Transcripts

Season 1 Bonus Episode - Wrap up

Season 1 Episode 8 - Interview with Scott Huler

Tripp: This show was recorded in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia, where the traditional custodians include the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm Tripp Collins, and this is Book Science. The podcast explores how the best science books are written and why they matter. Today I'm talking with Scott Huler. Scott is an author, editor, and producer of written and audio content.

He is the walking embodiment of curiosity. He kept me laughing throughout this conversation, and I've learned so much from Scott, from his books and from this conversation in particular. You can find out more about Scott at ScottHuler.com, and I hope you enjoy this conversation with this absolute legend. So today we are talking to Scott Huler. Scott is a man of many talents. He's a writer and a producer of audio and video content. He's the author of many nonfiction books, at least six by my account, including two that we'll focus on today, which are Defining the Wind, the Beaufort Scale, and how a 19th century emerald turned science into poetry. And Defining the Wind recently celebrated a 20-year anniversary published in 2004.

We'll also be talking about a delicious country rediscovering the Carolinas along the route of John Mawson's 1700 expedition, published 2019 by the University of North Carolina Press. So, Scott, thank you so much for joining me today.

Scott Huler: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Tripp: So bear with me for a second, because I'm going to do a little work now to sort of set up the conversation. You have referred to Defining the Wind as a book-length love letter to the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force. Yeah, the book isn't about Beaufort per se. The book is sort of about your obsession with language.

And satisfying your curiosity of how this prose came to be, you uncover all this like fascinating history and science. And then there's Delicious Country, about but not about another historical figure, John Lawson, born exactly a century before Beaufort. And in Delicious Country, you retrace Lawson's path all the while contrasting your observations with his from 300 years prior.

You're listening for and you're finding these echoes from the past and rhymes in history. I think part of what makes these like Huler projects is that they're not really easy to give like a short synopsis or define them in a single sentence. I think you have to actually go into them and experience them for yourself. And I think this reflects sort of how you work. So you throw yourself into a topic. I mean, you absolutely immerse yourself. Then you carefully observe and you document your journey. And then you report back to us much, much like Lawson himself. So do you agree with this assessment? And how would you characterize it?

Scott Huler: I agree with that very much. I think that's very accurate and very observant. What I would say is that most of what I do and we can go into each of these books is very different. But if there's a through line through all of my work, whether it's my books or, you know, my radio work or journalism, anything like that, underneath all of it is the exhortation to pay attention to what is happening around.

I think I say in the Beaufort book that the universe is whispering its secrets into our ears and we're telling it to shut up because we're too busy looking at our phones. And what I love to do is find something that I didn't know about that surprises me and then dig into it. And the people who fascinate me and both Beaufort and Lawson were absolutely great examples of this were people who were paying very close attention, who were taking notes, who were trying to explain what they see, who were trying to understand what they experienced. And trying to share that with other people, both Lawson and Beaufort were not just people who were doing amazing exploration.

They were people who wanted everybody else to understand that. As you say, the language is such a fundamental part of it to me. I'm a writer. I love language. I love working with it and manipulating it and thinking about it and being delighted and surprised by it. And that's how really, in a way, that's how my entire work as a writer started was by stumbling onto the Beaufort scale and falling in love with it first as a piece of writing and then ultimately as a scientific tool.

Tripp: When you were paying attention, like you did when you first read the Beaufort scale, how do you separate the week from the shaft? How do you know that something is worth paying attention to?

Scott Huler: Well, what a great question. It's, I guess, which Supreme Court justice was it about pornography? I know it when I see it. The best way I would tell you how anybody is listen to yourself, listen to your heart rate, wait for the hair in your arms to stand up. When something, wait, actively hope for your mind to be blown.

And when something blows your mind, just stop and be there for that moment. So with the Beaufort scale, what happened was I was a copy editor at a publisher about computer systems. This was like before when fax were just coming out in the early 80s. And I was excited because our copy editing office was a little, was perceived as kind of an ivory tower. We sat there and we tinkered with prose. We didn't, our job wasn't to understand the technology. Our job was to understand the, and to fix it. Get the words spelled right, get the clauses straight, get the sentences straight.

I always like to say that you start with letters. You know, if this word spelled right, then you move on to the words, okay, does this clause blow? And then does this clause, does it fit into the sentence in which it resides?

Then that sentence. There's a paragraph. And that paragraph is part of a passage. That passage is part of a chapter. That chapter is part of a book. The copy editor's job is to make every piece of that thing. You want to get rid of anything that doesn't do a job.

E.B. White famously said that a good sentence has no extra words for the same reason that a machine has no extra parts. Because if it's not doing a job, it shouldn't be there. That doesn't mean language shouldn't be beautiful or a machine shouldn't be. It means that if it's not doing work, why is it there?

And you should think about that. So I loved the work of understanding language and how it works. You know, language is technology. Language is a machine. And figuring out how it worked was great for me as a copy editor. And I like to tell people that a copy editor, the relationship between a copy editor and their dictionary is a little bit like the relationship between an adolescent and like a playboy magazine. Less that’s known the better.

The relationship is a little too intense for outside eyes. But you read the dictionary. If a copy editor considers himself a night errant, him or herself, which most do and they should, because copy editing is God's work on earth. The dictionary is your squire. The dictionary is the person working with you. And so I would just, we would read the dictionary when we had a few moments.

You would just rip through it. You have this wonderful relationship with your dictionary. And one day I opened it up and here's the Beaufort scale. And I'm reading it. And I'm stunned by not just the beauty of the language, the language of the Beaufort scale is beautiful, but by its efficiency. The Beaufort scale, it's 110 words long.

I've counted. And it tells you everything that the wind can do from zero smoke rises vertically. Think of what a powerful piece of descriptive prose that smoke rises vertically. You know, instantly, if you're looking at a chimney or something and the smoke is going straight up, there is not a breath of because it takes no wind at all for the wind to, for the smoke to drift. So smoke is rising vertically.

Wow. And also smoke rises. I love that sentence.

Subject, verb, adverb. What a beautiful, and you've learned so much. And then, you know, sentence after sentence, it would take you somewhere and it was using all of your senses.

The sensory data is what blew my mind about that. Two, one, by their direction of wind shown by smoke, but not by wind. Two, wind felt on face, leaves rustle, ordinary vein moved by wind. That's already using four of your senses. Right. If assuming you could smell that smoke, you're looking, hearing, you're feeling wind felt on face.

Who hasn't had that experience? This is a scientific, a linguistic scientific instrument for explaining what the wind is doing and you're getting this poetic stuff. And then of course you get up to five fresh breeze with the small trees in leaf begin to sway. Well, as you know, in English, Iambic is our natural rhythm. Small trees and leaf begin to, that's Iambic tetrameter.

And then crested, wavelets form on inland water. That's iambic pentameter. Oh my God, you're just reading this and you're like, this is the best home I've ever read. What, what's going on here? And I'm showing it to the other people in the copywriting office. Oh, that's kind of nice.

Nobody's, nobody's experiencing the sort of paroxysm of joy that I am. So I'm like, okay, this is special for me, but I need to know more about. And that's where I think it turns out that I didn't know it at the time that I'm a natural reporter. That's what I am.

I'm a, I'm a researcher. I, my entire life. Who's, who's more lucky than me? My entire life is indulging my A student tendency. And I get to be a student who, who researched so deeply and found something.

I remember turning in a paper to a professor in college and I remember him writing in the margin after some fact I had found said, I did not know this. That's it. That's it. I'm on Mark's more.

If I told my professor something he didn't know before, that means I'm there where I need to. And so here's this Beaufort scale. And I start, well, I want to know the story of the Beaufort and who's Beaufort and how was the scale written and all this kind of stuff.

Well, as you well know, there's a 245 word book out there telling you far more than you could possibly care about the Beaufort scale at this point. But I spent years of my life, many years trying to do it on the fly, right? Trying to, like I would get a job as a reporter in some newsroom and I would, when it was late at night, I would sneak an international call and call like the British Museum and ask them some question and they would tell me something and then I would do more researching in libraries and then I would have to call again and it was just dreamly love research. And I really couldn't get, I read the, I read the biography of Beaufort that was out there, Beaufort of the Admiralty. My, now my wife then, my girlfriend would see me with that and she would say, Beaufort of the... Yeah.

It was a great thing. And that didn't really, it talked about the Beaufort scale, but it was clear that it wasn't written the way I fell in love with it in 1806 when Beaufort wrote it. And Beaufort died in, you know, what, 1857 or something like that. And they're leaving out part of this story and it turned out that nobody had really thoroughly written that.

So it was out there for me to write, which was an absolute thrill for me to take something that I thought was so beautiful and so important and be the person who got to share it with the world in a, not like it wasn't shared before, but in a way that they could learn the story. Yeah.

Tripp: I want to react to a couple of things here. So I just think it's amazing that you sort of were attuned enough with your sensibilities to pick up on that lightning bolt when you came across it. And I guess that's what paying attention means is feeling yourself react to something and not ignoring it.

But then also you were sort of the right person. You had the right sensibilities and you noticed all those, the intricate structure of the language, whereas other people might not have seen that at all. It is remarkable though, because it conveys more information than the words should. The words by themselves only carry so much meaning, but the way that they're packaged together, full of imagery and sensory information, it is quite remarkable. You got this spark.

How did you sustain this project? And you sort of touched on this. You said you sort of carried it around with you. But at some point you knew this was a story that sort of belonged to you, that no one had told. Well, for a long time,

Scott Huler: I think I thought the problem was that I couldn't figure out, you know, that there was a book out there that told the whole story and I couldn't find it or that everybody knows how the Beaufort scale was made and where, you know, I'm just such a bad researcher that I couldn't get to it. And I worried about, I don't know if you know the joke about the pancakes, the lady with the pancakes, that I was, it's an old, old, old joke where a lady is sitting in front of a psychiatrist and she says, and he says, okay, well, why are you here? And she said, well, my children said I needed to come. And he said, well, why? And she said, well, because I love pancakes. And he said, because you love pancakes, I love pancakes. That's no reason to go to a psychiatrist. I love pancakes myself. And she says, you do, you must come to my house.

I have 40 trunks of them in my attic. I felt like that was me, uh, about the Beaufort scale, like people would come to my house and I would mention the Beaufort scale and they would say, wow, that sounds kind of cool. And I'd say, okay, wait, wait, wait. And I would run up and I would get this burdening folder and start spreading things out that I had photocopied from these different sources.

And they would get this look on their face where they're like, okay, back away slowly. And, um, but I just believed that there was something there. And now part of what it was was the beauty of the language. But another part of it, as I've come to realize as my life has gone, is that I call Beaufort in, in Define in the Wind, I call him the last 18th century.

And I realize that I'm a modern person who yet looks back at the 18th century enlightenment way of looking at the world. That's my natural. We can understand this. We can figure this out. We can solve this. We can move forward.

We can leave things better than we found them. We have this obligation. We have this responsibility.

Let's do this. We can all just make things better. And like the world is understandable. A broken process is repairable. A situation is perfectible. Now, of course, much of that turns out not to be true.

I regret to say, as we're noticing recently, but that both 40 and cents, the more I learned about Beaufort, the more I realized that he was like me. I just want to understand everything. I want to read everything. I want to see everything. I want to explain everything. I call my office the explainatorium because it's just, it's where I go to try to explain things.

Of course, ask my kids how fun that is to be around. What are you looking at? Well, let me tell you, and they're like, oh, no, oh, no.

Oh, here it comes. I finally got to a point where I could tell there is, as you say, there is a story here that has not been, I didn't find the key until I had already sold the notion of the book and was really researching the book. It was only when I could really say, this is my job is researching this project, that I finally got to all the different places I needed to and found the 1906 paper written by a cadre of engineers that had the beautiful book.

Tripp: At some point, you were able to center that work in your life. Right.

Scott Huler: I spent many years as a reporter. Now, I didn't want to, I didn't set out to be a reporter. I set out to be a writer, which you should think ruffled, leave, cut, and a quill pen. You sit around and stroke your skin and then you think, ah-ha, in a light bulb or maybe like a whale oil lamp appears over your head and then you begin writing your deathless prose. Of course, that turns out not to be how it works. I started selling little things and found that, hey, if you write things for newspapers and magazines, they give you money and you could make your living doing that.

So I stumbled into journalism as a pure features writer. I was never like your cop shop guy. I was never the guy up to my armpits in FOIA requests.

Right. I was always the guy when I was on staff at a newspaper or magazine, I was the guy who like if your cat could play the violin, I was the guy you would. So I fell into this love affair with writing features because their job, if you're a features writer at a newspaper or magazine or at a radio station, your job is to find weird stuff going down and then go there and ask the people, why are you doing that? How's that work? Tell me more about that and then you get to explain it to people and then you're on to the next. It's the best job in the world for somebody who's naturally curious, who likes language and who's the boring guy at the dinner party who makes everybody at the table listen to some stupid things. I stumbled into book writing when I got tired of newspapering and would sell one, you know, I'd do this book or that book and it was great.

I loved it. And then one day I was looking at the Beaufort stuff and thinking like, you know, maybe that's a book, maybe there's a way to do it. And I wrote a whole proposal for it and sent it to my agent and I don't know how many different ways to say no, there are things. But she was, yeah, I don't think so.

No. And so I threw it aside. We came to a point where now my wife, then my girlfriend, she moved away for a while and left me kind of stranded in Nashville. It was a strange way to say it. But I was living and I didn't have many friends around and, you know, I had my job and I was basically alone a lot of the time. And so on the spur of the moment, I decided to apply for a journalism fellowship, a mid-career journalism. And when I was doing the application, I said, well, what would you do if you get this fellowship? What will you do?

You'll have a year and the resources of the University of Michigan of the Knight Wallace Fellowship, one of the great fellowships. You know, I would finally get to the bottom of the book. I pulled out the old proposal that my agent had scorned. I looked at this and I thought, you know, I kind of still believe in this. And I asked my agent, I said, do you mind if I showed it to a couple other people? And she was like, knock yourself out.

And you could see in the thought bubble above her head, here's Huler crawling back. Nobody wants this thing. And I reached out to a few agents. I think I reached out to five agents. Every single one of them wanted to represent the book. Amazing.

I think what happened was longitude. You have a silver bullet? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, of course. And it sort of invented the kind of pocket history genre where I'm going to take a weird little thing that you haven't thought about and I'm going to tell you how it changed the world or whatever. When I have ultimately wrote the Beaufort Scale book, they kept saying at the crown, well, what's the subtitle? We need to show how it changed the world. And I was like, it didn't change the world.

It's just cool. It didn't change the world. We can't say it did. And maybe that's why the book didn't sell there as well. That's why I always tell people that go to a bookstore and say, I'm looking for a well-reviewed book that didn't sell well. And I go, OK, Huler, under H, we have a whole cell full of books that's not good reviewed but sold like dogs. But at any rate, suddenly I had a new agent who wanted to represent this book. And at the same time, the fellowship actually came through.

It moved forward. And I was just like, suddenly I have all of this fellowship money and then I have book advanced money. And I was like, for a year, all I need to do is research this. And I went to England and I went to South America to, I sailed on a square rigger.

I mean, with resources behind you, you can do things. And this was the first time that this was a new experience for me. My wife said a very funny thing at that point. She said, Monday morning, find out whether I got the fellowship. And then Tuesday, there had been enough interest expressed in the proposal that they were selling this book at auction.

And Jenn said, Wednesday is going to be boring. Very funny. My wife. You know, suddenly the Beaufort scale was my life. And I'll never forget in the fellowship interest that got me the fellowship, one of the people on the board of the fellowships was from the nursing. And she said, so the Beaufort scale, if you get the fellowship, you're going to work on the Beaufort scale.

What's that? Well, as you can well imagine, I was off like a shot and I was playing and talking. And she said, oh, it's a diagnostic tool because think of it from a nurse's perspective, all nurses do all day long off. All, you know, medical people do is say, does it hurt a lot?

Does it hurt a little? What, you know, they're trying to get your subjective experience into a scale that allows those of them to understand exactly what is happening to you. That's the Beaufort scale for wind. And I was like, of course, you're right.

That's exactly right. And then the two of us were like looking at each other and talking. And the rest of the board were like, if you would put your hand between our eyes, it would have gotten burned. Close, we were looking at each other. That was the intensity of communication. And I walked out and I was like, I believe I'm going to get this.

Yeah, yeah. And there were a wonderful dozen of us on the fellowship. A wonderful 18 of us, a dozen American and six from the rest of the world. It was a wonderful experience.

It was so much fun to watch the other writers, these other journalists, learn about the Beaufort scale and bit by bit be convinced into it. And I'll tell you one story. You know, once or twice a week, we would have dinners and then people would come and speak to us, you know, somebody visiting the Michigan campus or one of the Michigan professors who had done something, they would come and talk to us. And we would have these wonderful conversations. But at the beginning of those, the director of the fellowship would say, well, each of you introduce yourself, say where you're from, what you're working on. And so I would, you know, somebody would say, I'm so and so I'm from the times and I'm working on this during my fellowship year. And I would say, I'm from Nashville Public Radio and I'm working on the Beaufort scale of Wind force.

And two of the other fellows developed a hand signal for they made a scale of response to the Beaufort scale when I would talk about it. Like some people would say, oh, okay. And then they would move on to the next person. They would like put on their cheek a little, their, their thumb and as a little circle, like zero, sorry, bad, or somebody would say, the Beaufort scale, tell me about that. And once and somebody would say, oh, wow, tell me more. That sounds really interesting. And they're like, that's a, that's a four.

You could go from zero to four on the Beaufort scale of Beaufort scale response. I felt like that was one of the moments where I felt like I am on to something. People get this, they like it. They understand that it solves a problem and that it gives you a way to perceive the world and to explain, to share that perception. Because that's what we need to communicate to.

Tripp: Did you finish the book in that one year time?

Scott Huler: Did I got to Ann Arbor in early September of, I guess it would have been 02. We had, my wife was writing a novel. So she sat in the kitchen and wrote a novel and I used the extra bedroom as my office. And I sat there and wrote and, you know, I would travel or I would go to the library.

I took a meteor, meteorology course, you know, just to, I wanted to look at this from every angle. When I left Ann Arbor in August, I had finished a draft of the book. It was the most incredible year to just live in this book. You know, when I was writing the, the other books I had written beforehand, I never had that amount of time and I never had that amount of resource. So I was having to do lots of other things. This time, all I was doing was writing.

Tripp: How do you differentiate like a book idea versus an article idea? Is it that, like the level of reaction when you come across something and that paying attention, what do you like about the book project format?

Scott Huler: I think a book idea has to have enough import, enough beauty, enough complexity, and enough different angles that to deserve a book. Not long ago, I wrote a piece about our miniatures for Esquire magazine. And I loved that story more than any story I've done in years. But it was a nice 5,000 word magazine story. That's what it was.

If I had gone deeper and deeper into it, I just would have been beating it to death, you know, going on. What I love about the book form is that just like I was saying that iambic is our natural rhythmic beats motion, I think that the book is a unit of human understand. It's a unit, it's a natural unit, some kind of natural unit, just like we all recognize. There's the 750 word column. There's the 1500 word short feature. There's 3,000 word long feature.

There's the 5,000 word blowout feature. I think that a book is a unit of information that makes sense to how much music fits on a CD. I can tell you the answer is when they were designing the CD, they said what is the biggest piece of music that people will want to listen to without having to share to change out a CD? And they said Beethoven's 9th. The music compact disc is one Beethoven's 9th unit of music. And which is an unbelievable thing to have learned, but it and it turns out to be the book is the same thing.

It is as much information about a topic as a person can hang with and not have to, you know, get a master's degree, but also not feel feel hungry when you finish it. Right. You know, there's million things about the book that are great. It's solar powered. It's, you know, it's a perfect information storage and retrieval system that doesn't degrade over time unless it's long time. It works. It's a technology that works perfectly turning a page. You know where to find the page number. You know how to it's interactive. You can write on it.

You stick post it in it. It's perfect. It works so well. I love a book. And also on the other hand, I grew up reading book. I was a bookish kid. Books are the thing I love more than anything else.

Tripp: Yeah. And there's something to the length of a book. You have to spend time with it at the risk of sounding old. Like there's something about spending hours, days, a week, a month with material, marinating in it. It's not just reading the words. It's taking your time with it. Absolutely.

Scott Huler: And you go back to it and you cross reference within a book and a book is something you carry around. There's physicality to a book. It just works. There's there's no other way to say it. As I said, I think it's an informational unit that works.

And also it's physically sad. They talk about it might have been Corey Dockcher. I can't remember who it was who talked about the invention of the Internet and then the sort of clarification of how the Internet should work.

Where I don't think we're there yet because I think the Internet is still filling up. They came up with movable type. And then that didn't really change anything. And then they came up with folio. You could fold a piece of paper and then suddenly that was four sheets of pages. And then the octavo, you folded it one more time. And I think it was the octavo volume that suddenly was a size that, oh, you could pick it up and carry it with you. And suddenly the book worked. And I think it was 100 years between the Gutenberg and the octavo volume. And it takes a long time from the invention of a technology until you find out, oh, this is the way that it works for human beings who live on a planet with this level of gravity and this much rain.

And you know, that has to work. A book had to be portable, but it had to be small enough that you could put it under your cloak if it started raining. Before that, we knew what books were. Books were these enormous things that were came to desks that monks wrote in. That's not that satisfying a technology. But when you carry the book with you, a whole different thing.

Tripp: I think you're very fine. But it's not like you're often in your writing, at least you're not crafting jokes. But your style is such that you're sort of unfiltered or maybe authentic. And that results in very funny moments. Is this something you think about consciously when you're writing?

Scott Huler: Another great question. I think I wouldn't say I'm consciously thinking about it, but I'm always aware that I'm conveying information, but if I'm not entertaining you, it's over. If I'm doing soft shoe, that's a problem. That means I don't have enough information. That means I don't have the story. But if good jokes come up and or clever ways to describe something to explain it to you in a way that will hopefully delight you, that's, you know, what is humor? Humor is surprise.

Yeah. I'm hoping to surprise you with the information that I can surprise you in the in the rhythm and in the expression of it, even better. And I learned this doubly when I started giving reading. You know, you hate you books come up and you go to the bookstore and you stay in front of people and give them reading. And I learned that you have to have some monkey shines built into whatever you're going to say or whatever you're going to read, because I don't care how beautiful your prose is. People are going to fall asleep on you unless you keep them snappy, make them laugh a little bit.

You have to say something they didn't expect. That's what I like to read, too. I want to be reading a book that's, okay, I know where we're going. You're telling me, oh, oh, oh, I didn't see that coming. You just told me something that was funny or that was sly or that was clever or that delighted me in a way I didn't expect.

That's what I want out of my reading experience, out of my listening. I remember in college listening to a Mozart piece and suddenly realizing that like a tempo change was a joke. You know, Mozart had you going and then he surprised you and he was over you in the ribs. And I was like, that's, you know, it wasn't like classical music that you're just supposed to gaze at in awe.

It was Mozart having a conversation with you and he wanted to keep you with him and he wanted to wake you up or surprise you. And I loved that. And I think that that's part of what's going on there. A big part of what's going on is that my writing and I work very hard to make it this way is conversation. Want it to feel like we're talking about this topic and I want you to feel like you can ask a question. And I hope that if you have a question sometime in the next pages or chapters, you will find the answer to that question because I want it to feel like a conversation.

I think every writer is trying to convince you that what their topic is worth your attention and a great way to get people to believe you is to make them glad to be around you. Yes. If you're entertaining me, I'll stick with it.

Tripp: Yes, especially when you're approaching complex topics, a lot of your books really dive into some complex stuff, but you somehow keep it conversational and keep it unselfconscious maybe or not take it self so seriously even though the topics themselves can be quite serious or quite complex. You still want to convey it in a way that's fun.

Scott Huler: Right. Yes. No. What do they remember the movie, Arthur? Don't you love fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have? Yes. Objectively. I want readers to be having fun when reading my work. I want them to say, gosh, that was fun. I'm going to give this to someone else or I'm going to go buy 200,000 more of these and distribute them to everyone. So far that hasn't happened yet, but maybe one day.

Tripp: I want to ask you about science a little bit. So Beaufort was the man of science, Lawson, what he did certainly qualified as science in his day, although that word scientist had used to be coined. Neither of the books are like strictly about science communication, but I've learned so much from both of them and obviously you're drawn to scientific topics. So what is it that's like attractive about science or scientific thinking?

Scott Huler: It's organized and you get results. You know, that's the best thing about science. I read somewhere just the other day, someone saying, science isn't about answers, it's about better and better. It's that Newton understood it all. Well, he did until Einstein showed up. And then we're like, oh, Newton's wrong, except no, Newton's not wrong. Newton's exactly right to the degree that he understood things. Einstein came along and asked better questions. And now we're getting into science that are almost unimaginable. You talk to me about quantum. So I'm like, the cat is dead or it's alive?

That's all. So there's a lot for me to learn there and I want to learn how to ask those questions because it's clear that quantum physics is a real thing. It's too much for my puny brain, but I would love to understand it better. So maybe I'll find a way to write about it. But the scientific method of understanding the world is why we have so many things that work. It's why we have modern dentistry. It's why we have antibiotics. It's why you and I are sitting and talking to each other, literally an entire world apart. And it's beautiful and it's magical and it's marvelous, but it's all understandable and communicable. And that's why I find so much of the struggles that we're currently going on in the United States is that so many of the things that are guiding us now are objectively wrong.

It's easily the science shows. No, that's not right. You know, people, well, I don't believe in climate change.

That's not an option. Climate change is not Santa Claus, not God. It's not something that you have the option of feeling one way or the other. It's reality. You can decide you don't want to do anything about it.

That fills me with regret. But you can't if you tell me that you don't believe in climate change, what you're telling me is that there's no point in our continuing our discussion, because when you face objective reality, you decide that you have the option of whether to engage with it or not. And that's a very dangerous. So I love science solving problems and it's science is a way of thinking. Exactly. Yeah, it works. It works.

And that's why I love it. I'm not a scientist. I mean, I would call myself a scientist in that I believe in science and I focus on it, but I don't do science. I describe it and I love being around science. I love being around scientists. I love the way scientists figure things out.

Tripp: Yeah, I would say the basic mistake people make in thinking about science is that they think that science is the body of knowledge that we draw up, like some kind of mysterious truth that we draw from. But science is the process of understanding the world and it's nothing more than that. I mean, as a culture, I can say what I appreciate about it is that the people that we value are the people that are observers that are trying in good faith to understand the world. Exactly.

Scott Huler: I agree 100 percent. Scientists are in good faith trying to understand the world. And that's why to a good scientist, and most of them are good in my experience, who a good scientist, a failed experiment is a success. How we know something that doesn't work.

Our hypothesis was proven wrong. That's an enormous step forward. We're all thrilled when the hypothesis is right and now we think that we have a new drug or we have a new machine or we have a new way of understanding something, but the results are the results even when they're disappointing.

Tripp: Yeah, that's absolutely right. When it's working well, scientists are happy to be wrong. One point I disagree with you on though, I think you absolutely are a scientist. To be an observer, to watch the world, that's what it is to be a scientist. So Scott, you're a scientist.

I think that's bad and I think. I want to bring it back to Beaufort. Maybe we'll come back to him, but if we don't, this would be one way to kind of look in that topic. Beaufort, you know, he lived a life worth writing about for sure, but in the end, he wasn't really responsible for the particular version that set off those fireworks in your brain. So maybe you tell the story of tracking down your Beaufort poet.

Scott Huler: Right. Well, what happened was at some point, one of the many professors or meteorologists, engineers that I spoke with said, well, you know, the original, you know, this Beaufort scale that you see in the dictionary, this came from the Sir George Simpson paper of 1906. And I was like, oh, of course, the surgery, you know, it's like, okay, well, and somebody gave me a copy of that paper. And it's what they were trying to do was as that steam took over from sale, the, you know, the original Beaufort scale, the thing that he really did was he gathered as, as you've noted, gathered ideas from people who came before him and took the both and took the wind and made a scale that he could apply to sailing ship, which every sailor in the world sailed on the same kind of ship and would understand if you said this particular kind of ship was carrying this kind of sail, you would know how fast the wind was going. And so this was of immense importance.

We are still gathering information from ships from 200 years ago because of Beaufort scale. And that, that was wonderful. But as steam started to take over, well, suddenly you lost this. We were all using, you know, this sailing ship as a sort of gauge. Well, now we have a new gauge.

What, how's that going to work? Somebody came up with a state of sea scale, like looking at the, at the waves. But the problem is you have swell and you have waves and then you have wind going in different directions. So it's not like a, you know, wind speed of, you know, Beaufort scale four is going to give you waves with these characteristics.

