A Quite Interesting Blog
Based on the BBC 2 Quiz show, QI (it stands for Quite Interesting if you didn’t know) The Book Of General Ignorance throws what you thought was true in the recycling bin and sheds light on common misconceptions in History (Medieval people did not believe that the Earth was flat), Invention (Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb) and Nature and Science in general (the Blue Whale is not the largest organism on Earth – it is a 2000 year old mushroom covering 890 hectares).
Obviously then, it is not a pure science book, but what science it does contain is very enlightening. The book is broken up into small bits of texts only a few paragraphs long explaining the who/what/where/which in question. The science is not spread evenly throughout the book, but is rather delivered in chunks of a few small articles, so you could go through a few pages encountering no science at all – but that’s alright because each article is written in a witty manner, and most of them are indeed quite interesting.
Since it is not marketed strictly as a science book, it has the potential to reach a larger audience than most science books. Of course it doesn’t go into as great a detail as those science books, but in reaching more non-scientific audience it may spark a hidden interest in science in more members of the public, which can only be a good thing.
4 comments:
I was surprised you called the science "enlightening" - I thought it would be more a matter of miscellany?
Do you think the knowledge it provides is useful, or just "quite interesting?"
I've read the book and found it fascinating. A lot of the science is kind of trivia based, like the largest known diamond is eight light years away inside a star and it is 4000km across, but it gets you excited and puts you in the mood for finding out more. I think it encourages inquiry by challenging 'facts' you thought you knew, which I can only commend it on.
Some of the knowledge is merely a matter of interest, but others are very practical, like how many hours of sleep an average human should get among others
The book is excellent IMO. It was amazon's number one global bestseller for Christmas last year. That said, the NS book (also high in the amazon charts) is probably better for science and it is cheaper. Since it purely comes from the magazine though, not much reason to buy it if you already subscribe.
BTW if you are interested in other aspects of QI, my exclusively Quite Interesting blog could be of interest at www.qitalk.blogspot.com .
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