Skip to main content

The Astounding Science Puzzle Book - Matt Brown ****

It's that time of year again when many of us are searching for good presents for difficult-to-buy-for people: the latest title from science writer and London expert Matt Brown seems an ideal stocking filler for scientifically-minded types. It's not that many purchasers are likely to run a quiz from the book (although you certainly could), but there's plenty of entertainment to be had from having a go at the 101 themed rounds, which range from questions on the science of alcohol to science on TV and the IgNobel prize.

The blurb on the back reads 'Do you know what item of clothing Einstein refused to wear or what embarrassing mishap cost NASA a $125 million Mars orbiter', and I was feeling rather smug that I knew the answers to both - but although for those who know their science there will be some familiar questions, there was plenty inside that was new to me and that gave that fun frisson of surprise. It's the kind of book where you end up irritating anyone sitting near to you by asking them 'Do you know what hot drink Hans Sloane, whose collection formed the foundation of the British Museum introduced to the UK?' or 'Which Beatles song includes a chemical element and the surname of a famous physicist?'

As the book's name suggests, Brown's collection is not all quiz questions, but includes a range of science-oriented puzzles from a little crossword to strange abbreviations combining a number and a string of letters which spell out a particular phrase, such as 42 ITMOLTUAE (think humorous science fiction). The Astounding Science Puzzle Book is not the only option for science quizzers. How Many Moons Does the Earth Have? and What Colour is the Sun?, for example, are both in a quiz format. But where they have around 100 questions with a page of detail in the answer of each, so can be used more as an end-to-end read, here the questions are far more numerous (typically between 5 and 10 per section), with only very short answers, so it's more a matter of hurtling through, testing yourself as you go. The book compliments what's already out there, rather than competing with it.

Pitched just right, entertaining without being heavy handed, The Astounding Science Puzzle Book is ideal to fill in time on a boring train journey... or to stuff a stocking.
Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...
Post a Comment
Read more

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...
Post a Comment
Read more

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...
Post a Comment
Read more