david bodanis - Author's Profile

David Bodanis - author, mathematician, bearded intellectual - thinks faster than he can talk. This is very disturbing because he talks at an auctioneer's clip. He knows everything, or at least seems to know everything, but is far from a know-it-all. His knowledge issues forth matter-of-factly, as though everyone on earth knows what he knows. For instance, the Chicago native said the following as casually as one would say "Good morning," or "God bless you":

"Right now, particles from distant explosions in our galaxy are being funneled through magnetic lines as they head toward Earth. When they hit the Earth's upper atmosphere, they explode, and the shattered particles come down and go through our bodies. Right now, tiny particles are bombarding my testicles. They're going through the mayor's brain. They'd go through George W. Bush's brain if it were possible. It takes these particles 15 minutes to reach the Earth, whereas it takes light 60,000 years. They move so fast, distances contort, seem to shrink, time slows down."

It was midmorning; he was drinking decaf.

To be on the receiving end of such brainpower is to nod often and laugh knowingly and occasionally emit inquisitive hmmmmm noises while pensively placing thumb and forefinger to chin as your shriveled cerebellum spins like a dreidel.

Bodanis is combing the country promoting his newest book, E=mc 2, A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (Walker, $25). It is a very readable book largely because it eschews eggheadedness and focuses on explaining Albert Einstein's equation in tangible terms.

The result is a fascinating breakdown of the equation - a chapter for E, one for =, and so on. It also provides intriguing examinations of the people (Einstein, Enrico Fermi) who gave birth to the equation and used its premise - that all matter contains untapped frozen energy in the form of atoms - to change the world for better and for worse. There are also spies and evil scientists.

The genesis of the book was, of all things, Cameron Diaz.

Bodanis was reading a magazine interview with the actress. She was asked if there was anything she really wanted to know. She said she'd really like to know what E=mc 2 meant.

Bodanis figured he'd give it a try. And, as noted, he was perfect for the job.

When Einstein published his theory in 1905, it was just that: a theory, and it was widely ignored for years afterward. When it was finally accepted and lauded, Einstein attained rock star status.

Had he known the extent to which his discovery would cause mass destruction and human misery, he would, he later said, "never have lifted a finger."

In 1945, when the Enola Gay unleashed a uranium-filled atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, Bodanis writes that "the flash of light from the explosion reached the orbit of the moon . . . the glare would have been viewable from Jupiter." The amount of uranium involved in the actual explosion: a few grams. Heady stuff.

Einstein's work came to fruition at the University of Chicago, where Bodanis attended college in the '70s. Decades before he arrived, brilliant scientists such as Fermi devised ways to split atoms and harness their energy in a makeshift laboratory below Stagg Field.

Today, the site directly above their testing chambers is marked by a cast iron, mushroom cloud-shaped Henry Moore sculpture, and a plaque dedicated by Mayor Richard J. Daley.

There were days back in the early '40s, says Bodanis, when trucks laden with uranium, a highly volatile radioactive substance, would rumble along the pothole-filled streets of his alma mater and into the lairs of some of the greatest (and most devious) minds of the 20th century.

It's all very serious stuff, this theory Bodanis has chosen to dissect, and he speaks of it as such. He does not, however, take himself seriously. He still has something of the smart-ass in him. One gets the impression that he was unfocused and something of a slacker, albeit a very smart slacker, in his early youth and even into his college years.

"I was distracted for much of the time at university," he says. "It wasn't my culture, it wasn't my crowd."

He majored in math at U. of C., but his true interests were elsewhere, largely in writing and journalism. He graduated in four years despite the fact he was one of only two students to fail the senior writing exam. Finally, he was free, and so he bummed around Europe for a spell, and eventually landed a copy boy gig with the Paris arm of the London Herald Tribune. He wouldn't last long in the position.

``Being a copy boy sounds romantic," Bodanis admits, "but it really means, `Hey, a - - - - - -! Bring that over here! Fast!' "

So he beat it but quick, free-lanced for a couple of years, then went wife-hunting at Oxford University in England, where, much to his surprise and delight, he met his wife and where, years later, he began teaching a social science survey course from 1991 to 1997.

Bodanis and his wife live in London with their two children, to whom Bodanis dutifully sends envelopes chock-full of tchotchkes - hotel soap, shower caps, stationery - when he is on the road. He is a devoted father who clearly relishes his family life. Despite his overflowing noggin of knowledge on everything from nuclear fission to Sean Connery's muscles, didactic dialogues with his progeny sometimes sound more like friendly advice than paternal pontificating.

"I always tell my son, `If possible, try to take the lazy approach to things,' " Bodanis says.

"One day, he didn't do his homework, and I thought, he's 6 years old. He shouldn't have to do homework. So I said, `Son, if you haven't done your homework, you have certain responsibilities. Find somebody in class who's taller than you, sit behind him and slouch.' "

Worked for dad.