[English] John Lloyd, John Mitchinson: The Book of General Ignorance — 200 Questions People Commonly Overlook

[UK] John Lloyd and John Mitchinson: *Quips and Quibbles——200 Questions People Generally Overlook*, translated by Wang Zhanghua, Li Jian, Yang Yu, Wu Wenzhong, Shen Xianyun, and Chen Jie, Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House, August 2007, 24.8 yuan

Another book of entertaining popular-science questions, or rather, one could call this sort of book “popular-science 8g.” Still, compared with the other books of this kind I’ve read, including *Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?* and the previous *Who Says Men Can’t Get Pregnant?*, this one is much more exciting. No wonder even Teacher Wu actually “jointly recommended” this book… (Joining him in the recommendation were also Academician Zhu Zuoyan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhao Gang, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatory, and Li Daguang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Teacher Wu’s blurb is the briefest of all: “Unearthing new knowledge from common sense—indeed, this is an interesting book.”

As both the preface and the introduction of this book point out, the book’s distinctive feature is a “journey of ignorance”——“Nowadays, we think we know everything; in fact, this way of thinking may be even more dangerous than being in the dark age of religious superstition (if such dark ages are indeed gone forever). Nowadays, with a light tap of the mouse, we can know all of human knowledge—certainly impressive, but who can deny that this may also contain another kind of danger? What we truly need is not a treasury of knowledge, but a treasury of ignorance. What we need is not bragging about what is already known, but a torch that illuminates the journey of exploring the unknown.” (From the preface) “There is a rather widespread view that human beings have basically come to understand the operating principles of the universe. Of course, these people are not you and me, but the so-called ‘scientists’ or ‘experts.’ But here, I must regretfully say that the facts are not like this. In Thomas Edison’s words: ‘We know nothing more than one millionth of what exists.’ Please note here that the light bulb was not invented by him.”

The invention of Edison’s that is probably most widely used in the English-speaking world is the word “Hello”… (p. 40)

For another example, what is the largest living organism in the world now? Not the blue whale (living things are not just animals), but… at least possibly a honey fungus discovered in Malheur National Forest Park in Oregon, USA; it covers 890 hectares of land and has been growing for 5,000–8,000 years. (p. 117)

What is the world’s largest single man-made structure? Not the Great Wall, but… New York’s “Fresh Kills” landfill, whose volume exceeds that of China’s Great Wall and whose area is 12 square kilometers. The landfill was closed in March 2001, but after 9/11 it was put back into operation once to process countless tons of construction waste. (p. 102)

When did the most recent Ice Age end? Not about 10,000 years ago, but it still hasn’t ended——geographically speaking, the Ice Age is defined as the period when ice sheets exist at the Earth’s poles, and what began about 10,000 years ago was only an “interglacial period,” a comparatively warm period within the Ice Age.

How many galaxies can the naked eye see? The answer is only four, including the Milky Way, and two of them (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds) can only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere; in the Northern Hemisphere, only the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. (The others, including star clusters, are all within the Milky Way.) (p. 79)

How many prisoners were freed by the storming of the Bastille?——7 people: 4 forgers, 1 count imprisoned for immoral conduct in life, and 2 insane persons.

Why is the marathon distance set at 26 miles and 385 yards? Not because that was the distance run by the ancient Greek messenger who delivered the good news, but because at the 1908 London Olympics, in order to make it convenient for members of the royal family to watch the race, the starting point was set at Windsor Castle and the finish line in front of the royal box in the stadium; the route happened to be exactly that distance, and from then on it was fixed as the standard. (p. 226)

Of course, the concrete contents of this book go far beyond questions + answers; beneath a single question there are often many incidental bits of 8g

…one can see that these questions have one characteristic: a “learned person” may very well give a self-assured answer, but this book is going to overturn even these “common-sense” notions. As the authors emphasize right from the start, the point of this book is not to let readers increase their knowledge by how much or become a know-it-all or anything of the sort. Quite the opposite: what it most hopes to bring readers is a feeling of ignorance.

If we change one character in Teacher Wu’s blurb, it may better reflect the book’s distinctive feature——“Unearthing ignorance from common sense—indeed, this is an interesting book.”

The regrettable point is, first of all, that this book was written against a British cultural background, and it contains many things that may originally have been common sense for British readers, but for us are often things we have never known and do not care about. On the other hand, the translation does not seem especially ideal (was it really necessary for six people to translate this book together?) Still, as a leisure read, it is not enough to affect the reading experience.

October 28, 2007

Keywords (Tag): Reading Report/Notes Science Communication/Popularization

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《Who Says Men Can’t Get Pregnant?——108 Fun Science Questions That Will Make You Jump》

Gu Cha posted on 2007-10-23 15:10:29

[US] Bill Sony and Rich Sony: *Who Says Men Can’t Get Pregnant?——108 Fun Science Questions That Will Make You Jump*, translated by Qin Lin, Jinghua Publishing House, March 2007, 18 yuan

I read this book as a diversion when Schopenhauer was making me dizzy and muddled (Schopenhauer’s own writing is quite smooth, but if you ask me to write a reading report, I still get dizzy…) and finished it very quickly.

From the title you can tell the general style of the book, but although the questions collected in it are still fairly interesting, the total number is very small, and the especially brilliant ones are even fewer. The layout wastes paper to an extreme degree, and even with a 49% discount the price still seems a bit too high…

http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk510008&source=w-90003370

October 23, 2007

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.