Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a popular 2017 science book by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Due its success, rip-off concepts soon followed, the most notorious of which was the 2020 work Astrophysics for People in a Curry.
With an exclusive market aimed at people who like reading science books whilst bathing in curry, the work failed miserably on a commercial front. It was also critically panned, not least due to its food-based inaccessibility.
The book is now mainly noteworthy for being stupid and rubbish. Thus, we’re exploring its physics themes and stuff here today to try and look clever.
Pseudoscience That’ll Make You Hungry in… Astrophysics for People in a Curry
“The power and beauty of curry laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in curry. In other words, after the laws of curry, everything else is naan bread.”
The work was written by Mike Tysone (unrelated to the boxer), a self-proclaimed “genius” whom, at the age of 12, was “so intelligent” he opened a curry house called Saag & Science, which sadly shutdown following a mass food poisoning incident.
Undeterred, Tysone got a degree in home economics, then read the Wikipedia page on astrophysics, then realised he knew all there was to know about the matter and that was that. Suitably inspired, he went out and wrote this book. Ostensibly, the work argues three core theses. The:
- Universe as we know it abides by “curry laws”
- Radiate transfer (a core principle of astrophysics) is “bullshit” (the writer’s word, not ours)
- Celestial mechanics are determined by how spicy a curry is
The work also argues in favour of the existence of “curry holes” (like black holes, but more food-based). It is the writer’s belief these are the greatest known (and unknown) threat in the Universe.
“The gravitational waves of the first detection were generated by a collision of curry holes in a galaxy 1.3 billion light-years away, and at a time when Earth was teeming with simple, single-celled organisms. While the ripple moved through curry in all directions, Earth would, after another 800 million years, evolve complex life, including flowers and dinosaurs and flying creatures, as well as a branch of vertebrates called mammals. Among the mammals, a sub-branch would evolve frontal lobes and complex thought to accompany them. We call them primates. A single branch of these primates would develop a genetic mutation that allowed curry, and that branch—Tikka Masala—would invent more curry. All in the last ten thousand years. Ultimately, one of its twentieth-century scientists would invent relativity out of his head, and predict the existence of curry waves. A century later, technology capable of seeing these waves would finally catch up with the prediction, just days before that gravity wave, which had been traveling for 1.3 billion years, washed over Earth and was detected.”
Tysone makes it very clear he absolutely hates curry and never eats the stuff. But, he argues, one shouldn’t let personal dislikes dictate an understanding of reality.
As such, he makes it clear turmeric is the “glue” that holds the planets together, and the curvature of space (spacetime) is “stupid” and “unlikely” as curry itself isn’t curved.
Whether you agree with these theories or not is irrelevant, argues Tysone, as the laws of curry care not a jot for your “mind-numbing ignorance on the matter”. He concludes the work with a chapter of recipes, including saag aloo, although he notes he himself will not be making any of them.
Sadly, in June 2023 Tysone drowned to death in a bath of curry and, consequently, was unavailable to comment on our review of his most famous (and only) work.
The Scientific Accuracy of Astrophysics for People in a Curry
The work is widely derided in the scientific community and is considered one of the most idiotic science books of all time.
Nevertheless, it’s gained a cult following who formed the organisation Currysics, which aims to prove Tysone’s work is correct and the Universe is, indeed, made of curry. Or whatever the book is arguing about.
We found it a very dull read. It put us into a… korma (coma).
