Like many people I know, I can't read one book at a time, so when I got two books to review this month I inevitably read them side by side and finished about the same time. In the interest of not letting them sit around any longer, this Cocktail Party post will serve up a double.
The title here is not in reference to my own idea to do this review jointly, but a combination of the many words contained in each book title. The first is Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up by K.C. Cole, and the second is A Brilliant Darkness: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the Nuclear Age, by Joao Magueijo. What a couple a' mouthfuls, huh?
A Brilliant Darkness is Magueijo's personal search for the brilliant physicist Ettore Majorana, who disappeared in 1939 without a trace. If you're not familiar with Majorana by name, you're probably not not a physicist and probably not from Italy. Outside of those spheres, he managed to avoid earning the name recognition of some of his colleagues like Heisenberg, Fermi and Dirac. Majorana was a mathematical prodigy born in Sicily in 1906. He entered the physics community just in time to join the first generation of quantum physicists, and worked closely with Enrico Fermi, although the two were as different as night and day. Then again, there really wasn't anyone quite like Ettore Majorana. He might have been the first person to theorize the existence of the neutron, but as he did with many of his theoretical breakthroughs, he let the paper sit unpublished until someone else made the discovery and claimed credit. It never seemed to bother Majorana, which drove Fermi nuts. In 1939 Majorana bought a boat ticket to Naples and never came back. No one is sure if he was really on board, if he arrived, if he took the return trip that he also had a ticket for, or if he ever intended for anyone to know exactly what happened. Whether the troubled genius committed suicide (he did struggle with depression and feelings of isolation) or chose to start a new life (he collected a few months salary before he left) no one knows. The book doesn't offer any huge new revelations, but serves as a compilation of theories and information, told through Magueijo's engaging and conversational writing style. It seems that Magueijo's motivation for writing the book, after so many have already been written about Majorana, was due to his scientific nature; he couldn't be satisfied with the answer unless he discovered it for himself.
Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens begins as a biography of Frank Oppenheimer, though not such an extensive one that it begins to bore. Oppenheimer was known very well for two things: his brother, Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," and his creation of the Exploratorium, something I can only describe as one of the most wonderful places on Earth. More about that later. Frank was a physicist, just like Robert, and just like Robert he was torn out of his budding career when he was blackballed from physics during the McCarthy era. Federal agents tracked Frank and his family and interrogated their neighbors for many years, searching for evidence of treason and making up reasons when they couldn't find any. Like his brother, Frank's connection to the bomb and his ideas for nuclear arms control put him at odds with those in charge. His membership in the communist party during his 20's worked against both brothers. When job offers at universities and laboratories began to evaporate before Frank could grab onto them, he retreated to the mountains of Colorado to work on a ranch. One year he opted to teach high school physics in Boulder, and this experience changes his life, and the lives of many others, forever. It is in their darkest hours that the brothers begin to walk on dramatically different paths, and Frank spends the second half of his life dedicated to something incredibly wonderful.
Cole has quite an advantage over Magueijo in terms of writing: she's been a science writer for more than 30 years, is a professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg school of journalism,and has three other science books under her belt. She's one of those writers whose words flow so smoothly that you get lost in the story and almost forget that you're reading. She's not just a science writer, she's one of the best science writers. Magueijo is a physicist, albeit a writer as well. But it's still two different leagues.
Magueijo is no stranger to science writing, having already penned the highly successful Faster than the Speed of Light. So Magueijo uses what advantages he has. His book contains some actual physics (Cole's does not) and he does a great job of tackling some pretty complex particle physics. His explanation of how matter-antimatter annihilation occurs is fairly in depth for a pop-physics book, yet it is understandable, and it certainly enlightened me about some of the details.
