Climbing the cosmic distance ladder: Terence Tao book announcement
terrytao.wordpress.com
terrytao.wordpress.com
This ties in so well with my thinking on getting kids to perform the big important experiments of the past (measuring size of earth to extracting lime). How we got here technologically matters, probably more than who was King or which battle was won or lost.
Once a kid is at the age where he general has an idea of what metals are, and has the slightest knowledge of what iron metal is
Take some cereal, like bran flakes or something else with iron in it, put a serving or two in some water, blend it pretty well, then take a magnet to the blender cup to show him the non-negligible amount of iron that can be seen attracted to the magnet.
Then kinda be like... yeah - that metal you know about? Totally part of what makes your body work day to day, kid. Literally in your food and such.
It's a fun read. There are some surprisingly lively parts, like the unattributed chestnut analogy from Grothendieck , which Tao seems to have taken to heart, or this bit on Kepler calculating Mars' sidereal period:
> Kepler likely did not say “Bingo!” because that word hadn’t been coined yet, but this was precisely what Kepler needed. Bingo!
The Brahe-Kepler brouhaha also provides good evidence that the (much-derided on HN) territoriality of modern academia is not at all a new thing or limited to unimportant minds.
Looking forward to trying out this format. I like popular science books but it usually leaves me unsatisfied because I feel the actual story was hidden from me. Are there examples of other books that follow this format?