It's always going to be different. And so they were trying to figure out, they were trying to add miles per hour to the Beaufort scale so that it could be more accurate and figure out how to do that. And so these engineers, you know, in the, in the Met Office, the meteorology office of the United Kingdom set a bunch of observers to observe the wind in coastal place. Each of them would say, we have an anemometer. They have, they had great equipment by the early 1900s. They had actual anemometers. The anemometer says it's going such and such. Here's what I observed.

And so all these different observers would give you these different things that they had noticed. But there was this one guy, the North Shields who would write like little eddies of loose paper in, you know, in alleys. And I was like, that's the guy. That's my guy.

Oh my God. First I went to North Shields so that I could find out where his, he worked at the post office and where his observation station was. And I walked between where the post office would have been and where his observation station was so that I could see what kind of landscape he walked through and what he would have noticed.

And that was very exciting. I felt like this guy was a poet. He was somewhere there had to be a love letter, him right to his wife. And he's, oh my God, I've got to find this stuff. And I went through all kinds of public records finding his descendants.

I never was able to reach anybody who said, yeah, I'm the descendant of the North Shield Observer. And yes, we have a big crate full of his love letters to my great grandmother. I was never able to find him, but in a way that was beautiful in itself, that I was able to go where he went and see what he saw and just bring some of his observations to life for myself. And I hope for the readers, but it was opening, going through that 1906 paper that Sir George Simpson is the lead author on and looking at the, you know, turning the page and seeing this stuff was incredible. And then I did go to the Met Office and find some of his original observations with beautiful to see his own handwriting and stuff like that. But I never did get that full throttle. Here's the mother load of Beaufort scale poets writing now. So that's a, you'll have to put up with mine instead.

Tripp: Something about that makes it even more beautiful or valuable in that like we just have these fragments. And it's sort of amazing that all these years later, they set off a firework in your brain and that you've, you produce something of value to everyone else based on that. I think there's something cool about that.

Scott Huler: Oh, I love it. And then things will happen. Like a choreographer created a dance performance based on the Beaufort scale after she read my book. And so I read the scale for the performance and the sense that the Beaufort scale and the understanding of it and love for it is moving forward through time and to feel like I've been a link in that chain. It gives me goosebumps even this moment to feel that that's if you want to be a writer, if you want to do that, you're doing it because you're arrogant, right? Because I think I think people are going to walk into a bookstore and say, here's $30 quick, give me Huler's book. You know, what kind of insane person believes that will happen. And yet there's nothing else that will do for you.

So that's been my life to realize that my book moves these ideas forward and then other people do dance about it. Or I get Beaufort scales in the mail now. Sometimes somebody sent me a Beaufort scale that he wrote in prison. He's a murderer.

He's a convicted murderer. And I get this mail from this dude, you know, talking about pigeon droppings and stuff like that. Somebody wrote a laundry Beaufort scale of like, you know, what your shirts and socks are doing on the clothesline. This, this makes me happy in a way I can scarcely express. It's a little bit like having kids where you're like, OK, whatever this notion of mine was, it's moving forward through time and my hands are off of it.

Tripp: And what's amazing about that is like it shows that people get it because it's about paying attention to what's around you. What is that telling you about the environment and nature and your surroundings? Yeah, it's amazing.

Scott Huler: Well, it makes you feel less alone in this big, lonely world that there are other people who are like, oh, yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 3: Wow. You're like, OK, I can live.

Scott Huler: I can live another day.

Tripp: Let's maybe transition to Lawson a little bit. So one of the themes in Lawson's is the ephemeral nature of life of things. And this applies to Lawson in particular, who you quote this historian saying he appears to flash like a meteor across our kin.

I thought that was an amazing line. This also applies to the native cultures he encountered, which were so obviously in decline. Can we talk about the status of the native population in the southeast when Lawson arrived?

Scott Huler: Yeah, absolutely. So Lawson was telling Lovebeth, you know, where we're talking about science. Lawson went to Gresham College, which is where the Royal Society worked. And I believe that the way Mark Twain as a young kid looked at steamboat pilots or the way people who grew up in my era looked at astronauts, I believe that Lawson saw these the world's first scientists saw them walking around and was like, Oh, that's for me. That's all that. How do I contribute to that? How do I get there? And he was clearly looking for a way to do it and stumbled into someone who said, Well, he was going to go over to Rome and and write about the Jubilee, which was basically a state fair that the Pope threw every 25 years, because it was, you know, the early modern era and what did people have to do at their time? So it was something to do. And he was going to go to that. It was clear that he just he was looking for something big to apply himself to.

And he ran into someone who I like to think of them as like the Fox in Pinocchio put his arm around him and said, Well, you could go to Rome if you want, but isn't Rome kind of, you know, 17th century, 18th century, has happened over in North America. As it happens, I got a boat right out here at the docks. Come with it. Well, Lawson did and found himself in Charleston, South Carolina, population 2000. So a new person is going to meet everybody in a big stinkin' hurry. And he wanted to do science. He wanted to write about what he saw.

He wanted to be, you know, books were coming into England about people saying, I just sailed to, you know, we've discovered half of Australia and people would read it. It was crazy. There was no TV. There was no radio.

There weren't even really many books. They were thrilled to find out about this planet that had things in it that nobody knew about. Lawson wanted in on that. And he came to Charleston and was hanging around. And then he found out that some guys were heading north from Charleston to make their way by land up into Virginia. And that was a valuable thing because just like Beaufort was part of the project of people understanding all of the winds because the wind was oil, right? The wind is what carried your ship where it was going in.

The East India Company wanted to make, wanted the ships to get there two days before the other ships. And so understanding the wind was very important. Beaufort was part of that. Lawson, before all of that, was like, oh, people are starting to understand the world and describe North America, this continent full of things that nobody's ever seen before.

I want to be part of that. And he found that these guys were going to be taking this walk from Charleston to end up in South East Virginia. They were heading for the tide water, you know, for where Norfolk is now.

As it turned out, they ran into Indian sufficiently hostile that Lawson just had to do East instead at one point. But he wanted in on that. And I like to think that he was sitting around in some public house, 1700, and heard some guys talking about this project. And he was like, can I come?

You're like, OK, sure. And these were guys, these were Indian explorers. These were these were some of the greatest explorers of the day who were setting out on this journey. Lawson jumped in this canoe with them and off he went.

It was just that's how you did it. What I love about it is that Lawson, the first thing I learned in retracing his was that he didn't do any of the hard work at all. They were all paddling and Lawson's writing. I'm convinced that Lawson said in this writing, because Lawson's book is full of complaining, full of complaining. It's snowing, it's wet, I'm hungry, the food's lousy.

He's just talking and talking about what was terrible. I would have loved to travel with Lawson. We would have sat around and sit every night.

It was the most fun. First thing I did, I spent the first week of retracing his journey. He spent his first week in a canoe. And so I did the same thing, paddling up and two hours into my journey. All I cared about, I cared about only two things in this entire vast world. I cared about which direction the wind was blowing and which direction the tide was running because I was fighting it to get this canoe, this move in northward.

And I was tired and frustrated and exhausted. And Lawson never once complains about getting blisters on his hand, never complains about paddling against the wind. And so I'm like, dude, you never paddled. You sat there like useless Tilly on the cover of The New Yorker with the monocle looking at the butterfly.

He sat there taking notes while everybody else was going to love that. But so he was one of six Europeans and there were four native people, three men and a woman, probably to see we tried because that's what you see down there. He moved day by day with these guides. He never didn't have a guide. And anybody who looks at this book or thinks about this journey understands this was not Lewis and Clark. This was not men manfully macheteing their way through jungle. No, he was on paths and he was being led by the nose by by native guides, by Indian guides. I'm comfortable seeing Indian because I will tell you I met so many people from so many tribes and I said, how do you prefer to be?

And they were like, the United States is a Bureau of Indian Affairs. I don't care. He's fine. And, you know, I'm not sure I would do that now. I think even 10 years later, I think I would call them native Americans. But nobody ever said, don't call me a native. He was dealing with tribe after tribe and they would feed him.

They would, these guys would just walk into town. Hey, we're here. We're hungry.

Anybody help. And universally, they're sitting down. We'll give you some food, give you a place to stay. We'll talk to you. We'll tell you.

We'll describe what we're doing. It was unbelievable. And Lawson was alone among the people who have written about this. Alone among them who understood that he was not seeing native Americans in their natural habitat. He wasn't seeing Indian culture in its blossom. He was seeing the ragged end of something. He says several times in his book, there is not one out of six Indians left from what there would have been 50 years. He's like, I'm seeing the end of something. He understood that he was walking through a culture on a knife that that 50 years before him, he would have seen, even though smallpox was making its way through North America, even though guns had arrived and horses and all kinds of things that were going to change the world forever, still an awful lot of native culture remained. 50 years later, you know, you're talking, you know, the Revolutionary War.

Right. He understood somehow that he was at a moment of staggering change. And he felt that he would document what he saw and what they told him to the best of his ability.

And it was this book. Lawson describes Indian culture. He describes what's growing. He describes what animals that they catch and what they eat and what they don't. And he describes funeral culture and traditions.

And it's, it is so beautiful. And the most important thing that I would say about Lawson is that he treats these cultures with such enormous respect. He loves these people. He respects them. He sees them as fully human. He says several times. They aren't the book in front of me, but he says, you know, we consider ourselves educated and we consider ourselves advanced, but an Indian walks by our house and we let him go. If you walk by a house of an Indian person, they're going to make sure that you have food. Do you need something to eat?

What do you need? Not, you're not noble savages. They're not perfect. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that he looked at the cultures as fully human equal to the culture that he had left, just different and everybody else. He called them savages like everybody did at that time. He wasn't asking them for their pronouns. Don't, you know, don't was respectful and loving towards these people.

And they were very kind towards him universally. And he saw the remnants of tribes, right? How there's a process where several different tribes who had been through warfare, through slavery, through disease, through alcohol had been demolished.

The tattered remnants of several tribes would get together and then create a new town and function. He saw these places and he just understood that he was really seeing the end of something. And I'm so impressed by that because I fear that I would not have been able to notice that, that I just would have said, this is the Indians and this is how they're like. And he was like, this is how they're like now. They tell me what they used to do. And wow, what that is a great scientist and a great reporter.

Tripp: Yeah, I think a special for his time like that perspective was really rare. You say in the book in Lawson's time, two narratives seem to compete for primacy regarding the new world. First was that North America was in essence, empty, a virgin country awaiting European settlers. And the other was that the Indians were savages to be swept aside.

And Lawson was definitely preaching the first of these tenets. But on the second, he was much more sympathetic to Native Americans. And we've been talking about today, I think, you know, his writing is treasured for his documentation of a Native American life and ceremony. And that's a big part of his legacy now.

Scott Huler: Right. Absolutely. And it's a, it's a legacy of which he should be proud and which everyone should be proud of. I tell people that Lawson should be to North Carolinians, what William Penn is to Pennsylvanians. Everybody should know about him. He was in every way the first European citizen of not first like numerically, but the first truly great North Carolinian.

Just like Penn was the first great Pennsylvanian. And I would love to see more attention paid. And I, I hope that my book would really wake people up to Lawson.

Tripp: There is some evidence that the respect was reciprocal. So you, you quote Lawson is saying, this is him talking to one of his guides. And he's saying, if I would take his son, Jack, who was about 14 years of age and teach him to talk in that book and to make paper speak, which is their way of, the way they call our writing, he would wholly resign him to my tuition, telling me he was of the opinion I was very well affected to the Indians. And this passage was affecting me because yeah, maybe this person probably felt highly of John Lawson.

So that speaks to his character, but also this guy probably saw the writing on the wall and was trying to do the best he could for his son given, given the enormous amount of change that was going on.

Scott Huler: I think that's exactly right. That's Eno Will. And he, that's what Lawson called him, Eno Will. I think he understood that. Yeah, these, these, these Europeans were here for the long haul and dealing with them was the best long-term strategy you could develop for the future. And so he wanted his son to do that. It doesn't sound like it happened, but it was a beautiful. Notion and the friendship between Lawson and will sounds like it was a very, very beautiful thing. And I was very grateful that every tribe I met, I felt like I met someone who would sit and tell me the stories that, that they had. One of them was the Santee tribe. I met the vice chief of the Santee tribe, which I love the term because it's such a combination of the cultures, right?

The, the vice, you know, that sounds like the constitution, but the chief, that's still, that's still Native American. But she sat down with me. She said, so what do you want exactly? You know, when we were talking on the phone and I said, well, you know, I'm retracing Lawson's steps. And so I thought that we could walk a little together and she had recently had a operation, so we weren't going to do that. And I was like, but sorry, are you familiar with Lawson? She said, I never don't know where my copy of Lawson is.

Let me let me explain. She said, I grew up Indian in the binarily segregated American sex. She said, in my elementary school, if a white kid wanted to drink water, go to the drinking fountain. If a black kid wanted to drink water, there was a crappy drinking fountain next to the nice drinking fountain for you. If an Indian kid wanted a drink of water, the principal would have to come in with a little cup of how much more a race for the population being left school, eventually got herself a GED. And then she went to community college and I think ultimately got her got a four year degree, but she was in college and had a class where they read Lawson.

And she said, book after book, you're reading, you know, the all of these European people talking about these savages and here's Lawson speaking with obvious respect and obvious affection of these people who were kind to him and who he tried to be kind to in response in many ways he failed. But, you know, he tried and she was like, he gave me my history. He gave me my history.

Oh my God. You know, what a powerful thing to run across is we were talking about being a writer, being a reporter. This is why you leave the house is to find someone whose life was so profoundly enriched by this guy who's like, I found his book amazing too. And now suddenly we're a community. Well, she directed me to their, they have a sort of a long house, a big once it hot that they had built on a piece of land that they owned. She said, that piece of land means my tribe has land again for the first time in like a century. You know, it's just amazing to run into these people.

And then I would, you know, meet people who would talk about you want an arrow ahead here, come here and they would just, let's take a walk in this field. We'll find, you know, amazing that this history and tradition is still in the earth beneath our feet. And yet, yet the people have been so devastated with nothing.

Tripp: Sales of the book aside, I mean, meeting with someone like that must just be so reaffirming in your commitment to do projects like these.

Scott Huler: Oh, absolutely. Oh, the fact that my book sell like dogs has not had the tiniest effect on whether I want to keep writing more books than doing this work. I'm either very stupid or very committed or perhaps both. But no, this is, this is what I do. I go out, I talk to people in and one of the things that, that I found very powerful for myself was to remember, I didn't want to slavishly retrace Lawson and step everywhere.

He stepped. I want to do what Lawson did. What Lawson did was say, here I am. Let me go out into this place and document and take basically, you know, take a data set, you know, do a transect, right? Like Grinnell's transect of Yosemite famously. And he said, I'm doing this, a transect as your listeners may or may not know is when you bunch of scientists, a bunch of observers go through a place and write down what do you see? What's growing? What, what lives here?

What's the weather like and just describe it and document it so that a century later people can look back and say, well, okay, how does it compare? And so I realized that Lawson did that and I was adding the next transect, the next data set to Lawson's. And that was an amazing feeling that we're doing this. And so then, you know, a hundred years from now, people can look back and say, like, okay, here's how the native people are doing.

Here's how the European people are doing in this. I had some amazing conversations with populations, you know, white people, black people, Hispanic people who live here now and are just, their stories are just as fascinating as the stories of the native populations that Lawson does.

Tripp: Talk a little bit about the, the trek itself here in Australia, a lot of the highways follow along traditional indigenous routes called songlines, obviously because they're, they're routes between two places that people want to be. And I think few people realize how many modern roads and highways follow these old trails.

Scott Huler: I didn't know it until I did this project, but a road has to have, I guess, what Plato would have called roadness, you know, that a road is where it is for a reason. Somebody didn't just look at a, look at a map and say, okay, I need to get from Raleigh to Charlotte. Here's where we're going to go. I remember once having an inkling of this, when I was doing early, when I moved to the south, I took a big car trip all around Hither and Yon, and I was in, in Louisiana, or I was in Arkansas, and I wanted to come back to Mississippi. And I suddenly realized, oh, I can't just start heading east. I have to look for a city with a bridge. I'm kind of, there's the Mississippi River.

And that counts. You know, it's not just a blue line on the map. It means that if I'm over here and I want to get over there and there's no bridge, I can't get there. And it's like, oh, geography is consequential.

It has meaning. And so it's the same thing here where many of these roads, just like Lawson, I was led by the nose through bike guides who knew more than I did on every one of these topics. People would tell me, you know, okay, you're walking the sand road through a national forest. People are walking that road for at least a thousand, probably four times.

That was a great feeling. And then there's the great trading path that goes through sort of the northern part. It makes a big arc through the northern part of the North Carolina Piedmont. Well, that's the trading path. And then you get wagon paths. And then the railroad goes there. And that's what I-85 follows that exact same path. Because if you're going through the mountains, you look for the path.

The path. If you're crossing the river, you look for the ford. You know, look for the place where the, where the river is going through a flat area. And so the river spreads out.

And so you, your horse can walk through it or you can walk through it or you could even step over it on rocks. If it's, you're following a path that has meaning behind. It's not just, you know, we drive these interstates and you're just driving. You'll, you get out when you're done and then you're in a different place.

Or worse yet, you get in an airplane and you get in it in Raleigh where it smells like pines and you get out of it in Chicago where it smells like whatever Chicago smells like today. You don't have that experience of getting from place to place. And it's not for nothing that people say the journey is the best part. Lawson wrote this incredibly beautiful book, but there's no question that the 40 pages where he's describing his walk are the spectacular passages of the book where you're just like, we're going to go tomorrow.

What's going to happen next? It has that narrative to it. And, you know, that's, that's one of the most natural human narratives, right? Here, I need to get somewhere. How do I get there? Totally.

Tripp: And we were talking earlier about sort of how a book is the natural unit, maybe of information or storytelling. Walking is like the natural unit of traveling through space for a human. Lawson, he was like, he was definitely at the intersection of art and science. He was among the first like observational nonfiction writers, but he had prose, like the following lines here, like fragrant vines and evergreens who aspiring branches shadow and interweaves themselves with a loftiest timbers yielding a pleasant prospect, shade and smell, proper habitations for sweet singing birds that melodious entertain such as traveler through the woods of Carolina. I mean, I just, I don't know, knock your socks off of that. But there's something so powerful about combining careful observation and incredible prose. And I think there's like a thread through history of people who did this really well. Lawson, Von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, Rachel Carson, and they like something about that captures the public imagination. What do you think is going on there?

Scott Huler: Well, I think it's home. You know, we want the story. And so the beautiful language helps us, but we want to learn something about it too. So there's the human lessons in there, the observational, the analysis. Here's what the terrain is like. Here's what the country's like.

But also here's what it was like when I was trying to get there. It's all of those things. And what's a journey? It's a person trying to get somewhere, trying to do something. We're all every second of our lives in that striving place of I am here and I need to be there.

And what adventures will I encounter on the way? And that's an incredibly satisfying, fundamentally human story. I did this book, retracing Lawson's journey. I also did a book retracing the journey of Odysseus through the Mediterranean because it's the same thing.

Now, that's a fabulous journey. That's, you know, if I tell you that I went where the Cyclops lived, you're going to lock me up and throw away the key. But if I tell you that I went to a cave that sounds a lot like the cave Homer describes Odysseus visiting, and then I try to make sense of the story of Homer and Odysseus and the Cyclops, and what human lesson are we trying to learn there through that?

That becomes a very satisfying experience. And I think it's the same thing with Lawson is that Lawson took a walk, saw some stuff that's not very interesting. Lawson took a walk, saw the universe at a knife edge moment of complexity, told this story in a way that made sense to him and in a way that brought more settlers here and in a way that finally pushed the native populations to the point where they started a war and the first person to die in the war was Lawson. That's a story. Now you've got a story, right?

Now you're, that's a very human tale that brings hubris, the heartbreaking incapacity of one culture to understand another and the heartbreaking shattering of bonds where Lawson, you know, all of the tribes in Eastern North Carolina knew Lawson. They knew he was important. They trusted him. They dealt with him, but they also knew he was part of the problem. He was helping the new people who were coming boat by boat.

He was helping them take land away from, from these tribes. And so it was this incredibly complicated moment and it's just unbelievable to think I'm where he was. And also I think we too are at an equally complicated moment, right? 20 years ago, certainly 50 years ago, we thought we understood how things worked, right? United States worked in a certain way and we thought that made sense. And the earth worked in a certain way and we were trying to clean it up. We knew we were being, you know, we were polluting and that was no good, but we had no reason to think that we were shattering an ecosystem that was going to change so radically in our own lifetimes that we wouldn't be able to know what came next. But right now, who would even predict what was going to happen five days from much less five or 50 years from between the political unrest and the climate catastrophe that we're living through?

Nobody, when a scientist says the sixth grade extinction, nobody says, oh, no, anymore. We know, we see it. It's happening. We're living through it. So what comes next? I don't know, but it seems fairly likely it's not going to be more primates, you know, that we've had our run.

Tripp: I'm from Carolina and part of why this book hits so hard for me, because it's so interesting to read, but Walsons take on Carolina 300 years ago and see Carolina through your eyes as well. Honestly, parts of it are painful to read. A lot of it is about the erasure of native culture, about the injustice and of slavery and racism following that and the clear cutting of old growth forests, the development of marshlands, extinction of wildlife. And it feels a lot like we're not learning from our mistakes. At the same time, there's still wild and beautiful places in the Carolinas and we should fight to protect them.

And they're good and kind people everywhere you look. This was my own take. What do you hope people take away from reading this book? And is this something you think about during the writing process?

Scott Huler: I don't think about it during the writing process because it would stop me. I'm just trying to do the job while I'm doing the writing. What I would want people to take away is that there's so much, as you say, so much has been lost and yet there's so much still left to say. And we should be about the business of trying to say and not just because we're you know, good and kind people, but because we'll have much better lives. The better the more we save, the more we teach our children how to live healthy lives and lives in synchrony with their environments and with the world. The better things will be for them and for their children should all of that happen and it's better for everyone.

It's clear. It's again, we've lived through it and we've done enough observation to see we have resources enough for all of us. We have the capacity to improve things, to fix things, to make things better. We're not the Habesian war of everyone against everyone.

It doesn't have to be that way. We can see this. The 5,000 years of human history, of human, the hockey stick curve of how fast we learn and how fast things change is now all but totally vertical. And so everything is changing so fast that it's just hard to, it seems impossible to know what to do. We can look to someone like Lawson and say, and to Boford it in the same way, understand what you can, be willing to see differently than those around you. Lawson saw the native tribes as lovely, beautiful and fully human people when he was surrounded by people who saw them as subhuman.

Share what you understand in the hopes that others will build on that understanding. What I was shocked when I stumbled across Lawson's book and while I was working on another book and when looking for the book for my book base, where's the book where someone, I wanted to know what my county in Central North Carolina had looked like when Lawson was through. And when I found out that Lawson had walked through, I was like, okay, well, where's the book where someone wrote, said, here's what Lawson's on, here's what's there now. But where is that book? And to discover that book didn't exist. I was like, y'all, they had 300 years. What are you even doing? Right. Obviously I was thrilled. I was like, oh boy, now I know what I'm about.

Tripp: With other people. And I think that was a big part of it. Would you connecting with other people as you made your way through the trek? Sometimes literally connecting with other people. I guess oftentimes literally. Can you talk about some of the, what you call heroes of Lawson's trek?

Scott Huler: Oh, wow. Well, the first person was a woman named Kathy Livingston, who at that time, ran an outfitter in Charleston. And I was planning my trip and I reached out to her and I was like, I want to rent a canoe. It was like, well, for what? And I told her what I was going to do.

And there was this long moment of silence. And she said, I got you. And she would not allow me to rent the canoe. She donated the canoe for the project and would have let me keep it.

In fact, if I had wanted to. But she found me a guide for every step of the way while I was on the water, partially because she wanted to help and partially because she was like, this dumbass is going to drown. You know, this is paddling a canoe. Even in the intercoastal waterway, you're still in the ocean. I don't care how much river paddling or lake paddling or even white water paddling you've done.

The ocean is a whole different story. So I was very glad that you did that. And she hooked me up with places to stay. And then Lawson could leave Charleston one day and then pop up two months later in northeastern North Carolina.

The nearest person who knew anything about him was 5,000 miles away. I had Sunday school carpool to manage and mighty Mike soccer games. So I had to go away for a few days at a time.

A week when I was in the canoe, but otherwise three or four days at a time, you know, I would park my car where I planned to end, then I would need someone to drive me back to where I wanted to start again and pick up the trail. And so I was meeting all these people. I met a descendant of a guy named Van Grafenried, who when Lawson was killed, he was captured with Van Grafenried, who was a Swiss guy who led much of the settlement of eastern North Carolina. Van Grafenried lived to tell the tale.

Lawson did not. I met and was ferried around Carolina by one of his descendants. You know, people working for, you know, the NASCAR Speedway, you know, would help me find a place to camp. It was always somebody putting me in touch with someone or, oh, you know, who you need to meet while you're in town, do this. Or, you know, they were amazing people.

And then sometimes you would find their hiccups in their own life. You know, I spent three days in Salisbury, where I was meeting the entire Salisbury Historical Society and somebody put me up in a 200-year-old cabin. And this, that, and the other was wonderful. And as I was walking out of town, I was walking through poorer neighborhood and black neighborhood, and I stopped to talk to these two guys, sitting on the porch, and they were like, well, on your way out, don't miss the hanging tree.

And I was like, go what now? And they said, oh, look on Google, you'll see that, you know, these lynchings. Well, of course, it's the South. So there's this history of lynching and things that nobody had talked to me about when I hung around with all the white people. So you're reminded every day, talk to everyone. Don't think you know the story. Ask everybody.

Tripp: Yeah, that was a really powerful part of the book. And in fact, I remember distinctly after you talked to them, and maybe even after you visit the hanging tree, you walk by a store and it has a huge Confederate flag hanging in the window and you think about it. Should I do this? Should I not do this? And you're like, what am I doing out here if I'm not going to talk to everyone? And I just thought that was so incredibly brave. And you go and you go have a conversation with these people. Right.

Scott Huler: That conversation was a wonderful conversation because that guy was telling me, well, when I hang the Confederate flag, I don't mean racism, it's heritage and history and my great-grandad. And I was like, well, you understand that to literally hundreds of millions of people, that flag doesn't mean heritage and history. It means racism.

But that's not what I mean. And so I made the what people call the one-finger salute. And I said, so if I showed you that gesture, what would you think? And he said, I wouldn't like it. And I said, what if I told you that I didn't mean anything offensive? I meant that I was worried about your prostate health and I wanted you to get a digital exam and put there for a minute and then he laughed. And he was like, no, I see your point. He didn't take down the flag, but I like to think I may have advanced his thinking. And we've just had the same moment here with Elon Musk and his Hitler salute that, no, I was just sharing my heart with people. I was like, no, you weren't. We all saw what you did and we know what you did.

And you can pretend it means something different to you, but we know what it means. These are one of the knife edges that we're on, one of the many knife edges we're on right now where you have to observe. And when you see what you see, I'm a reporter. My job is to be as honest as I am capable of being about what I observe. And then I have to put it down and then I have to live with what people may be offended or upset by what I see or what I say. And, you know, there are many southern people, many people who share, I think his name was Kerry, if I'm not mistaken, the guy with the Confederate flag. When I say that you can hang that flag, but you can't pretend it's not offending people that may offend people. OK, I'll live with that. I have to be the best reporter I can and describe what I see.

Tripp: I thought I was brave to even want to have that conversation because I'm not making eye contact on the tram when I'm getting around. I'm trying to avoid people, but you were trying to have these conversations and that's doing God's work. What topics are you most excited about exploring in the future? Is there any follow-ons, a project coming up that you want to talk about?

Scott Huler: Well, I am trying very hard to develop a project on the book of Ecclesiastes. This is a project I've had in mind for Ecclesiastes, the book that starts out. Vanity of Vanities, Hall of Vanity. And really, it's a book of the Bible that spends 12 crystal clear, brilliant chapters telling you that life is short and then you're dead.

And that's it. You better make what you can out of your life, but don't expect much out of your projects because life is hard. Life has always been hard and it's going to be hard. And I feel like we may be at a moment where people might profit from hearing that wisdom, that your job is to get up every morning and do what you can. And then go to bed every night having done your best.

And if you happen to go to bed next to somebody who's nice and warm and pleasant to be built, so much the better, but that your job is to face every day and live through it. I think that might be helpful. So I'm hoping I can get some interest in that. Timely message for sure. Yeah. Well, I wish I would that it were not so, but we have to live the days that we are given.

