Ten “keys to reality” from a Nobel-winning physicist
To understand ourselves and our place in the universe, "we should have humility but also self-respect," Frank Wilczek writes in a new book.
18 January, 2021
Photo by Andy HYD on Unsplash
In the spring of 1970, colleges across the country erupted with student protests in response to the Vietnam War and the National Guard's shooting of student demonstrators at Kent State University.
<p> At the University of Chicago, where Frank Wilczek was an undergraduate, regularly scheduled classes were "improvised and semivoluntary" amid the turmoil, as he recalls.</p><p>It was during this turbulent time that Wilczek found unexpected comfort, and a new understanding of the world, in mathematics. He had decided to sit in on a class by physics professor Peter Freund, who, with a zeal "bordering on rapture," led students through mathematical theories of symmetry and ways in which these theories can predict behaviors in the physical world.</p><p>In his new book, "Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality," published by Penguin Press, Wilczek writes that the lessons were a revelation: "To experience the deep harmony between two different universes — the universe of beautiful ideas and the universe of physical behavior — was for me a kind of spiritual awakening. It became my vocation. I haven't been disappointed."</p>
<p>Wilczek, who is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT, has since made groundbreaking contributions to our fundamental understanding of the physical world, for which he has been widely recognized, most notably in 2004 with the Nobel Prize in Physics, which he shared with physicists David Gross and David Politzer. He has also authored several popular science books on physics and the history of science.</p><p>In his new book, he distills scientists' collective understanding of the physical world into 10 broad philosophical themes, using the fundamental theories of physics, from cosmology to quantum mechanics, to reframe ideas of space, time, and our place in the universe.</p><p>"People wrestle with what the world is all about," Wilczek tells <em>MIT News</em>. "They're not concerned with knowing precisely what Coulomb's law is, but want to know more about questions like the ancient Greeks asked: What is space? What is time? So in the end, I came up with 10 assertions, at the levels of philosophy but backed up by very concrete facts, to organize what we know."</p>
<h3>A rollercoaster reborn</h3><p>Wilczek wrote the bulk of the book earlier this spring, in the midst of another tumultuous time, at the start of a global pandemic. His grandson had been born as Wilczek was laying out the structure for his book, and in the preface, the physicist writes that he watched as the baby began building up a model of the world, based on his observations and interactions with the environment, "with insatiable curiosity and few preconceptions."</p><p>Wilczek says that scientists may take a cue from the way babies learn — by building and pruning more detailed models of the world, with a similar unbiased, open outlook. He can recall times when he felt his own understanding of the world fundamentally shift. The college course on mathematical symmetry was an early instance. More recently, the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has prompted him to rethink "what knowledge is, and how it's acquired."</p><p>He writes: "The process of being born again can be disorienting. But, like a roller- coaster ride, it can also be exhilarating. And it brings this gift: To those who are born again, in the way of science, the world comes to seem fresh, lucid, and wonderfully abundant."</p>
<h3>"Patterns in matter"</h3><p>Wilczek's book contains ample opportunity for readers to reframe their view of the physical world. For instance, in a chapter entitled "There's Plenty of Space," he writes that, while the universe is vast, there is another scale of vastness in ourselves. To illustrate his point, he calculates that there are roughly 10 octillion atoms that make up the human body. That's about 1 million times the number of stars in the visible universe. The multitudes within and beyond us are not contradictory, he says, but can be explained by the same set of physical rules.</p><p>And in fact, the universe, in all its diversity, can be described by a surprisingly few set of rules, collectively known as the Standard Model of Physics, though Wilczek prefers to call it by another name.</p><p>"The so-called Standard Model is the culmination of millenia of investigation, allowing us to understand how matter works, very fully," Wilczek says. "So calling it a model, and standard, is kind of a lost opportunity to really convey to people the magnitude of what's been achieved by humanity. That's why I like to call it the 'Core.' It's a central body of understanding that we can build out from."</p><p>Wilczek takes the reader through many of the key experiments, theories, and revelations that physicists have made in building and validating the Standard Model, and its mathematical descriptions of the universe.</p><p>Included in this often joyful scientific tour are brief mentions of Wilczek's own contributions, such as his Nobel-winning work establishing the theory of quantum chromodynamics; his characterization of the axion, a theoretical particle that he named after a laundry detergent by the same name ("It was short, catchy, and would fit in nicely alongside proton, neutron, electron, and pion," he writes); and his introduction of the anyon — an entirely new kind of particle that is neither a fermion or a boson.</p><p>In April, and then separately in July, scientists made the first observations of anyons, nearly 40 years after Wilczek first proposed their existence.</p>
<p>"I was beginning to think it would never happen," says Wilczek, who was finishing up his book when the discoveries were made public. "When it finally did, it was a beautiful surprise."</p><p>The discovery of anyons opens possibilities for the particles to be used as building blocks for quantum computers, and marks another milestone in our understanding of the universe.</p><p>In closing his book, Wilczek writes about "complementarity" — a concept in physics that refers to two seemingly contrasting theories, such as the wave and particle theories of light, that can separately explain the same set of phenomena. He points to many complementary theories of physics throughout the book and extends the idea to philosophy and ways in which accepting contrasting views of the world can help us to expand our experience.</p><p>"With progress, we've come to consider people and creatures as having intrinsic value and being worthy of profound respect, just like ourselves," he writes. "When we see ourselves as patterns in matter, it is natural to draw our circle of kinship very wide indeed."</p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="http://news.mit.edu/">MIT News</a>. Read the <a target="_blank" href="https://news.mit.edu/2021/ten-keys-reality-wilczek-0112" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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2020 ties for hottest year on record, says NASA and NOAA
In a joint briefing at the 101st American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, NASA and NOAA revealed 2020's scorching climate data.
