Did Curiosity Kill the Cat?

Livio, Mario.  Why?: What Makes Us Curious.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. 
       ISBN: 978-1-4767-9209-5

Could curiosity kill a cat?  Or a human?  Why are we curious?  When did humans become curious?  And why do we ask so many questions? These are only some of the topics that Mario Livio pursues in Why?: What Makes Us Curious.

Mario Livio opens the book with a chapter on what is curiosity.  He then turns to an examination of two men (Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman) who exemplify curiosity.  He then delves into various theories about what causes curiosity to arise in a person, the physical aspects of curiosity as revealed by neuroscience, followed by a very brief account on the rise of curiosity in humans.  Next he interviews a number of scientists such as Feeman Dyson and Brian May who are known for their curiosity on why they are curious.  And he ends the book with a chapter on why and how curiosity exists.

In this short, readable book, Mario Livio makes a decent case for curiosity being one of the defining characteristics of being human.  He also whets the reader's appetite for knowing more in regard to the exploration of the human mind and physiology.