Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - The Physics of Krav Maga with author and physics Professor John Eric Goff (#037)

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

   https://www.mmaacademy.com https://www.facebook.com/John.Eric.Goff.Sports.Physicist http://johnericgoff.blogspot.com https://www.lynchburg.edu Krav Maga (“contact combat” in Hebrew) is a hard-hitting and efficient form of self-defense that was popularized by Israeli soldiers. Stressing practical, real-world fighting and a philosophy of self-defense, its popularity has grown worldwide over the past few decades. In The Physics of Krav Maga, John Eric Goff, a physicist, best-selling author, and martial arts practitioner, explains the science behind dozens of Krav Maga moves, from headlocks to hammer fists. Focusing on Warrior Krav Maga, a fighting style that combines the key elements of Krav Maga with kickboxing, wrestling, karate, and other fighting specialties, this equation-free, conceptual introduction is aimed at martial arts practitioners interested in refining their fighting technique and all fans of the fascinating moment when sports meet science. With step-by-step descriptions and detailed photos of each critical motion, Goff takes a scientific look at everything from punch speed to power output and reaction time. Armed with this book, readers will understand the physics behind each move. They will also learn how to enhance their level of physical fitness disrupt an opponent’s balance―while keeping theirs make use of leverage to defeat a larger, stronger attacker become faster and more powerful inflict pain up close • use weapons―and “weapons of opportunity” and much more! Anyone interested in martial arts, in how physics applies to sports and combat, and in how a physicist wins a fight will love The Physics of Krav Maga. John Eric Goff is a professor of physics and the chair of the physics department at the University of Lynchburg. The author of Gold Medal Physics: The Science of Sports, he holds a black belt in Karate and a purple belt in Krav Maga. If you enjoyed this episode of INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE, please subscribe, comment, share and review.  For a chance to win a free copy of our most recent guest’s newest book, send a screenshot of your review to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. Five, four, two. Professor John Eric Gough, a world-renowned sports physics researcher, known for his work on World Cup soccer balls and Tour de France Modeling, works with students at the University of Lynchburg to understand how the laws of physics may be applied to Krobb-Magat. Crob Maga is a self-defense and fighting system that also borrows from various other disciplines. Krob Maga combines realistic flight training and is known for its efficiency in real-world situations. Professor Goff's research uses the idea that we are all constrained by the laws of physics.

According to his investigations, it's possible to apply some of the same physics principles that are used to understand atoms and the cosmos to the moves in Krob Maga. In his second book, Professor Goff connects the ideas behind advances in technique to evolution by natural selection. Professor Goff's book is free of equations and instead focuses on intuitive physics. Anyone can learn from his book, even those with a fear of math.

The Physics of Krav Magh by John Eric Goff is available now. And it's my great honor to be speaking to John Eric Goff, who is the author of this wonderful new book called The Physics of Krav Maga. and we will get into what is Krav Maga and why are we talking about it into the impossible? But let me first introduce John.

John is a professor and the chair of the physics department at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia. He's the author of Gold Medal Physics, the Science of Sports, and he holds a black belt in karate and a purple belt in Krav Maga. Now, John, first for our listeners,

maybe wondering, why are we talking about this strange Hebrew words called Krav Maga? Can you explain what is Krav Maga and why is it of possible interest to anyone in science? So Krav Maga is one of the fastest growing martial arts systems in the U.S. I think people are starting to notice the occasional billboard now with a Krah Maga advertisement. And in Hebrew it means contact combat. And the idea is to combine many different disciplines from boxing to other forms of martial arts.

And the system developed in the 1930s by Lichtenfield, who in Bratislava was trying to get some of these Jewish neighborhoods protected. There were some violence going on at the time, some anti-Jewish violence. And it developed out of that desire to protect the neighborhoods. And the idea is to take several fighting techniques from all kinds of different systems and combine them into one really good system that emphasizes. street fighting and up close and using offense and defense at the same time. So it's a pretty powerful system. It's quite fun to train in. Yeah, so a lot more people might be familiar with karate,

which you're also a master of black belt level practitioner of. I am only a lowly yellow belt in Krav Maga, but I also practice it. And I found it invaluable to, you know, kind of maintaining a healthy mind, I think part of being, having a healthy mind is having a healthy body. And as you said, it's a lot more practical in some sense or focused on tactics for actual combat, which is a little bit different than karate.

