Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeart Podcast And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? Yes, I am excited. That is why I
Speaker 1: had the crazy high energy introduction for this episode. That's
Speaker 1: because I have two phenomenal guests on today's episode. They
Speaker 1: are the hosts of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. There
Speaker 1: are two brilliant scientists here to talk science and tech
Speaker 1: and depictions of science and popular media and how they
Speaker 1: always get at one hundred percent right all the time.
Speaker 1: It's Daniel and it's Kelly. Welcome to Tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I wish you could call me every day to cheer
Speaker 3: me up with with you know, a nice introduction just
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'd be happy too, I'd be happy to My
Speaker 1: rates are very and pretty soon I'm going to be
Speaker 1: looking for a gig. I don't know if you have
Speaker 1: heard this, but I'm actually stepping away from hosting tech
Speaker 1: Stuff in the new year.
Speaker 3: Oh what are you going to do instead?
Speaker 1: There's a giant, cloudy question mark in my near future. Actually,
Speaker 1: I will be my listeners know that I'm stepping away.
Speaker 1: I did an episode talking about it. But yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been hosting Tech Stuff for sixteen and a half years.
Speaker 1: I've got more than twenty three hundred episodes under my belt,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was time for someone else to
Speaker 1: talk about tech for a while, and so I'm stepping
Speaker 1: back in early January, and I will be focusing on
Speaker 1: executive producer duties moving forward, potentially hosting the occasional episode
Speaker 1: and or show in the future. Nothing is set in stone,
Speaker 1: but I'm excited to be able to kind of shift
Speaker 1: some gears.
Speaker 3: Happy retirement, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll still be working like a crazy person,
Speaker 1: it just won't be I just won't be creating three
Speaker 1: episodes a week. But I'm so glad to have you here. Daniel,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 1: but years ago you did a little guest appearance on
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, And I'm sure you don't remember this, but
Speaker 1: I do because it's an important moment in my life.
Speaker 1: You name me an honorary engineer in that episode, and
Speaker 1: I've been holding onto that title like with a death
Speaker 1: grip ever since.
Speaker 3: He hasn't given me that title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure that title is something you should
Speaker 2: be proud of. You know, scientists and engineers are usually
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, tooth and nail against each other,
Speaker 2: so I'm not sure I meant that in a.
Speaker 1: Positive pay Oh, that's fair, that's fair. I think we
Speaker 1: were chatting about how I think of engineers as people
Speaker 1: who view the world as a series of problems that
Speaker 1: need to be solved, and by the end of it
Speaker 1: you said I was an honorary engineer, which made sense
Speaker 1: because I do have an Android phone, and I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a device made by engineers for engineers.
Speaker 3: That's like sixty percent of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like the iPhone is incredibly intuitive
Speaker 1: and the Android is it does stuff.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well my engineer dad has an Android, so
Speaker 3: that's totally consistent.
Speaker 1: It tracks right, Like, well, there we go. That's not
Speaker 1: confirmation by us or anything. We're just going to go
Speaker 1: with that. Yes, So here on tech stuff, we have
Speaker 1: this kind of underlying philosophy which does not directly relate
Speaker 1: to tech. It relates to the direction of the show,
Speaker 1: which is I say, it's a combination of creative thinking approach,
Speaker 1: it's compassion, and it's critical thinking, and I'm curious if
Speaker 1: you think of a similar philosophy for your show.
Speaker 2: I think our show is all about curiosity and excitement
Speaker 2: because we viewed the whole universe as like a big mystery.
Speaker 2: That because we viewed the whole universe as like a
Speaker 2: big mystery to unravel, and every new little piece of
Speaker 2: truth that we pry away at, the truth minds. You know,
Speaker 2: where we go to work every day is an exciting discovery.
Speaker 2: It's always fantastic. Whatever the universe chooses to reveal to us,
Speaker 2: it's always amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think enthusiasm is huge. We're really excited about
Speaker 3: the information we've managed to extract from the Earth and
Speaker 3: all the cool stuff that's left to figure out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've been listening to your show and I just
Speaker 1: want to say I also want to congratulate you on
Speaker 1: your incredible sense of timing because we're heading up to
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and then the most recent episode I listened to
Speaker 1: was all about cannibalism, and I just felt that you
Speaker 1: you really you planned those thematic shows really well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we put a lot of thought into
Speaker 3: each episode, and we do have a like an actual
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving episode coming out on Thanksgiving where we Daniel. So
Speaker 3: Daniel talks about cannibalism a lot, even though he's not
Speaker 3: the biologist. Did you manage to get a reference to
Speaker 3: cannibalism into that episode a bit?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes, Okay, cannibalism and aliens. I always got to
Speaker 2: work those two angles into every episode somehow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's enthusiasm, creativity, cannibalism, aliens. That's what our podcasts.
Speaker 1: Is kind of amazing that you didn't name the show
Speaker 1: What's Eating You.
Speaker 3: I had a paper published called What's Gotten Into You,
Speaker 3: and it was all about how parasites changed behavior. But
Speaker 3: I guess it's not What's Eating You, but it's it
Speaker 3: was What's Gotten into You? Anyway, it was I felt
Speaker 3: very good about that time well.
Speaker 1: And that was kind of like one of the things
Speaker 1: that sort of was the genesis of my idea for
Speaker 1: this episode was that talk about you know, your work
Speaker 1: in science and then how you view the media depiction
Speaker 1: of science. You know, I'm sure there's like part of
Speaker 1: you correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: part of you that just appreciates. Oh well, obviously they
Speaker 1: had to do this for the narrative to work, like
Speaker 1: this is a storytelling convention, it's required. They're not presenting
Speaker 1: this as if it's hard science. And so therefore, if
Speaker 1: they do the Arthur C. Clark thing where they just
Speaker 1: use science as a way to stand in for magic,
Speaker 1: that's okay. And then there's probably part of you that's like, cush,
Speaker 1: darn it, that's not what particle accelerators do. And I
Speaker 1: wish they would stop because people are getting the wrong idea. So, Kelly,
Speaker 1: one of the ones I mentioned to you was there's
Speaker 1: the show The Last of Us, which actually they did
Speaker 1: a fairly decent job in talking about how the fungal
Speaker 1: parasites that can affect insects and control them and their
Speaker 1: behavior to some extent, how that really wouldn't trate to
Speaker 1: more complex life forms. They actually go so far as
Speaker 1: to say that in the intro, so they lampshaded it
Speaker 1: quite a bit, right, They said, this is not really possible,
Speaker 1: and yet hear it happened in the show, which of
Speaker 1: course dates back to the actual video game that inspired
Speaker 1: that series. So when you see things like that, like,
Speaker 1: what's your reaction having actually written about these kinds of
Speaker 1: parasites that do alter behaviors?
