone on the train would experience things as normal. Their voices and movements would appear as they should – smooth and at normal speed. To them the clocks on the train would be running as normal too. But if they looked at you on the platform they’d think you were distorted speaking slowly and moving weirdly.
Depending on the speed and your relative position to a moving object you experience different speeds of time. Simple right? 
But Einstein wasn’t done yet. In the next blink we’ll discuss his second great contribution to science.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity totally changed how we look at gravity.
Did you know there’s an enormous amount of energy inside of you? There’s a whole bunch o Open / Comment

2021-09-29 06:39:55 A Short History of Nearly Everything
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completely. 
The key message in this blink is: Einstein’s special theory of relativity states that time is relative.
Einstein first explained his special theory of relativity in these 1905 papers. Put very simply this theory states that the notion of time is relative – it does not progress constantly.
It can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. After all time feels constant. Every second every minute every hour passes at exactly the same speed. It doesn’t speed up or slow down and it feels like there is nothing we can do to change it. 
But time is relative. Time can pass at different speeds depending on different circumstances. It has to do with your relative position and speed compared to someone or something else. 
To explain let’s use an example from British philosopher Bertrand Russell. Imagine you’re on a station platform. Approaching the station is a train traveling at almost the speed of light. For you this train would appear distorted and the voices of those i Open / Comment