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Sign up today13 Things That Don’t Make Sense
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Learn moreScience starts to get interesting when things don’t make sense.
Science’s best-kept secret is this: even today, there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar “anomalies” have revolutionized our world, like in the sixteenth century, when a set of celestial anomalies led Copernicus to realize that the earth goes around the sun and not the reverse, and in the 1770s, when two chemists discovered oxygen because of experimental results that defied all the theories of the day. So if history is any precedent, we should look to today’s inexplicable results to forecast the future of science.
In 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet thirteen modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow’s breakthroughs. Why are some NASA satellites speeding up as they get farther from the sun? Why has the placebo effect become a pillar of modern medicine when doctors can’t agree whether it even exists? Is ninety-six percent of the universe missing? Is a 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Might giant viruses explain how life began? Taking readers on an entertaining tour d’horizon of the strangest of scientific findings—involving everything from our lack of free will to Martian methane that offers new evidence of life on the planet—Michael Brooks argues that the things we don’t understand are the key to what we are about to discover. Spanning disciplines from biology to cosmology, chemistry to psychology to physics, Brooks thrillingly captures the excitement, messiness, and controversy of the battle over where science is headed.
Michael Brooks, who holds a PhD in physics, is an author, journalist, and broadcaster. He is a consultant at New Scientist, a magazine with over three quarters of a million readers worldwide, and writes a weekly column for the New Statesman. Brooks is the author of At the Edge of Uncertainty, The Secret Anarchy of Science and the bestselling nonfiction title 13 Things that Don’t Make Sense. His writing has also appeared in the London Observer, Guardian, and Independent, as well as many other newspapers and magazines. He lives in England.
James Adams is one of the world’s leading authorities on terrorism and intelligence, and for more than twenty-five years he has specialized in national security. He is also the author of fourteen bestselling books on warfare, with a particular emphasis on covert warfare. A former managing editor of the London Sunday Times and CEO of United Press International, he trained as a journalist in England, where he graduated first in the country. Now living in Southern Oregon, he has narrated numerous audiobooks and earned an AudioFile Earphones Award and two coveted Audie Award for best narration.
Reviews
“Fascinating…Brooks expertly works his way through…hotly debated quandaries in a smooth, engaging writing style reminiscent of Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould.”
“This elegantly written, meticulously researched and thought-provoking book provides a window into how science actually works, and is sure to spur intense debate.”
“A boundless enthusiasm resounds through this homage to the outstanding problems of science.”
“These examples of the hard work of paradigm shift are truly fascinating. Brooks examines the uncomfortable phase that comes before a radical change in scientific thought.”
“A fascinating and humbling perspective on humanity’s vaunted scientific wisdom. The book’s chapters are arranged with beautiful logic on a continuum of topics that begins with physics and cosmology, proceeds through biology, and ends, more or less, in consciousness studies. Concise historical backstory and vivid portraits of researchers offer a true sense of the great work of science and the still-murky dark corners of its realm.”
“Brooks provides cogent character sketches as he introduces the scientists involved in these investigations. He also effectively plays the gadfly, taking potshots at the scientific orthodoxy these phenomena call into question…Great fodder for arguments, written in a lively style.”
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