Speaker 3: My philosophy in general is that you know fiction is
Speaker 3: it just it's a totally different thing. And as long
Speaker 3: as they create worlds that are consistent and then they
Speaker 3: stick with the rules that they've made for their world,
Speaker 3: I'm cool with that. The only thing that gets me
Speaker 3: grumpy is when people like change their rules halfway through.
Speaker 3: Like I hated Lost because it was like I thought
Speaker 3: we were in the real world and now there's like
Speaker 3: smoke monsters and like, yeah, anyway, so I thought the
Speaker 3: Last of Us was great.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I have a feeling that you and I
Speaker 1: would have some of the best post viewing coffee sessions
Speaker 1: for various shows and movies, because you have hit upon
Speaker 1: one of my most passionate topics, which is consistency and rules.
Speaker 1: As much as as I enjoyed the Buffy the Vampire
Speaker 1: Slayer television show when it first aired, I got consistently
Speaker 1: more upset with that show as it went on, as
Speaker 1: I felt that it was violating the rules that it
Speaker 1: itself had set up in previous seasons. And meanwhile, all
Speaker 1: my friends were Buffy fans, were like, why are you
Speaker 1: so upset about this? I'm like, it's the easiest thing
Speaker 1: in the world to be consistent. You have to go
Speaker 1: out of your way to be inconsistent.
Speaker 3: We should get together for coffee because you know, I
Speaker 3: feel like often the you need to be consistent about
Speaker 3: the rules. People like aren't the first one to invite
Speaker 3: to the parties, right, so we have to stick together.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're the ones that somehow get overlooked when the
Speaker 1: invitations go out. I don't understand it either.
Speaker 3: It's not a fair world we live in.
Speaker 1: It is not.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you're watching like a murder mystery,
Speaker 2: everybody expects you to follow the rules, right, Like if
Speaker 2: there was a clue laid in act one, you expect
Speaker 2: that to still be relevant in act three. But somehow
Speaker 2: if it's science fiction and like, hey, we could just
Speaker 2: those rules out the window. You know, let's be fair
Speaker 2: about the standards we apply.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, same thing's true for horror movies. By the way,
Speaker 1: if your horror movie is predicated upon information purposefully withheld
Speaker 1: from the audience, and you can't expect me to be
Speaker 1: wold when you have your big reveal, you need to
Speaker 1: set that stuff up in subtle ways that I don't
Speaker 1: pick up on, but then can appreciate at the end. Yes, amen,
Speaker 1: I say that as someone who just watched the horror
Speaker 1: movie this past weekend, and I was like, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: that's not Chekhov's gun, but that is Chekhov's wooden plank
Speaker 1: with nails sticking out of it. People who have seen
Speaker 1: it now know what I'm talking about. Daniel, like, same
Speaker 1: sort of thing for you. I mean, you've obviously worked
Speaker 1: on some of the most famous particle physics projects in
Speaker 1: the world, and not only have we seen interesting depictions
Speaker 1: of that in fiction media, but obviously the news media
Speaker 1: had all sorts of speculation as to what was going
Speaker 1: to happen once the large Hadron collider was operating at
Speaker 1: full power. People may not remember that, but there were
Speaker 1: so many stories about everything from time traveling, conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: involving birds dropping twigs down ventilation shafts, to some sort
Speaker 1: of message from the future being sent back saying, for
Speaker 1: the love of all that's holy, don't turn it on.
Speaker 1: What was your reaction as all this was unfolding.
Speaker 2: I thought it was sort of amazing and hilarious, but
Speaker 2: also terrifying. I mean, it's always fun to see your
Speaker 2: own work depicted in the popular media, and you know,
Speaker 2: Stephen Colbert when he was still on The Daily Show,
Speaker 2: did a whole bit about whether we should turn on
Speaker 2: the LEDC and understanding and probability and you know, it's
Speaker 2: not safe for work, but people should definitely go check
Speaker 2: that out because it's really fun. But it's also a
Speaker 2: little terrifying to see these concepts that you've worked on,
Speaker 2: these projects that you're passionate about, sort of leave your
Speaker 2: control and enter the broader cultural conversation where you don't
Speaker 2: really necessarily have a voice to combat the misinformation. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of well meaning misinformation out there, people
Speaker 2: who try to cover this stuff and just don't get
Speaker 2: the details right. And I don't have, or it didn't
Speaker 2: at the time, at least have a platform to be like, hey, actually,
Speaker 2: this is how it works, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: throw cold water on your ideas because the reality is
Speaker 2: much more interesting and fascinating, right. That's the thing that
Speaker 2: frustrates me is when they get the story wrong, but
Speaker 2: the real story is even more exciting. It's even more
Speaker 2: clickbaity than the misconceptions.
Speaker 1: When you reach a certain level with science, obviously, it
Speaker 1: gets to a point where there is no easy way
Speaker 1: to communicate the topic to a general audience. You're either
Speaker 1: going to have to spend an an ordinate amount of
Speaker 1: time setting it up and building upon a foundation and
Speaker 1: hoping that your audience stays with you for the entirety
Speaker 1: of that, or you run the risk of oversimplifying, hoping
Speaker 1: that they get the gist of it, knowing that you're
Speaker 1: going to be leaving out some important nuance that it
Speaker 1: really is needed to have a full understanding of or
Speaker 1: even a working understanding of the topic. That's something that
Speaker 1: I struggle with all the time on tech stuff, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there are tech topics that are really complex, and how
Speaker 1: do you approach discussing this in a way that is
Speaker 1: I think responsible, so that your audience has an understanding.
Speaker 1: And of course I always advocate that people look into things,
Speaker 1: read up more about them if they're interested, to do
Speaker 1: more exploration, because there's only so much I can say
Speaker 1: in an hour long episode. But you know that still
Speaker 1: weighs on me. That being said, sometimes there are layups
Speaker 1: out there where you'll see something portrayed and you'll just say, well,
Speaker 1: that's just wrong, that's just wrong. It's not even remotely
Speaker 1: in the realm of possibility. I'm reminded. I wish I
Speaker 1: could remember which procedural it was. It was one of
Speaker 1: those cop procedural shows where there's always something about hacking.
Speaker 1: So there was a scene where there are two characters
Speaker 1: simultaneously typing on the same keyboard while trying to counteract
Speaker 1: to hacker who's trying to get into a system. And
Speaker 1: I thought, in one world, can a keyboard accept two
Speaker 1: separate forms of input at the same time and haven't
Speaker 1: mean anything. It would just be like me just smashing
Speaker 1: my hands randomly on keys. This makes no sense. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it couldn't have made sense when they shot it. Did
Speaker 1: they do this on purpose? As like a wind up?
