StarTalk Radio

Pastel Snow Scrapbook Paper Craft Pad

Creative Corner

This beautiful little book was about an experience Kepler had in 1609 where he mused on the symmetry of snowflakes, asking why they are all six-cornered. Kepler speculated in the book about the origin of this symmetry, comparing the snowflake to beehives and pomegranate seeds, and concluding by saying he was knocking on the doors of chemistry but didn't know enough to continue.

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He wrote a very beautiful little book called The Six Corners Snowflake, which you can get today. It's still in print.

The Demon-Haunted World

Carl Sagan

A favorite book of Brian Cox, this work was referenced when discussing the failure of society to provide citizens with access to truly fascinating mysteries, instead leaving them prone to misinformation. Cox recounted a story Sagan told about a cab driver asking him about UFOs and Atlantis, which Sagan interpreted as a sign of educational failure.

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To go back to Carl Sagan, you know, one of my favorite books is The Demon Haunted World.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, boxed set

Richard P. Feynman

Mentioned as a source for a beautiful explanation of how tides work, specifically regarding the need to consider orbital motion and centrifugal forces alongside gravity. The speaker noted that they paid real money for their hardcover copies, though the lectures might be freely available online now.

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But it's beautifully described in the Feynman lectures, which are freely available online. Is that right? You can get them. I think they're free.

Light

Kimberly Arcand

It was described as an expensively produced book about light, the visible spectrum, and beyond. The book's co-author was also mentioned.

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This is just a stunning book. This is just an expensively produced, just look at this. It's an expensively produced book.

The World in Six Songs

Daniel J. Levitin

This book, published in 2008, posited that music became important due to at least six independent evolutionary pressures encoded in the genome.

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and this is something I devoted a whole book to in 2008, The World in Six Songs. The subtitle was How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature

The Singing Neanderthals

Steven Mithen

This book was mentioned in the context of a theory where some sort of proto-language was music, suggesting humans were musicians before they could talk.

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and Stephen Mithan has written a wonderful book called The Singing Neanderthals where he posits that some sort of proto-language was music.

Successful Aging

Daniel J. Levitin

The speaker mentioned this previous book where he discussed that it's never too late to learn an instrument because it is neuroprotective and helps build cognitive reserve.

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I write about this in Successful Aging which was the previous book but also re-iterated here

I Heard There Was a Secret Chord

Daniel J. Levitin

This was the title of Daniel Levitin's recent book, which the speakers noted was beautiful and drew them in.

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which has the beautiful title I heard there was a secret chord That's great

Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium

Jr. Lyman Spitzer

One of the hosts mentioned having one of Lyman Spitzer's books on the show. The book was referenced in relation to the discussion of infrared observation in astronomy and comet science.

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And I have one of his books on the show.

The Physical Universe

Frank H. Shu

Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned having one of Lyman Spitzer's books on the show, indicating familiarity with his work and its relevance to the discussion on dark comets.

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And I have one of his books on the show.

A Mathematician's Apology

G H Hardy

It was mentioned in the context of a famous mathematician, G.H. Hardy, who delighted in the fact that certain kinds of math would never be used as instruments of war. This was ironic, given the later uses of prime numbers in cryptography and relativity in GPS.

Contact

Carl Sagan

It was mentioned that Carl Sagan advised the producers of 2001: A Space Odyssey not to show the aliens, and that this was preserved in his novel Contact, where the aliens are not shown.

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I'm told and you might have some other insight here that Carl Sagan at the time though young advised the producers of that film to not show the aliens and leave it to your imagination and that fact was preserved in his novel contact when the screen version at least you don't see the aliens at all