Galileo Had His Stuff Together (And I Do Not)
Dear Magicians,
I told a friend last week I was thinking about writing another book.
He looked at me like I’d announced I was going to free solo Half Dome in my underwear
“Are you crazy?” he said. “You remember how long it took last time? How much it cost you—time, sanity, everything?”
He’s not wrong.
My first book, Losing the Nobel Prize, hurt. Twenty revisions. Years of delayed gratification. That voice in your head saying, What if no one reads this?
But here’s the mistake almost everyone makes: they think the book is the hard part.
It isn’t.
The $150 Million Pencil
There’s a famous story by Leonard Read a guy who tried to make a pencil from scratch.
Not assemble it—create it.
Cut the wood. Mine the metal. Tap rubber trees for the eraser. Dig up graphite. Refine resins. Mix paint.
The punchline: no one person can really “make” a pencil. Modern life is too complex. Everything depends on invisible networks of other people.
Now swap the pencil for a scientific paper.
I’m an experimental cosmologist. When my colleagues and I write a paper for something like the Simons Observatory, our “pencil” is a $150 million telescope.
Twelve years to design, build, deploy, and collect data. Hundreds of people. Thousands of decisions.
The paper is just the sharpened tip of that effort.
And yet when I say, “I might write another book,” people act like that’s the insane project.
Nope.
Why Papers Cost More Than Books
A scientific paper is not just words on a page.
It’s not free, even in the fortunate case where it’s Open Access and not published in a fly by night predatory journal.
It’s an audit of your life.
You’re not only reporting results; you’re defending years of work. You’re putting your students’ and collaborators’ effort on the line. Your own reputation, too.
The process is slow torture:
Build.
Collect data.
Analyze.
Argue.
Write.
Submit.
Get refereed.
Rewrite.
Resubmit.
Wait.
My most cited BICEP paper has around 2,000 citations. In my world, that’s solid.
But a book can reach tens of thousands of readers who will never set foot in a lab.
Here’s the paradox: the scientific work is harder, longer, and more complex. Yet the book feels more terrifying.
Because a paper says, “Here’s what we did.”
A book says, “Here’s who I am.”
Big difference.
The Lone Genius Lie
We still love the myth of the lone genius.
The scientist in the lab.
The writer in the cabin.
The artist in the studio.
Just one heroic brain against the universe.
Reality is messier.
Nothing serious gets built alone. Not telescopes, not papers, not even books. Editors, agents, early readers—they’re all part of the system. The pencil is a miracle not because it’s simple, but because it’s the product of a thousand invisible hands. So is a scientific paper. So is most of your life, if you’re honest about it. Look at your own career: it’s a patchwork of your choices, other people’s help, accidents, lucky breaks, and a few disasters.
You’re not nearly as self-made as you think.
Neither am I.
Regret as Data
When I look back, I see a trail of unfinished stuff.
Half-written papers. Abandoned book drafts. Experiments that fizzled. Projects that quietly died when reality failed to cooperate with my optimism.
For a long time, I took this as proof that I was failing. Not disciplined enough. Not smart enough. Not whatever-enough.
But regret has structure.
It’s information.
Every failed paper, every dead book, every broken idea—these aren’t just scars. They’re data points. They show where your limits are right now. Where your blind spots live. Where ambition outran ability.
Unpleasant? Yes.
Useful? Very.
Sometimes the point of a project isn’t to succeed. It’s to map the edge of what you can currently do so you can push it next time.
The Chicken Sandwich Problem
There’s another story—about a guy who tried to make a chicken sandwich from scratch.
He raised the chicken. Grew the wheat. Made the butter. Harvested the lettuce.
Six months. A pile of money. One sandwich.
It was… okay.
The lesson is obvious: some things only make sense because we stand on top of other people’s work.
The pencil.
The sandwich.
The telescope.
The paper.
The book.
None of them are solo acts.
Yet many of us insist on pretending we should do everything alone, then feel like failures when we can’t.
That’s not noble. It’s just unrealistic.
So… Another Book?
Will I write another one? I don’t know.
But the next time someone tells me I’m crazy for even thinking about it, I’ll think about the pencil. I’ll think about the $150 million, twelve-year “paper” that’s really a monument to collective effort and invisible labor.
And I’ll ask myself—and you:
What are you building that you can’t see yet?
Whose unseen hands are already helping you?
What “pencils” are you trying to make entirely from scratch?
And what would happen if you finally stopped pretending you had to do it all alone?
Send me an email — I read every one, even if I don’t have time to reply to each one.
Until next time, have a M.A.G.I.C. Week,
Brian
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