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  • 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Intriguing Scientific Mysteries

  • By: Michael Brooks
  • Narrated by: Matt Addis
  • Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (1,107 ratings)
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13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Intriguing Scientific Mysteries

By: Michael Brooks
Narrated by: Matt Addis
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Summary

Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Even today, there are experimental results that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar anomalies have revolutionised our world: in the 16th century, a set of celestial irregularities led Copernicus to realise that the Earth goes around the sun and not the reverse.

In 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, Michael Brooks meets 13 modern-day anomalies that may become tomorrow's breakthroughs.

Is 96%of the universe missing? If no study has ever been able to definitively show that the placebo effect works, why has it become a pillar of medical science? Was the 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Spanning fields from chemistry to cosmology, psychology to physics, Michael Brooks thrillingly captures the excitement and controversy of the scientific unknown.

©2010 Michael Brooks (P)2011 Audible Ltd

What listeners say about 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Intriguing Scientific Mysteries

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Annoying

I felt a bit tricked by this book. The last chapter is about homeopathy, and essentially comes to the conclusion that there's "something in it" (pun not intended). Falling with my area of expertise, I can clearly see that in this chapter that the author puts far too much emphasis on extremely dubious, speculative and sometimes completely discredited pseudo-science. This is especially annoying given the homeopathy chapter comes after the chapter on the placebo effect!

All this leaves me wondering of the author has been so cavalier and credulous with the facts throughout the earlier chapters, the subjects of which which I am much less familiar with. Have I just listened to an interesting scientific take on current lack of understanding about dark matter and our current understanding of physics, or just a load of clap trap about things that aren't actually science?

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163 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Some troublesome errors

As a scientist myself I find it interesting how others communicate difficult ideas to the public. The secret is to find away to simplify the subject without losing the core detail and keeping the wonder. I also have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about making sure their are no factual errors.

However, I have spotted a number of errors in this work. Some are clearly due to the work becoming rapidly dated as we begin to solve some of these problems. However, others are just simple errors (for example thinking M13 is a galaxy when in fact it is a globular cluster).

I'm also concerned about the homeopathy chapter. There appears to be no effect other than placebo and stating otherwise is at best misguided and at worse could cause someone stopping their medication in exchange for a homeopathic alternative.

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119 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Really interesting listen!

I would thoroughly recommend this audiobook. It was interesting, fairly balanced and used a rigorous scientific approach to look at some of the more interesting unsolved questions in science.

However, I do feel that some level of basic understanding of science and the scientific process would be helpful for those listening to this. The author pitches this at a reasonably high level.

The narrator is very good and reads this well.

Overall, a pleasure - particularly for those of us with a scientific background or an enquiring turn of mind.

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46 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Superbly Read

At last a book that has taught me the difference between Dark Matter and Dark Energy! This is a book that really brings to life some complicated and difficult areas of scientific understanding. I think it is pitched at a good level, you might not understand all of it (I certainly didn't, some of the mathmatical reasoning went beyond me), but it does not detract from the overall enjoyment.

It is not all quantum theory, there are lots of biological ideas as well as phiosophical ones. It is also really well read by Matt Addis, beautifully paced and clear. Highly recommended.

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31 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

13 Things Made Into Complete Sense!

I highly recommend Michael Brooke's book about the patently absurd within our midst. The things in life that really don't make sense in science yet still elude clear explanation.
This books strength is making often complex postulation into complete sense to me as a reader. Brooks makes his statements in an entertaining & above all accessible fashion.
The biggest compliment that I can give is that Brooks writes in a fashion akin to a hero of mine Carl Sagan. Whilst using his own style he challenges the scientific status quo with great aplomb & I dare say with a little glee too! From telling us one moment that the medical industry are pulling the wool over our eyes to telling us that were short changed on human reproduction! As professional & as solid as his claims are you cannot help to read between the lines to see the enthusiasm in his arguments. Which besides being deeply thought provoking is thoroughly entertaining.
Matt Addis's narration is enjoyable & an appropriate choice for this audiobook. It is a weighty tomb coming in at a running time of over 8hrs but highly recommended & it will forever challenge your concept of the universe.

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29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A Fascinating Journey of Oddities

Michael Brooks has taken 13 widespread areas of science with large pitfalls for the armchair scientist (or interested layperson) and given a fair and honest account of those problems where science doesn't (currently!) quite work. Fascinating subjects such as the origin of death and the beginning of life are covered in both history and science, giving fantastic insight to those looking to expand their base of scientific knowledge. Along the way, Brooks manages to inspire the purest scientific notions into subjects such as Homoeopathy, traditionally almost a 'dirty word' with scientists, reminding us that science explores and understands, and must change if met with reasonable doubt, even if the changes can be unpleasant.

Overall, a fascinating book with some very interesting and thought provoking moments that may cause you to ask fundamental questions about life, the universe and everything. Expect to take a little time to process the information; this book isn't one to fall asleep to. This audiobook also has a clear narration, and was a pleasure to listen to.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing treatment of 11 things (+2 others)

This was a very disappointing book. The author took 11 interesting scientific mysteries/debates (plus 2 others) and applied fallacy after fallacy to them. For example, he appeals to accomplishment and appeals to novelty throughout the book.

In the prologue he cites Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and seems to only think that science only progress through Paradigm shifts.I hoped that this was not a warning that the author would suffer from the appeal to novelty fallacy that this could lead to and was disappointed when it did.

The beginning chapters the authors tendency to the appeal to Novelty is largely balanced out by appeal to accomplishment(Nobel Prize) or authority(Government Funding). This balance started to skew more toward the appeal to Novelty as the book went on.

There are also some odd jumps in logic. In the chapter on the Wow! signal his arguement can be summed up as, we don't know what caused it, therefore Alien Spaceship.

In the chapter about the Placebo effect he Cherry picks his experience and concludes that it is more informative than all the studies into understanding if there is an underlying Placebo effect.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A good listen, but not brilliant

While this book is interesting, quite a lot of it is just "filler" to make the book larger - the constant wandering off subject, the fact that some of them don't NEED to make sense (Quantum Physics for one), and the amount of background unrelated information that's given just gets boring at times



The book should have been done as an abridged version to trim out the fat, because the book itself just has a lot of wasted stuff that you just don't need to know, or is interesting but overall unrelated to the main topic



If you have a spare credit and want something that is full of information, but you'll probably only ever listen to once, this is the book for you - I found myself listening while doing other things, so it was like background noise rather than something I'd concentrate on

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Good except the homeopathy chapter

I enjoyed the book but was really disappointed by the last chapter on homeopathy. This chapter was a little bit too far into the realms of mystery that it felt unscientific. Read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre for what I feel is a better analysis of homeopathy. Annoying because the rest of the book was very interesting.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Challenging, but worth it.

Enthusiastically and clearly read, this book is challenging in places, even for those with a reasonable background in science, but not to the extent that it spoils the overall effect. I felt I learned a lot from it and am tempted to listen to it all again.

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7 people found this helpful