Even though you know money is filthy dirty, it can still make you feel good. This episode begins by explaining how the simple act of handling money can make you feel a lot better if you are feeling a bit down. And the weird thing is, it doesn’t even have to be your money. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/6199932/Counting-money-makes-people-feel-better-about-themselves.html
When you walk into a tidy, clean and organized room, does it make you feel better? Calmer? It does for a lot of people. In fact, more order and less clutter can help you feel happier says Gretchen Rubin, host of the podcast, “Happier with Gretchen Rubin” and author of the book Outer Order Inner Calm: Declutter and Organize to Make Room for Happiness (https://amzn.to/2IB6HaC). Listen as Gretchen joins me to explain the psychology of order and how it relates to happiness. Plus she offers some great techniques to organize and create a calmer space.
Most dog lovers do not hesitate to hug their dogs. It is a sign of affection. However, experts say dogs hate it and can cause them a lot of stress. Listen as I explain why it is not a good idea to hug your dog – in fact it can even be dangerous.https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/canine-corner/201604/the-data-says-dont-hug-the-dog
To many people, the word “calculus” reminds them of a high school math class that was very difficult. However, calculus is so much more. Without it there might not be cell phones or GPS or television. Calculus helped find a treatment for AIDS and helped us discover Neptune. Steven Strogatz is a professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell and author of the book Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe (https://amzn.to/2Vvl3zv). Listen as he explains exactly what calculus is and how critical it is to our modern world.
PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!
We really enjoy The Jordan Harbinger Show and we think you will as well! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Go to https://Backcountry.com/SYSK and enter promo code SYSK to get FIFTEEN PERCENT OFF your first full-priced purchase. Some exclusions apply.
Save time, money, and stress with Firstleaf – the wine club designed with you in mind! Join today and you’ll get 6 bottles of wine for $29.95 and free shipping! Just go to https://tryfirstleaf.com/SOMETHING
T-Mobile for Business the leader in 5G, #1 in customer satisfaction, and a partner who includes benefits like 5G in every plan. So you get it all. Without trade-offs! Visit https://T-Mobile.com/business
Discover matches all the cash back you earn on your credit card at the end of your first year automatically and is accepted at 99% of places in the U.S. that take credit cards! Learn more at https://discover.com/yes
Visit https://www.remymartin.com/en-us/ to learn more about their exceptional spirits!
https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy!
Leaving a child in a hot vehicle can lead to their death very quickly. Set cellphone reminders or place something you’ll need in the back seat, so you don’t forget your child is in the car. Look before you lock. Paid for by NHTSA
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Today, on something you should know how holding a little cash in your hand can make you feel so much better than
organizing your space, can change your life and you'll get some expert advice on exactly how to do it. In my ass, no one can be bothered to hang up their heads. We just clearly. This is this to taxing and overwhelming. So, finally, it dawned on me to get books and we actually,
he's the huts, it's just that much easier to use a hug than a hanger plus. Why you should probably member hugged your dog and calculus
maybe the hardest class in high school, but its response
both for cell phones, tv, the fight against AIDS and so much more when you
go home tonight if you get lost and you need your gps to tell you how to find the right way home. Gps is a wonder of calculus, but we're not aware of that. I mean for us it's just this gadget that seems to know how to get anywhere from anywhere, but that using all kinds of math all this today on something you should know to me. Sleep is like magic.
Well, no, its not actually like magic, giddies magic. I love
my sleep, and I know that the mattress makes all the difference. I've seen
tunnel, lotta, mattresses and a few floors. Sometimes the floors more
comfortable than some mattresses. But the right mattress is match,
and so what I sleep on every night now is a helix, and so should you he likes
make sure you get the right mattress. You take the helix sleep quiz which takes just a few
it's an it matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress may have several different,
kinds of mattresses to choose from soft meat.
Firm mattresses
her great for cooling you down, if you sleep pot, which I do after taking the
is. I got matched up with the midnight mattress and you know how I you know, how I can tell you
really great
Is I really miss it? When I sleep away from home, I can so tell the difference and its
just me saying this Healy
was awarded the number one best overall, mattress pick of twenty twenty by g.
Q and wired magazine just go to helix sleep,
I'd come slash s. Why s K take their two minutes. Late
where's and they'll Matthew to customize mattress. That will give you the best sleep of your life
there's a ten year warranty and you get to try it out for a hundred nights risk free, they'll, pick it up. If you don't love it
makes, is offering up to two hundred dollars off all mattress orders and to free
those for our listeners. Add helix sleep, dot, com, Slash
Why asked Kay.
Something you should now fascinating, enter the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today, something you should now. My brothers
I've noticed, I guess it's ever since the pandemic stores have been short of coins, but I have noticed that I just don't use cash that much anymore. I just
it card most of the time,
does seem to be. The preferred method anyway. Store seemed not want to do cash because they don't have much of it
and in some ways it's too bad because money cash
can actually make you feel good. Even if it's not your money,
This is really interesting in a study to groups of people were asked account pieces of paper, one group
real paper money and the other group counted blank pieces of paper. Though
to counter the money knew they were not going to get to keep it.
the counting it was over. The people who counted the money showed
fascinating results when the Prince
Serpents hands were placed in cups of very hot water, but money.
