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The Edge of the Unknown: 101 Things You Don't Know About Science and No One Else Does Either
A physicist and science commentator for National Public Radio offers an entertaining, highly accessible look at the most pressing questions in science today, including the likelihood of extra-terrestrial intelligence and of a medicinal cure for tumors.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
355 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 1996
7 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
James S. Trefil
102 books47 followersJames S. Trefil (born 9/10/1938) is an American physicist (Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford University in 1966) and author of more than thirty books. Much of his published work focuses on science for the general audience. Dr. Trefil has previously served as Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia and he now teaches as Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University. Among Trefil's books is Are We Unique?, an argument for human uniqueness in which he questions the comparisons between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Trefil also regularly gives presentations to judges and public officials about the intersections between science and the law.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 18, 2012
As a mechanical engineer I wasn't impressed by this book. The author limits himself to three pages on each 'thing you don't know.' This prevents any in-depth analysis on some things, and stretching to fill three pages on others. This seems a poor choice to me, but it prevents it from being an overly technical book, thus a good choice for those without a strong technical/science background. References to further reading are presented in the appendix; I like that. However the author's editorializing on many of the subjects does nothing to contribute to the facts of the matter and leads readers toward his opinions. I HATE that.
July 8, 2007
No other book I have read outlines so many of our current open thoughts on science. The work is described in terms that we all can understand and relate to - something science literacy needs to do a better job on.
April 16, 2008
For the science ignoramus, this book can be a bit of fun.
Read
September 15, 2008This book is really for people who don't know much at all about science -- there wasn't much in here I didn't already know.
Read
April 15, 2012Numbers are accumulating to consummate the whole Universe but how about a tiniest atom like neutrino without a mass and chargeless be hurled into the void of numbers? Like so many thigs are consisted of numbers, including The Universe itself and the lives inside it.DNA is a product of numbers and it is twisting according to the rule of dimension which in turn, is also made up of ruling entites of numbers. The numbering of winding and unwinding of DNA is manipulated by the rule of the dimensional function which allots the appropriate position and functions of proteins.
DNA has exprienced millions years of evolutionary process to reach its defects and perfectness. On the way to the pertained process, it had to undergo many stages of adaptation to the changing environment along the time line of evolutionary process. DNA,thus, through many stages of changes, got to adapt the environment of the ever changing Earth and this involves also the process of appearrence of various species.
The grand circle regarded as the surrounding factor in the air caused by the orbiting of the other planets and tilting of the sun, has caused many times of lucid extinction and appearrence of new species on The Earth. The extra factor in the air includes so many bombardment from the various circles regarded as factoring which processes like the game of snooker, percussion is the crucial link to change path of an event. The mechanism is like playing snooker, factoring is the bombardment imposed from factoring to change the original path of an preservative event and embarks a new path to change the orbit of an event.
Moreover, DNA appears caused of lightning which has combined the organic matter to form many orgainelles in the cell sap so that these organelles ran together to form a cell. Some organelles might have been primodial microorganism like Edoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi apparatus which were thoguht to have inavaded the primodial cells to inaugurate themselves inside the cells to survive as the cells' organelles. So to fit into or to be rejected is depended on the mechanism of selection which is a process so called Dimensional Factoring.
DNA has exprienced millions years of evolutionary process to reach its defects and perfectness. On the way to the pertained process, it had to undergo many stages of adaptation to the changing environment along the time line of evolutionary process. DNA,thus, through many stages of changes, got to adapt the environment of the ever changing Earth and this involves also the process of appearrence of various species.
The grand circle regarded as the surrounding factor in the air caused by the orbiting of the other planets and tilting of the sun, has caused many times of lucid extinction and appearrence of new species on The Earth. The extra factor in the air includes so many bombardment from the various circles regarded as factoring which processes like the game of snooker, percussion is the crucial link to change path of an event. The mechanism is like playing snooker, factoring is the bombardment imposed from factoring to change the original path of an preservative event and embarks a new path to change the orbit of an event.