And you make this distinction in your book. And I wonder if you could just explain a little bit, being such a high-level expert in both disciplines. Can you talk about what is the difference between karate, which people might be familiar with from the movies? Krav Maga, which, as you say, is rapidly growing in popularity, but maybe less familiar to the listeners. So one of the things we do when we train in karate is we practice these very elegant kata's, and kata in Japanese just means form. And the techniques are used in the kattas, punches, kicks, all kinds of various spins.

Various techniques are used to comprise the kattas. But the idea is to do these things with a lot of. enough repetition and enough in sequence that you might be able to use them in an actual fight. Crom of God doesn't really have you doing a bunch of cadas during your training. It's very up close. We train with knives, with guns, hostage situations, terrorist situations, all kinds of pretty scary stuff.

And, you know, it might be considered a little bit more realistic, a little bit more real world. That's not in any way to disparage any other martial arts. system or to, you know, take away from what they could possibly provide you in the form of self-defense. But I think the aim and the goal of Krav Maga is just, you know, hey, I've only got an hour or two a week to devote to going to class. And, you know, I want to start getting into the nitty-gritty and learn some things that can, you know, really help defend myself if I ever have to use it. Now, this book, you talk about throwing yourself into your work. So you're depicted in the book in many different scenarios where you are seemingly facing almost a mortal danger. In fact,

there's one, I don't want to give a spoiler alert. It's not a typical narrative type book, but you do go into the very end and you talk about some principles that are extremely, you know, are deadly serious. Actually, you talk about hostage situations. And this is showing your teacher. This is Mr. Abercrombie. And he is the, he's the owner and founder of, What's the name of the studio in Lynchburg that you guys? Well, Cliff at Abercrombie is my instructor. He's one incredible instructor. I can't give him a loud enough shoutout.

His Warrior Success Academy is in Forest, Virginia. So anyone in Lynchburg, Forest Area of Virginia would do themselves a great help to go and at least take a sample class, see what it's like. And you're going to get hooked on Mr. Abercrombie. Yeah, and as I say, you really get into this to the practice and explain in physical techniques that really make use of the laws of Newtonian mechanics. I mean, you don't need to know quantum field theory to understand this book. You actually don't even need to know any math or any beyond division, perhaps, and multiplication. And even there, it's so digestible and accessible. I think even somebody without even high school physics can understand it.

Certainly the members in the studio I train at Kravmaga do the style of Kravmega called Kravmega worldwide. And have a shout out to my teacher, Mike Mihalagan, at the MMA Academy in San Diego. And he is also a master practitioner of many-level black belt. And the thing that I always take away is how serious they take it, but they also make it fun. And they make it and it's an enjoyable exercise. It doesn't have to be about deadly arts and saving your life, but it can. And that's what's so important. For those of us with kids, I'm sure in your studio and Mr. Ambercrombie's studio, they also have classes for children.

And to avoid all these awful things we hear about, at least at MMA Academy, there are classes for kids to avoid, escape, evade, et cetera. Some of the situations that unfortunately become modern reality. Well, my two wonderful daughters, Emily and Abby, got me interested in karate back in 2012, and that's when I first met my instructor. And a year later, he started these Cromagah classes, and they were held at night, and they were only for adults. I think the idea was the karate classes gave more opportunity to learn some life skills. You know, there would be a monthly skill on, for example, integrity,

or, you know, building up your confidence or respecting people or honesty. You know, these types of skills that would come out in the training as well as being talked about directly. The evening classes where we're using things like guns and knives and hostage situations that, you know, I don't know that it was necessarily trying to avoid scaring the kids, but, you know, we're trying to be a little bit more realistic. and, you know, maybe the language might pop out from time to time to make it even more realistic, but try to get the situation where we're training in an environment where we feel a little bit of stress. And I think that worked better without the younger kids. But certainly any, you know, a teenager, probably 16 or older, I think, could easily take a Cromagod class.

Yeah. Yeah, it's about, we talk a lot about maintaining situational awareness. When you go from different regions, spaces at school, transitional spaces, into cars at the shopping center, nowadays, most kids are even more kind of distracted by technology. We have our earphones on. We take off your shoes. And you're really not as focused on the situation in your surroundings. And I think just even taking the classes has made me much more aware. You know, you go to a parking lot before you get out of the car, look around, you know, assess your surrounding. don't put in your earphones.

No, just look around, not to be paranoid, but the way that you look for different exit routes and have a plan. And that's what Krav Maga, the motto is get home safely. And I feel like your book is sort of a vector, to use a physics or biological enough, that it gets people interested into possible techniques that could save their life,

but they may not be aware of how many physical principles they're employing as they do that. And as I say, you throw yourself so commendably into the work and do stuff that I can't only, you know, I can't envision personally doing for my book. You know, I had to go to the South Pole or whatever, but I didn't have to get punched in the face. And, you know, here's a picture of, you know, Professor Goff getting, you know, getting his clock. There's a, there's a cute story about that picture because the lady who's punching me is a colleague of mine now, Dr. Chris and Foreman, who actually was a former student of mine. So she probably had a chance to take out a little frustration on an old grade or something that maybe she didn't like.

But yeah, I mean, I was very curious to know what the head gear would provide in a form of perfection, what kind of acceleration my head would feel. And it felt about 4G's worth of acceleration. And, you know, that's not quite to the level of, you know, what you'd get as a concussion risk. But, you know, it's enough to ring your bell a little bit and stun you. And, you know, and I do want to pick up on something you'd said earlier about not having, you know, equations and things like that in the book. Even an instructor of Krav Maga is likely talking to students who, even if they're passionate about it a couple times a week, you know, they've got jobs and other careers and families and this kind of thing. And the instructor realizes that the student is not likely to have the same level. a passion and commitment and time to devote as the instructor is.

And, you know, I mean, I feel the same way as a university teacher. When my students are working on physics problems and that kind of thing or doing research with me, the idea is they're not all going to become, you know, university professors. They're not going to devote their lives into physics. So when you're teaching something like physics or teaching Krav Maga, I mean, you have to have a mindset that you want to provide somebody something very, helpful in a half hour, hour, whatever, you know, time frame you've got them, and not expecting to go off and have the same love and passion that you do for the field. So they're really good instructors. And, you know, my instructors, one, I mean, he's got multiple black belts and all kinds of different disciplines, you know, from Aikido and a karate and in Cromagana.

And, I mean, you know, he's very dedicated to martial arts and trains in multiple fields. But he can take somebody who's, middle-aged, out of shape, not very flexible, and start doing things that you start gaining a little bit of confidence. That's right. And that's the idea behind teaching some physics principles in the book is I want to stay qualitative and I want to stay conceptual and I want to rely on something that I think is important, which is intuitive physics. And even if somebody's never heard of a differential equation or, you know, Newton's second law, or, you know, if you really want to get. into quantum mechanics and start talking about the Dirac equation and all kinds of interesting things that I love to play with. If they don't have any of that training or background, they're used to getting, you know, at some point in their life, they've fallen down. I mean, they know what happens when their balance is disrupted.

They know what happens when they spin around. They might get a little dizzy. They might get a little disoriented. So they already have a lot of intuition just growing up in an environment that humans, have evolved in. And that's a powerful thing to use as a starting point for teaching. Yeah, you give a really nice kind of analogs where you, you know, encourage the reader to sort of play along with you. In one case, you're talking about, you know, what is a horsepower? I mean, everybody hears what horsepower is, but not too many people have great appreciates.

