0:00

Lawrence, I

0:02

was just narrating about you. Isn't that

0:04

amazing? Come here.

0:08

It's Lawrence Krauss, top physicist.

0:11

What are the chances of that? It's

0:13

in the script, Bill. No. Laurie,

0:16

it's me acting. This is called acting. I'm sorry, I should have

0:18

known. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

0:30

Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm

0:32

your host, Lawrence Krauss. I just

0:34

finished a rollicking conversation

0:36

with one of my favorite people in the world, William

0:38

Shatner. Every time

0:40

I'm with him, it's an experience. And

0:44

as usual, in this case, he took

0:46

over the conversation from the very beginning. I had planned

0:49

to talk to him about his new book, To

0:51

Boldly Go, which is somewhat autobiographical.

0:54

But I knew we'd end up with

0:56

questions about the universe because he always had them. I

0:59

wasn't prepared with the questions right

1:01

away, and we went in so many different places. It

1:04

became a conversation, as he described it, a scientific

1:07

exploration of the universe and our

1:09

relationship. And that's what it was and

1:11

more. And his childlike enthusiasm

1:14

about the universe and his incredible interest is

1:16

so infectious that it really

1:18

is, in some sense, what I hope

1:20

this podcast is all about. The fact that everyone

1:23

should be fascinated about the universe. It's

1:26

part of our culture. It's part of what makes us human.

1:29

And it's also appropriate that today

1:31

we're releasing this podcast on the day my new

1:33

book, The Edge of Knowledge, comes out because it's really

1:35

about the questions we still have about the universe.

1:38

And this podcast was full of Bill's questions

1:41

about the universe and everything else. It was a joy

1:43

to talk to him, and I hope you enjoy it as

1:46

much as I did. You can watch it ad-free

1:49

on our Critical Mass Substack site, and

1:51

I hope you'll do that if you're a subscriber,

1:54

and your subscription fees will go to help support

1:57

the Origins Project Foundation. Otherwise,

1:59

you can watch it on iTunes. it on YouTube

2:02

or you can listen to it anywhere podcasts can

2:04

be listened to. No matter how you watch her to listen

2:06

to it, I hope you enjoy this

2:09

remarkable man, William Shatner,

2:11

as much as I did. So our

2:13

podcast with William Shatner right now.

2:24

But it was the Canadian Repertory

2:26

Theatre in Ottawa, which

2:28

is, hold, hold us, hold the thought. I

2:30

want to talk. No, no, I'm going to introduce

2:32

you first. No, no, no,

2:35

no, no. That's because I would, because. But

2:37

Larry, that's so cool. No, no, I'm

2:39

not going to introduce you in that way. I'll do it afterwards.

2:41

I'm just going to welcome you. Let me at

2:43

least welcome you. You're welcoming me

2:45

by telling me where you live and how

2:48

you live. I know we're going to get there. I want,

2:50

I want you to come here. I want, I want you to do

2:52

that, but I want to take a ride. Something

2:54

there. You will buy something here and

2:57

I will get to that. But I have to start this.

2:59

Okay, Bill, thank you for being on the program. As usual,

3:01

you've taken over even before I started,

3:03

which is. We've been as usual. We've never had this done

3:05

before. We've never done this, but we've

3:08

done two dialogues, which you don't remember, but

3:10

I do. And each time I was

3:12

on stage on a chip, we were on a ship

3:14

together. Oh, well. And

3:16

then, and then what I want to show is

3:18

even the very first time we met, and I've never done this

3:20

before. I'm going to unplug the microphone from here. So,

3:23

so it'll play. I actually found a clip

3:25

of the first time we met. It's 18 plus

3:27

years ago. Now you don't remember it, but I do. No.

3:31

It's to work. Okay.

3:34

We're going to. If we get

3:36

it, you've already practiced knowing you, you've,

3:39

you've got this thing going. You know, it works.

3:41

I practiced it many times, but I'm also a theoretical

3:43

physicist. The reason I'm a theoretical physicist

3:45

and not an experimental physicist is about

3:48

to become clear. Okay.

3:49

Here,

3:51

let's see if we can. Lawrence.

3:55

I was just narrating about you.

3:56

Isn't that amazing? Come here. It's

4:00

Lawrence Krauss, top physicist.

