Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries is a collection of columns written for Natural History magazine between 1995 and 2005 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who hosted the PBS series Origins and who directs the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Writing for an intelligent but general audience, Tyson explains in clear, lucid prose various physical and astronomical principles. He has a particular ability to explain difficult ideas. His explanation of the special theory of relativity is especially good. The most impressive aspect of the book, in terms of lucidness, comes when Tyson explains the crucial role of supernovas in the creation of heavy metals and other molecules that play an essential role in the creation of life. Although I had understood that clouds of interstellar molecules gradually coalesced into heavier molecules and later into stars and their planets, Tyson makes clear the link between the cooling temperature of the interstellar clouds and the clumping of atoms into heavier elements.

The book's title comes from a chapter in which Tyson explains what would happen if the reader fell into a black hole—he discusses black holes large and small—and in the fanciful process of doing so manages to explain the essential nature and physics of the black hole phenomenon.

Tyson recounts in a chapter entitled "Footprints in the Sands of Science" how the cutting edge in science over the decades and centuries has moved from one county to another, from England and Germany in the 20^th century to the United States. He argues that the unwillingness of the U. S. government to complete funding for the particle collider that would have been located in Texas allowed the United States to lose its leadership in particle physics. One could make a similar argument about U. S. prohibitions against stem cell research and cloning, which have allowed countries such as Korea and Great Britain and other nations to take the lead in that area. Clearly this issue bothers Tyson (and many other scientists).

Like many scientists, Tyson is interested in the relationship of religion and science. Although he accepts the role of religion in providing moral principles by which to live, he does not accept the role of religion—or the existence of a Deity—as necessary for any explanation of how the Universe came to be. God is necessary, he suggests, only when there is no other rational, scientific explanation for natural phenomenon. Gradually, he suggests, as the ability of science to provide rational explanations expands, the need for supernatural explanation—the need for God--will disappear.

Tyson sees science and God as antithetical. I am not a believer. But I have never understood why many scientists insist that science and God are contradictory. If God did exist, science would simply be how He/She/It makes the universe work. Science is God's language. Some scientists go to great lengths to point out physical principles that make God's existence unnecessary or an afterlife impossible. If God did exist, at least a God in the Judaeo-Christian sense, He/She/It would exist outside the realm of space and time—not subject to physical principles or laws, but the creator of them.

The science/religion conflict is damaging to science and damaging to our educational system's attempts to educate citizens. It is bad enough that small-minded religious authorities insist on the rivalry of science and religion and try to prevent the teaching of such well accepted concepts as evolution and the big bang in schools. It is equally bad that scientists must participate in the argument. They really have no choice, of course. Constantly under attack, dependent on funds from a government that threatens to withhold funding or to enact restrictive legislation as soon as the religious right threatens to withhold votes, scientists have to participate in the argument in order to survive. Nonetheless, it is a damaging argument.

Let religious people believe what they want. Let science continue to explore and explain the universe. Let teachers of science teach the discoveries of science without restraint of any sort from preachers, parents, and politicians.

Tyson exposes his irritation with science illiteracy in several discussions of scientific errors in films. He believes that filmmakers and even the actors who appear in them are responsible for conveying accurate science to the audience. In an interesting anecdote, He discusses how he once explained to director James Cameron an inaccurate depiction of the night sky in the film Titanic. Tyson thought Cameron seemed irritated after his explanation of the error in the film but learned later that the director had corrected the error in a DVD version of the film.

Tyson is an affable narrator and essayist willing to go to whatever lengths to make difficult concepts clear. Like Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Timothy Ferris, and others, he carries the importance of science to the general reader.