Is it a horse? Is it something to do with, you know, some animal? And like, what does it have to do with me? But you get this example of going up a flight of stairs with your weight, carrying a certain amount of mass and how quickly that's done and it's extremely intuitive and I think that's that's the thing that I want to get to just to turn to now is really how do the lessons learn from this book how can we translate them into real-world situations not necessarily as I said it has an intrinsic value for life and death situational awareness etc but you mentioned a key word which is confidence and I feel like a lot of our students don't, they don't take care of their bodies as well as they take care of their minds. And it's hard in college to make the time, you know, with all the social pressures,

of all the commitments, activities, et cetera, plus classes to really have, to take care of your body. But I think any kind of sport or martial art, especially, you know, my daughters, I know you have daughters, and getting them into ways to just be aware, confident. And I think that, translates as I think Aristotle said you know the ancient physicists you know a sound mind is a sound body and and having you know our sound body leads to a sound mind and I think they're they're sort of that that nature I think can inspire people and so I do see this as a as a vector to to teaching people through something intuitive that all you need is the book and your body and you can learn these concepts that are relatively abstract unless you go to a physics lab and roll balls down

inclined planes or what have you. So I think I definitely want to commend you on that. I do want to ask you. So you said it was your colleague who was punching you in the face here. Did she ever get tenure? Just curious. That decision's coming in a couple years. Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. Well, I wish your luck. I can't wait to see what she'll do to you after she gets, after she gets tenure. Your next book. It's funny, you know, the great sage, Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Now, I mean, when you have experienced these kinds of situations where the stress level, as you say, has amped up, have you noticed any translation through into your day job, which is, you know, the chairman of a department is an extremely stressful job where you've got to work on all the elements that come into play, as you talk about in the book. It's not just being a good striker, a fighter.

It's also being a good assistant and helping people train because we all have to all. a hold for people, we have to practice. Have you found any of the skills that are integral to Krav Maga translate into your day job? Sure. I mean, you know, one of the, well, let me back up a second. I think if you think about the way we learn things and setting aside multiple paragraphs of neuroscience that we will avoid right now, there really are two ways that we learn things. You're either going to fill a hole in your brain that represents a ignorance or you've got something wrong and you want to correct it. And the questions or the comments that you want to get people to say whether they're talking about science or training

in martial arts or anything is, I don't know or I am wrong. And it has its genesis and honesty. And if you're confident enough to be wrong and to admit you're wrong, that opens the door wide open to learning something. And if you say, I don't know something, I'm ignorant about something, well, now you can fill that void with a lot of information. You can go out and test things yourself. So when you're talking about all the different things that we teach in a physics setting, you know, when I'm working with my research students and we're modeling the Tour de France

every year, we're working on testing for the World Cup soccer balls that we do for, you know, the balls that were used in in Russia recently and then back in Brazil, the teamwork and the humbleness that comes from saying, I don't really understand how this works, and I want to figure it out, I want to discover something. And then you take that into the, you know, the classroom and your instructor there is trying to teach you something. And you say, you know, I don't really understand this. I'm going to hold up my hand and get at my onee's worth and say, you know, we need to go through this again. And you do the same thing in class, where you could do the same thing at a board meeting. I mean, you do the same thing interacting with colleagues or working in teamwork.

If you can provide something to the team that's beneficial and helpful, and then somebody else says, you know, I don't understand. You have a little more respect for that person because that person was listening to you, didn't quite follow what you had to say, had the nerve and confidence to say, I don't, yeah, I'm not, I don't care if people think I'm ignorant about something or I didn't get something. I'm going to better myself and try to improve and my understanding. And you really develop respect for people who do that. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like, you know, these skills translate so well.

And again, thank you for this wonderful book that will undoubtedly influence people to, if not explore Krav Maga, per se, but to seek out ways to develop these. these tools and just really, as you say, fill in these lacunae in their own development, and that will translate. I always say that's the one force that's really difficult to measure. It's leverage. I mean, you leverage these skills into the classroom, into the faculty meetings, into a board meeting. If you're an entrepreneur, we have a lot of listeners out there who do venture capital, who do drug development, things completely different from Kravaga or physics.

