How many moves does it take to solve a Rubik's Cube from any possible scrambled position? For over thirty years, the greatest mathematical minds on the planet desperately searched for this theoretical absolute minimum, a legendary computational ceiling reverently dubbed "God's Number." The standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube possesses an incomprehensible 43 quintillion possible permutations. Analyzing every single state manually was mathematically impossible. It wasn't until 2010 that a team of rese...

How many moves does it take to solve a Rubik's Cube from any possible scrambled position? For over thirty years, the greatest mathematical minds on the planet desperately searched for this theoretical absolute minimum, a legendary computational ceiling reverently dubbed "God's Number." The standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube possesses an incomprehensible 43 quintillion possible permutations. Analyzing every single state manually was mathematically impossible. It wasn't until 2010 that a team of rese...

**THE IRISH TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLER'A beautifully reasoned book about our own unreasonableness' Robin Ince**In 1983, the reasoning of one unsung Russian narrowly averted nuclear war, proving that critical thinking can save the world. Today, facing unprecedented tides of disinformation, we’re frequently misled, to our detriment. The Irrational Ape explores the reasons why we get things so wrong, illustrated with incredible stories from the comical to the ...

Random House presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of The Ten Types of Human by Dexter Dias, read by Tom Clegg.This book will introduce you to ten people. In a way, you already know them. Only you don’t – not really. In a sense, they are you. Only they’re not entirely. They inform and shape the most important decisions in your life. But you’re almost certainly unaware of their intervention. They are the Ten Types of Human. Who are they? What a...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of How to Be Right, written and read by James O'Brien.Forget agreeing to disagree – it’s time to learn How To Be Right.Every day, James O’Brien listens to people blaming benefits scroungers, the EU, Muslims, feminists and immigrants. But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the careful way he punctures t...

What's the nature of reality? Does the universe ever end? What is time and does it even exist? These are the biggest imagination-stretching, brain-staggering questions in the universe - and here are their fascinating answers.From quantum weirdness to freaky cosmology (like white holes - which spew out matter instead of sucking it in), This Book Will Blow Your Mind takes you on an epic journey to the furthest extremes of science, to the things you never tho...

**Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense, written and read by Rory Sutherland.To be brilliant, you have to be irrational**Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?We think we are rational creatures. Economics and business rely on the assumption that...

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘If you want to write a novel or a script, read this book’ Sunday Times‘The best book on the craft of storytelling I’ve ever read’ Matt Haig‘Rarely has a book engrossed me more, and forced me to question everything I’ve ever read, seen or written. A masterpiece’ Adam RutherfordWhy stories make us human and how to tell them better....

'Beautifully written and deeply researched' The ObserverUpon victory in 1945, Britain still dominated the Middle East. But her motives for wanting to dominate this crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa were changing. Where ‘imperial security’ – control of the route to India – had once been paramount, now oil was an increasingly important factor. So, too, was prestige. Ironically, the very end of empire made control of the Middle East precious in itsel...

**‘The very grubby coalface of foreign policy … I found the entire book most horribly addictive’ Independent‘One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other’ SpectatorA fascinating insight into the untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East.**In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men sec...

Brought to you by Penguin.Do busier hospitals have higher survival rates? How many trees are there on the planet? Why do old men have big ears? David Spiegelhalter reveals the answers to these and many other questions - questions that can only be addressed using statistical science.Statistics has played a leading role in our scientific understanding of the world for centuries, yet we are all familiar with the way statistical claims ...

BBC R4 Book of the Week ‘Brilliant’ Guardian ‘Fascinating and often delightful’ The TimesWhat if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself – a story...