Tripp: Where would you direct people? How do they best find you and support your work?

Scott Huler: ScottHuler.com is my website. That website, you will find links to every one of my books, to books that are anthologies that have some of my work in them. They'll link to my journalism.

I still do some journalism and newspaper, magazine, audio work. It will have links to all of that. It will have links to my TEDx talk. You know, if you want to see my TEDx is the 21st century equivalent of asking someone to read you a screenplay. If you want to see my TEDx, it's on my website. And if you don't want to, nobody will ever know. That's why I would send people to find out more about my work.

Tripp: Scott, there's so much more to talk about, but I think we probably ought to leave it at that for now. I want to end by saying thank you. You're one of the first authors I reached out to when I began my writing journey. And you were immediately encouraging and enthusiastic, but also realistic.

So thank you for that. When I think of your work, I think of obsession and immersion. I think of observation, the art of paying attention, connection, connection with connecting with other people, a genuine interest in their stories. And most of all, I think of curiosity.

And at some point in Lawson, you say the call someone curious is the highest imaginable compliment and Scott, you're someone who walks through the world, just brimming with curiosity. So thank you for coming on today.

Scott Huler: What a very, very lovely, flattering description of the work. And I thank you very much for that. It's been a joy to be here. I remain committed to being an asset to you as you move forward in your own writing. I'm here to help. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Look forward to the next one. Look forward to hearing this series.

Speaker 3: Hey, Tripp here. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, there are a few ways you can help us keep the conversation going. First, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us connect with more listeners.

If you can also share the episodes with friends and family on social media. We also have a Patreon. So if you have the means, please consider supporting us directly. Patreon supporters get access to the book science community and bonus content only available for supporters.

The Patreon is also a great place to get in touch and we'd love to hear from you. So what books would you like to hear us cover next? Remember, you can find share notes and all things book science, as well as everything else I'm working on at TrippCollins.com. Thanks for listening. I am Tripp Collins and this has been book science. Your invitation to think deeply, stay curious, get off the scroll and get out into the world. Take care.

Season 1 Episode 7 - Waves and Beaches (3rd Edition)

Hello, I’m Tripp Collins and welcome to this very special edition of BOOK SCIENCE.

Today is going to be a little different. I usually keep it positive when I review a book. I may have even said that I only talk about books I love, why? Because bringing a book into the world is an act of love and generosity, it is difficult to do, and if I read a book that doesn’t blow my socks off then that's ok, I don’t need to talk about it.

Well, today we have a special case of not a new book, but a new edition of a book that was first published over 60 years ago, and I found the update so distasteful and disrespectful to the original edition that I simply can not let it go.

Today we are talking about a new edition of an absolute classic text in the world of wave science and this is, Waves and Beaches by the legendary Willard Bascom.

The proto text for this book was first published in Scientific American in a duo of feature articles, first in 1959 there was Waves and then another in 1960 called Beaches. Eventually, the two were combined and expanded into a 276 page, 76 figures - monograph called, of course, Waves and Beaches.
Wave and Beaches was published in 1964 by Doubleday Anchor Books as part of the Science Study Series, which was an initiative to revamp educational materials, at the collegiate level, by publishing books by experts written for students and lay people. The series lasted about 15 years approximately 1949 to 1974 accounting for 72 books, with notable authors such as physicist George Gamow and chemist Isaac Asimov. One of the board members of this book series was an editor at Scientific American, which points to a direct connection to Bascom’s feature writing and the existence of this book.
A second edition of Waves and Beaches was published a little over 15 years later in 1979 or maybe 1980. The 2nd edition is advertised to be an extended and updated, indeed about 100 pages of material was added, and it was this 2nd edition that I read many years ago graduate school.

And here we are with a 3rd edition published in 2023, this time the book is 354 pages with around 180 figures and images. This is edition is a picture book, and it was evident upon reading that the majority of effort in putting together this 3rd edition was put into the images. And I’ll give credit where it is due, most of the images are very beautiful but the connection between the text and the images have become tenuous in this 3rd edition.
If you are looking for a modern understanding of wave physics, you will not find it here. The material in the book related to the science of ocean waves, to a large degree, is a verbatim recapitulation of the original 1964 edition. Which is fascinating as a time capsule of wave measurement and survey technology from the 1940s, but has little connection to modern wave science.

A weak update would be disappointing by itself, but it gets worse. Bascom died in 2000, so the update comes not from Bascom but from a new author, Kim McCoy. McCoy's contributions include a series of incoherent rants about climate science. To be clear, he’s not a climate change denialist—if anything, he is probably ideologically aligned with climate activists, but it is clear that he doesn’t understand the science of climate change and his writing is on the topic is confused and confusing.

If I were to give the benefit of the doubt, then I would say McCoy had good intentions. Climate change is has become central to Earth science and oceanography, and he wanted to bring that into Bascom’s book. But the reality is that there isn’t a straightforward climate story to tell related to waves, and instead of leaning into nuance, he demonstrates a lack of understanding of the science. In short, I think his heart may have been in the right place, but in terms of the describing the science of climate change he was clearly out of his depth.

But before we go there, here’s a quick too-long didn’t listen summary for this episode: If you want to sit through a wave science class circa 1950 and then listen to your left-leaning, Deadhead uncle ramble incoherently about climate change, this book is for you. Otherwise, maybe skip this edition. And if you don’t want to stick around for the full breakdown, thanks for listening this far, and I’ll catch you in the next one.

If you are sticking around for the juicy details, let’s get right into it. The real failure of the third edition is that McCoy does not offer a good-faith discussion of climate science. I started my research into this episode apprehensive about making definitive statements about the accuracy of McCoys climate writing because I am not an expert. So, I reached out to a real, deal actual climate expert. Dr. Kevin Walsh of the University of Melbourne. He’s not just an expert, but one of the world’s leading researchers on climate change and storms. He helped clarify what the science actually says about climate change and storms.

We’ll return to climate in a minute, for now let’s start with the book's tone. There are two distinct and contrasting tones. We have Bascom who is the professor with a penchant for poetry, and there’s McCoy the guy telling tall tales of his glory days local pub. Bascom’s tone is very much like an engaging college lecture or an undergraduate textbook.

When the first edition came out in the 1960s, it was the only book written for a popular audience about the science of ocean waves. There were more academic texts from Blair Kinsman and Owen Phillips, but Bascom wrote towards the public, or at least college students. His approach was descriptive, not cutting-edge, and that made parts of the book more resilient to aging. But where he talks about measurement and technology, the book shows its age.
From my early encounter with the 2nd edition, I can only recall there was substantial material dedicated to shallow water waves and beaches, which I wasn’t super interested in. I also remember it wasn’t very useful as a graduate student because the description of the science, while sound, was relatively basic. The last thing that stuck with me, was that it was an enjoyable read. And this is important. Waves and Beaches stood out as readable in a field where there are very few texts aimed at a popular audience, so I think, given the lack of alternatives, people who are interested in ocean waves go looking for some deeper reading but don’t have the requisite science or math to get much out of Kinsman or Phillips. Since 1960 we have a number of modern text books, but as far as text for a popular audience there is only Bascom. Now, there is a very popular book called the wave, by Susan Casey. The wave is much more about big wave surfer Larid Hamilton than it is about the physics of waves, and thats ok, all this to day Bascom is a perfectly good place to end up, all things considered, it was well written and there are no good alternatives.

Bascom the person seems to be a bit of a character. He studied at Colorado School of Mines and worked in the mining industry before joining the Waves Project in the 1940s. He ended up measuring currents and pressure from underwater nuclear tests with Walter Munk, then led Project Mohole, the first deep-sea drilling attempt.

Bascom wasn’t shy about controversial opinions. In a 1974 Scientific American article, he wrote: “Contrary to some widely held views, the ocean is the plausible place for man to dispose of some of his wastes. If the process is thoughtfully controlled, it will do no damage to marine life.” So there’s that.
Unlike Munk, who published almost exclusively in scientific journals, Bascom wrote for the public. He authored several books and articles, including a book of poetry. He was a scientist, writer, and provocateur—and Waves and Beaches is his most enduring legacy.

Bascom died in 2000, but somehow in 2023 we get a new edition of Waves and Beaches published by Patagonia, yes, that Patagonia. Several questions loomed large during my reading of this edition. The first is how did this edition come to exist? McCoy address this in the book’s preface, and he has repeated the story in interviews available on YouTube. He met Bascom in the late 1990s and they fast became friends because of the mutual interests. He says at first, Bascom was very much a mentor to McCoy. But legend goes, Bascom handed McCoy a copy of the 2nd edition and said, read this and tell me what it needs. Which was his dear old mentors final homework assignment, and the result is this 3rd edition.

But the questions in my mind only grew as I read. Did Willard Bascom want to write a new edition? If he did, and if he was looking for input, why would he enlist McCoy, when presumably he had access to all the top oceanographers in the world? And just who is McMoy? There are no easy answers because most information comes from McCoy’s own self-mythologizing.

I could not find many publications by McCoy, either in scientific journals or for popular audiences. Most of his career appears tied to a company that built oceanographic instrumentation. So on the face of it, it seems he’s an eccentric fellow who led an ocean centered life, I assume that Bascom must have seen him as a kindred spirit, both having non-traditional careers in oceanography and interests in travel, sailing, and diving. And to be fair, if you go on the internet trying to find information about Kim McCoy, almost all of his coverage has come from the publication of this book, and it is universally in praise of him and the book.

None of this really address how an informal homework assignment became a new edition of book over two decades after the fact. While I started off by giving McCoy the benefit of the doubt, in the end, I was left wondering, how was this allowed to happen?

Enough background, let’s talk about the book. If you know nothing about waves, Waves and Beaches, 1st or 2nd edition, is a great place to start. Bascom gives you the basics of wave science. It is descriptive and easy to read. He gives a great survey of established science on ocean waves, tides, seiches, tsunamis, and the formation of beaches. Most of the material is a dated, in that our scientific understanding of the details is much more nuanced and intricate. But the 3rd edition chugs happily along, totally unaware of a of glaring anachronisms.

So, what’s new in the new edition? Do we talk about the development of spectral wave modeling and the potential to predict wave height and period with incredible fidelity up to a 2 weeks in advance? No. Do we talk about the advances in observations, with stereo-video or satellite or miniature wave buoys driven by GPS technology, barely a mention. What about an updated understanding of wave physics? Nope. It turns out, in terms of updated wave science, you might as well just read the first edition. So what, then, is new in this new edition.

There are two main ways that McCoy’s update manifests. One is forced insertions of material related to climate change that vacillate between vague and incoherent. These are insidious because are incorporated into the main body of text. The 2nd way McCoy’s presence makes itself known is side boxes, which are personal anecdotes. In these, he's recounting some adventure of his, which is only in the vaguest sense relates to the underlying material, and usually highlights his ingenuity or bravery, and inevitably end with an pithy one-liner. These sections are much less offensive than the climate change material. They definitely don’t enhance the book, but they don’t also don’t do great harm.

In a YouTube presentation, McCoy claims to have written an additional 40% of material for this book, a number he concedes he pulled out of thin air. Using similar methods, I reckon he added maybe 10% in total, but this 10% has made the book 100% worse.

While the digressive anecdotes are literally separated, and signed McCoy, the embedded text by McCoy can be identified. One way, is by comparing to the 1964 edition available for free from open library. Through directly comparing the two texts, I’ve come to the conclusion that the 3rd Edition is mostly a regurgitation first edition in 1964, although there appears to be some copy editing of Bascom’s writing from place to place. For McCoys writing, you could use context clues, for example a mention of anything dated to after the 2nd edition, but honestly it easier than that because the writing is bad. Bascom may have had some controversal stances, but the man could write. Since there was little or no attempt to merge the texts or comprehensively rework it, it McCoy’s material appended to Bascom’s, and they are just two different calibers.

Working my way through the third edition, a pattern began to emerge. First you get original Bascom material, well written but dated, then Kim McCoy tacks on an ugly appendage. Either an anecdote or some shoehorned climate change nonsense.

Here is an example from the introduction, Bascom is explaining the different kinds of waves that can exist on the sea surface including wind waves, tsunamis, and tides. Looking back at the 2nd edition I could easily verify that the section is the same, and I mean verbatim word for word, and then the text veers into the following:

“The wave of climate change is another very long wave. It traverses human generations yet effects the power and location of winds, the genesis of waves, and the swash of every beach. We have just begun to see and understand its profound influence on all other waves. It is the most important wave ever experienced by our civilization, and one that cannot be separated from any conversation about ocean dynamics.”

The most generous reading of this statement is that he talking about climate change as a metaphorical wave, not an actual wave. But remember, just a before this we have Bascom explaining literal waves. If this is metaphorical, then it’s poor form to switch from literal to figurative without warning. But I think its possible that McCoy means that climate change is a literal wave, which is much worse. If climate change is a wave, what is it a wave of? It isn’t a water wave, you know, like the three types mentioned by Bascom in the previous sentence. He says it “traverses generations”? Is he implying that the climate change we are experiencing is cyclical on a long timescale? So either McCoy’s writing is so bad as to confuse the reader or McCoy himself is confused about which physical phenomena are waves and which are not, this is in a book that is supposed to be the definitive reference on waves.

While I am going to do complaining about McCoy’s climate coverage, do not misunderstand me. Global warming, and the resulting climate change is real, it is one of the most important issues of our time, if not the most important issue, and there is evidence for a climate signal in ocean waves because as weather patterns change, so do the waves generated by these weather patterns. Global warming and climate change is mature science in many areas its effects are well quantified and understood, and often it's the most vulnerable that have contributed the least and yet are effected the most, so I absolutely believe that governments should be doing more to curb carbon emissions. In addition, there are environmental issues that absolutely need addressing, plastics in the oceans, oil spills, and so on.

So my problem is not with bring climate into the book per se, but McCoy is often making specific claims and blanket statements about global increase of wave energy. So far as we currently know, there is not yet a strong consensus on the impact of global warming on ocean waves. In fact, it looks like some areas wave heights are increasing and in others they seem to be decreasing, it is highly variable across the world. But McCoy is not attempting a scientific discussion. He is spouting climate buzzwords. This doesn’t help. It only makes the issue more confusing to people. And this is ok if he was writing this stuff on his personal blog, but he’s not, he’s hijacked the most important popular book on waves.

Moving on to the concept of a wave spectrum, which in its most basic terms tells you the wave energy as a function of wave length. As Bascom says “Waves come in many kinds and sizes,” this is where McCoy’s comes in with:

“These subtle ebbs and flows of energy change our climate, and effect the polar ice cap, sea level, weather patterns, global winds, and the essence of wave formation… Today humans are influencing Earth’s energy flows and climates, its seasons, ice caps, its storms and winds, its sediments and sea level. We have become part of the spectrum”

Here I introduce you to a recurring motif in McCoys writing, long lists of loosely connected stuff. This particular list is capped off with, “We have become part of the spectrum”. I don’t want to insult your intelligence by explaining this, but the literal interpretation of this statement is meaningless. So, you might assume that McCoy is returning to using a word in figurative context directly after it was used in a literal context. But “we have become part of the spectrum” makes even less sense as an analogy. It isn’t even wrong, it is just awful.

When Bascom introduces wave periods, the time between successive crests of a wave. He explains there are short waves and long waves, like swell that have periods of 20 or more seconds, McCoy follows up with:

“Occurrences measured in years such as El Niño– Southern Oscillation (ENSO) bring storm waves”. If there was any doubt that McCoy is conflating weather and climate variations with actual ocean waves, here is the proof. Bascom is talking about waves as oscillations of the sea surface, and then McCoy jumps in and says there are these other oscillations too, ones related to climate. To be clear, ENSO is not a water wave, ENSO is not even period, ENSO is an irregular climate pattern in the atmosphere and ocean that plays out over multiple years. This is nothing if not confusing. It is insidious because McCoy imparting his own confusion unto the audience, in a book that is supposed to be an authority. Folks we are still in the introductory chapter, but we have made it to the last section, which is called “the longest wave”. I reproduce it now in full:

“We are experiencing a wave of climate change that began within the past two centuries. Our liquid oceans and gaseous atmosphere now flow with a new wave of energy enveloping our planet. Water stabilizes our climate. It takes energy to change rigid ice into flowing water. It takes even more energy to change liquid water into water vapor. We know that the flow of energy connects everything. It influences the formation of continents, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the strength of the Sun’s rays, the amount of ice, sea level, human population dynamics, types of atmospheric gases, ocean circulation patterns, seasons, the warm-cold meanders of the jet stream, winds, ocean waves, beach erosion, and sand formation. All are intertwined and essential. We have disrupted the flow of energy to power our civilization. Per capita energy usage has increased one-hundred-fold in the past 1,000 years and doubled in the twentieth century. There is a direct relationship between the gross domestic product (GDP) per person of a country and its per person energy use. A wave of global population has upset the Earth’s climate and the resulting wave of climate change is now upon a densely populated coastline.”

What is this even supposed to mean? Where was the editor? Where were the adults in the room to keep this nonsense from getting published? Again, it is one thing if McCoy wants to publish his own book, he can say whatever he wants, but he is grandstanding on top of a treasured text in ocean waves.
I’ll give McCoy some credit for an interlude that I liked. It was his stellar navigation interlude. He talks about sailing through the night across the Atlantic without modern instruments and explained how traditional navigators used the stars and prevailing swell to stay on course. While I liked this, I also began to suspect that McCoy’s little sea stories were probably incorporated elements of fiction as well.

Later we get a reference to C.C. Stokes, which should be G.G. for Sir George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) a pioneer of wave theory. So CC vs GG, what's the big deal this was probably a simple typo? Maybe it was, but I think it shows that no one who laid eyes on this 3rd edition prior to publication was familiar enough with the wave physics to catch the error.

I have relatively few nitpicky gripes about the science, at least when Bascom is at the helm. Yes, at one point the book says waves slow down in shallow water due to friction of the bottom (which is not true, wave speed is a function of depth, it comes out of the Boundary conditions when solving the Laplace equation, friction has nothing to do with it), which they get right later on in the book.

However, there is what I have to assume is McCoy section which is about the forces at play: gravity, buoyancy, and viscosity, which is so bad and so stupid, here are some of the highlights:

“Gravity, buoyancy, and viscosity are three forces that struggle for dominance as they eternally flirt and dance with each other… Gravity is attractive; think of it as the universe’s charisma… Amazingly, humans can describe gravity, but have yet to agree on what causes it. Buoyancy is an uplifting force. Think of buoyancy as lighthearted and youthful; it makes things lighter when the mood gets heavy. Buoyancy pushes back against gravity’s pull… Viscosity is the stickiness of the universe as energy spreads out. Understanding the twirling dance of gravity, buoyancy, and viscosity is important. Together they influence a grand cascade of energy: the movement of planets, the heat from the Sun, the direction of atmospheric winds, the motion of ocean currents, and the formation of waves. Our waves and beaches are the exhibition of a dynamic act, performed on a moving “dance floor” propelled by wind, tide, and climate.”

Ok, I don’t even know where to start with that mess, and I’ve been talking a long time already, we aren’t out of the introductory chapter. But, some I had to include it because its existence in print, let alone a science book, let a lone a science book with previously solid reputation, strains credulity. Like, I can’t believe what I’m reading.

Fortunately, this botched description of forces was directly followed by Bascom at his best, let just set this quote up a little bit. We’ve just finished learning about waves from linear wave theory and some laboratory experiments, and we are transitioning into studying real waves in the field. Here is Bascom.
“...we fling open the laboratory door, stride out to the edge of the cliff and look at the sea. Good grief! The real waves look and act nothing like the neat ones that endlessly roll down the wave channel or march across the blackboard in orderly equations. These waves are disheveled, irregular, and moving in many directions. No alignment can be seen between a series of crests; some of the crests actually turn into troughs while we are watching them. Should we slink back inside to our reliable equations and brood over the inconsistencies of nature? Never! Instead we must become outdoor wave researchers. It means being wet, salty, cold - and confused.”

Things continue on, Bascom punctuated by McCoy, until we get a whole chapter entitled “Winds and Waves of climate change”. Right away, McCoy is going in on his lists. Just example after example of recent natural disasters. While I am sympathetic to arguments that an uptick in these events may be related to global warming, his presentation wholly untethered from scientific explanation, it is simply assumed that everything bad happening in the world is a direct result of climate change. This is annoying, but forgivable in the absence of saying something coherent about the connection between ocean waves and climate.

McCoy is clearly out of his depth, but I kept wondering why didn't he talk to someone, anyone that is an actual expert on stuff he thought was important enough to write about? Instead of presenting actual scientific evidence, he just name-drops calamities, doing the reader a disservice in the process.
Anyone with access to google can fact-check his claims. For example, he says in 2017 and 2018 there was an increase in an index called the accumulated tropical cyclone energy (also known as Ace), and this increase was due to climate change. A short search on Google scholar up pops a very highly cited paper that claims that Ace has actually decreased over the years 1990-2021.

Then McCoy drops the blender analogy. This, try to keep in mind, is about the effect of high Ace index on beaches:
“The results of higher aces can be compared to higher settings on a kitchen blender. The kitchen blender settings: low level pulse, medium level stir, and highest level whip, have different results. A low level pulse of energy from the atmosphere into the ocean is like a short storm, it causes disruptions yet things return to rest soon after. The next medium level is like the stirring energy of a tropical cyclone causing changes that do not easily return to rest. The highest levels of ace, the extreme category 5 cyclones, whip energy into the ocean, resulting in permanent changes to bars, berms, and beaches. A new normal had been established. Neither the coast line, nor the contents of the blender will ever be the same. Sadly, it has become an irreversible process.”
I let my partner listen to this, and sensing I was exasperated, she tried to make me feel better by saying it wasn’t so bad. And that is part of why it is so terrible, because it almost makes sense but in only the most superficial way, once you dig into to it, any part of it, it all falls apart. Sorting the debris of this analogy is headache inducing, but I brave on for you dear listener. Let’s get the basics of the analogy. The blender is like the storms, the ace being the different settings and the beaches are the contents of the blender. Here are a few basic facts. ACE is an index of all activity. The activity need not be from one powerful storm, it could just as well be the combination of 10 small tropical storms. It is not equivalent to or proxy for cyclone wind speed categories, which would work better as an analogy to a blender setting, so McCoy immediately conflates the two ideas. Next, he claims the low settings on a blender are reversible processes. Have you ever pulsed a banana (by the way, pulse on a blender is usually a very high speed that you only use briefly, you know you pulse it, its not low steady speed, and now I’ve been reduced to explaining blender functions), anyway have you ever pulsed a banana into a smoothie. Then you left it on the counter to take a phone call or something and when you returned it had returned to banana? So annoying when that happens. But of course this does not happen, or more accurately, due to 2nd law of thermodynamics this is unlikely to happen given within the current known age of the universe. This is the meaning of reversible. Blender settings do not differentiate reversible and irreversible processes.

McCoy he continues, I quote.
“Any increase in the speed or the duration of the wind will cause larger waves to form. And the increased energy in the waves will pour devastatingly on the land.” I think he’s trying to say that climate change leads to worse storms making bigger waves, leading to permanent beach change. My reworking of the claim is more coherent, but the language is still too imprecise to test.

Let’s take the first point. Is climate change leading to worse storms? I don't know really know, it’s not my area of expertise, here’s where I phoned a friend, and Dr. Kevin Walsh set me straight.

In our conversation, Kevin said something fascinating, when talking about events related to climate change there are two problems that come up: detection and attribution. Detection is about finding trends. Are the existing observations or model results sufficient for detecting a trend over time, and is that trend significant, or could the trend result from randomness in the data. Examples of processes where detection is strong because the observations go back hundreds of years would be heat waves and sea level rise. Tropical cyclones on the other hand are rare events, and we don’t have a lot of confidence in the trends from cyclone data because we actually didn’t have a good data on their frequency of occurrence until we could start tracking them with satellites in the 1970s. Attribution is the issue of finding a causal connection between a detected trend and climate change, and this part is tricky as well.

The first issue addressing whether storms are worse is that the word worse is too imprecise. We need to talk in terms of measurable characteristics of storms, like number of storms per year, or their intensity, or rainfall rates, or the resulting storm surge.

Keep in mind, there are two main ways of going about analyzing the occurrence of events in relation to climate change. One is using past data or models to infer current trends. I have been measuring sea level in Cape Cod for 100 years, is leveling changing over that this time period? This is the current observational evidence. The other way to investigate the climate is to use models to make predictions about the future based on possible climate scenarios, if it warms by 2 degrees, what does that do to the intensity of storms in my model? How about 5 degrees? This is called making projections.
Kevin says,

“For future total TC numbers, the confidence in global projections is still hampered by differing model results, although most models suggest a decrease in global numbers. In the observations to date, there is no strong-observed trend in TC numbers in SH over the past three decades. There is a consensus among the model projections, though, that in the Southern Hemisphere, numbers will decline and/or shift poleward.

Regarding intensities of TCs: there MIGHT be already be some upward trends in observed intensities in the existing data, but the trend is not strong. For future projections, the general consensus still remains that the strongest TCs will become more intense.

Storm surge will very likely increase due to sea level rise projections that are very confident. Some studies in other regions of the globe have suggested that climate change is already having an effect on TC rainfall. Rain rates in TCs are likely to increase, due to increased evaporation in a warmer world.
Regarding extratropical cyclones… like TCs, the prediction is for extratropical cyclone numbers to decrease in the future. Rainfall rates are likely to increase. There is some indication that winter extratropical cyclones will become more extreme. In the Southern Hemisphere, there is a projected poleward shift.”

It is not easy to generalize, but it sounds like our current understanding of the impact of global warming on storms is that there will be fewer storms, the intense storms that do develop will be more intense, rainfall rate will increase, storm surge will be exacerbated due to sea level rise, and there is a general poleward shift of storm tracks. These studies don’t say anything about whether or not the storms are more or less likely to be landfalling, we can’t make definite statements about impact. So, it is hard to infer any strong conclusions from this, and it is certainly not a recipe for guaranteed catastrophe for all coastal dwellers across the globe, but that won’t be a great consultation to the unlucky few that do get hit by a devastating storm.

So storms getting worse due to climate change is not straight forward, but if they were getting worse the waves would be bigger right? Specifically McCoy says, ““Any increase in the speed or the duration of the wind will cause larger waves to form.” And here I am in a position to answer with expertise, especially since Bascom literally describes the 3 ingredients for wave growth, the third of which McCoy forgot about. Waves in tropical cyclones are fetch-limited, which means waves can’t get any bigger not because the wind isn’t strong enough, but because the area over which strong winds blow is not big enough. This is why extra-tropical cyclones, which have much lower peak wind speeds, but much larger extent, can generate waves comparable or larger than tropical cyclones. So, here McCoy is getting the even basic wave physics wrong.

Well, what about permanent beach change? There is a whole field of people who study beach change, and it is well known that sometimes big changes happen to beaches after storms, but no one talks about permanent vs impermanent change because it doesn’t make sense as a concept. If the changes were permanent, then that implies they would no longer be subject to change. But of course, beaches continually change.

I want to reiterate that my problem here isn’t that we shouldn’t be concerned with climate change, we should be very concerned, in particular the sea levelrise is going to the storm surge of landfilling storms worse, and the storm surge is the most deadly part of a storm. My problem is the generally a lack of curiosity from McCoy’s when it comes to the actual science. When Bascom wrote the book, it was from a place of a genuine expertise. If McCoy couldn’t bring any expertise to the table, especially in terms of climate, he should have consulted with actual experts instead of making a mockery of Bascom’s work.

McCoy wrap up this section of the book by advocating for global 1 child policy, you know because that’s real high on the list of practical policies for reducing green house gas emissions.

Thankfully, the next chapter is a reprieve back into some classic Bascom material with a chapter on tides and seiches. Bascom’s explanations are great, if a little straightforward. It doesn’t last long because get the usual forced insertion of climate from McCoy and then on to story time. He's free diving again, on an exotic island local only accessible to intrepid mariners, of course, when he notices a hole on the island with sloshing water. After a few dives he decides that, even though he has no way of knowing how long the hole is, that it must eventually run clear through the whole island. So he then decides, that he is going to, you know, just go for it. This man is saying that he decided to swim an unknown distance underwater, and for what? Well the swim was harrowing, it took strength, he nearly passed out, had to hold his breath over two minutes, but he made it, he conquered the island. Did he actually do this, did he pop up on the other side, sun on his face, no lessons learned, just happy to be alive. And maybe it was with this same reckless abandon that he approached the writing of this book. He tested the waters a little told the boys he’s going for it, only to find out at some point in the process he was way in over his head, but instead of retreating he decides to press on, and despite the blatant disregard for caution and healthy disrespect for science, and he published it this thing that had anyone with any sense been around should have never been attempted without proper preparation.

Believe it or not, I could go on, in fact I’ve cut out a lot from this episode, but For everyone’s sake I am going to start wrapping it up. You’ve heard me wonder out loud a few times, where was the editor? This book, in fact, had not one, but two editors, it also had a Photo Editor and Art Director/Designer and a Project Manager and Graphic Production and a Creative Director. You know what they didn’t have, they didn’t have a fact-checker, they didn’t have a qualified reviewer.

And If I were to say something positive about this edition is that there are beautiful images throughout it. It occurred to me that I was thinking about this project all wrong. I thought this was supposed to be an update to a classical science book, but the real intention was to turn Waves and Beaches into coffee table book. All the serious effort from the publishers went into collecting the images in the book. Even most of the scientific illustrations were pretty good, even if I personally preferred the old school ones. So the emphasis from the publishing team was clearly on the look and not the content, certainly not on updating the science or bringing in a good faith discussion of climate change or reining in McCoy’s bad habits.

In the acknowledgements, McCoy specifically names 3 people who “helped” him with this book. I will not repeat the names because I don’t want to harm their reputation. I was able to verify two as actual scientist. However, none of the three had expertise in ocean waves, none had expertise in geomorphology or nearshore processes, and none had expertise in climate. If it needs stating, the most basic duty of a nonfiction author is to bring authority to the page, and this is where McCoy.

As heartbreaking as the journey was, I did appreciate the opportunity to revisit Bascom. Some of his descriptions of waves are absolute timeless, and he was undoubtedly a gifted communicator. And if you have interest in wave science, I would recommend going back to the first or second edition. I want to thank Dr. Kevin Walsh for helping me understand effects of climate change on storms, if you are interested in the scientific articles he used to inform his statements I will have them in the show notes.

I wanted to end this review with a list of my favorite McCoyism throughout the text, but then, like the gift that keeps on giving, I discovered something strange. Kim McCoy has this refrain that appears throughout the text, “go and see.” He repeats no less than 5 or 6 times, so I thought it was like his catchphrase or something, but no, it's actually from Bascom. In first edition, Bascom closes the epilogue with the phrase “go and see”, and I guess McCoy adopted it as his mantra. It makes you wonder if there weren’t loads more of these things sprinkled throughout the text, and an editor had to say look McCoy, we really got to take it easy on the go and sees, and if this is the case I owe the editors an apology. Anyway, instead of the full list, which I’ll put on my website, I’ll leave you with my favorite line from Kim McCoy: Unseen waves are everywhere you look.

Thanks for listening to this special edition of Book Science. My thanks to Dr. Kevin Walsh for sharing his expertise. I’ll include links to relevant research in the show notes. I’ll be speaking with Dr. Walsh in a future episode about his book called Planets of the Known Galaxy. If you want more, I’ll be posting figure comparisons and further commentary on my website and patreon. Until next time, stay curious.

Season 1 Episode 6 - Helen Czerski

Tripp: This show was recorded in Norm, Melbourne, Australia, where the traditional custodians include the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm Tripp Collins, and this is Book Science. The podcast explores how the best science books are written and why they matter.

Today on Book Science I'm joined by physicists, oceanographer, BBC presenter, author, and yes, bubble expert Dr. Helen Czerski.

Dr. Czerski is from Northwest England and has a PhD from Cambridge in experimental explosives physics. But then she found something truly interesting, the ocean. She is now a professor at University College London. Along the way she became not just a leading scientist, but also a skilled communicator, bringing science to broad audiences through the BBC.

She's also a central member of the Cosmic Shambles Network, an independent network of creatives who like to bring together interesting ideas from science, music, art, literature, and comedy. Helen's books include Storm in a Teacup published in 2016, Bubbles published in 2018, and Blue Machine, how the ocean shapes our world published in 2023. Blue Machine is a master class in science storytelling, and it's the most comprehensive science book about the ocean since Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. It's a sweeping, elegant, deeply human exploration of the ocean as a planetary engine. It shows us that the ocean isn't just a passive backdrop to human activity. It's a dynamic, structured and energetic system that governs climate, shapes ecosystems, and sustains our civilization. And crucially, it's a system we often take for granted, in part because we can't see it. But Helen is working hard to bring an understanding of the ocean to everyone.

The book is full of moments that surprise and delight me. A visit to the fish market leads to a discussion of distribution of biomass by body size. The evolution of fiendships becomes a meditation on humanity shifting relationship with nature. Even the Humble Act of paddling a canoe turns into a thread that ties together energy, motion, tradition, and scientific insight. Helen wants people to understand physics is for everyone. Through her books, you can gain confidence in your ability to explore a world, to question it, and to understand it. Blue Machine is an invitation to see the ocean not just as a mystery, but as a knowable, wondrous part of our shared world.

I am thrilled to bring you this conversation with Dr. Helen Chersky.

Tripp: In Storm in a Teacup, you write, “The atmosphere gets all the glory, but the oceans are the power behind the throne. Next time you look at a globe or a satellite picture of the earth, don't think of the oceans as simply blue bits between all the interesting continents. Imagine the tug of gravity on those giant slow currents and see the blue bits for what they are, the biggest engine on the planet.”

So even back then, it seems to me that you had the seed planted for Blue Machine. Can you talk about the evolution of that idea for you?

Helen Czerski: Yes. It's interesting how ideas grow because it's the case for several projects that I've done. When you look back, I haven't seen that one. It's a good spot, but these things are rattling around at the back of your mind, and they just haven't found a shape yet.

When the next book comes, you find a way to make use of that shape. Storm in a Teacup is about the physics of everyday life, as the title says. I guess it came from this continual, like this thing, especially 10 years ago, maybe it's a little bit better now, but I walked around the world and said in various environments, I'm a physicist, and the response from more than 60% of everybody was exactly the same word for word, and it was, oh, I hated physics at school. And I just thought that was ridiculous because I just saw physics as a bunch of toys. And there is this perception that physics is all quantum mechanics and cosmology, and it's all kind of a bunch of stuff, so you've got to be very clever and have very strange hair for some reason to study. But I just saw physics as patterns that helped me explain the world, and once you've understood the pattern in one place, then you keep applying the same pattern. Once you understand how surface tension works, then you see it elsewhere, you see it again, and you see it again, and then you understand all of those things just through having seen one pattern. So Storm in a the Teacup was really my attempt to stand up for physics not being for other people, I guess, but also giving people agency. Everybody does know some intuitive physics, right? We all know when we drop things, approximately how long they're going to take to get to the floor.

So it's all there. I think the physics of the natural world is really interesting. And some of the snobbishness of quantum mechanics and cosmology comes from the idea that they're far away and difficult and beyond our ken. And yet, actually, there's a relatively small number of laws involved in these things. And the equations might be very complicated, but fundamentally, you're dealing with some gravity, some fundamental forces. And it's not that it's simple, but you've got a relatively constrained playing field. Whereas when you look at the world around us, you've got all these different forces competing, jostling, until you get a much richer situation. And it just kind of gets dismissed as trivial. But actually, there's so much we don't know. So it's really stupid to go, oh, well, obviously understanding snails is for the children.

And then you go, well, how does the snail work? I don't know. It's just ridiculous. It was an attempt to stand up for the interesting physics in the middle, which is the physics where we live. And obviously that's important. And then as part of that towards the end, I was always interested in the physics of the natural world. And I started talking about life support systems.

I think we have three. We've got our own body, our planet, and then the infrastructure of our civilization, which is a life support system for us now. And that's why climate change is such a thorny problem. It's because two of those life support systems are clashing, right? The infrastructure of the planet are clashing. That's why it's difficult.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be a hard problem. So seeing all of that came along with me learning more and more about the ocean. I was late to oceanography. And I sort of discovered it by the back door. And I was really indignant when I first came across the ocean that nobody had talked about this. I was that kid that had read every science magazine and book and I'd read all the things I was supposed to read.

Nobody had mentioned the ocean. And so it was always there as a thing that I knew there was a story and I knew I didn't understand it. Certainly in 2016, I didn't understand it nearly as well as I do now. But I knew there was something to say. And so it's all just sort of, you progress along the ideas of something to say.

Tripp: And it's the right size idea for a book. The ocean can easily occupy an entire book, maybe a series of books. One thing you've previously said in an interview was that maybe you hadn't offered to write a book before Storm in a Teacup, but you wanted to wait until you had something to say.

Helen Czerski: Yeah. Well, there are two practical reasons for that. One of them was just that, you know, I was a postdoc. I was moving around before I came to University College London.

My academic, and I'm being careful deliberately here, but the academic environment I was in was very dismissive of that kind of thing. It was difficult for other reasons. And so there was a practical reason for waiting to write that one.

But also I think there is, there's this very weird thing I think when people say, oh, I'd like to write a book and you go, why? What is it you've got? Like, what is the thing you've got to say? But I mean, it's fine. But what is it?

Right? What is the thing that's going to go in all these words? Because it's quite a lot of words. And of course, the process of writing is the same as the process of thinking. So you think writing forces you to confront yourself and to think about what you're doing.

So of course, there is a process of writing while you're thinking. But I do think that the world is very full of people who want to be the one talking, not for any reason, just because they're insecure for all these other reasons. And they think for some reason that's going to fill the gap.

And of course, it won't unless you have something to contribute. And so I find the world of modern social media very difficult because it seems to be full of people who want to be talking so that they're the one talking in order to fill some other gap in their lives. I don't think that's the work you work. I think that, you know, we've all got things to contribute and that's great. And we work out what those are. But when you've got sort of experience and ideas and you've got things and then there's something to say, then it's worth somebody else's time. You've got to do the work before it's worth somebody else's time.

And actually a world where people haven't done the work before they take everybody else's time is what drives us all mad, right? It's the reason that we see a lot of what's on social media as kind of, it's this sort of shallow waste of time. And not all of it is, but, you know, it's because the only point of it is to hold your attention. It's not to do anything else for you. It's not giving you anything.

Somebody hasn't put the work in to really make it worth your while, but you're somehow drawn into watching anyway. You know, I do think lots of people have can make contributions in different ways, but I don't think it's healthy that people want to be the person who's talking just so they're the one who is talking. And we don't really question that very much in the moment.

We just assume that the tech bros of one and that your Instagram follower account is the only thing that defines you as a human. Yeah. That's horrible. And, you know, so, yeah, I was kind of reacting against that before it was a thing, I guess.

Tripp: I'm going to transition a little bit into asking about structure because I think your books sometimes find themselves in having a very interesting structure. And I'm going to point out this passage in Blue Machine about the dead water phenomenon.

It's like the center of this Russian doll. And it goes ocean anatomy, layered ocean, Mediterranean, and Ambracian Gulf, internal waves, dead water, and then we have like an anecdote about Nansen on Fram. And I just, I don't know, I love that. And I think you had a knack for structure and weaving in and out of stories while never losing the big picture. So I don't know, can you talk about your approach to that? Is that something you think about during the writing process?

Helen Czerski: No, I just don't take it. I'm just saying interesting, right? And obviously the logic. I mean, the logic is in the series of ideas, but it doesn't matter how you express the ideas, right? So there is a structure underneath it that took a long time to kind of shimmy into place. But the structure, once it's there, should be invisible, really.

You should only see the sort of, the beautiful things that hang off it. So I think the key to all of that, I mean, so I've never thought about that list, for example, but I know I had a series of ideas that built on one another and that's what's underneath it. And then I think what surprises people is just, I mean, this is the wonderful thing about science, right? It's the universality of it, that you have a concept that is both common to a seafarer 2,000 years ago trying to win a battle and to an Arctic explorer and to a modern ship going through a canal, you know, in a particular. So there's this universality about it. You know, it's almost taboo in some ways in our culture to jump around, it's seen as childish, but actually that's the point is it's all connected. It's the pattern.

Right? So, so all what I'm interested in is, is telling a story of patterns to some extent it's a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right? But the point is that if you're led through a series of ideas that's satisfying.

There's no reason to go the boring way, right? Yeah, that's right. So I just think that those links, people really respond to that sort of, oh, I hadn't thought of it like that, right? And we are human brains like that kind of thing because it changes your perspective on the world. And what you're doing as a science writer, I mean, people think it's about facts and it's explanations. It isn't actually it's about perspective. What you're doing is laying out a perspective for somebody. You're an expert in something you've got, you know, in my case, a physicist or a solution. So you've got a particular perspective on the world. And what you're doing is sharing that perspective.

It's not about which fish lives and exactly which part of the Atlantic Ocean on a Tuesday, although you need to get that right. And that's very, very important. It's about leaving people with a sort of mental picture that they can carry with them as a frame to hang other ideas on. And that is that perspective thing is what it's all about.

Tripp: Part of what I'm hearing is like, is that the structure isn't important for setting boundaries. It's scaffolding for your ideas and your ideas need to make connections. And those connections can take you anywhere and they should take you anywhere, anywhere that's interesting.

Helen Czerski: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a very good surfer, but it's kind of like surfing that you've got to know where you're going, but you can't look down.

Tripp: Yeah, your writing is fun. I think it's curious, conversational. It's tackling like very complex topics, but also it's very invitational. I think sermon and teacup in particular is very invitation. There are many invitations to action. It's like, go on, try it yourself, figure it out and learn about why things the way they are. I was just wondering if you could talk about that, like what drew you to invite people to participate in the book?

Helen Czerski: Well, isn't it silly that adults think that kids should play with things and they shouldn't? I mean, it's just a ridiculous idea, right? I had a friend after, so I had a couple of friends from my badminton club who read Storm in a the Teacup before it was published. And one of them came back, he texted me one morning and he was at a business conference in, I don't know, Switzerland or something. And the text message went, I'm sitting at a breakfast in a really posh hotel and I'm looking at the piece of toast that's been buttered on my table. And I really want to push it off the table, see where it falls to the side down. And the point is, I mean, in a posh restaurant, you will probably annoy the way to this. You spend too much time deliberately pushing toast off the table. But in principle, that is not a children's activity, right?

And we have to get away from this idea that this is childish. And actually, the response to talk of Storm in a the Teacup was very interesting because you write a book like that, you get invited to give talks and speak to lots of people and it's very nice and they ask lots of questions and that's great. And it was very striking that in the, what you might call the more intellectual press, you know, sort of the Guardian reading, you know, growing up newspapers, that sort of thing, they were like, oh, well, it's very nice.

Yes, very nice. Whereas the people who had no reason to, you know, the people who were just like the plumber or someone on the talk radio show in the middle of some tiny county in Britain, they were like, oh, that's really weird. My dog does this. Why does that happen? They didn't have this sort of cultural feeling that they should be too clever to know this. So they just went, oh, I've noticed the thing. Why is that related to that?

And they made these brilliant connections because they weren't too snobbish to think that somehow they were too clever to know it. I have very little time for that. I think everyone should be prepared to play because all of us are still learning.

Tripp: Yeah, it's almost like society expects you to mature out of curiosity, which is like the worst thing possible, right? Like you need to stay curious your whole life. You're never going to be too old to know. To think about something, to learn about something, or to make these connections. Another thing about your writing I wanted to bring up was it often strikes me as cinematic and sometimes you write in scenes. For example, you're explaining viscosity and buoyancy with fat globules and milk. To set this up, you tell the story of door-to-door milk delivery and there's this small bird called the blue tit and it learned to poke its beak through the little tin lid to get it at the cream, which had risen to the top. When I'm reading, I visually play out the scene in my mind. I can almost hear David Adburrow in the background narrating the scene to me. I know you're a presenter for BBC, but I wasn't sure how much does your work in visual media influence your writing, setting scenes in this way, a conscious part of your writing style?

Helen Czerski: I think of myself as someone who describes what I see in creative ways. In a way, I have to see it a little bit. It's also true that there's no doubt that having done a lot of TV, certainly at the start influenced how I write because TV is a visual medium. If they want to explain gravity, they don't give us stuff whether you're on top of a mountain or in the bottom of a cellar. They just want something visual.

I guess I had a sort of education in those first few years at the BBC where I saw people who went, oh, okay, right. We want to demonstrate the downward leg of the Hadley cell. Let's chuck you out of the plane over the Sonoran Desert. And you can talk about sinking air on the way down. And I thought that was the stupid thing in the world when I suppose first suggested it to me. But it worked. It worked really well. And that clip is still used by schools in Britain because it sort of makes it real.

Right. You can have all these diagrams of arrows going up and down and all this kind of stuff. So I guess there's no question that my way into this was that kind of thing. But then the thing it's paired with is that I have always been a poker of things, if you like, that I've always had that. And that's weird.

Why does it do that? You know, I grew up in my family from the north of England and they just write down to Earth up there. And if we didn't know, they go, oh, let's do it. Let's try it and find out. And it wasn't sort of, you know, there was no kind of expectation that anything posh was going to come out of it. It's just like, oh, oh, well, let's do it.

You know, it's very sort of pragmatic. I've always had that thing where I can look into something and see something slightly beyond just out of complete confidence that it is there. I once did with Cosmic Shambles, which is a network of interesting science stuff that I work for. Well, it was my idea that we do an advent calendar one year where we ask people for the most boring photo they could possibly take. And we collected 25 of them or however many you need for an advent calendar. And the challenge for me was to find some interesting physics in every single one. And I could do it really easily because I've had years of practice of doing it.

Right. So it's just that habit of looking and just a lot of adults, I think, walk around the world and go, oh, I wonder why that is. And then they throw that thought away and I just hold on to them.

Tripp: Why continue to write books? What does the book bring that other mediums on?

Helen Czerski: The book is the single greatest tool humanity has for conveying what is in one person's head into another person's head. I've always been a reader and completely like I drive my partner mad because he thinks I've got too many books and I'm like, you can't have too many books. It's just not a thing.

That's not possible. And I think that the thing that books do that we have moved away from a little bit is they completely immerse you in something and they give you the chance to start something and actually get to the end of it. The long way around. And that, especially in the modern world, is an enormous privilege because everything's fast. Everyone's busy. Everything's like, gotta do it now.

Gotta do it now. And so the thing about a book is you can you can really explore an idea and you can bring people with you and they are like such powerful objects. I think it's in the fact that in our world today, libraries, not digital as well as physical are often dismissed and defunded.

I think it's close to criminal because this is common heritage of mankind. You know, we can pick up a book. You and I could both walk into a building somewhere near us wherever we are now and we could pick up a book that was written 300 years ago and we could transplant what was in the head of a person 300 years ago into our own head. Right. That's powerful. So that's sort of that.

And then the other thing about writing books is especially for someone who, you know, if you do TV or you do radio, you do these things. There's always an editor. Right.

You've always got a commissioner who's going, Oh, well, does it need to be that long? Well, what about this bit or why are we doing that? Whereas with a book, you are completely responsible and fine. You know, my publisher might have some opinions and might say, Oh, well, you know, could we, I didn't quite get that bit and maybe she's that bit.

But, you know, should that be a bit earlier or something? Although not much with with my book. So I have a really good publisher and she kind of gets how I write. There's always an editor.

Right. So the point is that when you write a book, you are solely responsible for this journey and it's not edited in the same way. Of course, you have an editor, but fundamentally, you have the privilege of going, I want to go this way. And it's my book. And so we are going this way and you can play the whole thing out because often with ideas like this, it's kind of in your head and you can't quite explain it to someone else.

And with a book, you can write it all down and you can go, This is what I mean. So it's very exposing because you are personally responsible for it. But on the other hand, this is what I think.

Right. I mean, I have thought of all the words I said on TV or the vast majority of them. I came up with a lot of the ideas, you know, I frayed, I framed them. Of course, there were writers and editors who did the structure and that kind of stuff. But in a book, these are my words and I am responsible and I'm allowed to say what I think without tweeting it to see what anyone else else thinks. And so, you know, you get to read what's in my head and that is the privilege of a book.

My responsibility, but also with my privilege. So what is cosmic shambles? Cosmic shambles is a network that is led by Robin Ince the comedian and Trent Burton, who's the producer and comprising a bunch of the rest of us. We are comedians, musicians, scientists, people who are interested in ideas. The work that Robin and Trent do is cosmic shambles is kind of an umbrella for lots of different formats, but they all basically have the same idea behind them, which is the ideas are interesting. And we shouldn't necessarily put ideas in boxes, you know, if we can see the links between a piece of music and then some piece of science about the sex life of a fly and then go from that to 17th century literature and philosophy.

Why shouldn't we? There are links and that's part of the joy of being human is that we can encompass all of these things, right? Within it, we can take all these things on their merits and that variety is totally the fun of being human. So cosmic shambles is basically a network for a bunch of us. So there's a sort of core and then, you know, we invite various people to join in to get as many voices as possible along the way. But the whole point of it is that is a celebration of curiosity without snobbishness, really, and just enjoying the weird and wonderful places it takes us. You know, I have I met a friend who's worked with me on the shambles network recently, the musician Steve Pretty.

And, you know, one of the last things we did together was when diving scuba diving in a pool in London, so I could video him playing the trumpet underwater. Like, not so. So that's what cosmic shambles is. And I think this mixture of music and science and comedy is a very powerful, satisfying thing because you don't have to be in a pigeonhole. You can just enjoy all of this. You know, if you're watching one of our shows and you're not particularly interested in the sex life of the fly, wait five minutes because something else is coming along. We're all into that.

Tripp: Yeah, I found it just through your work. But man, it's been such a rewarding rabbit hole just to go in there and see all the different kinds of topics. And there's podcasts, there's YouTube videos, there's productions, there's everything.

So it's a really fun experience. One of them I wanted to ask you about in particular. So I think it's a recent YouTube video and you might even be at Ocean Science meeting and you have this powerful interview with Monique Verdin, a Native American from the Mississippi Delta. And I encourage listeners to watch the interview and look up the work of Monique Verdin. But can you tell me why you featured her story?

Helen Czerski: Well, Shambles came along to New Orleans for the Ocean Sciences meeting, partly because Shambles people love New Orleans, like the production, so I think that's their favorite place. But also because it's such an opportunity, I mean, that Ocean Sciences meeting is such an opportunity to mix all the ideas about the ocean because the ocean is so big and complicated, the biologists and the chemists and the, you know, everyone's doing their own thing. And it's also complicated. And it's a kind of melting pot. So we like the idea of that. So, yeah, it would transfer the world if you're going there and we've got a few other reasons to be there.

Let's make this documentary. And of course, it's an important thing that there is more than one way to look at the ocean. And in science, we take that for granted, you know, we zoom out, we zoom in, we look at it from different places. We look at it through ecology and through chemistry and through physics. But of course, there are also different humans and different human perspectives on it. There is no reason we can't talk about those ideas about the ocean at the same time as talking about the sort of more hardcore science ideas, because fundamentally they all join up around the back.

They're all ideas that you can interrogate. You don't have to agree with everything. You can look at the consequences or the evidence or the, you know, whatever it is. And you can say, oh, that's interesting. That has stimulated me to think about something differently or to question something I hadn't questioned before. Or maybe I just didn't agree with it at all.

And I don't not very comfortable with that, whatever it is. But, you know, so she's brilliant, but featuring those voices shouldn't be so alien, I think. You know, they're all, they're just other voices that we need lots of voices. And these are valid voices in the conversation. So, you know, let's let's hear from everyone. That's a general approach.

Tripp: I think it's very important actually to get indigenous perspectives because they've lived in connection with the ocean, with the land for so long. They have an earned perspective that sometimes Western scientists we've been dismissive of over time that we really should value it. I'm going to try to wrap up with a few more rapid fire type questions. The first is book recommendations. But I heard you on Book Shambles. And so on there you talked about A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Feathers by Melissa Stewart, the Earth by Richard Forte. What am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatlin, Hawaiki Rising by Sam Low, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Are there anything, is there anything you want to add to that list?

Helen Czerski: So those are recommendations from a few years ago. So, yes, I think Fire Weather, that is brilliant. It won the Bayley Giffords two years ago, I think, and as a sort of interrogation of what burning fossil fuels both does to humanity and does to the environment. And he describes humanity as a cult, I think a cult of a trillion fires or something. It's brilliant, brilliant writing.

So, yes, definitely that. I've just started a really good one. I can't remember the name of it. And it's over there, but that's no use. Let's see what else we've got.

Tripp: You can always send it to me and I'll put it in the show notes, no worries.

Helen Czerski: Yeah, I might be able to think of it. Basically, it's usually whatever I read last week. But there are some spectacularly good books out there. And the great thing about them is they're always more. I can send you a list.

Tripp: Yeah, no worries. So what about for you? What's next? What are you most excited about exploring?

Helen Czerski: Well, I have this ongoing radio series on BBC Radio 4, which is Rare Earth where we talk about climate and climate and environments. And we look at different topics every week. And it's a sort of conversational thing, but we have some brilliant guests and we really get into issues in the history and philosophy of various environmental problems. You know, optimism as well as pessimism. And that is also an exploration of ideas. So that's a kind of ongoing thing.

I am starting to get going on another book, but finding time in the middle of term is always hard. Performances over the summer are always a festival. So science festivals in the UK and even music festivals now often let scientists in. So over the summer, I've got I'll be doing a series of things, especially a latitude in the summer that is a big cosmic shambles presence at latitude. So that's coming up. So yeah, a mixture of things. It's always all about the mixture. That's the fun thing.

Tripp: Where can people find out more and support your work?

Helen Czerski: I am on blue sky and mastodon on and threads and Instagram sort of in order of the amount of time I spend on them and LinkedIn. So all of those places. I have a website, HelenCzerski.net and the cosmic shambles website is always a good place to keep up on what all of the cosmic shambles people are doing. And Rare Earth has its website on the BBC webpage and all of the programs we've made and all of the topics we've made. And the one we made the week we're recording this is about shipping, actually. And it's really interesting if you think shipping is boring when it comes to climate and environment really, really isn't. And there's some massive decisions about to be made that will set the course for the future of shipping pun intended. And so yeah, all of that is on the BBC website.

Tripp: Sounds awesome. I'll definitely check it out. All right. So I've been talking with Helen Czerski about her books Storm in a Teacup and most recently Blue Machine. There's still so much more to explore. We haven't even breached the surface of Helen's bubble. So please pick up our books, check out her website. And I want to just end by saying thank you. Thanks for being a champion for the ocean. I think you're helping more and more people build a personal connection to the ocean through your work, which is so important. So thank you. And I really appreciate your time.

Helen Czerski: Thanks for having me on.

Tripp: Hey, Tripp here. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, there are a few ways you can help us keep the conversation going. First, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us connect with more listeners.

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The Patreon is also a great place to get in touch and we'd love to hear from you. So what books would you like to hear us cover next? Remember, you can find show notes and all things book science, as well as everything else I'm working on at TrippCollins.com. Thanks for listening. I am Tripp Collins and this has been book science. Your invitation to think deeply, stay curious, get off the scroll and get out into the world. Take care.

Season 1 Episode 5 - Lynne Kelly

Tripp: This show was recorded in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia, where the traditional custodians include the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm Tripp Collins, and this is Book Science. The podcast explores how the best science books are written and why they matter.

Do Aboriginal songlines hold secrets to survival in the desert? Are Neolithic stone circles ancient memory palaces? Lynne Kelly certainly thinks so. She's an author, a science writer, and a memory expert. She and I talked about the surprising way oral cultures store vast knowledge without writing.

We explore creativity, storytelling, neurodivergence, and how these ancient techniques can transform our modern minds. So wide-ranging and eye-opening conversation, and I think you're really going to enjoy it. All right, today we are talking to Lynne Kelly, author of 20 books, all with a focus on science.

And today we're going to discuss concepts from a number of those books, including the memory code, memory craft, and most recently, the knowledge gene. Lynn, thanks so much for joining me today. It's an absolute pleasure, Tripp. I'm very excited. I'm just looking at my notes. I have so much I want to ask.

I hope we can get through it. Let's start with your most recent work, which revolves around human memory, knowledge systems, creativity, particularly as it relates to oral cultures and Indigenous knowledge systems. But I'd like to hear from you. How would you summarize your work in this domain?

Lynne Kelly: I started a PhD 15 years ago or so on, as a mature age, interested in Indigenous stories in terms of how they encode science. The thing is my natural memory is appallingly bad, and I realized they were memorizing vast amounts of information. And the question which derailed the entire PhD topic was how the hell are they doing that? So I ended up changing over to memory, and the experts are Indigenous cultures, because they have to memorize everything they know. There's a spiritual dimension and so on to their stories and that. But I focus entirely on the science because that is common. Everybody's interested in what's different between cultures. But our science is common.

