
This Idea Is Brilliant
Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
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Charles Constant
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By:
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John Brockman
About this listen
The latest volume in the best-selling series from Edge.org - dubbed "the world's smartest website" by The Guardian - brings together 206 of the world's most innovative thinkers to discuss the scientific concepts that everyone should know.
As science informs public policy, decision making, and so many aspects of our everyday lives, a scientifically literate society is crucial. In that spirit, Edge.org publisher and author of Know This, John Brockman, asks 206 of the world's most brilliant minds the 2017 Edge Question: What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?
Contributors include: author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins on using animals' "Genetic Book of the Dead" to reconstruct ecological history; MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on "scientific realism", the idea that scientific theories explain phenomena beyond what we can see and touch; author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics Carlo Rovelli on "relative information", which governs the physical world around us; theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss on the hidden blessings of "uncertainty"; cognitive scientist and author of The Language Instinct Steven Pinker on "The Second Law of Thermodynamics"; biogerontologist Aubrey De Grey on why "maladaptive traits" have been conserved evolutionarily; musician Brian Eno on "confirmation bias" in the Internet age; Man Booker-winning author of Atonement Ian Mcewan on the "Navier-Stokes Equations", which govern everything from weather prediction to aircraft design and blood flow; plus pieces from Richard Thaler, Jared Diamond, Nicholas Carr, Janna Levin, Lisa Randall, Kevin Kelly, Daniel Coleman, Frank Wilczek, Rory Sutherland, Nina Jablonski, Martin Rees, Alison Gopnik, and many, many others.
©2018 Edge Foundation, Inc. (P)2018 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By Thumb Guy on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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Shorter
- Work Better, Smarter, and Less-Here's How
- By: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
- Narrated by: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Shorter tells the story of entrepreneurs and leaders all over the world who have discovered how to shrink the workweek without cutting salaries or sacrificing productivity or revenues. They show that by reducing distractions, eliminating inefficiencies, and creating time for high-quality focus and collaboration, four-day workweeks can boost recruitment and retention, make leaders more thoughtful and companies more sustainable, and improve work-life balance.
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Good premise that should be 40% shorter
- By Nicholas on 09-23-21
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Jellyfish Age Backwards
- Nature's Secrets to Longevity
- By: Nicklas Brendborg
- Narrated by: Joe Leat
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Recent advances in medicine and technology have expanded our understanding of aging across the animal kingdom, and our own timeless quest for the fountain of youth. Yet, despite modern humans living longer today than ever before, the public’s understanding of what is possible is limited to our species—until now. In this spunky, effervescent debut, the key to immortality is revealed to be a superpower within reach.
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Interesting for the non-scientist
- By Andrew Lim on 03-31-23
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White Hot Light
- Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine
- By: Frank Huyler
- Narrated by: Gary Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.
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Even Better than The Blood of Strangers
- By Elizabeth Darcy on 10-14-20
By: Frank Huyler
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Eat, Poop, Die
- How Animals Make Our World
- By: Joe Roman PhD
- Narrated by: Claire Christie
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating, pooping, and dying along the way—are its heart and arteries, pumping nitrogen and phosphorus from deep-sea gorges up to mountain peaks, from the Arctic to the Caribbean. Without this conveyor belt of crucial, life-sustaining nutrients, the world would look very different.
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Excellent!
- By Lee on 07-20-24
By: Joe Roman PhD
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The Universe Speaks in Numbers
- How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the great insights of science is that the universe has an underlying order. The supreme goal of physicists is to understand this order through laws that describe the behavior of the most basic particles and the forces between them. For centuries, we have searched for these laws by studying the results of experiments. Since the 1970s, however, experiments at the world's most powerful atom-smashers have offered few new clues. So some of the world's leading physicists have looked to a different source of insight: modern mathematics.
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Great story and narration, but lacks rigor...
- By James S. on 05-31-19
By: Graham Farmelo
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Talk to Me
- How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone like a Pro
- By: Dean Nelson
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From respected journalist, professor, and founder of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea, an audiobook that demystifies the art and science of interviewing, in the vein of On Writing Well or How to Read Literature like a Professor. Nelson walks listeners through each step of the journey from deciding whom to interview and structuring questions, to the nitty-gritty of how to use a recording device and effective note-taking strategies, to the ethical dilemmas of interviewing people you love (and loathe).
