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Something You Should Know
The Powerful Benefits of Nostalgia & Why Games Are More Than Just Fun - SYSK Choice
00:50:22
Discover why nostalgia can make you happier and more motivated — and how the games we play reveal the deepest truths about being human.
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- [00:01]
A
I'm Alex Honnl, professional rock climber and founder of the HONL Foundation. I wanted to let you know about a brand new season of the Planet Visionaries podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This is the podcast exploring bold ideas and big solutions from the people leading the way in conservation. Join me in conversation with the likes of climate champion Mark Ruffalo, biologist and photographer Christina Mittermeier, and one of the most successful conservationists of our time, Chris Tompkins. Join us on Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts.
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B
Today on Something you should know does birth order really determine parts of your personality? Maybe then nostalgia Looking back fondly on the past, it can be beneficial.
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C
Turns out that nostalgia makes you feel younger than you are, especially after around the age of 40. And that ability to time travel backwards actually helps us deal with our anxiety about the future.
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B
Also, how to keep your cat out of your Christmas tree and the games people play from tic tac toe, chess, backgammon, and our love hate relationship with Monopoly.
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D
I think this is a highly flawed game and I'm really not quite sure why it's become everyone's game of choice. For example, at holiday times, very quickly you realize who's going to win and then you spend hours just grinding out the bankruptcy of all the other players.
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B
All this today on Something you should Know. It's time for Black Friday. Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right, you'll find huge savings on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 plus with Intel Core Ultra processors and with built in advanced AI features. It's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life. These PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you, plus earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play and connect. Whether you just started holiday shopping or you're just finishing up, these PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now@dell.com deals and don't miss out. That's Dell.com deals. Something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should Know with Mike Carruthers hello there. Welcome to Something you should Know. I suspect that you've heard something about the birth order theory that where you fall into birth order with your siblings has something to do with your Personality. The idea that birth order is a thing was developed by Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychotherapist in the early 1900s. He proposed that the birth order position in which a child is born significantly affects their personality and life outcome outcomes, including career and educational success. However, in more recent years, the theory has come under some scrutiny. For example, a 2015 review found that firstborn children had higher levels of intellect than children in other birth order positions. But the researchers found no difference between firstborn children and others in terms of broader personality traits like extroversion, emotional stability, or imagination. A 2015 study of US high school students found no statistically significant association between birth order and intelligence or any other personality traits. Now, other studies do support the idea that firstborns have some things in common, specifically that firstborns are more likely to be leaders and have personality traits such as persistence and emotional stability. So there may be something to the birth order theory, but it may not be as rock solid as a lot of people believe. And that is something you should know. We are getting deep into the holiday season as this episode goes out, and it's a time when people get nostalgic and long for people and places and times gone by. Christmases gone by. Some people are more nostalgic than others, but I suspect it's human nature to look back fondly on times from the past and maybe even wish you could go back. But it also makes you wonder, why do we do this? What does being nostalgic do for you? Because when you long for something you cannot have, it can make you sad. Yet there's something about being nostalgic that can be quite comforting and satisfying. What you may not know is nostalgia is something people study. And one of the people who studies it is Clay Rutledge, PhD. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, cbs, and he's author of a book called Past How Nostalgia can help you live a more meaningful life. Hey Clay, welcome to something you should know.
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C
Thanks for having me on.
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B
So I've been told more than once that I'm a fairly nostalgic person, and I know what it means to be nostalgic. But as somebody who studies it, how do you define nostalgia?
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C
If you look up nostalgia in an online dictionary, you'll find a definition that's something like a wistful or sentimental longing for the past, which gives you a good taste of what nostalgia is. But really there's a deeper understanding of nostalgia, a deeper experience of nostalgia. And I think the best way define it is to Think about it as, as two things. One, as. As kind of an emotion. So nostalgia is a feeling like it's a sentiment, like it pulls at our hearts. Right. But it's also cognitive. Right. It's about memory. So it. When we have. When we experience the feeling of nostalgia, it doesn't. It's not just an emotion. It usually directs us towards thinking about specific experiences from our life. So it's that combination of emotion and cognition that's really about our cherished memories.
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B
I've heard it said, and I subscribe to this theory, that one of the reasons that nostalgia is so comforting and satisfying is that it is, in essence, set in stone. Looking back on the past, the past is done. It can't change. Nothing can go wrong. Whatever you remember, you remember. Whereas the future is uncertain. And so to look back at the past, that feels pretty good.
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C
Yeah, there's this concept called fading affect bias, which it just. How happens to me. And it's just probably built into us for a good reason. But it happens to be that negative experiences tend to fade from our memory faster than positive ones, so it's easier to remember the good things. So you might have an experience where at the time you like, oh, I'm never going to do this again. And then something good comes out of it, and then later you forget. Women will often say this, you know, going through a pregnancy, right? They'll be like, never again. And then many of them, of course, do because, you know, the. The end result is something that brings them a great deal of joy.
- [07:53]
B
So you talk about the science of nostalgia, which, you know, I've never heard that expression that. I don't think of nostalgia as something that you would normally study scientifically. It's just kind of a feeling and a thought that people have. So what. What is the science of nostalgia?
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C
So nostalgia actually has a really, really long and pretty wild history where it was once considered a brain disease and a mental illness. And, you know, of course we don't think of nostalgia that way in the modern world. Our. Our views of nostalgia are really more shaped by marketing, advertising, you know, more consumer culture, where we think of entertainment, where we think of nostalgia as kind of just fun thing, like it's a retro aesthetic or a type of entertainment that kind of brings us back to youth and childhood. And though that's certainly true, what we've discovered through over 25 years of research now is that there's a lot more going on than just fun when we experience nostalgia, that we often turn to nostalgic memories when we're going through a difficult time in life when we're stressed, when we're lonely, when we're sad, when we're doubting the meaningfulness of our lives. And these memories help reconnect us to things that we have found fulfilling and meaningful. And that serves as a reminder that even though we're going through a tough time right now, life is bigger than this one moment. And it's actually full of very fulfilling experiences that can guide us forward, that can not only offer us comfort in the present, but can help us figure out what we want to do next to improve our situation. And so we've been doing these studies for, you know, like I said, for, you know, over 25 years now where we've tried to isolate like the causes and the effects of nostalgia. Like what makes people nostalgic when they are nostalgic, what kind of effect does it have on their mental life and also on their, on their behavior? And what we've generally found is, yes, nostalgia is fun and you can have like a light hearted nostalgic experience, as many as often do when we listen to old music or watch old TV shows and movies. But really there's a deeper layer to nostalgia that is helps us navigate the world when we're uncertain and when we are distressed and helps us kind of like find a path forward, find the courage, the motivation, the hope and the focus to move forward with purpose.
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B
So I think, you know, we all know that some people are more nostalgic than others. And you know, some people are probably more nostalgic this time of year than other times of year. But what, what is the snapshot of nostalgia? How big a deal is it?
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C
Definitely it's the case that nostalgia, like other psychological characteristics, does have what you might think of as kind of a personality dimension. And that is there are some people that are highly nostalgic and some people that are, you know, not nostalgic that much at all. And then a lot of us are somewhere in between. The average person tends to be, you know, somewhat nostalgic though, and have nostalgic experiences, you know, multiple times a month, if not multiple times a week. And some of these are things that aren't coming from within us. They're just. Our environment is littered with opportunities to feel nostalgic because we get on social media and we see old photos, we watch commercials where they're using retro themed marketing, we go through our phone and look at our own, you know, look at all the photos we've collected. So there's lots of cues in the environment that make us, you know, that trigger nostalgia in all of us. But there are definitely some people who are, who are very driven by their nostalgic sentiment.
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B
And is there any sense of what those people tend to have in common besides that? Do they tend to be more male or female or anxious or non anxious or what. What else do they have in common besides their longing for the past?
- [11:40]
C
So people who are high in what we call nostalgia proneness, which is that the personality trait we're talking about, do tend to score higher on neuroticism, which is a personality trait that's really like trait anxiety and worry. So people who worry a lot, who are anxious a lot, tend to be more nostalgic. What's interesting about that is that actually aligns up quite well with research showing that all of us tend to become more nostalgic when we're anxious. So it makes sense because nostalgia comforts us. So it makes sense that people who are dispositionally more anxious would be dispositionally more nostalgic as well, that, you know, they use that resource more frequently. It turns out people are high in spirituality also tend to be more nostalgic regardless of their level of anxiety. And, you know, this is a fairly recent finding that spirituality is associated with nostalgia. But in addition to that, what we find is that people in a, in a family, and it usually is women, not always, but it's more often women than men. People in a family who have taken on the role of like the keeper of the family memories, the keeper of the family traditions, the person who creates the photo albums that sends out the birthday cards. So the people who do that tend to use nostalgia more regardless of whether they have a kind of a personality disposition towards nostalgia.
- [13:07]
B
What about what I was saying earlier? Because when I remember hearing this, it just, it struck me as being right that one of the reasons to go back in the past in your head and be nostalgic is because it is so safe that nothing, you know, what happened, happened, it's all done. Whereas the future is unknown. And next Christmas could be a disaster. But 10 Christmases ago was wonderful.
- [13:33]
C
That's definitely true. And related to that, when we feel uncertain or when we're worried about the uncertainty of the future, that often triggers us to be nostalgic because we want that sense of security and safety. And so. And so, yeah, I think, I think one way to think about nostalgia is we're, you know, across our life, we're collecting all these experiences and like you said, they've already happened. They're already Kind of locked in. But what. But another thing that happens is over time, not only has the experience already happened, you know, it can't change, but we've had more time to interrogate it, to make sense of it, to weave it into our life story in a way that's meaningful to us. Another way to think about it is like, like, like making a movie, right? Like, you can record a bunch of footage for a film. You've got this raw footage. No one's going to watch that. That's an unwatchable movie. But what you do to make a good movie is you edit it, right? You put it together in a. In a fashion that still tells a compelling story, but does it in a way that, you know, kind of makes sense and is, you know, with our, with our kind of storytelling nature. And so I'm not saying like we're doing that exactly because our memories aren't like, accurate, necessarily, like 100% accurate representations like capturing like a film would be. But in a way, that's what we're doing. We're kind of pulling out of our memories the specific scenes that we think really capture what we find meaningful, what we find important about our life story. And we're weaving that together into our overall life narrative.
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B
We're talking about nostalgia and our longing for the good old days. My guest is Clay Rutledge. He's author of a book called Past how nostalgia can help you live a more meaningful life. Every year around the holidays, we take a ton of family photos and my wife turns them into these beautiful scrapbooks. And the only problem is once the scrapbook is on the shelf, we hardly ever see those pictures anymore. Which is why I love our aura frames. With aura, those photos come to life, showing up automatically on the frames throughout the house. It's like reliving those great moments every day. Setup takes just minutes. You download the Aura app, connect to wi Fi and you can share unlimited free photos and videos right from your phone. And if you're giving an aura frame as a gift, you can preload pictures on it before it ships or add a personal message. It's the easiest, most meaningful and personal gift you can give. And every frame comes with a premium gift box ready to wrap or give as is. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it for a limited time. Visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames 10 Name One by Wirecutter by using promo code something at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code something this exclusive black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so order now before it ends. And support this show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. You know, my mornings used to be a scramble. Coffee, breakfast, trying to remember what supplements to take. It was a lot to juggle. And now I start every day with a single scoop of AG1. And it's made my morning so much easier and better. In one mix, here's what I get. I get nutrients from real whole foods, plus prebiotics, probiotics, and enzymes that support my digestion and gut health after just a few weeks. I mean, I can tell it's working. My energy feels steady all day. I don't have to think about juggling five different pills or powders all. And what I Love is that AG1 isn't just another supplement. It's a daily microhabit that supports whole body health in one scoop. It's simple, it's consistent, and it fits easily into my routine. One scoop, shake, drink, done. And I know I've done something good for myself before the day even starts. It's become a small ritual that sets the tone for the entire day. AG1 helps me stay one scoop ahead. Head to drinkag1.com something to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribe. That's drinkag1.com something so Clay, when people have nostalgic moments, when they think about the past, what are they thinking about? And what I mean by that is, is it people? Is it places? Is it feelings? What tends to be the focus of the nostalgic memory?
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C
Most of the time it's highly social. So typically nostalgic memories involve other people, though we also do care about place, but the place is usually connected to the people. So people are very nostalgic about vacations they went on, for instance, but usually it's because it was a special trip they took with their family or they took with a loved one. And so a lot of our nostalgic memories, even though they're about even though they seem like they're rooted in place, that place is really rooted in people.
- [19:10]
B
It does seem to me that nostalgia, those feelings of nostalgia and those memories that you go back to, have three components to them. People, places, and time. And so recently I had the chance to go back to my old childhood home and I was looking forward to that. Being a nostalgic person. I was really kind of looking forward to going back into my old house. And it was fun to go in. It was pretty cool to see my old house. I remember this, and I remembered that, and I remember what happened in that room and things like that. But because it was just the place and there were no people that I remembered from back then, and it wasn't at that time because it was in present day. It didn't have the magic that a nostalgic memory has because it didn't have the people and the time element.
- [20:10]
C
Yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, people really do breathe life into the nostalgic experience. And even when we do things like collect. Right. So a good example is, like, objects that people collect on the surface, that seems almost like a very materialistic nostalgia. Like, why do you. Why does anyone collect antique dishes or vinyl records or, you know, all the things that people collect? But if you dig a little bit deeper, if you talk to these people, what you'll find out is those. Those objects really are symbols. They're connection points to relationships. You know, I talked to this one journalist who, you know, was collected these antique dishes that her mom actually tried to pass down to her. But at the time, when she was a young woman, she thought these were, like, dishes for old ladies and she didn't want anything to do with them. And then her mom passed, and she really missed her mom. And, like, so she went on this campaign to find, you know, to go shop for all these old antique dishes and, you know, and kind of reboot the collection. And it wasn't because, you know, she cared about the dishes per se. It's because those dishes were a connection to her mom, you know, to that relationship.
