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he science book of the year in the United States is A Elevator to Space (Blackie Books). It narrates a journey to the future linked to the scientific innovations imagined by the Weinersmiths, a married couple of nerds. She is Kelly, an adjunct professor in the bioscience department at Rice University (Houston), a renowned researcher with publications in top-tier scientific journals such as Science and Nature, as well as a famous science communicator in media outlets such as National Geographic or BBC World, and host of one of the most followed podcasts in the United States, called Science… sort of. And he, Zach, is known for his webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, where he combines comic and science, as he is a physicist by training and a cartoonist by profession.
The nerdy journalist who writes these lines has enjoyed and learned by reading this ingenious book, about which she had the privilege of conversing, during this particular elevator pitch between nerds that we shared for The New Barcelona Post:
You say in the book that your nerd pride was at stake. What did you think of media outlets like The Wall Street Journal or Popular Science considering it the best science book of the year in the US? Quite flattering! However, nerd pride depends on the opinion of a small group of obsessive nerds. Since the obsessive nerds seemed happy with the book (or at least didn't flood us with emails containing corrections!), we feel our nerd pride is intact.
Throughout the work, you refer to the lack of resources to make certain scientific advances a reality. Is money a key factor preventing the "future" from becoming a reality? Yes, but it's more complicated than just money. This is part of why it will be very difficult to get a space elevator. The ideal materials are very long, very strong, and very, very light molecules. These molecules are extremely expensive to manufacture, and are unlikely to ever become cheap unless some aspect of their production is valuable to a market. For example, if every car were made of long carbon nanotubes, that would reduce their price, which might then give us the material to build a space elevator cable. We think something like that is more likely to create a space elevator than, for example, spending a large amount of tax money on a scientific agency to build space elevators.
Unfortunately, many of the mad geniuses we interviewed had no downside, but were intelligent, physically attractive, and rich. Life is unfair.
Ancient Egyptians invented the folding stool but never built an IKEA; the Greeks created complex gear systems but never made a proper clock... Is there anything similar that we might have closer than we actually know? It's hard to predict! Ryan North wrote a wonderful book called How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler [How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for a Stranded Time Traveler] that talks about these kinds of things. He points out that to make a compass, you only need a piece of string and a bit of magnet. Neanderthals could have done this! It's very possible that there's an incredible breakthrough we could have made 100 years ago, which we simply haven't realized.
You confess in the book that you spoke with several "mad professors" for your research, and that you love them. What is their appeal? It's hard to say, maybe we're drawn to the idea that genius has a downside, as if to say "maybe she's smarter than me, but she's also weird!" Unfortunately, many of the mad geniuses we interviewed had no downside, but were intelligent, physically attractive, and rich. Life is unfair.
If we act to improve the world, science will help us; if we act to worsen the world, science will help us there too
In science, you explain that what seems complicated is easy, and what seems easy is actually difficult. Examples? Often, when researching a topic, your opinion is excessively informed by popular science and by the misconceptions you have in your brain. For example, getting a fusion reactor to work on your desk is relatively easy, although, of course, it won't be a good way to power your house, as it consumes more energy than it generates. In contrast, something that seems easy and is quite difficult is landing on asteroids. In movies, astronauts simply park their spacecraft on gigantic solid rocks. In reality, it would be much more difficult. Asteroids provide very little gravity. If you don't hook onto the asteroid, you will simply bounce off and return to space. In reality, it's worse than that: asteroids are often "rubble piles," made of small rocks and dust, rather than solid rock or metal. So, you're trying to land on something that has almost no gravity, and that breaks apart every time you touch it. It's not an easy task, although we discuss some possible methods in the book.
What would you like to invent? We would love a brain-computer interface that would allow us to read books more quickly.
Me too. And could we have a better world thanks to science? Science can make life easier, and science can give us more options, and science can even say "if you want to get something good out of life, this is the best way." But science cannot tell you what is good in life. Is it better to be happy or free? Is it better to live a great life or to do a great thing? Is it better to have a life of leisure or a life of struggle? These are questions for philosophy and for the individual. That said, we can all agree that, for example, a new cancer drug or a new way to stop malaria are objectively "better." However, most scientific discoveries can make life better depending on how we use technology. Simply put, if we act to make the world better, science will help us; if we act to make the world worse, science will help us there too.