The Sunday Conversation: Sandra Tsing Loh

Pasadena public radio personality-writer-monologuist-concert pianist-Caltech grad Sandra Tsing Loh can be heard every week in some 360 markets in the U.S. and abroad (via the Armed Forces Radio Network), wittily illuminating some interesting but hitherto obscure factoid in her minute-long show-ette, “The Loh Down on Science” (lohdownonscience.com). Now the versatile host, based at KPCC-FM (89.3), is developing an hourlong quiz and variety show designed to shed light on research by Caltech professors — and lend new meaning to the phrase “popular science.” She hopes to launch the show by the end of the year. Beginning Oct. 3, the live monthly shows will be open to the public as part of Caltech’s family science day, and the website will be streaming video from the early pilots.

We know that science fiction is entertaining. Are you exploring the premise that science fact can also be entertaining or even funny?

Yes! Science and nature are so weird and wacky and wonderful, from whales farting to the hiss on your AM radio being from the big bang to how they deal with trash that comes from spacecraft. They all tend to lend themselves to Monty Python sketches because the juxtapositions are often so absurd.

What do they do with trash in space?

I think they put a transmitter in it and use it for radio transmitting. They accept the fact that there’s trash in space and they actually use it. I have to look it up. There are so many of these — there are over 1,000 I have in a folder. I was once on a show with a radio host in Santa Cruz and someone said, “I love the one where you talk about scientists who asked: When you smash a bottle over someone’s head, does it have more impact if it’s full or if it’s empty?” It turns out if it’s empty.

Why?

I said I don’t remember. I know that’s true, and I can look it up in the big binder. Some of them I remember. Some of the infamous ones are how needles have to be longer to give vaccinations because we have more fat on our butt than in the ‘50s or ‘60s. We did one about if you have a table that’s rocking and has one odd leg; there were two math teams in different parts of the country analyzing this and they decided that if you turn the table a quarter turn it will always be stable.

Some of these concepts are hard to grasp aurally, so we try to write them with visual language and I try to slow down the hard words so you can get a picture in your brain.

I was lunching with a lady in Orange County, and she said, “I love your science things.” And I said, “Can you remember any?” And she said, “No, I can’t, but I feel like I’m surrounded by science and I’ve had a science minute.” And I said, “Well, that’s good enough.”

Why are people so freaked out by science?

It’s hard for people to access scientists’ work, because if you Wikipedia some of these people or look at the descriptions of their work, you will be immediately confused. You’ll see molecular diagrams, you’ll see equations and you’ll immediately be put off. Shuki Bruck is the cofounder of the information science program at Caltech. He’s a brilliant man, but his lectures are really easy to understand and really interesting, really profound. And he talks about counting systems — how do adults learn a number sense? A baby who’s 1 month old can count to three. But then to build higher-order numbers, adults have to learn how to wrangle them. And Shuki Bruck did a thing in his class about one of the most primitive counting tools that has ever been found — a jawbone with 29 notches. So he asked a group of Caltech students, “29? Why is that?” They go, “It’s not base 10. It’s not base 5 ... .”

So I had proffered this at a Pasadena luncheon of businesswomen, and a roomful of women will immediately know. It’s the lunar cycle. Because the first person counted the notches of the moon. It’s like, when’s my period coming again? So Shuki Bruck is saying, “I think the first mathematician was a woman.” Or, he jokes, the husband of a woman who’s counting how many days until the next blowup.

How do you find the fun stuff?

So, hey, don’t get put off. With science, so many people have a memory of hitting the wall. And of course people hit the wall with math and algebra and are turned off to science. There are many points and reasons people are flung off the science train and decide I’m just not going to get this.

There’s another philosophy, which is that science is everywhere around us. It’s worth it to try and find out about stuff because it’s interesting and some of it goes into equationland, and you’re not going to be able to get that, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get some of it. Because science is in driving, it’s in cooking, it’s in skin care or bathing or laundry. It is really everywhere around us.

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