- [21:21]
B
Those memories that we long for seem to be, to some degree, random. Like, we didn't know at the time this was going to be such a great memory, but now it comes up a lot. Like, can you forecast what you're going to find to be nostalgic later on?
- [21:38]
C
There's some recent research that shows that if you're trying to cultivate future nostalgic memories, to really savor an experience, you know, people, we're. We're encouraged to savor experiences anyway. But it turns out the more we really savor something, the more likely we are to feel nostalgic about it. And these nostalgic memories tend to be. Tend to be more vivid. In addition to that, something I think that's really cool about humans, and it's actually kind of the reason I started studying nostalgia so many years ago, was our capacity to mentally Time travel, I just thought that was. Was really neat of, you know, how we're. As far as we know, we're the only organism that really doesn't just live in the moment. Like, we think deeply about the future. Like, we imagine all sorts of things that could happen into the future. Sometimes that, you know, motivates us, that drives us to move forward, to pursue goals that we know will take some time and chat and will take some, you know, a lot of hard work to realize. But it also causes anxieties because the future is uncertain. And the one certainty that exists in the future is not a great one, which is our mortality. But in addition to that, we can time travel backwards. And, you know, and that ability to time travel backwards turns out, actually helps us deal with our anxieties about the future because we can go back in the past and we can kind of draw on those memories and experiences to give us comfort and motivation and guidance. But also that means, you know, as you're pointing out, it makes it feel like we are actually getting a time machine. Like no time has passed. Like, I just, you know, showed up in this place and it's just like, oh, like I remembered this quite well. I just think that's a. That's a really cool aspect of, of the human brain, is our ability to do this.
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B
Is there any reason to believe that people who are not nostalgic, particularly, that if they were more nostalgic, there would be any benefit, or you just are where you are on the spectrum and that's fine.
- [23:39]
C
I think that people would get more benefit. But I'll back up a little and first say I'm not super convinced that people who say they aren't nostalgic aren't. And what I mean by that is, yes, there is a personality trait. Like, some people are naturally more nostalgic than others, as we talked about. But in addition to that, it seems like a lot of people are not. Another issue might be they're just not as in touch with the nostalgia. So maybe some people who are nostalgic a lot really understand that and they appreciate it. And, you know, here's one, you know, one quick story. I had this colleague years ago, and when I was doing this research, and he was like, I. I just don't get it. Like, I just. I guess some people get a lot of nostalgia, but I'm just not a nostalgic person. And he was saying this. I was standing in his office, and he had all this, like, Chicago Cubs, like, sports memorabilia all around his, you know, office. And he'd always talked about growing up in Chicago. He would sometimes fly home to see games. And, you know, a lot of his life, as far as I could tell, was very much rooted in nostalgic feelings. But he just didn't see it like he wasn't in touch with his nostalgia. So I think that's one issue is that some people who say they're not nostalgic might actually be more nostalgic than they realize. And maybe it would be useful for them to, you know, kind of learn more about. More. Learn more about that.
- [25:05]
D
But.
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C
But beyond that. Yeah, I think. I think, like, a lot of things that are. Are good for people like exercise. Some people just do it, and some people like exercise. But even the people who don't like exercise, you know, actually do benefit from going to the gym, even if they don't like it. So I think. I think nostalgia is kind of that way. Even the people who aren't naturally pulled to it or don't think they are would actually benefit from. From engaging in it more.
- [25:34]
B
Is there a sense as to what time of life or how long ago people tend to long and go back to? I mean, I'm not nostalgic for six months ago because it's just six months ago, but my childhood maybe is there a sweet spot there?
- [25:56]
C
So in general, we do tend to be more nostalgic The. The farther we are away from something both in time and space. And so I think what. What that means, at least in part, is things that we do a lot or that we, you know, that are sort of routines or that, you know, we're experience all the time. We're less likely to feel nostalgic for it because we have them and, you know, we're experiencing them right now. Like, we don't need to pull them out of our memory things. So the further away we are from something in time and space and the more nostalgic we are for it. In addition to that, people do tend to be especially nostalgic for their childhood, adolescent, sort of teenage years.
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B
Explain what you mean by when you're nostalgic. It can affect your perception of how old you are or at least how.
