...with the new novel, Seven by Farzana Doctor (Ep. 101)
What on Earth is Going on?
Farzana Doctor's new novel, Seven, juggles family, history, culture, and the incredible weight of those forces on women today. It's a detective story and travel novel, and a powerful insight into a woman struggling with sex, identity, her past, and her vast network of relatives. But the overarching issue throughout the book is female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice still common around the world.
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...after 99 Episodes (Ep. 100)
What on Earth is Going on?
It's been over two years since host Ben Charland kicked off this podcast in a basement in Kingston, Ontario. After nearly 100 fascinating conversations about everything from the mafia to the water supply, from science to philosophy, we're revisiting some of the best moments.
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...with Changing Cities (Ep. 99)
What on Earth is Going on?
The one thing that doesn't change about cities is the fact that they are constantly changing. Most people now live in cities, transforming them with their consumer behaviour, their culture, their ideas and their advocacy. City planners have to balance the natural development of these vast social organisms with complex, long-term plans. How do they do it?
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...with Creativity, Music and Politics during COVID-19 (Ep. 98)
What on Earth is Going on?
The coronavirus pandemic is altering our lives in ways we cannot yet comprehend, and in decades we will marvel at this transformative time. COVID-19 is not just accelerating trends that were in place beforehand, but it is creating new realities. How are artists coping? How about our politics and ideologies?
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...with Kingston WritersFest (Ep. 97)
What on Earth is Going on?
What makes a book interesting? Beautiful? Provocative? Necessary? Is reading still the best way to get a message across and tell a good story, and how is it changing in our world today?
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...with Disability (Ep. 96)
What on Earth is Going on?
We will all encounter disability in our lives, either ourselves or someone we know and love. What is our responsibility when that happens? What role should the greater community play to provide care and support? What about government, public policy, and spending? What's changing when it comes to disability and how we care for those who truly need it, and why is this important?
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...with Rebuilding Democracy (Ep. 95)
What on Earth is Going on?
What if being a Member of Parliament or Congress had nothing to do with an election, but rather worked like jury duty? What if our officials were seated randomly in a legislature? What if we innovated the very idea of government itself?
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...with Writing Biography (Ep. 94)
What on Earth is Going on?
Rosemary Sullivan is an acclaimed Canadian poet and biographer. She has written definitive biographies about Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen as well as a book about the early life of Margaret Atwood. In 2015, Rosemary published "Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva" to widespread praise.
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...with Politics and its Future (Ep. 93)
What on Earth is Going on?
Kent Hehr is a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and member of parliament for Calgary Centre. As a so-called "recovering politician" with careers on both the federal and provincial levels, Kent has a lot to say about what on earth is going on -- but he’s also got an incredible story. In October 1991 he was with some friends in Calgary when someone in another car opened fire. The bullet went into Kent’s spine, and just like that, he was paralyzed from the chest down as a C5 quadriplegic.
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...with Acting, Gaming and Creativity (Ep. 92)
What on Earth is Going on?
Aurora Browne is one of Canada's national treasures. Best known as one of the cast members of the Baroness von Sketch Show and as co-host of the Great Canadian Baking Show, Aurora has been creating daring, funny and original work for theatre, television and film for many years.
info_outlineIt's Friday 13th! What does that mean? Is it an unlucky day? According to science—no, it means absolutely nothing. But there is one exception: the date has meaning if we think it does. As meaning-machines, we impart significance everywhere we look. We don't want to live in a world where randomness reigns. So what traps have we set?
Ben has a fascinating chat with University of Toronto Professor Jeffrey Rosenthal, statistician and author of "Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything".
About the Guest
Jeffrey Rosenthal is a professor of Statistics at the University of Toronto, and author of Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything. Born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada in 1967, he received his BSc in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science from the University of Toronto at the age of 20, his PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University at the age of 24, and tenure in the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto at the age of 29.
For his research, Rosenthal was awarded the 2006 CRM-SSC Prize, and the 2007 COPSS Presidents' Award, the most prestigious honour bestowed by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. For his teaching, he received a Harvard University Teaching Award in 1991, and a University of Toronto Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998. He was elected to Fellowship of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2005, and to the Royal Society of Canada in 2012, and was awarded the SSC Gold Medal in 2013, and a President's Impact Award in 2019.
Rosenthal's book for the general public, Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities, was published in sixteen editions and ten languages, and was a bestseller in Canada. It led to numerous media and public appearances, to his work exposing the Ontario lottery retailer scandal, and to a President's Impact Award. Rosenthal has also published two textbooks about probability theory, and well over one hundred refereed research papers, many related to the field of Markov chain Monte Carlo randomized computer algorithms and to interdisciplinary applications of statistics. He has dabbled as a computer game programmer, musical performer, and improvisational comedy performer, and is fluent in French.
Despite being born on Friday the thirteenth, Rosenthal has been a very fortunate person.
Learn more about Jeffrey at his website or follow him on Twitter (@ProbabilityProf).
Mentioned in this Episode
- The Secret, a book by Rhonda Byrne
- Poisson clumping, a phenomenon where random events tend to occur in clusters, clumps, or bursts.
- The hard problem of consciousness
The Quote of the Week
"Luck has a way of evaporating when you lean on it."
- From Keys to the Demon Prison by Brandon Mull