4:03

What are the chances of that? It's

4:05

in the script, Bill. No. Laurie,

4:09

it's me acting. This is called acting. I'm sorry,

4:11

I shouldn't know it. I'm sorry. Okay,

4:14

please. Well, what do you mean I took over? I

4:16

looked at you so fondly. Yeah, that

4:18

you- I had my arm around you. You did it. You

4:20

were with Brian, you were withdrawing. No,

4:22

no, I was, I was actually, that's

4:24

the first time I began to think of you as just

4:26

like my uncle, who was always my favorite person in the

4:28

family. But I had made

4:29

the mistake just before we filmed that. This was

4:32

from the TV show, How

4:34

William Shatner Changed the World, which I'm

4:36

sad to say isn't listed on your Wikipedia

4:39

page, but nevertheless, I remember it. But

4:42

I told you that my family, I didn't know my name

4:44

was Lawrence. This is the first time I've said this

4:46

on the air either.

4:47

Until I was 12, I thought it was Laurie,

4:49

which is what my family called me when I was going- L-O-R-R-Y?

4:53

L-O-R-R-I-E.

4:54

I-E. And

4:56

then I discovered my birth certificate. And also

4:59

Lawrence of Arabia had just come out. And-

5:02

And- It's a lovely name though. Oh,

5:04

it is. Well, Laurie's his name. And I told

5:06

you that right before we filmed that, and

5:08

you decided to call me Laurie

5:11

right there on the camera. But anyway, it

5:13

was, but you know, the reason I did

5:15

that, although it's self-aggrandizing, the

5:17

reason I wanted to show that clip at the beginning

5:20

was because it was the first time we met, but

5:23

you know, I didn't know what to expect. But

5:25

what I discovered, and the reason I wanted to have

5:27

this conversation with you, the reason I've been

5:29

thrilled each time we've been together, is I discovered

5:31

a man fascinated by everything

5:34

in the world around him. A man who

5:36

was full of interested in life and

5:39

everything and had questions and just, and

5:43

endless curiosity.

5:45

Let me ask you a question right now.

5:47

Okay, sure. Are

5:50

your glances tinted? Oh,

5:53

oh, they're, well, you know, they tint

5:55

when there's the sun on them. And so they

5:57

get a little tinted when they get darker when the

5:59

sun's on.

7:59

in and all I had to do was have

8:02

the joy of talking to people like you. It

8:05

was great and I remember sitting down with

8:07

your family at dinner a few times and we

8:09

did twice on stage. We did a planned

8:11

dialogue and then you

8:12

and then much to my pleasure

8:15

you were giving you did another evening event and

8:17

then you called me up and we started talking about the

8:19

universe. And as we had when we

8:21

first met when we were

8:23

filming that show in between the takes

8:25

I remember we started talking I'd

8:28

written the book Physics Star Trek and we had a great conversation

8:30

and I was totally unexpected except I

8:33

told you then and I still do you my uncle was

8:35

my favorite person in my family and the media almost

8:37

immediately you reminded me. Does that mean I'm your favorite

8:39

person? Well you

8:41

remind me you're my you're

8:44

you're among my favorite people there's no doubt about it.

8:49

Among is first of all it's the name

8:51

of an African tribe. And

8:54

then secondly

8:56

it suggests

8:59

large groups of people. I

9:04

love you know I love my uncle like I feel

9:06

like very few people in the world and you strongly

9:09

remind me of my uncle he was a pharmacist in Toronto

9:11

he passed my mother. He

9:13

passed away before

9:15

my mother he passed away when he was 93, no 94 my mom

9:17

as I say was 100. And

9:21

yes that you're going to be doing a lot of a

9:24

lot of good work well

9:26

into. Well I hope so

9:29

you're a role model of course but I'd like to say about

9:32

my mother who's

9:33

different I think than your mother I want to get back to your I

9:35

want to start with your origins but I

9:37

always say about my mother that the first time I was happy

9:39

to share genes with her

9:41

was when I was when she was about 90 and totally

9:43

with it because up to that point in my

9:45

life she was married five times she was an interesting

9:48

woman and I was and

9:50

I was usually embarrassed by

9:52

her and but then when she was with

9:55

it and she was with it right until just

9:57

shortly before she passed away at 100 she moved here with us.

