Harry Cliff, "Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe" (Doubleday, 2024)

Oct 24, 2025

Harry Cliff, a particle physicist from the University of Cambridge, dives into the captivating world of cosmic anomalies in his latest book. He explores how unexpected discoveries at CERN's Large Hadron Collider challenge our understanding of the universe. Topics include the tension between the Standard Model and dark matter, the mysteries of neutrinos, and the perplexing Hubble constant discrepancy. Harry also discusses the implications of quantum fields and shares intriguing stories about space travel's human aspects. Prepare for a journey through the extraordinary and unknown!

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INSIGHT

Anomalies Guide Scientific Progress

Anomalies can point to the next big shift in science but most have mundane explanations like mistakes, statistics, or theory errors.
Pursuing anomalies refines experiments and often teaches valuable lessons even when they vanish.

INSIGHT

Success And Limits Of Current Theories

The Standard Model and cosmology are extremely successful yet incomplete, notably missing gravity and dark components.
That tension creates both a perceived crisis and an opportunity to rethink how to find new physics.

INSIGHT

We Know Little About 95% Of The Cosmos

Visible matter is well understood but makes up only ~5% of the universe; dark matter and dark energy dominate and remain mysterious.
The dark sector might be simple or as rich and complex as ordinary matter, so unknown unknowns worry cosmologists.

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Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction writers have become nearly routine – a continuous human presence orbiting the Earth, probes flying beyond our solar system, and men walking on the moon. NASA and the Russian space program make traveling to the stars look easy, but it has been far from that. Space travel is a sometimes heroic, sometimes humorous, and always dangerous journey fraught with perils around every corner that most of us have never heard of or have long since forgotten.
Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe (Doubleday, 2024) brings these unknown, offbeat, and obscure stories of space to life. From the showmanship and bravado of the earliest known space fatality, German Max Valier, to the first ever indictment under the Espionage Act on an Army officer who leaked secrets concerning the development of early U.S. rockets; and the story of a single loose bolt that defeated the Soviet Union’s attempt to beat America to the moon.
Author Joe Cuhaj also sheds light on the human aspects of space travel that have remained industry secrets – until now: how the tradition of using a musical playlist to wake astronauts up began, fascinating tales about inventions like the Fischer Space Pen, Omega watches, and even Tang breakfast drink.
In addition to fun and entertaining space trivia, Space Oddities also features stories of the profound impact that space travel has had on challenges right here at home, like the effort by civil rights leaders and activists in the 1960s to bring the money from the space program back home to those in need on Earth; NASA’s FLATs (First Lady Astronaut Training) program and the 13 women who were selected to become astronauts in 1960, but were denied a chance at flying even after successfully completing the rigorous astronaut training program; and, the animals who many times sacrificed their lives to prove that man could fly in space.
Filled with rare and little-known stories, Space Oddities will bring the final frontier to the homes of diehard space readers and armchair astronauts alike.

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