Physics World. Hello, and welcome to the Physics
World Stories podcast.
I'm Andrew Glester, and it's December,
which is as good a time as any
for settling down with a wonderful
science book. And in this episode, we'll be
hearing from Robin Ince, whose book, The Importance
of Being Interested, is one of my favorites
of this year. But first, his Physics World
editor, Matin Jirani,
and features editor, Toshnika Masaryat,
discussing the books featured
in this month's edition of the Physics World
magazine.
Yeah. We've got a really interesting mix of
books for the festa read section this year.
One of our first reviews is by Emma
Chapman, who is an astronomer at the University
of Nottingham. And she's reviewed this book called
First Dawn from the Big Bang to our
Future in Space, which is written by,
Roberta Batista. And it's it's a really interesting
book. I enjoyed her review because she said
that she started reading it thinking it was
gonna be about one thing, which is her
field, which is how the first sort of
stars are born. And then it turned out
to be about pretty much everything else. Mhmm.
And she really enjoyed this going on this
journey of not knowing about things. And the
book actually
really highlights,
what we don't know about the universe. And
as a scientist, she really enjoyed this journey
of all the things we don't know, which
means there are things just out there to
discover.
Interesting. So that's Emma Chapman and, look forward
to reading that. So what else have we
got, Tishna? Well, we have Anita Chunderin reviewing
a book that I personally, I'm looking forward
to reading over the holiday period. It's called
Horizons, A Global History of Science by James
Poskett.
And this book,
really highlights,
the view, that, you know, more you know,
there's this idea that modern science really originated
in Europe and the West and the West
alone.
And,
Poskett really wants to, highlight that this is
a myth,
and that it's,
that there are so many examples of science
across
the east and and other parts of the
world, you know, whether it's Latin America, etcetera,
the Arabic world,
Asia,
and and
so much of that science history is just
written out of history. And
so, you know,
he just wants to really highlight that the
way
science the history of science is recorded and
taught really needs to be reassessed
and that we need to take
accountability
for this idea that science really originated in
Europe, which, you know Sounds very worthy and
important book. And some some really great examples
of if you're a fan of scientific history,
then some really amazing new examples, some stories
you'd like to bring up in the pub
later, I'm sure. Excellent.
Anything else this month? Yeah. We have a
number of other shorter reviews too.
A a really interesting book might be, Nomad
Century,
by science journalist,
Gaia Vince. And this is about, climate change,
which is really no surprise in this day
and age.
But the book really highlights what happens as
the effects of climate change become very real
for people across the planet. The book really
highlights,
that if we don't take into account the
effects of climate change and do something to
reverse it, we're all going to become climate
refugees
in the next century.
So, some sobering updates there. Sounds a bit
depressing.
Perfect for the holiday reading, but yeah, it's
an important book. So yeah. Excellent. So thanks,
Tushna. So that's the festive read section. Yeah.
And there's loads of other really good, content
in this month's issue. So please do enjoy
it, and have a good holiday season.
Thanks, Matin and Tushnet.
Robin Ince is a comedian, actor, and writer.
Who you might know best for his work
with Brian Cox, including presenting the BBC Radio
4 radio show and podcast, The Infinite Monkey
Cage. Robin has an insatiable
love of books, and wrote his own book
this year, entitled, The Importance of Being Interested.
Well, the reason for, importance of being interested
really was because partly,
as a non scientist who spent a lot
of time putting on different science shows, I've
known how many people felt that science was
not the thing they could do. So it's
not even that science wasn't for them, that
it was somehow
a rather exclusive place, and they didn't have
the armament, the mental armament that allowed them
in. So that was one of the reasons.
In fact, that was really the main reason,
which I just thought you don't have to
worry about having a deep understanding.
You don't have to worry about, you know,
I mean, when when people come to the
show that I'm touring with Brian at the
moment, I know there's a period of time
where the majority people in that room probably
don't really understand it. But I think a
lot of those people in that room are
now beginning to be more comfortable going, okay,
I didn't really get that bit, but it's
a seed. It's the beginning of something, and
it doesn't really matter. You know, you don't
have to everyone who tries to do science
doesn't have to go, oh, and it turned
out I didn't win the Nobel Prize. It
was rubbish. It is really about the fact
that from my personal experience,
the more
that I've engaged with scientific ideas, the more
interesting
all the things around me are. At least
that kind of idea of the world becomes
a palimpsest, you know,
suddenly when you look at something, when you
look at the moon or you look at
an earthworm,
whatever it might be,
there are more layers
that you see. So so there are just
more stories inside it. Well, was there because
you're, as you say, not a scientist yourself.
