"The illusion of the Moon" to be released by Editora Contexto is a compilation of texts written by rector Marcelo Knobel throughout his life
Who has never wondered why the Moon appears bigger when it is on the horizon, how food cooks over a fire or why things fall? Curiosity to understand the world around us has been part of human nature since childhood, but it tends to be lost over time in the face of frustrated responses. We need to recover this desire for knowledge -- which, as a bonus, can still help us face scientific denialism.
These ideas are compiled in "The illusion of the Moon" (ed. Contexto, 160 pgs), the first book by Unicamp physicist Marcelo Knobel, released on March 9. The work is a compilation of texts written by the researcher throughout his life, duly updated. “The pandemic made me feel a great need to unpack my work, compile this material and make it available,” he says.
A well-known scientific popularizer -- he won the José Reis Prize for scientific popularization in 2019 and for almost a year now he has had a YouTube channel called Espaço Recíproco in which he dialogues with scientists and celebrities --, Knobel deals, in the book, with everyday issues for show that science is all around us all the time. When preparing grilled meat, for example: the skin becomes crispy because it loses liquid, but the inside softens because the collagen molecules deteriorate. Or in coffee, whose roasted beans lose CO2 and other volatile molecules over time and, consequently, also lose flavor. And so on.
In the book, the researcher also deals with the logic and stages of scientific thinking, and addresses the consequences of science denialism -- one of the biggest challenges in facing Covid-19 today. In the book, Knobel even recalls that the anti-vaccine movement, which has now become evident with the new coronavirus, is considered by the WHO as one of the ten biggest challenges facing global public health.
Magnetism and disclosure
Coming from a family of doctors, psychologists and health professionals, Knobel decided to graduate in physics after a visit to Unicamp during high school. Today, academically, she works with the magnetism of nanostructured materials - which is on a scale about ten thousand times smaller than a strand of hair.
Since the beginning of his career, he has always been concerned with scientific dissemination to society and wrote on the subject. At the end of the 90s, for example, he already ran an internet page -- programmed by himself in HTML -- called "Science Radar", which dealt with news in world science.
"The Illusion of the Moon" is the researcher's first book and also marks, this March, the conclusion of Knobel's tenure as rector of Unicamp. Journalists interested in receiving "The Illusion of the Moon" in advance in PDF for reporting can request to luciana@editoracontexto.com.br.
