Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed various scientific and cultural aspects, including the psychology of addictive songs, geography trivia, space travel, and historical practices. They shared anecdotes and insights, with Marcia highlighting the impact of words on readers’ experiences and Bob emphasizing the significance of emotional evocation in storytelling. They also explored movies and their connections to futuristic societies, such as ‘Soylent Green’ and ‘Planet of the Apes.’
Outline
Music addictiveness and US state capitals on top of volcanoes.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss the most addictive songs, with Queen topping the list based on a formula invented by scientists from St. Andrews University in Scotland.
- The formula judges songs on five metrics, including catchiness and earworm-like qualities, to determine the most addictive tunes.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith a scientific question about a US state capital located atop a dormant volcano, and Marcia correctly answers “Jackson, Mississippi.”
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the volcano’s age and depth below the surface, and Marcia shares interesting facts about other volcanoes in US cities.
Movies, currency, and space travel.
- Marcia and Bob discuss a movie from 1973 where people were being sold a nutrient tablet that was actually made of ground-up people (spoiler alert!).
- They also talk about the similarities between US and Canadian currency, including their size and tactile marks to aid the visually impaired.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the Pan American Highway and its length, as well as the challenges of bicycling it.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith also discuss the cost of sending American astronauts to the International Space Station via Russia’s Soyuz rockets, and how private companies like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are now offering space tourism opportunities at a similar cost.
- John Smith, a swashbuckling explorer and relative of the speaker, was a world traveler and mapmaker known for his flamboyant personality and affairs with blonde women.
Penguin physiology, book popularity, and shark longevity.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss various topics, including why penguins don’t freeze to death and the most checked out book in the history of the New York Public Library.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith a riddle and he struggles to answer it, then asks her a question about the meaning of the phrase “et cetera.”
- Bob Smith is skeptical of Marcia Smith’s claims about the Greenland shark’s age and slow metabolism.
- Marcia Smith explains that the moon helped Christopher Columbus feed his men during a voyage in 1504 by causing an eclipse, which terrified the Indians on the island.
Movie quotes and author Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing career.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss movie quotes, with Marcia providing quotes and Bob trying to guess the movies.
- Marcia Smith shares a quote from James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Bob correctly identifies the movie.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the impact of words on readers, using Sherlock Holmes as an example.
- Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was an ophthalmologist before becoming a writer.
Sherlock Holmes creator’s lesser-known facts.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the unique characteristics of Holstein cows and how they are distinguished from one another, including their black and white spots.
- Bob shares interesting facts about Arthur Conan Doyle, including that he popularized dinosaurs in his 1912 science fiction novel and gave James Bond his iconic tagline “license to kill.”
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, including his role as a whipping boy for Prince Edward VI and his contributions to the popularity of skiing.
- Marcia Smith shares an inspirational quote from Martin Luther King Jr., encouraging listeners to keep moving forward despite any challenges they may face.
Bob Smith 0:00
Which US state capitol sits atop a dormant volcano?
Marcia Smith 0:04
Gees, and what musical group has the most addictive songs?
Bob Smith 0:09
And who determined that science Oh, answers to those another science questions coming up in this half hour of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy. Take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. So we start off this episode with two science questions. And yours involves music.
Marcia Smith 0:51
Well, scientists have determined to various metrics, certain songs are just more catchy or addictive than other songs. And they use all sorts of different criteria for that. But there’s one group that has three out of the top six catchy as most addictive songs of all time by scientists who love music. Hopefully using like I said, scientific metrics, they’ve come up with different rhythms and things like that. So just What group do you think has
Bob Smith 1:19
the most addictive? Yeah, okay, I’m going to, I’m just going to bet because they’ve been in the news again lately that it’s the folks who are now in their 70s and 80s. But ABA, ABA, yeah. Yeah. Those are very catchy tunes. Yeah. Whether you like them or not, because I remember playing them over and over again in radio. You had no choice. That’s right. Okay. Barry Manilow same thing. Oh my god. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 1:43
No, this isn’t any of Okay. Well, who are these are songs that, that I totally agree with? Are they from our era? Yes. Okay, Queen. Oh, number one. We Will Rock You. Okay. Totally interactive. Totally. Just gets everybody it is it’s interactive. It’s addictive. Yes. Number three was We are the champions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And number six was A Night at the Opera. Wow, those three songs captured the top 10 of just the most addictive songs and the catchiest and the just had met all the criteria. Number two, you’d like this one. Happy?
