Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

Well, if u on the subway, wanna take something to fill your time and nice or humor knowledge then this is the book, at first did not think it was all that but as i go on and on reading i realize its an amazing book, and what makes it amazing are its questions posed in there, that many times either have crossed your mind at some point in life or stun you and makes u go "hey ya that's right! what happens if i drop an ant? or if i drill earth pole to pole?" and so on...the other thing is that the way the author answers is amazing as well as he covers different aspects in different fields as in what happenes if u drill earth pole to pole and jump will u reach the other pole? so he covers what happens in the whole thing going through physics to biology to solving the question in an imaginary way and see if still works....basically this book throws u the strange questions and makes ur mind twist and think how u go bout solving it, there is no right no wrong, coz of the question's nature, but its fun to think it out.....

This book is a collection of articles that answer to a set of philosophical, ethical and scientific questions. Much of it is well-balanced and insightful- I learned quite a bit of it. Yet I felt it could have been written more carefully in order to quite reach the level of Julian Baggini's books, or the excellent Books "of General Ignorance". Also, the pieces do not connect well.For instance, there are musings over whether consciousness is specifically human, or if it may also be extended to animals. A thorny topic, as one cannot even 'prove' that one's spouse or neighbor has consciousness- this is well explained. But then there is a piece on Descartes, with his shaky 'cogito ergo sum'. He was clearly unaware of phantom limbs- if the brain can make you believe you still have a lost arm, with an itching finger, then what else can it fake? The 'Cartesian theatre' isn't going to help us explain how the mind works- biologists work under the assumption that this is a serpent that bites its own tail. But, surprisingly, the author then confidently states that machines will never feel guilty, or feel at all. Well... we also thought that machines could not play a decent game of chess... Such confidence reminds me of people who believe fish don't suffer because they cannot scream.Then there is an initially good piece on 'back-of-the-envelope' estimates. A few good examples are given but then comes, of all formulas, the Drake equation, confidently presented as yielding the number of intelligent civilizations in the Universe. Sorry, but we don't have the slightest clue as what the probability of life emerging is, given ideal circumstances (such as our cozy Earth). This probability may be infinitesimal small, such that we are the only example in the entire Universe, for no-one has come even close to recreating life from scratch. Or it may at the other extreme, equal to 1. And the argument there is that Life arose really quickly after the young Earth cooled. All we know is that this p is non-zero, and this huge uncertainty makes that the Drake formula, while formally correct, is basically useless.At other points the science is just sloppy: "..there are some 100 billion separate cells in the human brain (..), with each of those 100 billion cells making 1,000 or more separate connections with other cells". Sorry, not true. To quote Wikipedia: "..there are about 86 billion neurons and 85 billion "nonneuronal" (glial) cells in the human male brain." The latter are for support only.

I bought this book at the large Tsim Sha Tsui bookshop in Hong Kong. It was certainly not a bit of a light reading as much as a brain feast. Thoroughly enjoyable, it kept challenging my perceptions about a variety of topics. The 17 year old me would probably fail to come up with such brilliant answers 20 years ago, but as a 38 years old child I totally loved it.

素直に読み易い英語でした。言葉の使い方ににやとしました。お正月に、楽しませてもらおうと思います。英国からエアーメールで届いたのはびっくりでした。ネットワークの広がりを実感しました。

The author produces his own thoughts on a variety of questions.The questions are from departments he does not work in; he does not go to the trouble of obtaining a selection of answers from people working in the areas.The responses are also in essay form, although the word 'rambling' might fit. If you actually answered like this, including reminiscing about your youth, I suspect the interviewer would cut you short (lecturers tend to go on, as they are unaccustomed to their listeners voicing their boredom, but don't usually extend the favour).The book struck me as a cheeky but effective way of cashing in on the author's status as a Cambridge graduate.Is there a book out there, anybody, which lists questions but responds to them with realistic answers from people who actually work or study in the relevant areas, and provides critical responses to those answers also by people from relevant areas and positions?I was disappointed that a Cambridge graduate would produce something like this. It reflects badly on the quality of the education received there, and suggests that the reputation for arrogance is deserved.I work with a number of surgeons who studied medicine at Oxford. One recalls going for a drink with the other interviewees after the interview and that, geniuses though they were, they were all, as he put it, "slightly autistic" and as such not the most appropriate candidates to be doctors. The interviewer, a GP, seems to have thought the same - none of the others were selected.

Don't take this book to be a gospel of information on how to get into oxford or Cambridge. However it is very interesting and informative from the authors point of view. The scenarios of questions aren't necessarily right or wrong, just an opinion and an idea of how they can be answered. Plus this book gives you an idea of the broad spectrum of inquisitive questions one can be asked. Good read nevertheless.

All a bit smart-arse. The questions as supposedly posed require a degree of lateral-thinking without necessarily a detailed knowledge of the facts, but the answers are mostly fact laden. Some of the answers are clever and interesting but not what you expect from the description.

A "clever" and illuminating insight into what universities are looking for in an applicant for a variety of degrees. The suggested answers are also intriguing, and enable one to compare one's own attempts at an answer. Well worth reading and one can come back to it at any time.