Somehow blue jeans, which are basically just work clothes, became this worldwide fashion staple, and have remained so for decades. How did that happen? This episode begins by discussing the origins of jeans and how they became such a big deal. Source: James Sullivan, author of Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon (https://amzn.to/2F0wyID)
Do coincidences happen for a reason or are they just quirky random events? Why is it so hard to find a 4-leaf clover – or any other plant with 4 leaf clusters? Is there a better day to buy lottery tickets than another day? These are just some of the fascinating life questions tackled by Rob Eastaway, author of the book Why Do Buses Come in Threes?: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life (https://amzn.to/2FEWfib)
Where do you come from and what are you made of? It appears we are made from recycled atoms that have come from parts of stars, dinosaurs and even other people. Science writer Brian Clegg author of the book What Do You Think You Are? The Science of What Makes You You (https://amzn.to/35TifRq) joins me to discuss the latest science about what goes in to making you what you are. And he explains how and why you are uniquely different from everybody and everything else in the universe.
You probably know that laughing is good for you and crying is as well. In fact, laughing and crying are really very similar. Listen as I discuss the fine line between laughing and crying and the many benefits of both. https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/07/curious-behvaior-provine/
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today on something you should know, how did blue jeans become so fashionable and iconic all around the world, then coincidences do they happens for a reason. Are they trying to tell us something? We love the romance of coincidences, but they are bound to happen, and it would always be an amazing coincidence if you went for ten fifteen twenty years and nothing really free here. Amazing happened in that time, because some things some is destined to happen. Also, what's the difference between laughing and cry not much, and what makes you you'd be Adamson molecules you are made from: where did they come from? There are items in your body that for once and dinosaurs, pretty well any living thing you think of other eventually ended up
in your body, it's better ten year cycle, pretty well all of the items your body will replace in the last ten years or so
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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 make her rather tight. Welcome
You know it's amazing to think about how many men, women, boys and girls, all
The world will
blue jeans every day or something
of genes every day. For the most part.
Blue jeans, are thought of as all american, although technically denham work, clothes were worn in europe over two hundred years ago in eighty
seventy three levi strauss came out with the first pair of american blue jeans. It was the copper rivets
that made them unique and very durable,
How did work close become so fashionable well genes
came fashionable because of western movies
the early movie cowboys wore a lot of fringe and frills, but in the night,
in the thirties and forties actors like John wayne, began wearing denim, because
I thought it was more authentic and that start
the fashion trend that continues till today.
By the way, the most money ever paid for a pair of blue jeans was forty, six
thousand five hunt
in thirty two dollars it was paid by the Levi strauss company for a pie?
of minors genes from be eighteen eighties, and that
something? You should know
we humans
like to know the reason why, when something here,
bends. We want to know how come what caused it. For example, why
you. Coincidences happened. Why did traffic jams occur for no apparent reason? Why is it almost impossible to find a
or leaf clover in your front yard,
is it so hard to get the temper
of your shower just right. While you were about to get some answers to these and other interesting life, questions from rob, east away he's the author of the book. Why do buses come in threes, the hidden mathematics of everyday life?
I robbed welcome. Thank you very much. So what is it about the number three we hear all kinds of things happen in threes. What what why three? I think in life it that there is-
lots of situations of the rule of three? Were comedians use, hitters? Well, actually, first time something happens. Ok, you register it when it happens a second time you think, ok, I've noticed it's happened when I was at the time, as our brains are wide to think right. There's a pattern here so
help me? So when the third one is more significant? So when things happen in threes generally, I think ass humans, we
a curious to know what's going on, and we assume that cause, even if does not necessarily cause interesting, that we talk about
His fortunes in life, you know, unlucky, things are
the bad things always happened to me in threes I mean the truth: is they don't, but will
tend to notice them when they happen in threes. You know so a friend my get
Well, we might, you know, have some kind of
grape on the car and then we're almost looking out for bad things to happen, and we really noticed that third thing and will reinforce this myth that bad things happening.
Raise while others that all thing about celebrity deaths always happen in threes, but they actually don't they don't exactly which just reinforcing
a myth we ve all heard, and it is justice innate wave of humans. Counting of
three is enough to be significant and to register.
Aids has party one of the most important numbers in terms of looking for things in life, so where things happening in threes is yet is intriguing.
Why is it so hard to find a fourleaf clover? It's a classic thing that fully
Those are the things you should be searching for and in fact, if you look out in your yard right in the park or whatever and are looking for flowers and count the petals or count the leaves,
on a daisy. Whatever
There are some numbers that seem to crop up form far more often than others in leaves and petals, and
A particularly common number is five, but quite often you'll see three you
might often see eight, you might see certain
and there is a connection between these numbers and its.
Sequence known as the fibonacci sequence, and it was
note about and discovered way back in twelve thirteenth century,
when an italian mathematician who got nickname fibonacci first,
a story about it, but the patent itself. You can recreate it by
starting with the numbers. One and one you out,
together one and one makes to then you take the previous
number. So now, one in two makes three two and three makes five thrive.
I've makes eight, so you can see how I make each number by just adding the previous two, and you could write this out. Five and eight is thirteen now for very subtle reasons, these phenomena
She numbers turn out to have particular properties that make them crop up in natural growing things in plants, in particular in petals, and it's a wonderful things
five tends. Five tends to be the most common number of petals on a flower and the reason why it's five and not sex or because is because five is a fibonacci number. You gonna sort of have to take my word for it that fibonacci numbers are connected to another beautiful thing in mass, which is known as the golden ratio, which is,
a particular shape. A rectangle, a particular ratios of the two sides were particular rectangle, which has some very lovely and elegant properties.
Was known about by Leonardo Da Vinci and he, I think, probably made it most famous most popular. He experimented with it. He felt it was the source of the most beautiful shapes here,
a famous image of a man which was where every part of the body was in the ratio of this, so called golden ratio, which is about one point, six. Something and the reason why it's linked with nature is because it such a.
An efficient ratio is a beautiful ratio plants make use of it to space out petals to give themselves the best chance to get as much sunlight as possible. Answer
fourleaf clovers? Then are just an anomaly yeah. If you found one, it's not a thing,
Not she number so nature isn't naturally gonna produce things in force unless it does so by spitting two's. Cause too is a uneasiness,
to make, and it's also a fibonacci number. So you say that is
better to buy a lottery ticket on friday, I've I've I've got plenty of tickets every day,
the weak they? Never they never winds. What, but why why Friday aids? Well, it does depend on it. I know: lottery jewels happened on different days of the week, so let's take the uk lottery
where I know that the drawer happens on saturday. The idea
not so much there's anything special about buying on friday, but to just recognised that lotteries. Winning lotteries is extra
the difficult its is extremely unlikely you will win and therefore, when something is so unlikely, you have to start thinking well look,
other things are more likely than this, and so, if we go back to my original theme of buses, then I'm not very many people. In a year,
on knocked over by a boss, but it's
gotta one in.
Two million chance or whatever happening to you over a twenty four hour period, is partly rather less than that. But the point is there comes a point where, if you by your lottery ticket to work,
he then you're more likely to meet some gruesome end light being knocked over by a bus than you are to actually make it as far as picking up your winning numbers. So the tip is to wait as long as possible to buy you're taking it so that at least you have a chance of. If you do winner of celebrating and and enjoying the expert,
so this has nothing to do with increasing your chances is just has to do with surviving, to celebrate exactly
I can't increase your chances of winning the lottery and it will you have unless you buy lots of tickets. Of course, the more tickets you buy, the more chance you have of winning, although there is a tip
lotteries across the world? Actually, one way of you, you and increase your chance of winning, but will you do with
you want to win and not have to share the jackpot with lots of other people. So the idea is to pick numbers that other people don't
and it seems to be a curiosity of the way people are the are lucky. Numbers tend to be linked with things like birthdays,
months of the year, and so so there's a disproportionate number of people who pick numbers in the rage, one to thirty one
which is the maximum number of days there are in a month. So
your lottery happens to include numbers that are higher than thirty one. Then taking us
string of numbers that are bigger than thirty one is good, because
numbers that are less likely to be picked by other people. So that's the that's the secret really the other thing to point out with lottery numbers. As you know, some selections of lottery numbers look random. You know if I picked two
eight, twelve twenty one, thirty seven, you might say: oh yeah, that's good! That's nice and random and if I picked
one, two, three, four, five, six, you think all that I'll never turn up. I won't pick one with such a patent. What the truth is both of those selections I just gave you are equally luck.
To happen. The reason why we never see one two three four five six come up is that it
millions tijuana gates that it will but then is also millions to one against the whatever I said to four twelve thirty one would come up to so we
This is sort of policy of thinking that certain patterns,
more likely than others, whereas there all equally likely. So you can improve your chances by simply trying to not think, like all other people think
One other thing I would say to that. I mentioned o one two three, four five six is just as likely as any other combination. There's a lot of mathematicians out
who know this, and they think I'm gonna be small
Because I know one two three, four five six is just as little
anything else, so I will take those numbers. The trouble is if those numbers ever come up,
lottery anywhere in the world. There will be tens of thousands of smart people out there who did the same thing so you'll end up sharing it with all his people and not getting much money yourself. So don't try to be too clever because, as other clever folk,
their who will ruin it for you. We are talking about these fascinating little life questions and why they happen, and my guess is rob east away. He's author of the book
Why do buses come in threes, the hidden mathematics of everyday life, so rob once them
ass behind why it is so hard to like when you turn on the shower, took him to get the temperature just right: it's either too hot, and then it gets too cold. It's really hard to get it just right
The reason why this is
you're. Getting this oscillating temperature is never right is to do with the way. Your reacting to something that happened a few seconds ago, zeb over time like you, haven't, waited until the right temperature got through the system, so hot and cold shower overhauled and overcome showers as a part of a general
enough of systems and how systems behave and how we react to things. Undone, it's a really interesting part of applied mass because it explain
a lot of what happens in the world. You know we react to things thinking you start hearing.
We're running low on toilet roles
everyone's buying toiler roles seek out and buy them and therefore other people start buying, moved and, and suddenly the nation is short of toilet roses. It there's a crisis, will actually there's not a crisis.
Just where reacting to quickly to something rather letting the system settled.
so there's cause and effect in something that happens caused you to take another action which happens to another action, or the knock on effect is fascinating.
To model and when you understand it and when you stepped back and look at the often mathematical relationship
the way things are going up and down so, and it can help you to
take cooler and more recent decisions by just saying. Ok, let's look at the big picture here, not just an immediate things, but I need to respond to
straight away: traffic jams. I find interesting. I'm I'm not sure why. I guess, because
so often traffic jams happen for no reason them and the traffic clears up, and it's very frustrating. Why why? Why does that happen whose screwed this up? I imagine there some interesting
if there are physics or something going on there, it's because of a knock on effect of you reacting to the person in front of you, you rat too quickly, and you put your brakes on too fast. The car behind catches up with you and it can in the wrong circumstances, just cause all the cars to stop
There wasn't a front, then stop going again and they led off and you can work
from the air it looks like this pulse is passing through
Cause as if it knows what's going on, but actually this is just individual humans,
read the way they react, causing the whole system to flow or not flow, which is why sometimes, we need traffic signals to tell us what to do to control us to say: don't try driving too fast, because if you will try and drive too fast, ironically, you might all end up going much
because you have a knock on effect on each other or something I've always wondered about data? I I've been stuck in traffic jams is, I am sure everyone has where york your car
creeping along for a long time, and- and there is no reason
where it there's no accident, there's no nothing. But at some point it does just open up and why does it open up their what what
happened that all of a sudden, now we can all go.
There so so many things that could be causing it, but it might have been
temporary thing that caused a driver near the front of what became the jam to slow down slightly
bizarrely, sometimes it seeing an accident or seeing a police car, that's pulled up whatever people stop to look
as soon as one person has slowed down, that pulse of slowing down is going to feed all the way back, but it goes to the person at the front is now free to go again. Nothing ever does nothing of a physically stop them they,
ass may be slowed down a little bit, so I think very often it will be caused by one individual, not driving smoothly. Just just
slowing down for what ever reason they might have been reaching over for a coffee cup or who knows what reason the knock on effect that can escalate so eventually behind them. Some people stop, because we can see that that guy at the front never had anything was actually stopping them, so
We just releasing the pressure out again at the front and it works its way back through the job. So I want to add a change topics here and talk about coincidences cause. I think they're so interesting, because everybody
experiences in their life.
using coincidences and I think it's very human, to want to find an explanation. Why
I did that happen. What is it
mean and
What does that mean? Well, yet we we love
coincidence is- and I think most people have had some
Amazing coincidence happen to them. I've had several, I think, one
in my mind, was a time when I was with a friend
her daughter was there and I was drawing a little picture for the daughter and I drew a moon in the sky and I was making it up as I went along as it. Oh, you can tell from the moon. The date must be august. The seventeenth I just completed
that out of nowhere? I done a wide and said it and the mother said. I can't believe you just said that, because august, the seventeenth is our daughters birthday and it's my birthday and it's my husband's birthday and is this guy cold shudder of how this is just amazing? It was meant to be an when we
We hear coincidence is it comes back to this cause and effect thing. We assume there was a reason why this happened: something psychic, something whatever, but actually the thing about coincidences. They are going to happen by chance,
One way to look at coincidences is to say look how many opportunities are therefore a coincidence to happen in a day,
and you imagine you know I came home from work
damn I just as I got
whom I saw someone and their name was completely different from mine and their number plate was completely unrelated to my so lots of none.
Coincidence is happening all the time. We don't notice them, and you know they happen in the hundreds.
And thousands and millions over years, so many chances for currencies to happen. We just don't notice. The boar
things were to unconnected things came together. What
Suddenly there lined up two names of the same.
neighbor. We see when we're on
today. You know someone in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't expect to see you here. We notice those and, and they freak us out what we love the romance of coincidences
they are bound to happen, and it would always be an amazing coincidence if you went for ten fifteen twenty years and nothing really free here, amazing
to you in that time, because something somewhere is destined to happen. Just like rolling dyson. Getting three six is come up. My favorite coincidence example. Sometimes math will actually.
Throw up examples which give coincidence is more often than you'd expects, and that is what sometimes called the birthday paradox.
You imagine you're in a group of thirty people, which is about the size of a typical class at school or whatever, and you think okay. Well, I wonder what the chances are that in that group of thirty, two people have the same birthday and
There are three hundred and sixty five days in a year, so you think well, thirty people out of friendly sixty five to with the same birthday, a kind of feels like a
in ten- they. It doesn't sound like it's likely at all, because that's not many people and that's a lot of birthdays. Now, I'm going to state to the factor which is which is
extremely counter intuitive. If there are thirty people in room, then there's a way higher than fifty. Fifty charles is like a sixty percent chance that there will be at least two people in that room who have the same birthday, and I do this as a little stunt. If I got a big audio,
If I've got fifty or more people, I say I feel an energy coming from you as a room, I think, to have you got a saint birthday and
I don't know who it is. But I can I can sense it now and I go around the room and they always works and the reason why works? You think how many different combinations they're all of those thirty people, this there's twenty
and people could be paired with an a and another. Twenty eight could be paired with Burton sony Adam all, acting as acid has hundreds of different possible pairs in this room,
so. Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised if one of those paths of all this combination do have the same birthday, so is the law of numbers and big numbers in the end coincidences happen, but in the end, as a coincidence phenomenon
is one of my favorites, because it feels so surprising and you can do it as a as a little stunned at
it is or whatever I bet, there's two people in this room have the same birthday and you can win bets on it. It's great fun talk about that black and white hat game that you play.
the cause I've been thinking about it ever since I read about it, and it's really interesting is a little game I play where I have
to volunteers, common sit faced facing each other on chairs in front of an audience and I have in a bag. Three hats to them
black cats and one of them is a white house and then come from behind
and each of my volunteers. So they can't see, I put a hat on each of them, so they can't see what hats.
their own head, but they can see what is on the other person's head.
And what they dont know is I put a black hat on each of their head, sir member. There were two black hats one. Why hat.
and they're sitting there looking at the other person, they can see a black hat. I say right, I want you to put your hand up, who will be the first, a few who can predict with pure logic what hat is on your own head now? This is a quite famous puzzled, but
love, what happens in the real world, because with most adults in the real world, what they do is they look at the other person? They think
the wearing of black hat, I know there were to be,
some one white. So I'm
the wearing a white or black, and I don't know which it is an both of something that way and you can wait,
thirty seconds a minute, and they just sit there saying I just don't know, but actually what they should be able to do if they think about a bit further is think. Well, what is the other person thinking if you go the extra step and say
Let suppose I've got a white hat on. Does anyone why hat the guy opposite is not stupid, so
they can see a white hat, they'll put their hands and say I must be wearing a black hat. That has not happened. Why has that?
happened. The only reason has not happened over the last thirty seconds is because I must be wearing a black hat, so it should be possible to deduce that europe
a black hat in that game and the puzzle books say that's what happens. The real life says, it very rarely happens, and I just find out fascinating and there's a broader principle of logic and life in statistics that I find really interesting with that game. Because often we can t do things not just from what were told.
but also from what, where not told, but this has been really fun in and its answered some questions and I think a m
but he has because all these things happen to all of us and we always
or why and and now we know why rob easter ways been my guest he's author of the book. Why do buses come in threes, the hidden mathematics of everyday life, and you will find a linked to that
book in the show notes. Thank you for coming on here. Rob thanks MIKE, that's been really fun
The
If I were to ask you where do you come from
probably say from your parents. They made you and that sort of right, but its own,
part of the answer. According to Brian clegg,
Brian is a science writer whose written several popular science books, including what do you
thank you are the science of what makes you you, which is what he's here, to talk about it
So, generally, when we talk about people we talk about who we are not what we are. So this is kind of
This is really kind of an interesting way to come at this. They talk about the
atoms in the molecules in the cells that make up what we are. I think it's just fascinating,
what human beings are in our brains are incredibly complex things. The most complex thing we know
The universe and basically in its eyes, is where we came from
everybody's interested in and where you come from yourself, I wanted to find stuff out for myself and hoped I could put this across
So when you ask people you know, where do you come from? What are you made of you know you usually get the answers of. You know its evolution. I came from my parents, I'm you know a result of the two of them and I'm it
is our general understanding of who we are close to accurate.
or are we way off? I don't think so.
An accurate accurately more that we just see a tiny part of the picture. So that is not just about your parents, not just, but your family tree, but is also the case.
parliament's the night you up, which came from stars it's about how the earth was formed
billions of years ago and pretty? Well, all the items that are in your body were already there on the earth when it formed its, but all sorts of things that have come together to make you the? U unique person that you are
So since you mentioned that you know it, we come from the stars. That's a pretty provocative idea, so so ex so explain that x,
late, where what we are. What makes us chauvelin, we might have a vitamin and those items have been here as a safe of the life of the earth before that there were floating around in space and they
only the came from the big bang. Thirteen point eight billion years ago, when the hybrid.
And the universe was first formed or what
the stars are really great big factories for turning small items into bigger ones and over time they stars make the heavier atoms
explode as they get old and those items assent, fly across the universe and eventually came together to make first earth, and eventually you
to those items have been in other plants other animals. We know, for instance, that there are atoms in your body that were once in dinosaurs
and pretty well any living thing you think of and eventually ended up in your body how? How did they get there?
atoms get into us simply by us eating, so we will eat stuff. We will brief stuff in that as those items right there,
and they get incorporated into our body as we grow over time. All the atoms in your body pretty well, will get replaced it spatter ten year cycle that pretty well. Everything in your body gets replaced some of its lot quicker.
but we pretty well all of the atoms, your body, but the rims replacing thus ten years. I say well that brings up a question that I have
I never have gotten a really could answer to that. I've wondered you ok, so you say that the Adams get replaced every ten years or so, but I have also heard people say that
you slough off cells and that you're a different person every couple of months. So can you reconcile that for me? Why
bits of your changing all the time. Some of the things that change fastest, for instance, of the red blood cells in your body, they dont last very long at all the last a day or two and the scepticism
excels, as you say, always canal, your hair, other parts of your body do eventually come off, but if you look through the whole body, you'd think, for instance, your bones that there is some of the things that take the
just for this, the atoms in them to be replaced, and but over time this all happens. So the different parts are being replaced by a different timescales
How are humans unique? Are we so indifferent, then
creatures. Are we if you under the microscope, are we all more or less the same answer
Well, we are, I mean if you look at genetics, for instance, they, the gene that
fines really how
animals or plants is put together, then we aren't hugely different from
some of the other animals were only a few small percentage points different from other apes
uneven with something like say: a banana does might be fifty percent of the genes or duplicated, but it's not just about genetics. One of the huge thing that's my makes, is very different.
From the other animals is those brains are mentioned as a far more complex than other animals brains and, as far as we are aware,
There are other animals like to many of the things with those brains that we can say they don't cry
stories. They don't create technology, yes, they might have little tools and things use a piece of wood.
not that, but we are on a totally different scale to any other animal that we know,
There are a good understanding of what it means to be alive
in a word word this pile of atoms that came from dinosaurs in outer space, but so, as I imagine so as iraq, but the rock just sits there were alive. So what's the difference.
That is a really good question, because, to be honest, exactly pinning down what life is, is something that science really
hasn't and tawny managed to do so. Biologists will tell you that life involves various processes
so living things typically will grow day
They consume things to produce energy they give of waste.
they reproduce and
All these things come together to make something those living but actually saying what was that spark if you like, but the thing that makes the difference between something it's living and something that isn't living really is quite difficult to pin down one that things
that some scientists are starting to look at, is the way we deal with energy that living things can effectively push themselves away from their natural state because of the way they use energy, whereas say a rock just kind of sits there and is a rock
so there are differences but have really quite difficult to pin down. Yet I imagine if anyone could pin that down. That would unlock a lot
histories too. If we
had some understanding of what it meant to be alive. It definitely worth
and is also more than that with us, because we know where we are conscious from
as we take in the world around us, but that also it
is a real mystery of what consciousness is what it is
makes us able to have that fainting
being alive of related,
to the world around us in the way that perhaps a slug might not, for instance, or a fly or something on that. Well, that was gonna, be my next question is: what does it mean to think? Like you,
it would seem to be conscious. What is that even mean? But I guess that's a piece of what is
mean to be alive, the tribe is very special pay.
But we do know. Is that not everything we do is about consciousness? I don't know if you are a touch typist and a lot of people are where they can sit and type without looking at the keyboard. I can do that and I can type the letter h say
but I don't know why the letter h is on the keyboard. If you ask me, I cannot tell you where it is. I can just type it because it's not really a conscious action or if you drive a car, does a lot of things you do when you're driving that you don't actually have to think about. Oh I've got to push this lever. I've gotta turn this. It just happens as you go because we push it out of our consciousness, a lot of things that we two aren't consciously controlled, but there is this consciousness
something that apparently some some scientists actually believe. There isn't really a consciousness that it's only if you like an appearance of being conscious, but I think the majority would still through it
the something now and it's one of the biggest mysteries
I'm still today, lots and part of that. I guess part of that. Conversely,
uh, you know. Do we really have free will absolutely and in it, because that makes a huge difference, because if we don't have fremont will, is it really fair, for instance, to punish somebody
for something they do. Is they have no control over that? I think most of us would like to think there is such a thing is very well, but it is really difficult to pin down when you look at ways that coming from
Where is it happening, where's that free primo actually based on what is makes it hum
Isn't that weird, though, to think that there might be a possibility that this is
I'll programmed out, and it did
you really are not a participant you're, just like a chest: peace policy,
It goes by really all the way back to Isaac newton who had this idea of the
universe, being a little bit like clockwork, where everything happens and in principle
there's a french cited, the class who said no. If I knew everything about the way britain's put together, I should be able to predict everything perfectly into the future. Exactly what will happen
with everything. Naturally, modern science says it's not that simple, because quantum physics tells us that there's a lot of probability going on
things, don't just necessarily go one way or the other is. I need the chance. It'll do one thing a chance to do another, but even so it's easy to think this picture.
world where everything relates to each other. Everything goes forward like clockwork and if that were the case,
These then review on controlling what happens is just what will happen. I like to think we got free. Well, I have you do too.
yeah? I do but, but you also have to wonder why some things happen. You know that we just lids everybody has those experiences in life that
are either amazingly luckier, amazingly unlucky here, you just happened to do the right thing and you have to wonder: is it just in
chance random chances. Sooner or later, that's gonna happen, or is there a bigger picture here? I sunday thank those
There is a lot that is about luck. So, if you think of what makes as what we are in terms of, is it nature? Is it the way that were actually made genetically
or is it nurture? Is it our environment, then there's a lot of evidence that is random factors in the environment that have a huge impact on the way things turn out. You can be, you know a great writer, but never have the look to have your book right by the right people, so it gets published. You can be a great inventor.
and come up with a great idea, but the fact is, it never gets out there in the world can be extremely lucky. Make a guess on the stock market make yourself a millionaire, and the fact is that a lot of the influence is outside random inference
Whence luck, things that will change your life and the way you develop.
I so often think about
you just said about you here,
raise like J k, rolling writing harry potter in
and being turned down by all those publishers, and if she had given up, we would have never heard of Harry potter, and I thought
How many times has that happened
where the person did give up or they they just hit a brick wall. And how much
things do we never know that could have been wonderful, but will never know,
right? I think that's happening an awful lot, because in the end, the stories we hear about other ones where it
was well in the end you hear about them,
surely winner, not the millions of people who had lottery tickets and didn't went regret and has the same with life a thing when you
look at this after you write a book like this and your other book as well, but when, when you, you know close the close the cover of the book and sit back and take a deep breath, what's the most
fascinating part of this to you? The thing that really gets to a lot of us has to be.
our place in the universe in away? What are you talking about
If the other religious view view
thinking about you know us as being a very small thing in a very big universe. Is that kind of how we even can find out more about what we are as an individual? How we then fit into that bigger picture? I guess there's one picture part of it and for me the other bit is this nature versus nurture thing,
I got kids thinking about? How much do I influence how they are, as they become adults? And how much is it
from that gene salmon issues it coming from the wide,
environment said you have kids. I guess that has to be one of the big things that it makes you think about
so bryant? When you look at human life today I mean how are we doing
I'm sure life is better than it used to be, but is it continuing to get better?
I mean, as you say, if you compare with frankly practically any period in the past. If you go back one hundred years, you buy a couple of hundred years. Most people had pretty bad lives. The way people who are rich people who could afford the the thought kinds of things we take for granted now
terms of cleanliness, food, nor a kind of thing for most people, with a pretty awful life,
so it is difficult to say really, and we also have to remember that we are evolving in human beings.
Not exactly the same. Now as when they first formed by two hundred thousand years ago. We are
moving. Things are changing both in us people and
our world around us see sending I'll see. You know the whole think we'll never phrase. It would always be changing,
which makes you wonder what will we be like in two hundred
thousand years from now. It does, I think, was certainly true.
See the pictures, if you remember any of the old movies from the fifties we had sun and aliens with big bulging brains, sticking out to the heads that kind of thing: that's not going to
and you know evolution doesnt work like that. You're not gonna, get a huge brain evolving, but the fact is we do change.
In small ways, sometimes little things like, for instance, the fact that most of us in the west can cause he milk.
and that is a mutation. Well, mutants is not just a matter of the eggs
and and movies like that? We're all mutant
every individual has a slight mutation, slight changes in their genes from their parents, from the people around them and over time that does reeled in very
changes. I cannot read her with her while used to have read her. Isn't is again a mutation. Is it no didn't exist at one point, but we changed
and so the subtle changes that come over time, but over a long time span we can expect bigger ones. We just don't know what
yeah. Well, I always think of that that chart in science class of veto on the left is,
the monkey, and then you know next guys a little more upright and then pretty soon, six guys later, there's a man,
standing. There were one of the next six gonna look like. What's that twelve guy gonna look like.
Well the interesting thing about that is it's kind of a myth that diagram
it's kind of shows the idea that people will get more and more involved in a particular way.
Evolution isn't something that has at an end in mind is not saying this is the way to better. So, for example, we know that there were smaller people. The recalled some such a threat to its hobbies.
on an island in the ethics in a geneva where people actually evolve.
to be smaller and have smaller brains than by their predecessors had
so evolution is and always about getting bigger and better it's at fitting better into your environment, and the fight is the way we go will be
florence by our environment and how that changes so give
that we do know what we're meda than where we came from. Is there any? Can you take them
information and project into the future what's to come
I'm always a bit wary of future.
Gee. This idea that,
You can somehow look into the future those book back in athens. Nineteen. Seventy
try to show the way that the world was going to develop. I was really big back then, and
we often get these books coming along that site. This is the way things are going on. I think it's almost impossible
predict there are so many factors coming in, but I do think what will happen is that we find out more.
we can also understand more what goes together to make a person the person they doing. Do you think we're
in terms of understanding that are we just barely
Breaking the surface, or do we know a lot already and we just need to fill in a few blanks- does an awful lot that we don't know. I things first aside, because human beings, anything living, is actually are really complicated system really,
humphrey. I think my background is originally physics and when I say to people physically
actually much much simpler than biology are often they sent than I should listen trade
physics has all that math is really complicated. And yes, there is quite a lot of mathematics in there, but the actual
Six of physics is really really simple, but a biological system, a person, an animal, a plant. We looked down into the
it'll of what's happening in every single cell in your body, each one.
is like a huge, tiny factory that speed huge factory has been compressed into a tiny, tiny space.
Also the stuff going on in yourselves the this law
strings of dna and controlling what's happening. There are lots
little tiny machines might of molecules that do things
sighed. The cell was unable to split that, enable it to
excess energy and all
It's going on inside as it's incredibly complicated. What's going on, there is lots more to find out on the physical sidewalks.
Your body, but also, as you say, things like consciousness is generally described as one of the most complicated and as yet unknown.
Things that we want to find out more about says loads to find out more about, but we are getting there
are getting more every year
I remember hearing someone say that you know. I think you were talking about a moment ago, that these mutations, that that we never
used to have people with blue eyes? And if you have blue eyes, you
are related to the first guy or whoever that was woman. That had blue eyes is. Is it
is that usually true are their work, those mutations all kind of run in the family, most thea
can have the same, mute bishop happening in two different places, but often you can trace the whole thing back and if I finally trees work like this is where we used a trump family. Trees
being a little thing, you do, you do need energy. Look, you look like a few generations, but you only have to go back. I think it's about
see also generations, thirty, seven, I think, and the work would be more people in your family tree
then have ever lived, because you think about it, each generation
twice as many peoples. You got two parents for grandparents, a great grandparents and very quickly that gets a huge number and the fact is actually what happens
is a family tree becomes a really tangled things into the past, something, but everything is into locked and it's been shown statistically
that you only have to go back, maybe about a thousand years or so I'm pretty well everybody.
In your area and your continent that has a living descendants. So somebody from back there who has somebody living and everybody still here
we'll be related to that person. So it means, for instance, that everybody has royalty and their family tree. If you think you know something
the earth europeans do whatever the fight. Is everybody in the world will have royalty in their family tree, because you go that far enough. Whatever
regions. I originally come from then descendants about those royal
Tis will still be around today and you will be one of them this
may be a bit of an unfair question, but since you ve done all this research in you really looked into what we are
What were made of how were made,
to give you any sense of of why
we're here and and and also lay our we, that unique are humans.
so unique or or is life on planet earth so unique. That
there is or isn't likely life elsewhere on other planets. Some people think there are very few
planets and though the universe, the sun, in the galaxy, our galaxy that have life
because it is so unlikely that life would have come together. The way it did, it is really quite difficult to start things off. As far as we are aware and the whole four and a half billion years earth has been here life and only started once from scratch
and everything else is come from that says not something that seems to happen all the time, and the costs of that is seems relatively unlikely that life would evolve on any particular planet.
And so we we are probably something of a rarity, and you also have to think again.
You think it the reason why there might be something so unlikely. I'm one obvious answer is: if you do have religious belief, then then that was as a result of some greater cause.
but, as I say some people to think that in the end, even if some
is very unlikely. The unlikely thing has to have happened first, be here is something called the anthropic principle. If we weren't here, we wouldn't be able to say: oh, this is unlikely, so
the only thing has to because we have to see it will. This is one of those conversations that really makes you think about it.
We think so. I appreciate you coming on. My guest has been brian
clegg. He is a science writer whose written several sides books and his life
This is what do you think you are the science,
What makes you you and you'll find a link to that book,
amazon in the shone out. Thank you for coming on Brian. Ok, thank you very much have enjoyed it
in others,
a fine line between laughing and crying? You can even do
both of them at the same time, the late cycle.
just robert- are providing explained that laughing and crying are similar. Psychological reactions both occurred during
states of high emotional arousal, both laughter interior
have some lingering effects and
Neither one can be sincerely turned on or off at will. Human tears
actually triggered by a variety of emotions, pains,
Agnes and even joy, and
view can manage to laugh and cry simultaneously. You're actually get
a double dose of stress relief, both
Motion outbursts counteract the effects of cortisol and adrenaline, so go ahead, lie
to you cry or cried till, you laugh and
is something you should know. If you find yourself,
with a free moment or two and would like to do something to support this podcast,
leaving us a rating and or review on whatever platform you used to listen to podcast would be greatly appreciated. I mike her brothers
for listening today to something you should know
Acting Benjamin's with Joe and his good friend oji. Not only has great financial insight. Its lay back with humour to the LE pen's owe so much survey I wanted to know: was it really cheaper to around bag it every day, or was it cheaper to go through these school lunch? The most expensive sandwich of all forty six percent increase is the first time a sandwich has ever touched, five bucks.
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Transcript generated on 2023-09-17.