Speaker 1: So there are moments like that that stand out as.
Speaker 3: A parasitologist, as person who studies parasites. There was an
Speaker 3: episode of Grey's Anatomy where someone had neurosistas yorcosis. So
Speaker 3: it's this big fluid filled sack filled with tapeworms in
Speaker 3: your brains that causes nervous system problems. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 3: a very delicate procedure to remove that sack because if
Speaker 3: it breaks, you have this crazy like neuroimmune response to
Speaker 3: the sack and it's really bad. But they pulled it
Speaker 3: out in the reveal it was a nematode, and all right,
Speaker 3: so I get upset. No one else would care. That's
Speaker 3: a totally different phylum than the actual parasite that causes
Speaker 3: the problem. But it was like a squiggly worm that
Speaker 3: fell back in and they were like reaching around trying
Speaker 3: to get it, and I'm like, you're screwing up the
Speaker 3: brain and like, actually it's a sack. It's not a
Speaker 3: like the little nematode. Anyway, I was Everything was wrong
Speaker 3: about that. That kept me up at night.
Speaker 1: See now that makes me think of the Adventures of
Speaker 1: Buckaroo Bonzai where there's a moment early in that film
Speaker 1: where Buckaroo Bonzi, who is a rocket scientist neurosurgeon rock
Speaker 1: star wow. Peter Weller played him. Fantastic, Very slow movie
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties science fiction movie. John Lithgal plays a crazy
Speaker 1: alien in it. If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching.
Speaker 1: But it is slow paced and convoluted.
Speaker 3: You're not selling it well.
Speaker 1: I have to warn because I introduced a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: a millennial, to this film, and she was like, that
Speaker 1: was the slowest, most confusing science fiction film I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's a rock star neuroscientist, rocket scientist, race
Speaker 1: car driver as the main character. How could you not
Speaker 1: love it? But there's a moment where they're doing brain
Speaker 1: surgery where that character says to his surgical assistant, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't pull on that. You don't know what's connected to Like, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: that seems realistic to me. That seems like realistic depiction
Speaker 1: of brain surgery. I think I'm okay with that, Daniel.
Speaker 1: Are there any like depictions that you have seen that
Speaker 1: kind of stand out in your your mind? As this
Speaker 1: might have been a very creative way to tell a story,
Speaker 1: but it was a terrible way to leverage actual science
Speaker 1: that you are familiar with.
Speaker 2: Well, I have a lot of respect for science fiction authors,
Speaker 2: and I get what they're going for. Often they read
Speaker 2: some new idea or they hear an explanation, and then
Speaker 2: inspire some story they imagine that they could tell only
Speaker 2: in some alternative universe. And with Kelly, I agree, like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to follow the rules of our universe
Speaker 2: as long as they are consistent about it. But the
Speaker 2: thing that does frustrate me is that I think it
Speaker 2: is possible for a lot of folks out there to
Speaker 2: understand the subtle nuances of the science as long as
Speaker 2: it's explained well and on our show at least, we
Speaker 2: really believe that the science can be communicated clearly and effectively,
Speaker 2: that it's possible for people to really get these things.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of folks out there who
Speaker 2: really love science and maybe wanted to do it, but
Speaker 2: something happened in their life they didn't end up being
Speaker 2: a scientist, and so they want to stay up on
Speaker 2: the details and they want to hear more than just like,
Speaker 2: here's the pop size story. You've heard a lot about
Speaker 2: quantum mechanics and entanglement and to really have it connect
Speaker 2: for them, and that's what we try to do on
Speaker 2: the show. But to directly answer your question, one of
Speaker 2: the things that sort of grinds my gears a lot
Speaker 2: is when people use like two entangled particles to communicate
Speaker 2: faster than light. And you know, you hear this in
Speaker 2: pop science all the time, and there are subtle nuances there,
Speaker 2: like there is something happening faster than light when two
Speaker 2: entangled particles collapse. But you can't use it to send
Speaker 2: messages across the stars, as much as I wish you could.
Speaker 1: Right right that whole concept of the entangled particles. Usually
Speaker 1: we're talking about something like spin particle spin. So if
Speaker 1: one's spinning up, the other one's spinning down, and they're
Speaker 1: entangled together, and no matter how far apart you separate
Speaker 1: these two particles until the system collapses, until that entanglement breaks,
Speaker 1: then you're still going to have one spinning up, one
Speaker 1: spinning down. There'll always be in that connect. But then
Speaker 1: once you observe it all breaks down and that connection
Speaker 1: is severed and you can't do anything useful with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've used that discussion when talking about things like quantum computers,
Speaker 1: when talking about entanglement and superposition and all these really
Speaker 1: interesting ideas. I'm fascinated with the methods people have created
Speaker 1: to try and take advantage of these quantum effects. And
Speaker 1: to me, like, that's one of those areas where I
Speaker 1: definitely run up against the barriers of my ignorance. Right,
Speaker 1: I understand up to a point, and then after that
Speaker 1: I'm like, WHOA, Okay, there was a leap made here
Speaker 1: that I can't follow, and I from a kind of
Speaker 1: like a high level concept I can understand, but it's
Speaker 1: so counterintuitive based upon just my day to day experience
Speaker 1: with physics on the macro level, that you might as
Speaker 1: well be describing a magic spell to me, because it's
Speaker 1: so it's so unusual. I mean, I can see why
Speaker 1: Einstein would call it spooky action at a distance, right
Speaker 1: like it's it seems like it doesn't make any any
Speaker 1: real sense.
Speaker 2: And that's the incredible thing about the universe, right it
Speaker 2: is this bizarre mystery. It seems like it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: And yet over the years and the decades and the centuries,
Speaker 2: we have slowly chipped away at the truth and always
Speaker 2: found some explanation. And that explanation is often not what
Speaker 2: we expected, not what we thought it was going to be,
Speaker 2: and mind blowing when we understand it. But amazingly it
Speaker 2: is possible to understand this universe like we have no
Speaker 2: guarantee of that. It could be that eventually the universe
Speaker 2: runs on some systems, some mathematics that are beyond our comprehension,
Speaker 2: but so far we've always been able with our puny
Speaker 2: little ape brains to figure it out.
Speaker 3: But for some of this stuff, we're still in the
Speaker 3: process of trying to understand it. And so, you know, you
Speaker 3: were saying that you get to a point where you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: my brain just can't make that leap. While talking to Daniel,
Speaker 3: I've learned that a lot of the places where I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, my brain can't make that leap. When
Speaker 3: I talked to Daniel, He's like, oh, we just we
Speaker 3: don't know why that happens yet, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: we just hit against everyone's under standing there. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that's a great thing about science
Speaker 3: if it's explained well, you can let people know that, like, no,
Speaker 3: we're all we all get a wall.
Speaker 1: Eventually, we'll be back in just a moment to talk
Speaker 1: more about science and science, depictions of media, and who
Speaker 1: knows what else with Daniel and Kelly after these messages.
Speaker 1: When I used to write for How Stuff Works, there
Speaker 1: was a point where I was given the assignment of
Speaker 1: how string theory works. So I was I was diving
Speaker 1: into everything string theory. And I'm an English Lit major, y'all.
Speaker 1: My major was in Shakespeare, and I can rattle Shakespeare
Speaker 1: off like nobody's business. But you asked me to describe
Speaker 1: string theory, and we got ourselves a problem.
Speaker 2: I want to hear a sonnet about string theory.
Speaker 1: You know what? Give me a week and I'll have
Speaker 1: it for you. I'm assuming you mean Shakespearean not Edwardians,
Speaker 1: because you're Spencerian. Okay, good, I can do that. I'm
Speaker 1: an expert at Shakespearean's on It's excellent. I remember distinctly
Speaker 1: I watched a I think it was a Nova special
Speaker 1: about string theory, and I'm taking notes and I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got like like seven eight pages of handwritten notes
Speaker 1: and I'm just sweating bullets watching this and everyone's really
Speaker 1: a great communicator on that special. And it gets to
Speaker 1: one point where one of the experts is being interviewed
Speaker 1: and he says, yeah, I think this is the point
Speaker 1: where I just have to admit I don't understand how
Speaker 1: it works. I just know that this is what the
Speaker 1: math says. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if you
Speaker 1: don't know, what hope is there for me? But that,
Speaker 1: to me is fascinating. It's one of the reasons why,
Speaker 1: by the way, I love doing a tech podcast is
Speaker 1: that technology is science manifest into devices and gadgets, and
Speaker 1: it's proof that science works, right because if science didn't work,
Speaker 1: the tech wouldn't work. So I've always pointed at like
Speaker 1: we are constantly surrounded by proof that the scientific approach works,
Speaker 1: because otherwise the things that we come in contact with
Speaker 1: on a minute by minute basis wouldn't function absolutely.
Speaker 3: What gets me about a lot of tech, though, is
Speaker 3: that it works, but the science we don't always even
Speaker 3: know why it works. I was talking to someone who
Speaker 3: does deep brain stimulation, so like the essentially, you know,
Speaker 3: electrocute the center of your brain to try to stop
Speaker 3: the electrical storms that cause seizures. And I asked her,
Speaker 3: I was like, why does like putting electrical circuits through
Speaker 3: someone's brain stop it? And they're like, we don't know,
Speaker 3: but it's great that it works. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: So I mean sometimes just because engineering works doesn't mean
Speaker 3: we understand it at the level that we'd like to.
Speaker 3: But it's great that it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there are lots of examples of that. Like,
Speaker 1: it's to me, it's interesting that we have great stories
Speaker 1: going in both directions, right. We have the stories of
Speaker 1: the people who were real innovators, really phenomenal. They thought
Speaker 1: outside the box. You know, they're probably building upon work
Speaker 1: that previous generations had done, but they've done something themselves
Speaker 1: that has transformed thinking in some way and has really
Speaker 1: pushed science forward. So the person I love to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I was actually just chatting about this with my
Speaker 1: producer the other day, Ada Lovelace. You know Lord Byron's daughter.
Speaker 1: Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage, who built the Decision Machine,
Speaker 1: the Decision Engine, and she was one of the first people,
Speaker 1: probably the first person that I know of, who came
Speaker 1: up with the concept of what if we took things
Speaker 1: like pictures or music and we converted that into mathematical statements,
Speaker 1: and then we used a machine like this to process that.
Speaker 1: We could create art, we could create music, we could
Speaker 1: alter existing pieces. And so she was essentially talking about
Speaker 1: computer programming, you know, generations before anyone else would even
Speaker 1: be able to do this, and the fact that she
Speaker 1: was able to ideate around that without there being any
Speaker 1: lead up, Like, as far as I can tell, she
Speaker 1: just sort of had a Eureka moment. And those are
Speaker 1: so rare, Like it's easy for us to point at
Speaker 1: things and say, this is the inventor of such and such,
Speaker 1: but when you look into it, you're like, oh, actually
Speaker 1: they were iterating on previous generations of stuff. But as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, This is like Ada Lovelace
Speaker 1: coming up with a truly novel idea. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the things I love most about podcasting is finding
Speaker 1: those stories, as well as the ones where someone's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't know if it would work, and we tried
Speaker 1: it and we work. We don't know why it works,
Speaker 1: but it does seem to work. So we'll figure out
Speaker 1: the why someday maybe, but for now, the fact that
Speaker 1: it works is important enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really highlights the human side of science.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like there's a sandwich there. People
Speaker 2: feel like, oh, science, maybe it's sort of like a
Speaker 2: sterile or it's intellectual, or it's bigger than people, but
Speaker 2: you know, it really exists only in a human context,
Speaker 2: both because of the philosophical side of it, like you're
Speaker 2: talking about, Oh, we understand the math, but what does
Speaker 2: this really mean? Right? We always want to understand signs
Speaker 2: in terms of a story, like what is this telling
Speaker 2: us about how the universe works? About what is real?
Speaker 2: But then also on the other side of it, like
Speaker 2: what does it mean for humans to live? How does
Speaker 2: this technology change our lives? How does it change what
Speaker 2: it's like to be a human in the world? What
Speaker 2: does it let us do? What kind of lives can
Speaker 2: we lead that we couldn't lead before? I mean, there's
Speaker 2: human stories everywhere on both sides of it, from the
Speaker 2: philosophy to the engineering.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing a lot of that too right now.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of overt discussion about that with the
Speaker 1: explosion of generative AI, which some people are now saying
Speaker 1: like we might be hitting like peak AI for at
Speaker 1: least the time being, not that it won't go any higher,
Speaker 1: but that the level of evolution may be slowing down
Speaker 1: a bit as we're kind of hitting the limits of
Speaker 1: what large language models can do.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, can I rant about that? For am
Speaker 2: a lead? Because I see people saying like, let's spend
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars and build a huge, large language model
Speaker 2: because it will solve physics. And I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 2: let's spend a trillion dollars on human physics first and
Speaker 2: try that, because trust me, if we spend that much
Speaker 2: money on physics, we could probably bigen the thing out.
Speaker 2: Like why do we need to dumb do an AI?
Speaker 1: I've got very strong my listeners know I don't need
Speaker 1: to go on another rant for my listeners but I
Speaker 1: have very strong feelings about generative AI. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a inherently bad technology. I mean, it's again going
Speaker 1: back to Shakespeare, there's nothing either good nor bad, but
Speaker 1: thinking makes it. So this is what AI. You've got
Speaker 1: artificial thinking. But I have a lot of strong opinions
Speaker 1: on it. I even did an episode of tech Stuff
Speaker 1: where I titled it. This episode was written by AI
Speaker 1: open bracket, sort of in bracket. And what I did was,
Speaker 1: I had I had that do an episode like, I
Speaker 1: gave it a prompt chat GPT is what I used.
Speaker 1: I gave it a prompt, I told it to make
Speaker 1: an episode of tech stuff, and so it had me
Speaker 1: inserted in there.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I found the most distressed First,
Speaker 1: it got stuff wrong, which is bad, right, But I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I get stuff wrong too, sometimes I'm human. It does happen.
Speaker 1: But the thing that upset me was it invented experts
Speaker 1: to deliver points of data. So it was as if
Speaker 1: I had interviewed I think it was three or four
Speaker 1: different people in the transcript that it printed, but none
Speaker 1: of those people even exist, let alone. I never spoke
Speaker 1: to anyone obviously, but they don't even exist. There were
Speaker 1: these names and they were given titles and given a
Speaker 1: position at places. So I tried to verify it. Not
Speaker 1: a single person existed, And I thought, you're inventing quotes,
Speaker 1: and then you're attributing those invented quotes to invented people,
Speaker 1: and you're presenting it without any indication that these are inventions.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is where we get into you know,
Speaker 1: confabulations or hallucinations with AI, and to me, that immediately
Speaker 1: sets off enormous alarms, which is why I would not
Speaker 1: want to entrust using large language model based generative AI
Speaker 1: to tackle the greatest problems in physics, because ultimately you
Speaker 1: don't know at what point it's just creating the statistically
Speaker 1: likely sentence, right Like, it's just statistically choosing words to
Speaker 1: create grammatically correct sentences, and there's no regard as to
Speaker 1: whether or not there's truth in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We wrote a book about living in space and
Speaker 3: we had a chapter on food and space, and we
Speaker 3: thought we had found all the books on food and space.
Speaker 3: And after the book came out, we were on chat
Speaker 3: GPT and we were like, tell us the ten books
Speaker 3: about food and space, and it popped out ten because
Speaker 3: we had asked for ten and some of them were
Speaker 3: books we had, and the rest we were like, oh,
Speaker 3: how did we miss these books? And we looked them
Speaker 3: up and they didn't exist. And just like you said,
Speaker 3: we asked, like, well, tell us more about the person
Speaker 3: who wrote this book that doesn't seem to exist, and
Speaker 3: they gave them a bio, they gave them affiliations. And
Speaker 3: these hallucinations are really scary if you're going to rely
Speaker 3: on it for research.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, nobody I ever should rely on it
Speaker 2: for research. It's not a research tool, right, Yeah. It
Speaker 2: generates the facsimile of research. It doesn't do any research,
Speaker 2: doesn't do any thinking. There's no reasoning there, and sometimes
Speaker 2: that's very useful for research. I use Genai in my
Speaker 2: research all the time because it's very good at generating examples,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you need something which can rapidly generate examples.
Speaker 2: But you have to know exactly what you're asking to do, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it can't think.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've used it to create like a bullet point
Speaker 1: of a bullet list of summary points from like really
Speaker 1: long articles, and then I went back and checked to
Speaker 1: make sure that what it was creating was reflected in
Speaker 1: the articles, and in that case, at least that specific case,
Speaker 1: it was whether or not that's ninety nine times out
Speaker 1: of one hundred or one hundred times out of one hundred.
Speaker 1: I can't say. In my one use case, which is
Speaker 1: a terribly small sample size, it did work out. But
Speaker 1: I am not naive enough to suggest that that means
Speaker 1: it's going to work every single time you use it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, same sort of thing. I've used it a
Speaker 1: couple of times for the purposes of like organizing thoughts,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, because otherwise I get, as you
Speaker 1: can probably tell from this episode, real Lucy Goosey with
Speaker 1: my approach, my approach to podcasting.
Speaker 2: Well, fundamentally, I think that humans have to play a
Speaker 2: role in science because science is a human thing. It's
Speaker 2: like by people and for people. Right, we have questions
Speaker 2: we want answers to and then we want those answers
Speaker 2: to make sense to us. So it doesn't make any
Speaker 2: sense to me to take humans out of that equation,
Speaker 2: you know, to say it to an AI like go
Speaker 2: figure out the universe, Like I want to understand the universe,
Speaker 2: and it has to make sense to me and it
Speaker 2: has to answer my questions. So humanity is an important
Speaker 2: part of science.
Speaker 3: What if it answered the question and explained it to
Speaker 3: you clearly, why would it not be okay that AI
Speaker 3: got the answer.
Speaker 2: It would be fine if AI found the answer, but
Speaker 2: it's I got to ask the questions and I have
Speaker 2: to be satisfied with the answer.
Speaker 1: I would like to refer both of you to the
Speaker 1: great nonfiction work of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Speaker 1: in which we create an incredibly colligent computer that tells
Speaker 1: us the answer to life, the universe, and everything is
Speaker 1: forty two, and then spends the next eternity trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the question is.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: But that seems exactly like what you were talking about there,
Speaker 1: Daniel is like, we don't want to create a world
Speaker 1: that is ideal for AI. We want to make sure
Speaker 1: that we continue to work on a world that's ideal
Speaker 1: for humans, which involves making some tough choices like maybe
Speaker 1: not using so much AI that's incredibly hungry for all
Speaker 1: the electricity, and maybe maybe going down that pathway is
Speaker 1: not the most productive. So, Kelly, I'm curious. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you must have read and or seen The Martian. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: what's your take?
Speaker 3: On that.
Speaker 1: I'm curious because I remember when I read it, I thought,
Speaker 1: this feels like it's fairly realistic, maybe with a couple
Speaker 1: of caveats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's fairly realistic with a couple of caveats.
