The Strangest Idea in the World

Here’s the biggest mystery in human history: Why did it take us 300,000 years to invent the toilet? Come to think of it, why did discovering everything take so long? Today, we’re spending more time, effort, and money on making breakthroughs, so why is scientific progress slowing down?

In his debut book Adam Mastroianni offers an answer: it’s hard for humans to discover things because discovery is, in the short term, a bad idea. We didn’t evolve to do it, and so it’s a miracle that we can at all. That’s why we’re still living in a kind of Dark Ages, where countless diseases remain uncured.

But there's good news. We can build a better world—if we embrace the strange. Mastroianni draws on the little-known scientific histories to show five stages of discovery that lead to a breakthrough, like building a tolerance for weirdness and realising that nobody actually knows what they’re doing.

The Strangest Idea in the World is unlike any other book. With hidden pages, visual tricks, interactive moments, and secret endings, it busts myths about science, and offers an antidote to despair: the adventure of seeking the truth.