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Why Don't Spiders Stick to Their Webs?: And Other Everyday Mysteries of Science
What happens if you fall into a black hole? Does subliminal advertising work? Why don't spiders stick to their webs? Award-winning science writer Robert Matthews answers the most baffling and intriguing questions sent by members of the general public, with some surprising results. From the edges of the universe to the fate of odd socks, this collection unravels the science that surrounds us, and is a must-read for all inquisitive minds.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
11 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Robert Mathews
26 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 11, 2012
Another of those books which feed my Dad-given need to understand stuff and assimilate random information. Some of it I thought was pretty well known, and a lot of it I've learned from New Scientist and QI, but there was a fair amount of stuff I didn't know, too. It's pretty well written and presented, although I can well imagine most people not wanting to read it straight through, cover to cover, like I did.
August 4, 2020
Heel saai geschreven, ik kwam onjuiste informatie tegen en halve boek gaat over de ruimte. Misschien leuk als je daar nog niks over weet. Maar iedereen met een beetje interesse in de wetenschap leert weinig nieuws in dit boek...
February 27, 2025
Me ha decepcionado un poco: es un conglomerado de preguntas y respuestas sacadas de una columna de un periódico. Algunas de las respuestas son interesantes, pero muchas de ellas son simplemente "no se sabe" o "no está claro".
Hay lecturas mejores en las que invertir el tiempo.
Hay lecturas mejores en las que invertir el tiempo.
January 27, 2017
Af en toe waren de vragen een beetje dom, of leek de informatie verouderd, maar verder was het wel een leuk boek
December 2, 2018
Leuk boekje met korte antwoorden op een massa wetenschappelijke en minder wetenschappelijke vragen. Als geek en science nerd blijf je wel wat op je honger zitten.
Oh ja, de big bang of oerknal vond een kleine veertien miljard jaar geleden plaats en geen veertig miljard jaar geleden. Geen idee of deze fout in de originele versie ook staat of dat ze bij de Nederlandse vertaling er in is geslopen.
Oh ja, de big bang of oerknal vond een kleine veertien miljard jaar geleden plaats en geen veertig miljard jaar geleden. Geen idee of deze fout in de originele versie ook staat of dat ze bij de Nederlandse vertaling er in is geslopen.
March 27, 2019
This book is a really entertaining way to teach science to teens and adults alike. I absolutely loved this book because of the fun and engaging way that it explains everyday things and makes them fascinating. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun way to learn a bit more science.
April 11, 2019
Fun, quick answers to fun, interesting questions. Randomly went from one topic to another unrelated topic.
August 12, 2022
Leuk om te lezen. Er wordt in niets te diep gegaan, maar je krijgt wel op heel veel triviale, maar interessante vragen een antwoord.
August 3, 2023
Er zitten een aantal leuke feiten in dit boek, ik had er alleen wat moeite mee dat dit boek soms incorrecte informatie bevat, en dat de titel van het boek maar een hoofdstuk is.
October 16, 2014
Every publisher is on the look-out for a successful formula, and as New Scientist has discovered, its series based on the Last Word column, where readers' scientific queries are addressed by other readers, are big sellers. Another success in the 'quick answers to scientific questions' field is Robert Matthews' Why don't Spiders Stick to their own Webs, featuring columns originally published in the Sunday Telegraph. But the difference here is that, where Last Word answers tend to read like a lecture by a pernickety academic (or a scientifically inclined comedian), Matthews gives us his wisdom like a benificent and well-read uncle, entertaining his guests at the dinner table.
What is appealing here is the wide-ranging nature of the topics. On one page you might discover the best properties to buy on the Monopoly board, while elsewhere we are told (at least from Pascal's viewpoint) whether it is rational to believe in God. Matthews demolishes myths, like the suggestion there are more people alive now than ever lived before (probably wrong by a whopping factor of 10 to 15) to 'nobody really knows' questions like 'How big is the universe?' (Matthews fudges this a bit by giving a size for the visible universe, rather than the real thing, and in a later question contradicts himself by incorrectly saying 'the radius of the visible universe is 13.7 billion light years'.)
All in all, it's highly entertaining stuff. You will enjoy yourself, learn a bit, and gain several 'Did you know...?' stories to entertain friends and relations. The only problem with the book is that it is getting a trifle elderly and could do with an update. It was originally published in 2005 and doesn't seem to have been updated since. Specifically, this tends to impact on medical and dietary questions, where advice has moved on, including the strong evidence against homeopathy being anything but a placebo effect, which makes Matthews' support for it look rather odd. Perhaps the most obvious failing is when he answers the question 'Why does a magnet held near a television produce weird colours' and gives an answer that assumes everyone's TV and computer monitor is still a cathode ray tube. This is a book that predates flat screens.
Overall, then, good fun and plenty of enjoyable factoids, but it's a shame that it hasn't been updated.
What is appealing here is the wide-ranging nature of the topics. On one page you might discover the best properties to buy on the Monopoly board, while elsewhere we are told (at least from Pascal's viewpoint) whether it is rational to believe in God. Matthews demolishes myths, like the suggestion there are more people alive now than ever lived before (probably wrong by a whopping factor of 10 to 15) to 'nobody really knows' questions like 'How big is the universe?' (Matthews fudges this a bit by giving a size for the visible universe, rather than the real thing, and in a later question contradicts himself by incorrectly saying 'the radius of the visible universe is 13.7 billion light years'.)
