Introduction to ‘The Pandemic Pendulum’
“Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination,” wrote Joseph Addison, an English essayist and poet, “because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.” He was writing in 1712, but today, more than three centuries later, his remark neatly summarizes the objective of this book. This is a compendium of explanations, and what they all have in common is that they are uncommon: a word that has two meanings. On the one hand, it refers to things that are rare or infrequently encountered. In the realm of knowledge, that means things that not many people are aware of or know about. But these unusual explanations also have the power to stretch your mind and subtly change how you see the world. In other words, they are uncommon in the second sense of the word, which means exceptional and extraordinary. Uncommon knowledge is enjoyable to encounter because it is unexpected and surprising; because a neat explanation is mentally satisfying; and because encountering a previously unfamiliar idea, and storing it away for future reference, expands the intellect.
In September, I started writing weekly newsletters to touch upon a period which is most extraordinary and uncommon. Science, business and political leaders are bending their policies around a global pandemic that we are just starting to understand. Rooting out these intellectual morsels is something I love to do, and this book brings together unexpected explanations and fascinating facts from this new reality. I hope you will enjoy this collection of the fruits of a never-ending quest to uncover the mechanisms that explain the world the way it is. Starting from the commercial proposition of quantum computing up until the reason why electrification of the world is built on Tesla’s shoulders. By the time you reach the last page, you hopefully will have learned things you did not know before — and you will also have equipped your mind to understand the world more fully. Read this book, and you will join the ranks of the uncommonly knowledgeable.
Get your copy of my first book at: https://www.bravenewbooks.nl/laurent_dossche
See you next week,
Laurent