Handlers raided the experience as merely unpleasant, whereas those
bill, counting blank sheet of paper
the same water unbearable,
those who count the money were able to handle emotional stress. Better
and the money handlers also reported a sense of well being at a much higher level than the other group. The effects
lasted about twenty minutes, so if you're feeling
bit down, researchers say tried taking out a lot of cash for a while and see. If
don't feel better.
And that is something you should know.
You ve no doubt notice that as you go through life, you accumulate stuff things. Possession
and before you know it? If you're not careful your home
and or office is full,
of stuff, what you might call clutter, some people are pretty
did keeping clutter under control. Others of us not so much and we ve talked before,
podcast about the connection between clutter and stress and how the lack of clutter
and reduce stress and increase happiness
no one knows more about this than Gretchen Reuben Gretchen is the hosting
podcast happier with Gretchen Reuben she's, the author of several books about happiness and her new
is outer order. Inner calm down
clutter and organise to make room for happiness and she's about,
offer you some great common sense advice for creating order and calmness in your life by getting ahead
though, on the stuff you have, I Gretchen welcome, I'm so happy to be talking to you great. So, let's
art by connecting the dots and explain to me what the connection is between clutter and happy.
Listen and tie that altogether. Well, it's just one
I've noticed, in my opinion, have been studying happiness and good habits in human nature for years, and I just noticed over and over how people would talk about how D cluttering an organ
saying just had this kind of disproportionate effect on their feelings of calm and energy and focus on somebody said to me. I find.
clean out my fridge and now I know I can switch careers and I knew exactly how they felt. There's there's something
clickable about it, as we can all agree that, in the context of a happy productive life, something like a crowded, coat closet or a messy desk is trivial and yet
for an over people said it when they. They feel that when they get more control of the stuff in their lives, they feel more control of their lives generally, and I certainly feel this way myself it. I was just
very intrigued by that connection, so I will in my book I wanted to
I wanted to explore that and then also well
one outer order? How did you get it and how do you maintain it.
and so, when you explore that, did you find that that feeling applies to most people
or are there people who are just fine in a mess? There are some people, I call them clutter blind. There are some people who
Doesn't they just don't care my sister list?
I have the happier with Gretchen Reuben Podcasting because does my centralism and
It just doesn't care, and I mean I've seen this people are always like that, you until better and it's like she really doesn't care. Now she has.
Pay attention to her because she lives of other people and they care. So, but if you live by herself, she would never closed the kitchen,
the door again as long as she lived. So I think there are small number of people, and I think we can you know they're they're, pretty conspicuous, who dont care, but for most people it does make them feel calmer.
We're focused, and so you know people's enemy like, but why should I make my bed and that, like there's, no magic to making your bet, if you feel completely,
different, making or better you actually enjoy not making your bed, then don't do it, but for most people it just seems to be the little the kind of little habit that makes them feel better, as they start their day
but you know and then also some people are simplicity, lovers and some people are abundance. Lubbers says something:
the want empty counters and a bare desk and not much on the walls. They want simplicity and some people one abundance and they want.
Fusion and choice and collections and may,
piles, but doesn't this aim is clutter because clutter is stuff like I don't even know what this
it goes to this thing, doesn't even work. This umbrella is broken. That's not abundance, Festus stuff, that's in our way, but is so a bit. I dont think that there's one place that everybody should end up or everyone will be happier if they end up in this particular point
there's a huge variation in where were aiming to get to you
I'm somewhere in the middle class, I understand when
people say they don't want to make their bed, because you just
to get in it again, and I
stand? Why you don't want to cut shut the cupboard door, because guess what you're just gonna open it again in five minutes, so I get that
but but I also agree with you that there is
something about walking into a home or up
I swear, everything's me
an organised and clean. Yes, I mean it. I think most people do feel that way. The problem comes is when one for
people assume I'm right, you're wrong. If, since this makes me feel happier more productive or more creative, it will make everybody thought
more productive and created. So I'm the boss- and I say a cluttered just means of cluttered mind in this this office- we're gonna, have a clear des policy, because that's gonna make everybody more productive. Is it now, probably not because something
that is how they are at their most productive. You know there are people who live. You know they ve got tons of piles everywhere and if you say Hague find me form eleven, be they put their hand right on it that works for them, and so I think it is just recognising that each of us can thrive in a particular environment, and so it's a question of well. How can I create and maintain the invite?