And, you know, as I was reading your book, I felt like there were so many lessons that could actually form the basis of a self-help book or surprisingly really translate far beyond the world of physics, but in particular to physics. So, you know, for example, there's topics that I just highlighted in the book about, you know, fitness. So, again, enhancing your fitness will lead to a more sound mind, I think. as well, having balance, both maintaining your own balance, and as you talked about, you know, like getting up after you fall down, things like that, resiliency and teaching people this, the skill of, you know, you get knocked down. If you expect it, you know, as Mike Tyson said, as I said a few minutes, you know, is you have a plan until you get punched in the face. Well, what do you do after that? Now you have a plan, right, or now your plan has changed.

So how do you implement that? You're a contractor, construction worker. You know, things change. And that's Part of what I say my job is, and I'm not a chairman of the department, I don't have that particular brand of masochism I think it takes to be a chairman. But anyway, once we get into our jobs, I really feel like part of our job is being a fireman or a firewoman, putting out these fires and anticipating what's going to happen in the future. And I think one lesson that, you know, even though about, you know, Most of the book is about Krav Maga per se.

There are these lessons that can translate into students in particular, undergraduates, and including things like cooperation, which you wouldn't think, you know, these guys, you know, beating each other up. Like, are they cooperating? Yes, they are, right? They're actually cooperating, aren't they? Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the summer splash event.

With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert. They have yellow sales signs on ready to cook beef or chicken kebabs too. Level up with savory marinate, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad, available at the prepared foods counter. Get Summer Splash Savings Now at Whole Foods Market. So, yeah, I mean, cooperation is definitely part of it. I mean, you know, this we grew up as predators, our species did, so our eyes are full. board facing and it's nice if you've got someone

to kind of look behind you and kind of have your back if you're ever in a bad situation. So definitely the skills that we're talking about in a Cromagah class where you're trying to problem solve. You know, someone's coming at you with

a knife or you're stuck between cars or whatever it is. You've got a problem to solve and you've got to do it quickly. And if you are used to solving problems, whether it's in a business setting or in a physics setting. You're trained in tossing out superfluous information.

You know, I don't care that the car is pink. You know, I mean, you know, there are certain details you might have in your mind, but you start realizing, you know, what I really care about is maybe that thing can block my attacker while I'm running away or something. You know, you start strategizing your exit. You start thinking about, you know, wow, you know, this guy coming at me, he's pretty buffed and he's got a knife sticking out of his pocket. You know, I mean, my best defense might be to just run as fast as I can, you know.

And you start assessing things very quickly like that and trying to fight that tendency that I think a lot of us would have, you know, to freeze. Yeah, exactly. So I think it's so interesting to see what of these skills, you know, most skills, many skills are not transferable. Like I don't think if I had, you know, a, decade of a painting class practice. I'd ever be able to paint something beyond a stick figure,

although I did do this painting. No, I didn't. But do you think these skills in particular, as we say, they translate, how hard or easy is it to learn a martial art like crabmega, karate? Certainly it's something that can be taught. The question is, you know, how does the typical process work? And how does it compare to teaching and learning physics? Well, in my Krobmaga class, I'm going to see, you know, students in there at various stages of their training.

Some of them are going to be very new, haven't even put on a white belt yet. I'm going to see other ones who are, you know, advanced in the, they've been doing it for years. They're going to be much more fit. They're going to be people who are going to be overweight, including myself. You know, if I let myself go for a couple months and don't get to class enough because I'm too busy researching. or whatever. I mean, the thing is, there are all kinds of different body types and people with different levels of dedication. And they're all kind of jumping in at the, you know, deep into the pool, really. They're, you know, even the person who's just starting out, maybe it's someone's

first class, you know, you don't start on page one of the manual. I mean, you know, you're showing up and you're just doing whatever is being taught that day in class, and it might be gun defense or it might be an attack with a knife or something. So the idea. idea is to give somebody something, even if it's very tiny, that, you know, hey, I accomplished something in the last 45 minutes. I, you know, had an understanding of how, you know, someone's finger can be hurt if I'm pulling the gun a certain way and trying to get out of the, you know, someone having a gun to my head. I mean, just something tiny doesn't mean you're going to go off after one class and be, you know, the next Bruce Lee, but you're going to be able to at least

start thinking in your mind, you know, okay, I've got an option. I've got something to think about if, you know, you never want to be in a harrowing situation like that. But if you ever are, maybe you've got an option that can help you. And it's the same thing in a physics class. You know, I tell my students that all the time the value of a liberal arts education. I mean, you've got to exercise your mind in many, many different ways. And it goes beyond, you know, physics. You've got to learn, you know, to communicate with people and convey ideas, and you've got to be able to structure and organize. Maybe you're setting up a meeting. Maybe you're setting up a project with a, you know, you're going to lead a team of employees doing something.

I mean, there are certain things you've got to think about, maybe even outside the box sometimes, that can be very helpful to you and very helpful to your team. Absolutely. Yeah. So speaking of students and physics education, talk to me a little bit about Lynchburg, University of Lynchburg, and what it's known for and what kind of programs that you have there for potential prospective undergrads. So we were founded in 2003. It's been a while. Not by any means the oldest of the universities in the U.S., but we were Lynchburg College until the summer of 2018 and we became University of Lynchburg. our current name is University of Lynchburg. Lynchburg's in south central Virginia, a beautiful part of Virginia. You know, we've got great mountains and wooded areas and lakes and trails

and all kinds of things you can do around here, and maybe about three hours drive from the beach. So it's a nice place to live and work. The university itself stresses of liberal arts education. The physics major that we offer is rigorous. We have a small department, and the classes are small. I mean, we really get to know our students. And, you know, I take great pride in the sports physics research that I've been able to do here in the last 15 years

because I'm not working with massive budgets, but, you know, I'm working with colleagues in England and Japan and now actually University of Vienna. and a couple other colleagues in the U.S. and the experiences that you can get at a small college include hands-on interactions with laboratory equipment with an instructor who's right there with you. You're not being taught by a graduate student. And my students who do research projects, they publish with me. I mean, I put their name first on the paper and get them out there

and really want them to leave University of Lynchburg. well-equipped for their futures. That's phenomenal. So you mentioned a little bit about sports physics. Can you talk a little bit about your previous book, which is a bestseller, called Gold Medal Physics, The Science of Sports? Sure. So that book, the genesis of that book was that I had published a paper modeling the Tour de France

with a student, and we had a little bit of success with that paper. How long would it take you to bike the Tour de France? The world's most famous cycling race is more than 2,000 miles split over 21 stages. It includes fast, flat, sprints, and grueling mountain climbs. Every year, John Eric Goff and a team of his undergraduate students at the University of Lynchburg predict how fast the winning cyclist will complete each stage. They don't predict which cyclist will win, but they have developed an impressively accurate method to forecast the winning stage times.

First, the team breaks each stage down into a season. sequence of inclined planes, creating a simplified computer model of the race's terrain. The team relies on published data for elite cyclists and inputs several physical factors into their model to calculate how fast their model cyclists will complete each stage. One of these factors is the power output of their model cyclists, who will be heavier, more aerodynamic in flat stages, and lighter, more enduring in mountain stages. Their model also accounts for rolling resistance, which is the friction between the bike's tires and the road, as well as the air resistance experience.

by the cyclist and the bike. Their model is incredibly precise. In 2016, for example, golf's team predicted the winning times of four stages to less than 1% error, and 14 stages to under 5% error. I got a call one day from the publisher or the editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, and we started talking about this paper and essentially got offered a book deal. And I never really thought about writing a book, and I thought about putting some of these sports ideas, ideas into print. And I wanted to highlight some of the sporting events that I loved growing up. I mean, I was enthralled when, you know, Doug Flutie threw his Hail Mary to be Miami in 84. And, you know, always loved Greg Luganis, who I always tell people that, you know, I'm on the cover of my first book. And the cover shows Greg Luganis going into a pool with abs that looked like you could fire a bullet into it, and it wouldn't even hurt him. But I'm on the back cover, of course.