Kangaroos go boingadity, boingadity, and the stars move in the same way, no matter what culture it is. And so I started looking into those memory systems, and that became my PhD. And then that got derailed by going to Stonehenge, and I started to see the methods that are used, which we'll get into more detail, in the archaeology. So I started going way back in the archaeology, and the knowledge she has back 40- 50,000 years, showing that these great monuments that people say, oh, they're to the gods or whatever, they were memory palaces. They were systems for recalling vast amounts of information, incredibly robust systems, and we can use them now because our brains work the same way. We just don't.

Tripp: Yeah, and we're definitely going to go back and talk about a lot of that in specific detail, in particular, I'm going to ask you about memory palaces. But I wanted to ask right now about, since you mentioned your PhD training, it was in nonfiction writing, but you had already had a number of books prior to that PhD work. You were probably qualified to teach the nonfiction writing course, but nevertheless, you enrolled as a student. So what prompted you to get that PhD?

Lynne Kelly: I want to go back to university. I just love studying. And let's be cynical. I knew that if I was writing on Indigenous knowledges, I had a better chance. I'd already written on for education science, quite a lot of books, and then on animals, on crocodiles and spiders, my big love is spiders, and realize then when I was trying to write the crocodile book that I, there's 23 crocodilian species around the world, trying to introduce them without just making it a boring list because there's a big difference writing for academia than there is writing for the mass market. The Indigenous stories gave me what at the time in my naivety, I thought were cutesy little stories that had just made the book a bit sweeter to read.

And that's when I stumbled over the fact that these cutesy little stories weren't anything like that. They actually encoded very accurate details of the different species. So I went back to uni in order to write about how Indigenous animal stories encoded behavior, and then started on about memory.

Tripp: I'm curious about the program on nonfiction writing in particular. Was there something you took away from that apart from the dedicated time for research necessary to fuel like a book project? What did you learn about creating nonfiction work from that course?

Lynne Kelly: Huge amount. I went in as a PhD researcher, so I didn't have to. This is at the La Trobe University. I went into the English department. I just don't fit anywhere. I'm too interdisciplinary. And that to me is a big problem with our universities.

I'm going to sidetrack now. Indigenous knowledges are integrated. You know, the stars can tell you about animals, can tell you about relationships.

We have nice, neat silos in our universities, and they don't tend to talk to each other. So where did I go with this interest in Indigenous stories? The only place I could was creative writing. And the English department took me on with they'd never taken a science writer, always fiction before, or literary criticism. I got a scholarship and I learned a lot by auditing earlier courses. I didn't have to sit big exams or assessments and going to seminars. And it was a mind-blowing experience because people in the humanities don't talk like people in the science. And I learned a lot, firstly, but if anybody gives a seminar with an unintelligible title, they don't know as much as the people who give seminars with intelligible title. That was a big revelation. And that there is a massive difference between writing for academia, which is actually much easier. My first book out of the PhD was Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies, Cambridge University Press, which is purely academic. Writing for trade, which is the mainstream market, is completely different.

And now I'll get on a hobbyhorse. There's a loss of, as well as a lack of, respect to science happening around the world and for academia. And I think part of the problem is academics don't write and learn to write for people who are not academics or not scientists. If we don't communicate our research, we can't expect them to back their taxpayer dollars going to us sitting in ivory towers and silos and writing for our fellow academics. That is a big motivation for me, writing for the mainstream market. And now I've forgotten the question. I've sidetracked so much.

Tripp: No, I'm going to keep you right there. So you mentioned your first book, and it was a product of your dissertation, published with Cambridge University Press. And the following book was The Memory Code. And this book was similar material, but you translated it for a popular audience. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to adapt academic work for a general audience? Like, what goes into that?

Lynne Kelly: The word adapt has to be cut out of that. You can't adapt it. You have to start again, because the voice is completely different. The other thing is you use quirky bits. Now, when you're doing any academic research, there will be little things that happen that can't go in an academic paper. For example, when I was doing a memory palace for all of prehistory, my little dog walked with me. And at the time when we walked past where the dinosaurs came, she always wanted to turn around and go home.

And I had to pick her up and carry her past the dinosaurs, and then she was fine. Now, that doesn't go in any academic paper. In The Memory Code, it is probably the anecdote that is quoted back to me most. People asked me how the dog is. Now, she was already old, so that's why she needed carrying. So she's no longer with me. And people being sad that I've lost my little dog. That's the big difference is those little quirky anecdotes that bring a human dimension and a canine dimension to the narrative, because it is a story.

And that's what I learned. And I actually end up teaching in creative writing and professional writing, because it's that narrative that readers need. Scientists reading an academic paper are looking for the introduction, the details, the conclusion and science. But people reading a trade book want to be taken on a journey, and in your journey is the easiest narrative to take it on.

Tripp: There is an interesting corollary with Indigenous knowledge systems there, because they know that already. When they transmit knowledge, they know that storytelling has to be an integral part of that. Exactly.

Lynne Kelly: And they have vibrant characters. So the characters will either be extremely ugly, extremely beautiful, very bad. Vulgarity and violence work very well to make it memorable. So what anthropologists, many of them, and most people see as cutesy little folk stories, are not. The thing is that the stories we hear are those that are told to the children. So they're starting to lay down the foundation for the knowledge.

But in order to get the higher levels, which is where you start bringing in all the details of the information, you have to be initiated. So we don't hear that. And there's really important reasons for keeping it that way. And so those stories, and then you add a whole lot of other memory devices to make them even more robust, which we'll get into. Mythology is a memory device. It's a mnemonic technology. It's not the same as fairy tales.

I suspect, and there's others who do, that fairy tales are just the leftovers from our old tradition where you just keep the characters and the stories and kick out all the information.

Tripp: Right. I wanted to ask you about the knowledge gene a little bit. You tell the story how an email kicked off your journey into the world of genetics. And it sounded to me as if you knew, like almost right away, that there is evidence, that knowledge and creativity being uniquely human, and that this was an idea of sufficient weight that you could build a book around it. So my question is more broad. So, can you talk a little bit about how you know an idea is big enough to sustain a book project?

Lynne Kelly: You have to become obsessed by the idea that you're going to plan the book. Now that's the fun bit. You then got two years later, two years more of going over and over and over it. If it's an idea that you can sustain that, lots of people plan books and start them. You have to be willing to put in those years of just checking every little detail and then going through the editing phase, which I don't enjoy, but thank goodness for the editors. Because lots of things you'll do are not ambiguous to you, but are to the reader.

That is something that the editors will pick up and it just takes time. So you know the idea is worthwhile if you know that you are going to be obsessed with it for a number of years. Because from starting to publication is usually two to three, if not four years.

Tripp: And about the book as a format, these days there's all kinds of ways to communicate science and it seems to me that society has been trending towards shorter and shorter forms of communication. Why should we still be writing books? You sort of spoke to this a little bit about the need for scientists to communicate the value that they're creating for society. But in particular, what makes a book maybe uniquely challenging and a uniquely rewarding form?

Lynne Kelly: You can't get the detail in a short form. Now there's great value for short form and that's where you lay the groundwork. But the sort of detail needed in the knowledge gene and memory craft memory code can't get them shorter. When I first write them they're usually around 120,000 - 130,000 words and I get them down to 80 or in The Knowledge Gene’s case 100,000 words.

Because there's so many threads and that's what happens because they're integrated. If you do only short form, you're basically doing Google. Now Google is great if you want to find a specific bit of information. But if you want creativity and new ideas you have to link information that hasn't been linked before. And that means that the background for that information, so in the knowledge gene we're talking genetics, evolution, indigenous knowledge, memory systems, cognitive science, all have to be linked together.

And then it gets into neurodiversity as well. To link them all together with enough depth that the reader is confident that it's robust, but also simple enough that they don't get bored out of their minds with detail. That's where the challenge is and I don't think you can do that in less than a book for something where you're putting the big idea. Then the details can go in smaller form.

Tripp: Absolutely. Scott Huler, he's a nonfiction author I recently spoke with and he talks about this idea that I think might be appealing to you about a book. That there's sort of the perfect unit of written information. There was space between the invention of the printing press until we introduced the technology of a book in that form.

Something you can carry around with you. It was just perfectly suited to humans and the way we think. And I wonder what you think about this and I thought it might be interesting to consider analogies in oral cultures, some sort of economic unit of information. Right.

Lynne Kelly: You've just hit them on about five different themes. Because the transition from oral to literate is really interesting to me in our culture through the printing press and the medieval because books were still not available for hundreds of years because of the cost. They were printed on vellum and even went with paper. Very few people had them. A lot of the libraries were memorized and then translated and so on.

So you're still using the old memory systems. I've followed the whole thing through that whole process through with China because it's the one country in the world where we can go from rock art through a 40,000 years ago through a continuum through the script to a culture that's still existing today. The literacy rate was extremely low until the 1950s because the characters are so much more difficult than an alphabetic script. I'm learning Chinese in order to handle all of this. And so the memory techniques of story but enhanced with song and characters and so on are prevalent in China, especially rural China right up to 1950s. So you have photos of these performers that took the news and the information around and oral cultures, the news is transmitted this way. They are performance based knowledge systems. So the stories are sung and dance because that's much more memorable. You remember the songs from childhood and teenage years and you don't remember the teacher said in class. And so all of that was still there in China and then Mao Tse-tung bought in Pinyin, the Romanized version and worked on the literacy rate, which thought he tried to get rid of the characters but he failed.

And I've got all sorts of theories on why and I'm very glad he did because they're hard but I love them. So you've got this continuum and you've got exactly the same thing happening around the world. And so with the printing press you then get the scripts that were handwritten during the medieval times. And so right through medieval and you're talking a thousand years, you've got writing producing books but those books were not available to the vast majority of people because of the huge cost. But also there was secrecy so we should get into secrecy and restricted because control of knowledge is control of power. And you're talking times especially with indigenous cultures where violence wasn't the main control of power or money.

They were egalitarian mostly in terms of material goods but not in terms of knowledge ever. And so that's power. So you've got books in Western culture from medieval right up to the printing press and then it started to disseminate into ordinary people and the church then started to lose power. They first printed Bibles and other things but agreements but then it started to move. So the first fiction book was considered ridiculous. Why would you write? That's not even true.

Tripp: Yeah you touched on so many things that we could follow up on. Maybe I'll just start with secrecy and sacred knowledge. You say knowledge is power but also I think part of that is fidelity right? Keeping the information intact over time requires it to be closed to a certain amount of people where they can check against each other. Not just if information spreads to everyone then perhaps it loses fidelity over time. Is that one of the ideas?

Lynne Kelly: It's absolutely critical to the whole thing. So in America it's called the telephone game. In Australia it's inappropriately called Chinese whispers. Nothing to do with the Chinese. But basically if you start whispering a story to somebody through a group it's corrupted within minutes. We did this for a television show, the host Aboriginal Rob Collins for a show called The First Inventors. And on a beach in Darwin there was a dozen people. Rob told a little story to the first person including animals and plants about five sentences. Round it came and by the end the cockatoo had survived and a monkey had been added and it was completely corrupted. Ten minutes. The producer came over and said we have to film it again and Rob said we can't. We've told them the story, we've explained it all, they all know it, we've got to film it again. He told the same story round it went.

I think it was the cookaburra survived and a pineapple got introduced. It still got corrupted when they had all been told the story and heard it a couple of times. That's how fragile stories are. Yet we have stories from Australia and around the world and Duane Hummocker talks about this.

And Patrick Nunn has written a number of books on this. These stories are traced back 10,000 years now. We know they'll go back further and show the sea level changes at the end of the Ice Age, volcanoes that have erupted way, way back. And interestingly, volcanoes that erupted before people came to Australia are not in any of the stories. And that shows that they're not picking up signs in the landscape. I'm working with a Tlingit elder, T-L-I-N-G-I-T from South East Alaska and he's telling me the stories and what he can of that's not restricted.

Of sea level changes there, you've got exactly the same patterns. If you keep that everybody being told all the stories, you have a 10-minute lifespan. We've got 10,000 year lifespans, these stories, and that's because they keep them restricted. So the stories we hear are the children's stories which give you the foundation. They're grounded when we get to memory palaces and songlines.

They're grounded in the landscape. And then more and more is added as you get more and more initiated. So the highest level is held by the elders, the knowledge keepers. I call them knowledge elite. And they keep, as you say, comparing with each other to ensure that it's kept accurate. And that's the way you can keep these extraordinarily long, robust stories accurate.

Tripp: So maybe now is a good time to dive into one of the techniques. Maybe this is the most ubiquitous one. Maybe I should just introduce the concept as maybe some people are unfamiliar, but it's possible to train your memory. It's not only possible, but absolutely necessary in oral cultures who don't outsource memory to written language. And the general name for the aids and techniques are mnemonic devices.

You talk about a lot of different ones in your books. One particular one seems to turn up over and over again, and this is the memory palace. So maybe could you walk us through what a memory palace is?

Lynne Kelly: Yes. Now my natural memory is extremely poor. I have a thing called a fantasia. I have no visual imagery and, you know, at school, language and everything were impossible for me. Since I've adopted these techniques, I can memorize anything. So a memory palace is when you set up a location.

So I'm sitting in our kitchen living area now. If I want to put the countries of the world in in population order, which is one thing I've done, you start with China at that stage was the biggest over at the door I'm pointing to. And you imagine something like a Chinese meal being delivered. The brain naturally does what's called a temporal snapshot. Things you think about at the same time will get linked.

That's why a lot of people will work out when things happened on how old their children were at the time. So the brain also has place cells. It links things with physical locations. So I've now linked China to that door. Next is India. And India is over near a bookcase over there. And I've imagined a Bollywood performance happening under that. I actually lay down on the floor and tried to watch it.

That stupid behavior cemented that that's India. And so I go on for 214 countries and I go around the house, down the garden, down the street, get the bread, come home. So now I've got a foundation for them. Now I start adding. If I want to add Beijing and I don't know it, I might think about a bay that with bells around at Beijing. And on that door, I will find something that looks like a bay with bells. Your brain finds those patterns and you start adding characters and build it up and build it up. And so on adding more and more and more information to every one of those locations because the brain sticks information with locations and that also indexes them. So every memory champion I've competed in memory competitions, even took out the senior, all these titles for Australia twice.

I'm still the reigning champion. Every memory champion uses these methods because that's the way they work. So every Indigenous culture will have stories, origin stories that start with people came out or the ancestors came from here and name every single location. They will name every plant. They will name every animal.

Geology and relationships and astronomy all be linked in and linked to locations in the landscape. In Australia they're called song lines because they will sing them. So you sing the locations, then you add the extra information and there are songs or performances or gatherings or ceremonies, whatever you want to call them, at each location.

So I would sing China or India right round and then I have songs and stories for each location. And over years and years you build up this incredibly complex knowledge system that is grounded literally and then enhanced by song, by performance, by characters and then by the physical memory devices that we will get to. It is the most phenomenal system. I've set it up in schools. It is unbelievable how well it works and the school ground is an automatic memory palace.

Tripp: Just the feats of memory are amazing but it's not just that you can remember information. It's that once you have that structure in place then that opens up new connections that are possible. Maybe talk about that a little bit.

Lynne Kelly: Yeah because my memory palace, say I've got all the countries in the world, I've also got prehistory, right through history. And so if I come across something, say a person, say Shakespeare, I've now got Shakespeare, and my brain can't help it, I've now gone to the tree that is Shakespeare.

I've also gone to England and where it is in population order. And then I started asking, Jane Austen must have known about Shakespeare and people in other countries at the same time. I start wondering, Jane Austen never mentioned Shakespeare and yet she was a writer when, yeah I can go on and on and on because I've played with that idea a lot. You start asking questions and seeing connections.

And so I've now got both of those people but scientists, there's a whole wallop of scientists that come around Jane Austen's time. I'm now seeing where they are and Mozart's down there too. My brain can't help going to that section of the memory trail. So it's seeing those connections that enables the creativity and links.

And we've got the depths happening now. I don't think we've got the interdisciplinary links happening now. And I think that is one of the reasons why somebody like me was able to ignore the humanities and go stem, stem, stem, because I taught physics and maths and computing and everything and not appreciate that art and music are fundamental to being human, fundamental to our knowledge systems are so incredibly valuable.

Tripp: There's something about space and the way the brain works that makes these techniques so effective. What do we know about the way the brain works and what is it about place that helps us remember so well?

Lynne Kelly: We know the place cells in the brain, the 2014 Nobel Prize for Medicine went to the researchers that discovered the place cells in the brain are linked to memory. And we just know that humans can do this in a way that other species do use place, but the idea of structuring information and indexing it on locating it with place is clearly uniquely human. In fact, music, the way we use it, and I can go into details of music, and art are also uniquely human. Art is another way of using the place cells in space. So a lot of the art that you will see from Indigenous cultures actually records place as well. Now, I'm going to sidetrack onto that because of the scrolls and rock art and that I've got so obsessed by. So if you go back, you will see the rock art which marks different specific places, creating a memory palace.

So you've got those all over the world. And the longest I've found of panels of art, continuous art, is 72 kilometres in 9 mile canyon in Utah. 72 kilometres of art is a blackboard.

It's the Bayeux tapestry on steroids. It really is incredible because that works for the brain so well. We know that and evolution has placed in us or kept going mutations and so on that enable us to use these skills.

And that has enabled us for good or evil to dominate the world in a way no other species can, to adapt to different habitats. Interestingly, the spatial abilities are particularly strong in people with dyslexia. And at one school we had a young dyslexic girl, very low self-esteem, set up a memory palace and she absolutely flew with it and couldn't work out why everybody else wasn't finding a disease here. She was. It's easy for everyone but it was really easy for her. So dyslexia is found in every single culture in the world.

Why didn't evolution sort of phase it out? What earthly use is dyslexia? It's a massive use so you'll find a lot of architects can't spell.

But they're very good. The dyslexics I've worked with could rotate things in their brains and structures and never get lost and navigate. So evolution has lived these combination of skills. We've all got those spatial skills. We've all got some musical skills. If I sing, you'll know that some of that's very low in some of us except the very few people who have amnesia. No ability for the music. We all have the ability to create art. Innate in us, every little kid will, given the chance, will start scribbling on walls and things all over the world. So this ability to use space and the other enhancements that Indigenous cultures have come right through evolution because storing knowledge is so valuable.

Tripp: The memory palaces or the song lines, they're out in the world. You walk through the world, you go on a journey, you see the places. They have techniques for sort of condensing down that knowledge and replaying the song line either through ceremony or through art. And one of the more surprising insights from your work is that Neolithic monuments might have been designed as memory palaces. So as those societies were transitioning from more mobile societies to less mobile societies, they decided they're not walking their memory palaces anymore. So they need to create a structure which can hold their knowledge. So can you explain maybe that theory and how you arrived at it?

Lynne Kelly: Yes. The song lines, as we call them in Australia, Native American pilgrimage trails, Pacific ceremonial roads in Africa, they're all over the world. Once you're looking for that, you can see that all these different things are actually cognitively the same thing. So I wasn't interested in archaeology at all at that stage, but my husband Damien had gone back to university, he collects degrees. And he'd gone back to university to archaeology after information systems.

And it's interesting because this is in fact an information systems theory. So he wanted to go to Stonehenge. I didn't. I wanted to go somewhere else. The day he wanted to go, it was raining. So I wanted to go to Jane Austen's house. Stonehenge was on the way.

So we ended up at Stonehenge and I trotted around with him. And it dawned on me that if you're going to farm, you can't just stop one day and say, I'll plant that and we'll be fed tomorrow. It takes hundreds and hundreds of years in order to adapt from a mobile. And I'm glad you use that term, not nomadic. So nomadic is just wondering. Mobile is moving between known sites and all indigenous cultures in the last 10,000 years at least. Have been, not all most, been mobile. So they know their territory is very well.

They've set up their memory palaces, their songlines. And so in order to settle and farm, you must bring those locations in because you're still dependent on knowing which berries you can eat, which you can't have, the processing, all the other information. So if you replicate the annual cycle locally, you'll end up with a stone circle or a timber circle or a circle some other way, or oval or shape or whatever. And there's earlier monuments. So at Stonehenge, there's a whole lot of monuments before you get to the circle we know. And when I say Stonehenge, people are probably getting an image of the great big sarsens in the middle, the ones with the trilothons on the top and so on. They're 500 years down the track from the first circle, which was a stone circle about 100 metres across, 96 stones, they think initially, and a ditch.

All of these aspects are really important. So they said the ditch had a very flat bottom in segments. Why did they work so hard to get a flat bottom? It's not defensive. It had gaps across it.

Because Britain's weather is terrible. And if you don't perform the ceremonies, you lose that information. You've got to keep performing it. A flat bottom ditch in chalk is by far the most effective way of getting a performance site.

Incredible acoustics. They could bury things which they did in the walls. They had the different locations round on different sizes to match. You had the stones up the top, which were all different, left natural. And if you just stand and stare at a stone, like the bluestones they were, you will be able to see whatever it is. Your brain will make the patterns.

So you have ceremonies associated with each one, storing the knowledge. You've got exactly the same on a much bigger scale at Avery, way up on the Orkney Islands up north of Scotland, and all over the world. So in Poverty Point where there's no stones, this is in Louisiana, you've got mounds, and you've got mounds all over the US and North America and so on. You've got timber circles, which are Poverty Point after I was there. There was a few potholes.

They found circles. You've got the same thing everywhere in the world where you've got performance spaces. So at Poverty Point, it's plazas. So at Stonehenge, that open circle, 500 years later, became very enclosed with the great big sarsens. They moved the stones into the middle and made it incredibly secretive.

You've now got the restricted performance space, where as the public performance space, you must have both. They built Durrington Walls, which is about 3k up, 3 miles or 3k up the road. It's a much bigger site with huge timber circles, all carefully arranged.

Now, any scientific theory can be falsified. If you can find me a timber or stone monument that is not able to be indexed, able to be walked in a specific order, and that order is really clear, then you haven't got a proper memory palace, and I haven't found one anywhere in the world. I've documented these all over the world, Easter Island, everywhere.

Tripp: From what I knew of Stonehenge, which admittedly was not very much, was that it was perhaps a calendar and that it lined up with different astronomical events, solstices and whatnot. But what is a calendar if not a mnemonic device? That helps you remember what you needed, seasonal planting and so on.

Lynne Kelly: Most of these all over the world are aligned astronomical. That's why they're called the Levant Stonehenge, Germany's Stonehenge, wherever Stonehenge. They have the astronomical alignments, but they also have them offset. Stonehenge is the winter solstice, and you'll have different ones doing equinoxes.

Stonehenge and Durrington Walls will match. You'll get multiple different sunrise, summer, sunset in order to make sure that you will at least get one sighting, because they need to store the annual cycle for hunting, gathering, farming, but also for the ceremonial cycle. Because if you don't keep that ceremonial cycle going, you lose fundamental information, which is a real problem for the elders today and the knowledge keepers, because their culture says you must keep things secret.

And working with Dave Kanosh, the Tlingit elder in Southeast Alaska, and elders here, how much do they tell me? If they tell me things they shouldn't, they're breaking cultural needs. If they don't and the young people aren't picking it up, the information will be lost forever. It's a real dilemma for them.

Tripp: In terms of the Neolithic monuments, I remember you had a checklist that you would look for different attributes in order to consider a proper memory palace. So maybe we could talk about that just for a second more. You already mentioned public and restricted performance space. What were the other items on your checklist?

Lynne Kelly: I'll give you the list in order because I'm here. You're prepared. So, specifically, it's a stratified society, but no indication of individual wealth or violence. So that shows that knowledge is the control of power. So public and restricted ceremonial sites. A large investment of labor for no obvious reason.

You're talking a million man hours in building ivory or Darrington Walls or something. For what? Some of the theories say in order to show you could, you know, we're better than you. No, as my Indigenous colleagues tell me, we do not waste time on trivia like that. But knowledge is the most essential technology that we have. A sign of a prescribed order that I mentioned before, it's called the method of loci, L-O-C-I, but some way of making sure that there's a structure so it's indexed.

Enigmatic decorated objects, which we're going to get to, I hope, given my obsession with them. And imbalance of trade. So poverty point, for example, in Louisiana, There's nothing going out and there's all this stone and artifacts and food and everything coming in.

If you look at Chaco Canyon in four corners area, New Mexico, the huge wealth coming in in terms of jewels and food and there's massive buildings, absolutely extraordinary. Nothing going out. Well, it's not nothing, it's knowledge. University, a whole lot of stuff coming in. You need people to get paid. Nothing physical being produced there, knowledge.

So when you add knowledge to the trade balance, the balances. Astronomical observations and calendrical devices that we talked about. Monuments that reference the landscape. So if you're taking this gradual adaptation, then you're going to have it referencing the landscape because you've got to have that gradual reference earlier things and all the monuments make reference to the landscape. You'll often get foreign stones being brought in. Poverty Point in particular, lots of foreign stones being brought in because they give a reference to a previous location. Axes made out of a stone that's way more beautiful but less practical than you need and not used.

There's no use wear on them. There are references to landscape. Acoustic enhancement, these are performance based sites. So you want acoustic enhancement and rock art in a form that works as a mnemonic which rock art all does. And I could go on for hours about that. So that's the fit. I'm looking for those 10. If I don't get at least eight, I dismiss the site. But the monumental sites, you get them every time.

Tripp: It's not a trivial checklist, right? So that's like a robust amount of requirements in order to apply the theory.

Lynne Kelly: And that they match cultures all over the world. I haven't just gone, okay, Dja Dja Wurrung, my local, I should acknowledge the old elders on the land that I work on. If I just took Dja Dja Wurrung and tried to move that culture elsewhere into the monuments, I'd fail. And sure, in any way, it wouldn't be legitimate. I'm looking at mnemonic technologies that are unique, not the cultural development of them.

Tripp: I want to take us back to what you were talking about previously in terms of sacred knowledge. And another place at point are listeners' book Songlines by Margo Neale and yourself, which is part of the first Knowledge Series beautiful book. And there's an obvious way your expertise and hers match up and how they complement and translating world traditions into a book, which it sounds contradictory, but it definitely works. I think it's a great introduction to the world of Aboriginal knowledge systems. So I have a few questions here, but maybe just talk about co-writing the book. How did that process work?

Lynne Kelly: Margo is Indigenous and Indigenous curator of a massive exhibition, National Museum of Australia, called Songlines, Tracking the Seven Sisters, which is now that exhibition is travelling around the world at the moment.

And she had come across my work in memory code and heard about me from various people. I just want to sidetrack there. Talking Indigenous information as a non-Indigenous person is walking on eggshells. There's a lot to learn about how to do it diplomatically. And I took a lot of time at the beginning of my research making sure I could do that.

And that has filtered through to the Indigenous communities and I've had no criticism, which was really important to Margo approaching me. Now, she's series editor on the First Knowledge of Series, but Songlines are absolutely fundamental. So that's the opening book. And she, Margo firmly believes that we are all Australian, that Indigenous history is Australian history for all of us.

So the series is written by Indigenous and white people, or non-Indigenous, not necessarily white, working together. So she approached me about the book. Now, she has a couple of really valuable metaphors for what we're doing. And one is the Third Archive. So the First Archive is the way Indigenous knowledges work, all this memory systems that we've talked about. Second Archive is writing and technology that has, in a lot of ways, displaced things that I think should come back. And the Third Archive is the combination of the two, which is more powerful than either by themselves. And so that the book and the exhibition are part of the Third Archive. She has another metaphor, which she just mentioned in passing in something I read and didn't realize how incredibly brilliant she is, which is the body and the flesh, that the way Indigenous knowledges work is the skeleton, when they're performing, must be kept accurate.

We all have exactly the same skeleton. So the information about the berries and the astronomy and all the rest must be kept accurate. But each performer puts their own flesh on it to make it entertaining, to make it different, and to be individual and those, the great entertainers, are very highly regarded. So that metaphor, I think, really works well for the way Indigenous knowledges work as a performance.

There is no problem whatsoever in their minds taking that performance information and extracting the practical information they needed any given moment. We have this division between fiction and non-fiction. It's a dichotomy that is holding us back.

Indigenous cultures don't differentiate, and the human brain is perfectly capable of pinching what they want from it. We wrote Songlines together. The series has gone on.

It's been extremely successful. We've now started the series for younger readers, not first knowledges for younger readers, and Songlines is the first one out in that. Working with Margo, we're working together on academic stuff now, has been unbelievable in helping me see nuances that I couldn't see from outside the experience of Indigenous culture. So working from theory or as many older anthropologists did from a feeling of superiority and bringing civilization to the poor primitives, you will not pick up any of these nuances because it's partly experienced and can't be written.

Tripp: The other thing you do, if I may, is you don't just study techniques, you practice them. So I think that must be an important aspect of it. The performance is such an integral part of the knowledge system. Unless you're a practitioner, you're not going to have this slightest idea of what it's all about.