Speaker 3: And again, like I think, the rules are what matters,
Speaker 3: and he was very andy. Weir was very consistent with
Speaker 3: the rules of the world we created. So mars Is
Speaker 3: atmosphere is one percent of Earth's. That's enough to support
Speaker 3: dust storms that engulf the entire planets, but it's probably
Speaker 3: not enough to knock over their giant rocket because one
Speaker 3: percent atmosphere is just not enough. And that's the premise
Speaker 3: that sets up the whole movie. Yep. And additionally, Mark
Speaker 3: Wattney is growing potatoes in soil and his own feces. Yes, Martian,
Speaker 3: it's called regolith.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That dirt on the surface is laced with prochlorates, which
Speaker 3: are endocrine disrupting hormones that mess up your metabolism. So
Speaker 3: if he had been growing his potatoes directly in there,
Speaker 3: he would have been massively poisoning himself. In addition, all
Speaker 3: the like fecal material he had in there that he'd
Speaker 3: have to be careful to clean up.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, I didn't know that part. I know that
Speaker 1: NASA has been using simulacrums of regolith in order to
Speaker 1: do experimentation about what could or could not be grown
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars. That part I knew, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know about the potential for really messing up
Speaker 1: your system. Yeah. I agree that, Like the thin atmosphere
Speaker 1: was one of those things that kind of tripped me up.
Speaker 1: Another was, and I'm sure it was explained in the book,
Speaker 1: and it's been a long time since I've read the book.
Speaker 1: I've seen the movie more recently, but the concept of
Speaker 1: a short term Martian expedition made no sense to me,
Speaker 1: simply because to have the planets line up properly so
Speaker 1: that you can make the journey with the least amount
Speaker 1: of fuel needed to do it, you would, in my understanding,
Speaker 1: need to kind of be ready for like a two
Speaker 1: year stay on the planet before you could try and
Speaker 1: make your trip back home. At least in the film version,
Speaker 1: it felt like it was supposed to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a mission that lasts maybe a month and
Speaker 1: a half and then we head back and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: how does that work? How much fuel are you bringing
Speaker 1: with you or is this a nuclear powered rocket? What's
Speaker 1: going on? So that was one of those things that
Speaker 1: tripped me up to But yeah, the windstorm, that was
Speaker 1: another one where you would need to be able to
Speaker 1: go out and clean the solar panels, clear them of
Speaker 1: dust and all that. But it wouldn't be enough to
Speaker 1: maybe drive a big metal shard through someone's suit into
Speaker 1: their body the way it does near the beginning of
Speaker 1: the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or knock over that rocket, which, yeah, which was
Speaker 3: part of the rocket. Yeah, and Daniel would be very
Speaker 3: happy that they included cannibalism in there. That was really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad that we can stick on topic. I
Speaker 1: didn't think of any Italian cannibal horror movies that I
Speaker 1: could add into the discussion here. Also, it would be
Speaker 1: terrifying to find out that you had watched those. But
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly have a lot more to say as
Speaker 1: we talk all things science and geekiness. And I'm absolutely
Speaker 1: loving every second of this. But first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsors. Let me ask you this,
Speaker 1: out of all the topics you've covered so far on
Speaker 1: your show, are there any standouts of things that were
Speaker 1: just either delight or surprising to you are just you
Speaker 1: were really eager to sink your teeth into when you
Speaker 1: were going to communicate those to your audience.
Speaker 2: From my point of view, I like to drill down
Speaker 2: into the basics, and because I think that people are
Speaker 2: curious about the universe and have pretty simple questions that
Speaker 2: they want answers to, questions like what is space? Or
Speaker 2: how does time work? Or like what is everything made
Speaker 2: out of? And all of the answer in the end,
Speaker 2: the disappoint Kelly is almost always like, well, we know
Speaker 2: up to hear, and then we have questions. I think
Speaker 2: it's worthwhile to bring people up to that point of
Speaker 2: understanding of these really basic questions that remain, because I
Speaker 2: think a lot of times people get the impression that
Speaker 2: science has progressed so far and we've basically figured it out.
Speaker 2: It's just like a couple of details remaining. But there's
Speaker 2: like very basic, vast questions about the universe we don't
Speaker 2: have simple answers to, and I think it's totally fun
Speaker 2: and very worthwhile to explain those to people in a
Speaker 2: way they can really get.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to pick a favorite, you know,
Speaker 3: like it's hard to pick a favorite child. We've interviewed
Speaker 3: these episodes haven't come out yet, but we interviewed James
Speaker 3: sa Corey, so the guys who wrote the expanse and
Speaker 3: Mary Roach and I love all of those people, and
Speaker 3: podcasting is a great opportunity to reach out to amazing
Speaker 3: people and ask them to talk to you for an hour.
Speaker 3: So that was great, but I really all also have
Speaker 3: enjoyed the episodes on space and time because Daniel is
Speaker 3: really good at explaining things and I really love learning
Speaker 3: about stuff that I don't already know. And physics. I
Speaker 3: took physics in college. I did fine, but I definitely
Speaker 3: studied to get an A on the test and then
Speaker 3: forget it immediately afterwards. Yeah, and I know, sorry, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff I didn't understand, and it feels
Speaker 3: good to have like professionals say okay, we've reached the
Speaker 3: end of what we understand and be like, oh okay,
Speaker 3: I can follow it up until the edge, and like, anyway,
Speaker 3: I've learned a lot and it's been fun.
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah. So both my parents are science fiction authors,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so I grew up going to science fiction
Speaker 1: conventions being around other authors as well as science can
Speaker 1: meet indicators and stuff. I had a really fortunate childhood
Speaker 1: in that way, and I keep thinking one of my
Speaker 1: missed opportunities is I never had my dad on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I could still ask him if he'd want to do it,
Speaker 1: because I would love to have a conversation about things
Speaker 1: that science fiction authors predicted that ultimately came to pass.
Speaker 1: So Arthur C. Clark is obviously a big example with
Speaker 1: geostationary satellites, and you know, you have Isaac Asimov and
Speaker 1: the laws of robotics and things of that nature. My dad, famously,
Speaker 1: in my mind anyway, made an incredible prediction. He predicted
Speaker 1: the existence of Teddy Ruxman.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, Yeah, I loved Teddy Ruxman.
Speaker 1: And he also predicted commercials that do not, upon first glance,
Speaker 1: tell you what the heck they're advertising. He called it
Speaker 1: the oblique cell, but that was in his fantasy novel anyway.
Speaker 1: It just makes your discussion there just made me think
Speaker 1: about that as well. I love how people can take
Speaker 1: inspiration from not just the observations they make, but from
Speaker 1: fiction as well and say like, well, well, there's no
Speaker 1: reason why that shouldn't work if we just figure some
Speaker 1: things out and then work toward that. Now, obviously it
Speaker 1: doesn't work for everything. Like my own personal opinion with
Speaker 1: Star Trek is that if you were to use a transporter,
Speaker 1: you're committing suicide and you're just creating a copy of
Speaker 1: yourself somewhere else. And that's not really you. It's someone
Speaker 1: else who has all your thoughts and beliefs and everything,
Speaker 1: but you are. You're dead, and that's a copy. And
Speaker 1: so I'm a bones McCoy kind of guy when it
Speaker 1: comes to the transporter.