Moreover, DNA appears caused of lightning which has combined the organic matter to form many orgainelles in the cell sap so that these organelles ran together to form a cell. Some organelles might have been primodial microorganism like Edoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi apparatus which were thoguht to have inavaded the primodial cells to inaugurate themselves inside the cells to survive as the cells' organelles. So to fit into or to be rejected is depended on the mechanism of selection which is a process so called Dimensional Factoring.
June 8, 2015
I've had this book since it was first published in the 1990's and only just now decided to read it. Reading about predictions of the direction different fields in the natural and computer sciences would take was really enlightening and amusing almost 20 years after the fact. It would be interesting to have an updated version of what the author "got right" and what was way off.
Because this book is out of date at this point, I wouldn't really recommend it unless someone has an interest in science as a whole.
Because this book is out of date at this point, I wouldn't really recommend it unless someone has an interest in science as a whole.
January 4, 2011
Took awhile to get through this one; thankfully the author kept each vignette short. I felt like a moron, though; even though Trefil was obviously dumbing down the material. It was also a little outdated, which had the added benefit of making me feel a teensy bit smarter.
If you like black holes, dark matter, or quarks you may like this one better than I did. For me, it was just meh.
If you like black holes, dark matter, or quarks you may like this one better than I did. For me, it was just meh.
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June 28, 2007At least, most of it was read in the bathroom. Sometimes an interesting part grabbed me and I took it with me.
It's fun to read slightly outdated science like this because it puts you at less of a disadvantage.
It's fun to read slightly outdated science like this because it puts you at less of a disadvantage.
July 18, 2010
Good one for the rest room.
August 1, 2011
A bit dated now even though it came out in 1996.
April 12, 2012
Much of science has developed since this book was published. An okay piece touching upon its (science) different areas.
September 2, 2019
Still relevant and interesting fifteen years after publication
Having read Trefil's Are We Unique? A Scientist Explores the Unparalleled Intelligence of the Human Mind (1997) and his Human Nature: A Blueprint for Managing the Earth--by People, for People (2004) I was pleased to come across this volume published in 1996. Trefil is an engaging writer with a gift for making scientific ideas accessible to the general reader.
The "101 Things," which amount to 101 mini essays on scientific subjects, are organized into eight chapters ranging from the physical sciences through biology to technology. Trefil is by education a physicist and by inclination a science generalist.
He is also opinionated, which I think puts him one level above those writers who are loath to express an opinion for fear of being wrong or of offending some group or persons. Sometimes Trefil's opinions are surprising, most notably his view that the case for global warming as caused by human activities has not yet been made. Or when he opts for an earth that is managed for the benefit and convenience of humans beings with only secondary regard for preserving natural environments.
The first chapter is entitled "The Top Ten Problems in Science," the first of which is "Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing." This is really not a problem in science; this striking question more properly belongs in the realm of philosophy. At any rate, Trefil doesn't attempt to answer the question. Instead he writes about the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, about quantum uncertainty in which it is seen that the vacuum of space is not so vacuous as was once thought.
In most of the essays--which incidentally average around a tidy thousand words each--Trefil gives his view on how the problem will play out. In some cases however his conclusion is a bit fuzzy, as it is in the essay "Will We Ever Understand Consciousness?" (pp. 15-17)
First he doesn't define consciousness, which is often a major failing whenever the subject arises. He does say the "debate" is over what "it means for a human being...to think, to feel emotions, to have a subjective experience of the world." If this is the question of consciousness, then the question is one that will never be answered since it is hopelessly subjective. It is like trying to explain to someone who has been blind from birth what the color "red" looks like.
Usually consciousness is defined as awareness or self-awareness or as an identification with the self. It isn't just one question. The question of self-awareness is separate from the question of awareness of the external world and separate from the question of self-identity. Lumping them together as Trefil and many others do just confuses the issue. His answer ("My own guess is that consciousness will turn out to be an emergent property of complex systems") is one that I would agree with; but I wonder if Trefil really appreciates the implication of his answer when he hopes (against Francis Crick's view) that "human beings will be found to be something more than a 'vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.'" (p. 17) I wish he had speculated on what that "more" that might be. One senses that the mysterian in Trefil's soul is yearning to be out and about, but that Trefil's sense of (scientific) propriety is keeping him under lock and key. Maybe if and when Trefil writes his memoirs we'll know how he really feels.
