New Books in Science

• Jeremy Bernstein 11–2007

  In this episode from the Institute’s vault, we revisit an October 2007 presentation by theoretical physicist and Institute Fellow Jeremy Bernstein on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb, and the nuclear arms race that followed. As a physicist, Bernstein made contributions to elementary particle physics and cosmology, working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New York University, and Stevens Institute of Technology, where he became Professor Emeritus in 1967. He held visiting positions at CERN, Oxford, and the École Polytechnique, among others, and was the last surviving senior member of Project Orion, which studied the potential of nuclear pulse propulsion for space travel. Bernstein was a staff writer for The New Yorker for over three decades. He wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic Monthly, and Scientific American, and authored over two dozen books, including Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma (2004). He passed away on April 20th, 2025 at the age of 95. Here he is in 2007, discussing the topics on which he made a great contribution and helped illuminate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

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• Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand

  Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about his forthcoming book on the history of artificial intelligence. The book, which has had the working title _Artificial Intelligence: The History of a Brand_ with the final title to be determined, examines how and why historical actors have decided to apply the term “artificial intelligence” to a variety of disparate computing technologies that often have very little to do with one another. Vinsel and Haigh also talk about how the book’s lessons apply to our current Generative AI bubble and an assortment of other fun topics along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

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• Jon Willis, "The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

  A thrilling tour of Earth that shows the search for extraterrestrial life starts in our own backyard.Is there life off Earth? Bound by the limitations of spaceflight, a growing number of astrobiologists investigate the question by studying life on our planet. Astronomer and author Jon Willis shows us how it’s done, allowing readers to envision extraterrestrial landscapes by exploring their closest Earth analogs in The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life (U Chicago Press, 2025). With Willis, we dive into the Pacific Ocean from the submersible-equipped E/V Nautilus to ponder the uncharted seas of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons; search the Australian desert for some of Earth’s oldest fossils and consider the prospects for a Martian fossil hunt; visit mountaintop observatories in Chile to search for the telltale twinkle of extrasolar planets; and eavesdrop on dolphins in the Bahamas to imagine alien minds.With investigations ranging from meteorite hunting to exoplanet detection, Willis conjures up alien worlds and unthought-of biological possibilities, speculating what life might look like on other planets by extrapolating from what we can see on Earth, our single “pale blue dot”—as Carl Sagan famously called it—or, in Willis’s reframing, scientists’ “pale blue data point.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

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• Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)

  An award-winning astrophysicist looks at how the understanding of uncertainty and randomness has led to breakthroughs in our knowledge of the cosmos All of us understand the world around us by constructing models, comparing them to observations, and drawing conclusions. Scientists create, test, and replace these models by applying the twinned concepts of probability and randomness. Exploring how this process has refined our knowledge of quantum mechanics and the birth of the universe, In The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos (Yale UP, 2025) Andrew H. Jaffe offers a unique synthesis of the philosophy of epistemology, the mathematics of probability, and the science of cosmology. As Jaffe puts Enlightenment thinkers like David Hume in conversation with contemporary philosophers such as Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos and engages with scientists ranging from Isaac Newton and Galileo to Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, he uses Thomas Bayes's seminal studies of statistics and probability to make sense of conflicting currents of thought. This is a deep look into how we have learned to account for uncertainty in our search for knowledge--and a reminder that science is not about facts and data as such but about creating models that correctly account for those facts and data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

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• Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)

  In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced economies--the United States and China--have fallen short of expectations. To appreciate why we cannot depend on any AI-fueled great leap forward, Frey offers a remarkable and fascinating journey across the globe, spanning the past 1,000 years, to explain why some societies flourish and others fail in the wake of rapid technological change. By examining key historical moments--from the rise of the steam engine to the dawn of AI--Frey shows why technological shifts have shaped, and sometimes destabilized, entire civilizations. He explores why some leading technological powers of the past--such as Song China, the Dutch Republic, and Victorian Britain--ultimately lost their innovative edge, why some modern nations such as Japan had periods of rapid growth followed by stagnation, and why planned economies like the Soviet Union collapsed after brief surges of progress. Frey uncovers a recurring tension in history: while decentralization fosters the exploration of new technologies, bureaucracy is crucial for scaling them. When institutions fail to adapt to technological change, stagnation inevitably follows. Only by carefully balancing decentralization and bureaucracy can nations innovate and grow over the long term--findings that have worrying implications for the United States, Europe, China, and other economies today. Through a rich narrative that weaves together history, economics, and technology, How Progress Ends reveals that managing the future requires us to draw the right lessons from the past. Carl Benedikt Frey is the Dieter Schwarz Associate Professor of AI and Work at the Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, both at the University of Oxford. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

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