16 January, 2021
(Photo: Adobe Stock)
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<p>You may have noticed a trend in the last few years. At the beginning of every year, NASA and NOAA share their analyses of the previous year's climate data. And every year, their data reveal the previous year to be <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/climate-change-2018-hot-year?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">one of the hottest on record</a>—with 2016 at the torrid top of 139 years of documentation. That's no coincidence. Climate change is happening, it's happening now, and it's human-caused.</p><p>That's the consensus of 97 percent of climate scientists, according to <a href="https://whatweknow.aaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/whatweknow_website.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a 2014 report</a> from the <a href="https://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a>. That's the same percentage of physicians and cardiovascular scientists who agree that smoking causes lung cancer, and it's a consensus reached through decades worth of surveys and studies into the realities and causes of climate change.</p><p>Now, climate scientists have two more analyses to add to their overwhelming evidence. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE7tphRMTMU&t=1527s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a briefing at this year's 101<sup>st</sup> American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting</a>, representatives for NASA and NOAA revealed their independent analyses of 2020's climate data. And the trend continues. </p>
A dead heat
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ2MDU4Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzM0MzIwNH0.3NrKDBoOdpFL5IXF3cDbom-Dp2RlrzJgvAciXcb0GDE/img.jpg?width=980" id="69d06" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="886a2617e756181e6a11e20a00b65dff" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1266" data-height="654" />A graph showing the global mean temperatures from 1880–2020 (with the years 1951–1980 serving as the mean baseline).
Credit: NASA and NOAA
<p>For <a href="https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/" target="_blank">its 2020 analysis</a>, NASA gathered surface temperature measurements from more than 26,000 weather stations. This data was incorporated with data from satellites as well as sea-surface temperatures taken from ship and buoy instruments. Once tallied, NASA's data showed 2020 barely edged out 2016 as the warmest year on record, with average global temperatures 1.02°C (1.84°F) above the baseline mean (1951-1980).</p><p>In a separate analysis of the raw data, NOAA found 2020 to be slightly cooler than 2016. This distinction is the result of the different methodologies used in each—for example, NOAA uses a different baseline period (1901–2000) and does not infer temperatures in polar regions lacking observations. Together, these analyses put 2020 in a statistical dead heat with the sweltering 2016 and demonstrate the global-warming trend of the past four decades.</p><p>"The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend," <a href="http://email.prnewswire.com/ls/click?upn=OXp-2BEvHp8OzhyU1j9bSWuwMvMWelqIco5RbfBrouY-2BQCsSv6FnrhBjR9xReGqV57KGOs0rVc5GKMmgs-2FJKbOzjb0sJ6yjzUvrv2w75ulYk3EUck8pSjkzYhoy5ADXO0eOcn7LDjqsHyK2gp2NRf2UysMK-2F9SN4oYUmRylQcRtSUo6-2FcYeK-2B9naUetByXNCR2gF8u_FU3lc-2FvIcVOtjb4iEuBVjFYoW0IRF5dtM-2FDfzzkhmYHO5IVgq387-2BxdHEMunBZ1-2Fy0-2BJDgXnZEYvN604G1TWJfy4M4HKnIouyasgRyWEHIYmPTiDXeFrd9FqRmsl0JQfksEElkp2ITvgyFkkivWV3GiFH7z7tl1cTZ2rNh2c-2FbCRKQxkH4-2BChgYT6uWeYOvXusiC4cDsZkEBvw7lOEdPsPq78JT8F5x5gc5cMRaRJY-2FZ8q8peaKsS7Mfc5OQ6yjyEU5YUHR4QKJ1Fn-2FDuwJ5jk4Gm28sxJZNXX9IEO-2FOHlhyRcJbl6rMWcoeJZDEd-2BM8UJ5ZY-2FYqc1DHevd1Mz-2B1fQ-3D-3D" target="_blank">Gavin Schmidt</a>, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210115103020.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said in a release</a>. "Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important—the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken."</p><p>And they are. According to the analyses, 2020 was the warmest year on record for Asia and Europe, the second warmest for South America, the fourth warmest for Africa and Australia, and the tenth warmest for North America. </p><p>All told, 2020 was 1.19°C (2.14°F) above averages from the late-19<sup>th</sup> century, a period that provides a rough approximate for pre-industrial conditions. This temperature is closing in on the Paris Climate Agreement's preferred goal of <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreemen" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limiting global warming to 1.5°C</a> of those pre-industrial conditions.</p>2020's hotspot was—the Arctic?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ2MDU5My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTA5OTU1MH0.0ZCixGwhHbjmyO6By_eaMI-cXrM2-rsPq32J-pAVWPs/img.jpg?width=980" id="34c94" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="846b12bfa65c6d1b8d0a5b0d0214e091" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1106" data-height="672" />A map of global mean temperatures in 2020 shows an scorching year for the Arctic.
(Photo: NASA and NOAA)
<p>Heatwaves have become more common all over the world, but a region that really endured the heat in 2020 was the <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_change.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%2030%20years,climate%20change%20in%20the%20Arctic." target="_blank">Arctic</a>.</p><p>"The big story this year is Siberia; it was a hotspot," Russell Vose, chief of the analysis and synthesis branch of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, said during the briefing. "In May, some places were 18°F above the average. There was a town in Siberia […] that reported a high temperature of 104°F. If that gets verified by the World Metrological Organization, it will the first there's been a weather station in the Arctic with a temperature above 100°F."</p><p>The Arctic is warming at three times the global mean, thanks to <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_change.html#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%2030%20years,climate%20change%20in%20the%20Arctic." target="_blank">a phenomenon known as Arctic Amplification</a>. As the Arctic warms, it loses its sea ice, and this creates a feedback loop. The more Arctic sea ice loss, the more heat introduced into the oceans; the more heat introduced, the more sea ice loss. And the longer this trend continues, the more devastating the effects.</p><p>For example, since the 1980s, there's been a 50 percent decline in sea ice, and this loss has exposed more of the ocean to the sun's rays. That energy then gets trapped in the ocean as heat. As the <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ocean heat content</a> rises, it threatens rising sea levels and the sustainability of natural ecosystems. In 2020 alone, 255 zeta joules of heat above the baseline were introduced into Earth's oceans. In (admittedly) dramatic terms, that's <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/01/14/twin-cities-scientist-heat-of-5-to-6-hiroshima-atom-bombs-per-second-into-earths-oceans" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the equivalent of introducing 5 to 6 Hiroshima atom bombs</a> worth of energy every second of every day.</p><p>Looking beyond the Arctic, the average snow cover for the Northern Hemisphere was also the lowest on record. Like the Arctic sea ices, such <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/climate.html#:~:text=Snow's%20effect%20on%20climate,especially%20the%20western%20United%20States." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">snow cover</a> helps regulate Earth's surface temperatures. Its melt off in the spring and summer also provides the freshwater ecosystems rely on to survive and farmers need to grow crops, especially in <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/too-many-trees?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">the Western United States</a>.</p>Natural disasters get a man-made bump
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ2MDU5NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MjUwMjE0Mn0.R_juvxCWUw-S9RDkAobjXeMn2qMHg-XVgsOHW74Uz-s/img.jpg?width=980" id="51830" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7b3e734e1d03eaec341dca40df0939f0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1123" data-height="672" />A map of 2020's billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, which totaled approximately $95 billion in losses.
