Our Farewells To Eduard Punset, A Great Popularizer Of Science
His charisma, his recognizable voice, his Albert Einstein-style hair, his remarkable ease in transmitting his passion for science to us… Eduard Punset was all that and much more.
Eduard Punset is a media personality dear to our hearts who marked a before and after in the field of popular science with his program Redes .
Today, at 82, Eduard Punset is gone, leaving behind a great void.
Eduard Punset had the physique of a dazed scientist. Although his personal career has been in politics and law, Punset knew very well what he wanted to convey on this show that aired on Sunday morning.
Eduard Punset has presented and directed Redes for almost 18 years. He succeeded in doing what only a few personalities like Carl Sagan had managed to do in their time: arouse the interest of thousands of spectators in science.
Thanks to interviews like those carried out with Roger Penrose or Max Tegmark, Punset succeeded almost instantly in making us want to become a physicist or cosmologist in order to deepen our knowledge of the origins of the Universe.
Thanks to conversations with certain personalities such as Jane Goddall, Lawrence Krauss, Antonio Damasio or Steven Pinker, we were able to understand ideas and theories on our origins, on what emotions really are or on the possible future of humanity. .
Physics, biology, psychology, neurosciences, cosmology… Punset, whose enthusiasm, curiosity and optimism were contagious, made us plunge into a world of knowledge and fascinating discoveries.
Eduard Punset, a politician who opened the doors to the world of science
Eduard Punset won us over. It is therefore not easy to say goodbye to him. He is someone who gave birth to scientific vocations in many young people.
Fortunately , we still have his great audiovisual heritage as well as his many works.
Some people have expressed skepticism that Eduard Punset is considered a popularizer of science.
Punset came from the legal world with a master’s degree in economics from the University of London. He had, moreover, already come a long way as a politician. He was president of the government of Adolfo Suárez between 1980 and 1981, then MEP between 1987 and 1994.
Due to its great communication skills , Televisión Española asked Punset to present a science program.
Admittedly, Punset did not have any academic diploma or any training related to the themes he explored every week. Still, he had something better: charisma, scientific intuition, and an ability to impart complicated knowledge in an easy way.
Redes , scientific knowledge within everyone’s reach
The United States had Carl Sagan in the 1980s with the Cosmos show. Spain had Eduard Punset with the Redes show .
And running the show early in the morning was not a problem. Each broadcast had thousands of viewers ready to be surprised by the world of neuroscience, astronomy or even biology…. New enthusiasts of these unique universes.
The show first aired in March 1996. In 2008, a small change made history: Redes, became Redes 2.0 .. Every week, Eduard Punset spoke with an internationally renowned specialist.
Suddenly and for the first time, the world of science was within everyone’s reach. Every week we were learning something new. We got to know such important personalities such as Oliver Sacks, James Watson and Francis Crick, Steven Pinker, Robin Dunbar, Lawrence Krauss, Roger Penrose, Jane Goodall, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett and even Lynn Margulis.
Eduard Punset himself was dubbing these interviews in English and, almost without realizing it, he accustomed us to understand all these scientific ideas, theories and perspectives through his voice and his unforgettable charisma.
Without a shadow of a doubt, there are many people who, not being able to watch the show when it was broadcast, would record the show to watch it another time.
Eduard Punset’s works
While presenting the Redes show , Eduard Punset embarked on a new professional project that was just as successful: publishing books.
His first works marked the beginning of an era when the world of science was finally accessible and understandable by all. It was neither boring nor complicated to immerse yourself in these pages… On the contrary, it was a real pleasure, a stimulating and educational journey.
In his books, we no longer listened to his voice, but his most recognizable mark was present. Eduard Punset made what was complicated easy while offering rigorous theories and information.
He made us want to know more and more. It is probably for this reason that other works were published later.
These books have led him to another discipline in which he will end up staying: personal development.
The end of one stage and the start of another
The Redes program ended in January 2014. Eduard Punset gradually broke away from popular science to focus on personal development through the firm APOL ( Apoyo Psicológico Online – Psychological Support Online).
In his later years, his gradual withdrawal from the media was encouraged by his health problems. Today Eduard Punset passed away, leaving a great void behind him.
The world of science seems to us again less accessible … For this simple and good reason: the world needs scientists, but also personalities who know how to transmit the magic of knowledge.
Eduard Punset shone like a nebula and was passionate like a child who wants to know everything. Its shine will be eternal.
As for us, we still have its audiovisual and literary heritage. As soon as the need arises, we can remember those beautiful moments thanks to this precious heritage.
Our thoughts Neurosciences still seem very mysterious to us. Yet their history is already long and strewn with fundamental discoveries.