that suits me and if I have to share and environment with other people, we may need to cooperate, but that doesn't mean I'm right. You're right
or you're right, I'm wrong. It's like ok! Well, you know
If you do want to make your bed, you don't have to make your bed I want to have the bed made, so I'm gonna make the bed people at work,
there is no magic. One size fits all solution. In theory, when people
de clutter and get organised
The theory is that that should be it, because now you ve cluttered and you ve got an organised, and yet I know I find that that it's it's not just
continual process, but every so often you gotta do it all over again and I suspect
that had our better ways to do it, then the way, the way I do it. I know they're, better ways to do it then the way I do it. So what are some of the mistakes people make in some of the thinking? That's wrong. That would help well, it's definitely easier to keep up. Then they catch up and cell. If what you're doing a sort of
doing a big purse. Getting everything organised and then just sort of like letting it all build up again, and so then you gotta, have you know, that's tough, so I do think that once you have created order, it's nice to have habits that will help you maintain it see you don't have to constantly be sort of coming up in another gigantic push some things that can make a mistake that people make as like putting something down instead of putting it away like. Oh here's. This thing, I'm just going to open up a cat, a cabinet chauvelin,
air and closed. It is like ok now. Why is that thing there if you like? Oh, this is the area in my house where I keep travel things, and so that's why I keep my electrical converters and that's where I keep my money. Belgian, that's why I keep my foreign currency and that's why I keep my maps to foreign countries. That ways like I don't remember where I put the electrical converters, but I know where I would have put it. I would have put it in travel so out there. It is it's in travel because I didn't just put it down. I put it away, so that makes it easy.
to know where things go and how to find them biggest. Certainly, one way that outer order helps us is by making it easier.
Fine, some research suggests that the average american adult fence fifty five minutes a day. Looking for misplaced items,
imagine what you can do with fifty five minutes a day, and so you know it's so putting things away means that you can retrieve them more easily,
one great habit, firming staying on top of clutter academy
you are describing is the one minute rule, and this is anything that you can do in less than a minute just go ahead and do without delay. This is great for busy people
we're like I don't have any time, energy or money to devote this ok, it's like will. This is less than a minute. You can just do it as part of your ordinary routine. If you can hang up your coat instead of throwing at over it
air. If you can rip open a letter scanning and throw it in the recycling, if you can take this document, it put it in a proper footing,
You could put the pen back in the pen cup and that just gets rid of that, sir scum of clutter that,
on the surface of everyday life. That just makes us feel overwhelmed and drained, because once you ve cream
that you want to keep it going a thing. Another thing that I do that's very helpful in its also hopeful and making transition. Sir your day like to come down from the work day and enter kind of your home life is to have a ten minute closer, which is like a ten minutes before only back in the morning. At ten minutes before I leave my desk, I will take ten minutes into sort of clean everything up and
kind of helps you transition, and it also makes it a lot easier to come in the morning- cause you're not fighting your way through, like the papers on the robbers in the trash in the empty coffee cups of yesterday you don't you kind of got a fresh start, and you know again. It's ten minutes, so it's not like
God, I'm staying for an hour after my word, dazed and like you, I'm just gonna put around a little bit, get myself organised for the next day. So let's talk about stuff, because if you didn't have this
Then it wouldn't be a problem, but we all have a lot of stuff so much stuff that many of us have to rent storage
locker? Yes, somewhere else to keep our stuff, because we don't have enough room at home for our stuff, so talk about all this stuff. Where is interesting
As some people are like you should get rid of everything you know mementoes, they don't matter, go! That's the past move on everybody would be happier with a capsule wardrobe in one shelf of books. I do not think that is the common
variants of mankind, we projector identity into our environment using our possessions. We use our possessions to remind us of the people in places and activities that we love. We love many people, love objects, they admire them as objects and they d
light in them and they want to have them around them. They want to show them to other people, they want to arrange them, and so I think you have to know yourself, because
and some people dont. What they're like ass. I can t get rid of all that well cable to do because maybe you just enjoy the beautiful emptiness of the but
people? In a seventy two said to me,
I really really really love my baby, my baby blanket from childhood. Why do I have to get rid of it? Unlike you, don't have to get rid of it because you love at its precious see. Why would you get rid of something that's precious to you, but you know the bread maker from five years ago that you seem like a good
if her birthday present for your husband, but then nobody ever make spread like does nudging anybody any good so might have
is do you use it? Do you need it? Do you love it?
because if you don't use it needed or love it, then why do you have it and so that those are the possessions to get rid of
is easy that we all have experienced, whereas easing for this stuff to come in, maybe it's a gift, you don't really like it, but you feel it get to keep it out of respect
giver. Maybe it was free, it's very hard for us to resist free things. Conference lag bargains
Although I am hand me down, I mean by myself and the church my my way
his toe bags. I mean I have somebody to banks and I've gotten rid of like thousands, a toe bags, because I cannot resist a toe bag.
need any many bags. You know don't take to tow back. What's the three strike rule
this is really helpful. Ok, there's something called the endowment effect, which means that if we own something, we endow it with more
and set, which means that we have sort of
we are more or less once we own something it's hard to give it away
This seems more valuable because it's ours, and so the end, but sometimes you're like to want this thing, and when I found is that of three
times its occurred to me to get rid of something I shouldn't I do. I shouldn't even make a decision. I should just say:
shows me that I have made the decision and I I want to get rid of it because, like it's a sweater,
where, once a week, I'm not saying to myself said I get rid of this. What are now I use solar all the time, but if I can say to myself
this latter. This bright, this super bright, pink sweater. Should I read it so I give this thing away, or should I keep it I'll? Keep it checking
this thing, or should I keep it, give it the third time I think
should I give this thing away. I've answered my own question because if they thought, if you
need user love, something you doesn't constant
occur to you. She give
to give it away or a toss it or recycling. So three strikes decisions made I've thought about it. So much I don't know. I know
answer. Gretchen Reuben is my guest and she is hosting the happier with Gretchen Reuben Podcast and author,
the book outer order inner com ones.
sponsor who has been with me a long time is best fiend. I love best fiend
and I want you to love best fiends? It's me:
puzzle game that is so much fun. It is sometimes impossible to put down look even
in February the shortest month of the year. You deserve
maximum me time and best fiends. He great
to recharge your brain and have tons of fun doing it
when I say it's hard to put down: I'm not reading those words on a script. I'm I walk the walk here.
I am right now on level three thousand two hundred and eighty seven votes,
the tiller levels. It
cherry on the cake and there's all these really cute characters that graphics our gorgeous
even the music is to catch every time I play the game. I end up becoming this music for the rest of the day. There are new
characters and challenging puzzles added all the time and there too,
have fun events. These events are games that only
ass a certain amount of time, but if you get in there
play them. While there there, you can win huge rewards in the game so come on employee.
And see if you're not up to a level three thousand two hundred and eighty seven in no time with thousand,
of levels. Best fiends has all the meat time you need ready to go.
Your brain. Some tea, Elsie and download best fiends free today,
on the app store or Google play,
its friends without the are best fiends so Gretchen
It would seem that if you want to get rid of stuff that in order to
my theory anyway that, in order to increase the momentum that you're gonna do it is to do stuff that,
you're gonna see or not, now it or now not see I mean I have. I have because
the business that I mean. I got more coffee mugs
that I never use that just sit there, but that the cupboards
closed. I never see him, so I I I don't do anything about it yeah. Yes, I call that deep, clutter so deep plotters when things are put away nicely like in their place, but you never used so their clutter in that. Why are they there? This is like the kind of something is like under the bed. In again,
room. Why is it there? You don't even know it's under their? It's not in your way. It's not it's, not it's not a visible festering sore in your environment, but it's just they're kind of
you down, because why is there so I mean I. I do think that for most people
it is helpful to start with, whatever is causing the most annoyance, and so I would say if it's the kitchen,
well, that's always got drunk on it start with your kitchen table. Don't necessarily start with the mugs that are on the top shelf of the closed cabinet or because, but I think that eventually you you wanna get there because having
these things unused and just sort of languishing that it just makes your home feel very cramped and very stagnant water, and also
You don't do things are being wasted and not use it, because people are very preoccupied with things being put to use or things being sustainable. Are things not being wasted having something on you know having a mug that you have
in five years that has like you know, of a layer of dust on the bottom like put out in the world a let somebody
Is it for their bags, in others? Probably some start up office where their desperate for some cheat lug sub GonNA. Take it to take it to the threats.
were and then Somebody'Ll use it,
and put it to use and you'll get yourself back and you'll get rid of those things. That's also called accidental, stockpiling and that's when we amass here
stores of things that are kind of seemingly useful, but you know you dont need thirty glass jars. I dont need fifteen tote bags, although I do probably have twelve to banks, but each one has a special feature. How many bugs does one office need, or one person need or one family need? You don't want it just keep
hey you like accruing now things at some point, you're gonna have to deal with that, it's easier to do it a little bit at a time or not to take those things at all, but you know you just brought up something really interesting, that hadn't, really
me till just now is you know it's hard
to get rid of stuff in the sense that it used to be fined, Jeff toss it, and now you feel guilty because of the environment, and so now
now to go down to the thrift store you ve gotta go to the good will and its
just easier to just put it back in the cupboard. Yes, no, I think you're a hundred per cent correct. I think that's a major reason that people keep clutter is that it is easier to keep
and it is to figure out what to do with it, which is why don't take it in the first place, because once you own it, you have to figure out. Do I tossed it? Do I reach
I gotta. Do I give it away if I give it away to whom do I give it? I have to take it. There may be a lot of places. Don't take book salon places, don't take toys lotta places, don't take ball, gowns like what are you gonna do with this stuff? Don't take it if you don't you don't think you're.
Actually use it on its interesting, though, a lot of tangible will say to me, I don't want to clear clutter because I dont want to contribute to the land though, but the fact is, you contribute to the landfill. The minute you reach.
Take that Maugre that toad beggar whatever, because whether it's going to Morrow or it's going after my children do a swedish dusk cleaning and forty years and my apartment, that is the destination, and so, if you're worried about things like going to the landfill like not taking them is the way I mean, I think its admirable
people want things to be put to good use and at its interesting, because I travelled all around the country talking about other order.