In addition, Magueijo's story is more dramatic than Cole's. He admits he is searching for human drama, and has no qualms about making the story a little dirty, a little gossipy. We follow Maguejio to Italy where he somewhat recklessly sets up interviews with Majorana's family, admitting that somewhere in his mind he hopes they will be hiding Majorana in their attic. He arrives at Majorana's childhood home only to remember that he can barely speak Italian. It becomes hilarious and entertaining to hear him recount the dialog between he and Majorana's family: they offer up heartfelt descriptions of Ettore, while Magueijo jabbers like Tarzan, speaking only in the present tense.
Here again the two books greatly diverge: Magueijo didn't know Majorana. Almost no one really knew him. Cole, on the other hand, was close friends with Oppenehiemer and had been working on a book with him before his death. She sees so deeply into his philosophy and point of view, and can describe so aptly his physical presence, that at times it feels as though we are standing there with him.
On the flip side, in Magueijo's tale, he is as much a central character as Majorana.
At first I had trouble determining what Magueijo was after. Why was he bringing us along on this quest if it was fairly certain we wouldn't find out what really happened to Majorana? But eventually the search builds momentum and we the reader are sucked into the story. Magueijo continues to heavily inject his own personality into the writing, which makes it not only a gripping mystery but a sort of gossip column about the world of physics in the 1930's (something that I absolutely loved).
What is most frustrating about the whole story is not that Majorana's fate is still unknown - but that during his life we did not get to see the full extent of his genius. How might this man have changed the course of physics had he only cared to open the floodgates of his mind and let the contents pour out on the world? That opens the question of whether or not Magueijo was running away from something in his own life, or if he was running away from something inside his own head. There is plenty of speculation that Majorana saw something in his theories that terrified him enough to leave the world behind. Perhaps he predicted the possibility of a nuclear bomb. Would it be enough to make a man run away from the world? We never really know, and must be content with out a definite answer.
While Magueijo searched for human drama, Cole searched for human passion. She handles Frank Oppenheimer quite gently, while still trying to dig through the outer layers and expose his way of thinking, his philosophy. She confronts the task of revealing what she knew of Oppenheimer as his friend, and removing her personal biases from her complete portrait of him (like facing up to the fact that he cheated on his wife). But the second half of the book could not have been written by anyone else. Having spent the last ten years of Frank's life working with him to write a book (that was never published) Cole has incredible insight and detailed information about Oppenheimer's view of the world. It evolves from a biography of Oppenheimer's life, into a manifesto of his philosophy about teaching.
At this point I must admit that these two books become completely incomparable. Magueijo has weaved a great story, and I highly recommend it for fans of physics, mysteries and histories alike. It is a great addition to any science literature collection, but ultimately it is only that. Cole's book, on the other hand, is much more.
Oppenheimer believed that everyone can understand science; because science was not merely the vocation, or the frustrating subject in school. Science is our innate ability to perceive, to be aware. He became passionate about awakening and reawakening the innate curiosity that drives science, in every person he encountered. Science is not work, but play. It is not the task of reaching a correct answer but the joyous journey we take toward our own understanding. It was this philosophy that motivated him to build a science museum. What he actually created was the Exploratorium. It took a stubborn, anxious, obsessive and eccentric man to finish it, but often that is exactly what some of the most progressive works of art require. If you haven't been to the Exploratorium, put it on your list of things you must see. Don't wait until you retire either. Plan one trip now and another trip later and another and another and another.
The Exploratorium, which rests in the astounding Palace of the Arts in San Francisco, is a wonderland of discovery. I have never been to a science museum like this one. It casts off every aspect of the word "museum." There is no organization, no special path you are supposed to take, there are very few placards explaining exactly what you're supposed to get out of the exhibits (I think a better word is "toys"). When you do see things written down next to the exhibits, they are usually encouraging and open ended, with things like "What do you notice?" rather than "You should notice this..." It is a place where people run around. A place where people can work at their own pace and end up making more meaningful discoveries. The freedom it gives your mind, and the materials it offers to expand them, are unlike anything else anywhere. The overarching metaphor Cole uses to describe it is a walk in the woods. Oppenheimer often took walks as a child and would discover hidden treasures and secret locations. Upon taking a companion with him, he found it was much better to let that companion make his or her own discoveries, rather than try to show them his own.