9:59

and how did she die?

10:01

Just passed

10:03

away quickly. Basically she just... Were

10:06

you there? We moved her because I

10:09

moved to Canada. That's the other thing I want to tell you. I mean

10:11

you have to come here. This is Prince Edward Island

10:13

and you've never you've never have you

10:16

ever been to Prince Edward Island? Yeah.

10:18

You've been in Nova Scotia. I read that. Nova

10:21

Scotia. Yeah. Yeah no but Prince Edward Island

10:23

is prettier and in fact I have to tell you

10:25

this. You're going to come here. We

10:27

talked about that. I'm going to get property

10:29

here. I've got to get something near

10:31

the ocean but it has to be above because we know

10:33

the ocean's going to rock. Yeah that's right. That's why I look down.

10:36

I'm 30 meters above the sea level here

10:38

and are 20 meters

10:40

and I have a river here that's a mile

10:42

away from the ocean. You're 60 feet. Yeah

10:45

that's enough. That's a

10:47

cliff. You're on the edge of a it's

10:49

just a downhill. It's just downhill. It's just

10:51

a downhill. And it goes right down into the ocean. And

10:53

this goes this is a river and

10:55

it's a mile away from the ocean. I can take

10:57

my boat off the dock here and I'm and I

11:00

want to do that. That's what I want to do Larry. I know.

11:02

You're going to be my

11:05

neighbor. The house next door is selling.

11:07

I don't want to buy a house. I want a

11:10

fair sized piece of land. Yeah I have

11:12

four acres but I don't know how much how many acres

11:14

you want.

11:15

That sounds right. There you go. And

11:17

I've got to build for this extended

11:20

family for you know. Larry I want to

11:24

ask you a question. Okay.

11:26

Two questions that I've that are

11:29

so puzzling to me that only somebody

11:31

like yourself could answer and I've sought

11:34

this answer. The first one's going

11:36

to be a little more complicated

11:39

than the second one. Okay.

11:41

First question is I've

11:46

indelibly imprinted on my memory that 13.8

11:50

billion light years away is the farthest

11:54

galaxy that we have that the

11:59

The new one or

12:01

the Hubble? Yeah, well, I think it was the old one. Yeah,

12:04

okay. So

12:06

that's 13.8. So here's

12:11

what my sentence is, that

12:13

I've kind of like,

12:14

this is my sentence. Well,

12:17

it was 13.8 billion light years, but

12:20

the speed of light and the photon,

12:24

whether it was a particle or a wave, and I have

12:26

no idea what I've just said. Reaches

12:29

my retina 13.8 billion

12:31

light years away.

12:33

So now I said,

12:35

oh my God, the red shift, that's 13.8

12:37

billion light years.

12:40

What's happened to that galaxy in the

12:42

intervening time? Well, in

12:45

fact, you got it, it's traveled. In fact, it

12:47

turns out the far end of our universe is actually, even

12:49

though our universe is 13.8 billion years old.

12:51

And

12:53

therefore, if you look back in time, you're looking back 13.8

12:56

billion years. Because of the expansion

12:58

of the universe, the actual visible universe, it's

13:01

closer to 50 billion light years across,

13:04

because it's been expanding. Well, but wait a minute.

13:07

So that's what we can see. But

13:11

what's happened to that galaxy in the interim? Wait, Laurie,

13:13

the question is, what's happened

13:16

to that galaxy

13:18

during the intervening 13.8 billion, it's

13:21

gone someplace in 13. It's

13:24

actually, no, it's been at rest like

13:26

a surfer in a wave. As the universe

13:28

expands, it's been at rest, and

13:31

we've been at rest, and we've been moving apart from

13:33

each other.

13:34

But we're just sitting at rest, like in a stream

13:37

that carries us apart from each other. But

13:39

it's been evolving, and it's had maybe-

13:41

But when you see the galaxy is not 13.8, more like 50,

13:45

because that's like three

13:47

times the balloon

13:49

of the universe has expanded three

13:52

times since then. How do we know? How do

13:54

we know what the speed of the universe is when

13:56

we've got all this dark matter?

13:58

Okay, we got a lot.

