Unknown Knowns

This web­site is a col­lec­tion of con­tri­bu­tions by lead­ing experts cor­rect­ing com­mon mis­nomers and mis­un­der­stand­ings: the unknown knowns.[1]

We pub­lish essays by aca­d­e­mics, schol­ars and experts set­ting the record straight and help­ing ordi­nary, busy peo­ple, who are curi­ous about the world around them, to unlearn & relearn.

Con­tri­bu­tions explain, in sim­ple, clear lan­guage and as few words as pos­si­ble, what experts think non-specialists typ­i­cally get wrong about their area of exper­tise, or some aspect of it. Each author is an estab­lished expert in their field, and the infor­ma­tion they present is thought to be incon­tro­vert­ible and accu­rate by fel­low experts. How­ever, these ideas often are, to the great major­ity of us, unknown or misunderstood.

Unknown knowns is for ordi­nary, curi­ous, busy peo­ple. It is a start­ing point for fur­ther learn­ing and con­tin­ued edu­ca­tion, allow­ing us to update our under­stand­ing of the uni­verse and some of the things in it. Each essay is accom­pa­nied by a read­ing list to help you delve deeper.

If you would like to con­tribute, or can sug­gest a pos­si­ble author, please have a read of the guide­lines for con­tribut­ing and con­tact us.

1. We take our name from Don­ald Rumsfeld’s famous state­ment: “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” But he left one out. Don’t worry. We’ve got it cov­ered. [↩]