Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist

by Chad Orzel

Overview

When it comes to science, too often people say "I just don't have the brains for it" — and leave it at that. Why is science so intimidating, and why do people let themselves feel this way? What makes one person a scientist and another disinclined even to learn how to read graphs? The idea that scientists are people who wear lab coats and are somehow smarter than the rest of us is a common, yet dangerous, misconception that puts science on an intimidating pedestal. How did science become so divorced from everyday experience?

In Eureka, science popularizer Chad Orzel argues that even the people who are most forthright about hating science are doing science, often without even knowing it. Orzel shows that science is central to the human experience: every human can think like a scientist, and regularly does so in the course of everyday activities. The common misconception is that science is a body of (boring, abstract, often mathematical) facts. In truth, science is a process: Looking at the world, Thinking about what makes it work, Testing your mental model by comparing it to reality, and Telling others about your results — all things that people do daily. By revealing the connection between the everyday activities that people do — solving crossword puzzles, playing sports, or even watching mystery shows on television — and the processes used to make great scientific discoveries, Eureka shows that this process is one everybody uses regularly, and something that anyone can do.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465074969
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	12/09/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Chad Orzel received his BA in physics from Williams College, his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Maryland, and his postdoctorate from Yale University. He maintains a regular blog, Uncertain Principles, and is author of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. He is currently a professor at Union College in Schenectady, New York. He lives near campus with his wife, their daughter, and, of course, Emmy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Discovering Your Inner Scientist

Step One: Looking
Chapter 1. Collecting the Origin of Species
Chapter 2. Scientific Cuisine Reigns Supreme
Chapter 3. Needles in Haystacks
Chapter 4. Waldo at the Galaxy Zoo

Step Two: Thinking
Chapter 5. Setting the (Periodic) Table
Chapter 6. Asking the Allowed Questions: Bridge and Scientific Thinking
Chapter 7. Dinosaurs and Mysteries

Step Three: Testing
Chapter 8. Quantum Crosswords
Chapter 9. Precision Baking
Chapter 10. Like Chess Without the Dice: Sports and Scientific Thinking

Step Four: Telling
Chapter 11. Scientific Storytelling
Chapter 12. What’s Going to Work? Teamwork! Science as Collaboration
Chapter 13. Talking Sports
Chapter 14. Damned Lies and Statistics

Conclusion: Science is Never Over

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/06/2014
We all have an inner scientist, and Orzel, a professor of physics at Union College, says we put those inner scientists to work every day—whether we realize it or not. Orzel winnows down science to four basic steps: “Looking” involves collecting observations and searching for patterns, as Darwin did to create his theory on the origin of species. “Thinking” means reviewing your data and coming up with an explanation—a model—for what you’ve seen, the way Dmitri Mendeleev studied chemical properties of different substances to create the periodic table of the elements. “Testing” means devising experiments to test your model, as physicists did to determine what atoms are made of. “Telling” is sharing the story of your work with others. His vivid examples include pop culture touchstones Iron Chef and Where’s Waldo?, fantasy sports leagues, and the citizen-scientist organization Zooniverse. Orzel also enlivens the work with glimpses of fascinating scientists such as physicist Richard Feynman and astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work allowed scientists to deduce the presence of dark matter in galaxies. This fun, diverse, and accessible look at how science works will convert even the biggest science phobe. Agent: Erin Hosier, Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"Chad Orzel entertainingly argues that we are all scientists, with the innate ability to discover and create."—New Scientist

"Chad Orzel is absolutely right: everyone has a scientist inside them, eager to burst out and look at the world in a new way. This book provides great examples that will inspire you to let your inner scientist free."—Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at Caltech and author of TheParticle at the End of the Universe

"A good reminder that we are all capable of looking at the world scientifically and working things out, and we should all have the confidence to do that a bit more often."—BBC Focus

"Many people are curious about the natural world, but few consider themselves scientists. Using an engaging array of examples of scientific discovery—some recent, others drawn from history—Chad Orzel takes readers on a wonderful tour of how scientists think."—David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science, MIT andauthor of How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and theQuantum Revival

"I know, I know, you think you're just not smart enough to be a scientist. Chad Orzel might convince you otherwise with Eureka. Drawing on basketball, stamp collecting, Angry Birds, Iron Chef, and Antiques Roadshow among his many colorful examples, he ably demonstrates that science is not a rarefied alien endeavor performed solely by those with genius IQs. It's a process, and a way of thinking about the world available to all. Surprise! You're probably committing acts of science every day."—Jennifer Ouellette, author of The Calculus Diaries and Me, Myself and Why

"Drawing on a wide variety of examples and stories, many from sports and pop culture, Orzel writes in a crisp, clear, and entertaining style."—Winnipeg Free Press

"[Eureka] makes science fun for just about anybody."—Times Union, Albany

"In writing that is welcoming but not overly bouncy, persuasive in a careful way but also enticing, Orzel reveals the 'process of looking at the world, figuring out how things work, testing that knowledge, and sharing it with others.'"—Kirkus Reviews

"Similar to Richard Rhodes or Dava Sobel, Orzel makes complicated scientific narratives accessible to lay readers."—Library Journal

"This fun, diverse, and accessible look at how science works will convert even the biggest science phobe."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2014-10-19
Orzel (Physics/Union Coll.; How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, 2012, etc.) explains that we all think like scientists, at least some of the time; we just may not know it.What is science? Most of all, writes the author, it is a process. Its many products may be bewildering, but its process is anything but inscrutable ("not some incidental offshoot of more general human activity; it's the very thing that makes us who we are"). In writing that is welcoming but not overly bouncy, persuasive in a careful way but also enticing, Orzel reveals the "process of looking at the world, figuring out how things work, testing that knowledge, and sharing it with others." In the first part of the book, the author looks for patterns. He uses the pleasures of collecting things as a way of polishing his awareness of the importance of close observation. The next step—using your experiences in life, the frame of what you know—allows you to fashion your observations into a model, which is not just a story as to why something happened, but a source of optimism, as well, since it provides a real notion that the world is comprehensible. With an easy hand, Orzel ties together card games with communicating in the laboratory; playing sports and learning how to test and refine; the details of some hard science—Rutherford's gold foil, Cavendish's lamps and magnets—and entertaining stories that disclose the process that leads from observation to colorful narrative. There will be false leads, dead ends and red herrings, but the beauty is in the chase and in the pleasing fact that the practice of science is open to all races, genders and persuasions. Orzel's point is well-taken: Like breathing, we are engaging in the scientific process much of the time, even if we don't know it.

Kirkus Reviews