I came across this book by chance. I read a good many science books and like the genre. This was a fascinating read and takes in a great deal, the digressions being as interesting as the main text. A good read – highly recommended. Five Stars – 7 Dec. 2014
This book is a compelling read which explores the dichotomy between the detail rich sensory world we experience, and our actual ability to experience it in real time. It turns out, most of the time we are making it up, albeit based on our personal historical docudrama!
There are many revealing stories and documented examples, backed up with references, which illustrate how exactly we experience and learn, and including some great suggestions for experiments in seeing that the reader can try. In the same way Carl Sagan led you through a journey through the ‘Cosmos, Richard Epworth will take you on a personal tour of the human bottleneck, our ability to sense and learn, and the implications for the human condition. Five Stars – February 23, 2014
Epworth has provided the reader, in an engaging and easily read manner, with a compelling argument for a disturbingly narrow “bottleneck” in the human ability to ingest genuinely new information. This information theory based analysis of our human experience has profound and wide ranging implications. In the Bottleneck, Epworth invites the reader to accompany him on a journey where he shares with them the experiences common to all of us and in doing so reveals the existence and implications of our narrow band connection to the world we inhabit. A compelling read! Five Stars – 25 Feb. 2014
In “Bottleneck”, Richard Epworth has exposed many earlier presumptions about the information rate that the human mind can absorb through the body’s primary sensory inputs. He does so using rigorous scientific analyses. He eloquently takes the reader through the concepts of information rates as applied to audio, visual and other sensory stimuli, and describes the fundamentals expressed in Shannon’s Theorem – the baseline for understanding all communications. Basing all measurements in bits per second, he comes to the surprising conclusion that the human mind demonstrates a very strict limitation in the amount of new information it can absorb at any instant. This limitation he calls the “Bottleneck”.
“Bottleneck” is a very enjoyable and stimulating book that I would wholeheartedly recommend. Five Stars – 5 Aug. 2014
Bottleneck shows us nothing less than how our minds work, in terms of how we absorb and process information. I have read other titles on this subject, but this book explains it in a very accessible and readable way and I would highly recommend it. Despite working for many years in education, my ideas about how learning really happens were elusive creatures, glimpsed in a forest of observations and reflections. I had always suspected some deeper magic was going on in our brains, and here it is! But what I love most about Richard Epworth’s approach is that he doesn’t try to provide you with all the answers. Evidence yes, the scientific, technological and mathematical contexts, but most of all he asks great questions and makes me ask my own, and this, for me is the sign of a great author and thinker. A very stimulating and satisfying read. Five Stars – 8 April 2014
Read this to know how the world sees you!: ..very readable book creatively combines important concept in cognitive psychology, with in-depth understanding of the digital world. Discover through a fine weave of narrative, case studies and lucid descriptions of scientific and psychological ideas, how the implications could transform our world view in a very positive way, and provide a deeper understanding of who we are, and how we are perceived by others. Pitched at both the specialist and non-specialist there is something to learn from this book for all”. Five Stars – 10 Dec. 2013
A truly fascinating analysis of the human learning process. It shows that the exchange rate of new information between our senses and the brain is surprisingly slow. The book describes the implications of this “Bottleneck” for many different aspects of human behavior. The well chosen examples, the clear writing style and the author’s subtle sense of humour make it a most pleasurable read. Five Stars – December 16, 2013
Brilliant: We live in a world of megabyte junkies, where people have an insatiable appetite for information bandwidth. Against this backdrop Richard Epworth stands back from the crowd and asks an important question. Of all this information that we gobble up, how much do we actually digest? Richard explores the vaults of science, psychology and philosophy to search for answers. And the answers he finds are startling. An easy read, full of novel ideas. Five Stars – December 17, 2013
The book
