Tag Archives: astrophysics

Losing the Nobel Prize by Brian Keating

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Got this book from the Jeffco Whale of a Used Book Sale a couple of years ago.

Brian Keating is an astrophysicist/cosmologist. He had dreams and desires of winning the Nobel Prize in physics, but there was an issue with the results of the BICEP2 project. But, he was prominent enough to be able to nominate candidates to the prize for a year or two.

He certainly does have some good ideas for ways to improve the award. Pages 272 to 274 give his main recommendations.

  1. Add prizes in new and emerging disciplines
  2. Award the physics prize to groups of any size
  3. Give retroactive awards
  4. Allow for posthumous awards
  5. Recognize that true discovery is serendipitous In other words, he would like to see more prizes given to people who make unexpected discoveries, not just confirmation of previous theories

Other things of note:

Pages 174-175. “There is a fierce competition that begins the day you declare yourself a physics major. First, among your fellow undergraduates, you spar for top ranking in your class. This leads to the next battle: becoming a graduate student at a top school. Then, you toil for six to eight years to earn a postdoc job at another top school. And finally, you hope, comes a coveted faculty job, which can become permanent if you are privileged enough to get tenure. Along the way, the number of peers in your group diminishes by a factor of ten at each stage, from hundreds of undergraduates to just one faculty job becoming available every few years in your field.” Brian Keating, Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor

Yeah? Um, no. I don’t think so. I was a physics major, and I had NO interest in sparing for top ranking in my class.

Page 228. He also had the idea that the nominated people or groups should also be publicized, just like how people know who is up for Academy Awards. It can be an honor just to have been nominated.

Page 244. He mentions Planck data as showing that what BICEP2 found, was simply polarized light from dust grains in the Milky Way, it was not primordial polarized light from the time of the Big Bang.

After reading that he likes to hang with the likes of Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Lex Fridman, and Jordan Peterson, my opinion of him drops waaaayyy down considerably.

He is turning into a physics YouTuber chasing clout. I am going to stay away from him.

The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, etc., etc., etc.

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Ok, the whole book title is The 4-Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality. This book documented the process of how two different teams of scientists discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating back in 1998. If you are interested in the sociology of how different scientific disciplines do their work, this would be of interest. The author explained how the astronomers did group-based work quite differently from the physicists.

For example, on page 229, one can read this. “The core of White’s argument was that astronomy and particle physics constituted two different cultures. Astronomers, White said, were ‘generalists,’ exploring the complexities of the universe on a case-by-case basis. Particle physicists were ‘fundamentalists,’ wringing the complexities of the universe in the hope of squeezing out an ‘ultimate foundation’—a ‘Truth.’ ‘Dark Energy,’ he wrote, ‘is a unique link between them, reflecting deep aspects of the Fundamental Theory, yet apparently accessible only through astronomical observation.'” (From https://millstonenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/panek4PercentUniverse.pdf)

The book covered dozens and dozens of scientists, and I got lost trying to keep track of them all in my head. I probably should have taken notes. Pictures of the scientists involved might have helped me keep track of them all.

Overall, if you are interested in learning more about dark energy, and how different scientific teams work together (or not), then this book would be a worthwhile read.

Two mini book reviews on comets, asteroids, and astrophysics

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I’ve been reading a lot more books than usual this year, for some reason. I don’t read a lot, so it has been nice to get back into reading more books.

Catching Stardust: Comets, Asteroids and the Birth of the Solar System was really good. I really liked chapter 8 on the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. I find it fascinating how the little Philae lander bounced around the comet before coming to rest in a low section. It was still able to do good and unique science on the way there.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry was written by Neil deGrasse Tyson back in 2017. I had been meaning to read it for a while, and it was a good quick read. My favorite chapter was the last one on the Cosmic Perspective. I liked this line:

The cosmic perspective opens our eyes to the universe, not as a benevolent cradle designed to nurture life but as a cold, lonely, hazardous place, forcing us to reassess the value of all humans to one another. (Page 206.)