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C
Old you feel you have a biological age, you know, your age. But oftentimes we don't really feel our age. Like, depending on what's going on, we could be going through a sickness and we might actually feel older than we are. We could be dealing with a major transition or having to learn new technology, and that could make us feel older than we are. But oftentimes people feel younger than they are too. And it turns out that nostalgia makes you feel younger than you are, especially after around the age of 40 or so. That seems to be the sweet spot that we found across a number of studies, is that once you turn 40, if you engage in nostalgic reflection, it makes you feel young again.
- [27:30]
B
Well, what I enjoy about nostalgia is when you engage in it, when you kind of go back in time and remember those times and those people, it kind of brings it all back to life, if only for a short time and only in your head. But it's kind of nice to see those people again and visit those places again. I've been speaking with Clay Rutledge. He is author of a book called Past How Nostalgia can help you live a more meaningful life, and there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Clay.
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C
Thanks so much, Mike. It's been a pleasure to chat with you.
- [28:08]
B
With the weather getting colder and the holidays upon us, I just want my wardrobe to be easy. Things that look sharp, feel great and last season after season, which is exactly what I get from Quince. I reach for my Quince cashmere sweaters constantly. They're 100% Mongolian cashmere and somehow they're just 50 bucks. Soft, warm and the kind of everyday luxury that doesn't feel overdone. And their denim is another favorite. Great fit, easy to wear and it holds up beautifully. And if you're looking for a holiday gift to give without the big price tag guilt, Quince is perfect for that. Those cashmere sweaters I just mentioned, they make great gifts. And their wool coats, you gotta check them out. They're stylish and durable and their quality is top of the line. It's amazing how many people have found Quince and love it. What I love is how Quince works directly with ethical factories and top artisans, cutting out the middlemen so you get premium quality at half the cost of other high end brands. It's luxury without the markup, which means you can give something nice this season or keep it for yourself. Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with quince. Go to quince.comsysk for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.comsysk free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.comsysk this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
- [29:52]
E
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- [30:27]
B
We like games. I mean, think of all the games you've played in your lifetime. Board games, playground games, sports card games, gambling, rock, paper, scissors, tic tac toe. We love games. But why? By their nature, games are fun, but many games are not much more than that. So why are they so important to us? Here to talk about games and why we love them is Marcus De Sotoy. Marcus is an award winning mathematician, a professor at Oxford. He's been a guest here before and he's author of a book called around the world in 80 games. Hey Marcus, welcome. Welcome back.
- [31:08]
D
It's great to be with you again.
- [31:10]
B
So why games? I mean, clearly we like them, but why do you study them?
- [31:15]
D
Well, I think like many people, I love playing games and actually I think it's something that our species loves doing. Some people have even suggested we should be called Homo ludens, the playing species, rather than Homo sapiens, the thinking species. Because I think actually we've used games throughout our history to kind of almost experiment with trying things out before we put them into reality. And I think that's why games have always been part of our kind of evolutionary development. And but games are played with other people. So I think that's also a very important role that they play. They help you to understand the mind of the other as you share time together. In fact, I just come back from India and I discovered that people use games at the beginning of a marriage when often they don't know each other because it's an arranged marriage. And games are a lovely way of getting to know each other.
- [32:09]
B
Well, there's also, I've always thought there's also something very human about wanting victory and avoiding defeat and that there's some, some pleasure in that that games inherently provide.
- [32:24]
D
It's interesting because I think we make this safe space where we can, you know, exercise our love of competition. Yet it is a safe space and when we come out of it, somehow we're still friends. And I think that's why it's a very. Games play that very useful role of being somewhere where we can experiment with things, experiment with being competitive.
- [32:48]
B
So when I think of board games, you know, just games you play with people, I think of, you know, Monopoly and Scrabble and those kind of classic board games. And they must be classic because people seem to like them. Although seems like there's a lot of people that don't like Monopoly because it takes so long.
- [33:06]
D
Yes, exactly. I, I think this is a highly flawed game and I'm really not quite sure why it's become everyone's sort of game to go to their game of choice, for example, at holiday times. And as you say, it takes so long. And what I think is really flawed about this game is that very quickly you realize who's going to win and then you spend hours just grinding out the bankruptcy of all the other players. In fact, you know, I, I actually found out about a story of five students who were playing this game and it went on for so long that actually the bank went bankrupt and they contacted the game developers and said, well, what do we do if the bank has no money? And they put a security guard with loads of Monopoly money in the back and delivered it to the students and said no, the bank can't go bankrupt, got to carry on. And after five days the students gave up and said, look, this is just going around in circles. We've already got in the Guinness World Book of Records, we're going to stop now and just call it a draw.
- [34:06]
B
Is there a strategy in Monopoly that if you do this you're more likely to win or is it really more chance?