Bob Smith 2:19
Oh, yes. Yeah. For a William. I can’t it was a great song. Yes, we still like that. Where are the scientists from who did this University
Marcia Smith 2:26
of St. Andrews. Oh, in Scotland, that team of researchers invented a formula to determine which songs are the biggest ear worms by judging tunes on five different metrics. And this was back in 2016, a whole group of scientists and they came up with this list. Can
Bob Smith 2:43
you imagine them coming out humming from the science rooms? We’ve got the answers. We’ve got the formula. Wow, that’s interesting. Well, and you know, some people would say the Beatles had that same kind of thing. A lot of their tunes were, were very much sing songy and fun to sing. I’m thinking of buying With Little Help From my Friends and Yellow Submarine and some of those, they were kind of childlike.
Marcia Smith 3:06
So yes, I think of them more childlike, whereas Queen to me is definitely more engaging, and you get into it. I stick my tongue out. Okay. It can’t see your child like such a charge just being a child.
Bob Smith 3:19
Okay, now, here’s my question. All right. My question is scientific. One, two, which US state capitol sits atop a dormant volcano?
Marcia Smith 3:30
That didn’t sound good. Okay, volcano.
Bob Smith 3:33
I bet the 200,000 people that live there many of them don’t know this.
Marcia Smith 3:36
Well, is that is that we’re talking perhaps Pacific Northwest.
Bob Smith 3:41
I’ll give you some cities. You tell me which one it is. Thank you, Bob. Helena, Montana. Yeah. Jackson, Mississippi. Uh huh. Salem, Oregon. Olympia, Washington.
Marcia Smith 3:50
Ah, it’s Olympia or her Lena? I’ll say Olympia? No, it’s how Lena know it’s
Bob Smith 3:58
Believe it or not. It’s Jackson, Mississippi say wow. You would not think that Jackson, Mississippi would be located over a dormant volcano but it’s known as the Jackson volcano. It was discovered in the early 19th century. It’s believed to be 70 million years old and has been dormant for the better part of its existence. The volcano lies to 1900 feet below the surface. Good luck Jackson. And it’s not the only volcano within the limits of a US city. Portland has Mount Tabor in Oregon. Bend Oregon is home to Pilot Butte and Honolulu. Hawaii is home to Diamond Head. But did you know that there are other volcanoes dormant volcanoes east of the Mississippi? I didn’t know this. I always think of them in the roadways. Yeah. So you got this one. You got one off of the coast of Louisiana. And you’ve got one in Virginia. None of those are expected to be active at any time, but those are also volcanoes. Okay, so Jackson, Mississippi, 2900 feet above a volcano.
Marcia Smith 4:58
All right, Bob. I remember that futuristic movies Soylent Green. Yes, yes, it was 1973 it came out you know what the point of that movie was? Remember what it what the Green was? The Green was actually people.
Bob Smith 5:11
Yeah, they were they were because they people were being sold this. This is even more nutritious than real real food.
Marcia Smith 5:19
It’s like it’s like a nutrient tablet only it was it was made up of population that was being ground up.
Bob Smith 5:23
Yeah. You didn’t learn that till the end of the film. That’s a spoiler.
Marcia Smith 5:28
So we just Yeah, we did. So. Okay, so here’s the question. What year was that movie set in? It was futuristic.
Bob Smith 5:36
Oh, was that set in? Like the year 2000? Or something like that?
Marcia Smith 5:40
2022
Bob Smith 5:42
Oh, no. Oh, my God.
Marcia Smith 5:45
Take your vitamin this morning, Robert?
