Physics in a Cup of Cocoa

“Astrophysics for

People in a Hurry”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

W.W. Norton, $18.95

If this were a book review “for people in a hurry,” I’d suggest: Read this book (1) because it’s a conduit to the cosmos, (2) because you’ll become hungry for more, and (3) so that you can join the club! 

If you’re not in a hurry, stay tuned. 

In “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,” Neil deGrasse Tyson writes a vivid and virtuosic opening chapter, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” that is a tour d’horizon (pun intended) of those events that unfolded following the origin of our universe. 

Explaining Newton, gravitation, Einstein, general relativity, gravitational waves, nucleosynthesis, planetary science, galaxy formation, stellar evolution, cosmic microwave background, dark energy, dark matter, and many other “matters” in a slim volume, with easy-to-assimilate, seasoned, charming prose, is not a cakewalk. And Dr. Tyson gives you the whole enchilada, tortilla, petits fours, Linzer torte, and bagel. He persuades you to “suspend your disbelief” and wins you over as he eagerly inspires you to wish for more. He has heft and bandwidth.

Dr. Tyson’s description of the events following the Big Bang includes the story of the “leftover light from a dazzling, sizzling early universe.” And, he says, studying the patterns in the cosmic microwave background “is like performing some sort of cosmic phrenology, as we analyze the skull bumps of the infant universe.”

Hollywood science-fiction epics may portray galaxies and space as romantic and glamorous. “Nobody doesn’t like intergalactic space,” Dr. Tyson seems to agree, “but it can be hazardous to your health if you choose to go there.” He points out that you would freeze to death, your blood cells would burst, and you’d be shot full of very high-energy cosmic radiation — nuclear particles of matter that traverse interstellar and intergalactic space after being ejected by distant exploding stars. 

I was not sure why I loved this book so much: because it was so well written, or because it reminded me of my passion for astrophysics. So I asked a very intelligent good friend — a successful businessman and enthusiastic science aficionado — for his layman’s opinion. He wrote:

“For the novice, this book serves as a fascinating and intensive introduction. It will also encourage him or her to read more on astrophysics . . . and marvel at the way in which Tyson organizes and presents his material. His chapter on Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravity, juxtaposed with the current concepts of the gravitational effects of dark matter and dark energy, is extraordinary.” 

I completely agree. Dr. Tyson has a wonderful way with words. “So dark matter is our frenemy. We have no clue what it is. . . . But we desperately need it . . . to arrive at an accurate description of the universe.”

You can’t see it (hence dark), but you can infer the effects of dark matter on galaxies, making them appear — unreasonably! — as if they resembled a solid disc, like the wheel on your car that rotates on its axle. (In our solar system, however, planets revolve around the sun at different speeds that depend on their solar distances.) Thus, dark matter is an attractive force gluing a galaxy’s collection of stars together.

This is unlike dark energy, which is a repulsive force acting, so to speak, as if it were “negative gravity” and, as Dr. Tyson puts it, that it “will ultimately win the tug of war, as it forces the cosmic expansion to accelerate exponentially into the future.”

In other words, dark matter is attractive (some might say feminine) and dark energy is repulsive (some might say masculine), and together they invisibly make up about 95 percent of what’s out there. Only some 5 percent of the universe’s total mass energy is visible to us. Was Buckminster Fuller prophetic when he said the greatest discovery of the 20th century was that the invisible is more important than the visible?

“The matter we have come to love in the universe,” Dr. Tyson says, “is only a light frosting on the cosmic cake, modest buoys afloat in a vast cosmic ocean of something that looks like nothing.”

The author mentions Einstein’s problems with Hitler, who disparaged theoretical physics and general relativity as “Jewish science” and thus inferior to “Aryan science” because it was experimental. In fact, Hitler loathed Einstein so much that he wanted him assassinated, and organized a hundred authors to write a book against Einstein’s ideas. Dr. Tyson paraphrases Einstein, who said about this book of negative propaganda that “if he [Einstein] were wrong, then only one [author] would have been enough.”

In discussing the universality of physical laws, the author humorously relates how he ordered a hot cocoa with whipped cream but was disappointed to see no trace of the topping. The waiter said it had sunk to the bottom, but Dr. Tyson pointed out that since whipped cream has a low density it should have been floating on the top, and that either they forgot to put it in or the laws of physics were different in this restaurant near Caltech. When the waiter reluctantly brought the (forgotten) dollop for the hot cocoa, it floated — thus exemplifying that the laws of physics are universal. Of course, one example is not proof. (Let’s hope the waiter got a good tip and became a physicist.)

Dr. Tyson’s book is justifiably at the top of the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. He’s an authoritative source of clear ideas about our universe and writes in stylistic, eloquent prose without mathematics. This in itself is quite an unusual feat — considering “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing the natural sciences,” as the Nobel-winning physicist Eugene Wigner said, describing an extraordinary phenomenon “bordering on the mysterious.” Just like the universe.

Dr. Tyson also has a special way with children. At a recent standing-room-only Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on “De-Extinction” at the American Museum of Natural History, he came forward from the podium and sat down at the edge of the stage, long legs dangling down to audience level, to listen to an adorable 9-year-old who had a very intelligent question for him. She wore an extremely colorful and elegant combination of eye-catching attire. Neil lifted her gently onto the stage so the multitudes could see her beguiling individuality. The audience was thrilled. 

So he’s a really nice guy — in addition to writing a really good book.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and the host of the radio and TV show “StarTalk.” He lives in New York City and East Hampton. 

Stephen Rosen, an astrophysicist who lives in East Hampton, will give a talk, “Albert Einstein: Rock Star,” at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m.