- [34:14]
D
Well, there is obviously elements of chance because of the, the dice, but yes, there is a strategy. The most visited square on the Monopoly board is the jail square, because there are many ways to go to jail. You can just land because of the dice or the square opposite sends you to jail, or you chance cards can send you to jail. Or actually if you throw three doubles, very unfairly, I think you get sent to jail. But, but you can't buy jail, so how can that be useful? But then you're throwing two. Dyson, what's the most common throw of two dice? Well, it's a score of six, seven or eight because there are so many different ways to make that combination. Whilst if you think 12, well there's only one way to do that. You've got to get a six and a six. So out of jail people are very often landing in the orange regions of properties. And so my tip is to buy those orange properties, stack them with hotels and then as everyone comes out of that very visited jail square, they land on your properties and you cash in. So there's my Little mathematical tip for you.
- [35:18]
B
I didn't know if you roll three doubles, you go to jail.
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D
Yeah, if you throw a double you get to go again. But for some reason they decided if you get three then they penalize you, which I think, you know, after such great luck, you should get a special prize, not get sent to jail.
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B
What's the game? If there is a game that has been around for the longest time that we still play, I'm guessing something like chess or checkers or something like that.
- [35:46]
D
Those are ancient games. Chess has its origins in India. But I would actually go back further that one of the very first board games which is actually in the British Museum in London, it's nearly 5,000 years old. It's called the Royal Game of Ur. And this is a racing game where you race counters around this beautiful board laid with lots of beautiful shells and things. Now we don't play that now, but it actually probably gave rise to the game of backgammon. And I would say backgammon, which again is a kind of racing game where, you know, it's a two player game with black and white pieces which you try and race round and you can capture your other players pieces if they're on their own, involving dice. Again, that probably has its origins in this 5000 year old game and that's certainly one that's played today. And I think that almost for me, you know, having looked at all of these wonderful games across the world, I think backgammon almost is the perfect game because it's got this lovely balance of, yeah, chance. So anybody really could possibly win the game. Yet there is strategy involved as well. You don't want pure chance, you want a way to express yourself. It's got very simple rules. You can really learn this game just in two minutes of someone explaining it to you. Yet it gives rise to such complexity. There are so many sort of different games that emerge out of it. So for me I think those are qualities that I'm looking for in a really good game. And I think backgammon passes all of them.
- [37:20]
B
Talk about the math of tic tac toe.
- [37:24]
D
Tic tac toe, Yes. I mean, what you're quite often interested in is, is there a strategy which can guarantee you a win? And a lot of games we've analyzed as mathematicians, we do see that, for example, if you go first in Connect 4, there's an algorithm which ensures that you can get four counters in a row. Tic tac toe is a very simple version of that. And although you can't necessarily Guarantee a win. You can make sure you, you never lose.
- [37:51]
B
And so if you were to go first in tic tac toe, where would you go?
- [37:56]
D
I would certainly choose either the middle or one of the diagonal extreme points. From both of those points, you can certainly guarantee that you will not lose. And so I think both of those have an algorithm which gives them a best strategy. You will lose if you go in the middle of the row or the column. That is a losing first go.
- [38:21]
B
Have you thought much about like, you know, there are games that are really popular, people really like them and then they kind of fade out. I mean, I remember backgammon, People still play it, but it used to be like amazingly popular and now it's, yeah, people, you probably have a backgammon set somewhere in your house, but you probably haven't played it in a long time. Games kind of come and go. Is it just, you know, that's just the way people are.
- [38:46]
D
I think that games are actually quite like stories and just in the same way as, you know, there'll be a novel of the moment and people will want to read that. I think games have a similar quality and I think we're in a really golden age of games where there are. Each year there's just such exciting new developments in board games and card games that I think there's quite fierce competition out there. And you know, one of the powerhouses of game development these days is Germany. And in Germany they insist on the game developers name being on the the box because they sort of feel that they are a bit like an author. You know, people look out for the, for the next game by particular people, like, they'll look for the next Stephen King novel. Even if people have a backgammon board in their house, I would recommend going back to that game because it is an absolutely beautiful game and I think that's the reason it has lasted so long. The same with chess. And if you go to the Far East, a game like Go played on the 19x19 grid with black and white stones. Again, very simple rules, yet wonderfully complex outcomes. When you play that game, you say.
- [39:56]
B
Chess is from India. How long ago? And a game like chess, do the rules ever change or are they the same rules today as they were back whenever? And I'd like to know whenever it started.
- [40:09]
D
That is a wonderful question because games do constantly evolve. We now do believe that the game started in India, probably middle of the previous millennium and we're probably talking 700, 800. But it was a very early game then. It didn't have a queen, for example, so it just had a. And a divisor which moved very small steps, a bit like the king. The queen is actually a European development and we recognize that chess is imitating warfare. And in the past, warfare was really hand to hand combat. But as weaponry sort of got better, you were able, for example, to shoot a longbow a large distance across a battlefield. And so you start to see pieces that could only move a few steps suddenly being allowed to sweep across the board. Things like the bishop. It's strange, actually, the bishop was modelled on what was in India, a piece which represented an elephant. And when this piece came to Europe, the elephant's tusks, people thought looked like the hat of the bishop. So in fact that was an elephant charging around and it weirdly became a bishop. But one really curious fact that I discovered about chess, two facts actually. First of all, it was a four player game. Now that really surprised me. But then I began to understand. Yes, well, actually in your army you've got two castles, two knights, two bishops. And what happened is that you would capture somebody else's army and it would double up your army. So it went from a four then to a two player game. But second, really curious thing is that used to involve a dice. So you would throw a dice which would determine which piece you were allowed to move. But when gambling was banned in India, you weren't allowed to use a dice. And so I think the game player said, well, you know, we could actually choose which piece we want to move. And it became the pure strategy game we know today.
- [42:10]
B
I've always wondered if there is some sort of connection between chess and checkers. Only because they're played on the same board and they're really the only games played on that board. So why is that?
- [42:23]
D
Yes, I mean, chess is very interesting because it's probably the first game that emerged where different pieces on the board could do different things. Most games before chess, like in checkers, there's really no difference between the pieces that just where they are, they all move in a very similar way. So, so this was a real new innovation when it came to developing chess. And of course chess, it does seem that it did emerge out of the idea that somebody planning a war is quite useful to just see the implications. If you move pieces around in the territory, what, what might happen if you move part of your army here, what might they respond with and, and to develop tactics. So a lot, a lot of games for centuries have been war games which, allowing people to actually rehearse war before they actually sacrifice lives on the field.
- [43:22]
B
But are they related other than the board that they play on?
- [43:26]
D
Well, checkers. There are many very early versions of games like checkers actually that appear all across the world, so that you find sort of versions in Africa, in South America, that this idea of having some sort of board on which these things are moving and that the idea that you can leap over things and take them actually is quite a universal idea. So that that might have been what chess developed from, because people have started to see this sort of game play and perhaps wanted to make it a richer game. And so therefore these pieces which were just doing the same thing, suddenly evolve characters, their castles, their kings, their bishops. So, yes, I would say that chess definitely does emerge out of the idea of checkers. But, but checkers is interesting because it really is a game which has been rediscovered many times in different forms across the world.
- [44:25]
B
You mentioned Scrabble and that's one of those games that I've always been interested in because there are some people who are really good at Scrabble and seemingly, you know, you're all kind of on the same playing field here. You get the, you know, the letters you get are the letters you get. Yet some people are able to just do amazing things with those letters. And what is that? What is the strategy of Scrabble other than to, you know, let me try to make a word here.
- [44:52]
D
I think that a lot of sort of humanities students think that, ah, at last, a game which doesn't involve any mathematics and is all about being a fantastic wordsmith. And I'm very sad to tell anyone out there who believes that, that actually this is a highly mathematical game at heart and there are really good strategies which people have developed. First of all, you have to learn all the two letter words because that's how you can actually squeeze some clever things into the board and actually, you know, really crank up your, your score because you're getting sort of multiple words out of laying just one word down. The other thing that people who become world champion at Scrabble often do is to learn seven and eight letter words with common letters, because those are going to give them the chance to, to get out in one go and earn that 50 point bonus. I found a story actually, which was one of the world champions in Scrabble in the English language. He was actually from New Zealand and he, he said, you know, really, I think this is nothing to do with language and all to do with kind of algorithms and mathematics and scoring. So he decided to enter himself to the French Scrabble championship. And he implemented the way he played Scrabble. He didn't speak a word of French and he became French Scrabble world champion. So that really gives the lie to the fact that it's all about linguistics, and language is actually all about strategy, maths, counting, scoring, and knowing some basic good batch of words which can really help you to play the game.
- [46:28]
B
That sounds impossible. How could you be the world champion French Scrabble player and not speak French?
- [46:35]
D
Yes, it's quite staggering. In fact, even in the English language, it turned out that one year, two Indonesians were world champion that year, and that there certainly was not their first language, English. So it really does seem to be not about the words, but about the scoring.
- [46:51]
B
Rock, paper, scissors. Is there a. Is there a secret to that?
