Skip to main content

Mark Wolverton - Five Way Interview

Mark Wolverton is a science journalist, author, dramatist, and 2016-17 Knight-MIT Science Journalism Fellow. He writes for various national and international publications including WIRED, Nature, Undark, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scientific American, American Heritage, The Atlantic, and Air & Space Smithsonian. He has also worked with the NASA Ames History Project, Argonne National Laboratory, MIT, the Franklin Institute, and the NASA ISS Science Office. His books include A Life in Twilight:The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Science of Superman. His latest title is Splinters of Infinity.

Why science?

As someone who was enthralled from a very tender age by 1950s science fiction movies, television shows such as Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and The Outer Limits, and the written works of authors such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, it wasn't much of a leap to become fascinated by science - the reality underlying the fiction. Although I worked as a fiction writer for years in various media, it was a natural progression for me when I decided over twenty years ago to change my focus from fictioneering to nonfiction science writing. Carl Sagan once observed that we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. I like to think that working as a science writer allows me to make some small contribution toward addressing that problem. 

Why this book?

After writing two books in a row dealing directly with nuclear weapons (not to mention my Oppenheimer book which was at least indirectly related to the topic), I was consciously seeking a change of pace. I found the subject of cosmic rays most appealing because it had a sort of lyricism, a poetry, a beauty, and was also more "pure science" than I've done before, yet still with a historical aspect. And it's definitely more positive and uplifting, rather than the gloom and doom and darkness of nuclear war and weaponry. Plus I liked the idea of writing about astronomy and astrophysics, because I haven't had as much chance to do that as I'd like. The book also provided an opportunity to delve into the nuts and bolts of doing science, both the neat and idealized world of lab work and data collection and the messy human side of personality clashes, professional rivalries, and how it's all influenced by press and public attention.

Why did cosmic rays capture the public (and press) imagination so strongly?

I think it was something of a perfect storm of different influences coming together: the flood of revolutionary scientific discoveries ranging from the scale of the universe down to the structure of the atom, along with the burgeoning influence and prevalence of mass media, coupled with the religious sensibilities of early 20th Century America, made people both awed and intimidated by humanity's place in the universe. That all made the notion of enigmatic radiation impinging upon the earth from somewhere unknown out in space fascinating and deliciously scary. Especially when eminent scientists such as Millikan and Compton seemed to promise that discovering the ultimate source, precise nature, and behavior of cosmic rays might be the answer to just about everything. The mystery and romance of the cosmic ray phenomenon struck a strong chord in the American public mind and made it an irresistible subject for newspaper editorials, armchair philosophers, religious sermons and tracts, whimsical humor, faith healers, advertisements, medical quacks, comic books, movie serials, and every other area of popular culture. Some touted cosmic rays as a source of unlimited energy, terrible "death rays," or universal healing. Everyone, from the citizen in the street to bishops and cardinals to scholars to humorists to football coaches, had something to say about it all. The cosmic ray grip on the popular imagination in the 1920s and 1930s was comparable to the contemporary public fascination for black holes, dark matter, and quantum physics.

What’s next? 

While continuing with my usual freelance work, I'm allowing the book writing muse to lie fallow for a while. I have a few vague ideas I'm exploring, but nothing definite as yet.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

I wouldn't exactly use the word "exciting," but I've been rather pleased and encouraged by the unexpected huge popularity of Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" film. And hopeful that its success heralds a fresh interest and concern in the vital issues addressed in the movie, especially the ever-growing threat of nuclear proliferation and war. (But then again, it probably won't.)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Free Agents - Kevin Mitchell ****

Free will is one of those subjects that you have to be brave to take on: Kevin Mitchell makes an impressive job of defending a concept that some feel is incompatible with science. We start by taking a look at the common reasoning against free will - that because everything that happens is deterministically based on the interactions of particles (fields if you prefer), then there is no actual ability to 'choose' - everything simply follows on from its previous state in a mechanical fashion. Admittedly when we then add in quantum physics, there is an element of randomness introduced, but that does not appear to provide any room for agents to select what will happen next. So far, so common a view. But Mitchell argues that this is too limited an approach. While there are indubitably structural limitations on our ability to act with agency, whether down to nature or nurture, he still suggests that we (and other organisms) have the opportunity to make choices, in part due to being ca...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...
Post a Comment
Read more