Michael JasonSmith🕮 I finished “Our Accidental Universe: Stories of Discovery from Asteroids to Aliens” by @Chrislintott . A fantastic read. The stories are less about what was discovered and more about the process of science. Sometimes the process of discovery is straight forward. Often it is not, and there are good stories to go along with it.
In the book Chris Lintott tells tales of how many recent discoveries in astronomy were made. I had heard some of these stories before — but from Astronomers of Questionable Sobriety. The tales told in this book were as fun as when I first heard them, and I am far more confident that the stories have been fact-checked. Chris Lintott's writing style was very easy to read and the footnotes* were fun.
* I loved the footnotes.
2/4
I most appreciated how Christ Lintott conveyed how science is a process of discovering facts, rather than a collection of facts. There were many occasions where the stories bumped into the limits of our knowledge. I found these moments, somehow, thrilling. It was the same thrill that I got from watching “Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World” as a kid. I loved the mystery of that show; I loved the thrill that one may be able to go out into woods and see bigfoot.
💀 https://youtu.be/qmiGZqpCtQY?si=fr8iN1w_A47Ay2-A
3/4
💀 https://youtu.be/qmiGZqpCtQY?si=fr8iN1w_A47Ay2-A
3/4
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World - Opening credits - 1980 - ITV
For me, “Our Accidental Universe” has a similar excitement to that old TV series. There is excitement about how we can discover more, and will discover more. 🔭 LSST will discover more interstellar objects. 🪐 Dragonfly will discover more about the weird world of Titan. 🛰️ Europa Clipper will find out more about the hidden seas of Jupiter's icy moon. There are mysteries, but also a process. And at the end of that process there is wonder, and more mysteries. 4/4
Chrislintott@mpj17 thanks for the review. Love the comparison to Mysterious World! Though I do now have the Divine Comedy song about it stuck in my head https://open.spotify.com/track/6qKOMrjxvDJEH8CkSEpSdg?si=sJgaGuqmQVqd4GfIr7NUrA
@Chrislintott 🙇 Apologies for the ear worm. I am only a little sorry, given I have had the Mysterious World theme on loop in my head, off and on, for days. 💀 😁