There is a period in childhood called "the age of why?". There are those who come out of it, their curiosity often dulled by social pressures, and those who never come out of it. But what is curiosity? What does it mean to be curious? Is it true that curiosity diminishes with age and the accumulation of information, or is it true that the more information you accumulate, the more the questions and the desire to know?
Far from answering these questions, in his amusing exploration of curiosity and the psychological and biological reasons that support it, Mario Livio does nothing but stimulate new ones in the reader, putting even the laziest reader back on the trail of a healthy desire to know.

What's the first question you remember asking? The curiosity that drives innovation and exploration is unique to humans. Livio explores the qualities of asking "why" that compel us to seek answers. No matter what work we are drawn to - science, art, mathematics, literature ... we want to know why and what and how, when, what for, and what ways things work.

A fascinating look at the inner life and outer workings of curious minds.

Although this is a fascinating topic, the book felt like a disjointed series of biographies and research results, without a coherent theory. Maybe this is more the fault of the field than the book, but it didn’t make for compelling reading.

At the moment I will only give a rating to the book and I hope it is possible for me to write down my reviews on Amazon. Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. I am very grateful to you because your publications are great, especially in the topics that interest me most. Thanks and blessings.

Could curiosity kill a cat? Or a human? Why are we curious? When did humans become curious? And why do we ask so many questions? These are only some of the topics that Mario Livio pursues in Why?: What Makes Us Curious.

Mario Livio opens the book with a chapter on what is curiosity. He then turns to an examination of two men (Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman) who exemplify curiosity. He then delves into various theories about what causes curiosity to arise in a person, the physical aspects of curiosity as revealed by neuroscience, followed by a very brief account on the rise of curiosity in humans. Next he interviews a number of scientists such as Feeman Dyson and Brian May who are known for their curiosity on why they are curious. And he ends the book with a chapter on why and how curiosity exists.

In this short, readable book, Mario Livio makes a decent case for curiosity being one of the defining characteristics of being human. He also whets the reader's appetite for knowing more in regard to the exploration of the human mind and physiology.

WHY? by astrophysicist Mario Livio is another new psychology book and deals with "What Makes Us Curious." One interesting aspect is that while Livio considers himself a very curious person, this field is not his specialty and he therefore needed to consult across disciplines with psychologists and neuroscientists. He begins the book with reference to Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour" and then introduces emphatic curiosity as well as the importance of surprise. Subsequent chapters refer to inventors and theorists such as da Vinci, Galileo and Feynman.

Livio's chapter five deals with the Intrinsic Love of Knowledge and looks at curiosity as a "powerful source of motivation for its own sake," much like we recently find students gravitating to library maker spaces for the chance to freely tinker and experiment. WHY? also involves a discussion of memory, willpower, and a quote attributed to Einstein: "The important thing is to not stop questioning."

ON CURIOSITY

Mario Livio's Why? is an odd duck of a book: a volume about curiosity–its subtitle reads, "What Makes Us Curious"–that didn't quite capture mine.

And it's not because Livio's a slouch; far from it. He's an accomplished and internationally renown astrophysicist, who draws from disciplines as diverse as psychology and neuroscience and delves into the lives of subjects as intriguiing as Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman to give readers a holistic perspective on the essence of curiosity (which Livio defines as "a drive state for information").

Yet the book failed to really connect with me, owing perhaps to its organization and tone. With respect to the former, I would argue that Livio conflates what is interesting to him with what readers might be interested in, beginning his examination of curiosity by delving into the curious nature of Leonardo and Feynman. While this certainly falls within the author's prerogative, I would submit that it hardly made a strong case for the points about curiosity he aimed to make or illustrate. These opening chapters felt very much like the equivalent of a Rorschach test: they conveyed what Livio seeks to convey because he sees what he wants to see.

Where tone is concerned, the book is somewhat pedantic, which is perhaps difficult to avoid not just owing to Livio's own background as an academic but because of the broad swath of research upon which he relies. On that score, there's no denying that Why? covers plenty of substantive material beyond its opening chapters.

It's possible that my ambivalence toward the book, as it were, is due to the fact that I realized while reading it that I didn't really need to know more about what curiosity was or why some things made people curious while others didn't. On some level, we all grasp the answers to those questions intuitively–even if we may not be able to articulate them–and that was good enough for me. Yes, it's possible to deconstruct what happens in the human psyche or the human body when curiosity takes root, and to consider what these might imply and the effects these may have; yet doing so feels like more hair-splitting than I my patience is willing to tolerate.