Was there a particular
spark? Was it a gradual thing? How did
it happen, that original thing? It was like
I liked science at school, then I didn't
do very well in one exam, and that
was enough to destroy me.
And, so I had no interest in science.
And then really it was probably in my,
I think mid twenties. I remember I was
on tour with Dave Gorman,
and I popped into a bookshop and bought
3 science books. And,
and I just started reading them. And I
thought, oh, yeah. I do still really like
all this stuff.
And then that was the kind of the
seed for me to go, oh, do you
know what? I'm gonna put on these shows,
which kind of have
musicians and comedians, but I'll sneak in the
theoretical physicist.
And then that's just what ended up leading
to me putting on just entirely science based
shows. And then that how I got involved
in what eventually we made into the Infinite
Monkey case. So I remember seeing you in
a very,
interesting place in Charlton
many years ago, and it was your bad
book club thing. And I there wasn't much
of a sense of science then. Yeah. It
would be 97, 98 that I was touring
with Dave. But I didn't start I mean
the bad book club didn't have any I
mean every now and again there might be
a science book it just depended on the
night. But at that point they were 2
separate things and then actually what happened with
the bad book club was
that was almost the beginning
of
I had the the the show that I
did the same year that I started book
club was a show that had a lot
more science in it or perhaps I should
say a lot more skepticism in it rather
than science
And, I had little bits about homeopathy and
little bits about,
iridology and all manner of bits and pieces
like that. And that was kind of my
gateway in. And then when I started book
club after about a year and a half,
I thought why didn't I also put on
a night which rather than celebrating strange bits
of pulpy literature people celebrate ideas they found
from books that they adore and that excite
them and that so I started I think
the first version it was called something like
the school for gifted children
and then it went under various different titles.
And then it became 2 things. There was
9 lessons and carols for what is now
called 9 Lesson Carols for Curious People, and
then Compendium of Reason,
which I normally do with Brian. But it
was yes. So it was around the same
time as book club. I was then working
on what initially was a separate idea, and
then one led into well, they they kinda
went back and forth, really. Okay. So the
the the very clear thing, right, and this
isn't a surprise to me, is that books
are really important.
So when you've written a popular science book.
Is it a popular science book what you've
written here?
I it's been reasonably popular.
The, no. It's,
I think it is because I think it
is, I think
anyone with a with a minor interest can
read it. It's not one of those popular
science. I mean, I've I've deliberately tried to
make sure
that it's not it doesn't talk down to
people. I'd I'd, you know, I I I
wanna make sure that my you know, that's
why quite often sometimes when I'm describing things
or when I'm reporting the speech of a
cosmologist, I will say at this point I
had no idea really what was going on.
So I want people to, like me, you
know, know that because I think sometimes people
think I understand a lot more than I
actually do. You know, I think it's one
of the important parts I think quite often,
with working with Brian is at times I
will say just so you know, you're not
the only person in the room who doesn't
understand all of this because, you know, I
really don't want people to depart from any
of those events, so the solo events or
events with friends thinking that they are not
able to you know misunderstand not being able
to understand things is important that means you're
going into a direction which is more interesting
if you understand everything you hear then you're
not necessarily in the right room. I think
yeah. I mean, I I really wanted it
to be avail I I mean, I know
that people as young as, 11 have read
it, and I've had reports back from them,
and they've enjoyed it. And I got one
of my favorite things was getting a message
from a 92 year old who said it's
the book that I've been waiting for. And,
you know, that's what I I I wanted
to create was something that,
was totally accessible.
And and that was a very, very important
part of it. There's an interesting census
from last year, which has been released recently,
which suggests that people who are of
I mean, I don't know quite what this
means, but sort of people who are of
no religion, no reported religion, is a rapidly
growing
secular society. Is that, to your mind, linked
to a kind of scientific or skeptical worldview?
I'm not sure it is. I I I
think it might be linked to that sense
that for a part of for a period
of time,
there was the idea that we might be
moving a little bit close to some form
of post war utopia and then really since
1979 we would so I think it may
well even, you know, rather sadly it might
come from that pessimistic view that it's, the
disappointment
of human beings. I mean interestingly today I
was at a museum of religion
and it's and as I was going around
it I thought oh it's an Asian civilizations,
museum and it's just packed with all of
these fantastic
stories of gods
and pranksters,
and then you get into the Christian room
and it's just like you go, oh, here's
original sin and I died for you and
there's guilt and misery.