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Not just for journalist;great for Salespeople also
- By Eric D. Knowles on 03-28-19
By: Dean Nelson
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Accountable
- The Rise of Citizen Capitalism
- By: Michael O'Leary, Warren Valdmanis
- Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Corporations are broken, reflecting no purpose deeper than profit. But the tools we are relying on to fix them - corporate social responsibility, divestment, impact investing, and government control - risk making our problems worse. With lively storytelling and careful analysis, O’Leary and Valdmanis cut through the tired dogma of current economic thinking to reveal a hopeful truth: If we can make our corporations accountable to a deeper purpose, we can make capitalism both prosperous and good.
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mandatory reading
- By joseph on 02-01-21
By: Michael O'Leary, and others
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Honest Answers
- Interview and Negotiation Skills to Get to the Truth
- By: Lena Sisco
- Narrated by: Jessica Holtan
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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No matter the conversation, detecting honesty and persuading others to be honest are some of the most valuable skills you can learn. With these skills, you can master your daily conversations and interactions with others. The Strategic Interviewing Skills and Competencies (SISCO) Method will help you see the full picture, have all the facts, and make effective decisions. Former Navy interrogator, Lena Sisco, created this method during challenging investigative and information-gathering interviews. Her 5-step program focuses human-to-human interaction.
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Great!
- By LizE on 03-23-24
By: Lena Sisco
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In the Blood
- How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took On the US Army
- By: Charles Barber
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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At the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, dramatized by the popular film Black Hawk Down, the majority of soldiers who died were killed instantly or bled to death before they could reach an operating table. This tragedy reinforced the need for a revolutionary treatment that could transform trauma medicine. So, when Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong—who had no medical or military experience—discovered that a cheap, crushed rock called zeolite had blood‑clotting properties, they brought it to the military's attention. The Marines and the Navy adopted the resulting product, QuikClot, immediately.
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Excellent medical history
- By Anthony on 07-01-23
By: Charles Barber
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The Key Man
- The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
- By: Simon Clark, Will Louch
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Arif Naqvi was charismatic, inspiring, and self-made—all the qualities of a successful business leader. The founder of Abraaj, a Dubai-based private-equity firm, Naqvi was the Key Man to the global elite searching for impact investments to make money and do good. In 2018, Simon Clark and Will Louch were contacted by an anonymous whistleblower who said Naqvi had swindled investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and offered bribes to sustain his billionaire lifestyle. In April 2019—months after their exposé broke—Naqvi was arrested on charges of fraud and racketeering.
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A great take on one of the greatest swindleds
- By Amer on 05-05-23
By: Simon Clark, and others
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The Hidden World of the Fox
- By: Adele Brand
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The fox. For thousands of years, myth and folklore have celebrated its cunning intelligence. Today, the red fox is the nature’s most populous carnivore, its dancing orange tail a common sight in backyards. Yet, who is this wild neighbor, truly? How do we negotiate this uneasy new chapter of an ancient relationship? Join British ecologist Adele Brand on a journey to discover the surprising secrets of the fabled fox, the familiar yet enigmatic creature that has adapted to the human world with astonishing - some say, unsettling - success.
By: Adele Brand
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Crow Planet
- Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness
- By: Lyanda Lynn Haupt
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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There are more crows now than ever. Their abundance is both an indicator of ecological imbalance and a generous opportunity to connect with the animal world. Crow Planet reminds us that we do not need to head to faraway places to encounter "nature". Rather, even in the suburbs and cities where we live we are surrounded by wild life such as crows, and through observing them we can enhance our appreciation of the world's natural order.
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Thought this would be better
- By K Dod on 09-08-20
Very easy listening. Highly recommended.
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Stimulating Scientific Morsels, 2 Great Readers
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Better to read this book.
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a deeply thoughtful mind broadening book that should be a requirement for us all.
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Learned a lot, but don’t expect an easy read
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Great idea for a book
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This audiobook, as the description explains, is a collection of essays grouped generally by a topic or theme. This allows for the clarification of overlapping concepts and sometimes a new perspective. The manuscripts for all these essays are freely available on the Edge website but I still strongly recommend the audio format. The over 206 essays from every type of science cover a wide variety of topics so there will be at least a few world-changing concepts for you even if you have a narrow scientific interest.
Absolutely fantastic, one of the my best spent credits in a long time!
Condensed Brilliance in Digestable Chunks
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Wonderful Compilation of Current Science
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Pretentious and superficial!!!
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