Credit: NASA and NOAA
<p>2020 was also a record-breaking year for natural disasters. In the U.S. alone, there were 22 billion-dollar disasters, the most ever recorded. Combined, they resulted in a total of $95 billion in losses. The western wildfires alone consumed more than 10 million acres and destroyed large portions of Oregon, Colorado, and California.</p><p>The year also witnessed a record-setting Atlantic Hurricane season with more than 30 named storms, 13 of which were hurricanes. Typically, the World Meteorological Organization <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml#:~:text=Instead%20a%20strict%20procedure%20has,is%20repeated%20every%20sixth%20year." target="_blank">names storms</a> from an annual list of 21 selected names—one for each letter of the alphabet, minus Q, U, X, Y, and Z. For only <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/914453403/so-2020-new-storm-forms-named-alpha-because-weve-run-out-of-letters" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the second time in history</a>, the Organization had to resort to naming storms after Greek letters because they ran out of alphabet.</p>For the record, there's a consensus about the record
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9bb94f5d5a58d40f03e1515f3c2e467c"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gzksqQDI_kE?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Such records are a dramatic reminder of climate change's ongoing effect on our planet. They make for an eye-catching headline, sure. But those headlines can sometimes mask the fact that these years are part of decade-long trends, trends providing a preview of what a climate-changed world will be like. </p><p>And in case there was any question as to whether these trends were the result of natural processes or man-made conditions, Schmidt and Vose did not mince words. </p><p>As Schmidt said in the briefing: "Many, many things have caused the climate to change in the past: asteroids, wobbles in the Earth's orbit, moving continents. But when we look at the 20<sup>th</sup> century, we can see very clearly what has been happening. We know the continents have not moved very much, we know the orbit has not changed very much, we know when there were volcanoes, we know what the sun is doing, and we know what we've been doing."</p><p>He continued, "When we do an attribution by driver of climate change over the 20<sup>th</sup> century, what we find is that the overwhelming cause of the warming is the increase of greenhouse gases. When you add in all of the things humans have done, all of the trends over this period are attributable to human activity."</p><p>The data are in; the consensus is in. The only thing left is to figure out how to prevent the worst of climate change before it's too late. As bad as 2020 was, it was only a preview of what could come.<strong></strong></p>
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A prayer without words: The story of the wanderer
Take a journey through the maze of interpretations of one of the most famous paintings in history.
30 December, 2020
A tale of silence, an icon of human solitude in the face of the forces of nature, or perhaps a memento of the great artist?
<p><em>I come down from the mountains,<br/>The valley dims, the sea roars.<br/>I wander silently and am somewhat unhappy,<br/>And my sighs always ask "Where?"</em></p><p>This is the lamenting of the Wanderer from a song composed by 19-year-old Franz Schubert to the words of G.P. Schmidt. The stranger looks for a spiritual home everywhere, but is condemned to wander forever. Schubert's music was composed in 1821. Three years earlier, Caspar David Friedrich painted a picture that often illustrates the recordings of the Austrian composer's song. <em>W</em><em>anderer above the Sea of Fog</em> also often ends up on the covers of books about German Romantic painting. It shows a man from behind, with a cane, wearing an overcoat, standing on a protruding rock. At his feet, a spectacle of nature takes place: clouds are lifting from a valley, exposing rocky ridges. Further away, on the horizon, a mountain range looms wrapped in a morning haze. No other painter has possibly ever created a comparable icon of solitude in the face of the forces of nature; no other painter has so emphatically shown the melancholy of unfulfilled hopes. Friedrich himself likened his work of art to a prayer. "Just as the pious man prays without speaking a word and the Almighty hearkens unto him, so the artist with true feelings <em>paints </em>and the sensitive man understands and recognises it."</p>
<p>Friedrich's painting was created 200 years ago, and we, as its viewers, rank among the more thick-witted. Accustomed to the school-level version of Romanticism, we sometimes forget that it was "the fallen religion". Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald, on the territory of the then Swedish Pomerania, in the family of a soap-boiler with a strong, Protestant history. Thanks to his first painting teacher he met the philosopher and pantheist, Thomas Thorild, and the poet, preacher and theologist Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten. The latter praised the beauty of nature leading to the meeting with God.