So I think that might play its part
as well because, you know, every other room,
you know, you you yeah. I was looking
at some of the stuff that comes from
I always probably mispronounces the Vedas, you know,
the books that actually were big influencer. Oppenheimer,
you know, looked into them a great deal.
And in fact, it's always interesting that quite
a few quantum physicists were drawn towards Eastern
Mysticism.
Because the I I don't know. There seems
to be such a great level of ideas
there,
and so many more things to play with,
and a love of knowledge,
and, and it's not ashamed of of things
like sex and sexuality and all those other
things. Whereas I I think in another way,
you know, something about
some forms of Christianity. I'm not saying the
whole Christian story,
but the way the organized
or the organizers of these things have often
used it is to make you go, you're
guilty. You did a bad thing,
and God's angry with you. So you have
this kind of terrible role model of a
father. And sadly, I think it does influence,
or certainly has influenced what people think you're
meant to be as a as a patriarch
in in some ways. So, yeah, I'm not
that that's sort of a very long answer,
but it's, but I just wanna tell you
it's an excellent museum. If you go to
Singapore, you should make sure you go to
the Museum of Asian Civilizations.
But it's, yeah. I I think and it's
also there's another thing which I think is
interesting which we need to play around with
a lot more. We really do need to
push doubt a lot more into beyond science
and beyond that battle against ideology. That thing
of being comfortable with doubt. Because I think
something that comes from
I think of it as predominantly
as a Western culture thing.
And in particular perhaps English culture or English
speaking culture, which is literalism.
And literalism, so very often when we've looked
at other cultures, religions, faith, legends,
we presumed these people
are looking at everything literally, as opposed to
mythic stories,
which can be interpreted in many ways that
kind of more of a William Blake approach
to reality. So I think that, you know,
look, but there's many different things, but yeah,
I I and I think that is true
actually that certainly science has in some ways,
worn away some of those. But but like
I say in the book, I think it's
very important for people also to know that,
you know, you can still believe in some
form of God,
and also approach science as, you know, there
are scientists who do that and there are
people I know who absolutely adore science who
are bishops and deans and all manner of
of things. The the one thing which becomes
problematic
is once it becomes a definite truth. So
if you say my
nothing
can in any way damage my my definite
truth, then
science becomes quite a hard playing field. From
a science communication point of view, definitely that
communication of doubt, communication of the scientific
way of doubting things
is quite a tricky thing because as soon
as, you know,
people will
nefarious people in the society will pounce on
the doubt of climate science, for example, and
say, look, you see, they don't they don't
know. Well, that is exactly why we need
to educate people, in critical thinking. We need
to have far more critical thinking and
perish the thought for some scientists who dislike
philosophy. We need more philosophy. We need more
understanding
of the fact that certainty
is actually very often something that leads to
nowhere and that doubt does not mean that
it is requires inaction. One can take action
while at the same time holding your doubt
in your hand and I think that's a
really important thing to do because,
I totally agree with you this incredibly
annoying thing that you see from these trite
hack journalists who are all over the place
who have no understanding of science, but because
maybe they've got a degree
in English literature whatever it might be, they
think well you see because actually I know
about Beowulf, I don't see why I also
don't know just as much about physics and
everything else. There's a tremendous weirdly enough when
people talk about the arrogance of science, I
see an enormous amount of arrogance
from people who have no scientific you know,
we saw this during COVID where suddenly everyone
was an expert on vaccines.
And, you know, it had only taken them
half an hour as well. Imagine if they'd
had it a whole hour. What incredible achievements
we'd have got from them. So yeah, I
think we we we need to get it
out there that this is what yeah. It's
something talked about many times in many different,
kind of shows is
science is not about having the 100% right
idea. It is about attempting to have the
least wrong idea. The most useful idea for
the time, but always being ready for that
idea to change and move on. I think
one thing that's changed a lot in my
thinking over the last 16 17 years
is finding a place
for mystical belief
and for the I mean, that's one of
the reasons that 9 Lessors of Cowles is
now called For Curious People. It was only
ever called For Godless People because it came
out of
being really annoyed being on some terrible
panel show on TV
where there was, you know,
a really horrible member. Like a really nasty
Christian
who I know the majority of Christians every
time he was on television were furious because
the reason television put him on was because
he was infuriating
not because really he represented the majority of
Christians in. And so he kept saying, you
wanna ban Christmas? You wanna ban Christmas? And
I kept trying to explain that to him,
and that's where it came from. And then
years later, I just thought, well, now I
just want as many people as possible to
enjoy these scientific ideas, so I don't want
people to feel it's a closed shop. We
need more and I think we're seeing it.