- [46:56]
D
Yes, there is. I, in fact, implemented this once on a visit to America, where I took part in a rock, paper, scissors championship in Philadelphia. And the key here is actually something very close to what mathematics is about, because I often call mathematics the science of patterns. You're often looking for patterns, and if you could spot a pattern that allows you to sort of predict things into the future. And this is the key to playing rock, paper, scissors, because very often humans just can't stop putting patterns in patterns into everything they do. So when they're playing rock, paper, scissors, they'll often, you know, unconsciously, for example, follow rock by paper. And if you can spot that pattern, it's going to give you an edge in playing this game. But conversely, it's very important that you don't have any patterns yourself. So that's the key to how I play is to try and randomize my choices of rock, paper, or scissors. So nobody can spot a pattern. So here I'm going to let you into my secret. I. I use the decimal expansion of PI, which we believe is random in nature. And so if the decimal expansion stars 1, 2, 3, that's rock, or if the next is 4, 5, 6, that'll be paper, 789, that scissors, and 0. I just choose anything. So I go through the decimal expansion of PI, and it determines my choices. And then unless somebody knows that I'm doing that, they really can't spot any patterns.
- [48:24]
B
Yeah, I've always wondered, are people more likely, if they pick rock, are they going to pick likely pick rock the next time, or are they likely going to not pick rock because they just picked rock?
- [48:35]
D
Yeah, I think that's actually what people do. They change what they've just done. So I Think you can certainly limit it down. If somebody's done, for example, rock, they're probably going to go to one of the other two. People do not like doing things which are consecutive. And, and that actually goes against what we've discovered as mathematicians that randomness likes to do, because randomness actually does like to clump things together. So that's why when you're waiting for a bus, there are no buses. And then suddenly three come along together. Randomness tends to actually make things repeat. So, for example, in my decimal expansion, there'll be quite a lot of repeats of digits and that will force me to repeat rock, rock, rock. And, you know, people just aren't expecting you to do rock, rock, rock. And then they suddenly go, oh, he's got a pattern. But then that's when you break it. So. So I think one of the strategies is to mix it up with doubling things every now and again.
- [49:32]
B
What about playing cards? Because, I mean, it's not a game, but it is the source of, I mean, countless games. You can play a million games with a deck of cards. Do you take a look at them?
- [49:45]
D
I do and I, I think card games are fantastic. I would say dice are one of the great inventions of humanity, but the pack of cards for me perhaps wins over. But I did look at the origins of cards because actually, again, a bit like chess, they've changed so much over the years. So cards, early on they only had two kind of court cards. A bit like chess, they would have a king and an advisor. And it's only later on that we start to see three court cards coming in in the European and the, the.
- [50:20]
B
Standard 52 card deck that we have today. How old is that?
- [50:24]
D
Yes, that probably is medieval time and grows in Europe. So the addition there was always one to 10, and that probably comes from the decimal counting that many cultures across the world used. And then when it comes to India, you get the addition of the court cards and there were probably two added. But in, in India you have eight suits, so there are way more cards than in the 52 car pack that we know. And then it seems like again, because of the, probably the role of women in society, you start to get the queen being introduced, just like the queen in chess.
- [51:02]
B
Well, you certainly know your games and it's fun to hear your mathematical perspective on them and your enthusiasm for them. I've been speaking with Marcus de Sotoy. He is a mathematician, a math professor at Oxford and author of the book around the world in 80 games. And there's a link to his book in the show Notes. Thanks Marcus. Thanks for coming back on.
- [51:25]
D
Great. Thank you for having me on again.
- [51:30]
B
You know, if you have a pet cat, that cat may be very intrigued by that giant Christmas tree you bring into your house with all its lights and ornaments and things and at some point may want to climb in there and maybe even topple it over. There are some things you can do to discourage that behavior. One is to use a little citrus. Cats don't like citrus, so if you peel an orange and tuck some of the peels into the lower branches, that will help keep the cat away. You probably have to repeat that every few days, but it can work. And there's also a product you can buy in pet stores called Bitter Apple. If you spray some of it around the base of the tree, it should keep the cat away. Tinfoil Most cats would rather not walk on tinfoil. However, the lure of the tree might be greater than the fear of the foil after a few days. Double sided tape can be helpful. Cats can't stand to walk on anything sticky, so large strips of double sided adhesive tape under your tree could do the trick. And remember too that rambunctious cats may try for a flying leap onto your tree from nearby furniture. So if possible, move away that furniture and any other potential launching surfaces or put some double sided tape on the furniture to keep the cat away. And that is something you should know. One very simple and effective way to support this podcast is to just take a few moments and leave a rating and review. Really, it only takes a second and it really does help us. And I read all the reviews and appreciate them. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. And Doug Here we have the Limu.
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D
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C
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