16:00

How quickly is it? And so

16:02

what Hubble discovered to his great surprise,

16:05

its linear early on, is that the

16:07

velocity of objects is proportional to

16:09

their distance. So the farther things

16:11

are away from us, the faster they're

16:13

moving away from us now. And the really weird

16:16

thing,

16:17

the really weirdest thing, which I thought

16:19

we'd get to far later, is that,

16:21

you know, the universe isn't slowing down, it's speeding

16:23

up. It's speeding up, yeah. Yeah, which

16:25

was a big surprise. It

16:27

was first, actually,

16:29

I'm happy to say I was one of the people who predicted

16:31

that, but anyway. But it's

16:34

contrary to logic. Yeah,

16:37

but you know, that's what's great about physics,

16:39

though, and the universe is it doesn't care what our logic

16:41

is. And that's what's great about physics.

16:44

But I should fashion our logic. We

16:46

should fashion our logic.

16:49

Absolutely. But we, you know, like,

16:52

we were, as I think Avon Rohn here,

16:54

Richard Dawkins once said, you know, we evolved

16:56

to escape lions on

16:58

the savannah. We didn't evolve to do quantum mechanics

17:00

or understand. And

17:02

so it's nonintuitive. It's

17:05

strange. But that's one of us. But doesn't

17:08

because we're logically looking

17:10

for fruit off a tree and how to escape

17:12

the tiger,

17:14

that our brains are incapable of encompassing.

17:17

Well, they are. Well, it turns out to be a side benefit.

17:20

Who knew that the same evolution

17:22

that evolutionary traits would allow us to

17:25

learn how to avoid predators would also

17:27

eventually allow us to discover mathematics, language

17:30

and quantum mechanics and relativity. And it's

17:33

and so it's not surprising that some of these ideas

17:35

are strange and nonintuitive. And in

17:37

fact, the fact that the universe is speeding up is really nonintuitive

17:39

because all of us are used to gravity slowing

17:42

things down. They're pulling you down and

17:45

expanding is nonintuitive. And the Hubble

17:47

must be a mistake. Well,

17:50

that's what many people thought initially. And then

17:52

but it turned out, as I say, it turned

17:54

out

17:56

to be required to understand the universe, but

17:58

we still don't understand why. And

18:01

you know, and you talked about my book and you know, I

18:03

might- But Larry, within

18:05

we're into forces that we have

18:07

no idea, like 90% of

18:10

what's happening, we have no idea. Isn't

18:12

that great?

18:13

Isn't that fantastic? I'm dying to

18:15

know. Well,

18:18

that's what, that's what, it's

18:21

worth asking questions. I mean, and

18:23

I will plug the new book, but the first sense

18:25

of the new book is the most important thing in science. You almost say

18:27

it in your book, is the phrase, I don't know,

18:30

because it's an invitation to discover.

18:33

You've made a whole bunch of TV shows about

18:35

that. I know, I know. Knowing

18:37

is less exciting than the mystery of not

18:40

knowing, because it means there's more out there. I'm thrilled

18:42

by the mystery of not knowing.

18:43

I get goosebumps and the hair

18:46

on my arms raises when

18:48

I think of the things I don't know. And

18:51

I talk to somebody like you and they say, well,

18:54

proportionately, it's this, no

18:57

kidding. I get a piece of information that

18:59

I didn't know before, like

19:01

Larry, Lloyd.

19:02

What

19:04

the hell is the difference between a wave

19:07

and a particle? Well,

19:12

they behave differently when they, bottom

19:14

line is waves are extended, particles

19:17

aren't. Particles and little waves

19:19

are extended. But a wave doesn't

19:21

exist, isn't it a measurement? I mean,

19:23

this, a wave, you got it, you

19:26

got a good point there. It's not

19:28

quite there. A particle is something that goes from here to there.

19:30

And it exists. I watch waves in the water

19:32

here near me. The water isn't going from here

19:34

to there. A disturbance in the water is

19:37

going from here to there. That's my logic. That's

19:40

good logic. So what's

19:43

the explanation? So what

19:45

you can think of,

19:46

and quantum mechanics, which is

19:49

weirder than anything in the world tells us that fundamental

19:51

levels can be a unified. But there's

19:54

gotta be a unified, it's gotta be unified.

