Murphy's Law is the most important law in science - whatever CAN go wrong WILL go wrong
There are many weirdnesses to be explained, and the explanations show that the world is often counter-intuitive. We have the task of sorting out reality from illusion, and the book and show help you do that. Richard Robinson takes you on a white-knuckle ride through your own mind. We see how the senses take things in, how the mind interprets them, and how we get it regularly wrong.
Suitable for all who have ever been spiked by Murphy's Law (ie everybody).
The book sells in UK for £6.99..... why? because "EVERYTHING IN THE SHOP IS SHORT OF A SENSIBLE PRICE BY 1p" (and there is a scientific reason for that, as well).
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As a young primer for TOAST, invest in...
A brand new book from Constable & Robinson. ISBN - 1-84119-547-2
...and a brand new show from Richard Robinson
WHY THE WORLD IS WONKY, outlines the galaxy of mishaps which will always inevitably screw up your life. The show gives some comfort; there is a sound scientific reason why the toast always lands butter-side down, and why the rubber duck heads straight for the tap. But why your queue always goes slowest is more difficult to explain away, particularly since it always speeds up when you leave it, while your new queue goes suddenly very still...
For students of science, the show revels in all the misconceptions that haunt the classroom, from the belief that heavy things fall faster than light things, to the certainly that the moon follows you round at night.
For students of psychology, the show looks at some of the illusory ways in which we perceive the world.
For students of neither of these, it's just a laff!
Here are a few profound truths, garnered from the millions
Perhaps the most researched law of all.
Most laws have the decency to operate secretly,
while your back is turned. This one is shameless.
Let a piece of toast slip off the plate and just watch
the insolence of the thing as it rotates in mid-air,
as calm as you please, and plops onto the best carpet.
Teachers will give you all the time in the world
keep it below three minutes.
Breaktime and lunchtime are the two times of
day reserved for the teachers to relax.
Breaktime and lunchtime are the two times of
day reserved for for teachers to rehearse plays,
meet parents, phone home,
have staff meetings, do playground duty.
After relaxing at lunch, teachers are
at their most dangerous.
Every class has a bully and a victim.
When you first arrive, check if you an spot the victim.
If you can't, leave the school - you are the victim.
Animals larger than humans want to eat us. Animals smaller than humans want to sting us.
Some insects are brightly coloured to advertise that they taste unpleasant.
Insects that are not brightly coloured don't taste any better.
Endangered species have fur, big eyes and cuddly names.
The Poisonous Marsh Liver Fluke
is not so much endangered as doomed.
As soon as a species becomes endangered,
fifty film crews rush in
to trample its habitat flat.
Everything tends towards chaos.
One can never be certain
how much chaos.
Experiments only work successfully
in the write-up.
In science lessons, when nothing is going to happen,
you have to put on goggles, gloves and crash helmets.
In the playground, where everything happens,
you have none of these.
1. When a book has no pictures
it's good literature.
2. When it has no pictures and small print
it's great literature.
3. When it's thick, with no pictures and small print
it's a masterpiece.
4. When it's thick, small print, no pictures
and in a foreign language,
it's Shakespeare.