The Why Factor

Latest Episodes:

Why Do We Need Diaries? Aug 14, 2015

Show notes

We trust them with our deepest secrets, and use them to preserve our memories. They’ve been hidden, destroyed, and read without permission. Mike Williams talks to people who write diaries, and the historians on a mission to "rescue" the diaries of normal people.

Produced by Hannah Moore

(Photo: A handwritten page from a diary. Credit: Mike Williams)

Why do we travel? Aug 07, 2015

Show notes

Mike Williams asks why do we travel? Why do we leave the comforts of our homes to go to other places?

Psychology has shown that travel - even just thinking about other countries - broadens our minds and makes us more creative. But we travel for many reasons, from acquiring memories, to seeing how other people live, even to build or re-invent our identities. And then there are those, like P. J. O’Rourke, who claim to hate travelling and prefer to stay home. Though it turns out he actually likes tourism, just not tourists.

Mike also talks to South African travel writer Sihle Kuhmalo, Stanford Travel bookshop senior buyer David Montero, and psychologist Corinne Usher.

Produced by Arlene Gregorius

Photo: An international traveller arrives at an airport. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

What is a Home? Aug 03, 2015

Show notes

For most of us it is a sanctuary. But some people have no home at all, while for others it can become a place of terror and pain. What is home and why is the notion of home so deeply embedded in us? Mike Williams finds out how we shape our homes and how they shape us, how they reflect and reveal our personalities.

(Photo: A child's drawing of a house. Credit: Shutterstock)

Encryption Jul 24, 2015

Show notes

We use encryption every day - in our bank transfers, on our mobile phones and whenever we buy anything online. Yet what is it and why is it so important? Mike Williams explores cryptography from the Roman Caesar Cipher to modern day computer encryption.

Classified as a munition in the USA until the late 90s, lawyer Cindy Cohn recounts the court case she fought which helped put computer encryption into the public’s hands. Science writer Simon Singh talks us through some the mathematics behind the ciphers and Andrew Clark, a specialist in Information Forensics details the darker side of encryption, through its uses in crime.

Encryption also plays into our obsession with secrets, puzzles and hidden messages. We hear from a fan of the electronic duo, Boards of Canada, who obsessively followed a trail of encrypted clues left by the band in 2013. Finally, encryption lies at the heart of the debate about national security and individual privacy. We hear from an anonymous contributor from Pakistan where the use of encryption is restricted.

(Photo: Encrypted icon of a padlock and its keyhole. Credit: Shutterstock)

Why do Top Sportsmen and Women Choke? Jul 17, 2015

Show notes

The journalist, author and Olympian Matthew Syed blew it big time at the Sydney 2000 games. Despite a GB medal prospect in table tennis, he was thrashed by an opponent he had beaten many times before. He choked. Ever since, he has been keen to understand why sometimes the brain robs an individual of the ability to do routine tasks - in his case to hit a ping pong ball on the table.

You do not have to be a world class sportsman to choke. Think of that job interview you fluffed or that wildly attractive person at a party that left you unable to do what you do every day - speak coherently.

Matthew explores the neurological and psychological trajectory of a choke. People from the worlds of sport, business and entertainment all feature in this examination of when we fail to do what comes naturally to us.

(Photo: A man loses at a table tennis match. Credit: Shutterstock)

Nationality Jul 10, 2015

Show notes

How would you describe your nationality and how much does it matter? When did we start defining ourselves by where we are from and why? And how does our nationality affect who we are?

The concept of nationality, historically very specific, is becoming increasingly fluid. More and more people: for economic reasons, for love and increasingly to escape conflict, leave the countries they were born in.

Mike Williams explores what nationality means to us today by attending a British Citizenship ceremony in London. He speaks to the new citizens from all over the world, to find out why they wanted to become British and to discover how that decision has affected their own personal sense of nationality.

He finds out about the history of the modern ‘nation state’ and considers the sporting world where athletes often compete for a different country from the one they were born in.

Finally, what is it like not to have a nationality? Mike speaks to two men who have spent their lives stateless due to the partition of India in 1947.

Produced by Rose de Larrabeiti

Photo: one of the new Citizens getting their certificate confirming their new British Nationality. Credit: Click Print Photos

Why Do We Need Cash? Jul 03, 2015

Show notes

We all use cash - notes and coins - but with the increasing popularity of transacting by other methods, mobile phone, debit cards, do we still need cash? Some countries in northern Europe such as Sweden and Denmark are working towards a cashless society within the next 10 years. But what about those who are unable to open a bank account, the low waged, the homeless?

Although it is argued that getting rid of large amounts of cash would reduce both large and small scale crime, others argue that it is an inalienable right for a citizen to be anonymous, something that is impossible with a debit card or using mobile money which can be traced. Mike Williams asks is cash still king and if so why?

(Photo: Various world currency in a green money box. Credit: Shutterstock)

Why do People Take Risks? Jun 26, 2015

Show notes

Some people actively embrace risk by jumping out of aeroplanes, scuba-diving or motor-racing. But we all face risks every day just by eating, drinking, walking and driving – simply going about our daily lives carries all sorts of unseen threats. And yet for some reason we often misperceive these risks. We are not very good at calculating things on which our lives may depend. Why is that? Risk-averse Mike Williams speaks to some risk-takers to find out.

(Photo credit: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images)

How Chillies Became Hot Jun 19, 2015

Show notes

The chilli pepper is a work of ‘evolutionary elegance’. Its complex chemistry can fool our brains. Why do we eat something that causes us pain?

Mike Williams explores the origins and history of chillies, thought to be the hot and humid climates of Bolivia and northern Brazil before being spread through the world by Portuguese colonists in the 15th entury. He finds out that ancient chillies were not hot.

Dr Josh Tewkesbury from the University of Washington explains why the chilli pepper developed heat and why human beings are one of the only mammals in the world to actually enjoy eating them. We unlock the pungency and flavour of chillies in curries with chef and writer Roopa Gulatti. And we uncover their power and punch in powder and pepper spray with Dr Anuj Baruah, a biotechnologist in the north-eastern state of Assam, India, who extracted the chemical compound inside the chilli for India’s ministry of defence.

Award winning science writer and journalist, Deborah Blum gives her analysis of the chemistry inside the chilli and its development to explain why she thinks that plants like chillies are ‘formidable military machines’. Finally, Mike tastes one of the world’s hottest - the bhut jolokia - also known as the ghost or poison pepper.

Produced by Nina Robinson

(Photo: A selection of chillies)

Why do we Draw? Jun 12, 2015

Show notes

Are some people simply more visual than others? And, what do we reveal through our drawings? Drawing is something we all do unselfconsciously as children before we learn to write. It is a form of expression that goes back 40,000 years and began on the walls of caves. But why do we draw? Is it to make our mark on the world, to decorate our surroundings, or is it a way of communicating with others when words fail us?

Lucy Ash talks to Stephen Wiltshire, world famous for his incredibly detailed pen and ink cityscapes; to Rebecca Chamberlain, a psychologist now at the University of Leuven in Belgium who is studying art school students to try and understand how people get better at drawing; to David Hockney renowned for his both his traditional draughtsmanship and his enthusiasm for new technology and to Lizzie Ellis, who comes from a remote community in central Australia and draws with a stick, telling stories through her traditional form of Aboriginal women's art. And at the London charity Kids Company, Arts manager Jebet Mengech encourages children to express themselves with pencils, crayons and felt tips using drawing to reveal problems in the children’s lives.

(Photo: A student in a life class at the Royal School of Drawing)

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