The Book Of General Ignorance

Author : John Mitchinson
Publisher : Crown Archetype
ISBN 13 : 0307405516
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Book of General Ignorance written by John Mitchinson and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more,The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school. Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out The Book of General Ignorance for more fun entries and complete answers to the following: How long can a chicken live without its head? About two years. What do chameleons do? They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states. How many legs does a centipede have? Not a hundred. How many toes has a two-toed sloth? It’s either six or eight. Who was the first American president? Peyton Randolph. What were George Washington’s false teeth made from? Mostly hippopotamus. What was James Bond’s favorite drink? Not the vodka martini.

Author : John Lloyd
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307951766
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Second Book of General Ignorance written by John Lloyd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the brains behind the New York Times' bestseller, The Book of General Ignorance comes another wonderful collection of the most outrageous, fascinating, and mind-bending facts, taking on the hugely popular form of the first book in the internationally bestselling series. Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong. For example, do you know who made the first airplane flight? How many legs does an octopus have? How much water should you drink every day? What is the chance of tossing a coin and it landing on heads? What happens if you leave a tooth in a glass of Coke overnight? What is house dust mostly made from? What was the first dishwasher built to do? What color are oranges? Who in the world is most likely to kill you? Whatever your answers to the questions above, you can be sure that everything you think you know is wrong. The Second Book of General Ignorance is the essential text for everyone who knows they don't know everything, and an ideal stick with which to beat people who think they do.

Author : John Lloyd
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307460673
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? written by John Lloyd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009-08-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Lloyd and John Mitchinson have proven themselves to be masters at digging up obscure facts, abstruse information, and amusing anecdotes and presenting them effortlessly, somewhat slyly, with either great wit or at least a little bit of tongue in cheek. Their gifts are on full display in Quote Interesting, a lively, wonderfully enjoyable anthology of hundreds of quotes you probably have never heard before, arranged thematically from A to Z. From laugh-out-loud-funny bon mots to some real headscratchers, Lloyd and Mitchinson have gathered a universe of star-studded blurbs like: “The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.” —Victor Lewis Smith “When you forget to eat, you know you’re alive.” —Henry James “I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.” —Nancy Reagan “You know ‘that look’ women get when they want sex? Me neither.” —Steve Martin

Author : John Lloyd
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780571241392
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Qi Book of General Ignorance written by John Lloyd and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is an illuminating collection of fun facts, perfect for general knowledge, trivia and pub quiz enthusiasts. This number-one bestseller is a comprehensive catalogue of all the interesting misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in 'common knowledge' that will make you wonder why anyone bothers going to school. Now available in this handy pocket-sized edition, carry it everywhere to impress your friends, frustrate your enemies and win every argument. Henry VIII had six wives. WRONG! Everest is the highest mountain in the world. WRONG! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. WRONG! QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is the essential set text for everyone who's proud to admit that they don't know everything, and an ideal sack of interesting facts with which to beat people who think they do. Perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts, this is a number-one bestseller from the authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, packed with weird, wonderful and really quite interesting facts.

Author : John Lloyd
Publisher : Faber & Faber
ISBN 13 : 0571249175
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance written by John Lloyd and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground. Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Geese mourn their dead. Koalas don't drink. Monkeys pay to look at porn. Lobsters live for a century. Mice sing while having sex. Spiders can fly.

Author : Homer Lea
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Valor of Ignorance written by Homer Lea and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the foremost strategists of the American Army in the first decade of the twentieth century warns of the great danger of militarized Japan and forcasts -- 44 years before it actually happened -- the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Author : John Mighton
Publisher : Vintage Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307373444
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The End of Ignorance written by John Mighton and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary call for a new understanding of how people learn. The End of Ignorance conceives of a world in which no child is left behind—a world based on the assumption that each child has the potential to be successful in every subject. John Mighton argues that by recognizing the barriers that we have experienced in our own educational development, by identifying the moment that we became disenchanted with a certain subject and forever closed ourselves off to it, we will be able to eliminate these same barriers from standing in the way of our children. A passionate examination of our present education system, The End of Ignorance shows how we all can work together to reinvent the way that we are taught.

Author : Ilya Somin
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804789312
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Democracy and Political Ignorance written by Ilya Somin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.

Author : Stuart Firestein
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199939330
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Ignorance written by Stuart Firestein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-23 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. And it is ignorance--not knowledge--that is the true engine of science. Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. In fact, says Firestein, more often than not, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. The process is more hit-or-miss than you might imagine, with much stumbling and groping after phantoms. But it is exactly this "not knowing," this puzzling over thorny questions or inexplicable data, that gets researchers into the lab early and keeps them there late, the thing that propels them, the very driving force of science. Firestein shows how scientists use ignorance to program their work, to identify what should be done, what the next steps are, and where they should concentrate their energies. And he includes a catalog of how scientists use ignorance, consciously or unconsciously--a remarkable range of approaches that includes looking for connections to other research, revisiting apparently settled questions, using small questions to get at big ones, and tackling a problem simply out of curiosity. The book concludes with four case histories--in cognitive psychology, theoretical physics, astronomy, and neuroscience--that provide a feel for the nuts and bolts of ignorance, the day-to-day battle that goes on in scientific laboratories and in scientific minds with questions that range from the quotidian to the profound. Turning the conventional idea about science on its head, Ignorance opens a new window on the true nature of research. It is a must-read for anyone curious about science.

Author : Linsey McGoey
Publisher : Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 1780326386
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Unknowers written by Linsey McGoey and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deliberate ignorance has been known as the ‘Ostrich Instruction’ in law courts since the 1860s. It illustrates a recurring pattern in history in which figureheads for major companies, political leaders and industry bigwigs plead ignorance to avoid culpability. So why do so many figures at the top still get away with it when disasters on their watch damage so many people’s lives? Does the idea that knowledge is power still apply in today’s post-truth world? A bold, wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between ignorance and power in the modern age, from debates over colonial power and economic rent-seeking in the 18th and 19th centuries to the legal defences of today, The Unknowers shows that strategic ignorance has not only long been an inherent part of modern power and big business, but also that true power lies in the ability to convince others of where the boundary between ignorance and knowledge lies.