Speaker 3: I do ask that question every time we interview a
Speaker 3: sci fi person on our show.
Speaker 1: Oh, is the transporter just killing you? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: fully on board with the transporters killing you.
Speaker 2: I'm but would you step into one knowing that it's
Speaker 2: going to kill you and then it's going to be
Speaker 2: another version of you on the other side.
Speaker 1: No, I'm too egotistical. I require this version of my
Speaker 1: ego to continue and not a perfect copy. First of all,
Speaker 1: I don't want there to be a perfect copy of
Speaker 1: me out there. I got enough competition out there as
Speaker 1: it is. No, I don't think I could. And maybe
Speaker 1: if we were talking about distances that are beyond what
Speaker 1: we can conveniently travel today, and like, yeah you can,
Speaker 1: you can hop on over. We've colonized a planet that's
Speaker 1: you know, twenty light years away. There's no way you're
Speaker 1: going to get there. Otherwise, like, well, had a good
Speaker 1: run here, Jonathan two point zero can take it from
Speaker 1: here and make a new life on Earth two or whatever.
Speaker 1: Are there Are there any particular thing, you know, sources
Speaker 1: of inspiration that got you both or either of you
Speaker 1: interested in pursuing a career in science, Like was there
Speaker 1: was there someone or something that you know, you thought, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is what makes I want to do,
Speaker 1: whether it was directly in your field or maybe even
Speaker 1: an unrelated field of science.
Speaker 2: Well, like many people, I was inspired by Well, like
Speaker 2: many people, I was inspired by my high school physics teacher.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, so there's
Speaker 2: lots of physicists around, and one of them came to
Speaker 2: teach our ap physics class in the morning before he
Speaker 2: went to work at the lab, and he seemed to
Speaker 2: be having a lot of fun and he was a
Speaker 2: great teacher. And you know, I just want to say
Speaker 2: thank you to all the science teachers out there in
Speaker 2: high school working on the front lines, because They're literally
Speaker 2: responsible for creating the next generation of scientists. Huge fraction
Speaker 2: of the scientists I know were inspired to enter their
Speaker 2: field chemistry or biology or whatever because of their high
Speaker 2: school science teacher. It's such an important job.
Speaker 3: I really liked the show er, and so I really
Speaker 3: wanted to be an er surgeon. And then I talked
Speaker 3: to an er surgeon who was like, actually, most of
Speaker 3: your day is really boring. It's nowhere near as exciting.
Speaker 3: You're like waiting for someone to come in so you
Speaker 3: can like stitch their hand because they like cut it
Speaker 3: on the side of their car or something. And then
Speaker 3: I thought maybe i'd be a veterinarian, but then I'd
Speaker 3: still have to deal with people, and I turns out
Speaker 3: I feel okay about people. But but then I like,
Speaker 3: I had an overwhelming course load, and so I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take ecology as an easy a because it's
Speaker 3: like hippies playing in the woods. And it turned out
Speaker 3: that they were using all of these like elegant equations
Speaker 3: to describe the behavior of the animals interacting with each other,
Speaker 3: and I was like, this is actually rigorous, and these
Speaker 3: people are spending like their whole lives outside collecting these
Speaker 3: data and then they get to think about what's happening outside.
Speaker 3: And like, I fell in love with ecology in that class,
Speaker 3: and so that easy a totally like derailed my financial
Speaker 3: future and I went into science instead.
Speaker 2: But you became a rigorous hippie in the woods.
Speaker 3: I did, Man, I love it out here and then
Speaker 3: I but I thought that I was going to be
Speaker 3: studying like lions in the Serengetti, and I applied to
Speaker 3: all of those labs for grad school, and then I
Speaker 3: ended up studying like their parent, whatever's happening in their guts.
Speaker 3: Turns out that's what I'm most interested in. So I
Speaker 3: like the creepy stuff.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the edge of all knowledge, right, that's
Speaker 2: the biological dark matter for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I love these stories.
Speaker 3: What about you? How did you go from Shakespeare to
Speaker 3: podcasting about tech?
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that's a great question. For the first several
Speaker 1: years of my professional career, I actually worked at a
Speaker 1: human resources management consulting firm. So I like to say
Speaker 1: I worked for the Bobs in office space, the two Bobs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: More often than not, I was writing up reports about
Speaker 1: why our consultants were recommending that a company layoff ten
Speaker 1: percent of their employees. It was very demoralizing. I was
Speaker 1: good at what I did. I hated my job. I
Speaker 1: love the people I worked with, but I hated my job.
Speaker 1: But I was good at it, and so I didn't
Speaker 1: want to leave it. One of the consultants I worked for,
Speaker 1: his name is frank Casa Grande, or Frankie big House
Speaker 1: as I used to call him. Frankie big House. He's
Speaker 1: from New Jersey. Came to me, He's like, John, John,
Speaker 1: this isn't your passion, John, you got to get out
Speaker 1: of here. You're killing yourself meant for bigger things. And
Speaker 1: so it really sunk in. But I was so comfortable
Speaker 1: that I did not leave that job until they got
Speaker 1: rid of the position I was in. So I didn't
Speaker 1: I wasn't fired. I just didn't have a job anymore.
Speaker 1: The distinction was lost on me. I will be honest
Speaker 1: with you. So then for for six months, I'm out
Speaker 1: of work, trying to get a job, and I try
Speaker 1: applying for writing gigs at different places around Atlanta, including
Speaker 1: places like the Cartoon Network and Turner and CNN and
Speaker 1: which are all the same company. But whatever, and ultimately
Speaker 1: none of those pan out. I took another job at
Speaker 1: a different consulting firm, which was soul crushing, and six
Speaker 1: months after that, I one of the jobs I had
Speaker 1: i'd interviewed for but I had not heard back from,
Speaker 1: gets back to me, and it was HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 1: So I come in, I interview with how stuffworks dot Com.
Speaker 1: I get the job. I become one of two staff
Speaker 1: writers at how stuffworks dot com, the other one Tracy Wilson,
Speaker 1: who is currently a host of Stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: history class. That's where the stuff and tech stuff comes from.
Speaker 1: So I start writing articles. And my background in English
Speaker 1: literature involved lots of research and lots of writing, and
Speaker 1: so I was just applying that same skill set. But
Speaker 1: now I got a chance to explore topics that I
Speaker 1: often knew very little about. So I got to learn
Speaker 1: and it was so exciting. It was like being in college,
Speaker 1: but without all the pressures of college and all the
Speaker 1: distractions of college. And I learned all about different things.
