Try free for 30 days
-
What We Cannot Know
- Narrated by: Marcus du Sautoy
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $27.33
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Edge of Knowledge
- Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos
- By: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Narrated by: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three of the most important words in science are I don't know. Not knowing implies a universe of opportunities—the possibility of discovery and surprise. Our understanding of science has advanced immeasurably over the last 500 years, yet many fundamental mysteries of existence persist: How did our universe begin? How big is the universe? Is time travel possible? What’s at the center of a black hole? How did life on Earth arise? Are we alone? What is consciousness, and can we create it?
-
-
Another winner
- By Kym Angrave on 11-05-2023
-
The Quantum Universe
- (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.
-
-
Absolutely my speed
- By Rixonium on 09-07-2021
-
Existential Physics
- A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Gina Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
-
-
Pretty Tedious
- By Joanne on 06-10-2023
-
The Fabric of Reality
- The Science of Parallel Universes - and Its Implications
- By: David Deutsch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author of the New York Times best seller The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch, explores the four most fundamental strands of human knowledge: quantum physics, and the theories of knowledge, computation, and evolution - and their unexpected connections. Taken together, these four strands reveal a deeply integrated, rational, and optimistic worldview. It describes a unified fabric of reality that is objective and comprehensible, in which human action and thought are central.
-
-
Dry, poorly presented, needlessly convoluted
- By Ben on 27-08-2019
-
Now
- The Physics of Time - and the Ephemeral Moment That Einstein Could Not Explain
- By: Richard A. Muller
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are reading the word now right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment "now" so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of now. Equally puzzling: Why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand and call the flow of time an illusion.
-
-
After a rereading of NOW
- By Anonymous User on 15-07-2023
-
StarTalk
- Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Luzma Ortiz, Kevin R. Free, Lauren Fortgang, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades, beloved astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has interpreted science with a combination of brainpower and charm that resonates with fans everywhere. This pioneering, provocative audiobook brings together the best of StarTalk, his beloved podcast and television show devoted to solving the most confounding mysteries of Earth, space, and what it means to be human.
-
-
Good listen
- By Kate on 06-11-2023
-
The Edge of Knowledge
- Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos
- By: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Narrated by: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three of the most important words in science are I don't know. Not knowing implies a universe of opportunities—the possibility of discovery and surprise. Our understanding of science has advanced immeasurably over the last 500 years, yet many fundamental mysteries of existence persist: How did our universe begin? How big is the universe? Is time travel possible? What’s at the center of a black hole? How did life on Earth arise? Are we alone? What is consciousness, and can we create it?
-
-
Another winner
- By Kym Angrave on 11-05-2023
-
The Quantum Universe
- (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.
-
-
Absolutely my speed
- By Rixonium on 09-07-2021
-
Existential Physics
- A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Gina Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
-
-
Pretty Tedious
- By Joanne on 06-10-2023
-
The Fabric of Reality
- The Science of Parallel Universes - and Its Implications
- By: David Deutsch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author of the New York Times best seller The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch, explores the four most fundamental strands of human knowledge: quantum physics, and the theories of knowledge, computation, and evolution - and their unexpected connections. Taken together, these four strands reveal a deeply integrated, rational, and optimistic worldview. It describes a unified fabric of reality that is objective and comprehensible, in which human action and thought are central.
-
-
Dry, poorly presented, needlessly convoluted
- By Ben on 27-08-2019
-
Now
- The Physics of Time - and the Ephemeral Moment That Einstein Could Not Explain
- By: Richard A. Muller
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are reading the word now right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment "now" so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of now. Equally puzzling: Why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand and call the flow of time an illusion.
-
-
After a rereading of NOW
- By Anonymous User on 15-07-2023
-
StarTalk
- Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Luzma Ortiz, Kevin R. Free, Lauren Fortgang, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades, beloved astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has interpreted science with a combination of brainpower and charm that resonates with fans everywhere. This pioneering, provocative audiobook brings together the best of StarTalk, his beloved podcast and television show devoted to solving the most confounding mysteries of Earth, space, and what it means to be human.
-
-
Good listen
- By Kate on 06-11-2023
-
Quantum
- A Guide for the Perplexed
- By: Jim Al-Khalili
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Schrodinger's cat to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, this book untangles the weirdness of the quantum world. Quantum mechanics underpins modern science and provides us with a blueprint for reality itself. And yet it has been said that if you're not shocked by it, you don't understand it. But is quantum physics really so unknowable? Is reality really so strange? And just how can cats be half alive and half dead at the same time?
-
-
an outstanding book.
