Episode · People I (Mostly) Admire · 2025-11-08
Books mentioned on 170. Finding the God Particle
Physicist and former pop star Brian Cox tells Steve about discovering the Higgs boson, having a number-one hit, and why particle physics research will almost certainly not create a black hole that destroys all life on earth. SOURCES:Brian Cox, physicist at the University of Manchester.
Brian Cox discussed Finnegans Wake by James Joyce and Out of the Mist by Gloria Dare. Steve Levitt discussed Black Holes by Brian Cox and others and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Finnegans Wake
Discussed“And the very famous quote from Finnegan's Wake called three quarks for muster mark or something like that. It was because he thought there were three of them at the time and that explained the pattern we saw in the particles we were producing at particle accelerators.”
Where to get it
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Black Holes
Discussed“Your most recent book is on black holes. We're talking about black holes.”
Where to get it
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A Brief History of Time
Discussed“I think like many people my first real introduction to black holes was Stephen Hawkings book a brief history of time and I think that book must have come out in the 1980s and it sold millions and millions of copies probably one of the bestselling science books of all time.”
Where to get it
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Out of the Mist
Discussed“So we made the album, an album called Out of the Silence, which I still like by the way. I think it's a really good late 80s kind of soft rock album.”
Where to get it