Lynne Kelly: You won’t believe it works so well, and this is where we've talked memory palaces. I've gone over 10 kilometres now, around my home of memory palaces. Five kilometres, that's Chinese vocabulary. But we talked to mention the physical devices. So I'm going to introduce that concept. So what I'm holding, and you can see, but if this is audio only, the listeners can't, is an Aboriginal coolamon. So this is a food dish carved out of wood that they can carry food around in. But on the back is markings, what appear to be random but they're not one to study them, markings. And a young girl who would get a coolamon like this, this surreal one from over 100 years, Central Desert Culture, would learn the songs associated with each marking and learn to sing them.

And this acts as a portable memory device that goes everywhere with a... An Indigenous woman that said the ancestors want you to understand this. I get an emotional reaction to it that is a foundation member of the Australian skeptics. I had trouble realizing that I would have this emotional reaction.

Emotions make things memorable. So I read about the African Lukasa, which I'm holding up now. There's no real ones in Australia. This is copy. This is just a replica set up from my own stuff. But I read about it when I held one at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. I couldn't believe the feeling. But I read about them and it said that this bit of wood carved and with beads on it, hand held, designed to be hand held, encoded huge amounts of information and my skeptical brain stepped in and said, rubbish. There's no way a bit of wood with beads on it would encode information.

So in my worst scientific method, I grabbed a rectangular bit of wood, randomly shoved some beads on it and decided, okay, let's try it and see anyway. And my husband's a fanatical birder. So I decided I'd encode the bird families, 82 bird families at this state.

I got it up the right way. Yeah, so now I'm not going to go through them all. So I started singing them. An order came out in the beads, which it just, my brain found the order.

And then it worked so well. I started adding all the species to each family. It's in taxonomic order. And so some, like the emu has its own family, Dromaiidae, drum roll for the beginning.

That's how I remember its family, Dromaiidae. And so it goes on. And I started stories adding all the members of it. So that's a day which I'm pointing to that shell is the ducks. I create the story for the 16 ducks and sang it and played around with it. I have 412 species of birds in Victoria. And if you like, if your listeners would like, I will sit here and reel them off in taxonomic order. Maybe not. And then I've started getting, you know, the ones that I call brothers are the same genus.

So I've now started working out which are the same genus in terms of identifying birds. It's become really valuable and it works unbelievably. I've now done workshops with kids as young as four. We do it with cultural astronomy at Melbourne Uni with uni students. It is unbelievable how well it works. And it's so easy.

Tripp: I want to get back just briefly to Margo Neale and metaphors and analogies. She talks about, refers to some paintings as encyclopedias or databases. And I just want to ask about these analogies and metaphors and how they're useful and how maybe they fall short of capturing exactly what indigenous knowledge systems do.

Lynne Kelly: You're right. They are useful, but they do fall short. The experience enhances them. So paintings are knowledge. And that's why you can't replicate an Aboriginal painting legally. They're owned because they're owned by the people who initiate it into the information, otherwise you get the information corrupted. So if you think of Stonehenge or any stone or timber circle around the world as a database, except that all the information is kept in memory, but it's human memory, not computer memory. So any database has to be indexed in order because if not, you can never find the information again. So you can put it into the database and it's gone forever. That's why these structures are so strong.

So they are variable field databases with information stored in memory. And that, if you use that analogy as a starting point, all the monuments around the world built in that transition. So then the argument becomes, well, what about the monuments that aren't built in that transition? I cannot find a single monument that fits the patterns that's outside that. And you then see, as you go into cathedrals, which are set up as memory palaces again, and that's well documented from medieval, with all the images, the music. You've got the whole pattern because medieval cathedrals, the audience had to build by memory because they couldn't have the books. So you get this movement from mobile into the monuments into built civilizations, and then these extra abilities that we all have built into us being sidelined to entertainment.

The music moves up to the stage, the art moves on to gallery walls, and we don't use them that way. So that continuum is everywhere, and the analogies help you see it, but unless you experience it, you won't get the full nuance of it. So I can write as much as I like, and that's why I wrote Memory Craft, so that people got the exact methods to experience it themselves.

Tripp: Yeah, you're touching on something I was going to ask you towards the end, but maybe I'll just bring it up here. So you have a longstanding interest in education, and we're a teacher. One of the points you make in the book is that with written knowledge systems, there began to be this divide between serious literacy and numeracy and more maybe whimsical arts, and arts in the absence of its demonic meaning perhaps became more purely driven by aesthetics, which only reinforced that divide between arts and more serious study, and we're in a time where schools, you know, if they don't receive all the funding they need, the art programs are usually the first to go, but your work points towards reintegrating arts and music and dance and storytelling into education as core tools for learning. So would you like to talk about that for a bit? Absolutely.

Lynne Kelly: I was a teacher for 40 years, taught some upper primary, but mostly senior secondary and a little bit of tertiary, and yes, the arts up until really recently in human history were part of information systems. Now, I was part of bringing computers into schools. So what we did was we started with computer science, but it was soon integrated across and we have technicians who help the classroom teachers integrate it right across. That's the model we need for art and music and performance. So that, and if you're desperate for money, there's no shortage of parents out there who have got these skills, but teachers with these skills can integrate across into the curriculum.

So let's take a simple example at Malmsburry Primary School down the road here. They did force in science. Now, force, it went right across the curriculum from the little kids up to 70 in the school from grade five kids right up to 12 year olds. So they done force. And a week later, I said to every student individually, force, you did force in science.

I put in context. Yes, what is a force? 50% of them said it's when your parents make you do something or, you know, three out of 70 told me it was a pusher or a pool. And the rest told me it was from Star Wars, made the force be with you, which is lousy physics. So the music teacher then, I can't do this without the actions, but the music teacher then took the Imperial March and made a little song, a force is a pusher or a pool, pusher, pool with the actions.

They did that in class in music once. A week later, I quizzed them all again, exactly the same wording. And 100% told me it was a pusher or a pool, did the actions and laughed.

Yeah. Because they, it was fun. It was emotional.

It was movement. So you've got your active kids happy with this. So when the teachers reduced the term force in class, none of the kids in their heads, only three of them were doing push, pull, push, pull.

Now all of them were doing push. So I'm not say using music for the whole curriculum, but key terms, key stuff use music. Art, I talked about the 72 kilometer panel, but there's panels like that everywhere. And if you take them into China, there's things called hand scrolls. You've got the Bayeux Tapestry. But in China and Asia, these horizontal scrolls, hand scrolls, one word, tell stories.

And the replica I've got here is five meters over five meters long. And they're aimed to be viewed bit by bit. And there's a book, A Thousand Years of Manga, that shows the continuum from the scrolls into Hokusai the wave guy, coin to turn manga, and then into what we know as manga. Art, these ways of recording information makes it memorable. I've done it with kids, with little scrolls, with just cartridge paper, doing a story of the planets as they approached the sun. And Saturn, so they come in order to a dinner party at the sun. And Saturn comes and dawned with rings all over, and Jupiter's a stormy and angry.

They created these characters. I've done it with little kids and bigger kids. It cost almost nothing. They had fun. They bought art in. Then they started doing encoding, how many moons there were. They found ways, where there was an atmosphere, there was ways to encode information into that story.

You know, Mercury, the ancient Greeks were doing this the whole time. So the Sapiens book is now in three volumes of graphic novel. There's bits in it that are in the images that you cannot put in writing, for no other reason except the images evoke humour. So again, we've got art can be bought right across the curriculum, added a mention, lose nothing, increase memorability, and ground fundamental layer.

Tripp: I want to take a bit of a hard left turn here. So I'm going to go to Polynesian Navigation. And I was in the Te Papa Museum in Wellington, and I adore that museum.

I think it's amazing. And there's a section on navigation and how Polynesians use waves. And there was a quote, and it was pulled from David Lewis's, with the navigators, about how the navigator would use his testicles to feel the waves.

And you can imagine this was very memorable. But I sort of forgot about it until I read a very similar line in songlines, which was a highly skilled navigator can determine the slightest wave movements by entering the water and using his scrotum as a hypersensitive detector. So I have to ask, do you have an explanation of this, or where can I find more information about this?

Lynne Kelly: David Lewis is where I got it all from. Okay, that's interesting. Was it in songlines? Should have been a fully cited quote. It didn't fill my books.

Tripp: Yeah, it is in songlines. And you have a David Lewis citation near it. It just wasn't like directly on that line. I just wasn't sure if there was another source of information.

Lynne Kelly: We, the navigators, and East is the Big Bird of the two that I use. I became absolutely obsessed by these navigators. And so they learn so delicate differences in wave motion that they have to use the most delicate part of their bodies. This is something I haven't been able to experience. But then if you take it further, they use the star charts, which are made of shells and sticks.

So now you've got your portable devices. They sung it. The navigation schools were highly restricted. Right. The navigators were very powerful.

You can now go through that list I just, we read before, and the navigators fit it. And I do them in detail in the academic book. And they're using all the same techniques again. So because, and I can't emphasize this enough, they are innate to humans.

Right. So, basically, humans, really ancient, unbelievably effective, and evolution favored them, jointly integrated, because it's such a powerful way for knowledge. And we are not taking advantage of that innate potential that we all have.

Tripp: Yeah, that's a good segue into the genetic component. So if there is indeed a gene responsible for human creativity and transmission of knowledge, and humans have been genetically similar for hundreds of thousands of years, this would seem to suggest there should be evidence for, you know, archaeological evidence for creativity and knowledge transfer, putting aside for the moment that there are actual living cultures whose stories can be traced back directly. But part of the fun of knowledge he was reading about the archaeological evidence, which of course is open to different interpretations, but I believe you presented some compelling cases. And so maybe can you talk about some of your case studies from that book?

Lynne Kelly: There's a whole lot, but let's take the European cave because the Ice Age cave. So if people think of the rock up there, they think of the horse heads or the lions or whatever, and Lascaux Cave.

But if you look at the horse's heads, you'll see the ears are in different positions, and anyone who's into horses know how much information there is in the position of the ears. But what the books don't show as much because they don't look as pretty on the cover is how much abstract art there is that it was built up, that they're in panels everywhere, great long panels, and that at the points of art are the most highly resonant positions and that they are performance spaces there. So you've integrated the music with the art. At some positions of very high resonance where there isn't a suitable panel, there will still be a dot or something indicating that location. So the integration of music and art is heavily indicated.

You've also got performance being indicated in the art. This is not only Homo sapiens, it's also Neanderthals. So the Bruniquel cave in France has, where they've taken a whole stack of stalactite types, they've used heat to dislodge them and they've stacked them and created a memory palace. And it took a lot of work.

And this is Neanderthal and there's art there as well. So you've the same science. And the gene that we talk about in the knowledge gene, NF1 neurofibromatosis type one, that is clearly linked to these various, these various skillset. We have a unique gene, unique version of NF1 and male emphasis is not a single gene theory. It's a gene that has a lot of effect theory. And it causes a disorder called neurofibromatosis type one where what is heavily impacted apart from the tumors that are caused, that's the main field of research for the obvious reasons. It impacts music hugely, massively, spatial abilities, ability to use imagination and let's see, it impacts all the same things we're using. So you have to ask the question, why did evolution hundreds of thousands of years ago not only lead this gene in but spread it through the human unique allele, through all humans, all Neanderthals, all denisovans, which are the only three hominin populations that we have DNA for. All of them have the human version.

What is so valuable that it's worth risking one in 3000 births with the tumors and the other problems and knowledge is that important. Now there's also Fox P2, the so-called language gene, but also other genes are impacting on this as well. But evolution has made sure that not only do we have language but that we link music and art and spatial abilities, these knowledge systems, and it's clear in these caves there's recipes for creating the colors that required all these, you know, heated up to this thing and do this. Going back, you know, 70,000 years or something, how were they remembering that they were bringing colors from all over without a knowledge system? It cannot work.

Tripp: Yeah, and related to that, I guess, is just the survival of cultures. I wanted to bring up this quote you have, culture is built around what you do have, not what you don't.

I love that. It's fundamentally biased to talk about societies as illiterate, right? Exactly. And because of preconceptions about Indigenous cultures as being maybe primitive, there's sort of a need to address and up in long held biases against Indigenous knowledge. And we touched on this in a few different ways, but one of those biased views is that Indigenous stories are just frivolous superstitions. Your work, the work of others, show that it's clear that storytelling, you know, it's not literal representation. There's sophisticated use of imagery, characters, song, dance, and this encodes vital survival knowledge because, well, of course it does.

I mean, the fact that these cultures have endured, at least here in Australia, the Aboriginal culture goes back at least 65,000 years. This points to the existence of an incredible body of knowledge. In a YouTube video explaining the Seven Sisters exhibit, Margo Neale says, every element of the story contains critical information for survival in the desert. So, no specific question there, but maybe you just respond to that a little bit.

Lynne Kelly: Marvelous Margo Neale. When we're together, Margo Neale has this presence. She'll walk into a room not trying to attract any attention and all the attention will be on her immediately. And that's part of the performance thing. So, yes, everything has to be kept in these performance, in these information systems.

They're phenomenal. Can I sidetrack to the question you didn't ask on your own? Of course. Because if you look at these, and I've worked closely with Margo Neale on this concept, you have got to have the people repeating the information, keeping it absolutely accurate, not liking change, and being really attentive to details. You've just described autism spectrum, diversity, not disorder.

They are performance-based knowledge systems. You must have people who, like Margo Neale, can attract attention, perform hyperactive, taking in all the information, and then you've got other neurotypical filtering it through. This is a gross oversimplification.

And that's why we've got to be patient. Without ADHD and autism, these systems will not work, and every population in the world has specific proportions of autism and ADHD and dyslexia. And evolution has not phased them out.

They are consistent, and yet we consider them disorders. I talk about ways of using a classroom to take advantage of these. So evolution has put neurodiversity and then you've got the diversity that I've got, a fantasia, I have no visual imagery, no audio, I can't recall any of that.

So if I meet you tomorrow, I won't recognize your face unless you're behind a microphone and you're in context. Why on earth would 4% of the population globally have this lack of visual imagery? It wrecks our memories and lots of other things. And the research is showing we don't get post-traumatic stress. So I can, like when my father died, it was very young and it was very traumatic. I wept and was very upset and then recovered very quickly and carried the family through. So just one or up to four in a population of 100, that if the group gets this trauma, we can carry them on because we will recover quickly because we can't relive it.

I can't replay past events. So what evolution, I've looked at congenital deafness and color blindness, there's a whole stack. I'm coming to the conclusion that everybody is diverse.

Right. And evolution has put these diversities in because as a population, they work to ultimate levels. And what we've done in our society is sidelined neurodiverse and we've sidelined the humanities and we've got people like me that love school, good at maths and science. We've sort of become the stem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we really are not taking advantage. And I think that's now I get political, how we can end up with such narrow thinking at political levels because nobody on the diverse spectrums is going to get elected and they don't have, it's a different value system. Artists should not work for money as much.

The musicians, you wouldn't go into those if money was your only. And so you can see that we need to take advantage of all these skills that evolution's put in us. And the best models we've got are indigenous cultures and our own and people like Margo Neale that is so keen to take advantage of everything. It's worth going.

Tripp: Yeah, that's a really powerful framework for celebrating diversity for the superpowers that they do have instead of focusing on the deviation from what's considered normal. There's an entire chapter in the knowledge she devoted to neurodiversity. On the surface, you might wonder, well, how does this all fit in? But as you read into it, it's clear that you're making an argument that these people were useful at first, not only useful, but integral in society throughout time. I want to maybe take it back to Margo Neale and other indigenous people that you've worked with and indigenous knowledge keepers around the world. It's clear that there's a strong response to your work from indigenous communities. Maybe you're helping to validate and dignify traditional knowledge systems. And this must just be amazing feedback to get proof that you're affecting real change out in the world. Would you like to talk about that?

Lynne Kelly: Yeah, it's a feedback system. So if you look at Dave Kanosh, the Tlingit in southeast Alaska, he was using memory boards like I was talking about, the portable devices and that, and the landscape and everything as his grandparents had taught him. But he hadn't realized that some of that was actually Tlingit tradition. He thought his grandparents had taught him these methods on boat trips from Seeker to Juneau and so on.

Until he started talking to other elders and found they'd been taught too. So he's now working with the Sea Alaska heritage, which represents Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida, the totem pole people. And so starting to explore these and what he and Margo and others say is that I've translated. I've added in the word, Margo says I've added in the word mnemonic into the vocabulary on indigenous knowledge. One indigenous knowledge keeper that I first approached about this information, I said, how do you explain your knowledge system? And he said, we just know it. That's why I said, why haven't you talked about these ways?

We just know it. And he said, and how do you describe your knowledge system? I don't know where to start. So it's the fact that I've come in so superficially that I've been able to then explore what is so obvious to indigenous people. So all I think is I've bridged in terms of language because I asked the question. Yeah.

Tripp: And also engaging with the people. I interviewed authors of a book called At Every Depth. It's about climate change in the oceans. And they talk about the story of someone was studying these formations off the West Coast in the US. And they were looking at them and they had this theory that maybe they're clam gardens used by the Native American tribes there. But they hadn't thought to ask a Native American. And of course, when when they did, he was like, oh, yeah, I know exactly what these are.

I can tell you what these are and how they were used. So he had never thought to explain it to anyone. It was just part of his knowledge system. Part of it is just engaging, right? And just asking the right people the right questions.

Lynne Kelly: Yes, I've learned a lot from Tyson Yunkaporta who wrote Sand Talk and other books. And what he taught me was to add the human element. So let's take my memory palace for Chinese vocabulary. I get to a location where I've got to encode the word love. And it's done for anyone who knows Chinese here.

It's set up on the Chinese radicals. So I'm there. I'm trying to put in the character. I'm doing the tone.

I'm waving around with the tones. I have to add in a story that gives me the tone, the character, the meaning. And out comes Anna. And I say to Anna, who owns the house, I'm not casing your joint to, you know, I'm not staring at your house.

So I explain what I'm doing. And she says, I love orchids. She, her work is with orchids and starts talking. So now my image of this house has Anna as a person with carrying orchids.

All of a sudden, this location has come to life. And this is what Tyson's [Yunkaporta] emphasized, that these systems are communal. The more you do it with other people or engage other people, the more memorable it'll become because it brings out an emotional response. So that's what working with the Indigenous cultures, things that are blatantly obvious to them. And what are we doing in schools? We're going to learn from computers. There's so much we can do and not lose anything that we've got.

Tripp: I want to ask you about the end of the book. So it ends with the following line, together we can change the world. And I think it would be difficult to come to land on something more aspirational than that. If you had to sum it up, what do you hope people take away from reading your books?

Lynne Kelly: That together we can change with the diversity of musicians, the artists, everything. And my world is so much richer now that I'm engaging with art and music and things that I just didn't because I was physics and maths. And I still love physics and maths.

And engaging with different neurodiverse voices in the book. Tavish is the best bird around on bird calls at all of 12. And he is helping me learn the bird calls, which I have tried and tried before. The more we engage with people's expertise, and the more we bring knowledge and respect back into art and music and everything, the more we all benefit. And we don't have to lose the symphony.

Tripp: Do you have any advice that you might give someone aspiring to write a science book?

Lynne Kelly: Firstly, keep the quirky bits, the little bits of dogs that don't like to go past dinosaurs. And the other thing is use voice recognition and be talking to someone. So when I'm recording, people say that no, me, they can hear my voice in it. It's because that's how I record it. So when I've got the eye on my phone and I'm walking or whatever, I will record bits and then translate and edit and transcribe and so on. But I do use voice recognition a lot as if I'm talking to someone. And the person you're talking to is around 16, right here that wants to learn, but isn't yet at university. And that will pitch at the right level.

Tripp: What about topics you're excited about continuing to explore, follow on? Is there any projects that you want to talk about?

Lynne Kelly: Yeah, I'm getting really into the Chinese hand scrolls. I've now had art lessons and calligraphy lessons and binding lessons. And I'm starting to do, I'm doing all of prehistory as a hand scroll, as an artwork.

I can't work out why these long horizontal scrolls aren't used in Western society. So I'm really excited about that and learning Chinese in order to learn more about them. Plus I'm engaging in music, plus doing more on your adverse, plus working with Margo again, plus I wish there were more hours in the day.

Tripp: Absolutely. Where would you direct people if they wanted to find out more and support your work?

Lynne Kelly: My website. If you Google Lynne Kelly, spelled L-Y-N-N-E-K-E-L-L-Y, it's lynnekelly.com.au. Also my book that's in there.

Tripp: Absolutely. Lynn, thank you so much for your time. We've been talking quite a while now. Is there anything you wanted to touch on before we end it?

Lynne Kelly: Oh, just, thank you. The kitchen table, which you must have read about in Knowledge Jean. The number of things that happened around this kitchen table, because I've invited musicians, artists and neurodiverse people, put food on the table, which they contributed. And then I'd throw in a topic thinking, I know what people are going to say, and nothing happened the way I thought. Engaging with other people who think very differently is the most exciting thing you can do. So grab a musician and artist and neurodiverse person.

Tripp: Awesome. That's fantastic advice. All right. We've been talking with Lynne Kelly about her many books on memory, creativity, oral cultures, Indigenous Knowledge Systems. We've only just scratched the surface, so if you enjoyed this conversation, do yourself a favor, pick up some of Lynn's books. Lynne Kelly, thank you so much for being on Book Science, and I really appreciate your time.

Lynne Kelly: It's been great fun Tripp.

Tripp: Hey, Tripp here. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, there are a few ways you can help us keep the conversation going. First, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us connect with more listeners.

If you can, also share the episodes with friends and family on social media. We also have a Patreon, so if you have the means, please consider supporting us directly. Patreon supporters get access to the Book Science community and bonus content only available for supporters.

The Patreon is also a great place to get in touch, and we'd love to hear from you. So what books would you like to hear us cover next? Remember, you can find show notes and all things Book Science, as well as everything else I'm working on at TrippCollins.com. Thanks for listening. I am Tripp Collins, and this has been Book Science. Your invitation to think deeply, stay curious, get off the scroll, and get out into the world. Take care.

Season 1 Episode 4 - Firmament

Season 1 Episode 3 - Tessa Hill and Eric Simons

Season 1 Episode 2 - The Power of the Sea

Season 1 Episode 1 - Duane Hamacher

Tripp: This show was recorded in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia, where the traditional custodians include the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I'm Tripp Collins, and this is Book Science. The podcast explores how the best science books are written and why they matter.

Tripp: Today I'm bringing you a discussion with Duane Hamachjer. Duane is an associate professor of cultural astronomy in the Aster 3D Center of Excellence and the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. Duane is a cultural astronomer. He works directly with indigenous communities, building connection and understanding of the complementary nature of Western astronomy and indigenous sky knowledge. Duane has worked with Miriam Elders for over a decade to document the astronomical knowledge and traditions of the eastern Torres Strait Islanders and with other First Nations communities across Australia and across the world. We talk about Duane's book called The First Astronomers, How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars. The First Astronomers is thus far the culmination of his work and was co-written with many elders and elder knowledge holders, including Ghillar Michael Anderson, John Barsa, David Bosun, Ron Day, Segar Passi, and Alo Tapim.

We discuss a number of topics, including indigenous knowledge systems, meteorites, variable stars, and working with Aboriginal knowledge holders. I love this book and I've read it several times, each time getting more out of it. I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Duane Hamacher.

Tripp: So I have to tell you a little story before we get into the contents of the book. I was scrolling through the Libby app, it's like the public library app, the Melbourne Public Library, and I was in like the nonfiction science section and then boom, this orange cover pops in and it just caught my eye. The cover art is just amazing. It works on purely a surface level, but over the course of reading the book, of course, you discover it's a painting and the painting contains these deep cultural knowledge and representations of cultural knowledge.

And I think at some point later, hopefully we'll touch on that. So the art was the first thing and then there was the title. So it was The First Astronomers, as in the astronomy of the First Nations peoples, but also like literally first as in the first people to develop knowledge systems that incorporated astronomical observations. And I think in some cases it first also refers to what we call priority in science.

So the fact that there are astronomical phenomena first observed and described by indigenous people long before art traditions in western science. So this was a title with many layered meanings. And yeah, and after reading it, I discovered not only are we currently on the same continent, but our offices were literally within walking distance to each other. And then of course, I audited your class where we go through the ideas in the book in detail, which was really an incredible experience. And yeah, so that's my story of finding the book. But I'd like to start by kind of getting in your words. What is this book all about?

Duane Hamacher: Well, this book is about 10 years in the making, actually almost 15 years in the making now. It all started off when I came to Australia 21 years ago as a study abroad student. I went to Macquarie University in Sydney and had an amazing experience. But at the time, I'd asked somebody about Aboriginal astronomy.

I was doing my undergraduate degree in astrophysics and the response I got was very dismissive. And it was very much a silly American. What are you talking about? Aboriginal people don't have any astronomy.

Don't you know any better? Remember being quite taken aback by that and being like, what are we talking about? And at the time, I didn't think too much of it.

I thought it was a weird response that I got the few times I asked about it, but, you know, whatever. And then I came back a couple of years later to do grad school, the study astrophysics, and I got sort of drawn back to that question. Like, why is it that when we talk about astronomy and we talk about Aboriginal culture, people think there are two different worlds that don't belong together at all? And I started looking into it and it didn't take much effort, really, to just see how much science was embedded within the knowledge of astronomy by Aboriginal people. And whenever I would ask about that, I'd still keep getting these dismissive responses. And I thought, well, maybe this is something that interests me more, actually, than astrophysics does. So I decided to pursue that.

And then a PhD in that area, unpacking the science behind the star knowledges. Because that's something that Indigenous cultures of the world, especially here in Australia, are not given any credit for. The idea they would have science just makes people scoff.

And I find that absurd. So, you know, I began working in my first academic position was at the University of New South Wales, working with Professor Martin Nakata. So Martin Nakata is a Torres Strait Islander. And at the time, he was the director of the Indigenous Center there.

And he offered me my very first job. And we sat down together and we did a strategic plan the next 10 years, you know, to build up the field of Indigenous astronomy. What are we going to do? How are we going to do it? What's the timeline going to be?

Get some major grants, start publishing, start getting the word out. And the book was one of those items in that list. Like, here's a culmination of what we're going to do. So that book was a long time in the making. It was certainly a long time in the writing, because I was doing it mostly over COVID. And it was one of those projects that I loved, but absolutely almost did my head in.

Well, I'll try and do it, especially during COVID. But at the end, when I got that first paper copy in my hands, at home, when I opened the letter, which had been sent to my neighbor across the hall, they found me on Facebook and said, are you Duane Hamacher? Do you live in this building?

I'm like, yeah, I'm in this apartment and I literally opened my door and he's right there across the hall. Opened it up and there was the first copy of the book. And it was very rewarding, but it was really that that emphasis on what is the science behind the star knowledge. And as a scientist, as an astronomer, it gave me a perfect opportunity to really deep dive into that.

Tripp: Yeah, you talked a little bit about your mentor, who is a Torres [Straight] islander. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of getting buy-in from Indigenous elders, many of whom you credited as co-authors on this project? And I imagine this was sort of key from the beginning.

Duane Hamacher: It always was. I mean, when you're going to be looking at the knowledge of a community or a group, you work with the elders or the knowledge holders. Now, it's easy to go through and do as I did with my PhD. You do all the work on published literature, which is predominantly Western, early colonists in Australia, other ethnologists and anthropologists and linguists. And sometimes, Farmer Bob, who would be publishing or writing information about Aboriginal people and their relationship to the stars. In many cases, even in newspapers, you'd be surprised how much knowledge and information I got from newspapers.

But you always have to acknowledge the severe limitations in that and challenges with accuracy and things like that. But part of the way through my PhD, I met a local elder in Sydney named Les Bursill. He was a Dharawal elder. And he took me under his wing. And he was super supportive. He was somebody that gave me a lot of great advice, gave me great direction. I sat with him many times for many hours, and we would go out on country. He lived down South part of Sydney. We would go to Royal National Park.

And he'd be showing me rock art sites and telling me what things meant. And as you do as a non-Indigenous person, as a non-Australian in this space, you're working your way for it. And sometimes you're going to go down the wrong pathway or say or do something stupid. You know, they're there to correct you and put you back in line. And it was a really wonderful experience having that kind of guidance and mentorship. And then when I began working in my academic position at UNSW, Martin Nakata was and remains a very powerful mentor for me and an ally.

You know, somebody who has always been very supportive. You know, being a non-Indigenous person working in this space doesn't always go very nicely. People can misinterpret what you're doing or assume you're not doing it for the right reasons. And it's good to have those kinds of people in your corner to help guide you and make sure that things are being done right.

Of course, it's always been my goal here. And then working with other elders, you know, in the Torres Straights, became quite close with a few of the elders in particular. Uncle Alo Tapim, the person I was the most close to. And he trained linguistics at the Bachelors Institute. And he grew up with Meriam Mir as the local Indigenous language in Eastern Torres Straight. They only Papuan language of Australia, actually.

He grew up with that as the first language. And, you know, he was a great guiding force for all of that. And he helped me connect with a lot of the other elders and, you know, became this situation where when it came time to publish the book, I knew I wanted to include the elders as authors. I've done that on academic papers and that's been fine. But, you know, how do you do it on a book?

Well, I told my publisher I wanted to include them as co-authors. She said, oh, great, you know, how many do you have? I said about 85.

She said, sorry, can't do that. There has to be six. I'm like, six? Why only six?

She's about the trade book industry. You can only have a maximum of seven authors, so you and six others. So I chose the six elders that had worked the closest with me over time than the most worked with.

There were many who I acknowledged in the book, of course, but I couldn't put as little co-authors. And they do tend to be, they are all male. This tends to be the protocol when you go working in communities. In general, they're not going to send me out to talk all the aunties. I did talk with elders and they're discussed in the book and things.

But when it came time for me to pick who those seven were, those are the seven that I picked. And, you know, it was a really great opportunity to be able to work with the communities there and showcase their knowledge on a global stage. And there's stuff all around the world in that book. It's not just the tourist trade or even just Australia. But five of those elders are from the tourist trade because that was the main focus of much of that work that I was doing. But the great thing about it is the parallels between what they do in the tourist trade and what other communities do around the world are so remarkably close.

It didn't matter what they're talking about. They're the same communities in the Arctic or in the rainforests or in the desert or wherever very, very similar types of knowledge in the way that was used. So it was a great way to showcase not only their knowledge, but to see how it connects with other cultures around the world.

Tripp: Yeah, I remember this was something you talked about in class is that Indigenous knowledge systems are sort of like a local application. So while the specifics might be different from one place to another, the way that they integrate a holistic knowledge system is very similar, which sort of resulted in similar stories, similar observations, different places by Indigenous people around the world.

Duane Hamacher: Then it comes down to the science as well. The reason those knowledges do that is because they're based on the laws of physics and the observation of the natural world. The laws of physics apply everywhere. And you see this particular kind of phenomenon that has an application. There might be slight variations that might be geographic or relating to the local climate or weather. But at the foundational level, it's the same science and that's the beauty of it.

Tripp: Did you find that they were motivated to get some of their knowledge into a book like this that would appeal to Western readers?

Duane Hamacher: Yes. So there was a few different reasons the communities were really adamant about this work being done. This wasn't just me going and saying, I want to do this. It was them saying, look, this is what we want and what we need. So there is a couple of different levels. One of them is for cultural continuity in these communities. So they want to make sure that the knowledge is safeguarded and preserved for future generations. Now, the reason a book would be important, it's not just the book.

It's the knowledge being shared and how that can be applied to local education and in curriculum. The communities in the Torres Straight, as with many parts of Australia, you know, on these remote islands, on Mer, which is where I spent most of my time, is on the order of 450 people on the island. There's a school that only goes to year six and it only has about 50 students, 50, 55 students in it. So when the students reach the age of around 12, and it's time for them to go on to year seven, they have to leave the island. They either go to one of two other islands where there's schools that go to year 12 or they go to the mainland. They stay with family or friends. And then when they come home, they're only on home during holidays or, you know, maybe during the summer. And then when they reach the age where it's time to grow up and leave home, there aren't many economic opportunities on the islands.

So majority people go and live in the mainland. You know, they're in Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, wherever. So what happens there is you have a bit of a just a, of a rupture and the knowledge transmission. So a lot of the younger kids that are on the island, they know a lot of stuff, right? But once they get to that age of around 12, then they're not around for most of the year. And as they go into adulthood, quite often, they're not home that they're not home very often.

Then like everybody else around their phones or playing video games or doing stuff that all kids want to do, right? So that knowledge, like I said, is that rupture? So elders are concerned that language, knowledge and traditions aren't being passed down. So how do we, how do we help this? Well, going in and working with them to develop curriculum modules that will be taught in the schools, working on developing videos and planetarium shows and books and all this kind of stuff helps with that. There's also the element of educating the world about their knowledge. And when I sat with some of the elders and, you know, we were talking about what I was doing and why I was doing it, because I go work with these communities by invitation, but sometimes they're kind of vaguely aware of what I do. And I said, well, I'm here to show that your knowledge has a lot of science behind it. You know, like, we've been saying that for decades, but nobody will listen.

That's why I'm here. I know it's a, it's an unfortunate situation that that's how it is, but let's grab the bull by the horns, as we say, and get some creative outputs out of this and really showcase this on a global stage. And we've done that not only with the book, but even with documentaries. I mean, there was a Torres Strait Islander star dance, a shooting star dance that hadn't been performed on the island in a very long time that was featured in the Werner Herzog documentary, you know, on the second Aboriginal community that had their their traditional knowledge shared in the Morgan Freeman documentary on National Geographic. So we're getting the stuff out there in a big way.

Tripp: Yeah, that's amazing. You've done a lot of media, TV, podcasts, maybe talk about the form of the book, like what makes a book like uniquely challenging and maybe uniquely rewarding. You said you were maybe a bit frustrated at some points during the process of putting it together. Maybe talk about that a little bit.

Duane Hamacher: Writing in an academic fashion is very easy for me anyway, because you're just you're getting faxed out on paper. But with this kind of a book, is it called a trade book, what I mean by that is a popular book. It's not an academic book, you know, but that's a very different beast in and of itself, you no longer just starting fax out, you know, you have to have a narrative, you have to have a story, things have to link together.

It has to keep people engaged. You've got to want to pick the book up and read it. And reading something in dry academies is not going to be what you people are going to be willing, you know, we publish academic research papers and journals for that reason. They go on to all the great detail and show how and why everything works together and talk about the methodologies and the theoretical frameworks and all that stuff. But the average punter who wants to learn about this stuff doesn't care about that. And if they do, there's the academic papers, have fun.

They're really available and they, you know, the papers I've put on, you know, ResearchGate and academia.edu have been accessed a quarter of a million times, which has been great. But when you're writing a book like this, you've got to find something that's going to engage people. And that, that can be a double-edged sword.

It's great to get people to see it and learn about it. You can't get too technical with it. And of course, a lot of people in the world who really want to focus on super technical details and they're a bit disappointed when you can't cover everything. But I had to think, how can I create a narrative in this book? How can I get some themes that are, that are going to continue throughout the whole book? And when you start off a narrative, what's it going to be? You know, for me, it was sort of my personal journey coming into this space. But it's also how can this story wrap up at the end?

How can you bring it all together? And I found it to be a lot of fun to write, but also incredibly challenging. I think the real difficult part was trying to do with over COVID. I think everybody had the same problem with that.

You know, my ADHD didn't help out with that at all. But we managed to bring it all together. And I decided, you know, to have three major themes in the book. The “as is above, so is below.” There's the, we are people of culture, but we're also people of science, which is something Professor Nakata said and all the other elders reiterated. And the other theme is how you read your environment is going to dictate whether or not you're going to survive or not. So the title of the book, even though the words are spelled exactly the same, it's actually how elders read the stars, which is, which is challenging. You just read and read, you know, spelled the same way and they both make perfect sense.

And one of the things I wanted to focus on with that is red implies something you get in the past, but don't read as something you continue to do. But yeah, that's English for you, right? That's the limitations we have in our language.

Tripp: No, but the distinction is important, I think, because these aren't ancient knowledge systems. These are living knowledge systems. These are people practicing these techniques today. So sort of distinction speaks to that aspect of indigenous knowledge.

Duane Hamacher: Yeah, exactly right. And they're ancient too, but they're still living. And that's the key thing. So it's great in that respect, but also you get across a point that these knowledge systems evolve over time because they're describing the natural environment, the natural environment changes. We go through ice ages, we go through long term climate change.

You know, the earth spins on its axis and goes through cycles of procession and mutation and all these factors that are going to impact not only what things look like, but when they're going to be visible, when the stars are going to rise or set, what your local environment and climate is going to be like. All of those things are linked together. So the idea that indigenous knowledges are somehow fixed and static in time is inaccurate. They're dynamic, as they have to be, but in the context in which they have to be, you know, they're not going to change for the sake of changing.

They're going to change because they need to. And they often incorporate new knowledge, new information. And we live in a time now where there's lots of new knowledge and information coming from all around the world. And these communities are phenomenal integrating knowledge and information from other cultures and other ways of knowing that are useful.

Tripp: Yeah, that was one of the more fascinating things to learn was when you're a scientist like you and I, in our tradition, you know, the basic laws of physics are fixed. And science changes because we get better and better theories or more accurate descriptions or better observations.

But the bottom line of it is generally fixed. So it was sort of to learn how indigenous knowledge system works, which is the local application is the most important thing. And to think about the changes on Earth over deep time, of course, their knowledge systems have to change.

And not only that, I mean, like you're talking about astronomy, the stars in the sky that are visible changes over time that these cultures existed. So yeah, that was sort of a revelation to me. Just to return to the writing a little bit, I felt like the book was working on so many levels and you touch on this. I mean, you're explaining indigenous knowledge systems, you're talking about astronomy, you want to write for a broad audience, and you're really diving into complex topics. How was it that you were able to strike a balance on all that? Because I felt like the book was really well balanced, given all the constraints you had, not to mention that you had to be careful there's boundaries about what you can share and what you can't share.

Duane Hamacher: Yeah, exactly right. So yeah, it became a challenge and the feedback you give, whether it's directly from people, you just go on and see what the reviews are, of course. And it's the same challenge with the book with the same one I get when I'm teaching the class, like you were in, get students from a science background who have some familiarity with this, then you get students from an arts background or some other non-science area that have no idea. And it can be really difficult, like, how much science do I include in here and how deep do I go into that? So at the end of the book, I did include a glossary of scientific terms that I used.

I tried to not get too technical with it, but you've got to be technical enough with it. So reviews I've seen online, some of them are like, oh, we loved it. And some are like, we hated it. There was too much science.

Some people didn't like the idea that I was jumping around the different cultures. But what I was trying to show there is when we look at a particular kind of phenomenon, I divvied all the chapters up by I kind of liked the idea of doing these quirky little themes. All the chapters have star in the name, except for the couldn't figure out another way of doing that.

Star knowledge, the nearest star, the wandering stars, twinkling stars, cataclysmic stars, all that kind of stuff, falling stars. That gave a nice thread throughout. But how am I going to go into that detail and speak about all these things without getting too technical, but without ignoring them? So when you're looking at those kinds of phenomena, I talk about how similar they are by different cultures around the world. So looking at the way that Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islander people would observe the way the stars twinkle and all the little properties that would change gave you something to read.

It was like a text. You could read the stars if you knew how to interpret that, and then figure out there's going to be seasonal change or rain, which you also tied into reading your local environment. So what are the clouds doing? What's the direction of the wind? What are the animals doing? Are the insects doing something weird? What does the moon look like?

Is there a ring around it? All those can tell you things. And what I wanted to do is showcase that if you go to the Arctic, a totally different environment from anything you see inland tundra of northern Alaska compared to the tropical islands of the Torres Strait, remarkably similar applications of that same knowledge.

So I like to be able to go different places around the world and show how remarkably similar it was. And a lot of people like that, some don't, but that's just how it goes. You can't please everybody. But that was the idea that I had, is I wanted to showcase this knowledge, go into some depth about the science behind it without getting too complicated. But I want people to really understand that this stuff is not easy. Like this science, and just naming some things, or we're doing some very simple observations, there's some real deep scientific observation and deduction and all of that goes into this. And I really want to give people a taste of that. Absolutely.

Tripp: You touched on the chapter titles. It's a personal narrative. It's your journey. But then you have this structure around the stars. How did that structure come about? Is that something you thought a lot about as you were planning out the book or did that come later?

Duane Hamacher: It came a bit later. The funny thing is the book was not written in a linear front-to-back fashion at all. In fact, the introductory chapter was the last one that I wrote. The chapter on variable stars was the first one I wrote about six years prior to that, part of it being published.

I'd written a paper on that and that's when I had the idea of doing a book. Because like I said, you've got all the journal papers and you need a somewhat technical audience to be able to read and understand them, even though I try to write most of my academic papers in such a way where anybody should be able to pick it up and understand what I'm saying. A lot of academic areas don't do that.

Sciences is just jam packed full of equations and acronyms and in the arts they get very flamboyant with their language, where you need a PhD in English to understand what the hell they're talking about. Yeah, that's right. So I was trying to find that middle ground where you can get complex ideas up, but anybody should be able to pick it up and read it, including people from the communities. You know, communities are smart, but not everybody is an academic and they should be able to pick up the papers and read them and understand what's going on and they shouldn't be hit with a paywall. So I wasn't focusing on publishing all of my research and journals where you had to pay 50 bucks an article to read it.

How unethical would it be to work with a community who shares their knowledge with you and they have to pay to access their own notes. But with the book, I wanted to try to find a way that I could thread these narratives and I liked themes. So every chapter named after a different type of stellar phenomenon was a lot of fun. So the first one I wrote was on the variable stars, then I wrote the one on the twinkling stars, which is another paper that I've written about a year and a half after the variable star paper.

And I started thinking about what else can I do with these? You're starting to follow the theme and it's not just I could do on a national phenomenon, which is basically what I did, planets, moon, sun, stars, meteors, whatever. Or I could have done themes like weather prediction, navigation, star maps.

I could have done a multitude of different avenues of rock and roll. But since it was about the science of the star knowledge, I'll focus on the astronomy side. But to introduce areas that everybody would just be expecting. I didn't do a chapter on constellations because constellations are great.

There's nothing wrong with that. And I talk about them, but I wanted to get into the science behind them. So I did the cataclysmic stars, the variable stars, twinkling stars, the wandering stars about the planets and all the different cycles the planets go through, which are really difficult to work out. That was a great way for me to think about how I can get these topics across. So yeah, that's something I tried to do. I tried to put some funny anecdotes in there of things that have everything in the book happened, by the way, nothing in there is stuff I made up. And there were so many times I'd be having conversations with people like I am with you. And I remember all this funny incident happened when I was doing X, Y, or Z. I thought, well, do that in the book.

Put these things in there. The chapter on navigational stars, I talk about how I got lost in the central desert and thought I was going to die with this old Czech geologist.

Tripp: Yeah, actually, that was a terrifying story. I didn't realize there was going to be life and death stakes involved in the book. Incredible surprise. You want to kind of tell that story a little bit?

Duane Hamacher: Good friend and colleague of mine, Craig O'Neill, who's a geologist and planetary scientist. He invited me to come work with him, which I'm funny enough not to digress too much, but I first met him in Judo. We both trained in Judo. So we're slamming each other well. He was slamming me around.

Let's just be clear about that. And I was trying to choke him out. He was excessively choking me out and then found out after a few months of training and beating the hell out of each other that he was an academic. And then we had a crossover in our interests.

So we became friends and colleagues. And there was a meeting of the Meteoritic Society. So this was a professional global society that said it's meteorites and all the related phenomena. They had a meeting up in Cairns and they were doing a post-conference excursion to the Central Desert.

There's all kinds of meteorite craters out in the Central Desert. So he says, look, do you want to come along? Help me out with everything.

And then you can talk about some of the knowledge you've learned from communities about these. I'm like, yeah, that's great. You know, fully paid trip to go out there.

Of course I'm going to do it. So we were doing that and we're going all over the bush to these meteorite craters. And there's one crater called Kelly West. It's south of Tennant Creek, about half of it between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. And it's like 20 k's west of the highway. So we went down this dirt road that ran north south and we had to walk by foot seven kilometers into the desert.

Wow. The giant asteroid crater, which you can barely see. You know, it's exposed as they say in geological terms.

You can just see the rim of it, but it wasn't like the one you see in Arizona. You know. So we get there with these giant four wheel drive things, just like 30 of us there and everybody's getting ready. So Craig just takes people and starts leaving this convoy of people off into the desert, right?

So I was going to bring out the back end of that. And there was this one geologist there in the 70s who for whatever reason decided that it was going to be okay to walk around and spin effect country and sort of shorts and flip flops. It's like this long, bushy kind of grass you see on the desert. And the tips of that are like, um, razors. Like needles. Yeah. Like needles.

Like you're walking around the desert and just slicing you up. So they're going, I'm holding him and a couple of others at the very end. I'm like, all right, we need to go get them. They're starting to disappear into the bush. So grab some water.

We just take off. And I'm already like, you know, just, I couldn't see them, but I could tell where they were kind of. So I'm just trying to follow them, right?

Whatever the, I'll just keep following until we catch up to them. And then like, you know, 20 minutes into this walk, I wrote, I didn't have a compass with me. Didn't have a phone.

Didn't have anything. Like that's okay. We're going to catch up with these guys. And then an hour goes by, we don't catch up with them. Two hours goes by and we're walking around. We're lost.

And it's just being this guy. He was partially deaf and couldn't speak. So he had a little notebook and he could just understand English and write a little bit of it.

It's in the Czech Republic, right? So I'm sitting here with this old guy who's oozing fluid from his legs and a rainbow of colors. We're lost out in the middle of the desert. The water is disappearing. It's the middle of the day. I don't think, oh my God, what's going on? We're lost. Yeah.

Not of chatting. I'm trying not to panic. I don't want to freak him out or anything. I'm like, we'll be okay. And then we finally, I'm like, hang on. I'm an astronomer.

We can figure this out. And he had a watch. Like what time is it? It's noon.

I was like, perfect. So if it's noon, that means the sun's the meridian. The sun's the meridian, that means my shadow is facing exactly due south.

Right? So the road we were walking, that we were driving down, random north south. We've been going west. So therefore, if I walk towards the east with the sun 90 degrees to my right, we're going to come across that road. And we walk and we walk and we walk and I'm freaking out. We were out of water.

You know, we're starting to get really weary. I climbed this tree trying to see if I can recognize a road. I can't see anything. I recognize a little forested area.

We don't know what's going on. Keep walking in about 20 meters away. There was the road.

It was just an angle where I couldn't see it from the tree. I jumped out in the road and I'm jumping up and down. I'm yelling at him, the road.

We're hugging each other all sweaty and disgusting. And then I see other groups of people walking up from even further south than we are. They got lost as well. But now that we're walking and you get lost, even though I was trying desperately to stay in this straight line, because I'm right foot dominated, I ended up walking in a giant loop. So yeah, but I remember Les Bursal, that elder is one who had mentioned to me when we were out at Royal National Park, I know where the sun is because that's how you can navigate.

And if the sun's high in the sky, that means it's around noon, your shadow's going to be pointing south. Which I kind of remembered from, I kind of knew from my army training, but he's the one who reiterated that in a big way. So that was quite a terrifying experience.

Tripp: No doubt. Luckily, you weren't dehydrated and kept your wits about you, put some navigation knowledge to practice there. They talk about an unforgiving environment. I mean, the stories of people going into the deep desert in all Australia, never to be seen again. There are many of those.

Duane Hamacher: What happens even outside Sydney? I mean, just in the blue mountains, west of Sydney, people go walking down in the bushland there and they found people's bodies 20 meters away from the road.

Tripp: Yeah. And just never knew the road was there. You include a lot of these stories, which are great. And they all tie it right back into the themes of the book. You would mention at some point you're talking with an Indigenous knowledge holder and they're explaining something to you, but they were doing it in this way that sort of revealed that they were giving you the preschool lesson. And you were, you kind of called on and you were like, oh, there are levels to this.

You just don't get those levels the first time you meet someone. There's a system of transfer of knowledge, which is almost like an apprenticeship. You got to put your dues in, you got to put your time in. And if it's not your path, maybe you never get to those deeper levels.

Duane Hamacher: That's right. So knowledge is power. Knowledge is very much power in these communities. It's very, very much the case. And knowledge is intellectual property. So the elders don't necessarily say it in that way, but for people these days to really get a grasp of it, it's their IP. You don't just give your IP away. Right.

You might lose to that. You start working with somebody. You build up relationships and you start sharing more information with them with the plan for mutual benefit as they're doing with me. You have to sharing knowledge with me.

And I'm turning that, yes, I'm turning into academic papers, which they approve and our authors on, but also what are the community outputs? You know, the education curricula and the films and books and things. But when you're working with these communities, you're always aware of this much deeper levels of knowledge. So the way the communities work is, you know, youth, when they reach a certain age, start being taught the deeper layers of that meaning. And they go through years of very intense instruction where they have they go through an initiation at the end, which is basically graduation, which, you know, will involve them performing the dance, sing the songs and reciting the narratives.

And the stories verbatim as they were taught, which in some cases can take hours and hours and hours to recite the story to make sure you get everything right. Because if that knowledge is inaccurate, it's not just inconvenient. It's deadly. You have to know what's going on. So you have to prove yourself intellectually and you have to prove yourself physically.

There's almost always some kind of physical components of this. You know, you have to be a whole person. You can't just be a brainiac and you can't just, you know, you purely focus on the physical. You have to integrate those physical, mental and spiritual worlds. And then there's multiple layers of knowledge as you go, you know, further in life and get older and older to where, you know, the knowledge that's being shared is so important and so sacred that you have to make sure the people who are passing that and maintaining that, you know, holding that knowledge have earned their place.

You have to make sure why people have it. So there's all these protocols and restrictions on that and that could include restricting it by levels of initiation or education or gender or think of that nature. So there's a lot of men's business and women's business and that kind of thing. So when I go when I'm working, that's why they tend to put me with the men first because it would be inappropriate to share women's business with me.

But even men's business, we have to make sure everybody's, you know, happy with that being shared publicly. So what happens with that process is most of everything in the book and what we talk about are the lower levels of knowledge. Right. That's just that's the public levels of knowledge, the deeper levels of knowledge tend to have those restrictions. And sometimes communities are happy to share that, but usually they only want to give small bits of that out. So that's what I was kind of getting around with this book that even though there's a tremendous degree of knowledge that I talk about in the book, and a lot more than I don't talk about that I would like to, but I didn't have enough room because you know their page limits.

There's the upper levels of all that knowledge that I haven't didn't even touch on, right, which are much deeper. But that one time I was working with Uncle Ron Day and sort of wrapping everything up and as I turned everything off, you know, what it was clear I wasn't taking notes or anything. It's like, oh yeah. And he just sort of, it reminds me of this and he just sort of did this launch and some stuff really technical. So imagine you're like a high school student, you get a physics professor talking about, you know, advanced quantum theory or something. And I'll send this, you know, like, oh my God, this is really detailed, you know, incredible knowledge, knowing full well that I wasn't going to be able to write it down, but also knowing that it wasn't meant for me to write down. That he was sharing something with me, you know, but it was also, you know, there were multiple layers to why he was doing that.

One of them was also to let me know, to remind me that no matter how enthusiastic you get and how excited you get, we're only sharing with you a tiny fraction of what we actually know. This, I think, not only becomes an interesting challenge when you're doing this kind of research and trying to communicate it, but I also think it's one of the reasons the general public doesn't have a better respect or appreciation for these knowledges, because literally what they're told of the preschool in kindergarten or version. So they see all that and they think, oh, well, this is kind of a kindergarten level, they think that's what it is. Like, no, no, no, we're literally teaching you the kindergarten, we've got the more advanced stuff, but that's not necessarily for us to show you. So people see the basics and they think that's all it is.

Tripp: I got to a section in the book and I was, you know, surprised and delighted to see some oceanography and meteorology and climate. The more you learn, the more it shouldn't be all that surprising, because all these things are connected and they're connected intimately for Indigenous people. It's about these careful observations over deep time, they get integrated into this like holistic worldview. There aren't silos of study like there are for you and I.

Duane Hamacher: Well, that's exactly it. Everything has to have meaning and application and it's about thriving and surviving. There's all kinds of applications to this and this is one of the funny little topics actually that I get into debates with about my colleagues.

We're looking at the academic side of this stuff. So it's easy to look at things like the sun going from solstice to solstice throughout the year. Okay, well, that's how you measure a solar year. The moon going through phases and it's linked with tides, right? You can, that's practical knowledge.

We can all think of easy ways that could be applied. But you look and there'll be discussions about variable stars. So stars that slowly change and brightness over time, whether it's two stars moving in front of each other and one diminishing the other one out for a brief period of time or whether it's something intrinsic about the star. Some supergiant stars will expand and then contract when they expand and become brighter. Or even things like an eclipse or the lunar stand stills.

Like the lunar, the moon does its own version of the solstice every month, but over a course of 18 years waxes and wanes about how far apart those lunastices are. Well, it'd be easy for academics to say, well, there's no practical application for that. So why would cultures be interested? They wouldn't be. They don't care about that kind of stuff. That's something we're looking at.

No. The meaning of that doesn't necessarily have to be something that ties to calendars or food economics or something or predicting the weather. It can mean whatever the communities decide it means. So the stories that talk about stars changing and brightness, those brightness changes are not on a cycle that synchronizes with the solar calendar or lunar calendar or seasonal calendar. So they don't have that kind of practical function, but people still noted these stars change in brightness over time. So they attributed meaning to that. That was personal. So they described like, you know, one character was breaking a sacred taboo and was punished for it. And so that star changing in brightness reminds you of the activity that he did that he wasn't supposed to. So it had social meaning to it.

Tripp: Which reinforces a law which has some other purpose in society, which all contributes to survival.

Duane Hamacher: Exactly. You know, we talk about eclipses and the Torres Straight islanders were able to predict eclipses. You know, and that's something that no, no oral based culture has been given credit for anywhere in the world. We know the Maya did it, the Sumerians did it and a few other cultures did it. They had some kind of physical writing system written language.

The cultures that were already based were never given credit. Even when I say the [Torres Straight] islanders did that, people still scoff at me today. Prove it.

Well, as I said, the proof is in the pudding. They have a whole ceremony that is planned in advance that only takes place during any eclipse. And they love this ceremony to try to impress a bunch of astronomers.

I mean, it's absurd. These ceremonies, you know, recorded when the first people, you know, first Europeans came to that part of the world. But what I'm getting at is like, well, what's the practical application of observing an eclipse? Well, let's put yourself within one of these big civilizations like you might see in China, India, Mesoamerica, someplace like that.

Right. And some of these places you have big powerful kings. And these kings hold this position of extreme power. And as is very common, astronomical goings on at significant importance. They would like an astrological terms that could tell you something about your future. Eclipses were seen as a very powerful omen. They've literally stopped battles during eclipses because they felt it was a sign from the gods or something like that. So if you're a powerful king and you want to know if an eclipse comes is going to come up because that's going to influence something you should be doing or the influence of the people or religious influence. Your court astronomers had damn well better predict that eclipse accurately because if they do great.

If they don't, they're probably going to walk around with that ahead. Death is the result of that. So your ability to do that is not so much based on, oh, is it calendars or is it finding food? It's based on life or death because this powerful person says so. So, you know, this is one of those discussions I have with other academics about what this means and why it's important that you can clearly see it in these traditions.

People observed the most rare types of transient phenomena and difficult to predict type of common like eclipses. They did that. Amazing. And the evidence for it is as clear as anything else. And those are the kinds of things I really wanted to emphasize in this book. And to give a little bit of context, I gave a talk for an education conference in the middle of the year, middle of this year for physics teachers. And I decided instead of talking about eclipses and the solstice and things that they would easily recognize, I wanted to bring up something that was going to be a little bit more of a challenge for them. So I brought in eclipses.

I talked about these Torres Straights ceremony and what it means and how this ceremony was only performed during the eclipse. It had to be planned months in advance. It not only was planned months in advance, it was the top level of initiation for the traditional [Miraim Language], which means Starman.

It was their top level of initiation to be able to predict when this was going to happen. So I said, how do you predict an eclipse? Let's just do a lunar eclipse.

How are you going to predict that? And I led them step by step through the process of how you're going to predict the lunar eclipse. And even the physics teachers were starting to feel a bit lost.

And that was deliberate. Because they think, and I think it happens a lot because people don't know what they don't know. I did that on purpose because I wanted them to feel a bit lost. I wanted them to realize this is not something easy. And if calendars did something incredibly difficult, and even they as physics teachers were going to struggle to do this, that's a little bit better of a way of getting people to understand the complexity and depth of knowledge.

Tripp: And one of the cases of priority that you talk about in the book that was striking to me, I think it was the variable brightness of Betelgeuse. So there's a very famous

Duane Hamacher: song line that goes across the entire continent called the Seven Sisters Songline after the Plays. And a song line is a song map in the landscape where you associate memory to place.

Something called the method of loci. So as you're traveling these routes across the country, you're singing the song. And the song is describing the land around you and where things are and what's happening. So as you're traveling over long distances, you're singing the song, it's reiterating these things.

Even if you've never traveled the route before, the map is embedded in memory. You're reciting through the song. And if you cross into another country, another Aboriginal area, the song changes languages. It's a very famous one that goes all the way across the country from WA to New South Wales Coast, about the Seven Sisters. And in this narrative, it's talking about the Sisters of the pleiades and their interaction with a man called, you know, various things, Wati Niru, Nairuna, who is represented by Orion. And he's chasing those sisters across the landscape.

And it's this dynamic of what it all means and why they're doing it. Orion's chasing the Seven Sisters, but their eldest sister is protecting her younger sisters by standing between them and this man in Orion. And she's the stars of the Hades, that V shape of stars, which we see as the horns of Taurus of the bull in Greek tradition. And she's sort of taunting him and getting his attention away from the girls, her younger sisters and towards her.

And she's like mocking and humiliating him because he's this cowardly womanizer. Throughout the actions of what she does to him, they're throwing fire magic back and forth, but he creates a fire magic in his right hands, which is the star of Betelgeuse. Now, people think, well, hang on, Betelgeuse in the southern hemisphere is underneath, so that means he'd be upside down. He is. The Aldous community say he's upside down.

Central part of New South Wales, they say he was, this particular individual was haunting a kangaroo and he tripped and fell over the horizon. He creates a fire magic and he's trying to throw it at her to get her out of the way so that he can get to the sisters. And then she creates fire magic in her left foot, which is the star of Aldebaran.

She kicks fire magic back in him. It kind of goes back and forth. And they describe the stars getting hotter and brighter. And then going back down again and describing these stars changing in brightness over time, mostly with the focus on Betelgeuse. Of course, if you're an astronomer and you know nothing about variable stars, which is what I did my master's degree on, you recognize Betelgeuse is a supermassive star that changes in brightness over time. On a period of about 400 days, it goes by, I think, one and a half full magnitudes.

So it changes noticeably. And then people recognize that and they incorporated that into their oral traditions. And then, you know, Westerners recorded this, you know, those particular stories, early 1900s, but they didn't know anything about them. These anthropologists and people writing this down, they didn't know anything about variable stars. Describing those terms, they just described these stars getting hotter and brighter and they kind of mentioned their brightness changing.

They didn't quite know what that meant. So going into the research is like, oh, this is what they're talking about. You know, with the eyes of an astronomer, it's obvious, it's clear as day what they're talking about. And when I published a paper on that, you know, there were a lot of people who were quite excited. Even the president of the American Variable of Stars Association, global organization for that, personally emailed me and said they loved it. But I got a lot of pushback from amateur astronomers, not a lot, just a few of them who thought that this is ridiculous. Every single people didn't observe variable stars, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

And no matter how much I tried to explain in detail the traditions and how they work and why it all could be done, it just didn't believe me. And then about a year later, I don't know if you remember this from back in 2019, 2020, just before COVID hit, Betelgeuse went through a really bizarre time called the great dimming where it dropped from being the 11th brightest star to like the 22nd brightest star or something. It was noticeably fainter. So it's on a global stage. This does happen. You can see with your own eyes. Step outside now. You can see it, you know.

Tripp: Yeah, because part of the argument was that there wasn't enough change to be able to detect it with the human eye.

Duane Hamacher: Yeah, and what that means is about every six to seven months, if you look at it six to seven months apart, you'll notice the significant change in the brightness. There's a lot of significant, but one and a half magnitude is pretty noticeable. But what you need are nearby stars comparison. If you have an isolated star in the sky like Canopus, it's hard to judge brightness changes in Canopus because there's no other bright stars around. It's the second brightest star anyway. But in something like a ride, you've got lots of stars around of comparable brightness where you can, the human eye is really good at detecting changes in brightness. So if you were to ask people to list the five brightest stars in Orion, the majority of people will get it bang on, right?

Because we'll do that quite easily. So you had to have those stars, which you have there. And that just was a great way of showing how that worked. And then we found more. We found more evidence in other cultures.

But the one that I'll finish on real quick is after the paper was published, I sent it to one of my PhD students at the time. And he said, you're not going to believe this. I was like, what? And he actually calls me up.

I was on the train and sitting at the time. He calls me up. He says, just four days ago, I was sitting with a senior elder down outside Canberra who was talking. And in their cultures, they talk about how there was a community who had been attacked by another one.

There's only a handful of them left. And they actually ascended into the sky. And the father ascended into the sky. He was pulled up by the younger kids and he had an injury signifying blood. And the elder says, oh, that star changes today.

It pulsates slowly. Now, Bob didn't mention the PhD student Bob Fuller, who's now a doctor Fuller. Didn't mention anything to the elder about variable stars. That wasn't something that was brought up or described. Didn't even know about the paper I was writing.

Just totally serendipitously. Another community talking about that star changing, but the elder literally saying this star pulsates slowly. So right from the horse's mouth, not even from something that was written down a hundred years ago or something, you know.

Tripp: It set back the discovery of that for thousands of years, right? Which is just an incredible thing. Maybe now is a good time to return to the cover image on the book. Absolutely.

Duane Hamacher: So when it came time to figure out what the cover was going to look like, the publisher, you know, like, look, rubbing for ideas. What do you want to do? And I really thought about this and the obvious choice would seem to be an astronomy related cover.

Maybe an Aboriginal artwork or something. And I thought, well, hang on. I've got lots of experiences with the elders and it was one that I really liked. And that was with Uncle Segar Passi. So Segar Passi is the senior elder on Murray [Island].

He's in his 80s. He's a world famous artist. There's a few other artworks with his and that middle bit where the color images are.

You can see some of those. He doesn't do an old, what do you think, of the traditional design. He's got his own artistic style and he's got a beautiful palette of colors. He uses it.

I love it. But what I thought of was the time when I was sitting with him on mayor in his art studio, which the community built for him, which is really nice. He had some artworks on the wall and we were chatting at the time about how both of us love sunsets.

For both of us, it's our favorite time of the day. And he was sitting on his front porch where his studio is and he'd sit there in a lawn chair and he was talking about how he would be watching the sun throughout the year. He'd see where it was setting relative to the houses and the light pole and things across the street. You know, he was noticing that.

And he explained to me that he had this artwork which showed the sunset and it just dawned on me. That's the perfect image. First off, I want it for exactly the reason that you noted. It catches the eye.

It pops out and needs something that's going to pop out. That's going to be an indigenous artwork that isn't going to be one everybody automatically associates. This is not a dot painting, for example. Most people think of them. They think of Aboriginal art.

They think of dot paintings. The significance behind that is when you're looking at astronomy from an indigenous perspective, it doesn't start when the stars come out. It's when the sun sets. Where does the sun set on the horizon? What time does it set? What do the clouds in the background look like?

It's going to tell you about the weather or the climate conditions. So I thought, here's something. We both love sunsets.

This is the time when you want to start doing it. A bumper of the book with all the stars in the middle, but on the edges is the sunrise, the sunset kind of thing. It's a great image that's going to pop out.

It's one of the co-authoring senior elders who's on there. Everything worked out beautifully. We got that art design and sent it to him and he loved it. He absolutely loved it and he was so happy to have that on there.

Tripp: What an incredible artist. He's capturing the details in a way, the way that he observes, the stuff that he pays attention to, the appearance of the sea surface, the colors in the sky. It's gorgeous and it has so many meanings. I just thought it was really powerful and the more you learn about it, the cooler it gets.

Duane Hamacher: That's exactly right. And this thing is by all those artworks. I keep looking over here. I've got these artworks lined up in my wall that are from his. The first one there is actually one of the book cover.

Every brush stroke, every color, every single time his brush touches that painting, it has meaning. Wow. Telling you something. They're filled with meaning. They're gorgeous because the scenery there is gorgeous. He's a great artist, but they're all localized.

They're all from his community, which is mostly on Dowar, one of the two little islets off the coast of Mer. And it's just stunning. But everything with his artwork tells you something important. That's the thing that I think people, when they're interested in indigenous art, especially when I buy a piece, it's not just about the aesthetics. Yes, of course, it's an artwork. A set of this is a big part of it, but it's about the meaning and what it's telling you, which is one of the things I love about the artworks.

But I hate when I go into a big art shop in the middle of the city where the only thing it tells you is tells you the artist, the name of the artwork. And then like, oh, it's either the dimensions and it's this kind of canvas or something. It doesn't tell you the meaning of it.

Tripp: Like you said, with the dot artwork, it seems so abstract. So if you don't catch the meaning behind it, you're kind of missing most of the point of it. Yeah, so one other topic I wanted to hit is meteorite impacts. I know this is a favorite topic of yours to chapter in the book.

You touched on it like right in the beginning, but traveled out for one of these documentaries to one of the big meteorite crater sites where the scene of one of the indigenous creation stories.

Duane Hamacher: That is from the Western Arrernte people. So the Arrernte people are the communities around Alice Springs, right in the central desert. And there is a gigantic asteroid crater about 130 kilometers west of Alice Springs.

The Western term for this Gosses Bluff the Arrernte term for it is Norala. And the what you see today is the remnants of the central uplift of this giant complex crater. So what happened in terms of science, geology is about 142 million years ago, rather large asteroid probably on the order of a kilometer in diameter impacted, created this giant crater about 22 kilometers wide. Now over the last 140 million years, that central part of Australia has eroded down, the ground used to be two kilometers higher than what it is now. So over 140 million years that ground is eroded away by two kilometers.

And what happens to these really big impacts that are over about 3.4 kilometers wide is you form what are called complex craters, the simple craters, the bowl shaped craters, complex ones are kind of flat. And what happens with those is just like when you drop water, a drop of water, you know, in glass, you see it kind of go down the middle part comes back up again, the sort of conservation principles of energy, right. Well, the ground does the same thing.

So they kind of rebounds and comes back up. What happened over 140 million years ago is the ground eroded down. But the area with the central uplift was more dense.

So didn't you wrote as fast as the land around it. So what you see nowadays is this ring shaped mountain range, five kilometers wide, and about 150 - 200 meters high. That's the central uplift. You look at a sidelined image, you can see the wide to kilometer 22 kilometer crater, but now you just see this ring shaped mountain range.

This mountain range is called Norala. Now in the Arrernte traditions, the Western Arrernte traditions from the Malbunka's who were the traditional custodians of that story. They talk about how in the creation time, at the very beginning, there were a group of women who were dancing in the Milky Way as stars. One of the women who had had a baby, she put the baby down in a turner, a coolamon, a wooden basket down at the edge of the Milky Way. And while they were dancing the corroboree, the ceremony, the vibrations shook it and the baby's flip and fell off the Milky Way and came crashing down to the Earth.

It hit the ground and the turner fell on top of it and pushed all the rocks around it upwards. Now the baby's parents are the morning star and the evening star and they take turns back and forth, searching for their lost child to this day. It was said that parents out in the desert would tell their children, don't stare at the morning star or the evening star Venus.

It was visible in the morning and the evening because that's the baby's parents and they'll think that maybe you're the lost child and they'll come take you above. So I did this documentary for National Geographic. It was called The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. And they wanted me to work with them as a consultant on an episode called Creation. And they wanted to do something in Australia. And I said, well, how about we do this? They contacted me and said, what are your ideas?

Do you have anything? I was like, yeah, well, here's a story out here and this would be a great one to do. The filming team came down and we went out to the desert and we filmed this with Warren Williams, who is one of the traditional custodians. In fact, I think he's the CEO of the Central Land Council now. He's also a famous country musician. And when I went and visited him and now it's spring, we were at the studios and I mentioned I was a drummer and he's like, oh, we've got a drum set in here. Do you want to go play it? And I was like, please, so.

First time meeting this guy, I'm in the studio banging on a drum kit. We had a lot of fun with that. But he, he, you know, we were out in the desert doing this, this filming. He was sharing knowledge with me about things I had researched before.

I didn't know, but I expected. And one thing he says, if you look up high in the sky and what we think of as winter, when the Milky Way straight overhead, you can see that turn of still falling out of the Milky Way. It's a curve of stars, a U shaped curve of stars called Corona Australis, which means Southern Crown. But to him, you know, the traditions that look like that turn of falling sideways out of the Milky Way. So that was he confirmed something that we've been thinking there. So it was a really amazing experience to see that. And you know, millions of millions of people saw that and that was their creation. That was where life came. That's where the first people came from this impact, this impact of this star that fell, which mirrored the scientific explanation of that. You know, was their creation story.

Tripp: It's a beautiful story. And these are people of the stars, right? Like that's where they came from. Other books, if people want to go further or get deeper into your topic.

Duane Hamacher: There's a whole load of things coming out now, which is fantastic. Two Aboriginal colleagues of mine wrote a book at the same time called Astronomy Sky Country. It's Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli. Yeah, we were both working on our books at the same time. There's has quite a different, you know, different approach to it. But they speak more from their perspectives as two Gamilaroi women. And that's a great one to see as part of the First Knowledges series, which is, you know, initially it was only going to be six books. Now it's going to be double that. And I might actually be writing one of the final books in that.

Tripp: Amazing. Yeah, I've actually seen those around. I haven't picked one up yet.

Duane Hamacher: Yeah, I just had a meeting with the phone conversation with the chief editor just about just before we picked up the phone or just before we had our meeting here. That'll be a lot of fun. There's a lot of other books coming out on this topic. There is a great book called, well, Lynne Kelly's Books.

That's the ones I want to mention. Lynn Kelly has done books on memory and orality, and that gives all the context to how all this stuff works and why it works. The memory code, which talks about how all these famous archaeological sites work as memory palaces like Stonehenge and things like that.

And her work is solid, you know, it's revolutionized archaeology. Memory craft, which are the different techniques for memorizing stuff. And there's the knowledge gene, which is the new one that just came out where they worked out the actual gene and within our DNA that gives humans the unique capacity for music and art that helps us be able to learn that.

It actually what makes us human. That's a phenomenal book and it just came out like a couple of months ago here in Australia comes out in the US early in the new year. And that's going to revolutionize everything. So those are great books to check. There's some other great books on indigenous astronomy as well. Arctic Sky by John McDonald's all about Inuit astronomy from the Arctic and Alaska, Canada, Greenland, those areas. There's Sam Lowe's of Hawai’ike Rising, which is a great book.

It's called The Spirit in the Sky, which is about Lakota knowledge. Of course, my colleague Annette Lee who's a Lakota woman and artist in international physicists who I think has seven degrees. She's writing some books and curricula. There's so much amazing stuff that's happening out.

Tripp: One of the premises of the podcast is that science books can play a role in society and making positive change. So could you sum up what you hope people will take away from your book?

Duane Hamacher: There is a tremendous amount of things that we can learn from indigenous knowledges that are scientific. It doesn't matter if they're scientific. They shouldn't be considered valid because they're scientific. But there's amazing ways that we can learn from indigenous knowledges if we learn to close our mouths and open our ears. That's the main takeaway from all the work that I've been doing. There's research programs we're doing where elders are being involved in guiding astrophysics research because these worlds can inform each other in really remarkable ways. We're not talking about astrology or something super esoteric.

We're talking about real practical stuff too. So there's great synergies that are happening in the space. And now that we're working on humanity expanding its presence into space in a really rapid way, how can we work together to make sure that everybody benefits from this boom in the space industry? Also, how can we safeguard these knowledges so it's not being exploitative? How can we safeguard a view of the skies and darkness and still move forward?

Tripp: Yeah, given the history of colonial science, we have to keep that in mind. Exactly right. What about you mentioned maybe a next book?

Duane Hamacher: A whole load of new projects coming. As far as books, I just signed a book contract with Murdoch Books, which is part of Allan and Unwin, to write a sister companion to Marcia Langton's Welcome to Country. We're going to call it Welcome to Sky Country. And hoping to have that in by April, which means it'll come out a year later. We'll see how we go. A lot of stuff happening right now.

Tripp: Is this who, she wrote the fordward in your book?

Duane Hamacher: The book is a phenomenal job and she's extremely famous here in Australia. She's written tons of books and everything. She's the associate provost and foundation chair of indigenous studies here. She's an Eoman woman from Queensland.

She pretty much needs no introduction for in by in Australia. We got this amazing cultural and indigenous astronomy program at the University of Melbourne going and the new course is finally the final course. We'll be up and running first semester.

So if you're still around, come join. It's called Astronomy and Society in the Space Age. And it's looking at all these questions about astronomy research and the space industry and all the philosophical and sociological questions we need to ask about that with a bit of a focus on indigenous rights and knowledges, but ties in with indigenous astronomy, archaeo astronomy and astronomy and world history, which the other three courses. And then of course, middle in July of next year, we have a major IAU funded symposium for a week here at the University called Indigenous Astronomy in the Space Age. And it's going to be on this very topic.

Tripp: Amazing. So where can people best find you and support your work?

Duane Hamacher: You can go to aboriginalastronomy.com.au. That's a resource that our website have put together for all the educational resources and academic papers, that kind of thing. You can find us at Australian Indigenous Astronomy on social media, Facebook and Instagram. And you can find information about the book at thefirstastronomers.com.

Tripp: Amazing. There's so much in the book. We didn't even scratch the surface. So if you're listening and you're enjoying the conversation, you really need to go out and buy the book. This has been Duane Hamacher.

We've been talking about the first astronomers how indigenous elders read the stars, written by himself in elders and elder knowledge holders. Duane, thank you so much for your time. This is, I think, it's a really fun, incredible conversation. Thank you.

Duane Hamacher: Well, thanks a lot for having me on. I appreciate it.

Tripp: Hey, Tripp here. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, there are a few ways you can help us keep the conversation going. First, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us connect with more listeners.

If you can, also share the episodes with friends and family on social media. We also have a Patreon. So if you have the means, please consider supporting us directly. Patreon supporters get access to the book science community and bonus content, only available for supporters.

The Patreon is also a great place to get in touch and we'd love to hear from you. So what books would you like to hear us cover next? Remember, you can find share notes and all things book science, as well as everything else I'm working on at TrippCollins.com. Thanks for listening. I am Tripp Collins and this has been Book Science. Your invitation to think deeply, stay curious, get off the scroll and get out into the world.

Take care.

Season 1 Teaser

Tripp: This show was recorded in Narrm, Melbourne, Australia, where the traditional custodians include the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. I'm Tripp Collins, and this is Book Science. The podcast explores how the best science books are written and why they matter. Hello everyone, and welcome to this very special introductory episode in teaser for season one of Book Science. In this episode you'll discover what this podcast is all about. Get to know me, your host, and towards the end we'll tease the rest of season one.

Let's start with what this podcast is all about. Well, Book Science is about science books. A good science book bridges the gap between knowledge gathered using the scientific process and the public imagination. And Book Science is a podcast dedicated to celebrating science books and their authors. We do this through two types of episodes.

There are author interviews, which are in-depth discussions, where we explore stories, insights, and craftsmanship behind books. The other type of episodes are solar adventures, usually dedicated to a single book or theme. No matter the episode type, my mission is to champion long-form science communication, inspire readers, and support aspiring authors in sharing their passion for science with the world.

Welcome to this introductory episode and teaser for season one, hopefully the first of many seasons to come. It's no secret that we live in turbulent times, and it's never been more important to lead a well-informed and well-examined life. Science has a role to play in living an examined life. Science is a system, not the system, but a system by which we can make sense of the world around us. I think of science as a good faith seeking of truth. And if your knowledge system does this, then it too is a type of science. Science isn't well suited to answer every question, but for those questions for which it can't answer, science often points us in the direction of progress. In these cases, we should try to use science to make decisions toward an improved future for everyone. And if you look back through history, time and time again, science books have been part of human progress.

It's not a primary driver. I'm talking about books like Micrographia by Robert Hooke or Cosmos by Alexander von Humbolt, or Own the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, The Sea Around Us in Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. These books were powerful forces for good in the world. Sometimes science may seem too strange or lofty to play a role in our daily lives. This is partly because scientific discussions tend to play out in journal articles. And journal articles are usually a chore to read because they aren't intended for casual reading.

Journal articles are written by experts, for experts, often in very niche communities, using shorthand language that only the community understands. This is where the bleeding edge of science is. So it's really impossible for the average person to engage with this area of science in a meaningful way.

There is science journalism and short form science communication, but these efforts often fall short because there isn't time to develop nuance. Simply, the type of understanding you can get from reading a short article is pretty superficial. What we should do if we really want to engage with an interesting topic is read a book written by an expert.

Thankfully, there are experts out there. People have spent years, decades, perhaps their whole lives dedicated to thinking about certain topics who want to share their knowledge with everyone in the form of a book. A book written with everyone in mind from the beginning, not just other experts. There is something about the form and format of a book. A book gives you space and time with a topic. You can carry the book around.

You can easily cross-reference and make notes in the margins. You can experience a book. It's the best way to really get into a topic short of going back to school and getting a degree. It's my core belief that books and science books in particular bring net good into the world. And here at Book Science, I want to celebrate books that do this well.

I don't think it's ever seeing the case that if we can increase scientific literacy of the public, then we can help create a better future for everyone. And speaking of everyone, first and foremost, this is a podcast for everyone. We're going to be exploring the contents of books whose aim is to communicate science to everyone. So if you're looking for a book recommendation or if you want to dig into the stories behind science, or if you're just looking to get a little bit more insight into a particular book or topic, this is the right place. If you're interested in science stories, if you're a science communicator yourself and you want to get into the minds of some of the best in the business, then you're also in the right place. Another slice of my audience that I hope gets a lot of value out of this podcast is science book authors and inspiring authors. When I talk to an author, we often get into the art and craft and sometimes the business of writing science books. And hopefully I'm able to provide information that demystifies how a science book goes from idea to object in the world.

So that's a primer on the aims and goals of the podcast. At this point, you may be wondering about me. Well, who the heck am I?

Well, I'm Tripp. I grew up in the coast in the Carolinas. I have a bachelor's in physics and a master's in PhD in applied marine physics. I am a professional researcher and my expertise is in the physics of ocean waves. This puts me in a hard to define area between disciplines. I mostly identify as an oceanographer, but I also work with a lot of engineers. And I've even taught engineering courses at the university level.

My work sometimes crosses over into fluid mechanics and marine meteorology. I'm a first generation scientist. Growing up, I didn't know any scientists and honestly, I wasn't even sure what science was all about. My family loved nature.

Most of my childhood was spent outside and in natural environments along the coast. My curiosity for the world was encouraged. Family past time was watching National Geographic documentaries. But the deeper place and impact of science and society, well, that was something I've discovered much later on my own. I found my way into science in large part because of books like the ones you'll find in this podcast. Books that translated complex scientific ideas for a popular audience.

Books like Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which was gifted to me by my high school wrestling coach, thanks Coach Clay. And I can say without exaggeration that that book altered the course of my life. Putting aside the particular ideas in the book, what that book did for me was show me that there was a systematic way to approach and understand the world. And it infused me with a sense of awe that there was more to the world than what met the eye.

And the path to this hidden world was through careful observation and thinking. Science books revealed an extraordinary way of thinking, an ongoing search for objective truth in this deeply mysterious world we live in. So it's no surprise I love a good science book. And now, as I attempt to write my own, I find myself reading science books not just for their content, but also to understand how they're crafted. What makes a science book compelling? How does the author take complex topics and make them clear, accurate, and engaging?

How do they balance technical detail with storytelling? So book sciences my attempt to answer these questions and share my findings with you. And solo episodes will dive into science books I've loved, will break them down, and examine what makes them shine. Likewise, and author interviews will be exploring their journey from idea to published book. We'll dig into the content of the book, but also try to get a peek behind the scenes of what goes into writing a science book.

And this inaugural season will cover a number of remarkable books. These books span topics including oceanography, physics, prehistory, astronomy, and indigenous knowledge systems. Alongside exploring these works will feature conversations with some of the brilliant minds behind them. We'll learn from prominent scientists and authors who have not only advanced their fields but have also mastered the art of making science accessible and compelling. Okay, without further ado, here is the trailer for season one of book science.

Scott Huler: The scientific method of understanding the world is why we have so many things that work so well. It's why we have modern dentistry. It's why we have antibiotics. It's why you and I are sitting and talking to each other literally an entire world apart. And it's beautiful and it's magical and it's marvelous but it's all understandable and communicable.

Helen Czerski: The book is the single greatest tool humanity has for conveying what is in one person's head into another person's head.

Lynne Kelly: But if you want creativity and new ideas, you have to link information that hasn't been linked before. To link them all together with enough depth that the reader is confident that it's robust but also simple enough that they don't get bored out of their minds with detail, that's where the challenge is. And I don't think you can do that in less than a book.

Scott Huler: Listen to yourself, listen to your heart rate, wait for your, you know, the hair in your arms to stand up. Actively hope for your mind to be blown. And when something blows your mind, just stop and be there for that move.

Tessa Hill: You know, so much change happening in the ocean and yet maybe a lot of people don't know about that change. And so we went directly to the source of people who could sort of be that voice for the ocean. And I think we really did see it as a conduit for their stories, more than our stories. And ultimately, I think Eric and I really wanted people to feel connected to the ocean and that that human connection to the ocean, you know, goes back millennia and that maybe if we got in touch with that connection that we'd be willing to act on it a little bit.

Helen Czerski: There is more than one way to look at the ocean. And in science, we take that for granted, you know, we zoom out, we zoom in, we look at it from different places, we look at it through ecology and through chemistry and physics. But of course, there are also different humans and different human perspectives on it. There is no reason we can't talk about those ideas about the ocean at the same time as talking about the sort of more hardcore science ideas, because fundamentally they all join up around the back.

Lynne Kelly: And then I'd throw in a topic thinking, I know what people are going to say, and nothing happened the way I thought. Engaging with other people who think very differently is the most exciting thing you can do. Grab a musician and artist and you're a diverse person. Now, why is it that when we talk about astronomy,

Duane Hamacher: when we talk about Aboriginal culture, people think there are two different worlds that don't belong together at all. I started looking into it, and it didn't take much effort, really, to just see how much science was embedded in the knowledge of astronomy by Aboriginal people.

Eric Simons: I think the main thing for us is just that that knowledge of the world is so incredible and so powerful and that there are people, maybe the lesson, that there are people who have that knowledge still, that there are people around the world who know the ocean in this way and that it is worth elevating their experience and their knowledge and appreciating it.

Duane Hamacher: There is a tremendous amount of things that we can learn from Indigenous knowledges that are scientific. It doesn't matter that they're scientific. It shouldn't be considered valid because they're scientific, but there's amazing ways that we can learn from Indigenous knowledges if we learn to close our mouths and open our ears.

Tessa Hill: It makes you wonder, are we asking the right questions? Are we having the right conversations? Are we listening? Are we listening?

Scott Huler: If there's a through line through all of my work, whether it's my books, radio work, or my journalism, anything I get, underneath all of it is the exhortation to pay attention, pay attention to what is happening around us. The universe is whispering its secrets into our ears and we're telling it to shut up because we're too busy looking at our phone.

Tessa Hill: Things that are worth fighting for we should fight for and it may require risks or work or sacrifice.

Scott Huler: As you say, so much has been lost and yet there's so much still left to say and we should be about the business of trying to save what we can and not just because we're good and kind people, but because we'll have much better lives.

Tessa Hill: Every positive step we take today or this month or this year matters, so it's not too late for the ocean. In fact, it's just in time.

Tripp: All right, I hope that trailer piqued your interest and I can't wait for you to join me on this journey. Where do we go from here? Episodes will be released every other week for the next four months or so and then we'll take a bit of a break. I'm hoping we can build enough interest over the course of the first season to keep this project going into the future. Doing a podcast is a lot of work and I'm doing it all by myself, so if you're getting value out of this, please consider supporting.

I'd also love to hear from you. Is there a science book you would like me to explore? Is there an author you would like to see featured? Reach out to me and let me know and reach out to the author and let them know this should get on book science.

I can't wait for you to hear these discussions and I hope book science not only sparks your curiosity but also provides insight and inspiration, especially for those dreaming of writing their own science book. That's all for now. Thanks for your time and attention and see you in episode one.

Hey, Tripp here. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, there are a few ways you can help us keep the conversation going. First, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps us connect more listeners.

If you can, also share the episodes with friends and family on social media. We also have a Patreon, so if you have the means, please consider supporting us directly. Patreon supporters get access to the book science community and bonus content is only available for supporters.

The Patreon is also a great place to get in touch and we'd love to hear from you. So what books would you like to hear us cover next? Remember, you can find show notes and all things book science as well as everything else I'm working on at TrippCollins.com. Thanks for listening. I am Tripp Collins and this has been Book Science. Your invitation to Tripp Collins. Thank you. Please stay curious, get off the scroll and get out into the world. Take care.