Some communities. There are many places too,
you can give and feel really good about it like I went to a place where they had a. They had an organization where you can give like kind of major furniture like kitchen table and kitchen chairs. Are, you know a bookshelf and they would give them to people
we are setting up their first homes and in a really had nothing, and so you can feel
we gotta gimme your penance for their cause. You like this is gonna, be put to good use. This is really gonna help of family get gap on their feet and have like a really nice set up, but then something some people are like. There's really not it
It's not a good. Will our salvation army or threats store in my community, and you know what do I do it's just up and its, and so part of it is different places
it's easier or harder? One of the best things that happened to me as housing works, which is a kind of it
store chain in New York City, where they open right around the corner for my apartment, and I mean right around the corner- and this is this fantastic as it so easy to just take little dribs and drabs of things instead of you, no five big carloads, but I think you're absolutely right. I think its admirable that people don't want things to go to waste.
Does make it harder causing you don't think you can just chuck everything into the trash. They probably they probably put that store there, because they knew you live there and they figured you you're going to become, and by with stuff all grind russian Reuben she's. Never in my life, I watched by the other day
my daughter had given away a pair of purple cowboy boots, and I saw them in the window, and it made me so happy because I thought my daughter wasn't wearing this purple cowboy boots, but their fabulous and somebody will go in there, be like all my guys. This completely made my day that I gotta go.
Deal on purple cowboy bits of it. So it is very satisfying, but I think sometimes people hold out for that feeling of like. I need to find the perfect recipient for something, and I can't find that perfect recipient, and so all these things kind of stay in a holding pet
One of the things you talk about that that ice I find fascinating. Is this kind of mysterious effective how clutter attracts more clutter and in it is interesting that it is like a universal law that
You can't defy if you have clutter it's like the broken window in the face
three? The abandoned factory is soon
There's one they'll, be twenty
and they are the same thing with clutter. It is clutter, attracts clatter, Anne and clear areas, tender
they clear. You really interesting, and I think a lot of people are surprised by that Alice Directive. That is in they sort of like look there's just always gonna be this mountain of stuff on the counter but and any just grows and grows
rose and, and then you lose important things and people just dumb stuff there, and it feels like you know it feels intractable, but when you clear it off, first of all, things look more at a place like if you put a piece of paper on a completely clear counter, you're like. Why is this piece of paper here? If there's a salad
things on a counter like. Well, I mean you know we might as well be here is anyplace else until it is really true that if you clear things out, they tend to stay clear. Also, if you clear things out, it's easier to put things away, and I talk to
people where it like Elsie Picture, like their kids river there like what is it my kid put away his toys like that that that room is so jam pact was double. They could probably just can't
jam it in there. They don't have that less strength like stick em in other stuff to animal in their hard enough that it stays was sure because its human nature, the harder something is to do the list
likely you are to do it, we're very, very influenced by convenient sings,
Convenient were much more likely to do. I read about this in my book about habit change better than before its comical. How much even the slightest change inconvenience inflexible in thy house? No one could be bothered to hang up their cuts. We just clearly. This is just to taxing and overwhelming for the members of my family, and I include myself in them. So finally, it dawned on me to get hooks so now we have hooks and our complies it and we actually used the hooks. It's just that much easier to use a hook than a hanger
that now people who use the hooks since then as it is like looking for those little that that little bit of convenience can make the difference
lastly, just any other little, because that that such a great suggestion, because people do use hooks they'll, be noted that we ve used hook since kindergarten when we went to school and put our cuts out and yet
for some reason. Putting this is something on a hanger and stuffing
the closet that that's just too much work. So what
what other little short cut tips like that? If any, can you share and then we'll call it a day love one day this is a huge morale booster and I would not. I would not think this would be such a big deal.
Such I've seen it over and over again. Is it here too, if your tackling a closed closet like a code closet, are you know your mink closed closet, take out all the extra hangers for summaries and many people have lots and lots and lots and lots of extra hangers, and they take up a lot of room. Even I'm, very slender hangar takes up a lot of room and you don't realize how many hangers you have. If you take it, I was helping. One friend move he was like laboratory
stood by how many hangers had just gotten stuck in their. We took them out. It was like he had a third more space even before we started dealing with the close. So that's it. That's a very easy morale booster thing
I think your suggestions are right. On the money I mean, who hasn't looked in their closet and seen a million hangers that you'll never use being ever do anything about them, we'll get rid of them and imagine how much more space you'll have Gretchen
Reuben has been my guest. She is host
the podcast happier with Gretchen Reuben Cheese, the author of several books, her latest is called outer or
inner com,
clutter and organise to make room for happiness and you
find a link to her book at Amazon.
In the show notes thanks Gretchen thank you yourself,
Do you appreciate it?
Did you
Take calculus in school,
I'll kill us
of high school math for that matter fallen,
that category of things you think you're never gonna need in real life, so why do we have to learn it? But actually
calculus is a big part of your real life in ways you may not know without it, for example,
There would be no cell phones or tv or GPS.
we may not know how to treat aids and we may have never discovered Neptune, calculus,
as it turns out, is fast
bathing and somewhat
really helps bring it to life. Is Stephen Stroll gets he's a professor
applied mathematics. It coronel an author of the book in
finish powers? How calculus reveals the seek
its of the universe, a Stephen. I Michael wonderful to be with you so
is calculus. How do you? How do you define it?
it's a branch of math that we use whenever we want to study something that's changing continuously. Why is it that culture?
this just the word calculus scene.
to evoke those- oh, my god, it's just so hard. So why is it so hard
There are just so many different techniques to learn.
a lot of jargon, lots of theorems to memorize and it is
actually very difficult.
So there is a lot of things up against anyone trying to learn it, but the pay off is that it's one of the good,
Just ideas that humanity has ever come up with.
a sense of our world in flux. So
the climb is worth the effort, but
plain people for finding a difficult. It is difficult to took thousands of years for humanity to figure it out, and these are some of the smartest people of all time. People like Archimedes, an Isaac Newton in also
it's a miracle, maybe that any high school kid can
and this stuff, you know, I mean
Maybe we should look at it that way be thankful that the third kids who can understand it, because
you're playing the game with some of the smartest people of all time. Give me a quick as quick
and simple an example of calculus, as you can,
suppose I my shop put her? You know I'm on my track and field team and I wanna
throw the shot as far as possible. What angle should I launched at you notion-
obviously, if you push it straight up, it is going to come straight up and land at your feet. You're not gonna, get any distance. If you do that,
and, if you push it outside ways in a letter
is not the direction. That's not gonna work either. It's gonna just go thought after a short distance. So the
if you want to throw something as far as possible or launch a missile as far as possible are pursued, a shot put as far as possible is to aim at a forty five degree angle from the horizontal
that might seem like common sense, but to really prove it. You'd have to track the path of that that ball the shot.
And with calculus. We can do that, but we can also solve that optimization problem of ask you know. What's the answer to the question, what the best angle,
That's one of the places they calculus gets used a lot when we're trying to solve for the bastard.
Asked us or the cheapest count,
this can answer. Questions like that is that the best anger
forty five degrees if you're throwing a shot put it
It turns out forty five degrees is the best. If you can ignore air resistance, which, for a shot put, is true. If you
playing badminton? Were air resistance? Is important,
ping pong
that would necessarily be or even golf. You know I mean that's a course in issue for someone hitting
driver. They want to go as far as it can down the fair way. You don't
the too high or two flat
a forty five degrees is probably close to your best angle, but I think I'll be a little more complicated with a golf ball because of the turbulence
The ball encounters as it goes through the air and
so, if that's calculus, if that's
good example of calculus, how do we get to self,
tvs, GPS, ultra sound and everything else that calculus they re about how to what? What's clerk its
It seems like a leap to get there. It does
it's because I'm giving you kind of everyday examples, but really the
great triumph of calculus is when we apply it to the laws of nature.
we talk about deeper things like how electricity works or how magnetism works,
there. Now that was something that scientists figured out in the eighteen hundreds through
experiments with magnets in electrical currents and when they
and called the information that they found in their experiments into mathematical symbolism. They found
the language of calculus was exactly the language needed to describe what what was going on, but then him
thing. Is that with the logic of calculus, as opposed to the language of it,
that the system of reasoning that calculus provided showed that electricity and magnetism could kind of dance together in there
in the form of their electric field and magnetic field they could do
together through empty space and
the gate as a wave at the speed of light,
and in tat moment that the scientists, James Cork Maxwell, figured out that electromagnetic waves would move at the speed of light.
He suddenly realised that you could have wireless communication
could use electricity and magnetism to send
messages, you know across ocean.
and continents, and it was just a matter of a few years after that people, like Marconi in Tesla, invent
the first
Grason and radios, and so was then
kind of a short hop too
television and ultimately cell phones and Wireless
but it was because this fundamental work on
Christy and magnetism and the implications that were drawn from them using calculus. As a reasoning technique
is calculus away of discovering or is calculus away of, explaining a discover well, both yeah. It's definitely both
I mean sometimes also an example of the explanation aspect would be
Isaac Newton use Calculus to explain why the planet's move, the way they do, people
for him, like your Highness Kepler had and Copernicus famously had realized that the
and its move around the sun and not the other way around, but
Kepler showed that planets move in his shape of a specific curve called in a lip
a kind of oval shaped curve, but he could
explain why.
And it was only with calculus and
Newton's laws of motion and gravity that the explanation client finally came that it it followed by pure logic, from the law of gravity.
And you could only see that if you use calculus so so that a case where calculus was explaining, but it's also
a tool for discovering you know like in the case of Maxwell, end
draw magnetic waves
or when Einstein predicted the phenomena
of stimulated a mission of atoms which also
he gave us lasers,
So, where else or how else is calculus you do we use it and not know we use it as it is part of our lives or is it strictly something math
petitions do
Oh, it's everywhere it's so you know when you go home tonight, if you get lost and you need your gps to tell you how to find the right way home
gps- is a wonder of calculus, but were not aware of that. I mean for us:
this gadget. That seems to know how to get anywhere from anywhere. But but how does it really work? Its use?
all kinds of math its using geometry? Triangulate distances to four
front satellites that are overhead in the global positioning system
communicating with the receiver in your car
but the interesting thing I mean one of the many amazing things is that those satellites are moving at such high speeds that Einstein
theory of relativity, comes into play and claws
this time to speed up or slow down for the atomic
books that are on board those satellites and so
What I'm driving at is that for the gps system to work correctly, you have to make corrections that only Einstein knew about because of calculus,
and then those corrections are being made using calculus and without them the whole gps system would fall apart in about twenty minutes and it wouldn't work.
You know I mean everything that we use it for from navigation to financial transactions, to military applications to put a missile
in all through Saddam Hussein's window or something that would all
all apart without calculus you'd,
though, about the how calculus is
important in a lot of inventions, microwave ovens in cat skins and things in Athens.
Try to figure out here is: is it because people
sit down with their calculus book and invent the microwave ovens or the cat scan machine or is it
invention that happens and calculus is used as a way to explain how it works. Well, we
both you know, the Heavens
this is where calculus led to predictions that then led to the creation of device. So an example, or two of that would be
if you on,
check into a hospital and a need to have a cat scan the cat scan, which
has been a revolution in medicine, because it allows us to see things that were invisible to ordinary x rays.
You know in the old days, if, for instance, if you had a blood clots in your brain or a hemorrhage or a brain tumor, no, no doctor what
if that were the x rays, because the x rays would just show a Morpheus gray. Mass in your brain x rays are
hard structures like bones and and teeth, but
Off tissues like the brain x rays were useless
but then in the nineteen sixties, a couple of different actually is
the people of Europe. What you're talking to people having the same idea around the same time
two different scientists in different continents figured out there,
You could shoot x rays from many different directions and take many images
Instead of just one
that you could recombine them using calculus to see images even of soft tissues in and, like I say, blood clots and brain haemorrhages and things
and so that was a triumph of calculus that led to the development of cities scans. Amid they didn't get create,
first and then calculus was used to annul
then it was really calculus. That said, they should
possible, and it was
later that inventions like that were made ass. She there's a little too
to that story that I like to throwing here, which is that
company that funded the development of the first cat scan
devices was a company in England called E. Am I
and I'm guessing. You might have heard of yeah my electric and music industries desiring any belfry. Of course. What what are you thinking? I'm thinking
the record company that the Beatles recorded for exactly exactly bingo
and the reason that I was able to fund the development
this pie in the sky technology of cities, Ganz, is that they had signed is banned from live
war which had suddenly made them an enormous pile of money, and so they had all
Cash around and they took a shot
cities, gas what's interest,
thing is that to me? Is that when you hear about the kinds of
techie inventions, you
the phrase it was a triumph of calculus, I've
ever heard. Anybody
say we ve invented this thing and it is a triumph of calculus. It's never. That
that's some kind of Roddy Dangerfield phenomenon, we're getting any respect. We we, it is calculus. But let me not exaggerate. You know, for the sake of my own credibility here and to tell the truth, which is that
oculus
and really all of science and technology. As a team effort that the calculus
is a part of science. It's the math that all scientists learn, and this is the answer to your earlier question of why our students,
being made to learn calculus in high school in college, every engineer every physicist and and
Increasingly every biologist and every person who does high tech and finance
to learn calculus is, as I say, it's the language of change, and so,
it's an essential part of the toolkit for anybody. But it's not enough calking
can't do all these things on its own. You need that
acknowledges building things.
in all the guys who built the city scanners had to be wizards out electrical engineering and material science
and the same thing with them
radio and telegraph those people were inventors. You know we think of Tesla Marconi as inventors, but yet there
we have been able to think of their ideas without the fact that
that Maxwell had shown years earlier that this was theoretically possible. They gave them
of doing what they ultimately did so yeah calculus think of it ass, a supporting player.
In a sort of theatrical production. Maybe you know it's one of the actors. It's a bit part, nobody ever notice is it, but it is key to the drama
it is key to the drama and an you're right. I think you need more respect. You don't get the respect that
It seems that you deserve in because I mean I just never hear people talk about. Well, if it wasn't for calculus, we wouldn't have this. Nobody ever
Is that that's true
and that's one reason. I wrote this book on that. I feel that
calculus is under appreciated and
truly one of the greatest ideas of all time, the Ets
up there with evolution,
the idea of human rights and democracy
the idea of the
in theory. Helping us understand, you know
atoms and how they work that gave us all of twentieth century technology.
You wouldn't have quantum theory
do calculus
I mean the language of all of physics is calculus, so those of us
I've, been trained in very advanced
makes in science and math know this, but on
public doesn't know it by enlarge, and certainly
is the real shame. The kid going through high school, taking their advance placement, coarse and calculus, doesn't know it either, and maybe they're teacher doesn't even know it because everybody's in such a big rush to get the kid ready for the eight p test at the end of the year that there,
time to talk about history in context and
You know we haven't even only talked about the human stories, you know what was Isaac Newton like or what was archimedes like these guys are all wild characters is interesting as Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci or any of the other great geniuses of history motor.
The bottom. What what makes them so wild?
when I hear about Archimedes, which you know just for most people sounds like another old greek name: here's a guy,
living around two hundred fifty BC he's on the island of Sicily. In it
call Syracuse and
this problem, which is that he and everyone in his town- or you know the romans- would love to take over Syracusan, so their besieging the city
archimedes who's. The guy who gives us the principle
the lever. You know he understands how levers work and how you can use them to great advantage to lift heavy things here
he figured out rules for how ships flow and how things balance that that is he's disk
The laws of buoyancy he's also
discovered how to analyze curve shapes, which was it
the problem and geometry at the time, so he can make parable
like mirrors and all kinds of other interesting gadgets. But anyway he turns out to be a great warrior scientists
helps his city defend themselves against the Romans by on
inventing giant cranes that can lift the roman ships out of the water and shaped
soldiers out of, unlike shaking sand out of a shoe
he's just a wild ban. But he also is one of the greatest geniuses in history. Mathematically, in that he anticipates ideas of calculus by about two thousand years,
to modern day life, how is calculus being used?
now and in the recent past, to
help with other inventions, other development, other breakthroughs, yeah,
I think a key surprise
and another case of calculus as unsung hero is,
story of how,
finally managed to turn aids into account
illness instead of a near certain death sentence,
at first the symptoms were, you know, maybe you'd feel like yet the flu or you had a really bad called for a couple weeks, but then you get over it then here
your by usually
after about ten years,
the virus would suddenly come
come raging out and and people would get really sick and then start to show all the symptoms of full blown aids and after that they would die within a year or two so
what's going on in their body during that mysterious ten year interlude
when they were asymptomatic? That was the big question in the nineteen Eightys and Ninetys and and so
I'm telling you all this is their calculus was a key part of
understanding. Why
What's going on, I mean it used to be thought that the virus was hiding out in the body and hibernating, but with
map of calculus ink through the work of a future
mathematicians who collaborated with various doctors. The most famous
which being Doktor David HO
was time magazines man of the year and ninety. Ninety six, it was discussed
that during this ten year, quiet
period
HIV was not actually hibernating in the body. It was an all out raging war,
the bodies immune system and with them
of the math, it was discovered that about a billion virus particles a day or two
produced by the by the virus.
That same billion particles was being cleared out by the immune system, was exam.
opposite of hibernation. It was like I say, an all out: furious war, one last
example, of how calculus works in life today that people might be not know
We all walk around with phones nowadays that have
for many of us
thousands of songs on our phone or what
The photographs of our loved ones and endorses
you of how do you compress a big file so that it fits on your phone?
it turns out. Calculus has the answer to that one
he was. We can find the optimal way of compressing, music and video so that it fits in a small space. But it does
degrade in its resolution or equality, so there is a very
Practical use of calculus that, were you know
we're all making use of every day without it.
Appreciating all the math that went behind it,
I love math and science,
good at either one. But I love that
topics, and I really appreciate when someone like you can explain it so well and make it come to life
Stephen straw gets has been my guest he's a professor of applied mathematics at Coronel, and his book is called
infinite powers. How calculus reveals the secrets of the universe there's a linked.
Book in the show notes
thanks for being here, Stephen thanks very much Michael
one often talked about benefit of pet ownership. Is that petting or other physical contact with your pet can
lower your blood pressure off and offer other health benefits
So if petting, your dog is good while hugging your dog must be great right.
maybe for you, but definitely not for your dog. There are
Few things you need to understand about this door
eggs are cursory all animals, in other words, when dogs are stressed out or threatened, their instinct is not defined,
but to run away behaviour.
I believe that depriving a dog of that course of action by immobilizing him with a hug can increase
stress levels in the dog, and if it
dog's anxiety become significantly intense. He may bite
For that reason, certain websites try to educate children and parents to teach their children not to
dogs, so they don't get bitten. Another thing
it's important to understand. Is that you?
I think that your dog likes to be hugged, but the truth is
we're very bad at reading. Stress signals in doggie behaviour
in a random search of two hundred and fifty internet photos of dogs being hugged by people. Eighty,
two percent of the dogs showed signs of stress, but to the
untrained eye, the dog look fine,
so petting your dog, his great huh,
Your dog is not
oh great aunt,
actually dangerous in that is.
Something you should know in a. We are
this close to getting
five thousand ratings and reviews on apple podcast. You could help us reach that goal, and it would only take us
Second, just head over to apple pie, castle, leave a rating and review, preferably of
I've star one. Those are those are the ones we like the best I might
brothers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know,
some people successful. How can I help you on your journey, find out with tall re researchers here way? He is the man behind saw explode or one of the great podcast beg you. You wanted certainly never taken for granted,
that somebody knows that pronouncement,
which I imagine do something you have to deal with
there are certain pronunciation that I will accept. I imagine
people like look at your name paid nor, like me, out to deal with the other hand, the veneer Tommy show where ever you get your PA gas
Transcript generated on 2022-02-22.