19:57

We don't know how to do it, but we do know.

19:59

As far as we can tell, quantum mechanics is pretty fundamental.

20:02

And it tells us that two things that appear

20:04

to be totally different are both

20:07

true. Things that appear

20:09

to be, like quantum mechanics tells

20:11

us, that not only does a particle behave

20:13

like a wave, which means if you detect

20:16

it, it's here, but if you don't detect it, it

20:18

has the properties of an extended object, which

20:20

is weird. But it also tells us that

20:22

it's doing many things at once, that that

20:24

little particle isn't like a billiard

20:27

ball, that when that electron goes from here to there, it's

20:29

taking every trajectory in the world, it's going to

20:31

the moon and back. And- Okay,

20:33

okay. At the same time. This is incredible. Does

20:36

the particle have any

20:38

properties to it? Yes,

20:41

you can measure its mass. It weighs-

20:43

It has mass? It has mass. It's part of

20:45

a shellmetric particle. It's a- What

20:48

it has- What it has- Gravitational?

20:50

Oh yeah, it's gravitational. In fact, we can even measure

20:53

elementary particles falling in a gravitational

20:56

field now, we're sensitive enough to be able to do that.

20:59

And then it has electric charge.

21:01

So- So it is- Is it a building

21:03

block?

21:05

Well, I mean, those electrons are certainly parts

21:07

of the building blocks of atoms and protons

21:09

are, although they're made up of quarks, and they're the

21:12

building blocks of everything

21:14

here. Although the weird

21:16

thing about atoms is

21:18

even though solid matter appears pretty solid, most

21:20

of it's empty space. No, I understand

21:23

that. And the reason, you know why when

21:25

you and I are sitting on these chairs,

21:27

we don't fall through to the center of the earth?

21:30

Because the molecules are compacted

21:32

more closely. Sort of, but it's really

21:34

the not the molecules are- I hate sort of. But

21:37

it's really the electric forces. It's just electric

21:39

forces that are holding us up

21:41

against the earth, most of it's empty space. Doesn't

21:43

that compact the molecules closer and

21:46

therefore it feels dense? Not really.

21:48

Why are you doing, maybe, what is that? You

21:50

know why? It doesn't

21:52

contract them much. And the reason is

21:55

that gravity is the weakest force in

21:57

nature. What? I'll

22:00

explain this to you. Okay? It's

22:02

really simple. Okay?

22:05

No, no, it'll be, you'll just say afterwards, you say, oh,

22:07

of course, you'll tell me that, I promise. So

22:10

the fact that, you know, I'm being

22:12

pulled down to the earth, okay? By

22:15

the entire earth, all of the

22:17

gravity of the entire earth is pulling

22:19

me down. Yes, I feel that

22:21

with the power. But it's the electric forces between

22:23

the electrons in my butt

22:25

and my chair, just those little

22:27

ones that are holding me up against the entire pull

22:29

of the whole earth. Is it repelling the-

22:32

It's repelling, yeah, the electric forces for the electrons

22:34

in my butt. So there's a negative, it's a negative. Well, they're both negative,

22:36

negative repels. And that's what's holding

22:38

me up against the earth. Electricity

22:41

is 40 orders of magnitude

22:43

stronger than gravity, electromagnetism.

22:45

Gravity is so weak that it's negligible,

22:48

except on the scale of the universe. We ignore it

22:50

in elementary particle scales, because it's so,

22:52

so weak.

22:53

And that's why- And yet it is

22:55

the force- That holds the universe. And

22:58

it's the time to derive forces of nature, and probably

23:01

predominant, isn't it? Well, on the scale of the

23:03

cosmos, the thing that I tend to study- Well, because of the mass

23:06

of the cosmos. It is, on scales

23:08

larger than our solar system, even

23:10

larger than the earth, gravity is what matters. But

23:13

on the scale of the earth, you and me,

23:15

gravity may seem like it's important when you try

23:17

and get up in the morning, but it's- Yeah, it isn't

23:19

gravity, that's called age. Yeah.

