Skip to main content

Marty Jopson - Four Way Interview

Marty Jopson is an expert on science, hosting talks across the country. Regularly appearing on BBC One’s The One Show as their resident science reporter, he has also appeared on ITV, Channel 4, Sky, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic, as well as lecturing at The Royal Institution. He is the author of the bestselling The Science of Everyday Life, and The Science of Food. His latest book is The Science of Being Human.


Why science?

 Because it’s cool. Simple as that. I could bang on about how science has given us incredible super powers to survive disease, see back in time to the start of the universe and talk to people on the other side of the globe. We could talk about understanding what it means to be conscious, the very nature of matter itself or if there are parallel universes, but that all gets kinda heavy. On the other hand you could consider the small things like your mobile phone, your breakfast cereal, the lightbulb over your head or the shampoo you use. But that seems too trivial. Bottom line science is just fascinating. I recently found out about the Larus gull ring species and it has changed the way I look at Herring Gulls. Science makes life more exciting. For me it’s the special sauce, the MSG and the umami of life. And if you want to know about the Larus ring species - buy the book (or Google it). 
Why this book?

 This in now my third book, each of which has had a similar format of relatively short dives into chunkets of science. The first was very general and based in you own home, the second was about food - because food is good. But for the third I wanted to get my teeth into some more biological science. I was trained as a biologist but then went off and became a generalist on telly. This book was a chance to make some connections between human biology and a bunch of other subjects that I have grown to appreciate. So how does biology and technology interface and what about biology and maths? That’s why.
What’s next?

 I’d love to write something about bridges. Over the many years I have been working in television I have spent a lot of time filming on bridges for one reason or another. I have become a teensy bit obsessed with them. My family groan when I mention them and I have been banned from taking them to look at bridges. Which is a shame as I am convinced that bridges are the most spectacular example of modern engineering on the planet. 

 Oh and I’m about to start trying to write some books aimed specifically at kids. I spend a lot of time communicating science to kids and it would be fun to write something for this audience.
What’s exciting you at the moment?

 Cross polar microscopy. I recently teamed up with Zeiss - makers of fine microscopes - to deliver a microscopy based biology show that has been doing the rounds and has been seen by in excess of 45,000 people. The follow up to this is a material science show with microscopy. Part of this will be looking at polarised light microscopy. It has the potential to allow me to produce some stunning visual displays and some really ooh aaah moments from the audience. So right now I am just getting my geek on with the technical aspects of fitting up my microscopes with polarisation filters. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Roger Highfield - Stephen Hawking: genius at work interview

Roger Highfield OBE is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger has visiting professorships at the Department of Chemistry, UCL, and at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the Medical Research Council and Longitude Committee. He has written or co-authored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. His latest title is Stephen Hawking: genius at work . Why science? There are three answers to this question, depending on context: Apollo; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; and, finally, Nullius in verba . Growing up I enjoyed the sciencey side of TV programmes like Thunderbirds and The Avengers but became completely besotted when, in short trousers, I gazed up at the moon knowing that two astronauts had paid it a visit. As the Apollo programme unfolded, I became utterly obsessed. Today, more than half a century later, the moon landings are
Post a Comment
Read more

Space Oddities - Harry Cliff *****

In this delightfully readable book, Harry Cliff takes us into the anomalies that are starting to make areas of physics seems to be nearing a paradigm shift, just as occurred in the past with relativity and quantum theory. We start with, we are introduced to some past anomalies linked to changes in viewpoint, such as the precession of Mercury (explained by general relativity, though originally blamed on an undiscovered planet near the Sun), and then move on to a few examples of apparent discoveries being wrong: the BICEP2 evidence for inflation (where the result was caused by dust, not the polarisation being studied),  the disappearance of an interesting blip in LHC results, and an apparent mistake in the manipulation of numbers that resulted in alleged discovery of dark matter particles. These are used to explain how statistics plays a part, and the significance of sigmas . We go on to explore a range of anomalies in particle physics and cosmology that may indicate either a breakdown i
Post a Comment
Read more

Splinters of Infinity - Mark Wolverton ****

Many of us who read popular science regularly will be aware of the 'great debate' between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920 over whether the universe was a single galaxy or many. Less familiar is the clash in the 1930s between American Nobel Prize winners Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton over the nature of cosmic rays. This not a book about the nature of cosmic rays as we now understand them, but rather explores this confrontation between heavyweight scientists. Millikan was the first in the fray, and often wrongly named in the press as discoverer of cosmic rays. He believed that this high energy radiation from above was made up of photons that ionised atoms in the atmosphere. One of the reasons he was determined that they should be photons was that this fitted with his thesis that the universe was in a constant state of creation: these photons, he thought, were produced in the birth of new atoms. This view seems to have been primarily driven by re
Post a Comment
Read more