Skip to main content

Marty Jopson - Four Way Interview

Marty Jopson has a PhD in cell biology and builds science props, but he is best known for his regular appearances as the resident scientist on the BBC's The One Show. He does live stage performances around the UK, which involve naked flames and end in a loud bang. His latest book is The Science of Food.

 Why Science:

 Because it’s fun and I get a huge buzz finding out new things and then passing that knowledge on to other people. As a science communicator, it’s my job to talk to people about science on the telly, on stage and in books, so I’ve spent a lot of time considering why science is important, not just to me but to everyone. I could harp on about how science and technology have shaped our world, how medicine keeps us alive or how engineers have built everything. I could spend my time trying to communicate the science behind the deeper secrets of the mind or the darkest recesses of the universe. But in the end the audience I am interested in is the audience that doesn’t know they are interested in science. The key for me in my work is to share my enthusiasm for science. So, why science? Because it's fun.

 Why this book?

 Lots of reasons, but it really sprang from the first book I wrote, The Science of Everyday Life. In that I talked about quite a number of food-related science nuggets and I realised that I had so much more I wanted to say on the subject. I have spent a lot of time working on TV programmes about processed food and became very familiar with the food technologist’s subtle science. On top of that, I used to be a plant scientist and that is where some really exciting science is going on right now, but you don’t hear about it often. Lastly, I do love to cook and it was a way to marry two of my great passions - science and food. 

 What’s next?

 Immediately on the horizon I have a couple of new science stage shows to work on. I spend a lot of my time touring the UK going to science festivals and schools performing science shows. My shows are full of props and demonstrations and it takes a considerable while to develop each show. Lurking in my brain is a show to go with the Science of Food book, but also one on microscopy. After that, I would love to write something specifically aimed at kids and come the New Year, the BBC will be knocking on my door wanting to film again. 

 What’s exciting you at the moment?

 So many things! In the workshop, I just bought myself a new table saw and I'm about half way through refurbishing my massive Van de Graaf generator. On the stage show front I’m hoping to get my hands on some swanky microscopes soon for my new show, and when I say swanky - woo hoo - these are the bee's knees, but I can’t say any more right now. At home my daughter just started GCSEs this year and it turns out that for English Literature she’s doing two of my favourite books (Merchant of Venice and Lord of the Flies). I can’t wait to hear how she tackles them. Then there is the fountain pen that a friend just gave me. I’m rediscovering the joy of writing things on paper with ink. Oh and it’s my birthday in a few days and a bunch of my friends are joining me for a curry. All this excitement, I may need a lie down.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Keep a Plane in the Sky - Alex Davies ****

If there's one big gap in the science writing sphere, it's popular engineering (you can quibble over whether engineering is science, but where else would you put popular engineering?). Alex Davies does the field a real service with this insightful introduction to the world of test engineering. The concept is simple. If we build something and sell it, we need to test it to make sure that it won't fail in a way that's dangerous to the consumer. The most obvious example is airliners, which feature at some length, but this applies to everything from cuddly toys to hair straighteners: someone needs to predict what could go wrong and to put the product through its paces to see if it will survive under any reasonable circumstances. When Davies is telling a story of test engineering in action, the book is a delight. He opens with the way that real bears are used to test if bears can get into coolers and trash cans - and the impressive ways these animals can  circumvent human in...
Post a Comment
Read more

On the Equality of All Things - Carlo Rovelli ****

There is a wide gulf between the worldviews of physicists and philosophers. Many physicists present a rather sweetly naive, child-like view of the world, where philosophers bring a distinctly more adult, cynical tone. This being the case, it can be a little worrying when a physicist dips a toe into the philosophical mire. Infamously, in The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow told us that philosophy was now dead because science could deal with anything it had previously been needed for. Thankfully, Carlo Rovelli is not trying to do away with philosophy, though it has to be said that when he veers into the topic that physicist's naivety can make it feel like the philosophising of an earnest eighteen-year-old. Take the opening paragraph, which tells us 'electrons and minds, stones and laws, judgements and galaxies do not essentially differ in nature from one another. They are notions that illuminate each other'. I almost expected a Pink Floyd soundtr...
Post a Comment
Read more