All in all, it's highly entertaining stuff. You will enjoy yourself, learn a bit, and gain several 'Did you know...?' stories to entertain friends and relations. The only problem with the book is that it is getting a trifle elderly and could do with an update. It was originally published in 2005 and doesn't seem to have been updated since. Specifically, this tends to impact on medical and dietary questions, where advice has moved on, including the strong evidence against homeopathy being anything but a placebo effect, which makes Matthews' support for it look rather odd. Perhaps the most obvious failing is when he answers the question 'Why does a magnet held near a television produce weird colours' and gives an answer that assumes everyone's TV and computer monitor is still a cathode ray tube. This is a book that predates flat screens.
Overall, then, good fun and plenty of enjoyable factoids, but it's a shame that it hasn't been updated.
January 6, 2014
"Do penguins have knees?" and similar sciencey books are something I like a lot. Read them anytime, between other, completely different kind of books, and learn something cool every now and then.
This book fell far behind from most others of the same category.
It didn't seem to be as funny (I suspect I have not suddenly grown to have a more adult humor than the last time I read something like this, gasp, like 3 months ago?).
And there were a few things that just irked me for some reason.
My biggest irk with this book was the part about subliminal messaging and advertising. And only because the way it was written. In 1950s experiments in movie theaters, the viewers were exposed to single images inserted in the movies that were promoting e.g. fast foods, and the fast food sales were boosted immensely. 1950s, right? We are talking about classic analog movie projectors, 25 screens per second. Now here's a quote from the book: "At a press conference, the company unveiled the results of an experiment set up in a local cinema, where the slogans "drink coke" and "Eat pop corn" had been slipped into a film, appearing for less than a thousandth of a second." Bolding and underlining mine, but darn it, do your math while writing about science. If this microsecond was in a Harlequin romance it'd be fine, but when you are writing about popular science, it's not. If the messages were single images, they were exposed exactly 1/25th of a second each. Otherwise, the advertisers would have had to develop a projector way beyond NASA's wet dreams of the 1950s. Somehow I doubt that would have happened - if it would have, we would have certainly seen pictures of that relic in all the reddits, 4chans and whatnot tar pits of the internet by now.
The second irk was in the estimate of the global population. It was way too low ever for years before it was published. That, and all the UK-centric problems/questions/myths made me sometimes even wonder what was I reading when the chapter parts made no sense.
This book fell far behind from most others of the same category.
It didn't seem to be as funny (I suspect I have not suddenly grown to have a more adult humor than the last time I read something like this, gasp, like 3 months ago?).
And there were a few things that just irked me for some reason.
My biggest irk with this book was the part about subliminal messaging and advertising. And only because the way it was written. In 1950s experiments in movie theaters, the viewers were exposed to single images inserted in the movies that were promoting e.g. fast foods, and the fast food sales were boosted immensely. 1950s, right? We are talking about classic analog movie projectors, 25 screens per second. Now here's a quote from the book: "At a press conference, the company unveiled the results of an experiment set up in a local cinema, where the slogans "drink coke" and "Eat pop corn" had been slipped into a film, appearing for less than a thousandth of a second." Bolding and underlining mine, but darn it, do your math while writing about science. If this microsecond was in a Harlequin romance it'd be fine, but when you are writing about popular science, it's not. If the messages were single images, they were exposed exactly 1/25th of a second each. Otherwise, the advertisers would have had to develop a projector way beyond NASA's wet dreams of the 1950s. Somehow I doubt that would have happened - if it would have, we would have certainly seen pictures of that relic in all the reddits, 4chans and whatnot tar pits of the internet by now.
The second irk was in the estimate of the global population. It was way too low ever for years before it was published. That, and all the UK-centric problems/questions/myths made me sometimes even wonder what was I reading when the chapter parts made no sense.
November 2, 2011
To be frank. I'd give this book a rating of 2.5 because I just couldn't make up my mind whether its good or bad.. Some questions are amazing. Some I couldn't understand. Some I understood but I couldn't get the answer and other time I couldn't get both and if I did. I was certain that the info isn't going to last in my end because it's not simplified enough.
Having said that. The book is very knowledgable and interesting at the same time offering u an entertaining way to learn about various things that are bound to get u curious. I couldn't put it down
Having said that. The book is very knowledgable and interesting at the same time offering u an entertaining way to learn about various things that are bound to get u curious. I couldn't put it down
December 24, 2012
A fun and educational read about all those trivial questions that pop up in our daily lives. Robert Matthews presents all the topics in a light-hearted manner, making even the slightly duller ones very enjoyable to learn about.
August 21, 2008
Full of great but useless information, I now know how everything works!!! I just love learning and this is very bitesize so easy to read!
January 18, 2011
An ammusing diversion. Not something to read from cover to cover, but ok to pick up every now and then and read a few select sections.
August 31, 2014
Excellent - better than the New Scientist books of similar ilk.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews