Daniel Whiteson Physics, Writing and Podcasting - A Candid Conversation About Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe

 I am an avid podcast listener, 62 of them are on my phone including Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. It's found on Iheart and in other apps like Apple and on mine called Podcast Republic. The pair collaborated on a book about physics Daniel the physicist and Jorge the cartoonist. That led to the current incarnation a podcast that has circled the globe and garnered a lot of listeners and for the pair a fan base with lots of questions. Daniel has graciously taken time to do a Candid Conversation and I am excited to jump in and hear or in this case read more about what he has to say so here we go. Daniel Welcome to Candid Conversations.

Daniel W: Thanks so much for your interest and invitation!

Cliff T.: You are a pretty busy person, at least that is my assumption. Doing a book and now a podcast along with your work at UC Irvine that is a a lot of juggling to do. I bet there are lots of times in the day where coffee is involved to keep you going. Seriously how do you manage doing Explain Universe?

Daniel W.: My day job as a professor keeps me pretty busy, but the outreach work is a labor of love, and so it doesn’t feel hard to make time for it. Jorge and I have a lot of fun talking and writing about science, so it’s something I enjoy doing. The podcast is less work than you might imagine, since unlike other podcasts it’s not scripted. I work out the basic concept and then it’s a spontaneous conversation with Jorge, often going in directions I hadn’t anticipated. I hope that makes it sound more like a real conversation, but it also is much less work to prepare.

Cliff T.: Is it me or do you and Jorge seem to be tacking black holes a lot? What would you say are the top 3 to 5 subjects you get questions about?

Daniel W: People are very curious about black holes, especially because we seem to be making real progress in understanding them recently. A lot of people ask: what’s it like to fall into a black hole, what’s inside a black hole, and is our entire Universe inside a massive black hole?

Cliff T.: Have you gotten questions that you have said umm not going to touch that?

Daniel W.: Haha, not yet. We get a few dozen messages a day with questions, but they are all science or science-adjacent.

Cliff T.: Have you gotten a question that you have said, wow I don't even know that but, I want to, and if so have you researched and answered or tried to answer it yet?

Daniel W.: Many times! My specific expertise is particle physics, but the podcast ranges far beyond that, into cosmology and astrophysics and sometimes the physics of new technology. If it’s not something I already am very familiar with, I’ll read some papers and reach out to a colleague in that area to get a deeper understanding. That’s one of the things I love about the podcast: it gives me an excuse to dive into a subject that’s out of my area but I’ve always been curious about, such as galaxy formation or bonkers theories of the pre-big-bang Universe.

Cliff T.: I believe you have explained how the podcast was created but, just refresh people what got you and Jorge interested in doing a podcast, was this an idea inspired by the book you guys worked on?

Daniel W.: We started collaborating by working on some science explainer videos. Then we wrote “We Have No Idea”. To promote the book, we travelled the country and gave presentations about the ideas in it. Jorge and I had fun in those talks joking around and riffing, and someone connected us with the podcast folks at Stuff Media, who helped us turn our fun conversations about science into podcasts.

Cliff T.: What got you interested in physics?

Daniel W.: I talk about curiosity a lot in the podcast, but I see the Universe as a grand mystery for us to unravel. I’m desperately curious about what the basic rules of the Universe are, and getting into physics is my way of scratching that curiosity itch.

Cliff T.: So with that history in mind how do you and Jorge decide on what subjects you are going to cover? Do you guys hang out and toss ideas around then choose the topic or is there a process you use?

Daniel W.: We get a lot of suggestions from listeners, something in physics that they heard about but never understood. We also follow my interests: topics that I’ve long wanted to get a deeper handle on. Last year I started a series of episodes where we interview science-fiction authors about the science of the Universe they created, which is fun for me because I get to chat with some of my favorite authors!

Cliff T.: Have you gotten feedback from your physics peers on your show? And if so what has been the most notable thing they have said about Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe

Daniel W.: The reaction tends to be of two kinds, positive and negative. Many people are positive, because they agree that science communication is important and vital, both for science and the public. Some are negative, because they think that this kind of work is less important than the actual research, and it makes them doubt my devotion to doing the science. My response is that doing the outreach makes me a better scientist, by giving me a chance to learn about related topics that inform my own research.

Cliff T.: What do you and Jorge have planned for the future another book perhaps?

Daniel W.: We have a book coming out in November 2021, called “Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe”, inspired by the most common questions we get about the podcast. Last year, we launched a children’s television series on PBS, called “Elinor Wonders Why”, which teaches kids about the natural world and encourages their curiosity.

Cliff T.: Daniel thanks again it's been interesting to chat. I hope you and Jorge continue to have success in whatever you do in future and of course outside of the podcast.

Daniel W.: Thanks so much for your kind words!

Daniel Whiteson is a Particle Physicist, professor, author and podcaster.

Here are some links you can view about Daniel and the podcast.

https://www.physics.uci.edu/people/daniel-o-whiteson

http://pbskids.org/elinor

http://wehavenoidea.com/

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-daniel-and-jorge-explain-t-29862087/?fbclid=IwAR1B7F43IfrC74s1hMZwlnQi2dKkZOH4C-B2mO-rHHUGPZD3hce9UATXJtE

https://www.facebook.com/DanielAndJorge/

https://sites.uci.edu/daniel/

Daniel wrote to us from Irvine CA USA

A TV Show About Chess Sparks Interest in Chess Boards - A Candid Conversation with David Ferrer about the Rechapados Ferrer Chess Boards

 When I was a young lad I attended a boys club called Dawson's Boys and Girls Club in Verdun Quebec. I hung out and played floor hockey, fuze ball, did some woodworking and candle making and played checkers, and chess. The checkers I was pretty good at, chess ummm, ok I was awful at the game. To this day I am awful at this game. But there are some really good players out there and the Queen's Gambit a Netflix show features a young girl who played the game very well. But that is not the story we are going after today. Nope, the story is the cameo of at least one chess board maybe a couple made by a company in Spain called Rechapados Ferrer.

David Ferrer is the manager of Rechapados Ferrer, grandson of its founder. Sir thanks for dropping in to do a Candid Conversation.

David F.: Thank you, Cliff, for your interest. It’s a pleasure for my company and for me to see that our job awakes interest all over the world.

Cliff T.: I bet you and the team over at Rechapados Ferrer were quite surprised to learn about the chess board cameo in the Queens Gambit. What was the initial reaction?

David F.: When the trailer was released, one of the workers at the plant told me that one of our boards appeared in a show. At first I didn’t think it was important, because honestly, I didn’t expect that a series about chess could be very successful.

Cliff T.: How were you able to figure out that it was of the products you make?

David F.: Because some of our chess boards are very recognizable. In fact, the one that is shown at the end of the series, it’s a black chess board and it has a special red and yellow woodwork. That one is a unique chess board that we were only selling to a German customer, so it was quite easy to recognize it.

Cliff T.: Was there one or more boards featured in the show?

David F.: More than one. For example, all the boards shown in the final tournament are from Rechapados Ferrer.

Cliff T.: So now you have interest in the boards, which one of the chess boards has been the most ordered item?

David F.: The ones that are most ordered are the basic boards, with basic colors and wood. But since the news about our appearance in ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, our yearly demand has doubled in only two months. Usually we were making about 20,000 boards a year, and right now we have more than 40,000 units to be produced, and it is still March! So we have some tough, but good months ahead.

Cliff T.: I noted that Rechapados Ferrer has been making chess boards for quite a long time. What was the genesis of that, why chess boards?

David F.: The business started in the 1950’s, in a small town called La Garriga near Barcelona, it is a town commonly known for its furniture industry. My grandfather was a farmer and when he married my grandmother, he started making veneered panels to her brother, who had a furniture business. After a few years, they started making chess boards, because there was a very good manufacturer of handmade wooden chess pieces very close to their factory and they made a deal with him, focusing our work on chess boards.

Cliff T.: I read the history on the website, since 1960, that is quite a long time making chess boards. First are they also making the chess pieces, and secondly are there any chess players in the company?

David F.: No, we only make the boards. That’s where we are good at and we are very specialized.

I play at an amateur level, usually with my friends, but I am not that good. I have 3 siblings, so when we were young, we always had boards at home and we used to play chess from time to time. We had lots of fights between us because nobody wanted to lose.

Cliff T.: Rechapados Ferrer also allows customers to ask for a custom boards. I have to ask have they gotten a request that is very unusual, like one based on Star Wars?

David F.: Yes and no. We allow our customers to ask for custom boards, but our customers are distributors and stores, not final clients, so we don’t have so many strange requests. That said, yes, we had some of them. For example, there is a customer that always asks for particular woods, for example “cocobolo”, which is a tropical hardwood of Central American tree, or coralwood from Africa. But the stranger request came from a man that asked a board of 81 squares, instead of 64. He had a dream of a new game, with new rules, and ordered 100 boards. Never heard if he succeeded to go ahead with his project.

Cliff T.: Lastly David does Rechapados Ferrer ship to anywhere in the world?

David F.: Yes, we manufacture chess boards for our clients from France, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand or even Japan. Actually, 98% of our boards end up outside of Spain, being the foreign market our first client.

Cliff T.: David thank you for taking the time to do a Candid Conversation with me. It was fun to dive into this story, I found it quite interesting and I hope that you and the rest of the team have a great day thanks for the time you spent with us.

David F.: Thank you for inviting me, Cliff. And also thank you for bringing our story to Canada.

David Ferrer, Rechapados Ferrer’s manager joined us from Barcelona Spain to speak about the famous chess boards produced by Rechapados Ferrer, whom chess boards were featured on the Queens Gambit which is streaming on Netflix.

You can see the boards at this link, http://www.rechapadosferrer.com/en/tableros.html and to see the story that got the attention of the company and payers click here, https://www.tribuneindiF.com/news/schools/spanish-chess-board-sales-soar-after-queens-gambit-cameo-213215.

Thanks for visiting Candid Conversations. I am always looking for the next interesting person to interview. Send me an email and let me know if you are interested in doing a Candid Conversation or would like to see someone featured on the blog.

Cliff T.

A Sci-Fi with a Western Twist Gunslinger Candid Conversation with Edward j. Knight

OK, many of you reading this posting may still be stuck in your home. You have baked, binged on streaming services and have zoomed all your besties. What to do next. Well books are still around and being published. I found one being offered in the Sci-Fi western vain that really caught my attention. Written by Edward J, Knight the book, Gunslinger: The Dragon of Yellowstone tells the tale of a sixteen year girl on a quest to save the west from destruction. 

Ed great to meet you, thanks for doing a Candid Conversation. This book looks very interesting, can you give me and those reading the blog a peek into the plot of the book.

Ed K.: Hi Cliff! Great to meet you, too. Gunslinger’s about a girl who wants to prove she can be a gunslinger, even if she has to fight a dragon to do it. It’s set in a universe where the Old West meets Norse monsters. In this one, our hero Beth Armstrong gets to face ghosts, dwarves, and of course a dragon.

Beth herself trained with legends. The ghost of Calamity Jane gave her the gun and Wild Bill Hickok taught her to shoot. By sixteen she’s ready to make a name of her own.

She gets her chance when strange assailants murder a visiting Arapaho Indian shaman, Beth plunges into a quest to find the killers. Then the army is summoned to face an invasion, leaving just Beth and her friends to fulfill the shaman’s original quest of finding the creature that’s been attacking the Indian tribes. Of course, locating the dragon is just the tip of the problems. This is adventure fantasy—Beth’s going to discover the fate of the world West of the Mississippi is at stake before she’s through.

Cliff T.: So now that we got that explained. A 16 year old girl as a gun fighter, that is different what prompted the idea to develop this character?

Ed. K.: Beth came from a couple of different sources. Primarily, I have a feisty nine-year-old daughter that I drew a lot of inspiration from. I don’t want her to feel she can’t do something, even as traditionally masculine as gunfighting, if she truly wants to. Beth also originally appeared as a secondary character in my novel Sidekick: The tale of Billy the Kid and the Giants of Colorado. She’s a classic case of a supporting cast member being so fun that she basically demanded her own lead role. Finally, I’d done some reading on Annie Oakley, and I loved her constant frustration at having to constantly prove herself with a gun because she was female.

Cliff T.: I noticed that there is an element of science fiction in the story. Was that an easy thing to mix into a western?

Ed. K.: I’m not sure I’d say easy so much as straightforward.

I created the Mythic Western universe on three simple premises: a) souls are real, and when a person dies, they leave this universe for another (or they become ghosts if they don’t leave); b) when the soul passes, a small temporary rift opens between our world and the other; and c) a witch or a shaman can make that rift semi-permanent, allowing other living beings to pass between the worlds.

Everything else in the story draws from those premises. This particular story starts thirteen years after a rift was opened to Jotunheim, which allowed giants, trolls, dwarves, and dragons to all invade our world. I’ve had to do a fair amount of research to make sure that they physics still works out right (e.g., so how does a dragon fly without magic?). I’ve also strived to get the historical details as accurate as I can.

So it’s not easy because there’s been a lot of research. I want the story to feel like it really could be the Old West, just with these creatures in it. But by sticking to my three premises, it is straightforward.

It’s kind of like traveling north while navigating by the stars. It may be a bumpy journey, but you’re not lost.

Cliff T.: i know that some authors draw upon life experiences or connections to people from current and life connections is that the case with this book?

Ed. K.: As mentioned earlier, some of Beth is based on my daughter. Most of the rest of the book is an amalgam of people I’ve met and experiences I’ve had living in Colorado and visiting Wyoming.

Cliff T.: What has the reaction to Gunslinger been thus far?

Ed K.: It’s been positive. Those that have read the advanced copies like Beth and the various twists and turns in her adventure. The only complaint I’ve had is from my daughter herself. We read the book at bedtime, one chapter a night, and she hates, hates, hates how I end chapters with cliffhangers, and then won’t keep reading! I mean, why should I? I know what happens next, and she does need her sleep <evil daddy grin>.

Cliff T.: In your bio it states that you were involved with satellites, putting a number of them into orbit. That is interesting. Was that work the genesis of your desire to write a book like this one?

Ed K.: In an indirect way, yes. I’ve been working with or for NASA for twenty-eight years now, and that’s made it harder for me to write science fiction, which is what I originally started in. The problem has been that I know too much, and when you do it right, Aerospace is boring. We engineers want to have Apollo 12 on our resumé, not Apollo 13.

So I found that when I sat down to write hard science fiction, I had a hard time coming up with storylines that were both exciting and didn’t have me going “yeah, there’s no way that’d happen.” So if I was going to be just making stuff up, why not go all the way into historical fantasy?

I may return to trying hard science fiction in the future, but frankly, writing books like Gunslinger is a lot more fun.

Cliff T.: From the look of it space, science fiction and westerns have been a part of your life for quite a period of time. This must make doing this project more like a labour of love than anything else, would that be a good description?

Ed K.: I’m not sure “labour of love” is quite the right term. Writing brings a certain joie de vivre to my life. Instead of telling stories about how the satellite’s going to survive a radiation anomaly, I’m telling stories that make my daughter’s eyes light up. It’s a lot of fun to bring Beth and her friends to life and see what they’re going to do.

Cliff T.: Where can people find you and Gunslinger?

Ed K.: My home site is www.edwardjknight.com. Gunslinger is available through WordFire Press https://wordfirepress.com/books/gunslinger/ and at all major retailers starting April 7.

Cliff T.: Do you think there will be a part 2 3 or 4, is there a plan to make this a series of books?

Ed K.: I’m planning a series of stand alone books, with the idea that you could pick any one up and have a complete tale, even if you’ve never read the earlier books. I’ve started writing the next one, Ghosthunter: The Spirits of Saint Louis, but, well, like many of us, COVID has forced much of my time and energy elsewhere.

Cliff T.: Excellent Ed, thank you again for doing a Candid conversation it was great to meet you and I hope the book gets a good run.

Ed K.: Thanks. This has been fun!

Edward J. Knight author of Gunslinger: The Dragon of Yellowstone features the story of a 16 year old girl on a quest to save the West even if means defeating a dragon to do it. The book is published by Word Fire Press https://wordfirepress.com/ / https://wordfirepress.com/books/gunslinger/
Edward has published other books and you can find his work on his website at https://edwardjknight.com/ Edward wrote to us from Denver CO., USA.

Cliff T.