To put it simply: I realized know what makes us curious was less important to me than appreciating that we can all be curious in our own ways.

In that regard, the one topic from the book that did pique my interest was Livio's discussion on different kinds of curiosity. To explain, he invokes the work of Daniel Berlyne, a psychologist who opined that we could chart curiosity along two main dimensions: from the specific to the diverse on the one hand and from the perceptual to the epistemic on the other. The former pairing is fairly obvious: sometimes we want to learn about something very particular or know about a wide array of things (or perhaps something in broad strokes). Meanwhile, perceptual curiosity is that "engendered by extreme outliers, by novel ambiguous, or puzzling stimuli" while epistemic curiosity is akin to wanting to know for the sake of knowing.

All this I felt could be illustrated by a matrix as follows (with my own take on examples for each possible combination):

[IMAGE]

Admittedly, I didn't really have the patience to read Why? in depth. I got less than halfway, not much further than where the above concepts are threshed out, then proceeded to skim the book. Like I said: the book just didn't grab me. But there was that one thing that did catch my attention, prompting me to think about it some more to the point that I created the diagram above. That, itself, is curiosity at work. Which got me thinking: we don't all have to be curious about the same things in the same way, and perhaps for many other people in many other ways Livio's book Why? will catch their fancy.

<p>So I found this book about curiosity to be dull, which seems to me antithetical to a book on curiosity (also, I keep typing <i>curiousity</i> because the English language and I are having issues today). Even as the book traveled between psychology, neuroscience, and history, all subjects I have levels of curiosity about, I just did not care. Maybe it was the writing style, which is neither dry and scientific nor really pop-science chummy, but somewhere in between (I really didn't need to know, for instance, that the author skyped with certain interviewees in the book)? Maybe it was the lack of narrative, since I'm a sucker for narrative and reading non-fiction books that don't have a story-line is often difficult for me? Maybe there was too much talking about Feynman in the book, who while brilliant, always makes me feel <a href="https://galileospendulum.org/2014/07/13/the-problem-of-richard-feynman/">very uncomfortable</a>. Maybe I'm just plain incurious about curiosity? I can't say. But the book left me not wanting more, so I can't say that, in the realms of curiosity, it was a success.</p>

<p>Also, if anyone can explain to me why we don't spell it <i>curiousity</i>, it would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p><i>Addendum</i>: Levi is a physicist. Every other book I've reviewed by a physicist, said physicist has contacted me to point out flaws and/or disagree with my review. So I have that to look forward to, I suppose :p</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19770441/book/142891313">Why?</a> by Mario Levi went on sale July 11, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

This would make a great gift for friends who are always investigating and asking why...Mario Livio investigates the question of what makes us curious. The science behind out curiosity is interesting (yes, I am one of those curious people, to a degree...). very interesting look at a fascinating subject! Not too difficult a read, and once started, pretty hard t put down!

My 3-star rating of this book includes a caveat that if I had a stronger background in science, it could very well be a 4 or 5 star book. Author Mario Luvio is an internationally known astrophysicist, which did not intimidate me but perhaps it should have a little bit. (I blame you, Neil Degrasse Tyson! You and your charming ability to make me feel smart about stuff.)

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, Simon & Schuster, to read and review honestly. I consider myself a curious person, and I had a particular interest in the chapters on curiosity and neuroscience & psychology. I'm particularly fascinated with people and looked forward to these chapters but found myself on overload when reading them. The experiments he cites are fascinating, but my head began to spin as he cites results from different studies, compared to other studies, compared to different age groups as subjects. Perhaps if I revisit the text later with a clear head and maybe a dry-erase board, it will penetrate a little better. In my reading, I ended up on information overload - a predicament he refers to btw, when speaking of what makes people curious & potential barriers to curiosity. To oversimplify the research He presents, if something is too simple or too complicated, the subject will likely lose interest. Some of the chapters were definitely too technical for me in a way I'm not accustomed to examining evidence. In some chapters I remained curious and sought out end notes to enhance my understanding. In other chapters, I continued reading and accepted the fact that I'm a bit over my head in this subject. Then I put the book down and read a humorous comic/graphic novel to reset my brain for the next few chapters.

I don't want to give the impression that you need to be a scientist to follow this book, because most of it is very accessible and he gives a heads- up to readers when things begin to become necessarily technical. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. I just happened to feel that I probably didn't make the right decision to satisfy my science requirements at university with classes that were enormous lecture classes graded on a curve taken by a bunch of other liberal arts students unsure if we could pass otherwise. Maybe I should have taken something a little more challenging.

Note: I received this book as an advanced reading copy from NetGalley.

I really enjoyed the book. The author is great at explaining research without it being too dry, and I love that he is a physicist, which means I can relate to a lot of things he says. Overall, the book was well written and flows nicely. The interviews and character profiles were quite interesting, and made for a nice change of pace since there was a mix of individuals I learned a lot more about curiosity than I had known before. If the question "Why?" is something that interests you, you should read this book.

A brief exploration of the ties between curiosity and genius. Livio also looks at the psychology behind curiosity, but there seem to be no definitive answers, so I felt that section detracted a bit from the more interesting interviews with inordinately curious people.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.” Einstein said it* and Mario Livio does a brilliant job here by showing how curiosity shaped who we are today.

This is one of the best scientific books I read so far and my 5th by Mr. Livio. As always, he delivers an astounding great read.

Beginning with Leonardo da Vinci, Richard Feynman, continuing with Freeman Dyson, Story Musgrave and Brian May (for those who do not know, besides being a brilliant musician he is an astrophysicist as well), just to name a few, the author starts his journey by searching for an answer to the question: what makes us curious?

Based on psychologist Daniel Berlyne’s classification of curiosity**, the author made an astounding research (30% of this book represents notes and bibliography) and conducted a series of interviews to find more on the subject. From childhood to adulthood, most of us are curious by nature, but only few people are really driven by it. You’ll be amazed by the lives of these people and their accomplishments. For example, astronaut Story Musgrave has various degrees in mathematics and statistics, analysis and computer programming, chemistry, medicine, physiology, biophysics and literature. Asked why did he choose to study all these fields, he responded that “one thing led to another”.

The author also touches the topic on how curiosity leads to knowledge and knowledge is ‘dangerous’. Starting from the proverb “curiosity killed the cat”, he gives a lot of examples in literature: Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore which eats nosy children, children stories like Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel, advancing further in real life with examples on how totalitarian regimes prohibited access to information and even destroyed books and works of art (the Nazi, Talibans, etc).

The book not only abounds in scientific details but has also a lot of humorous facts. Mario Livio writes with lightness, fluent, in a very accessible way. He does an amazing job on popularizing science through his books. "Is God a Mathematician?", "The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry" and "The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number" are among my favorites.

He also worked on "The Hubble Cantata" project, a concert which brings together classic music, virtual reality on the background of Hubble’s images from space. I would love to have the chance of seeing it. Here is a glimpse on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PVGbVZYCR8

That being said, I really do hope I succeeded in raising your curiosity on it 😉 Read it, you won’t be disappointed.

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* "Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64

** “Berlyne located curiosity along two dimensions, making a four-fold classification. While his work, and the field more generally, has moved on, we liked the simplicity of his four-fold model, and it is an open question whether subsequent models were improvements or merely changes.
On one axis lies Epistemic curiosity, which is the desire for information and knowledge, and Perceptual curiosity, which describes one’s attention to novel objects in their immediate environment. The other axis runs from Specific curiosity, which is the desire for a particular piece of knowledge such as the final piece of a puzzle, to Diversive curiosity, which is less directed and would describe seeking stimulation to escape boredom or when ready to grow.”

(THE POWER OF CURIOSITY: HOW LINKING INQUISITIVENESS TO INNOVATION COULD HELP TO ADDRESS OUR ENERGY CHALLENGES. RSA SOCIAL BRAIN CENTRE, JUNE 2012; p. 12)

Curiosity brings us in learning more about what we do not know, and in being engaged by a good read. The author, extremely curious, focus the book on this characteristic.

The first two chapters are about two famous persons, known also for their curiosity, the former an artist who liked science, and the latter a scientist interested in art: Leonardo Da Vinci and Richard Feyman.

In the other chapter the author explores the concept of being curios, also with the help of neuroscience.

Overall I think the theme is interesting, but the style is varying: I liked some of the chapters, while I was not particularly catched by the interviews.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

Why is a book about the human mind and our insatiable drive to not only find answers but also to ask questions. Livio explores the human psyche but also delves into the realms of neuroscience in an easy to read manner.