By the way, speaking of fuzzy logic, there is an essay on the subject entitled "Where Next with Fuzzy Logic?" on page 324.
I also want to take issue with Trefil's statement that "only a relatively small range of values of phenomena like the gravitational force or electrical charge will allow the possibility of life." (p. 54) This idea (often found coupled with the so-called "anthropic principle") is really something like the "anthropic arrogant delusion." Life as we know it, of course, probably requires the familiar range of values; however, life in general, in the widest sense of the word, may exist in conditions we can't even imagine.
Despite some quibbles, Trefil's book is a most interesting and informative read, and although it is fifteen years old, much of what he writes is still relevant and at or near the cutting edge of the science in question.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Having read Trefil's Are We Unique? A Scientist Explores the Unparalleled Intelligence of the Human Mind (1997) and his Human Nature: A Blueprint for Managing the Earth--by People, for People (2004) I was pleased to come across this volume published in 1996. Trefil is an engaging writer with a gift for making scientific ideas accessible to the general reader.
The "101 Things," which amount to 101 mini essays on scientific subjects, are organized into eight chapters ranging from the physical sciences through biology to technology. Trefil is by education a physicist and by inclination a science generalist.
He is also opinionated, which I think puts him one level above those writers who are loath to express an opinion for fear of being wrong or of offending some group or persons. Sometimes Trefil's opinions are surprising, most notably his view that the case for global warming as caused by human activities has not yet been made. Or when he opts for an earth that is managed for the benefit and convenience of humans beings with only secondary regard for preserving natural environments.
The first chapter is entitled "The Top Ten Problems in Science," the first of which is "Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing." This is really not a problem in science; this striking question more properly belongs in the realm of philosophy. At any rate, Trefil doesn't attempt to answer the question. Instead he writes about the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, about quantum uncertainty in which it is seen that the vacuum of space is not so vacuous as was once thought.
In most of the essays--which incidentally average around a tidy thousand words each--Trefil gives his view on how the problem will play out. In some cases however his conclusion is a bit fuzzy, as it is in the essay "Will We Ever Understand Consciousness?" (pp. 15-17)
First he doesn't define consciousness, which is often a major failing whenever the subject arises. He does say the "debate" is over what "it means for a human being...to think, to feel emotions, to have a subjective experience of the world." If this is the question of consciousness, then the question is one that will never be answered since it is hopelessly subjective. It is like trying to explain to someone who has been blind from birth what the color "red" looks like.
Usually consciousness is defined as awareness or self-awareness or as an identification with the self. It isn't just one question. The question of self-awareness is separate from the question of awareness of the external world and separate from the question of self-identity. Lumping them together as Trefil and many others do just confuses the issue. His answer ("My own guess is that consciousness will turn out to be an emergent property of complex systems") is one that I would agree with; but I wonder if Trefil really appreciates the implication of his answer when he hopes (against Francis Crick's view) that "human beings will be found to be something more than a 'vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.'" (p. 17) I wish he had speculated on what that "more" that might be. One senses that the mysterian in Trefil's soul is yearning to be out and about, but that Trefil's sense of (scientific) propriety is keeping him under lock and key. Maybe if and when Trefil writes his memoirs we'll know how he really feels.
By the way, speaking of fuzzy logic, there is an essay on the subject entitled "Where Next with Fuzzy Logic?" on page 324.
I also want to take issue with Trefil's statement that "only a relatively small range of values of phenomena like the gravitational force or electrical charge will allow the possibility of life." (p. 54) This idea (often found coupled with the so-called "anthropic principle") is really something like the "anthropic arrogant delusion." Life as we know it, of course, probably requires the familiar range of values; however, life in general, in the widest sense of the word, may exist in conditions we can't even imagine.
Despite some quibbles, Trefil's book is a most interesting and informative read, and although it is fifteen years old, much of what he writes is still relevant and at or near the cutting edge of the science in question.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
December 19, 2022
The core problems of modern science cut up into two-three page long, easily digestible summaries. This was one of my favorite books growing up and I'd credit it as a profound source of much scientific trivia I've pondered over in my random thoughts during the following years. Some of this is already outdated, but as a broad introductory book for the scientific layman or for a child it still holds up.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews