0:11

Hello

0:11

everyone and welcome to Talk Nerdy.

0:14

Today is Monday, October 2nd, 2023

0:18

and I'm the host of the show, Cara Santa

0:20

Maria. And as I mentioned,

0:22

as I've been mentioning, I've been traveling quite a bit,

0:25

actually was am, I think currently,

0:27

if my time travel calculations are correct,

0:30

in the UK right now, where

0:32

our next guest hails from. And

0:35

yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I was prepared in

0:37

advance and that everybody listening had

0:39

access to new content while I

0:41

was away, celebrating the completion

0:44

of my doctoral degree. So

0:47

I've got a fascinating one for you this week. It's

0:49

a little bit out of the ordinary for the show. I

0:52

don't know though, I was like really excited to have this conversation.

0:55

So I had the opportunity to sit down with

0:58

Dr. Anna Porzyski. She

1:01

is a material scientist, an

1:03

author, a presenter, a storyteller,

1:05

and a comedian of all

1:07

things, which is amazing. That's why she's, I

1:09

don't know, it's just so much fun to have

1:11

chats with her. She's interested

1:14

in general materials. So metals,

1:17

plastics, ceramics, glasses,

1:19

substances from the natural world. And

1:23

she is super interested

1:25

in engaging traditionally underserved

1:27

audiences with material science and engineering

1:30

through storytelling. And so this is why

1:32

her new book is such a great amalgamation

1:35

of her interests. It's

1:38

actually, when I say new, I mean first. It's

1:40

her very first book called

1:41

Handmade, a scientist's

1:44

search for meaning through making, which

1:47

is part autobiography, part

1:49

scientific storytelling, and a

1:51

lot of interest and fun. So

1:53

I am really excited to chat with her all

1:56

about so many things handmade without

1:58

any further ado.

1:59

Here she is, Dr. Anna. Well,

2:05

Anna, thank you so much for joining me today.

2:08

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Of

2:10

course. So we're going to be talking about your new book,

2:13

Handmade, A Scientist's Search for Meaning

2:15

Through Making. Is this your first book?

2:19

It is. Yeah, it's my first and only

2:21

book. That's so

2:23

incredibly exciting. Congratulations.

2:27

Thank you. Thank you. So

2:30

I've been reading up on you a little bit, and

2:32

I know that you do quite

2:35

a bit of science communication, but

2:37

your sort of academic area

2:39

of interest was or is

2:41

material science and engineering.

2:44

So you do have a doctorate

2:46

in... Is that common to get... I guess in material

2:48

science, that's common, but is it common in engineering

2:51

to go through to the PhD? Yeah,

2:54

I'd say so. Material

2:56

science is quite a funny area because it sits

2:58

right in the middle of science and engineering.

3:01

So sometimes we call ourselves engineers

3:03

and sometimes we call ourselves scientists. It

3:05

really depends who's offering the funding or

3:07

what hat we need to wear that day. Right.

3:11

Yeah, that makes sense. So what did you actually

3:14

study in school to get to that point?

3:17

So my undergraduate was material science at

3:19

Oxford University. It's

3:21

a very, very small course.

3:24

I think in my year, there were about 25 of us

3:27

studying the course, which is pretty small.

3:29

There's only seven universities

3:31

in the UK, I think, that offer material science at

3:33

undergraduate. So it's

3:35

a very, very niche thing to

3:38

be able to study at that level. And

3:40

then, yeah, I went on to do a PhD in it as

3:42

well. And so I'm

3:45

guessing that that involves quite

3:47

a bit of physics, engineering, and

3:49

maybe even some chemistry. Yeah,

3:52

I often like to describe material sciences

3:54

being in the middle of that Venn diagram,

3:57

engineering physics, chemistry, because it's...

5:31

later,

8:00

it was Christmas Eve and I remember

8:02

the post sort of flopping onto the doormat

8:04

downstairs and my dad creeping up the stairs and

8:06

handing me this white envelope and I

8:08

opened it up and it said, congratulations,

8:11

we're delighted to offer you a place to study material science.

8:14

And at that point I was like, what have

8:16

I done? Oh no,

8:18

I don't know what this subject is, I don't know what

8:20

it involves, but of course I couldn't turn

8:22

down that place and so it was

8:24

a complete stroke of

8:26

luck

8:27

that that was the way that

8:30

the kind of coin landed really

8:32

and I've never looked back. I

8:35

love those kinds of stories where there's just kind of a

8:37

bit of a random left turn in life

8:40

and you commit to it and then like all

8:42

these beautiful doors open up and so

8:44

you know obviously as you continued

8:47

on your journey and you became

8:49

expert in this area, I'm curious

8:51

what kinds of materials, like if

8:54

you had a specific focus

8:55

throughout your graduate training.

8:58

The undergraduate course at Oxford is very, very

9:01

broad so they focus

9:04

on the main groups of materials

9:06

that listeners will be familiar with, metals, plastics,

9:10

ceramics, glass, and then some

9:12

other slightly more niche ones like semiconductors

9:16

or biological materials.

9:19

And so they kind of take us through the

9:22

engineering, physics, and chemistry of those

9:24

sorts of materials. But

9:26

like I said, I thought I was going to be

9:28

a physicist and I had to make a quick about turn

9:31

into this world of materials and

9:33

it was the material of glass that

9:35

actually was my way into material

9:39

science as a budding physicist,

9:41

I think, because glass is a

9:43

very physicsy material, you

9:46

know, its transparency in its optical properties

9:49

have lots of really complicated

9:51

maths behind it. The reason

9:54

that glass is transparent

9:56

is very, very complicated to do with

9:58

charged subatomic products. and electromagnetic

10:01

waves and how those interact at the

10:03

tiniest of scales. And

10:05

so, GLASS was really a lovely

10:08

introduction point to how

10:11

you can use science to understand

10:13

materials and to use

10:15

that knowledge to be able to engineer things

10:18

for the real world. Lovely.

10:21

And so, what was your... Do you do a classical...

10:23

In material science, do you do like a classic

10:27

doctoral thesis when you are

10:29

completing all of your advanced

10:32

coursework and degrees? Do you do a

10:34

deep dive project? Yes.

10:37

Yes. So, my doctoral thesis... What did you study for that? I

10:40

was working on hydrogen storage materials,

10:44

which are composite materials.

10:47

Well, what I was working on was a composite material,

10:49

which is a sort of family of materials

10:53

and approach of designing materials, where you

10:55

combine multiple materials

10:57

together into a kind of super material.

11:00

So, listeners will have heard of carbon

11:02

fiber reinforced plastic, for example,

11:05

where you take very, very strong

11:07

and stiff carbon fibers, you embed

11:09

them in a matrix of very lightweight and moldable

11:12

plastic. And what you end up with is a composite

11:14

of very, very strong and stiff, but

11:17

lightweight and moldable material.

11:21

So, what I was doing in my doctorate was taking

11:23

the approach of combining

11:25

two different materials together to

11:28

bring together their beneficial properties. It

11:30

wasn't a structural material like carbon fiber,

11:32

it was a hydrogen storage material. So, we

11:35

were trying to find ways to store

11:39

and transport hydrogen,

11:41

which is normally a gas. Now, listeners will

11:44

be thinking that that's a gas. We were trying

11:46

to get that into solid materials

11:48

and use that as a stable way of transporting hydrogen.

11:51

Hydrogen, people might be

11:53

aware, is a really exciting

11:55

prospect for a future

11:58

sustainable energy.

13:59

somebody who has long worked

14:01

with these things, and maybe you don't know exactly

14:03

why the viscosity is

14:08

what it is, but you know it in your bones

14:10

because you're a third generation

14:12

crafts person.

14:14

Yeah, I absolutely love that analogy. I think

14:17

that really resonated

14:19

with me as you were describing that. I

14:22

think part of what led

14:25

me to want to explore this world of craft

14:27

people and really understand this other side of

14:29

materials was kind of a maturing

14:32

maybe as a person, as a scientist,

14:36

particularly when you're embedded in an academic world.

14:40

It's very easy to become blinkered,

14:43

very laser focused on your particular

14:45

area. And

14:47

I think the more I studied materials,

14:50

the more I got interested in science communication

14:52

as well and you know started to be called

14:55

an expert for the first time, the

14:57

more I felt uncomfortable with this

15:00

idea of being an expert. Because

15:03

I was aware of this hands-on

15:07

side of materials, this craft side, this

15:09

empirical knowledge that is

15:12

out there of materials that I had absolutely

15:14

no idea about whatsoever. And

15:17

so as well as that when I

15:19

wanted to write a book about materials, I

15:22

didn't want to write a book from the perspective

15:24

of an expert, which is maybe a bit of a

15:26

funny thing to say because people

15:28

read books because they're written by experts and people want

15:30

to learn from them. But I felt

15:33

yeah, sort of uncomfortable with this idea of being the

15:35

expert and so I wanted to put myself in

15:38

the shoes of a complete beginner

15:40

and take my readers along with me.

15:42

I didn't want to be kind of speaking down to

15:45

them from my ivory tower and you know telling

15:47

them about materials. I wanted us to learn together

15:50

from these other experts, from

15:52

this band of craft people that

15:54

I was lucky enough to spend time with

15:57

and yeah really explore. that

16:00

experience together. Yeah,

16:03

I love that. And so how did you decide

16:06

sort of how you were going to organize this approach?

16:08

Like, where were you going to go? What were you going

16:11

to look into? Because there's, I mean, everything

16:13

is a material, right? So it's like, where do you

16:15

even begin? Right? How do you

16:17

choose just 10? Yeah. There's

16:21

a couple of a couple of thought processes

16:23

that led to how the book is structured.

16:26

I knew that I was going

16:28

to do 10 materials, because basically

16:31

the length of a popular science book is about

16:33

80,000 words, and you divide that up into chapters, you're

16:36

left with about 10. So I knew there's

16:39

going to be 10. I wanted there

16:41

to be a narrative arc

16:43

to the overall story of the book, which

16:46

meant starting with the materials

16:48

that were familiar to me as a material

16:51

scientist, I mentioned some of those earlier

16:53

metals, plastics, ceramics,

16:55

glass. So the book opens

16:58

with glass, which as I said, was my kind

17:00

of introduction to materials. Then

17:02

we talk about plastics, steel, brass and clay,

17:04

you know, covering a lot of the big

17:08

sort of classic materials in material science.

17:11

Then the second half of the book takes

17:13

a bit of a leap of faith really into

17:16

the world of craft people. There are lots of materials

17:18

that material science, as a traditional

17:20

subject doesn't tend to focus

17:22

on so much. So the second half of

17:24

the book is sugar, wool, wood, paper

17:27

and stone, materials that

17:29

are much, much more in the realm of craft

17:32

than they are in material science as

17:34

it is traditionally

17:35

studied.

17:37

So that was one aspect was sort

17:39

of that propulsion from

17:42

my nice comfortable home of science

17:45

into the world of craft people in the second half. The

17:48

other aspect though, was that every

17:50

chapter in my book is

17:53

a personal story. I

17:55

wanted to use storytelling

17:57

as a mode for engagement with readers.

18:01

And so every chapter is a story that isn't

18:03

about science, it's

18:07

about an experience or an aspect that

18:09

I'm interested in. So for example, my

18:12

chapter on plastic is actually the

18:14

story of my Polish granddad George and his

18:17

kind of life story. And through

18:19

that I tell the story of plastic. My

18:21

story about sugar is the story of the

18:23

time that I attempted to swim the English Channel.

18:25

So that's a journey story, a physical

18:29

journey. And through that we explore the material science

18:31

of sugar. And so what

18:33

I did, I wrote all the chapters as

18:36

standalone short stories initially,

18:38

not in the order that they actually

18:40

appear in the book. Then I once

18:43

I had all of those drafted, I put

18:45

the titles of those on post-it notes and I stuck

18:48

them behind my desk. And

18:50

I had a look at

18:52

what would be an interesting

18:55

narrative to tell in terms of a personal

18:57

journey with those personal stories. There

19:00

were a couple of elements that I wanted to put right

19:02

at the top of the book for various reasons.

19:05

Glass comes first because it's

19:08

about my experience

19:10

as a scientist, it's about my journey into material

19:12

science. So I wanted to put glass

19:14

first because I'm kind of asserting

19:17

my expertise at the top, kind of

19:19

stating, you know, here's what I know about

19:21

material science. Plastic comes next

19:23

because it's about my Polish granddad.

19:26

I wanted to, people

19:28

obviously see my Polish surname on

19:30

the front of the book and I wanted

19:33

to be able to address that with them quite

19:35

quickly. I used to do stand-up

19:37

comedy and that's a classic thing in comedy that if there's anything

19:41

notable about your name or,

19:43

you know, what you look like then it's good to get up

19:45

front. So the audience aren't worrying

19:47

about that. So plastic came next.

19:50

And then the sort of most dramatic chapters,

19:53

clay and sugar, they come in the middle at the kind of dramatic

19:56

climax of the story. And later

19:58

on, I...

19:59

left

20:01

certain chapters to slightly

20:03

later. For example, my

20:06

chapter on paper is my penultimate chapter.

20:09

And that's a chapter which is about sexuality

20:13

and identity. And

20:15

I felt that I wanted

20:18

to leave that to last so that

20:20

my readers had a good sense

20:22

of who I was. They trusted

20:24

me. Hopefully they liked me by this point.

20:27

And so they would do

20:29

that. So they'd be more likely to stay with me for

20:32

that one because there's a little bit of a risk. I felt

20:34

not many people write about that sort of topic

20:38

in a in a popular science

20:40

book. So paper comes later.

20:42

Yeah. So that I give myself

20:44

a bit of a chance to keep my readers

20:47

reading. If that makes sense.

20:50

Of course. And I think it's such a it's

20:52

such an important

20:55

conversation, this conversation

20:57

about humanity and how it

20:59

sort of dovetails with what we often

21:02

think of, or I guess there's

21:04

like a stereotype that's been developed,

21:06

especially in the quote unquote harder sciences,

21:09

computer science, material science, physics,

21:12

where there's the conversations

21:14

are often devoid of humanity

21:17

that are sort of presented as

21:20

separate

21:20

from the human experience.

21:23

And of course, they are all

21:25

of these pursuits are are done

21:27

by humans.

21:27

All of these ideas

21:30

are ideas that human beings have been grappling with

21:32

for really millennia. And so it's

21:35

such an important conversation. But you're right. Unfortunately,

21:38

I think a lot of readers are like maybe

21:40

taken aback by it at the beginning,

21:41

like you're going to talk about your like your

21:44

identity right now, you're going to talk about your sexuality

21:46

like but but

21:47

this is a material science book.

21:49

Yeah, absolutely.

21:52

And, you know, I tried to write

21:54

a book that I would want to read and I would want to

21:56

see on the shelves. And

21:58

so I'm I'm fascinated

22:00

by biography and autobiography and

22:02

the people behind the science. And

22:06

so, yeah, I tried to be brave

22:08

and put a lot of identity stuff in

22:10

there. And

22:13

always making sure that

22:17

with these personal autobiographical

22:19

stories that run through the book, always

22:21

making sure that the science is in there because

22:23

it's part of the plot. I never

22:25

wanted any of the science in there to be a kind of, here's

22:28

a fun fact. By the way, did you know? Because

22:32

I put some sugar around your medicine. Yeah,

22:35

exactly. So, yeah, I wanted

22:37

it to always be plot driven. And

22:42

I had to catch myself a few times when there was something

22:44

that I felt was, you know, scientifically interesting,

22:47

but that actually wasn't relevant to the thing

22:50

that we were making at the time or, you

22:52

know, it wasn't actually part of the narrative.

22:55

So I always tried to make sure that the narrative

22:57

came first and the stories came first.

23:00

Again, you know, so that my readers

23:02

were entertained as well as informed. Yeah.

23:06

And I mean, not to make this about our sort of common

23:08

humanity here, but I'm

23:11

curious, your experience, obviously,

23:13

as a woman in a field that, I

23:16

don't know, historically has been mostly

23:18

dudes, but then also venturing

23:21

into this experience

23:23

of working with craft class people who

23:25

have always had a lot of gender diversity.

23:28

I'm really curious about

23:30

your experience in academia versus

23:32

your experience engaging

23:35

with individuals

23:35

who are actively working with these materials

23:38

sort of from an identity perspective.

23:42

Oh, that's a fantastic question. My

23:45

experience as a scientist has been extremely

23:47

mixed. When I was studying my undergraduate,

23:51

our class was, you know, pretty

23:53

much 50-50 men and women. Same

23:55

with the faculty, actually. I had lots

23:58

and lots of women professors. It

24:00

was a really diverse place

24:02

to be and to my

24:04

knowledge, I don't think I experienced any sexism

24:07

whatsoever at that time. That

24:10

changed when I started my PhD and I entered

24:12

the world of research, which for

24:15

me and where I was, it was a much more macho

24:17

environment. It was a much more hostile

24:20

environment. I tell

24:22

this story in the book in the chapter about clay

24:27

experiencing sexism and bullying

24:30

to the point that I

24:33

was very isolated. It

24:35

became a exercise

24:38

in survival, getting

24:40

your head down, getting the experiments

24:42

done, writing the thesis and getting out

24:44

of there as the ticket

24:47

to escape, if

24:49

that makes sense. Then

24:53

after that point I went on and I did a couple of post-doctoral

24:57

research posts in the Institute

25:00

of Making, which is an amazing place which I

25:02

describe in the book, which is full

25:04

of joy and diversity

25:07

and interest in materials and all these different

25:09

interesting people, historians, anthropologists,

25:12

architects, material scientists, all with

25:15

a real passion for materials. That

25:17

was an absolute joy to work

25:19

there for a few years. It's been a real roller coaster,

25:22

I would say. Then

25:24

stepping into the world of craft

25:27

people, in

25:29

a way it felt quite familiar because I felt

25:32

like an outsider in my PhD, in

25:36

this hostile environment. I

25:38

was quite used to being an outsider again when I kind

25:40

of stepped into the realm of the craft people. They were much,

25:42

much more welcoming than

25:44

my other scientific colleagues. But

25:48

there's definitely an interesting gendered

25:50

aspect to craft. I

25:53

write about elements of this in the book as well. There

25:55

are some crafts like metalworking, like

25:58

ceramics and glassworking. which are

26:00

still relatively male-dominated.

26:04

But I wanted to explore

26:06

that idea of it. So in my steel chapter,

26:09

I meet a woman blacksmith called Agnes

26:11

Jones, who's based in Glasgow in Scotland. And

26:14

then I spend the day with her, sort of smashing

26:16

hot pieces of metal together. And

26:18

I asked her about her experience of,

26:21

you know, being in the gender minority

26:23

as a blacksmith. And

26:26

her response was actually very

26:28

inspiring. She sort of said, there

26:31

are times when you go into a hardware store

26:33

wearing a dress and they'll look at you

26:37

as if you're an alien that's walked in off the

26:39

street. But

26:42

there are other times when you get

26:44

amazing opportunities, if you are

26:46

a bit more of a unique person in that

26:48

world. Agnes,

26:52

she's very well known now in

26:55

the blacksmithing world. And she

26:57

described it as generally a very welcoming and

26:59

kind of supportive environment. So

27:02

I wanted to seek out positive stories like that

27:04

as well in the book. And

27:08

then there's the other side of it though, which

27:10

is that sometimes

27:12

the world of craft is seen as

27:17

maybe potentially more on

27:19

the feminine side, sort of women's

27:21

work, particularly when we get to materials like wool,

27:25

paper, these are materials

27:27

that have traditionally been in the realm

27:30

of women. The term

27:32

spinster means like

27:35

a single woman who spins wool in

27:38

her home to make money. And

27:42

so these themes

27:45

run throughout the book and it's impossible

27:47

not to, right? Like if you're a women

27:49

scientist, you're always gonna see the world

27:52

through a gendered lens. And so,

27:54

yeah, it's

27:56

all in there. I try not

27:58

to make it kind of... emphasize

28:00

it too much too often but there

28:03

are those sorts of themes in there which when

28:06

I think about the sorts of readers that I really hope

28:08

will engage with this book they

28:10

are people who maybe

28:13

don't fit the stereotype of readers of popular

28:16

science. Yeah,

28:18

yeah you know it's um I've

28:21

sort of noticed that throughout my

28:24

I guess development as

28:26

a science communicator and now a

28:28

psychologist because I went

28:31

from

28:31

what we might consider more of a

28:33

hard science

28:33

in the neurosciences and then

28:35

you know working basically full-time as a

28:38

freelance science communicator for many many years

28:40

and then going back to school and like diving back into academia

28:42

in a much more

28:44

actually like woman dominant dominated

28:47

field and what I found which is

28:49

fascinating to me is still to this day

28:51

the listenership of this podcast

28:54

is like 80% male. Oh wow. Like all of my

28:56

guests

29:00

are our women and you know

29:02

non-binary and like this

29:05

and trans women like I've had a handful of cis

29:07

men in the past few years but like really

29:09

it's been

29:10

like very very

29:12

dominated by the perspective

29:15

of women on the show but I think because of the

29:17

subject matter early

29:19

on that was sort of the stereotype

29:22

and that's sort of how I mapped onto

29:24

the podcast world I think also early on podcasts

29:27

were very gendered like it was yeah there

29:29

were just a lot of men listening to podcasts

29:32

early on but I've been amazed

29:34

by how these efforts I'm

29:36

still got a predominantly male audience and like honestly

29:39

I'm not that mad at it because I'm like cool listen

29:41

to this message guys I think

29:43

it's important but it's fascinating

29:45

to see how these I don't

29:48

know these interest areas these

29:51

these patterns I guess of like media consumption

29:55

what those sort of gender lines are

29:57

in them I don't know there's probably some cool sociology

29:59

study to be done there.

30:02

Yeah,

30:04

I love that you've sort of ventured into

30:07

those conversations in like what

30:09

has been historical, how are

30:11

we seeing these changes now? And I can't

30:14

help but ask, and I know maybe this is like kind of a silly

30:17

question, but

30:19

when we think of material science, or when I think of

30:21

material science, I think of kind of like, I don't

30:24

want to use the word pure, I don't like that word. And I think

30:26

that's not getting to the point of what I'm trying to say. But

30:32

homogeneity, like a material,

30:34

right? And you even broke up your chapters in that way, like this

30:36

chapter, we're going to be talking about paper and this

30:39

chapter, but like most things

30:41

in the world now, at least maybe

30:43

not historically, but now are made

30:45

up of lots of things, right? Like we

30:47

are a culture

30:48

of mixed materials.

30:50

And so I'm curious about that relationship

30:53

between the deep dive

30:56

into an individual material and the craftspeople

30:58

who work with like, who are very good

31:00

in sort of one area,

31:03

but of course, then they,

31:05

to finish their products very often are

31:07

mixing materials.

31:10

That is such an interesting insight.

31:13

Yeah, absolutely.

31:14

We so in

31:18

material science, there's various kind of levels

31:21

or approaches that we look at stuff,

31:24

you're absolutely right that there is

31:26

a kind of puristness,

31:29

that's not a word. There's a

31:32

kind of purist approach, which is,

31:34

you know, we're just going to look at

31:36

this,

31:37

this one material on its own,

31:39

and we're going to understand its materials properties are going to characterize

31:42

it. But of course, I suppose that's

31:44

when the engineering comes into it, which is

31:46

that in almost every case, a

31:49

single material on its own can't be used

31:51

for very much. You know, most

31:53

of the time we have to engineer this stuff into useful

31:57

things, which means often combining

31:59

them together.

33:45

How

34:00

we should be using materials and that's

34:02

before we even get into which materials we should be using

34:05

the cracks of the matter is

34:07

how we are using these materials and

34:11

appreciating how they made i think is the

34:13

first step to appreciating what

34:16

this stuff is. When

34:18

you make something yourself this

34:21

is what i found going through these

34:23

chapters when you make something yourself it

34:25

takes on a whole new level of value

34:27

to you. I'm even

34:30

if it looks like quite rubbish.

34:33

I'm gonna look you know it's a wonky

34:36

mug or it's a like very

34:38

shallow wooden spoon or you know whatever

34:41

it is but you made it you put

34:43

that time into it you can see those

34:45

makers marks that mean something

34:47

in a tell a story about your.

34:50

Time honoring that material

34:52

and crossing into something and of

34:54

course in today's modern world

34:57

with Barry Barry detached from

34:59

where our stuff comes from and who made

35:01

it and how it was made. Often

35:05

it's you know not even a person

35:07

making this stuff anymore it's all automated

35:10

and so it makes sense

35:12

then that we don't have a sense of value of

35:15

what this stuff is really worth

35:18

you know financially. Personally

35:21

spiritually how you like to think about

35:23

it and so of course

35:25

we have a problem with waste of course we throw away

35:28

all our stuff because we

35:30

don't have that. Sense

35:32

of nurture and value and an

35:35

idea of the full story of that object

35:38

and maybe if we did we would value a little

35:40

bit more highly. I

35:42

agree you know it's funny when you think about

35:45

you know my mother and I were very very

35:47

different people she keeps

35:50

everything and

35:52

like her house

35:53

is overwhelming to me and she has

35:55

too

35:55

many boxes and too much stuff and

35:58

I am like I hate.

35:59

clutter and I hate Chachkis

36:02

and all the surfaces in my home are quite clean

36:04

and I've got maybe one

36:06

or two boxes in a closet somewhere

36:08

of older things that I'm being nostalgic

36:11

about, but not much. And

36:14

I think about the things

36:16

that people can't get rid of and

36:18

they're often not, I don't

36:22

want to say useful materials, but

36:24

they're often like trinkets and

36:27

historical figures, photographs

36:30

or

36:31

maybe sometimes like old blankets

36:33

and clothing and things like that. But

36:37

I think of them as like very often they're Chachkis

36:40

and so they live in boxes and then people

36:42

maybe will do some life review from time

36:45

to time and look through them and feel those all those

36:47

bittersweet nostalgic feelings. But what

36:49

if the things

36:51

for most of us that were so meaningful

36:53

like that were also the things that we use every day?

36:56

Like

36:57

I think about my home, I've traveled

36:59

quite a bit and I'm quite lucky that I've traveled quite a

37:01

bit and one of the things that I love to do when I travel

37:04

is go to like craft markets and

37:06

see local artisans and

37:08

what they're producing because I think it's a massive

37:10

reflection of their culture. Most of the times they're using

37:13

local materials. And so when you go through my

37:15

home, the spoons in my kitchen

37:17

were often hand carved by the artisans

37:19

where I bought those spoons. Like I love

37:22

those kinds of things because every time

37:24

I'm

37:25

cooking, I'm

37:26

remembering that experience I

37:28

had.

37:30

Yeah, that's it. And I think that's

37:33

what I was trying to get the essence of

37:35

when I gave my book its subtitle,

37:37

A Scientist's Search for Meaning Through Making.

37:41

It's that appreciation of the meaning of stuff

37:45

and how it's bestowed upon those

37:47

materials by the making process. And

37:50

that's the missing factor, I guess, in a lot of scientific

37:54

study, in a lot of science itself in

37:57

material science is the human nature. human

38:00

aspect is the

38:02

hands that are doing it, the hands that made it. So

38:05

that's why I wanted to try and get back. Yeah,

38:08

it's fascinating to think about, like if you were

38:10

to survey a bunch of scientists in let's

38:12

say in the lab about those very

38:14

questions that are maybe a big disconnect, but

38:16

then on the flip side, when you went and visited

38:19

so many of these artisans and worked side by side

38:21

with them, when you asked them about

38:23

fundamental scientific processes, about

38:26

why their materials have the properties

38:28

that they had, what were the kinds

38:30

of insights that you got? And these

38:32

are

38:33

most often people who are

38:35

not trained in the sciences, so they've been

38:38

working with these materials sometimes their entire

38:40

lives or through multiple generations, but

38:42

they didn't take a course in the

38:44

physical properties of the materials. So

38:47

what kinds of insights did they have into the actual

38:50

science?

38:51

That's a really good question. The

38:53

one that springs to mind is Agnes

38:55

the blacksmith, because she was describing

38:58

to me as we were heating up this bar of steel

39:00

in her forge, these places where

39:04

blacksmiths work have to be kept really dark,

39:07

because blacksmiths understand the temperature

39:09

of their materials by the colour that

39:11

it glows when it heats up. And

39:15

scientifically, I understand all of the origins

39:17

around this

39:20

property of when things get hot, they

39:22

glow and it's all because

39:24

of atoms and waves and vibrations

39:26

and energy. And for Agnes,

39:29

what it means is malleability,

39:32

softness, shape,

39:37

pliability, the feeling

39:39

of how it feels

39:41

in her hammering hand,

39:44

in the hand that is bending the steel

39:46

around a hard metal

39:49

post.

39:50

It's about feeling, it's about the

39:52

senses, it's about sight, it's about

39:55

sound. It's that kind

39:58

of visceral in

39:59

stuff that

40:02

that's what it means to Agnes. Similarly

40:05

with glass, you know, talking to glass blowers,

40:08

when you heat glass up nothing visual changes

40:10

at all. You can only understand

40:12

how hot it is by the feeling that it gives

40:14

you, the resistance that it gives you or

40:17

not, when it becomes runnier and runnier

40:19

when you heat it up.

40:21

All of these sensory

40:23

experiences of materials

40:26

get completely lost when we only

40:28

study them on the page, when

40:30

we only study their atoms and molecules. Their

40:35

insights was to do with the

40:38

here and now, the sensory aspects

40:40

of these materials.

40:44

I did sometimes grill my craft

40:47

people to try and understand

40:50

the scientific origins of things, for me to try and understand

40:52

the scientific origins of things. I remember I

40:54

interviewed a silversmith

40:57

called John Cussell, who

41:00

works in Grantham in the UK. I was

41:03

asking him about the process which in material

41:06

science we would call cold working, which

41:08

means you're working with usually

41:10

a thin piece of metal at room temperature.

41:12

You're not heating it up to make it softer, but some

41:15

metals like silver are pliable

41:18

enough that you can do that with simple

41:20

tools at room temperature. When you

41:22

do that, there's a cost to it. That cost

41:24

is that the material gets

41:27

harder and more brittle the more you

41:30

move it at room temperature. If you

41:32

have ever bent a paperclip

41:36

back and forth a few times, eventually

41:38

it becomes brittle and it snaps. This is this

41:40

process of cold working. I was

41:42

asking John about his processes

41:45

and about his tools and how he works. He

41:48

described the reason that

41:51

silver gets harder and more

41:53

brittle when you cold work it is

41:55

because the atoms are getting angry inside.

42:00

up there. And I loved

42:02

that as well. And that really

42:04

made me appreciate the

42:06

use of language around materials, the understanding

42:09

of materials. He knew so

42:11

much more about silver than me. And

42:15

his description of these angry atoms inside,

42:17

it made total sense that

42:20

they stopped wanting to move as much. They

42:22

were not being as compliant.

42:25

And then the way to make them softer again

42:27

is to heat up the material. And it

42:29

was just such a lovely reminder to me

42:31

that, which I knew

42:33

to be the case from the very beginning, which

42:35

is that these craft people are the

42:38

true experts in their

42:40

particular materials. And so

42:42

that was what I was trying to get from this book was

42:45

an opportunity to learn from them.

42:48

Oh, it's so, so lovely. I'm

42:51

curious, there's so many stories here

42:53

and there's so much to unpack. But when

42:56

we think about sort of the big picture

42:58

and your experiences in doing,

43:02

basically having those experiences, then

43:04

to write this book and that deep,

43:07

I guess comparison of

43:09

the qualia, you know, the qualitative

43:12

experience that you that you were often hearing

43:14

about from the from the craftspeople

43:17

themselves, and then the quantitative experience

43:20

that is often documented within

43:22

the more academic inquiries.

43:24

And of course, that all things

43:27

are both qualitative and quantitative.

43:31

And we sort of need we need both of those

43:33

conversations to have a pure

43:36

description, I guess. I'm curious, is

43:38

there anything that we haven't touched

43:40

on in our in our

43:43

exchange thus far, that you would be like

43:46

remiss that we didn't talk about on the show, like

43:48

anything that the listeners definitely need to

43:50

hear before we before we move on

43:52

to my final segment of the of the episode?

43:55

Oh, that's a lovely question. Thank

43:57

you. I

44:00

suppose what I'd like listeners

44:02

to get a sense of is

44:05

that

44:06

what I'm trying to achieve with this book is

44:11

a sort of mirror. What I

44:13

want is for all

44:16

of my stories with materials are

44:18

just one person's experience,

44:21

one person's journey and

44:25

through these autobiographical stories I've tried

44:27

to show that materials are

44:30

so important to our everyday lives, they're

44:32

so important to who we are as people, they say

44:34

everything about who we are as a society

44:37

and as individuals and through

44:39

those stories that's what I wanted to show

44:42

and find meaning in.

44:46

And what I would love is that by the end of this

44:48

book,

44:49

by the end of our conversation, our listeners

44:52

or you know the readers of this book will

44:54

start to reflect on the

44:56

meaning of materials in their life as

44:58

well and start to see things from a different

45:01

perspective or you know even

45:04

just feel inspired to pick up

45:06

making something. You don't have

45:09

to become a master wood carver or

45:11

the world's most amazing knitter but

45:14

just to have a go I think

45:16

I was

45:17

always someone that was sort of rather scared

45:20

I think to be creative

45:22

and to be expressive with

45:24

making things but

45:28

to be brave

45:30

enough to fail

45:32

and to be brave enough to try

45:36

I think those small journeys in

45:38

making can tell us a lot actually

45:40

about how we might be living

45:42

our lives as well. So I hope

45:45

that this book will inspire

45:48

people maybe to rethink

45:51

their stuff and to rethink what

45:53

making means to them. I love

45:56

that so much and I have to say it

45:58

resonates for me really deeply. deeply during

46:00

the pandemic, and I know this was the case for a lot

46:02

of people, I sort of got

46:04

into crafts in a way that I

46:07

hadn't before, just because I had so much

46:09

time to reflect and to be able to,

46:11

you know, really focus. And, you know,

46:13

I wasn't one of those people who was making sourdough bread, but

46:17

I did get involved using these craft

46:19

kits that helped me because, of course, I

46:21

was exactly the person you just described who was like, I'm

46:24

going to make it ugly. So,

46:26

like, I had these very good step-by-step instructions

46:28

with all of the tools. And I learned

46:30

very quickly the things that

46:32

I

46:33

enjoy doing more, like beadwork

46:36

or I like

46:37

kind of the kitchen chemistry stuff. I love

46:39

making bath bombs and shower

46:41

steamers and things like that. And yeah,

46:43

it was really fun. And then the things that

46:44

I, like, didn't enjoy as much,

46:47

which always required, like, coloring

46:50

within the lines, which I'm just very

46:52

good

46:52

at. And so, you know,

46:54

it's like, I do think you learn a lot about

46:57

yourself and you learn, you

47:00

also can engage

47:02

in this deeply sort of mindful

47:04

reflective practice. Like I

47:07

am a person who knows

47:09

how to make,

47:10

how to knit scarves.

47:13

That's it. I know

47:14

how to knit in a straight line, a certain

47:17

number of stitches, and I can knit and I

47:19

can purl so I can make patterns. But beyond

47:21

that, I have no interest in making

47:24

sleeves or knitting

47:24

in the round or like adding

47:27

any sort of embellishments. And I know

47:29

I probably could learn those things. It's not like beyond

47:31

my comprehension, but that is the

47:33

extent of the mental energy

47:35

that I want to dedicate to the craft. And

47:38

it serves a purpose for me and I really

47:40

like it. And that's okay. Absolutely.

47:43

I think, yeah, that's the thing. I'm

47:45

curious about yours, your experiences

47:48

like that, you know, do you have the

47:50

things that you do, but you don't do well, but you still

47:53

enjoy doing them, or you do them just well

47:55

enough and that's okay for you?

47:57

For me, that's definitely. ceramics

48:00

and pottery. I've

48:03

spent a lot of time sitting with

48:05

my knees either side of a

48:07

potter's wheel,

48:08

throwing wobbly lumps of clay

48:10

around

48:13

to mostly just

48:16

plain failure. Sometimes

48:21

you can lay aside your perfectionism

48:24

and not throw the thing

48:26

straight into the bucket of water that

48:28

will make it all recycled. Sometimes

48:32

you can spend hours binning thing

48:35

after thing after thing and just never getting

48:38

it

48:38

quite right.

48:40

Learning how to fail,

48:42

I think, was a very

48:44

good lesson for me in making.

48:49

I also have been into knitting

48:52

and I think the mathematical nature

48:54

of knitting patterns

48:57

sometimes makes failure

48:59

seem like a very high stake.

49:02

If you miss a stitch or you miscount

49:04

something and learning

49:07

to let go of that exact

49:09

ness and just thinking,

49:12

well, if it's a couple of stitches shorter

49:14

at this point, no one's really

49:16

going to notice. It's not going to be as if there's

49:18

no arm or there's... It doesn't

49:22

actually matter.

49:24

For me, that was a very, very

49:26

good lesson was it's going

49:29

to be fine. It

49:31

actually doesn't matter. It makes it real and

49:33

raw. I think every scarf I've ever knitted

49:41

for somebody has a hole in it where

49:43

I dropped a stitch. It's

49:45

like, well, at least you know your machine

49:47

didn't make it.

49:48

This is it. Those mistakes

49:51

show that it's

49:53

an object of human creation,

49:55

which means that there should be mistakes

49:58

and there should be a...

51:43

And

52:00

I love it so much because now I know

52:02

whose hands, you know, were practicing

52:05

with this craft and who was learning this

52:07

skill. And something similar to

52:09

that, which anybody who's lived in Southern Africa knows

52:11

about tire flops. Like I bought some flip flops

52:14

while I was there and it's very common. You can buy these in

52:16

craft fairs and on the streets. And there are these beautiful

52:18

shoes that are handmade

52:21

out of old tires.

52:23

And they're just brilliant. Like

52:25

what a perfect material to be the sole

52:27

of a shoe.

52:29

Wow.

52:30

And I just love it. I love it. You can see the

52:32

old tread on the tire. You can

52:35

see the wear and tear of it. And it's like

52:37

it's to me, it was such a

52:39

oh my God. And even to you, I heard you're like, wow. But

52:42

it's super common in Southern Africa

52:44

to recycle these materials this

52:46

way. Like these are things that we can

52:48

be kind

52:49

of, I guess, adopting and improving

52:52

like so that, as you mentioned before, what

52:54

an important point this like cyclical nature

52:57

of materials that they still

52:59

have life in them and they can be used

53:01

in a really creative way.

53:03

Yeah, absolutely. And that

53:07

is an absolutely learnable skill.

53:09

You know, as somebody who started

53:12

my making journey as the

53:15

least creative person on the planet, you

53:18

know, we all have it in us, even

53:20

me, even you

53:22

listeners as well. It's

53:25

innate. And if

53:27

we've been put off, it's because of something

53:30

that probably wasn't even our fault. So

53:33

yeah, if

53:35

you take one thing from that, give it a go.

53:38

Yeah, think twice before you put that thing in

53:40

the in the trash and the bin and see if you can give

53:42

it a new life somehow. I

53:45

love that so much. Well, Anna,

53:47

listen, I always close my show by

53:49

asking my guests the same two questions and

53:52

they're pretty big picture questions. And I'm always

53:54

super curious how they're going to come about them,

53:56

given their personal backgrounds

53:58

and experiences and also the.

53:59

the area where they have their

54:02

expertise. So

54:04

apologies for throwing these at you. So out

54:08

of left field. But when

54:11

you think about the future in whatever

54:13

context feels relevant to you, so this could be

54:15

personal, it could be professional, it could

54:17

be local, communal,

54:19

societal, global, cosmic, you know,

54:22

whatever context feels relevant. The

54:24

first thing is,

54:26

where are you struggling

54:30

to, like what's keeping you up the most

54:32

at night? Where are you finding that you

54:34

are struggling with pessimism

54:37

or maybe even cynicism and that

54:39

you're really, really worried about when you think

54:41

about the future? And then on the flip side of that,

54:43

so we end on, you know, a more positive note, where

54:46

are you actually finding your hope and your optimism?

54:49

Where are you authentically, or what

54:51

are you authentically really looking forward to?

54:54

Wow, okay. Evil.

54:58

Huge questions. I would

55:00

say evil questions. I

55:04

will respond to this

55:07

as a material scientist and

55:11

a person. Obviously the two are not mutually

55:14

exclusive.

55:19

I think what's keeping me up most

55:22

at the moment about the

55:24

future, looking to the future,

55:25

I mean

55:29

it's got to be

55:32

consumption and

55:35

sustainability, climate change.

55:39

It's got to be our complete

55:44

absence of sort

55:48

of caring about

55:50

what

55:51

we are doing to the

55:54

planet,

55:54

the

55:56

enormity of the problem.

55:59

think that enormity is what's keeping me up

56:02

is the

56:05

sort of runaway train that I feel

56:07

we find ourselves in currently. And

56:10

so as a material scientist,

56:14

you know, I sort of wonder where I can

56:18

maybe seek to help

56:21

find solutions to this. And

56:26

we've talked a bit about this already, because

56:28

it's what

56:31

I want to do is to find a way to

56:33

communicate to people that the

56:37

way that we live now is unsustainable.

56:40

But it doesn't have to be the case. And

56:42

it hasn't been the case for the vast majority of

56:44

human history. You know, it's

56:47

probably within the last 100 years that

56:49

we've really accelerated in

56:52

our complete unsustainable

56:54

consumption of the world's resources.

56:57

So if we can find a way to start

57:00

to cycle back on that, start

57:03

to reverse that trend, and

57:06

start being mindful

57:08

about what we're consuming, material

57:10

wise, energy wise, you know, all of

57:13

it.

57:15

If we can do that, I think

57:18

changing our

57:20

attitudes, changing our minds, I think will

57:22

be the biggest hurdle

57:24

to

57:25

solving climate change. But I also think it is

57:29

theoretically possible because we've done it before and

57:31

we've done

57:31

it throughout history. So

57:34

that's what's keeping me up.

57:36

What's giving me hope

57:38

is that I have, I

57:41

have a hope that one

57:43

way of doing that, one way

57:45

of changing our attitude

57:48

is through story. And in

57:50

the last few years, I've

57:53

become fascinated by this tantalizing

57:57

idea that

57:59

the power of stories

58:02

can actually

58:05

be powerful enough to change people's attitudes

58:07

and minds and behaviours. And

58:11

so I'm currently really

58:13

excited about that prospect of

58:16

learning much, much more about how stories

58:19

work, about global stories,

58:21

about different storytelling traditions, about

58:24

how we can use story as a vehicle

58:26

of, for me,

58:28

communicating science

58:31

in order to bring

58:35

it to people who wouldn't normally be exposed

58:38

to science and engineering. And I know that's obviously

58:41

what you're doing here as well. And I'm

58:46

very, very excited to

58:47

delve

58:49

into that to learn a lot more about storytelling

58:52

and to see how I can use

58:54

it to maybe

58:57

do something good in the world. We'll see. I

59:00

love that. Well, everyone, the

59:02

book is Handmade, A Scientist's

59:06

Search

59:06

for Meaning Through Making

59:08

by Dr. Anna Porzyski.

59:11

Anna, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

59:13

It's been an absolute

59:14

pleasure. Likewise, same

59:16

here. It's been very lovely to talk to you. Thank

59:19

you. And everyone

59:21

listening, thank you for coming back week after

59:23

week. I'm really looking forward to the next time

59:26

we all get together.