Another idea behind the Exploratorium was to make everything transparent. Nothing about the exhibits is hidden; their mechanisms are all clearly visible. And ultimately, even nature is opened up and on display. And that is the essence of science. After visiting the Exploratorium, seeing science unveiled, I had to wonder what was behind the Exploratorium's veil. How did it tap into my curiosity and let it pour fourth? What was the secret behind this place?
Cole's book has the answer. She spends the second half of the book rebuilding every facet of the Exploratorium's philosophy, which was mostly Frank Oppenheimer's philosophy. From the funding (which Oppenheimer often pulled together at the last minute with his addictive enthusiasm) to the teenage Explainers who worked there (whose youthful excitement Oppenheimer valued above the experience of adults), Cole brings it all to the surface. I would say it is a guidebook for science education, but really, it's a guidebook for education of any kind.
In addition, Cole talks at length about Oppenheimer's feelings about where science fits within our society and culture, and puts words to many emotions I have felt on this topic but never been able to pin down. I think this segment captures one main point of Cole's thesis:
"Along with curiosity, we seem to have lost the conviction that the world is understandable at all, perhaps because so many aspects of modern society seem incomprehensible. As Frank liked to point out, most of us are in daily contact with at least as much that we do not understand as were the early Greeks or Babylonians. And yet we do not, in general, ask questions because we have no context to help us absorb the answers. 'We end up in the paradoxical situation in which one of the effects of science is to dampen curiosity,' Frank said."
And this:
"People hadn't had experiences that would get them asking questions on their own. They used cameras, Frank noted, but never held a simple lens to make an image on a wall. They used electric toasters, but never connected a wire across a battery and watched it get red hot. They may have spent hours watching ocean waves,but never observed the way waves pass through each other, bend around corners, or bounce off cliffs. No one had pointed out such things or encouraged such play."
(Even now as I try to pick a favorite paragraph to show you, I find myself wanting to copy down entire chapters.)
But somehow science had lost this connection with culture - the body of beliefs that subtly yet powerfully guides every aspect of our lives. This was a strange thing, Frank thought. When we study ancient cultures we always look at their conceptions of nature, their technologies, their views on the origins of the universe and the relationship of people to both the physical universe and each other. Even the Bible begins with what is essentially cosmology. "It would be inconceivable to study the Greeks without taking into account their ideas about the natural world - much of it embodied in mythology," Frank wrote. "Native American cultures are often described primarily in terms of people's relationship to nature. Science in our modern society is viewed primarily as a vocational subject. Oppenheimer thought one of the reasons science was so unattractive to people was because, "it has not succeeded in changing the way they look at themselves."
This book is truly a must read for anyone involved in science education (a bold statement that I stand by). The philosophy it has about science education can be applied to education in general. Even my dad, who works in business education, thought it was a beautiful book and is buying copies for some of his employees. Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens is also, quite simply, a reflection of a truly passionate man. Someone who loved life so much he had to share it with others. I may be kidding myself that everyone who reads this book will be so touched by it. Not everyone who visits the Exploratorium falls in love with it. But many people who don't expect to fall in love with it, do. And I have confidence that this is not a special interest book. Fans of Frank Oppenheimer, fans of K.C. Cole, lovers of science, educators and anyone who loves a good story, will all find reasons to be inspired by it.
OH YEAH that one comment by Frank about dampening curiosity is so good. I always get so overcome with all the stuff I gotta learn that I just don't learn anything sometimes, it's dumb. So I just don't think about it anymore and learn the stuff anyway and it makes me feel a lot better.
Posted by: david | January 09, 2010 at 06:42 PM
book is truly a must read for anyone involved in science education.
Posted by: argan | June 03, 2010 at 03:51 AM