You're listening to theurmer Show.

Okay, hi everyone. It's Michael Schurmer and it's time for another episode of the Michael Schurmer show just to remind you This show is sponsored primarily by the Skeptic Society. We are a

501c3 nonprofit science education organization that's a that produces the

Skeptic magazine. It's a quarterly publication everyone has a

particular theme to it this one is on economic matters the previous one was on

nationalism matters race matters abortion matters trans matters, upcoming.

If you subscribe, you'll get energy matters, education matters, and health matters for the rest of 2023.

Go to Skeptic.com slash donate to support the podcast, the magazine, the society and

all our media efforts and or if you go to skeptic.com and just click on

magazine you could subscribe there digitally or the actual physical print magazine I'm one of

those old school guys Simon you like this I actually read newspapers a physical

newspaper it's almost unheard of these days.

Well, good for you. I mean, I publish a newspaper. I wish I had a copy of it here.

We, for the last 14 years, the little village I live in in Massachusetts, we started the Sandis Field times. Oh my God. It survived. That's great. Yes, not many have survived the great internet.

Wave. Let me give you a proper introduction here. This is Simon Winchester.

I'm greatly honored to be with him here. I've read so many of his books, as of most of you. You're probably

familiar with his books, the Professor and the Madman, that is the construction of the Oxford English

dictionary which was made into a major Hollywood film with Sean Penn and Mel Gibson

the men who united the states, the perfectionists, the map that changed the world.

That's the story of William Smith and the birth of modern geology. The man who loved China,

a crack in the edge of the world, America and the great California earthquake.

Of 1906, I'm bringing that one up Simon because I'm really close to that crack here in Santa Barbara.

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