First Principles

Meet the four thinkers who figured out how the universe works - and learn to think like them.

Axi is an ordinary student until the strangest year of their life begins: a shimmer, a step through time, and suddenly they're standing beside the greatest minds in history at the exact moment of discovery.

In First Principles: The Physical World, Axi journeys to ancient Athens, Newton's orchard, the Galápagos Islands, and Einstein's Bern to meet four thinkers who changed everything:

• Aristotle - a framework for understanding anything
• Isaac Newton - the hidden laws that move an apple and the Moon alike
• Charles Darwin - how life shapes itself without a designer
• Albert Einstein - the surprising truth about space and time

Each of them used the same superpower: First Principles thinking - stripping away what you've been told and reasoning up from what must be true. Through vivid storytelling, clear diagrams, and hands-on challenges, readers don't just learn what these geniuses discovered; they learn how to think for themselves.

Perfect for curious minds ages 11-14, The Physical World is Book 1 of First Principles: A Young Thinker's Guide - a series that turns the history of big ideas into a toolkit for thinking clearly about anything.

What must be true?