23:24

But, you know, but age is produced

23:26

by electromagnetism, right? Because it's electromagnetism

23:29

that's responsible for chemical reactions, and

23:31

chemical reactions are what's responsible

23:33

for age. So, they're selling- I'm sure you're

23:36

aware. How old are you?

23:37

I'm gonna be 69 next month, just

23:39

a- That's almost 70. I

23:42

know, I'm gonna be 70 next year. You have to hesitate

23:44

to tell me your age. Yeah, I know, because,

23:46

you know, I'm getting older than you. I was so

23:48

much younger when we first met. You can't come to grips

23:50

with 70. What

23:54

are

23:55

you gonna do on your 70th

23:57

birthday? I'm gonna go next-

24:00

door and see you and

24:02

have a beer. When

24:06

I was 40, I apparently, I've long since

24:08

forgotten, I apparently went to bed for

24:10

three days. Like 40 is

24:12

a pivotal moment. Yeah, 450 was for me, I

24:15

think, but 42. Yeah. Well, because you're

24:17

youthful in face

24:20

and figure and- Sorry, sorry, I

24:22

have to say we both don't look our age, I

24:24

think.

24:24

I mean, you don't, for sure. You certainly

24:27

don't. By

24:29

the way, I told you my mother once said, claimed, I told

24:31

you this first time I met you, my mother, who now I

24:33

realized was eight years old in you, claimed

24:35

that when she lived in Toronto, you asked her out when

24:37

you were an actor there. I don't know if it's true, but

24:40

I'm sure it is. It's her main name.

24:42

Well, it was title or

24:44

Taylor. I don't know, she went by a whole bunch of different

24:46

names. Anyway,

24:49

knowing my mother, she would have asked me. Very well, good to be because

24:52

I went through a lot of activity

24:54

in Toronto when I was 20 something. Well,

24:57

there you go. Anyway, just want to say, so maybe

24:59

we're related. Anyway,

25:04

It's possible. Anything

25:07

is possible given the- Given

25:10

the- We'll get to anything possible.

25:12

I don't know where we're going to get because we've already stuck on

25:14

the way out. It doesn't have to get. Don't you understand?

25:17

This isn't the scientific treaties.

25:19

This is a conversation, right? You're

25:21

right. Exactly. It's a conversation. And

25:25

who

25:25

knows where that exploration takes

25:27

us. It doesn't need a designated,

25:30

a pre-designed- Absolutely.

25:32

That's what makes it exciting.

25:34

Exactly. It's a scientific exploration

25:37

into our relationship. Exactly.

25:39

I agree. And as

25:41

I say, let me, speaking of our relationship,

25:44

speaking of scientific exploration, I do want to go back.

25:46

Even I know that the world for you began

25:49

when you met me, but still there was earlier

25:51

times. That's good

25:53

stuff. It's just insight into it. But

25:58

I want to go back because you grew up in my-

25:59

I want to ask some questions I'm renewed by. So

26:02

I knew you grew up in Montreal. Your father was

26:04

a clothing manufacturer at a store. Was he a wholesaler

26:07

or was he a- He's a wholesaler. He made, he

26:09

made, I

26:10

believe he started

26:12

off as a salesman in

26:15

what we call the Shmata trade. Yeah, sure.

26:18

And then he went into business for himself. So

26:21

he made, you

26:23

know, modestly

26:26

priced

26:27

men's suits, which

26:29

he then would take out to

26:31

the surrounding villages around Montreal.

26:34

He would travel four or five days a week,

26:37

going out 30, 40, 50, 100 miles outside of Montreal

26:42

and going to men's stores and

26:44

selling them these.

26:45

Or

26:48

he also went into

26:51

whatever you call it, tailor-made where people would

26:53

take measurements and send the measurements on

26:55

to my father and they would make the

26:58

personal- Did you have to speak

27:00

French to do that, to go outside of Montreal

27:02

or did- Oh yeah, but he spoke very

27:04

little French. But in those

27:06

years, and the reason the whole French

27:09

Revolution in Quebec took place

27:11

was people like my father, English-speaking

27:13

people, said, well, the French better learn

27:15

to speak English as it gets to the 3 million

27:18

people who lived there and

27:20

for so many more years longer than the

27:22

English, I would say, for example,

27:25

to speak French. I would

27:27

say that it's not easy for... Thanks,

27:33

son. Thanks, son. Thanks, Anne.