</p><p>Friedrich Schiller himself said in 1794 that landscape is perfect for expressing both ideas and emotions. However, Friedrich's <em>Tetschen Altar</em> (1808) provoked a controversy: a simple cross on a rock surrounded by spruces against the background of the sky turning pink. The critic F.W.B. von Ramdohr was scathing when he wrote that it was "a veritable presumption, if landscape painting were to sneak into the church and creep onto the altar." Indeed, this was supposed to be a secular landscape. Only later on did Count Anton von Thun-Hohenstein insist on placing this painting in his palace chapel. Cherubs, stalks of grains and wine chalices carved into the frame created the correct context, however Friedrich's lonely cross covered with ivy was not so much a religious symbol as an element of the landscape. Answering his critics' objections, the artist explained that "Jesus Christ, nailed to the tree, is turned here towards the setting sun, the image of the eternal life-giving father." Yet this does not necessarily mean that the sun always symbolizes God in his works, and that evergreen trees should be associated with the hope of resurrection. Friedrich's contemporaries often exaggerated the religious aspect of his works, envisaging their artificially sophisticated mysticism. Critics were doubtful as to whether being moved by the spectacle of the fog should be associated with religious elation. However, the writer Ludwig Tieck claimed that Friedrich had sensed the spirit of the era: "Friedrich expresses the religious mood and excitement that recently seems to have stirred our German world in a particular manner, in sensitive, solemn, melancholy landscape motives."</p><p>Friedrich painted his pictures in the studio, based on earlier sketches drawn on location. His compositions are well-balanced, often symmetrical. Tree trunks mark the centre of the composition or frame it; diagonal branches do not project beyond the frame. "This insistent geometry accords with our modern sense of artistic decorum," John Updike wrote. "If Friedrich meant to imply Presence with his controlled, emptied vistas, and we can feel only Absence, well, Absence is an old friend, and we wouldn't know what to do with Presence if it came up and hit us in the face."</p>
<p>19th-century thinkers and poets were searching for divinity in personal contemplation. Friedrich's painterly approach was incidentally expressed by Ludwig Tieck in his early novel <em>Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen</em><em>. </em>An old painter, a hermit, considered mad, tells the main protagonist: "I do not want to copy trees or mountains, but my soul, my mood which reigns over me at this hour, these I want to fix for myself and to communicate to those who are able to understand." Friedrich's landscapes are usually divided into two zones: a dark foreground with a man in contemplation, and the landscape in the background, flooded with light. One of the main stylistic tricks of the German master is the so-called <em>Rü</em><em>ckenfigur</em>, a figure shown from behind. Details of the landscape become less important than the fact that it is being observed and experienced. On the other hand, we, the viewers, can only imagine the emotions and thoughts of the person we are seeing from behind.</p><p>Friedrich's famous painting was also interpreted as a tale of silence, of a creative individual reaching the blessed state of being alone with nature and their own thoughts. The American scholar Theodore Ziolkowski said that the traveller on the rock should be seen as Goethe. Indeed, this painting is a peculiar conversation with the author of <em>Faust</em>. The poet asked Friedrich to paint a set of studies of clouds, according to their classification, recently published by Luke Howard. Friedrich could not accept such a challenge: scientifically systemized clouds would not convey higher, spiritual meanings anymore. For him that would be "the end of painting". Therefore, his picture has a polemical character. Nature does not comfort, it is menacing and oppressive. The wanderer stands above a precipice.</p><p>It's worth remembering that <em>W</em><em>anderer above the Sea of Fog </em>also functions in the collective imagination as a metaphor for the German conscience. It was used on the cover of <em>Der Spiegel</em> on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. From the height of the rock, the man in the painting contemplated the ghosts of Nazism. Then, on the cover of <em>Stern</em> in October 2015, Friedrich's wanderer watched a sea of refugees emerging from the sea of fog. It might perhaps be that the German Romantic's painting today is not just an allegory of artistic solitude, but also of the fog from which critical awareness emerges, as well as sensitivity to the suffering of others.</p><p><em>Translated from <a href="https://przekroj.pl/kultura/modlitwa-bez-slow-anna-arno" target="_blank">the Polish</a> by Anna Błasiak</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">Przekrój</a>. Read the original article. </p>
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The 10 best science and technology books of 2020
Perspective twisting books on biology, social science, medical science, cosmology, and tech.
22 December, 2020
Credit: dusanpetkovic1 / Adobe Stock
- The best science books push us to think, feel, and behave differently.
- This list includes new releases by authors Merlin Sheldrake, Isabel Wilkerson, James Nestor, David Attenborough, and others.
- Besides making us more knowledgeable, these books inspire curiosity, passion, and empathy for the universe in and around us.
<p>The best science books have the power to shift perspectives, pushing us to think differently and even behave differently. The following titles push boundaries by making novel connections and challenging conventional wisdom about the world as we think we know it. Besides making us more knowledgeable, they inspire curiosity, passion, and empathy for the universe in and around us.</p><p>These are our picks for the 10 best books released in 2020, plus a few notable mentions too good to leave out.</p>
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<p>Merlin Sheldrake's enthralling study of fungi will reframe your view of the world through the perspective of mycelium networks, providing a natural lesson in the interrelations between all living beings. Fungi have colonized nearly all of Earth's environments, and their interactions with other matter has been one of a subterranean magician creating and transforming the world we inhabit.</p><p>Sheldrake, a mycologist who researches underground fungal networks, takes the reader on a journey into unsettling mysteries that shroud his field of study. At the center, just how <em>alive</em> are these networks? Weaving together stories, scientific observations, and philosophical questions, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525510311?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Entangled Lives</a>" is a book on how beings contaminate and change one another in a perpetual, transformative dance of matter.</p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art</div>
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<p>From <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a> intoxicating our air quality, to a pandemic caused by a respiratory-system attacking virus, to the social justice cry "I can't breathe," the mundane act of breathing was brought to the forefront in 2020. It's the most fundamental thing to our lives, marking the beginning and the end of it, and yet our culture rarely gives it a second thought. Journalist James Nestor sought to amend that in "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213615?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art</a>," as he interviews men and women around the world to trace the origins of our failure to remember correct breathing, what the consequences have been, and how it can be fixed. </p><p>This is an enrapturing look at the history of human breathing through a physiological, evolutionary, cultural, and spiritual lens. Far more exhilarating than a description of pulmonology lab studies, Nestor finds answers in ancient burial sites, New Jersey choir schools, and Soviet facilities. He also offers practical breathing exercises to give the reader a hands-on experience into the simple power of breathing correctly. </p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents</div>
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<p>This year was one defined by heartbreak and pain across the globe. This was especially the case for Black Americans for whom COVID-19 exposed the ugly <a href="https://bigthink.com/Northwell-Health/health-disparities-coronavirus" target="_blank">racial inequalities in our healthcare system</a> and the loss of more Black lives at the hands of police officers revealed the fundamental injustice of the American justice system. And, so, 2020 saw backlash against the legacy of white supremacy in America.</p><p>In her latest book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593230256?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</a>," Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson met this revolutionary year with her groundbreaking exploration of identity in America. Wilkerson radically and powerfully reframes injustice, racism, and inequality in the United States as undergirded by a caste system likened to those in India and Germany's Nazi regime. Applying more than a decade of research, ethnography, and reporting for the book, Wilkerson offers us a deep revisionist history through interviews with experts along with ordinary people, and stories from her own life. Woven together, she creates an electrifying and perspective-flipping theory of injustice and racism in America, and the role we all continue to play in perpetuating it.</p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future</div>
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<p>Renowned and beloved naturalist, journalist, and <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/david-attenborough-extinction" target="_blank">defender of the planet </a>David Attenborough delivers a witness statement of the state of life on planet Earth. This book was awarded this year's Goodreads Choice Award in Science and Technology.</p><p>Part testimony, part heartening memoir, and part battlecry, Sir Attenborough's book proves a much needed imagining of the future if through collective, rapid action we can save Earth's beautiful and wild places and before it's too late. </p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family</div>
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<p>A gripping tale that is part medical mystery and part case study of abnormal psychology, Robert Kolker presents a riveting piece of narrative non-fiction. "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/038554376X?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of An American Family</a>" is the story of a seemingly cookie-cutter '60s American family: the Galvins. Kolker, a decorated crime journalist, digs under the picture-perfect surface to spotlight a family ravaged by mental illness, violence, and trauma.</p><p>Of the Galvin's ten sons, six developed schizophrenia, transforming their home into a traumatic and abusive environment. The book traces scientists' quest to find out if this family's genetics could hold the key to the many unanswered questions the medical and psychiatric field has about the disease. </p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don't) Say About Human Difference</div>
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<p>Of course, it's shameful that a book debunking racist pseudosceince had to have been written at all. Nevertheless, geneticist Adam Rutherford's "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615196714?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race, and Reality</a>" is a remarkable telling of the shared ancestry of the human race. The book is a treasure trove filled with gems of knowledge from the field of genetics and what it knows about skin color, intelligence, ancestry, athletic ability, and racial superiority.</p><p>By showing how ancestry and family trees scientifically work, Rutherford proves the concept of racial purity to be an erroneous delusion. "For humans," Rutherford explains, "there are no purebloods, only mongrels enriched by the blood of multitudes." The reader is provided the fascinating scientific weaponry to confidently take on questions about race, genes, ancestry. Ultimately, Rutherford's book is a challenge against the manipulation, misrepresentation, and abuse of science to justify hatred and prejudice. </p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">T-Minus AI: Humanity’s Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power</div>
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<p>While nations and leaders have entered into a battle to rule the big data sphere, most of us still remain in the dark about AI — a subject shrouded in complex lexicon and confused with sci-fi plots. But AI is real, here to stay, and already has profound and alarming implications on our world. Michael Kanaan, a nationally recognized expert of the topic of artificial intelligence, details these realities in a way that the everyday person can grasp. </p><p>Detailing the global implications of AI, Kanaan also presents the ways that cultures and nations have failed to adjust their policies and ethical questions to meet the rapid growth of modern computing, and the erosion of democracies around the world as dubious leaders weaponize the technology to spread misinformation. We're entering this brave new world, there is no turning back, and "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1948836947?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">T-Minus AI</a>" is our survival guide coming at a critical moment in time.</p>
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<p>"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802128815?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Vesper Flights</a>" is Helen Macdonald's dazzling collection of essays about human and other-than-human relationships. The naturalist and poet explores and meditates on subjects ranging from nostalgia for landscapes to the migrations of songbirds from the Empire State Building to the challenges of farming ostriches. And, of course, her own vespers. </p><p>Woven throughout the collection of her writings are the themes of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, precarity and enchantment, time and memory, and ultimately, love. Helen transports the reader into intimate observations of the natural world such as watching tens of thousands of Hungarian cranes, encountering a wild boar, foraging for mushrooms, and the peculiarities of bird nests. "Vesper Flights" re-enchants and brings back to life the world of the other-than-human as more than the backdrop of the human drama. In a time of isolation, Helen reminds us that we are part of a multitude of narratives at play in the natural world, and the wondrous and baffling magic found in paying attention to it. </p>
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another (The MIT Press)</div>
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<p>In "The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another," Ainissa Ramirez explains how inventions from the clock to steel rails to hard disks have powerfully transformed society. By ingeniously describing how matter has transformed humans as we create inventions out of it, Ramirez shows how eight inventions created the world as we know it today, and molded our perception of it.</p><p>Ramirez, a material scientist and science writer, illustrates how clocks, steel rails, copper telegraph wires, photographic film, carbon filaments for light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips revolutionized modern society. The chapters each tell the story of the creation and rise of one of the inventions and the impact it had on the world. For example, how the railway contributed to the commercialization of Christmas. Ramirez's storytelling and expertise give life to the innovations by contextualizing them in history and providing the biography of the creators behind them. This includes those who have been overlooked in historical tellings of innovation, such as women and people of color. Ultimately, this is about how we manipulate matter, and the matter changes us. </p>
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<p>For centuries, human art, religious beliefs and rituals, our social hierarchies, value systems, scientific innovations and discoveries, and even our DNA has been shaped by the heavens. Yet over the last few decades, we have severed that innate and intimate relationship with the cosmos, which are today experienced through screens and mind-numbing data fields. And it's come at a cost.</p><p>Jo Marchant's spellbinding book seeks to put the sense of awe, wonder, and mystery back into our relationship with the stars. Presenting various ways that different cultures have celebrated the once-mystical majesty of celestial cycles, she invites you to experience the night through your naked eyes fixed unto the star-spangled sky. It's an experience that has sparked imaginings and ideas that have radically transformed human civilization for millennia, even, Marchant argues, made us human. In "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593183010?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">The Human Cosmos</a>," you'll discover Chumash cosmology, learn about Tahitian sailors who navigated by way of celestial maps, and understand how Einstein arrived at his revolutionary theory that space and time are the same entity.</p>
Notable mentions
<p>There were so many brilliant books released in 2020, and these picks are just the tip of the iceberg. Here are several other books that almost made our top ten list.</p><ul><li>"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593237064?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">All We Can Save</a>" edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson</li><li><i>"</i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374228485?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl</a>" by Jonathan C. Slaght</li><li>"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0241409608?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Explaining Humans</a>" by Dr. Camilla Pang </li><li>"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465096980?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">Children of Ash and Elm: A History of Vikings</a>" by Neil Price</li></ul><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0135442f3d5145b8ca6fbfac0e98175" contenteditable="false">
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Study finds surprising link between the Moon and methane leaks in the Arctic
Researchers from Norway discover that the Moon's tides influence the release of methane from the ocean floor.
21 December, 2020
Credit: dbvirago/Adobe Stock
- Sensitive instruments reveal methane beneath the Arctic Ocean for the first time.
- The gas is released in cycles that correspond to the tides.
- Rising warming oceans may help to contain the greenhouse gas.
<p>It's a rhythm that preceded our presence on Earth: The moon's inexorable push and pull on our planet's oceans. According to researchers at University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway, it turns out that the moon does more than move the tides—it also controls the release of methane into the atmosphere from below the Arctic Ocean. There's no reason to think it's not true in other seas as well.</p><p>This is yet another example of the complexity of global warming, methane being the other major greenhouse gas. All sorts of things are involved in keeping the environment in balance that one would never expect, like the moon. The study points out that it's not all bad news, however, since as the oceans rise they may help the moon in controlling methane's release.</p><p>The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18899-3#article-info" target="_blank">Nature Communications</a>.</p>
Tidal methane
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk4NDU4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzMxNTkwNX0.dbRoA5swH03DwULPTFLuq15OBPcsrjShpyj_9vI9c6k/img.jpg?width=980" id="f0ff9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="81ddbfa5e3fca1229593d48478bd1223" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2048" data-height="1159" />Screenshot of visualization from researchers' data
Credit: Andreia Plaza Faverola
<p> <a href="https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhouse-gas" target="_blank">Methane</a> often takes second billing to carbon dioxide in discussions of climate change, likely because it dissipates much more quickly. However, its warming effect is actually far more intense that CO<sup>2</sup>'s — it is 84 times more potent. Methane makes up about 25 percent of our greenhouse gases. </p><p> <a href="https://cage.uit.no/2020/12/11/the-moon-controls-the-release-of-methane-in-arctic-ocean/" target="_blank">Says</a> co-author of the study <a href="https://cage.uit.no/employee/andreia-plaza-faverola/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Andreia Plaza Faverola</a>, "We noticed that gas accumulations, which are in the sediments within a meter from the seafloor, are vulnerable to even slight pressure changes in the water column. Low tide means less of such hydrostatic pressure and higher intensity of methane release. High tide equals high pressure and lower intensity of the release." </p><p> This phenomenon has not been previously observed. While significant gas hydrate concentrations have been sampled in the area, no methane release had been documented. "It is the first time that this observation has been made in the Arctic Ocean," says co-author <a href="https://cage.uit.no/employee/jochen-knies/" target="_blank">Jochen Knies</a>. "It means that slight pressure changes can release significant amounts of methane. This is a game-changer and the highest impact of the study." </p>Detecting the tidal story
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk4NDYwMS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2ODI5OTI0OH0.vfKQ8xqksfRHMaE9FqemZc3s-mZ-kBCHkltGBRT8V_E/img.png?width=980" id="8a168" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a6c69a000368a89bce0ca7b11bab3b77" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2048" data-height="1251" />Screenshot from video of piezometer out of the water
Credit: Przemyslaw Domel
<p>The researchers buried a tool called a piezometer in the sediment on the ocean floor, and left it in place for four days. During that time, the instrument made hourly measurements of pressure and temperature in the sediments, and these indicated the presence of methane close to the sea floor, increasing at low tide and decreasing at high tide.</p><p>Their first notable observation was, of course, the presence of the gas on the Arctic Ocean floor despite a lack of other more visible indicators of its presence. "This tells us that gas release from the seafloor is more widespread than we can see using traditional sonar surveys," says Plaza Faverola. "We saw no bubbles or columns of gas in the water." She credits the watchful presence of the piezometer for making the discovery: "Gas burps that have a periodicity of several hours won't be identified unless there is a permanent monitoring tool in place, such as the piezometer."</p><p>Enthuses Knies, "What we found was unexpected and the implications are big. This is a deep-water site. Small changes in pressure can increase the gas emissions but the methane will still stay in the ocean due to the water depth."</p><p>Of course, not all the Earth's waters are equally deep, and there may not be enough water weight in some places to contain the methane below. "But what happens in shallower sites?" asks Knies. "This approach needs to be done in shallow Arctic waters as well, over a longer period. In shallow water, the possibility that methane will reach the atmosphere is greater."</p>The weight of water
<p>The basic mechanics at play are simple. Higher tides mean more water pressing down on the methane, and this increased pressure keeps it from rising away from the sea floor. Low tide means less water, less pressure, and a greater opportunity for the methane to escape.</p><p>The researchers note in their study that this simple relationship may actually offer a silver lining to the rising of the world's ocean as the planet cools. There will be more water, and thus more pressure to keep methane from escaping up and into the atmosphere. In essence, higher sea levels may have something of a cooling effect by keeping methane out of the atmosphere.</p><p>In the end, there's not much we can do about the Moon and its tides, but the more knowledge we have of the mechanisms behind climate change the better.</p><p>As Plaza Faverola puts it:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Earth systems are interconnected in ways that we are still deciphering, and our study reveals one of such interconnections in the Arctic: The moon causes tidal forces, the tides generate pressure changes, and bottom currents that in turn shape the seafloor and impact submarine methane emissions. Fascinating!"</p>
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