Bob Smith 5:49
Yes. That was the last film of a famous American actor who played gangsters in the 30s and 40s. That was the last movie he was in and his name is Edward G. Robinson
Marcia Smith 5:57
Yeah, really? He was?
Bob Smith 6:01
That was him. He died a few days after that film.
Marcia Smith 6:05
What part did he play?
Bob Smith 6:06
Scientists.
Marcia Smith 6:09
Usually he’s the bad guy
Bob Smith 6:10
He was on, I think it was on his deathbed in the movie, as a matter of fact. Oh, really? I think that was a Charlton Heston film. I was in it believe he was. He was the hero of course, who discovered that? That’s my favorite. That is my favorite line from what is the movie? The monkey movie? The monkey movie Planet of the A? God you Yeah, that was great. Okay, Marcia, what do US and Canadian currency have in common? They’re the only two countries in the world that have this. What do US and Canadian currency have in common? Lots
Marcia Smith 6:47
of debt?
Bob Smith 6:48
No margin. That’s nothing, I suppose. No, they are the only two major currencies with the same size bills no matter what the denomination.
Marcia Smith 6:57
Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that’s true. I think about European bills and
Bob Smith 7:01
Most other countries differentiate their larger and smaller value bills by size to help the visually impaired. For example, the larger denominations in Australia are taller and wider. They also have contrasting colors euros do this to Canadian dollars do have tactile marks in the upper right corner of the bills, but really, and they’re colored differently to aid the visually impaired but the size of Canadian paper bills are the same regardless of value. Just like American paper bills, so close your eyes and a $1 bill feels the same as $100 bill.
Marcia Smith 7:33
I’ll be darned. I didn’t however, you always have a little extra a proposed
Bob Smith 7:38
new $10 bill might change all that it would be the first paper money to feature tactile marking so you can make like the blind good feel what what’s this? Yeah, yeah. Well, that makes you want to give away too much money here.
Marcia Smith 7:50
The Pan American highway Bob, you ever hear of it? You know what it is?
Bob Smith 7:53
Yes, I do. What is it? It is a highway that starts in Canada, but actually goes all the way to the tip of South America. Well, close.
Marcia Smith 8:00
It starts in Alaska and ends in Argentina.
Bob Smith 8:04
That’s close. 1000s of miles 29,000
Marcia Smith 8:08
miles long. Wow. That’s how long it is. So you know, if you’re gonna bicycle that one, you better take a lot of water.
Bob Smith 8:16
But it’s kind of an unofficial highway because it’s not all connected together. There are places where you have to go off and come on to others road.
Marcia Smith 8:23
There’s really one gap. Oh, really? Where is it? It’s in Panama in a remote swath of jungle dense rainforests with poisonous snakes. Oh, god, it’s just got everything.
Bob Smith 8:36
So a setting for a Tarzan movie. Well, do you think of quicksand to to the our biggest fear as children?
Marcia Smith 8:42
No. And until recently, nobody hardly ever went into it because that many came out. But now 1000s of Haitians are cutting through the gap on foot to get to America.
Bob Smith 8:56
Oh, my heading north. Yeah. Oh, dear. Haitians going? Going from a little island over those gaps. Oh, man. That’s just sad, isn’t it? Yeah. Okay, Marcia, here’s something that’s gotten lost in the wake of space tourism in private businesses sending rockets into space. For nine years, American astronauts had to rely on Russia’s Soyuz rockets to get to the International Space Station.
Marcia Smith 9:20
We did. Yeah, you didn’t know that.
Bob Smith 9:24
I didn’t know exclusively what we had to because that was after President Obama closed down the Space Shuttle Program. There’s no way to get there. So we had to go up there sending our astronauts on Russian rocket ships. So now the question is, how much did those trips cost?
Marcia Smith 9:37
I mean, we paid them for Russia for transportation.
Bob Smith 9:41
Just like if you want to get on the seat on Jeff Bezos
Marcia Smith 9:45
million million dollars the seat? No,
Bob Smith 9:48
each seat costs NASA 70 to $100 million. So that’s like what they’re charging now. So that’s the only way we could get there until folks like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos built their private spaceship systems and $70 million to, you know, $100 million. That’s what they’re charging space tourists now. So basically Russia charges the same amount of money. Maybe they set the bar, you know, maybe it only cost a million, but that’s what we were spending to send our astronauts to space and we were paying Russia, at least we’re paying American company. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 10:20
That’s the good side. Yeah.
Bob Smith 10:22
Let’s go to another era of exploration who was this great explorer. He was a soldier of fortune. He was sold into slavery while fighting in Turkey with the Christians of Eastern Europe. He was a known womanizer, and he preferred blondes. Was he famous name in history? famous explorer. Okay, he was one of my relatives. I don’t know that Captain John Smith. Oh, we just think of him being here and in Jamestown and this and that. But yeah, he was really a world wide mercenary. He is described as having lopped off the head of more than one Turkish soldier while fighting in eastern Europe. He was captured and sold into slavery and escaped by bashing in the head of his master. Long before he made it to New England, John Smith escaped to Russia where he fell in love with a blonde Russian woman. And although he was a swashbuckler, and a braggart, his maps of North America’s Atlantic coasts were among the finest ever drawn, and it’s believed that the heads of the English universities at Cambridge and Oxford might have offered him academic honors if he hadn’t been so flamboyant, he was difficult. He’s described as swaggering about London and silver armor and a full length Fox Cape carrying on open affairs with young blonde ladies of ill repute. As for Pocahontas, saving his life. That’s the story he made up about the Indian princess after she married an Englishman, and he’d become a favorite of the royal family. He’s not the kind of man history portrayed him to be at all. No, I like it. He’s one of my relatives. He was a playboy, but man, what an interesting guy and he’d been all over the place. Yeah, Russia, Turkey, but became the United States. Fascinating.
Marcia Smith 12:05
Okay, Bob, let’s get serious. Why don’t penguins feet freeze?
Bob Smith 12:09
Why don’t penguins feet freeze? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 12:11
they’re all standing on ice their little. Their little feet.
Bob Smith 12:14
I assume they have pads that they stand on that insulate their body from No, no. Okay. They their feet don’t freeze because they were moccasins at Penguin moccasins,
Marcia Smith 12:24
moccasins
Bob Smith 12:27
with little beaks at the end of the moccasins, no, bird, Big Bird. No.
Marcia Smith 12:31
Okay. It turns out they can control the blood flow to their feet. And they also have a system of blood vessels that reduces heat loss from their bodies. These both help keep their feet within a few degrees above freezing. Still cold? Yeah, it is but it stops them from sticking to the ice. So I thought capillaries blood vessels. They have feathers and a fat layer on their body. So they’re not exposed to icy wind so much. But that’s not just their feet. That’s their whole body. So And can they freeze to death?
Bob Smith 13:06
The answer is yes, they can. Yes. Oh, really? Tell me about that.
Marcia Smith 13:09
They can freeze to death if they are waterlogged and the temps drop below freezing. So yeah, if they’re all wet or been in rain, and it drops real, they can freeze to death.
Bob Smith 13:19
All right, let’s just talk about libraries and books. Okay, this is just a kind of little odd fact. What’s the most checked out book in the history of the New York Public Library? Somebody asked this in December of this year and the New York Times checked out book the most checked out book in the history of the New York Public Library. You might think it would be a very, very important scholarly book. No,
Marcia Smith 13:43
it’s not a novel, is it? No.
Bob Smith 13:45
It’s a children’s book.
Marcia Smith 13:46
It’s a children’s book. Goodnight, Moon.
Bob Smith 13:49
The answer was the snowy day a 1962. Children’s Book by Ezra Jack Keats. Now it’s hard to believe that a 60 year old book would be the most checked out in the internet age wonder. Wonder what’s the secret to that book? Is that Oh, that’s
Marcia Smith 14:03
lovely. Makes me want to read it. I got a riddle for you, Bob. Okay. Okay. If you have just two coins, that total 30 cents, and one of them isn’t a nickel. What coins do you have in your hand?
Bob Smith 14:17
Two coins that total? 30 cents. And one of them isn’t a nickel. Right? Two coins? Not three coins? Right? Well give me the answer.
Marcia Smith 14:27
A quarter and a nickel because you got another hand.
Bob Smith 14:32
In the other hand, oh, dear. Oh, gosh. Just a trick question. All right. All right. I have a question for you here. Okay. What does the word et cetera mean? You know, these are their words that we use all the time, so on, et cetera, yeah.
Marcia Smith 14:50
What does it mean and so on? It’s
Bob Smith 14:53
actually two words, et cetera. And it means and the other things or and the rest is Latin. Yeah. That’s a fancier way of saying and so on. But if if it says and so on why abbreviate it? I mean to say still too much, etc, etc. Okay.
Marcia Smith 15:09
Okay, Bob, thanks to modern science and carbon dating scientists have been able to date more things. Like the longest living vertebrae known to science right now is the Greenland shark. Really? The Greenland shark? Yeah, it can be found off the coast of Greenland, apparently. So how old is it?
Bob Smith 15:30
What is five years old? I don’t know. 5000 years old. Wow. A million years old.
Marcia Smith 15:36
It’s alive, Bob. Oh,
Bob Smith 15:38
this wasn’t made clear to me. Asking how long does this animal live? Well,
Marcia Smith 15:42
they’ve captured some and now they can carbon date it and see how old it is. How old is it? 500 years old. Wow. Though some of the ones they have caught. That means some of these fish that they’ve caught. Were born in the 1500s. That is just amazing. And they also have a very slow metabolism, then it really moves very slow like 1.8 miles an hour.
Bob Smith 16:05
That’s hard to believe that this we’re not talking about a tree that stands still we’re talking about an animal animal swims and yeah, has been around for 500 years individual sharks and Greenland shark and
Marcia Smith 16:15
they are not thought to reach sexual maturity until they’re over a century old.
Bob Smith 16:20
Okay, we don’t we don’t need to talk about that. Let’s not get into that. How did they get into that awkward age? Awkward Centennial age of those sharks. Wow. Okay, Marcia, how did the moon help Christopher Columbus feed his men when they had run out of food?
Marcia Smith 16:36
How did he help feed him when they ran out of
Bob Smith 16:40
how did the moon oh the moon helped Christopher Columbus feed his men when they ran out of food.
Marcia Smith 16:45
Well, that’s a puzzlement.
Bob Smith 16:49
This was on his fourth voyage to the new world in 1504. But the time that shark was born
Marcia Smith 16:56
I don’t know Bob ah
Bob Smith 16:57
Christopher Columbus’s crew of 116 men was marooned in Jamaica. And this was the winter of 1504 the last of their leaky ships had given out one of the men set out to get help in a dugout canoe. And while he was gone, the Indians on the island refused to give the Spanish food but Columbus warned them. God would show the Indians he was displeased on the 28th day of February because Columbus knew that was the date an eclipse of the Moon was going to occur and when it did, who the Indians were terrified.
Marcia Smith 17:32
Some corn white men, once they supplied
Bob Smith 17:33
the Spanish with the food they needed always helpful to know these facts of nature when you were an explorer in a kind of unsophisticated place. Well, that moon is going to be disappearing. Yeah, you are gonna be in trouble.
Marcia Smith 17:47
Don’t mess with me, baby. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 17:55
We’re back with Bob and Marcia Smith with some movie quote questions that Marcia has.
Marcia Smith 17:59
It’s movie time award shows and I’ve gone to American Film Institute before for famous quotes and here’s some more Okay, actually, it’s the 95 to 100 of their top quotes. You’ve seen all these movies, so I’ll give you the quote. You give me the movie. Okay. Okay. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary. Seize the day, boys make your lives extraordinary.
Bob Smith 18:20
That was from summer camp. Wasn’t it? movie that was from is that from? What someone that Mel Gibson was in what was it?
Marcia Smith 18:30
No, it was Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. Oh, okay. You’ve saw that. Oh, it’s been so long ago. Yeah, it’s it has been oh, here’s this one. You’ll remember. Snap out of it.
Bob Smith 18:43
Oh, that’s, that’s Cher. Yeah. What was that movie? The moon? What’s it called? Moonstruck Yes. She did that. What was it Nicolas Cage. It is real big, big moment where? Because his hand was injured or
Marcia Smith 18:58
feeling sorry for himself because he was missing a hand. Said snap out of it. We love that scene. Yeah. Okay. All right. This one I’ll be curious to see if you get: My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks, you and I thank God. That sounds so familiar. Yes. Isn’t it? Very old? Very old before you were born.
Bob Smith 19:20
Wow. Have you seen the movie? I can’t remember where it came from though.
Marcia Smith 19:22
It’s James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Oh, okay. He played that. George M. Cohen. George M. COVID. Yeah, right. That’s right. That’s what he would say at the end of his stick. Oh, is that right? My mother. Thanks you my father. Thanks. You next quote. Okay. Nobody puts baby in a corner.
Bob Smith 19:40
Oh, that was from the Dirty Dancing movie. Was it? Yes. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 19:45
Did Johnny Castle played by Patrick Swayze? Yeah, I love that name is Johnny castle. Nobody puts baby in a corner. Oh, this he’ll never get. I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too.
Bob Smith 19:59
Oh, Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes. I just can’t laugh like she did.
Marcia Smith 20:11
You should be able to do that. Yeah, but you do her pretty well. Okay, last one number 100 on their quote list. I’m king of the world.
Bob Smith 20:18
So this is the one with the ship that went down the famous ship that what favorite ship the Titanic. Very good.
Marcia Smith 20:25
Yeah, it’s Jack Dawson, Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, I’m king of the world. Very good. Bob, you got most of them.
Bob Smith 20:32
Speaking of words, here’s evidence that words matter. words make people do things particularly when they’re in stories. So what did readers do when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said he was not going to use words to talk about Sherlock Holmes anymore and he killed off his detective. What did the readers do?
Marcia Smith 20:50
Well, this day, they stopped. They I know they revolted.
Bob Smith 20:54
Yes, they rebelled. 20,000 people cancel their subscriptions to The Strand magazine. So when he killed off Sherlock Holmes, he almost killed off the magazine that his stories were appearing in. Wow, they were so upset. They canceled their subscriptions. 20,000 people
Marcia Smith 21:09
The strand, got him to start writing it again.
Bob Smith 21:12
And they published a lot of other people to you know. Eight years later, he needed a strong character for a story about a ghostly hound he was writing. So he brought back Sherlock Holmes for the Hound of the Baskervilles. And that was published in The Strand from 1901 to 1903. And their magazine circulation shot up by 30,000 readers then, wow, I bet you they were thrilled, and The Strand continued to publish Sherlock Holmes stories until 1927. And I said it’s also published HG Wells. It published Winston Churchill, and even Queen Victoria. They wrote articles for The Strand magazine. All right, now one more question about Arthur Conan Doyle. What kind of a doctor was he? Because he was a doctor. Yeah. Before he became the writer of Sherlock Holmes.
Marcia Smith 21:54
I didn’t know a gynecologist.
Bob Smith 21:58
No, no, no, he was an ophthalmologist. Ah, he started an ophthalmology practice in London. But when no patients showed up he began writing to kill the time Oh no. And that’s how he became an author. I’ll be dying any you know we got a model Sherlock Holmes after a professor he had in medical school okay could always detect what people’s illnesses were by tech clues.
Marcia Smith 22:17
Yeah. Well, that is very cool. And what a successful formula that was it still is to this day used constantly. It’s amazing. Okay, Bob, in people fingerprints are unique, and no two people have the same. What singularity distinguishes Holstein cows from one another.
Bob Smith 22:38
They’re both prints are different. Their tails are different. Their spots are different.
Marcia Smith 22:43
They’re black and white spots. No two cows have the same pattern.
Bob Smith 22:48
Well, how about that?
Marcia Smith 22:50
This is Wisconsin, Bob. This is Wisconsin trivia. Talk for Dr. Tomorrow and test that let’s narrow down
Bob Smith 22:57
that road. No, let’s not do that. Oh, I got some more questions about Arthur Conan Doyle. What animals did he helped popularize, that people had never been talking about before. This is from a 1912 science fiction novel.
Marcia Smith 23:13
He wrote Oh, he wrote down. What was it?
Bob Smith 23:17
The Lost World? Okay. And what was that about? Dinosaurs? Yes, he popularized dinosaurs. It’s the first science fiction novel about human beings interacting with dinosaurs and it’s about an expedition to a place deep in the Amazon where prehistoric creatures survived. I thought it was a great book. I read it when I was in grade school.
Marcia Smith 23:35
Isn’t that what the movies based on the well Michael Crichton borrowed the title?
Bob Smith 23:39
Yeah, The Lost World for his 1995 novel which became the Jurassic Park movie. At the time of Conan Doyle’s Lost World. The term dinosaur was less than 200 years old and never appeared in the story, but how did they refer to them? Well, scientists and so forth knew about it, but he took it and turned it into what if they existed when people existed? What if they still exist somewhere or whatever? This is a guy who did Sherlock Holmes,
Marcia Smith 24:06
But I think he had a great imagination about without this before Sherlock or after, after this
Bob Smith 24:08
is 1912 Okay. Did you know he gave James Bond? A tagline? What tagline? Did he give James Bond Bond?
Marcia Smith 24:16
James Bond? No.
Bob Smith 24:20
When he got his medical degree, he drew a funny sketch of himself receiving his diploma with the caption, “License to kill.” GE and then Ian Fleming borrowed that for James Bond is a serious title for the spy. Most people don’t know that connection.
Marcia Smith 24:33
Okay, Bob, where does the term whipping boy come from? Oh, whipping boy.
Bob Smith 24:37
You’re just a whipping boy. Yeah. That is actually because very rich people at one point for their punishment if they were accused of a crime and they weren’t guilty of it, they would actually be able to hire people to take their punishment. And they were whipping boys. They Yeah, something like that.
Marcia Smith 24:51
Well, this is a little more specific. A whipping boy was a boy educated alongside a prince or a boy monarch In early modern Europe, and they received corporal punishments for the princes transgression, they said that in his presence Yeah. For example, as a prince King Edward the sixth had a whipping boy named Barnaby Fitzpatrick, poor Fitz, who was beaten every time the prince misbehaved during lessons.
Bob Smith 25:19
Remember, I had a boss Barclay Fitzpatrick I was his whipping boy wow, that’s interesting. Yeah. Oh,
Marcia Smith 25:25
poor Barnaby God just yet. Sit there and pray that the prince didn’t do anything stupid
Bob Smith 25:31?
to Prince probably did things just to get the boy. Yeah. Oh, that’s so awesome. It is God. Okay. Two more. Arthur Conan Doyle facts. Okay. What sport did he helped popularize bowling? No, not bowling. This is something he took up when he went in Switzerland. He moved to skiing. Yes, he began writing about skiing. He was the first English speaking author to document the thrill of skiing. You let yourself go he said getting as near to flying as any earthbound man can. And he correctly predicted that in the future hundreds of Englishmen would come to Switzerland for the skiing season. So it became popular because he he worked at also he was good at cricket. During one game though he set himself on fire. You want to explain that Lucia? Okay, I do it like Desi Arnaz. He went up to bat. They pitch him in the thigh striking a box of matches. He added his pocket and he set himself on fire.
Marcia Smith 26:29
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh my god. And Doyle used to laugh
Bob Smith 26:33
about that. Yeah. How odd that accident was broke the matches open set his pocket on fire. He’s like, look down. What what is oh my god, I’m
Marcia Smith 26:40
on fire. All right. All right.
Bob Smith 26:43
So there’s some questions on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Marcia Smith 26:45
All right. This time of year, we honor Martin Luther King. And here is one of his many inspirational quotes. If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk if you can’t walk, then crawl. But by all means, keep moving.
Bob Smith 27:03
All right. And we’ll be moving on right now. I’m Bob Smith. I’m Marcia Smith. Join us with more trivia next time here on the off ramp.
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
