Tyson, Neil de Grasse - Universe Down to Earth

[oyceter]

Neil de Grasse Tyson is the current director of the New York American History Museum's Hayden Planetarium. He was also, less notably but much more influentially for me, one of the lecturers in my introduction to astronomy course. I had flipped through this book when I bought it for class, and the voice was so engaging and fun that I read it all before any of it was assigned. Actually, it may have just been optional reading, but I think it should have been assigned.

The book is like Tyson-the-lecturer distilled, although it cannot quite get across just how charismatic, funny, and, above all, clear he is. Sadly, I've clearly forgotten all my basics of physics, but the book has a brief refresher. Though Tyson's field is astronomy and the book has chapters specific to astronomy, other parts are just good background. I almost skipped the chapter on the scientific method but was glad I didn't when I encountered this passage on cultural bias and scientific truth:

Another example comes from the field of mathematics, where there is a theorem that colloquially translates, "You cannot comb the hair on a bowling ball." Aside from the complication that most bowling balls have no hair, the theorem means that if a bowling ball did have hair, and if you tried to comb it, there would be at least one spot on the ball where the hair would not know which way to lay. Clearly, none of these mathematicians had Afros, because to "comb" and Afro is to pick it straight away from the scalp. If bowling balls had Afros, then yes, they could be combed without violation of mathematical theorems. (emphasis in original)

There's also a chapter on astronomical jargon, grouped under headers like "Some Terms That Have Too Many Syllables" (magnetohydrodynamics), "Some Terms That Look Like Typographical Errors" (syzygy, which I know from X-Files), and "Some Terms That Sound Like Diseases" (bok globules).

Tyson goes on to explain gravity, planetary motion, the life cycle of stars, the periodic table of elements, and the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. I didn't get everything in the book, though I think that is more my own scientific rustiness than Tyson's fault, because I remember understanding it back in college.

I've always been fascinated by astronomy and the stars—I gave myself nightmares as a kid reading about black holes—and this was a lovely way to regain my sense of wonder about the night (and day) sky, which I haven't been paying attention to for a while. It's so overwhelmingly cool that all the elements in the universe originally came from thermonuclear fusion in the hearts of stars.

Also, I have remembered my giant geek-crush on Tyson and ran to check out more of his books (I remember his first book and this one being a little repetitive when read back-to-back, but I haven't read any of his others since this one).

Comments

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Aw, I didn't know he lectured at Our Alma Mater! Now I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to hear him, assuming he was there when I was. He hosts the summer version of NOVA on PBS, and he's charmingly geeky about it all; he so clearly thinks everything he gets to do is so cool and he wants everyone else to be psyched about it too.

[oyceter]

I think he might have been! He is very charmingly geeky as a lecturer too; he was one of those professors who got you really psyched about their topic because he was so clearly into it and so good at communicating why. It was really awesome!

Also, as a bonus, the class got free pizza as part of a demo on string theory.