About the Book: Why: What Makes Us Curious Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio investigates perhaps the most human of all our characteristics-curiosity-as he explores our innate desire to know why .Experiments demonstrate that people are more distracted when they overhear a phone conversation-where they can know only one side of the dialogue-than when they overhear two people talking and know both sides. Why does half a conversation make us more curious than a whole conversation?In the ever-fascinating Why? Mario Livio interviewed scientists in several fields to explore the nature of curiosity. He examined the lives of two of historys most curious geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman.