Storytelling at the intersection of nanotechnology, motorsports and physics
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky works at the intersection between science and story, using her background as a nanomaterials researcher and master science communicator to bring science to audiences that aren't always looking for it. Her non-fiction writing ranges from scientific and popular articles about nanotechnology to the science of fast cars. She also brings her unique experiences to screenplays, stage plays and television, where she writes about the scientific culture, ethical challenges, and the wonders of discovery.
Reflection
Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, nanomaterials scientist and author of the book, The Physics of NASCAR, was welcomed to SUU's campus on October 17th, 2019, to speak about the thrills and science behind the beloved racing sport of NASCAR. She was introduced to the stage by the Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, Dr. Frank Hall, and gave a brief summary of her accomplishments and writing, as the audience eagerly listened, excited to hear Dr. Pelecky's presentation.
As Dr. Pelecky walked onto the stage, she explained that her presentation would be separated into two parts: the first part would discuss physics and cars, and the second part about how we teach science in today's world. She goes on to describe how her passion for NASCAR was accidental; she had watched a race on television and wondered how one of the cars had crashed, and because of what one of her college professors refers to as the "pitbull gene", she couldn't just let it go, and felt like she needed to understand why a driver who hadn't been hit by another car, hadn't blown a tire, spontaneously crashed into a wall. Her curiosity led to her book, as well as several experiences in NASCAR garages and driving race cars on speedways, which she shared footage of.
She continues to explain the physics and mathematics behind the motor sport, from the amount of grip, or friction, and downward force needed to push the car down onto the tires, so the vehicles can reach the 150 mph-plus speeds shown in races, to the specifics of the tires themselves, to the aerodynamics and air resistance that drivers must take into consideration when driving. Driving a race car is a lot harder than most people may think, as Pelecky says, "If you think about the weight of the wheels being a sandbag,...imagine that every time you sped up, every time you slowed down, every time you turned a corner, the amount of sand changes."
Dr. Pelecky concluded her presentation with the importance of science in all aspects of everyday life, from racing to dancing and music, and how instead of focusing on the teaching of science courses like "biology, chemistry, and physics, we should be teaching about energy, the environment, and the human body," so that the next generation of scientists and brilliant minds can understand what needs to be done for society and humanity's future.
by Emily Sexton
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky Podcast Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey, everyone, this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1 in this show, you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentation on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some new sound and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for it on the web at suu.edu/apex. But for now, welcome to this week's show. Here on Thunder 91.1.
[00:00:47] Okay, everyone, It's 3:00 p.m. here on the campus of Southern Utah University. You're listening to KSUU SUU U. Thunder 91.1, and this is the A.P.E.X Hour. My name is Lynn Vartan and I am joined in the studio today with Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, who has written, among other things, a book called The Physics of NASCAR. She gave her event earlier today. And I'm so excited to have her in the studio. Welcome, Diandra.
[00:01:16] Thank you for having me.
[00:01:17] It's been a joy to learn from you today. And I would love to start our conversation by talking about your background in science. And there's so many different areas to cover. I mean, we there's nanoparticles that I want to know about all that, which I am a complete novice at, and then to philosophy and then writing and then NASCAR and all those things. So what I'd love to start with is some of your early indicators that you were going to go into sciences.
[00:01:52] So I think my mother was a graduate student. She went back to school and I must have been probably fifth, sixth grade high. And whenever we didn't have school, she would take us with her. And so she was teaching intro like algebra. So she's a graduate student, T.A.. And I would sit in the classroom for the first section she taught and write down all the answers. Wow. And then in the second section, when the students couldn't do it, I would go up there and do it, which was in retrospect pretty horrible because I think I was freaking out. You know, this 12 year old is up there doing algebra problems that the college students are and so precocious. But I think that that made me want to teach that made me see how important teaching was. And I think that was really important.
[00:02:35] And I heard a story or I read it. I heard a bit of an interview. Was there someone who had a telescope that there was a memory of interacting with a telescope early on?
[00:02:46] Yes. So, you know, I grew up in Milwaukee and Frank Seidler. He was actually the mayor of Milwaukee for some period of time. And he was very close with our family. And he would pull out a telescope every now and then. We'd go over there and just, you know, look through the telescope, watch the stars. And I think that is like a universal, awe inspiring experience. You talked to a lot of people. They get an interest in science through astronomy.
[00:03:09] Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:11] And then high school maybe didn't go so well. I thought it was going well. Yeah. Turns out if you don't go to high school, they don't want to come back. But I was lucky. I actually I'd had taken my pre SATs. My scores were high enough that I was able to get into two schools. My mom was about to transfer to Texas and so I got accepted to Texas Stadium and the University of North Texas. And for some reason, my mother thought it was just really wrong for a 16 year old to go to College Station by herself and start college. And in retrospect, that was probably a good choice. Yeah, the University of North Texas, it's a smaller school, a lot of faculty involvement with the students. And it turned out to be the perfect place for me.
[00:03:53] Right. And it seems that especially with you do so much teaching and have done so much teaching and that that one on one, we've been having conversations about the importance of that. And I'd love to get into that a little bit later. So then how does college because you're your early schooling, radio, TV, film and philosophy, I think. Tell me a little bit about that period and then how that transitioned into the next stage of things for you.
[00:04:22] So I was always interested in philosophy and my father told me no one should study philosophy until they're 35. Really? And then he. Well, it's funny because as I got older, the age kept going up. He just wanted to keep you away from it. Well, but I think there's something to be said for it because so much of philosophy. You're 18 years old. What do you know about life? Right. And so you're studying things you really don't have any experience with. Right. And the nice thing is I have this wonderful library of philosophy books. And now I go back and read them. And, you know, I'm in my 50s. Yeah. And they make all of they mean something very different, much like songs you may never have been interested in. And something happens and becomes part of your life. Yeah. Yeah. So the philosophy stuff was interesting, but not necessarily such a focus. The radio, TV film, I you know, I always knew I was not a performer. I'm not the kind of person who likes being the center of attention necessarily. But the rejection is so hard to deal with. And at that age, I was just not ready for it because I wasn't one of those kids yet. I got praised for everything. You know, being in high school, that was pretty easy. Did well on my courses to get you know, something says this is not going to work. You're not accepted to this. That was really hard at that age. Right. And so I decided physics was easier.
[00:05:36] Yeah. That's amazing. Because, of course, you probably ran into similar things in physics later.
[00:05:43] I did. You know, but I. The thing about physics is physics is. Really objective. Most of the sciences are, you know, there is a right answer and nobody can say, well, OK. But your answer is not beautiful. Yeah. I don't like your answer. It's the right answer. Yeah. And so there's a certain measure of knowing that you've done it correctly, whereas there's so much subjectivity to the arts. And it took. Yeah. But physics did teach me how to get rejected, that's for sure.
[00:06:07] Yeah. Yeah. And your graduate work then is in physics and you started working. Is that the time when you start working on on particles and this kind of that type of thing?
[00:06:18] Yes. So a nano meter is a millionth of a meter. OK. And just to give you a size scale. Your hair is probably seventy thousand one hundred thousand nanometers. Oh, wow. So the particles we were making were on the order of 100 nanometers. So, you know, they they were pretty darn small. You could sort of high any large number across your your hair. Yeah. And one of the reasons why they're important is because particles that small can move around in your bloodstream, which means you can do things like use them to deliver pain killers or chemotherapy drugs. -0c g
[00:06:51] And now I know that you are not working in that area anymore. But you did some work with MRI imaging and chemotherapy. Can you tell? Just because I know that's very that field is very interesting to people. It's that that personal connection. You know, people, as I think you said, somebody told you, people learn from their heart, not for the head. And of course, when we talk about MRI imaging and chemotherapy, people are affected by that very personally. Can you talk a little bit about that, that time in that research and those things?
[00:07:20] Yeah. You know, being a physicist, I had not taken any biology since, I think 10 9th grade biology in high school. I did not like biology. It was mushy. It was smelly. It was gross. And I have a very weak stomach. And so but it was neat because I got to learn stuff I didn't know. So, for example, I mean, most people don't understand how chemotherapy drugs work, but they work because they kill the fastest dividing cells. And the reason cancer is a problem is because the cancer cells just keep dividing and they gobble up all the body's resources, leaving nothing for anybody else. Right. So chemotherapy drugs, Taxol, things like that, they affect the fastest dividing cells. And the idea is you're in kill all the cancer cells. Right. The problem is the fastest dividing cells in your body are your hair follicles. Right. And so when you do chemotherapy, your hair falls out. Exactly. Your white blood cell count goes to pot. Yeah. And so what we wanted to do was find a way that you could give people chemotherapy drugs but not have them run all over the body. So myself and a colleague at the medical center at Nebraska. He was working with small polymer particles that would you know, if you've ever had observable sutures. Yeah. He made particles out of that material. So you'd put the drugs in them and they would just dissolve over time. Oh, and he was treating cancer that way, huh? And I was working on magnetic particles. OK. And so we took my. This is you know, you put your peanut butter in my chocolate. Yeah. We put my magnetic particles in his polymer particles with chemotherapy drugs. And then the ideas, you would hold them in place using a magnet. So if you had breast cancer, we would use a magnet near the breast area to hold the chemotherapy drugs only in that area. So they're not running around your body, making your hair fall out, compromising your immune system.
[00:09:05] That sounds amazing. But then you transition to NASCAR. And I think that's one of the interesting things I you know, especially on a campus, we're talking about the trajectory of careers and students are thinking about what they want to do.
[00:09:20] I'm what you did. Did you always have a sick security sense of, OK? Well, you know, I've got I'm I'm doing all these things in physics. It's all gonna work out, you know? Or how did the NASCAR thing come into play? How did you make that transition? How did it all happen?
[00:09:38] NASCAR was a giant accident. And I do mean it was literally an accident. I saw an accident on television. And I was not a NASCAR fan. I was not a racing fan. No interests. I saw this accident and it drove me nuts because I couldn't figure out why it happened. No car hit the other car. You know, there wasn't any visible reason. And I think one of the great things about being at a university is that you're always learning. Yeah. And so when you see something, this is what makes you a scientist. It's not what you know. It's the fact that when you see something and you can't explain it, it drives you crazy. It keeps you awake at night. And so I'm trying to figure this out. And I finally start asking a lot of questions. And it ended up with a book.
[00:10:18] Yeah. Did you did you have the sense that I mean, was there a point where you like, oh, I could really go deep into this for, you know, a year or two? I mean, at what point did it seem like, oh, this is going to become a field of study for me or an area study?
[00:10:35] I'll tell you what, I was teaching introductory physics. And, you know, the problem with that class is the thing is here is when am I ever going to use this? And as I'm getting deeper and deeper into NASCAR and I'm I'm learning not only about the science of it, but I'm learning about the fanaticism. I mean, NASCAR fans are really enthusiastic people. Yeah, I'm thinking all the stuff that I'm supposed to be teaching. I could teach using cars, huh? OK. So you're on a double duty? Yeah. I mean, as I was working on the book, I was incorporating some of those things. So my examples went from, you know, being balls rolling down incline planes to race cars.
[00:11:12] That's awesome. Well, cool. Well, that brings us to our first musical break, which is great. Thank you for telling us about your history a bit when we come back. Let's get into the details of NASCAR and the book and tell people all about that. But I picked some songs today, as I usually do. Everybody kind of knows I'm always playing world music. But today I thought NASCAR speed and so I picked songs that all have the word speed in the title at the very least. So the first is The Speed of Love by Earth Wind and Fire. You're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:15:17] All right, everyone, we're back here on the A.P.E.X Hour. This is Lynn Vartan. I'm joined in the studio by Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. And we are talking about the physics of NASCAR. This is the A.P.E.X Hour. That song that you're listening to is The Speed of Love by Earth, Wind and Fire. We're featuring all things speed and race oriented in our music today. I also want to take a moment to remind everyone, if you have not yet subscribe to the podcast or also downloaded episodes of the podcast, please consider doing so. And we're really excited to be producing this great show here at Southern Utah University and all downloads really help us. So please feel free to download and tell a friend.
[00:16:02] Welcome back, Diandra.
[00:16:04] Thank you.
[00:16:05] So I would love for you to tell our audience is a little bit about your book. I've read it and I love it. I was just like, wow, the paint is like that's affected by this. And that affects the speed at this, all these different everything. And so if you could just give our audience a little snapshot of what your book is about.
[00:16:22] Well, it's actually the lifecycle of a car. And so we start with building the car and then racing it, which draws on. I embedded myself with the NASCAR team for a couple of months. Yeah. And sort of follow them everywhere and then wrecking the car, because that is what happens to most of them. And that's where I discuss safety, which is a big aspect of NASCAR that people often sort of ignore.
[00:16:46] So tell me about getting in with the with the group and getting embedded with them. Was that a challenging thing? Was it just getting on the phone and saying, hey, let me in? I mean, what was that process like?
[00:16:59] It was finding someone who understood why I was doing it. And that's important because the person that I finally hooked up with, Josh Brown, was Elliott Sadler's crew chief guy. And he's an engineer. And he understands that trying to get people involved in science and understanding how important science is is a good thing. Right. So he when I told him I wanted to do. He immediately wanted to do it. How cool. And then I was supposed to follow them at California. That was his mere first race. And then Josh went and got himself suspended. Oh, at the Daytona 500, because they put bolts in their trunk that had holes drilled through. This does not sound like a big deal, right? No, but the holes in the bolts allowed air to get out and gave them an aerodynamic advantage. NASCAR found the bolts. NASCAR suspended Josh. So my first race was actually Atlanta that year.
[00:17:51] Well, that was one of the things that I thought was so interesting. And in my novice, you know, view on racing, I don't think that I realized how stringent the rules and regulations, particularly for NASCAR, are. And you learn about that so much in your book. I mean, can you comment was that surprising to you?
[00:18:08] There's sort of two sets of regulations. One of them has to do with safety in NASCAR. Since 2001, NASCAR has not suffered a death or serious injury in any of their top three series. Oh, well, of course, 2000, 2001, they lost four drivers, including Dale Earnhardt. Right. And they really took that seriously. They designed the next generation of car so that the chassis was the safest chassis you've ever seen. It's also the first chassis where they actually sent out AutoCAD plans to the teams. You know, it wasn't just it has to meet those. It's like, here's the plans, build it like this, because we've done the research. We know how to make it safe. Amazing. That's one set of rules. They are very strict on those rules. There are some things you do not mess with. For example, you have panels that are there that keep the fumes out of the car, for example, and you're not allowed mess with those because of the fumes. Get in the car. That's not going to be good for the driver. Right. So those rules, you understand, and they are sacred. You do not mess with them. Then there are another set of rules which are sort of to just, you know, try to keep everybody on a fair playing field. And those are the ones people try to skirt.
[00:19:16] Yeah, I can imagine. But that's so interesting, too. I mean, of course, the safety things we we we hear about and I'm so happy to hear about. But it just seems like all these little details that even led to when your first race embedded was really interesting. So you were embedded for two months. What is what was that like?
[00:19:37] What was neat because the team let me basically from the day the time the garage opened to the end of the race, I was following them around. How fun. And well, it was fascinating because there's about seven or eight people who are sort of the car crew, not the pit crew. That's a whole different group of people. OK. They're professionals. They only do pick car start writing stuff, but there's about seven of them. So there's a crew chief, a car chief, an engine lead engineer, and then people who work on the car. And so for each race, I would follow one of them around and just sort of see what they did. And it was nice because it was an easy win for the book because I didn't know anything about it. Right. So I was bringing the reader along with me. And the. Were so great. Yeah, you know, they they could have just felt like I was in their way and annoying and I might have men, they ain't they never let me know if I was. Yeah. They just open up their arms to me.
[00:20:27] And did you set up in interviews or did you just ask a bunch of questions? How did the process of the research and knowing happen?
[00:20:37] Well, I would try to do some research ahead of time because I didn't want to come in and waste time asking questions I could answer elsewhere. Right. But then those questions, I would sort of come in with a list of things I wanted to know. And then I would basically just start asking questions until I felt like I was really starting to get on the person's nerves and then I'd go to somebody else and start asking them questions. And normally there were the reason they would not tell me something was not because they didn't know it was because it was more we were getting into trade secret stuff and they didn't want anyone else to know. Right. And there's a lot of that in. In all auto racing. But I would imagine particularly in NASCAR, too. So the Talladega race last weekend was won by seven thousandths of a second. Really? Yeah. And so you're talking of the difference between winning and losing is, you know, milliseconds. And so every little bit it used to be in the old days, getting a tenth of a second on a lap was a big deal. Nobody is getting tenths of a second anymore. They're getting hundreds. Yeah. So every little bit makes a difference. And teams have to guard what they learn because if everyone has it, you don't have an advantage.
[00:21:41] Well, I wanted to ask a little bit also about the drivers. And and one of the things that I think I heard you say is that NASCAR drivers are like intuitive physics physicists. And I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit.
[00:21:55] I think that's really amazing and interesting. Well, so we would have the drivers in to talk. I did a serious called The Science of Speed for the National Science Foundation. And I interviewed a lot of NASCAR drivers. And they would be really nervous at coming and go. I don't know anything about physics. Are you kidding? So, you know, you do. I mean, you understand how these things work because you are using physics to drive the car fast. You and I just used different words for it. I say friction. You say grip. I have an equation. You know what to do in a particular situation or as you've experienced it. And so the more we would talk, the more we would understand we're saying the same thing. We're just using different words to do it.
[00:22:31] Yeah. Cool. I love that. I mean, because they they probably feel it in some ways also. They just sort of in naturally kind of kind aesthetically feel it.
[00:22:41] Yeah. So one thing you'll hear people talking about is driving from the seat. OK. And that's really how it is at every moment the driver is feeling what the car is doing. And you know, I talked to my talk about all four wheels are doing something different. The driver has to sense that. And what they're doing changes from second to second. And so a lot of it is just feeling and knowing what to do. It's very much like if you drive in the ice and snow. Yeah. If you do that a lot. You know, when you're back and start sliding out, you know which way to turn the wheel. Right. And you know, you know how hard or soft led on or off the brake. Yeah. So it's that experience.
[00:23:17] You use physics when you drive to. You don't think about it. Right. But that's what you're doing. Right. I'm I'm an intuitive physicist also. I think we all are. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, this actually from firsthand experience because you did drive, right? Oh, my favorite thing is drive and race cars now. All right. Who knew, right?
[00:23:36] I won't. I try to get on the beltway as little as possible. But on the racetrack, it's a lot safer because all of the safety equipment and everyone on the track is actually focusing on their driving and not reading their cell phone.
[00:23:50] Right. There's no texting and driving on a racetrack. No know. So what was driving it like? What? What what surprised you about driving a race car?
[00:24:00] So the school I went to. You drove in a two seater and you had a coach next to you. And so the coach would you would get going and the coach would give you a thumbs up to go faster, flat hand to stay and a thumbs down to break. And my coach was great. We got in. He said, do you wanna go fast? And it was like, well, OK. Why else would I be here? But apparently not everyone wants to go fast, OK? Some people just want the feel of it. And we started going and he's motioning me to get closer to the wall. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure that's a good idea. But by a few laps later, I was. And the thing is, I was really focused because, you know, I had read I knew it was happening. I knew it was going on in the turns. I was really focused on it. We got done. And I said, you know, because cars don't have speedometer is right. And I said, well, how fast do you think we go when you said you hit the chip? They put a chip in there so that you can't exceed a certain number. APM Oh, and hitting the chip means you hit the limit, right? So we were going 155 some run there. And, you know, he said you were pretty good. I was like, wow. Because it didn't feel like 160. Yeah. And I've subsequently I've ridden in cars. California Speedway, we're going 190. Wow. It doesn't feel like it while you're doing it.
[00:25:10] So, you know, they don't have speed. Ominous because that that's not really the point. Right. It's relative. Feed to the other cars, is that is that the reason? Or is it weight or why no speedometer?
[00:25:22] Well, they've gone to a digital dash now and so they are actually now using speedometer is but sort of the traditional thing is you use a tack amateur which tells you how fast the engine is rotating. And the thing is, you have four gears and so you have full scale for each one of those four years. So attack hominem is actually more accurate. I see. Oh, OK. But most of the drivers, I mean, they're not trying to get at a certain speed. The only place that's important is on pit road, because if you go over pit road speed, which is set for safety. Yeah. You get penalized. And if you get penalized, that can really screw up your race.
[00:25:54] Oh, I see. Oh, cool. That's great to know. I'm. What about the feel of the force or the seat or the steering? I mean, what was that part of it like?
[00:26:06] So the seats they have in these cars, they sort of envelop you. And so there's usually a brace at the shoulders, one at the ribs, one or on your thighs and one around your head. And you're wearing this giant helmet, too. Yeah. And so you're actually feeling it when I got out of the car. I actually had bruises on my ribs because you're going around the corner and it's about to g was what you're feeling for the drivers. They're all custom fit. Yeah. They'll make a seat where basically they're purple, squishy stuff in and the driver sits down on a bag and it solidifies to his body. Wow. But for us, it was a little loose. I was moving around a lot. Yeah, but he's just it's like if you go on the expressway and you get off and you're going too fast, you know that feeling, you're afraid you're going to go off the edge. Yes, it's like that. But when you get done when I got done, I got out and I was shaking like crazy. And the week before, I had watched Elliott after qualifying at Atlanta. And he got off and he was shaking. And I said, Elliott, was it scary out there? He said, no, you know, you don't understand. And he knew I was gonna go do this. He said, talk to me next week. So it's just from the adrenaline and the adrenaline. It's the adrenaline. It is such a rush. And, you know, as I told people earlier, I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of heights. I'm afraid of snakes, spiders, wasps, hornets, you name it. But if I loved this. It wasn't scary. Well, I think part of it was because I knew that there was no way this company was going to let me drive fast enough to wreck the car. I would have to do something profoundly stupid. Right, because the amount of friction I had that, you know, we weren't driving at the limit of the tires. Right. So it really wasn't it wasn't like we were driving in a race and at top speed. Right?
[00:27:47] Right. One last question that I wanted to ask you about your time sort of embedded with a team is the culture that you witnessed. Then I I I've we've had some conversations and I know you have a very wonderfully heartfelt, positive viewpoint of the culture that you experience. And I'd love for you to just tell our audience a little bit about that.
[00:28:08] You know, no one ever made me feel unwelcome there. There are not a lot of women in the garage. Some of that is because if you are a young woman and you've gotten a degree in engineering, mechanical aerospace, you know, you can go work for NASCAR and be on the road 36 races a year and work 80 hours a week. Or you can go work for Boeing. Right. And make the same amount of money and have a much different life. There were women in the PR field. Everyone who was with us knew, you know, oh, this person has a page in physics. So I think they thought I knew more than I actually knew. But, you know, it's interesting. Stock car racing does not have a lot of women. There are few up and coming women. But if you look at, say, drag racing, lot more women to drive. We're interesting. I wonder why. One reason I think is that John Force, who's, you know, one of the big names in drag racing, had four daughters and they're all in the business.
[00:29:01] Oh, and so that breeds other. I mean, you know, you see icons. You were asking me about music. Same thing. You have an icon that you see or just somebody you see in and that starts breeding another generation. Interesting.
[00:29:13] In physics, we talk about critical mass and it's been shown that if you get a certain percentage of women in a field, it makes it much easier for more women to get in. And that's somewhere between 15 and 25 percent. Right. Turning point, I guess. Exactly. And but, you know, as far as drivers, Danica Patrick left, what, two years ago in the next woman to come in is probably three or four years away. Wow. So interesting. They've been very behind in terms of the drivers.
[00:29:39] Fascinating. Well, I think it's a good time for another song. When we come back, we'll get into some more details and start to get into the writing process. I'm really interested to talk to you about writing. So another song. This is Steppenwolf, Faster than the Speed of Light. And you're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:32:52] All right. That's faster than the Speed of Light by Steppenwolf. This is KSUU Thunder 91.1. You're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour. I am Lynn Vartan and I am joined in the studio with Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. Welcome back. Thank you. Well, we've been talking about NASCAR. We've been talking about being embedded with a team and driving NASCAR as we've talked about your background. But you have a whole other side of things that you do, and that is other styles of writing. So before we get into some specifics. Tell me a little bit. Tell our audience what other kinds of writing you do.
[00:33:30] Well, I think we're the NASCAR lead me was just really understanding how to tell a story. And it is something I actually folded into. Teaching graduate students how to communicate science is that we are genetically evolutionarily wired into stories. We learn things better if we tell ourselves stories. And so having somebody in has a beginning, a middle and an end really doesn't matter if you are talking about a novel or if you're talking about trying explain your research to somebody.
[00:33:58] And that's not really something that you necessarily were aware of before. It was really NASCAR that kind of made that really clear to you.
[00:34:07] It was. Who was writing a book about NASCAR. Right. OK. It was figure out how do you tell that story? And you know, I was really lucky. I was a first time author. I'd never written anything that long before. Yeah, I did. Edited some scientific books. But working with an editor and just trying to understand, how do you tell beginning, middle, end. And I think that's really important. And nobody tells scientists how to communicate. Well, I should take that back. There are some places there's the oldest center, which is at Stony Brook in New York. OK. And they focus. It's Alan Alda started it. Oh, yes, I have heard about that. Tell us about that. Yeah. They focus on trying to help scientists relay their stories to the public. And so one of the problems workers have is we don't want to, quote, dumb down what I'm doing. And I hate that phrase, because if you really understand what you're doing, you should be able to explain it on multiple levels. Yes. And so they run all kinds of seminars and things for scientists and try to help them understand that. And it's more important now than ever because people need to understand science. It's affecting their life as we're talking about things like climate change, for example, health care. People need to understand that there is scientific work done in these fields and they need to be able to understand that, you know, it's not that scientists change their minds all the time. It's that we get new data in and it changes what we know.
[00:35:19] Right. But you have the bug for fiction, I think.
[00:35:25] Yeah. There's you know, the problem nonfiction is you sort of have to stick with the facts. Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts. So when I was I've done a lot of things with women in science in my time as a physicist. And we ask women and also minorities what influence their decision to go into science, science. There's a couple of things. One is their parents are extremely important, but the second is often things they've seen in popular culture. So the characters from Star Trek, the Star Wars, even sometimes, you know, all those kinds of things, you see television, films, no phones.
[00:36:00] I heard the actress some bones say one time that the overwhelming amount of mail that she gets from me or God gets her got from young girls interested in going into forensic science. So, yeah, the models are huge.
[00:36:14] Yeah. And they're just there isn't that much fiction. There's a lot of science fiction. That's your real techno fiction where really they're obsessing over weird gadgets that couldn't possibly exist. Yeah. And you know, for me, I always love Michael Crichton. Robin Cook, the people who took an idea and just said, well, you know, if this one thing went differently, this would happen. Right. And I wanted to see scientists as characters. And I went to a I went to this workshop in 2001 that was co-sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. OK, and the American Film Institute, OK. And the idea was they were going to take some scientists and put them together. And in one week they're going to teach him how to write screenplays. Oh, wow. Which, you know, in some ways is sort of silly because you're not going to learn that in a week. Yeah. Even if you take a bunch of really smart scientists. But it's sort of got me started thinking about the other ways that I could get information out and influence the public and how they thought about science.
[00:37:09] I say, well, I have read some of your major projects and I have one that I'm particularly interested in is called the Manhattan P.A. Project, which on your website you say The West Wing meets West World.
[00:37:24] So I got very interested in prosthetics. Oh, yeah. And it was actually working on a story about lethal autonomous robots. Okay. So these are the robots. People are talking like killer robots. Are gonna go out and they will be able to kill people making their own decisions. Right. And I started talking to a woman at Georgia Tech and she said there's two ways to make robots that think like humans. One is to make a simple robot and make it progressively more human. The other is to start with humans and make them more robotic. Oh, and most of what you see in science fiction is the former. Yes. And I started thinking about that and I started writing a story. And then I started doing the research for the story because, you know, I was dumb. I should've done the research first. And everything I had imagined about what we could do in helping making people more robotic had already been done. Really? Yeah. And so DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has, for example, developed this amazing robotic arm. And I got it. They're doing their work at Johns Hopkins, which is near where I am, so I got to go see it. Oh, really? And, you know, it has a hand that works just like a regular hand. It's all done by nerve impulses and bought. Oh, wow. And so then I had to rethink my project and I had to think, well, what's the next thing? Yeah. And the advances. I actually proposed a nonfiction book. And then I got to thinking about this question about how far do you go? So the point of prosthetics has always been how do we turn a person to, quote unquote, normal. So if we have a lot of people who are in Afghanistan who have lost limbs because of IED. Right. And the goal of the scientists has always been how do we replace the limb and give them something equal to what they had? How do we make them normal again? Right. And what the Manhattan Project asks is, why stop at normal? And so it's sort of the quote is the the first superheroes will not be born. They will be made.
[00:39:22] Yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. OK. Cool. And is that project a completely written and ready for production? What stage are you in with that?
[00:39:33] Yes, I have a television pilot and I got to working on a novel because I just like the idea so much. The main character is actually a scientist who is being asked to do this. And the I named the Manhattan Project. We all know about Robert Oppenheimer. And and so I thought, well, with this, what you're really doing is you're working on human weapons. And so instead of having, you know, all men in the 1950s, this is about a company, the defense contractor that works with the government and this young woman who wants to build a optical prosthetic to help her father, who lost his sight in a farm accident. And it turns out that what she needs to do for that is exact same thing they need to make this horrible weapon. And so she has to try to balance all these things. Is your responsibility to the country versus responsibility to her own ethics and morals?
[00:40:23] Right. Interesting.
[00:40:25] And a female protagonist, a female protagonist and a female antagonist. Oh, that's fascinating. One of the things about a lot of the places that really are pushing scientists, as in popular media, they want you to make all heroes. And of course, scientists are not all heroes. There are good scientists or bad scientists. And just to get that dichotomy, you know, there are some people. Right now, Google employees don't want Google doing work for the government. Well, you know, there are other people who do want to do work for the government, whereas, you know, where's the medium? You have to you know, the government is there to protect us. And you have to balance civil liberties with being safe. Yeah. And that's a current problem we have that I don't think anyone has a good answer for.
[00:41:08] Right. I agree. It's a complex problem, but it'd be great to hear how your protagonists and antagonists get kind of clash over over these things. So I'm excited for that. Thank you for sharing it. I would love to stay on the futuristic vein of things a bit and to get back into sort of looking at the future. But getting back into cars, I know people are asking all the time about the future of cars and the future of fuel. Can you tell me a little bit about what your opinions are of where the future and it could be in NASCAR, could be in consumer cars, too, and fuel. What what do you think from your scientific expertise?
[00:41:52] That's a huge question. I'm sorry. Well, let's start from NASCAR. OK. There was a recently an announcement made and NASCAR said they may start seeing elements of hybridization. That is part electric, part fuel as early as 2022. Well, that's close. It is close. And, you know, it's like everything else. You don't get a sudden change one day. You're doing fuel cars and next day you're doing all electric. There's just too much stuff. It's the same reason we don't do it in the country. Right. But they are making that change. And I think NASCAR is particularly important because there's a huge group of people that will follow NASCAR. Right. And, you know, it's very easy to go and say you're wrong. You're driving a fuel powered automobile and you're polluting the environment. Well, you know, every cat video, there's a carbon cost to that. Right. Every e-mail, if you look at how much e-mail, how much it takes to cool Amazon servers. That's true. Right. You know. So it's easy to point to something and say this is evil. We should stop this. Right. But we really have to look at the whole thing. And, of course, you know, you have the same issues with electricity. What are we going to do with the batteries when they wear out? Yeah. What do we do with the fact that there's a lot of rare earth materials and other kinds of materials that we do not have an unlimited supply of? Right. You know, it's reduce, reuse, recycle in that order. Yeah. And we seem very focused on recycling and not so much on re reduce. Yeah. It is what I think we have to do. And that includes cars.
[00:43:16] Mm hmm. I agree. A hundred percent. So that seems like a really interesting kind of call to action and and we'll see. As you said, the wheel turns slowly. So. Well, we'll take a look and see.
[00:43:27] It does. If you look at, you know, I live in Dallas for a while and there are people who have two hour commutes to. Gosh. So you're spending, you know, think not just carbon and greenhouse gas quality of life. Yeah. You know, but we've made it so like in San Francisco, you can't afford to live there and you have to commute. Right. So we need to do some serious rethinking. And, you know, the car is one part of our infrastructure, of our eco system. We need to think about not just we're going to change all electric and everything will be fine. It won't. Right. We have to think about the whole thing.
[00:43:58] Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Well, we have time for one more song and got to put my band Rush in there, who I love. The drummer in me, of course, loves Rush. And this is the speed of love by Rush. And you're listening to KSUU. Thunder 91.1 is a major campaign with.
[00:48:30] Welcome back, everyone. This is the KSUU Thunder 91.1 you're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour, and just a reminder that we would love for you to subscribe to the podcast, which you can find on our website suu.edu/apex. Download some episodes and check it out. That song was The Speed of Love by Rush. We're featuring songs about speed today because we have Diandra Leslie-Pelecky in and we are talking about the physics of NASCAR. But man, this hour has gone by so quickly. Which is awesome. That's always means a good conversation. And so we we are closing our hour with my two favorite questions to ask guests. But before we do that, we want to make sure to let our audience know where they can find out more. You have one regular blog, but you're also a guest on a couple of other blogs, I think. Can you tell me a little bit about where people can find your writing?
[00:49:28] Yeah, I think the main place to look is building speed dot org slash blog, which is where I try to comment on, you know, current events in motorsports. So every week there should be something that relates to what's happening now.
[00:49:39] Great. OK. Cool. And then are there are there other places that you have your Web site and it's just. drdiandra.com. Is that right? OK. So if you want to check out that and of course, the book is widely available. The book is called The Physics of NASCAR. And it goes into just such detail on the life of a car of a NASCAR. And and what the question I think one of the questions on the jacket is how do I know why my favorite driver wins and all those kinds of details. So definitely check out more of Diandra's work. And yeah, the blog is really fun, too. There's also a couple of other blog posts that I read. You did whine about Styrofoam hitting a windshield.
[00:50:23] The guest posts from time to time. And I know I'm the person who gets the weird calls from radio stations saying this woman claims that her windshield was cracked by a Styrofoam cup being thrown at her by a car going past. Can that happen? Yeah. So I do that from time to time.
[00:50:37] Yeah, I read some of those and I just find it so fun and interesting. And I was like, oh, wow, no way that can really happen. So, yeah, you can definitely find out about Dr. Diandra on drdiandra.com. And also buildingspeed.org is the blog. Thank you. OK. I've got two final questions for you. My first that I love to ask is that if you met yourself from ten years ago in a bar fight, who would win that bar?
[00:51:05] Fight yourself now or yourself from ten years ago? It would be myself from ten years ago, because myself now doesn't need to be right all the time. Oh, I like that.
[00:51:16] I would say the same thing from ten years ago, but I always ask people and it's very interesting why, you know, it's kind of a cool question. It's a difficult question to answer. Yeah, because you you want to think that, OK, you've grown, but that growing sometimes means you don't like don't need to win. You don't need to win. Yeah, I love it. I'm great. Well, thank you. And my other question is, we'd love to ask what's turning someone on this week? And this can be anything. It can be a book. It can be a song. It could be a band. It can be a movie. It could be a TV show. It could be your favorite soda. It could be anything in the world. So, Dr. Diandra, what is turning you on this week?
[00:51:57] Well, you know, I normally do not watch any reality TV. Oh, my gosh, I love it already. However, the great British baking show, which is on Netflix, is off. This is one of the few things that I actually want to watch as soon as it drops. That's fantastic. And every Friday, we listen to Chuck Todd on our news, because I like Chuck Todd and then we watch the great British baking show. And I just love it because they are so supportive of each other. Yeah. And I learned something.
[00:52:24] That's great. Oh, my gosh. Well, it's a hit. I mean, people love it. You know, and so everybody check it out. I mean, if you can be a physics professor and a full time writer and also love the great British baking show, then you are at a plus in our book. So. Well, with that, we're gonna say goodbye for this week. I would love to say thank you so much, Diandra, for joining me today and for visiting Southern Utah University. Thank you. It's been a wonderful visit. I appreciate the invitation. I'm so glad. Thanks. OK. And everybody, we will see you soon here on the A.P.E.X Hour.
[00:52:59] Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1. Come find us again next Thursday at 3 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University. And new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime, we would love to see you at our events on campus to find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex. Until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour. Here on Thunder 91.1.