You know, so I loved in 84 and 88 watching Luganus dive and Katerina Vitt skating and stuff. So a lot of these events I decided to write about in the context of physics and didn't hesitate from using some equations and some high school mathematics. I didn't go beyond algebra and trigonometry, but wanted to show people how they could take some fairly basic physics, do a little bit of mathematics and come up with some interesting or something. results. This second book, I really wanted the challenge of writing about physics from a purely conceptual point of view. And it's not in any way to insult people who've never really studied math or science. I'm not talking down to them. I can assure people that the crux, sorry, the crutch of using mathematics is very powerful, especially when you're right out of graduate school. You can point to an equation and there's safety there because they're well-obeyed rules and and you don't

have to think of analogies and all this thing. But when you're really trying to talk to the general public and I really tried to put science on the sports pages in my career, you want to be able to convey, you know, science is a fantastic tool for helping us understand the world. It's not just sports. I mean, it's anything. You know, we're living longer. We're enjoying our lives more because of what science has been able to provide us. And the idea is that you can learn just a couple of basic ideas that, you know, the laws of physics completely constrain all of us. And when you're trying to write purely conceptual physics and trying to think of analogies,

it's not talking down at all to anybody. It's trying to say, I want to connect with you in a way that shows that I care. I'm trying to find something that will relate to your life, whether it's tightening a lug wrench on a car or, you know, sitting down and having a pint after class. You know, I mean, just being able to connect with people because, you know, I'm no better than anybody else just because I'm not a physicist. And, you know, my instructor may not be able to play with mathematics and the equations of physics and things like that. But his intuitive physics is phenomenal. I mean, he won't have the vocabulary of a physicist when describing a certain move. But I can watch sometimes in awe the ability to describe what a certain technique is doing because all the physics is there.

And I felt like when I was writing the book, I was just kind of taking a lot of things I learned from him and just kind of sprinkling some of the ideas of physics just to make it a little bit more. concrete from the way a scientist would describe it. Right. But, you know, that's the goal. So that was kind of the transition from the first book to the second book. That's great. Well, we're going to finish up soon.

I know you've got a busy schedule to keep as chair. Any things that you'd like to refer the listeners to, I hope that we can have you back on maybe this summer for the summer Olympics. We can discuss gold medal physics. Until then, any other things you'd like to bring to the listeners' attention while we have a few minutes remaining. Well, certainly anybody watching this with college-age kids. University of Lynchburg is a great place to study.

It's a great place to live. It's a great place to work. I am not shy at all about telling my kids in the first year class. If you are really interested in something and you want to get involved in research, we'll do it. I mean, I've gotten kids going into research the summer after their first year. So, you know, the idea is, hey, you may not know all the physics you need, but if you have a passion to do something, we're going to make that thing, you know, blow up. I mean, we're going to do something fantastic with it. Yeah, and you might get a chance to live out every student's dream of punching their professor in the face.

John. Sure. We might temper that a little bit. That's right. Maybe your next book should be the physics of, you know, making pasta or something, you know, a little less contact. but I commend you so highly on this wonderful book. John Eric Gough, best-selling author of Gold Medal Physics, as well as the physics of Krob Maga. I can't wait to have you back on again, John.

Thank you so much for introducing us to your wonderful university and to the research that you guys are so heavily invested in. Thank you so much, and we hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you, Brian. I really enjoyed it. If you enjoyed this episode of Into the Impossible, please subscribe, comment, share, and review. For a chance to win a free copy of our most recent guest's newest book, send a screenshot of your review to

info at imagine.ucsd.edu. We appreciate hearing from you and are always open to your suggestions for future episodes. Into the Impossible is a production of the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego in the Division of Physical Sciences. Directed by Eric Vary, Brian Keating, and Patrick Coleman, produced by Stuart Volgo. For more information, go to imagine.ucsd.edu. Find us on Twitter at ImagineucSD.