English Summary/英文概要： The forward march of human knowledge has deepened our understanding of the universe and flung wide the floodgates of technological advance: we have established that the world came into being more than 4.5 billion years ago; we have deciphered the Rosetta Stone; travelled to the moon; eliminated smallpox and isolated the ’fat gene’. But in every domain of inquiry there remain a myriad things that we do not know, and which lurk tantalizingly beyond the bounds of our understanding. In The Things that Nobody Knows, William Hartston takes us on a guided tour of 501 gaps in our knowledge of cosmology, mathematics, animal behaviour, medical science, music, art, language and literature. As well as explaining our ignorance of the answers to such questions as ’What is Dark Energy?’, ’Is colour a product of the mind?’, ’Was there ever a real Pope Joan?’ and ’Why are so many male giraffes gay?’, he considers the likelihood of light being shed on these mysteries in the future. Both cerebrally satisfying and more-ishly dip-into-able, rigorously researched but also serendipitously playful, The Things that Nobody Knows is the perfect gift book for intellectually inquisitive people of all ages.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 知识的进步、技术的发展加深了我们对于宇宙的认识：我们知道世界是在45亿多年前行程的；对罗塞塔石碑有所了解；登上月球；消灭天花个人类带来的折磨以及隔离“肥胖基因”。然而不得不说，无论在哪个领域不为人知的事物都太多了，并潜伏在我们所无法理解的疆域之外。William Hartston向我们展示了在宇宙学、数学、动物行为、医学、音乐、艺术、语言和文学方面501个认识的缺口，以及对于一些问题我们在认知上的空白，这些问题包括：“何为暗能量”、“颜色是精神的产物吗”、“为何会有如此多的雄性长颈鹿同性恋”等等。本书适合任何一个年龄段的读者群。(兼职翻译FSF)