Brilliant Blunders, Mario Livio
Brilliant Blunders, Mario Livio
3 Rating(s)
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.49

Brilliant Blunders
From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe

Author: Mario Livio

Narrator: Jeff Cummings

Unabridged: 9 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/14/2013


Synopsis

We all make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Not even some of the greatest geniuses in history, as Mario Livio tells us in this marvelous story of scientific error and breakthrough. Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein were all brilliant scientists. Each made groundbreaking contributions to his field - but each also stumbled badly. Darwin’s theory of natural selection shouldn’t have worked, according to the prevailing beliefs of his time. Not until Gregor Mendel’s work was known would there be a mechanism to explain natural selection. How could Darwin be both wrong and right? Lord Kelvin, Britain’s leading scientific intellect at the time, gravely miscalculated the age of the Earth. Linus Pauling, the world’s premier chemist (who would win the Nobel Prize in chemistry) constructed an erroneous model for DNA in his haste to beat the competition to publication. Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle dismissed the idea of a "Big Bang" origin to the universe (ironically, the caustic name he gave to this event endured long after his erroneous objections were disproven). And Albert Einstein, whose name is synonymous with genius, speculated incorrectly about the forces that hold the universe in equilibrium - and that speculation opened the door to brilliant conceptual leaps. These five scientists expanded our knowledge of life on Earth, the evolution of the Earth itself, and the evolution of the universe, despite and because of their errors. As Mario Livio luminously explains, the scientific process advances through error. Mistakes are essential to progress. Brilliant Blunders is a singular tour through the world of science and scientific achievement - and a wonderfully insightful examination of the psychology of five fascinating scientists.

About Mario Livio

Mario Livio is an internationally known astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of The Golden Ratio, a highly acclaimed book about mathematics and art for which he received the International Pythagoras Prize and the Peano Prize, and also The Equation That Couldn’t Be Solved, Is God a Mathematician? and The Accelerating Universe. He writes a regular blog, A Curious Mind, and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.


Reviews

Errare humanum est This is a research book commenting about "blunders" by some of the biggest minds of the two last centuries... Darwin and Kelvin ( 19th Century ) Einstein, Pauling and Hoyle ( 20th Century ) While some of them may be unknown to you, their achievements have been introduced so deep i......more

Goodreads review by David

This is an insightful book about five great scientists, their discoveries and their mistakes. Each of these scientists--Darwin, Kelvin, Pauling, Hoyle, and Einstein--made enormous contributions to science. Their discoveries were very influential on biology, chemistry and physics. However, each one m......more

Livio is a fine science writer and there are parts of this book where I felt grateful for his excellent prose and insights into the lives and passions (work-related) of many famous scientists. But, you should know that this is intended as a text for use in college courses and beyond and this means t......more