- By Mark Smith on 14-12-2017
-
Books Do Furnish a Life
- An Electrifying Celebration of Science Writing
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Books Do Furnish a Life is divided by theme, including celebrating nature, exploring humanity, and interrogating faith. For the first time, it brings together Richard Dawkins's forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age - Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss, Jacob Bronowski, Lewis Wolpert - with a selection of his reviews to provide an electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction. It is also a sparkling addition to Dawkins's own remarkable canon of work.
-
The Case Against Reality
- Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
- By: Donald Hoffman
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.
-
-
No PDF with images
- By Anonymous User on 23-10-2019
-
How to Die in Space
- A Journey Through Dangerous Astrophysical Phenomena
- By: Paul M. Sutter PhD
- Narrated by: Paul M. Sutter PhD
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So you’ve fallen in love with space and now you want to see it for yourself, huh? You want to witness the birth of a star, or visit the black hole at the center of our galaxy? You want to know if there are aliens out there, or how to travel through a wormhole? You want the wonders of the universe revealed before your very eyes? Well stop, because all that will probably kill you.
-
-
Wit and wisdom so you learn and laugh - 6 stars
- By Anonymous User on 03-06-2020
-
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
- Bobiverse, Book 1
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.
-
-
So much better than I expected
- By Rob on 13-09-2017
-
What We Owe the Future
- By: William MacAskill
- Narrated by: William MacAskill
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. It’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed, counter the end of moral progress, and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human. If we set humanity’s course right, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything to give them a world of justice, hope, and beauty.
-
-
Interesting exploration of idea of legacy
- By Peter Knight on 29-12-2022
-
Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
-
-
Stunning analysis from the biggest perspective
- By Gordon on 02-08-2016
-
The Beginning of Infinity
- Explanations That Transform the World
- By: David Deutsch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe.
-
-
Inspiring
- By Dirk Bertels on 21-03-2017
-
The History of the Ancient World
- From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.
-
-
Absorbing, never-dull narration of our history
- By PAS on 18-03-2019
-
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
-
-
This book is just brilliant.
- By completeaerogeek on 01-06-2017
-
A Brief History of Black Holes
- And Why Nearly Everything You Know About Them Is Wrong
- By: Dr Becky Smethurst
- Narrated by: Dr. Becky Smethurst
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Right now, you are orbiting a black hole. The Earth goes around the Sun, and the Sun goes around the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole—the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy. In A Brief History of Black Holes, University of Oxford astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst charts the scientific breakthroughs that have uncovered the weird and wonderful world of black holes, from Hawking radiation to the iconic first photographs of a black hole in 2019.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Aussie Bloke on 01-03-2024
-
I Am a Strange Loop
- By: Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Narrated by: Greg Baglia
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop" - a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I". The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.
Publisher's Summary
Britain's most famous mathematician takes us to the edge of knowledge to show us what we cannot know.
Science is king. Every week headlines announce new breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe, new technologies that will transform our environment, new medical advances that will extend our lives. Science is giving us unprecedented insight into some of the big questions that have challenged humanity ever since we've been able to formulate those questions. Where did we come from? What is the ultimate destiny of the universe? What are the building blocks of the physical world? What is consciousness?
What We Cannot Know asks us to rein in this unbridled enthusiasm for the power of science. Marcus Du Sautoy explores the limits of human knowledge, to probe whether there is anything we truly cannot know. Are there limits to what we can discover about our physical universe? Are some regions of the future beyond the predictive powers of science and mathematics? Is time before the big bang a no-go arena? Are there ideas so complex that they are beyond the conception of our finite human brains? Can brains even investigate themselves, or does the analysis enter an infinite loop from which it is impossible to rescue itself? Are there true statements that can never be proved true?
Prepare to be taken to the edge of knowledge to find out what we cannot know.
Critic Reviews
"Marcus Du Sautoy knows how to tell a story, and, even more important, how to make difficult ideas palatable and entertaining. He is never condescending and is always true to the spirit of his subject. He is a living refutation of Hardy's snobbish view that popularisation is 'work for second rate minds'." ( Sunday Telegraph)
What listeners say about What We Cannot Know
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- dave
- 09-10-2018
You don't need to be a nerd to enjoy this
I've never been any good at mathematics but the topic has interested me for years. Couple that with Marcus Du Sautoy who is one of the best science communicators in business now and you get a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting book and audiobook (I've got both). Authors don't always read/narrate their own works well. However, Marcus does a great job. A well known science communicator who has made some very watchable TV programs on mathematics.
Highly recommended
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful