Pass the Science

Summary

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Radiolab Episode Summary: "Pass the Science"

Original Air Date: March 22, 2011
Hosts: Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich
Guest: Richard Holmes, author of "The Age of Wonder"

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Radiolab dives deep into the beautifully tangled relationship between science and communication. Anchored by an intimate and at times poetic conversation with Richard Holmes — celebrated author of "The Age of Wonder" — the episode unravels how the spirit of scientific curiosity gets passed from one person to another, transcending barriers of language and discipline. Through Holmes’ personal stories, the show captures the magic of discovery, and the drive to make even the most abstract science accessible.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How a Science Book Changed Everything

• [01:41] Host Robert Krulwich introduces Richard Holmes and his acclaimed book, "The Age of Wonder," which chronicles the dawn of modern science in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• Holmes shares that his literary background and a "lost scientific childhood" primed him for rediscovering science later in life.
  • “As a kid, I was fascinated by science… I could build radios, I could strip a motorcycle engine, I flew model aircraft.” — Richard Holmes [03:01]

2. Life at Cambridge and Unexpected Inspiration

• [04:17] Holmes describes receiving a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, a storied institution great for science. He intended to work on literary biography but was irresistibly drawn to the college’s scientific archives, especially the letters of astronomer William Herschel.

  • “I started reading those [Herschel’s letters]… all this lost side of me started floating back.” — Richard Holmes [05:05]

• Holmes recounts the tradition of dining at "high table" with world-class scholars — including seven Nobel laureates — underscoring the heady atmosphere where ideas flowed as quickly as the meal.

  • “The meal would probably be over in about 25 minutes. Amazing. And you talked. I often never had time to finish my meal because... I'd be next to an astrophysicist.” — Richard Holmes [05:53]

3. The Wordless Lesson: Galois, Group Theory, and Cross-Language Communication

• [06:56] Holmes recalls one night, seated beside a Russian mathematician who spoke no English. Feeling compelled to connect — despite no shared language or expertise — Holmes blurts out the name “Évariste Galois,” a tragic and revered figure of French mathematics.

• [07:28 – 09:20] Holmes narrates the powerful and tragic story of Galois — a young, revolutionary mathematician whose groundbreaking work, written the night before a fatal duel, would become foundational to group theory in mathematics.

  - “There are lines which are clearly about this girl... And the repeated thing is, I have no time. I have no time. There is no time.” — Richard Holmes [08:39]
  

• Holmes describes how, upon hearing "Évariste Galois," the Russian mathematician responds without words: he clutches his heart, spreads his arms, and then uses silverware to nonverbally model the concept of group theory — the “little box inside the big box.”

  • “He pulled in all the crockery, the silver water jug, the knife, the fork, the plates. And he showed me group theory... No words. There was no wor. He was talking about group theory.” — Richard Holmes [12:11]

• The hosts and Holmes delight in the beauty of this wordless transfer of scientific understanding.

  - “And to me it was kind of — it was a sort of revelation moment, really. And I thought, I love you science people, that you won't, nothing will stop you. You are jolly well going to explain this.” — Richard Holmes [13:20]
  

4. Inspiration for "The Age of Wonder"

• [13:34] This seven-minute, language-barrier-breaking demonstration became a turning point for Holmes, convincing him that he had to write a book that could do for science what the Russian mathematician had done for him: reveal wonder across boundaries.
  • “I am now going to — I will work at this and try and produce… I will try and write a book that will somehow do the same thing.” — Richard Holmes [13:56]
• Robert Krulwich briefly highlights the accolades Holmes’ resulting book would earn.
  • “The Age of Wonder, which was the best book of the year from the National Academies…” — Robert Krulwich [14:19]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On rediscovering science:
  “All this lost side of me started floating back.”
  — Richard Holmes [05:05]

• On the drive to communicate science:
  “I love you science people that you won’t, nothing will stop you. You are jolly well going to explain this.”
  — Richard Holmes [13:20]

• On Galois’s last night:
  “The repeated thing is, I have no time. I have no time. There is no time.”
  — Richard Holmes [08:39]

• On the Russian mathematician’s lesson:
  “No words. No words. There was no wor. He was talking about group theory. And that's how he explained it to me.”
  — Richard Holmes [12:11]

• On the mission to write “The Age of Wonder”:
  “I am now going to…try and write a book that will somehow do the same thing.”
  — Richard Holmes [13:56]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:41] – Introduction to "The Age of Wonder" and Richard Holmes
• [04:17] – Holmes’ pivot from literature to science at Cambridge
• [06:56] – The high table tradition and dinner with the Russian mathematician
• [07:28] – The tragic yet inspiring life of Évariste Galois
• [12:11] – The wordless demonstration of group theory
• [13:34] – The motivation to write a science book for all
• [14:27] – Episode closes with reflection on “The Age of Wonder”’s accolades

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode is warm, thoughtful, and tinged with the awe of scientific discovery. Holmes’ storytelling is poetic yet accessible, and both hosts maintain a tone of delighted curiosity. The theme: that the “language of science” can be passed between people even when words fall short, and that curiosity triumphs over all barriers.

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For anyone who missed the episode, "Pass the Science" is both a personal adventure and a celebration of how science — like music or love — can leap between people, unbound by language, and become a story to pass on.

Transcript

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[Richard Holmes]

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[Robert Krulwich]

Wait, you're listening.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

All right.

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[Robert Krulwich]

All right.

[Richard Holmes]

You're listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab shorts from WNY and npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, everyone, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krylwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast. Robert and I are about to go on tour, literally in a few hours to LA and Seattle. But before we do, we leave you with. Well, why don't you set it up?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, this is just one of those crazy and wonderful conversations that just popped into being. One of my favorite books of the last couple of years was a book called the Age of Wonder. It was written by Richard Holmes, and it describes a particular group of people, a bunch of people who kind of invented modern science sort of together in the 1780s, the 1790s, and the early 1800s, a crazy and wonderful group, balloonists and explorers and astronomers who believed that the world was full of miracles and surprising rules that could be detected if you looked hard and experimented. And experimentation was their thing. Anyway, I was talking to Mr. Holmes about his book, you can move a little to the left, why he wrote it and how it all came into being. And I began the conversation by mentioning somebody's name. It's Variste.

[Richard Holmes]

Galois.

[Robert Krulwich]

Galois. So, like, what happened to you?

[Richard Holmes]

Okay, this is a great story. It's to do with how I fell into writing science after literature. There are various reasons for this. I had what I call a lost scientific childhood, which we won't go into now. But in fact, as A kid, I was fascinated by science and because of the way literature, the education is streamed, I was taken away from that as a kid. I could build radios, I could strip a motorcycle Eng. I flew model aircraft.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you were one of those?

[Richard Holmes]

I was one of those. And I had a wonderful uncle in the Royal Air Force who taught me a lot about flight and actually, I can now say it, once smuggled me in to a V bomber, an atomic bomber, I have to say. We didn't take.

[Robert Krulwich]

You mean where there were bombs?

[Richard Holmes]

It was not loaded. It was one of those big V bombers that could carry.

[Robert Krulwich]

He smuggled you in a nice way as a tourist or he thought maybe was going to drop you out of somewhere?

[Richard Holmes]

No, he thought, here was the kid. So he took me in, he showed me how it worked, sat me in the co pilot's seat. We were still on the ground, we was not armed. And then he smuggled me out again. I've never forgotten it.

[Robert Krulwich]

How were you smuggled? Under a coat?

[Richard Holmes]

No, he just. It was on the parkway. It was his plane. It had his name on it. He was the pilot. Okay. And he said. I don't know what he said to the engineer. I would just take my nephew in, you know. So I had that last sentiment, which all began to come back. When I started work on the romantic scientists, I also had this amazing break. And we're getting to Everest Galois now. I was given what they call a visiting fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. That's Cambridge, England. This is Newton's College, or St. Byron's College. It's famous for its scientists, among other things, astrophysics particularly, and mathematics. And one, you're invited as a writer about poets.

[Robert Krulwich]

You've been now writing biographies and books about poets.

[Richard Holmes]

That's right. And I was meant to be doing research thing on biography, the history of literary biography. And what actually happened was I found these wonderful scientific archives, particularly the letters of Herschel. They're kept there in Cambridge. And I started reading those.

[Robert Krulwich]

He's talking about William and Caroline Herschel. This is a brother and sister team that built big telescopes and made all kinds of fascinating discoveries about stars and planets in those days.

[Richard Holmes]

And gradually I was drawn. I thought, this is absolutely wonderful. And all this lost side of me started floating back. Plus, at Trinity there's this tradition they talk about the high table. It's actually very democratic. You go in every evening to have a very rapid dinner, but you sit next to whoever happens to be there. There's no system of seating.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so this is you and all the Other teachers.

[Richard Holmes]

This is. No, this is all the senior research faculty and so on.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so these are people of. These are weaky people.

[Richard Holmes]

There were seven Nobel Prize winners, and I sat next to each of them at various points all.

[Robert Krulwich]

And this is one of these long tables where every plate is set perfectly and every knife is perfectly angled.

[Richard Holmes]

That's exactly right.

[Robert Krulwich]

So it's very formal.

[Richard Holmes]

Very formal. Silverware, jugs of water and so on. And you talk basically the person on your left or your right. And you have to talk fast because they don't. You imagine, you know, these dons sit around boozing. They don't. The thing I've really noticed, the meal would probably be over in about 25 minutes. Amazing. Okay. And you talked. And once you got talking, I often never had time to finish my meal because it was. I would sit next to. I'd be next to an astrophysicist. And the famous thing, which for me.

[Robert Krulwich]

And this was candy for you at this point, like you were just laughing it up.

[Richard Holmes]

Yes, I mean, I was absolutely riveted. And I found things like. Scientists love to discuss their science. They're very often very good at describing it, which I loved compared with some of the literary dons, you know. God. And you go into literary theory and these guys want you to understand. And I love that. On this particular occasion, I sat down next to a man who became clear, A, that he was Russian and he spoke no English at all, and B, that he was a mathematician. Okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

About which, you know.

[Richard Holmes]

About which I knew very little. I was trying to learn a bit to catch up with the Herschels. Very, very little. So. And I thought, I cannot let this pass. There's no possibility of communication.

[Robert Krulwich]

But you don't have the math in common or the language.

[Richard Holmes]

Yes. Okay. So I think about this for a moment, and in studying, beginning to study this period, I have indeed been looking at the mathematicians of this period. And the French mathematicians of this period are where the cutting edge is.

[Robert Krulwich]

And there's one particular study in what, the 1790s?

[Richard Holmes]

Yes, exactly. Particularly during the French Revolution. All right. And there's a young mathematician whose name was Everiste Galois. Galois itself is music to my ears. And he lived his life was as short as a romantic poet. At school, he was at the lyce Le Grand, I think, got thrown out of almost every institution he was in. But he had a natural gift for mathematics, theoretical mathematics. And he also was politically rather radical. And to cut this story short, in. I get the exact date, but Maybe around about 1820. Something like that. He was writing on the theory of mathematics, number theory, in a more advanced way than anybody could understand. He sent in papers to the academy. And there was, even at the age of 19, 20, 21, he was okay. And then he was developing a theory which we'll come to, which he got involved. And we're not quite sure if it was a political thing, but it involved a duel. He was challenged to a duel, and we think it was over a young woman, as so many duels are if you're 18, 19 or 20. And he is summoned out to have this duel in the Bois de Boulogne. And the night before this duel, he sits down and he writes a mathematical paper. He puts in everything he knows into this single paper. And it's very moving. I've seen the manuscript. I have some grasp of what's going on. But it's also that there are lines of poetry in it. There are lines which are clearly about this girl. We don't know quite what. We don't know what her name was. And the repeated thing is, I have no time. I have no time. There is no time. So he's cramming this all in until dawn. I mean, it's unbelievable situation, this paper.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the math is in there too.

[Richard Holmes]

And the math is in there too, okay? And he completes this theory, and we'll come to this in a moment. And then he goes out and he's shot and he dies. And this paper's left on his desk and his great friend saves it and it's published about, I think, about 20 years later.

[Robert Krulwich]

The math bits or the maths. Not the love stuff.

[Richard Holmes]

Not the love stuff. And it's the beginning of a stage, mathematical theory, which is called group theory. Group theory. All right? Now, this much I knew, and very, very broadly, here's my analogy to what group theory is very, very dangerous. This. It's to do with certain kinds of equation, all right? You know, those things with an equal sign and a B, okay? It involves what they call cubics. So when something as x to the power of three, it's a particular form of equation which will. You cannot work it. It will not produce the result. It will when it's squared, but not when it' or when it's. What would it be called? 4times and so on, okay?

