The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is described in Who Is Government? as a critical economic statistic that measures the average change over time in prices paid by consumers for a representative basket of goods and services. According to John Lanchester’s essay “The Number,” the CPI is one of the most important numbers produced by the US government, directly affecting social security payments, food assistance programs, tax brackets, business contracts, court orders, and millions of workers’ salaries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates this figure by collecting data on thousands of items across the country, from specific types of food and housing costs to recreational equipment and healthcare expenses. Lanchester positions the CPI as more than just an economic indicator; he presents it as a philosophical cornerstone of US democracy that exemplifies the Enlightenment principles upon which the nation was founded. The CPI demonstrates how government statistics serve as essential tools for understanding societal changes and implementing policies that respond to economic realities, even as they remain largely invisible to most citizens until problems arise.

A coronagraph is a specialized astronomical device designed to block the overwhelming light from distant stars, enabling scientists to observe planets and other objects in their vicinity. In “The Searchers,” Eggers explains how the coronagraph technology developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be installed on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to perform “starlight suppression.” The principles behind the coronagraph are compared to using one’s hand to block a bright lamp in order to see objects nearby, though the actual technology involves thousands of tiny adjustable pistons and deformable mirrors that precisely control the blocking mechanism. This technology, first conceptualized by French scientist Bernard Lyot in 1930 and later advocated for by Nancy Grace Roman herself in 1959, represents a crucial advancement in humanity’s quest to discover planets that might harbor life in distant solar systems.

CURE ID is a web platform and mobile application developed by Heather Stone at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designed to collect and share case studies of treatments for rare diseases from doctors worldwide. The platform was created to address a critical gap in medical knowledge sharing, specifically for conditions too rare to attract pharmaceutical research or traditional clinical trials. CURE ID functions as a repository for medical anecdotes and treatment experiences that, while not meeting the standards of evidence-based medicine, provide valuable insights for physicians confronting uncommon but deadly conditions. Despite its potential to save lives, CURE ID struggled to gain widespread adoption among medical professionals. The platform represents Stone’s attempt to create an institutional knowledge base for rare disease treatments, bridging information gaps in global healthcare without requiring the profit incentives that typically drive medical research and innovation.

Cybercrime refers to criminal activities conducted through digital means, particularly those involving cryptocurrency and the dark web, which are investigated by specialized government units like Jared Koopman’s team at the IRS. These activities include money laundering, terrorist financing, drug trafficking, child exploitation, and various financial frauds that utilize digital currencies and online platforms to evade traditional financial regulations and law enforcement. The book portrays cybercrime investigation as requiring specialized technical knowledge that combines accounting expertise with advanced computer skills, allowing agents to trace seemingly anonymous cryptocurrency transactions back to identifiable individuals. Cybercrime represents a new frontier in criminal investigation where government agencies must constantly adapt to rapidly evolving technologies, often competing against private sector salaries to retain the specialized talent needed to track sophisticated digital criminals. Through Koopman’s work, the book demonstrates how cybercrime investigation exemplifies the essential but unheralded role of government in protecting citizens from emerging threats in the digital age.

An exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system. In “The Searchers,” Eggers describes how scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing technology to find exoplanets that might support life, particularly those in the “Goldilocks zone”—neither too hot nor too cold for life to potentially exist. The essay highlights the remarkable work of Vanessa Bailey, who discovered one of only 82 directly imaged exoplanets (named HD 106906 b), though this particular planet was too large and too far from its star to support life. Eggers explains that finding exoplanets close enough to their stars to potentially harbor life is extraordinarily difficult because the star’s brightness obscures them, which is precisely why coronagraph technology is so crucial to future discoveries. With billions of stars in our galaxy alone, Eggers suggests there are likely billions of exoplanets, and he expresses confidence that scientists will soon find evidence of life on one of them.