Cosmos

This book by Carl Sagan was genuinely recommended once in the episodes we index, on Lex Fridman. The people who vouched for it on air: guest. It comes up in conversations about brain health, consciousness. Every quote below is verbatim, attributed, and linked to the exact second it was said. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

This book is about science in its broadest human context, how science and civilization grew up together. It is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huygens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds.

• “i grew up uh with cosmos both watching the pbs series and then reading the book and that influenced me a huge amount”

  Why it counts as a recommendation: “that influenced me a huge amount in terms of what i do”
  guest · Lex Fridman Podcast · Aug 202001:33:28

  Said during "David Eagleman: Neuroplasticity and the Livewired Brain | Lex Fridman Podcast #119". The episode features David Eagleman: Neuroscientist, Stanford professor, and bestselling science communicator known for popularizing brain research. He runs Neosensory, a company building sensory-substitution wearables, and authored Livewired and Incognito. Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains why the brain is not hardware plus software but a constantly self-rewiring 'livewired' system.