[Robert Krulwich]

So it's a temperamental equation.

[Richard Holmes]

It's a temperamental equation. And no mathematician had found a way of solving it at the higher power. So the analogy is it's like a box which, when it reaches a certain size you can't open it anymore. Okay? Now group theory will be. This is my version of it, which I'd vaguely come to understand. It's like you can't open that box. So what you do is you put that box inside a bigger box and you can open the bigger box and that somehow lets you into the little one. Okay, I can't take you further. I don't need to go any further. So back to the Russian mathematician. So I turned to him, as it were, with the soup thing still in my hand, and I said, everest Galois.

[Robert Krulwich]

Means you just needed to start the conversation.

[Richard Holmes]

That's right. That's the only thing I could think of doing.

[Robert Krulwich]

You just blurted out the name of a 19 year old ancient French mathematician.

[Richard Holmes]

Yeah, not so ancient romantic mathematician. I looked him dead between the eyes, I said, variste Galois. And there was a pause. And to this day, this wonderful thing, he looked at me and this sort of seraphic grin passed his face. And then he did this gesture which you cannot see being radio, which is so visual, but what it is, his right hand went over his heart as if he was saluting the flag. All right? And then both hands went outwards in a big embracing gesture. And what he was saying to me to start off was, every scalois so dear to my heart and to any mathematician. All right? And then the big gesture meant he invented group theory. Okay? And then he looked at me and then his smile got bigger. And then he leaned across the table and he pulled in all the crockery, the silver water jug, the knife, the fork, the plates. And he showed me group theory of what I tried to explain to you the little box inside the big box in terms of the knife, forks, spoons, plates, salt cellars. No words. No words. There was no wor. He was talking about group theory. And that's how he explained it to me.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if I hear the sound first.

[Richard Holmes]

Of a hand going, yes, that's right.

[Robert Krulwich]

And then I hear the clanking of.

[Richard Holmes]

Silverware, well, there's this wonderful gesture which goes right out in the broad gesture. Yes, and in a wonderful way. And it's very trinity, this. None of the other dons turn a hair. The man that he looks, he's dragging all the crockery over and thinks, oh, yes, yes, of course, you know, what else would we expect? And there he is explaining to me and giving this model that I've tried to explain on air as the little box you can't open, you put it in a bigger box than you.

[Robert Krulwich]

The conversation was ten minutes long.

[Richard Holmes]

Seven minutes long. Well, it couldn't be more than 25. Cause the dinner's never lasted more. I think that was one of the days. I don't think I ate anything from the thing. I think I had a glass of water, maybe I had a glass of wine, probably to keep myself going.

[Robert Krulwich]

But that whole conversation took place wordlessly.

[Richard Holmes]

Yes. And I say that for sort of the period of time, that 20 minutes, I sort of understood group theory because he somehow, the way he did it, I thought, oh, yes, okay, it's that, it's that, it's that. And to me it was kind of. It was a sort of revelation moment, really. And I thought, I love you science people that you won't. Nothing will stop you. You are jolly well going to explain this. And also I felt, you know, here I am sitting at one of the great universities with this chance to learn, okay, and learn a new field. And so this guy, this wonderful Reichmaster, he's done this to me. I am now going to. I will work at this and try and produce. I know this is a big leap, but it was in my mind. I will try and write a book that will somehow do the same thing. I don't know how the hell I'm going to do this at this time. Okay, I don't know enough science, but I'll work at it.

[Robert Krulwich]

And that's how he got to write the Age of Wonder, which was the best book of the year from the National Academies of Science and Engineering and whatever the other one is. And it's.

[Richard Holmes]

It is such a. Oh, man.

[Robert Krulwich]

I mean, it was.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's kind of an adventure story.

[Robert Krulwich]

It's an adventure.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's great.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah. Anyway, so that's Richard Holmes. And I guess that's the Vodcast.

[Jad Abumrad]

It is. I'm Chad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks for listening.

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Hi, Radiolab. My name is Melanie McCarty. I'm from Washington, DC. I listen to Radiolab. Here is the thing you sent me. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail]. okay, I guess that's it. Thanks, guys.

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