BS Why can't you just show somebody a science book?
DB What? As a, what, and imagine that's going to excite and interest them? It might do. Because, you know, some people might read the book and they might be really excited by it. And that's cool. For, many of the people that come through the door science is the furthest thing from their mind. And that the visitor attraction side of what we do. Many of the people, may think "Oh, whoever it is wants to" little kid wants to go to Techniquest because they've been to school maybe and they've been to Techniquest and they want to go again. And, you know,if school thinks it's a good place to take the kids maybe I should take them as well. But then, I imagine it's much more of a, you know, they want to have a relatively good fun family day out and enjoy themselves, and, but the learning angle is there. And I think it's a very important thing and it can't be investigated.
But - science books, I've got too many science books at home on the shelf. I've got some great- I've got "Science for Sailors" which was actually printed in 18, I like old books, 18 sort of 70. Which, sort of, epitomises the kind of idea of, of, of, well, science, I know this is, if you put this in, "Science for Sailors" I'll say it again, I'll bring it in, you can have a look. It's a sort of - real, practical person's hands-on - not the equations but the, the practical side of, you know, how you navigate what the stars do, why a ship floats, why you need to get the water out. But then, you know, how much water can you have and it's still, it's still sailable. So it's, still - It talks about some really high level, I suppose that's engineering, but, I mean, the, the seeing it on the shelf "science for Sailors" was a must, must-buy kind of book.
But, there was some, just in the history of science and the way that people have - written books that, you know, there are so many reverends that write science books in sort of 250 years ago. So they were the only people that had the education, they also get time off during the week, they actually got really enthusiastic and did some great science. And then you had all these collections of people who were, people who were quite well off and they had the ability and they had the intellect and the ability to read the books and gather information. These days anyone with a home computer can sit and read information, get, access to far, bigger resource of materials than anybody in those, those days could ever. Lots and lots of the big questions have been answered but, so many of the small questions. - Lots and lots of the big questions have been answered there are lots more bigger questions out there it's just I think a lot of people have realised that "Oh, we know everything about the world now." And you know, the problem is that all the exciting stuff in science at the moment is either very, very small or really, really big and, miles away. And so how, how're either going to impact the average guy on the street? To get an appreciation of micro-biology and DNA and all the sort of stuff or you know the universe is expanding what's happening in that little corner of the universe? With our technology in the cars, going back to that we, just accept it.
Probably only 15, 20 years ago you know, electric windows in the car? Well can you buy a car these days without electric windows? You know, because of the consumer, consumer-led that it, it is has to be there and, and that's I guess the technology side. The science bit is - understanding, and just having a, a vague appreciation from engineering. I like to have a general appreciation of a number of areas and, I kind of figure that, yeah people come to do their own thing but, but if they can learn a little bit. Just to, to appreciate that there are, there are people out there that are studying, doing that thing. I don't know, I'm just wibbling, just stop at something ((laughter)).