We need more and more scientists to be
a little bit like Alan Moore, you know
the great Alan Moore v Vendetta watchmen. And
Alan has a way of balancing scientific understanding
which he has very deep scientific and he's
quite remarkable mind
but finding a place for the mystical as
well. Also he has the best line. He's
written
a new short story collection includes a short
story about the first femtosecond
of the universe.
And the opening line is, it was the
best of times, it was the first of
times, which is such a great opening line.
You're gonna have that. And, yeah, and that's
why I always liked having Alan on at
9 lessons as well, because he brought something
that, you know, for people was was always
a surprise. And you've mentioned Brian Cox a
a couple of times,
and this is the Physics World Stories podcast.
So this is a really stupid question. Is
physics your favorite science? I don't know. I
mean, there are times when it is. I
mean, for a while, like a lot of
us, I was really drawn towards quantum entanglement
and quantum quantum mechanics.
And and now I kind of agree with
some of like Helen Chirsky who gets a
little bit annoyed about just how many books
there are. I
mean, there are certain books in that. Philip
Ball is one of my favourite writers and
Beyond Weird is is wonderful,
but it's possibly biology because
I like the messiness of it. I'm fascinated
in neuroscience as well.
So the activity of our brain,
the structure of our brain, what we can
understand from the structure, and what currently is
elusive to us about nature of consciousness
and imagination.
I think I really enjoy that
more than anything else.
And I'm not saying that I have a
deeper understanding that but it's somewhere where I
like playing a great deal because again,
you know, I try in that book in
the book to to talk about the fact
that once you realize about how your brain
puts together the picture of the world that's
another reason to get rid of certainty.
Anyone who sits in a room and believes
they have got a privileged position, which is
allowing them to see the objective truth of
every color, every corner, every bit of human
behavior
is, you know, they they they make a
terrible misjudgment. The moment that you go, would
you know what? I was in the same
room as you, and I believe this happened,
and you believe that happened.
But, actually,
probably something in the middle happened.
And let's just you know that so many
of the arguments that come from certainty of
our experience and again once you loosen those
things I think you get a far more
enigmatic picture of the world and actually a
far more useful picture of the world in
terms of social engagement. So you mentioned
a few
physics books, popular science books, but if you
were gonna recommend
3 for people to pick up this
December, what would they be? Oh, that's very
hard. I mean, I always actually say The
Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, his last
full book, because I think it's a really
good way in and it does have ideas
of critical thinking,
and I don't think it has a cynicism
to it. I think it has a great
warmth even when it's dealing with the kind
of some of the more mystical ideas.
I I really like Jana Levin's How the
Universe Got Its Spots
because I think it's an interesting look about
the nature and understanding of cosmology
with a very personal story sewn through it
of the difficulties that she was actually having
as a human being living in a pretty
tatty flat
in Brighton with her partner. I think I
would pick that one.
Now the third one because I've got none
no more after this and that's then very,
very unfair. Do you know what I am
gonna go for another classic
just because I know people have found this
really useful which is reading,
What Do You Care What Other People Think
by Richard Feynman.
Because again, I think it's a beautiful series.
I mean what I'm really trying to pick
here is 3 which I think have a
lot of humanity in them because I think
that's the important thing first of all before
you deal with the big book, before you
go to the book that Jeff and Brian
have written about black holes or any of
those things, I think you need a lot
of a human story in there. And, you
know, What Do You Care What Other People
Think has the transcription of, some of Richard
Fineman's Pleasure of Finding Things Out, which is
of course a great ultimate kind of now
essay on what it is, what the excitement
of exploring ideas. It also has the story
of the Challenger Space Shuttle
and what happens when some you know, again,
it was the business pressures, it was the
money and financial pressures of NASA that is
one of the reasons that the Challenger Space
Shuttle,
you know, that devastating thing occurred.
And then it has the story also of
his relationship
with his first wife,
which I think is such
an incredible
the bit at the end where it talks
about him
sitting with her, Arlene,
as she was dying
and his scientific mind thinking about what was
going on to her body and her mind
but at the same time that he was
not detached from the emotional reality
I think is an incredible kind of a
a superposition
in some ways of the possibility of the
the what a human mind can do
in the most devastating of situations. So you
are in Singapore. Why are you in Singapore?
I am it's well, I've got,
Brian, it's the end of this year's Horizons
live tool. We're nearly done. So we we
should have all done this in one fell
swoop, but because of COVID rather than so
we did Australia and we came back 3
weeks ago, and now we're in Singapore and
we're about to go to New Zealand. And
we've looked at the schedule and it will
destroy us for Christmas. That is most do
you know how how
how Santa does it I don't know because
we've only got 5 stops and I think
we're gonna just be, you know,
reasonably
broken by the end of it. But, yes,
we're finishing the Horizons live tour and then
we do a little bit,
in Europe in March. We go around a
few places. I think we're in Brussels and
I think we go to Berlin and then
around Scandinavia. But there's also 9 Carols and
Lessons for Curious People. Yeah. One day after
I take the 30 hour flights to get
back from New Zealand,
I,
then do the 9 lessons and carols for
curious people at King's Place and then do
2 more the next day,
which is very ill thought out. But that's
how I've lived for the whole life. If
I hadn't if I didn't constantly do things
that were ill thought out I would have
no excitement.
If people are listening to this and they
want to come along to 9 carols what
can they expect to see this year? A
show that has really rapidly changed in the
previous six hours due to a train strike
and the number of people who are unable
to come in.
So at the moment and I should say,
by the way, that I do support that
train strike. It might be making our life
more difficult, but I also entirely understand why
it is, it is necessary.
But it's so so there will be that
normally, what we have is we have a
bunch of experiments, but I don't think we
have any chemists this year because last year,
one of the chemists set fire to the
theater. I mean, they've been approaching that level
of, accident for some time just with minor
spillages of some furoic acid, but then it
went that extra kind of level. There will
be chemistry though, and we've got a lot
of musicians, a lot of comedians,
and we got people like Beck Hill and,
hopefully, we've got
Grace Petrie joining us as well. And,
we yeah. It's it's just this kind of
the reason I'm not mentioning too many names
is because I really don't know who's gonna
be well, I mean, hopefully,
it won't require me to fill for 4
hours because I really won't have the energy.
I mean, I'm thinking of just sitting in
a rocking chair like some kind of Christmas
special from 1974,
you know, in a nice bit of knitwear.
Please welcome one of my
favorite theoretical physicists.
But I mean the good thing is we
will probably have a lot of UCL scientists.
Helen Chirsk is ready. John Butterworth is ready.
Anyone who is within 5 miles, I think,
of any musician, comedian,
chemist,
or neuroscientist,
physiologist, whatever it might be,
they may well get called up. There's a
review
of Robin Ince's book, The Importance of Being
Interested on the Physics World website, physicsworld
com, where you can also find reviews
of all the books that Tushnet and Matin
mentioned earlier. Now it occurs to me that
some of you might not have had the
chance to experience one of Robin's live shows.
So here's a little snippet of one that
I recorded earlier this year in Bristol.
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which
I read as this kind of absurd
that I I had no idea when I
first read it that some of the ideas
he was talking about were real physics because
they were so crazy. The kind of, you
know, probability drives and all of these things
just seemed like really brilliant
imagination
of an author.
And then a few years later, he's got
to go, oh, okay. So in quantum mechanics,
this was, oh, oh, okay. And in this
form of cosmology, oh, and this, you know,
that is in fact, the guy who edited
the book,
there were 3 eventually.
Only the last was strong enough. And,
but,
because he said he didn't rise at the
restaurant and the end of the universe is
not a kind of geographical position, but it's
at the end of the universe. That it's
the end of the universe. This is when
the universe ends. So that is interesting to
me that even somebody who works in books,
it simply didn't know the meaning of that
title. You can hear the rest of Robin's
performance there at Bookhouse in Bristol on my
other podcast, The Cosmic Shed, which you can
find at thecosmicshed.com.
Thank you very much to Robin Ince for
joining me for this episode of the Physics
World stories podcast, and I hope that's given
you, along with Tushnet
and Matin's suggestions earlier, some ideas for some
books maybe for yourself or for a present
this December
or Christmas or holiday season, whatever you want
to call it. But just before I leave
you, I will just add one more recommendation,
which
is Apollo remastered
by Andy Saunders.
It's a book that I've reviewed, which will
appear on the physics world website
in January, physics world dot com. But if
you are in a fun of Apollo, even
if you've got a lot of Apollo books,
I highly recommend
having a look at the Andy Saunders book,
Apollo remastered.
And we'll be back next year in January
when we'll be exploring the return to the
moon and the challenges of living in space
for prolonged periods.
And thank you very much for listening.
Physics world.