Resilience and how things work

What would you do if you woke up tomorrow to find that all the technologies and systems that we live our lives by had ceased to function? A good first move would be to get stuck into Lewis Dartnell’s book, entitled ‘The Knowledge’, which explains how to re-build the world from scratch.

Repair is not simply about reaching an end goal: it’s about the process of discovery that goes with it. Lewis is a passionate advocate for learning about how things work. As an astrobiologist, he’s spent years searching for life on Mars; but he’s also fascinated with the things that sustain life on earth.

Lewis writes regularly about science and technology for publications including New Scientist and BBC Focus, and has appeared on numerous TV documentary programmes. His work teaches us to be curious, and helps us recognise that we should not take for granted the elaborate and fragile network of technologies that we depend on.

Photo credit: Shortlist/Paul Stuart

Watch Lewis’ presentation at Fixfest: