Length7h 20m
About this audiobook
DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING — Book Two
You see the world every day. But how much of what you think you see is actually there?
DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING takes a hard look at vision, light and the strange machinery behind sight. Why do you have a blind spot but never notice it? Are you really “blind” for ninety minutes a day? Is the eye badly designed? Can humans see ultraviolet? Do carrots really help you see in the dark? And what happens when the brain has nothing to look at?
From Victorian experiments and wartime propaganda to lasers, optical illusions, colour, myopia and the limits of human vision, this book follows the evidence behind familiar claims and finds what survives.
Some myths are wrong. Some are partly right. Some are stranger than the truth.
The evidence is always more interesting than the story.
Audiobook details
GenreScience and Nature, Education and Learning
Length7 hrs 20 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 1, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Part One — the Hole in Your Head
2Chapter One — The Blind Spot
3Chapter Two — The Ninety Minutes Nobody Loses
4Chapter Three — The Retina Is In Backwards
5Part Two — What Light Does to Matter
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter Four — Light Has Weight
7Chapter Five — Holding Things With Light
8Chapter Six — Colour Without Pigment
9Chapter Seven — Why the Sky Is That Colour
10Part Three — How Fast
11Chapter Eight — From a Guess to a Definition
12Chapter Nine — Fast, and Slow, and Neither
13Chapter Ten — Sixty Nanoseconds
14Part Four — Before Anyone Was Looking
15Chapter Eleven — Darwin's Difficulty
16Chapter Twelve — Forty Times Over
17Chapter Thirteen — The Mantis Shrimp Problem
18Chapter Fourteen — What We Lost in the Dark
19Part Five — the Brightest Things That Ever Happened
20Chapter Fifteen — The Guest Star
21Chapter Sixteen — The Colour of the Sky Coming Apart
22Chapter Seventeen — The Milky Sea
23Part Six — Building for Light
24Chapter Eighteen — Nineteen Metres of Dark
25Chapter Nineteen — Chartres Blue
26Chapter Twenty — Tracing the Old Masters
27Part Seven — Making It a Weapon
28Chapter Twenty-One — The Ships That Would Not Burn
29Chapter Twenty-Two — The Ships That Wanted to Be Seen
30Chapter Twenty-Three — Banned Before It Was Fired
31Part Eight — What the Wave Carries
32Chapter Twenty-Four — The Colour That Isn't There
33Chapter Twenty-Five — Shirley
34Chapter Twenty-Six — The Dress
35Chapter Twenty-Seven — The Colourblind Cuttlefish
36Part Nine — the Part You Cannot See
37Chapter Twenty-Eight — Somebody Chose That Colour
38Chapter Twenty-Nine — Either Side of the Window
39Chapter Thirty — The Ionising End
40Chapter Thirty-One — The Long End
41Chapter Thirty-Two — The Dog Is Watching a Slideshow
42Chapter Thirty-Three — The Eye Is Growing Too Long
43Chapter Thirty-Four — Bigger Eyes in the North
44Chapter Thirty-Five — The Aperture Is Not the Same Density in Everybody
45Part Ten — Things Your Mother Told You
46Chapter Thirty-Six — Carrots, Candles and Sitting Too Close
47Part Eleven — the Eye With Nothing in Front of It
48Chapter Thirty-Seven — Your Breakfast Table
49Chapter Thirty-Eight — The Man Who Walked Down the Corridor
50Chapter Thirty-Nine — The Grandfather's Visitors
Series
Alice Ramsey's, Four Women and a RoadB.tenorio, A.Jay7h 27mFree
Eve and the Wandering StoneRosemarie Knight, A.Jay4h 10mFree
CINDERELLA OF THE WASTELANDSB.Tenorio, A.Jay 6h 51mFree
Sniff My FingerB.Tenorio, A.Jay7h 51mFree
DID YOU HEAR THAT?B.Tenorio, A.Jay8h 24mFree
A SELF-PORTRAIT IN THE NUDEB.Tenorio, A.Jay7h 36m$4.99 · $0.00
The Löwdin InversionA. Jay9h 7mFree
SwansongIvory F Wild12h 35m$2.99 · $0.00
CygnetIvory F Wild13h 16mFree
Ugly DucklingIvory F Wiild13h 23mFree
THE INOÑ The Spirit Current, Book SixA.Jay9h 46m$2.99 · $0.00
THE REBBLIB The Spirit Current, Book FiveA.Jay8h 34m$2.99 · $0.00
THE ETAK The Spirit Current, Book FourA.Jay11h 52mFree
THE STONE SHORE The Spirit Current Book 3a.jay10h 39mFree
THE MATTANG The Spirit Current Book 2A.Jay8h 26mFree
THE PALIUWA.Jay9h 54mFree
The Last Eleven Miles, The Tabi-Tabi TrilogyIvory F. Wild22h 45m$2.99 · $0.00
THE ROADIvory F. Wild7h 4mFree
THE PATHIvory F. Wild7h 11mFree
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Story of BirdsSteve Brusatte11h 49m4.6 (401)$29 · $0.00
Craig & FredCraig Grossi8h 6m4.5 (9.6K)$26 · $0.00
Celebrating BirdsNatalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez6h 47m4.6 (330)$24 · $0.00
Saving JemimaJulie Zickefoose4h 59m4.5 (749)$20 · $0.00
Will's Red CoatTom Ryan8h 23m4.5 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Of Time and TurtlesSy Montgomery10h 34m4.5 (5K)$29 · $0.00
Zen and the Art of Saving the PlanetThich Nhat Hanh9h 20m4.5 (3.9K)$29 · $0.00
BLACK BEAUTY (With Original Illustrations)Anna Sewell7h 31m4.5 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
IngrainedCallum Robinson8h 10m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
The Lion Tracker's Guide To LifeBoyd Varty3h 1m4.4 (4.8K)$18 · $0.00
Born for LoveBruce D. Perry, Maia Szalavitz11h 42m4.4 (4K)$29 · $0.00
The Mountains of California (With Original Drawings & Photographs) (Annotated)John Muir11h 35m4.5 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
The New GuysMeredith Bagby16h 50m4.4 (1.2K)$40 · $0.00
Blue PasturesMary Oliver3h 23m4.4 (3.8K)$18 · $0.00
The Rise and Reign of the MammalsSteve Brusatte13h 26m4.4 (11.1K)$33 · $0.00
VaccinatedPaul A. Offit8h 30m4.4 (3.7K)$26 · $0.00
The Light EatersZoë Schlanger10h 57m4.4 (22.8K)$29 · $0.00
Where the Lost Dogs GoSusannah Charleson11h 7m4.5 (699)$23 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
HomeschooledStefan Merrill Block7h 10m3.6 (18.5K)$28 · $0.00
Parents and Children (Annotated)Charlotte Mason9h 23m4.6 (988)$2 · $0.00
Children Under FireJohn Woodrow Cox10h 17m4.5 (1.6K)$29 · $0.00
The State Must ProvideAdam Harris7h 15m4.5 (775)$24 · $0.00
The Call of the Wild and FreeAinsley Arment9h 7m4.4 (21.2K)$29 · $0.00
The Freelance WayRobert Vlach19h 48m4.5 (528)$40 · $0.00
Race to the BottomLuke Rosiak9h 20m4.5 (600)$29 · $0.00
They Came for the SchoolsMike Hixenbaugh9h 5m4.5 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
Find Me UnafraidKennedy Odede, Jessica Posner11h 11m4.5 (2.7K)$29 · $0.00
Asking for ItKate Harding8h 55m4.4 (5.3K)$20 · $0.00
Defining Moments in Black HistoryDick Gregory7h 37m4.4 (6K)$26 · $0.00
The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the AtlanteanMaurice Doreal3h 4m4.4 (8.8K)$6 · $0.00
Learning AmericaLuma Mufleh6h 37m4.4 (564)$24 · $0.00
Math-ishJo Boaler7h 21m4.4 (588)$24 · $0.00
It Worked For MeColin Powell7h 42m4.3 (9.8K)$26 · $0.00
Little SoldiersLenora Chu11h 30m4.3 (3.1K)$29 · $0.00
Financial FeministTori Dunlap8h 3m4.2 (22.2K)$8 · $0.00
Grammar-land; Or, Grammar in Fun for the Children of Schoolroom-shireM. L. Nesbitt2h 36m4.4 (487)$1 · $0.00
DarkwaterWilliam Edward Burghardt Du Bois6h 40m4.3 (1.4K)$11 · $0.00
You may also like
An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingDavid Hume5h 22m4.1 (18.7K)$1 · $0.00
MetaphysicsAristotle11h 38m4.2 (21.9K)$1.20 · $0.00
Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Annotated)Immanuel Kant6h 3m4.1 (12.9K)$2 · $0.00
THE THREE CRITIQUES: The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason & The Critique of JudgmentImmanuel Kant46h 8m4.2 (1.6K)$2 · $0.00
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Annotated)Sigmund Freud9h 34m4.0 (24.8K)$1.99 · $0.00
PsychPaul Bloom15h 5m4.2 (2.8K)$33 · $0.00
The CategoriesAristotle2h 41m4.0 (2.2K)$1 · $0.00
Introduction to Mathematical PhilosophyBertrand Russell9h4.1 (2.8K)$1 · $0.00
The Hot HandBenjamin Cohen8h 39m3.9 (1.6K)$26 · $0.00
Tractatus Logico-PhilosophicusLudwig Wittgenstein4h 57m4.2 (31.9K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Problems of Philosophy (Annotated)Bertrand Russell6h 22m4.1 (58.2K)$2 · $0.00
Speaking and Thinking - A Conversation with Victor FerreiraHoward Burton2h 32m$3 · $0.00
Excursions in Art and LettersWilliam Wetmore Story8h 18m$1 · $0.00
Why We Ask WhyTania Lombrozo8h 29m$26 · $0.00
Harvard Psychological Studies (Vol. 1&2)Charles S. Moore, Edwin B. Holt, Charles H. Rieber, Knight Dunlap, Robert MacDougall, Harvey A. Peterson, Hugo Münsterberg, John A. H. Keith, Frances H. Rousmaniere, Louis A. Turley, G. V. Hamilton, Bird T. Baldwin53h 52m$1.99 · $0.00
Mind Reading How To Read People's ThoughtsW. E. Skinner21m$2.40
HumoristsPaul Johnson6h 59m3.3 (175)$17 · $0.00
Selected Mathematical WorksLewis Carroll7h 5m$2 · $0.00
The Game of LogicLewis Carroll2h 54m3.9 (613)$1 · $0.00
The Science of GeniusScientific American6h 14m3.9 (13)$17