Speaker 1: And then it was my job to explain what I
Speaker 1: had learned to an audience and to synthesize that information
Speaker 1: and communicate it outward. And I loved that too, and
Speaker 1: it soon became clear that, unlike the other English majors
Speaker 1: who joined the editorial department of HowStuffWorks dot com, I
Speaker 1: was not afraid of technology. Everybody else we almost all
Speaker 1: of us had attended the University of Georgia, almost all
Speaker 1: of us had a degree in some form of English,
Speaker 1: whether it was English Led or English whatever. But they
Speaker 1: were all scared of tackling tech, and I wasn't because,
Speaker 1: as I described to them, like tech either works or
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It's it gets pretty simple when you get
Speaker 1: to the macro level. It's when you dive into the
Speaker 1: particulars where it can get a little intimidating. But I
Speaker 1: found that those skills of being able to research a topic,
Speaker 1: to find an understanding, and then to communicate that understanding
Speaker 1: to an audience, that that tapped into a passion I
Speaker 1: didn't even know I had. And so the podcast started
Speaker 1: as an extension of the website and gave me even
Speaker 1: more opportunity to not only communicate these these ideas about technology,
Speaker 1: not just how it works, but how it impacts us
Speaker 1: and how we change the tech. It also, most importantly
Speaker 1: gave me an opportunity to make terrible puns. That's all
Speaker 1: we really want to Yeah, getting paid to make terrible
Speaker 1: puns and if you if you, if you position them
Speaker 1: just you know, they had to hear it, and that's
Speaker 1: the best.
Speaker 3: Feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, it's great. It's like it's the only
Speaker 1: thing I regret is that podcasting is a one way
Speaker 1: communication medium and I can't hear the groans on the
Speaker 1: other side, which is you know, that's what really nourishes
Speaker 1: the soul in my opinion. But yeah, that's how it
Speaker 1: all happened for me, and I have always had great
Speaker 1: admiration for not just scientists, but science communicators who take
Speaker 1: it very seriously, you know, learning and communicating and sort
Speaker 1: of instilling that communication with the passion they have for
Speaker 1: the process of learning. Like I think that's really what
Speaker 1: it boils down to for me, is that I love
Speaker 1: to learn. And I feel like a lot of scientists
Speaker 1: that's kind of their core principle too. They just have
Speaker 1: this love of learning. As you said at the beginning,
Speaker 1: curiosity is one of those those guiding principles, and I
Speaker 1: genuinely think that in order to live a fulfilling life,
Speaker 1: you do have to maintain a sense of curiosity. Throughout.
Speaker 3: It sure helps.
Speaker 2: And it's what powers all of science.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The reason that we get millions or billions of dollars
Speaker 2: to build a collider is because people want to know
Speaker 2: the answer to these questions, you know, And so I
Speaker 2: think we have an obligation not just to do the
Speaker 2: science and to try to understand the universe, but to
Speaker 2: share the answers with everybody, because everybody deserves to know
Speaker 2: what we do and don't know about particles and cannibals.
Speaker 1: All. Yeah, I don't think I find it. I think
Speaker 1: one of the most distressing things I encounter is when
Speaker 1: someone says, well, what good is that going to do me?
Speaker 1: If you learn that, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's
Speaker 1: like I'm talking to a different kind of creature because
Speaker 1: I can't understand why the act of knowing isn't exciting
Speaker 1: enough all on its own. Why you have to be like, okay,
Speaker 1: but is that going to make my cell phone faster? Like,
Speaker 1: first of all, we don't know what it'll do.
Speaker 3: That's yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, if you look back at all the technological advancements
Speaker 1: that have been possible over the years, we didn't anticipate
Speaker 1: most of those because we had no way of knowing.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly miniaturization alone was something no one had
Speaker 1: thought about. Back in the twenties and thirties, everyone thought
Speaker 1: computers were going to be the size of skyscrapers because
Speaker 1: they had to be so like, don't worry about you know,
Speaker 1: a specific benefit that you get beyond knowing knowing itself
Speaker 1: as a benefit. And then on top of that, who
Speaker 1: knows what else will be able to leverage from the
Speaker 1: knowledge we uncover. So amen, yeah, yeah, so, gosh darn it.
Speaker 1: Funded science, yes, please, yes, fund easy and obvious investment
Speaker 1: in humanity and in our future.
Speaker 2: I don't understand why it's not a bipartisan thing, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, either do I I always I always don't. I
Speaker 1: don't get why people will will portray science as somehow
Speaker 1: having a political bias. That's not the way science works.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly, thank you so much for joining tech stuff.
Speaker 1: This has been a lot of fun. I know it's
Speaker 1: kind of an unhinged whirlwind episode, but I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: coming up to the end of my run kind of
Speaker 1: like all the safety measures are off as far as I'm.
Speaker 3: Concerned, the rails are off. That's the most fun. Thank you.
Speaker 3: So much for having us on the show. This was
Speaker 3: a blast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I recommend everyone go check out the podcast. You have
Speaker 1: to listen, especially if you know you're sitting there and
Speaker 1: curious about which animals will eat their own kind, because
Speaker 1: you'll learn. You will learn some things you cannot unlearn.
Speaker 1: You're welcome, Thanks again, and I hope you have a
Speaker 1: great day.
Speaker 3: Thanks you too, Thanks very much. Well.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you enjoyed that conversation I had
Speaker 1: with Daniel and Kelly of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.
Speaker 1: You should definitely check out that podcast. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating stuff. They tackle all things science. They've had
Speaker 1: some great guests on as well to talk about stuff
Speaker 1: like quantum computing. They really take these complicated topics and
Speaker 1: break them down in ways that are really accessible and
Speaker 1: fun and exciting. And it's the sort of stuff I
Speaker 1: always aspire to do. I hope that on occasion I
Speaker 1: achieve that. Based upon some of the wonderful messages I've
Speaker 1: been getting from listeners who have reached out to express
Speaker 1: how how much they appreciate the show, it feels like
Speaker 1: once in a while I hit that target, which is
Speaker 1: a great feeling. I hope all of you out there
Speaker 1: are doing well. If you are here in the United States,
Speaker 1: happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a wonderful, safe time
Speaker 1: with their loved ones nearby. For everyone else around the world,
Speaker 1: have a great week. You know, if you want to
Speaker 1: participate in Thanksgiving on kind of a metaphorical level, just
Speaker 1: pour some gravy down your throat and be thankful. That's
Speaker 1: what I do every year, Tari can attest. She says
Speaker 1: it's disturbing and that if I do it again in
Speaker 1: front of her, she's going to hr Well, have a
Speaker 1: great week, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.