27:36

Anne, Anne. Anne,

27:39

why don't you say something? Thanks, Anne.

27:43

Perhaps. Possibly.

27:50

Because, what's because? What's

27:52

because? Posca.

27:54

Posca, Nous Aivons, what's

27:57

defeated? Oh,

28:00

my. Not Ganye, but the opposite

28:03

of Ganye. You

28:05

know, I'll do it. The

28:08

streets of Abraham

28:10

were the... You were there at strength

28:12

Abraham in Quebec City while close to where you

28:14

were. I've been on

28:17

the plains of... Well, but that's true. So

28:19

the French felt,

28:22

and it gradually became a whole movement,

28:24

as you know, that the French

28:27

in Quebec said, this is not fair. This

28:30

is our land. What's

28:33

the printed on the license plates?

28:36

Je m'assouvienne. We remember. We

28:38

remember. We remember.

28:39

And what do they remember? They remember. Exactly.

28:43

They remember losing, or at least losing that. And

28:45

yeah, no, it certainly was... It was a big

28:47

deal. When I was growing up, it was in Ontario.

28:52

And I moved to Ottawa, mostly

28:54

so I could learn French. And my brother actually

28:56

moved to Quebec and was

28:59

a law professor there and only spoke French. He

29:01

dissimilated completely. Yeah, no, it

29:03

was a big deal. My uncle was

29:06

a lawyer, was a judge

29:09

in Rouen.

29:10

Oh, Rouen. Oh, yeah, I've been up there. I've

29:12

been... Yeah. He was a judge. A judge.

29:15

Yeah. But

29:18

anyway, so

29:20

who knew that was taking place when

29:22

you were living there among the fish? You swam with the

29:24

fish. And then one day, you know,

29:27

wait, you know, it is unfair. You

29:29

didn't have to speak French when you were growing up, everyone around you.

29:32

No, but I had friends on

29:34

the French street, on the streets of Montreal. I

29:37

lived on a street called Marcille in the west

29:39

end of Montreal. And there were French families all around.

29:42

And so the kids would play in

29:44

the streets, and we spoke French and English. That's

29:46

how I spoke. Oh, okay. Oh, that's perfect. You

29:49

probably never heard of the Marcille

29:50

gang. No. No, I didn't.

29:54

I missed that. That was a half a dozen

29:56

kids. And Betty Beck, who

29:58

was this... beautiful in

30:01

my eyes, blonde, 10 year old

30:03

or something that we play football

30:05

on the streets. I try and tackle her all the time.

30:10

And sometimes you did. Anyway,

30:12

that's a different story. But okay.

30:14

So your father,

30:18

you've learned your grandparents

30:20

were immigrants like mine were from

30:23

Eastern Europe. But your parents have both been born

30:25

in Canada?

30:26

My mother was. My father came

30:28

from Austria when he was 13 or 14.

30:32

Yeah, Austria. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

30:35

Yeah, my mom moved into his very little. My

30:38

mother's mother,

30:40

my great, my grandmother, I

30:44

think she was my grandmother or was my great grandmother,

30:47

lived in Lithuania. He was

30:50

born in Lithuania. And

30:52

I did a show for

30:54

a couple of years called Better Late Than

30:56

Never. And so they

30:58

asked me, where would you like to go? Would you like to go where

31:01

your grandparents? I said, yeah, let's go. So we ended

31:03

up in Lithuania in Vilnius. Okay.

31:06

I took a trip from Vilnius to

31:09

the birthplace of my great grandmother,

31:12

which had been on the edge of

31:14

a farmer's market. When the Nazis

31:17

bombed Lithuania,

31:19

when they're marching to the Baltics,

31:21

they

31:23

destroyed this

31:26

square. And my grandmother, great grandmother's

31:28

house, the

31:30

square was subsequently rebuilt

31:33

after 45, and it became

31:35

a park. So when the mayor

31:37

of this town,

31:40

of this little town,

31:42

was taking me around, he said, well, here's

31:44

where there was a, this is where

31:46

all the farmers would come and the

31:49

people in the town

31:52

would buy and sell the meat and the vegetables

31:54

for the weak supply. And here

31:57

is a pipe that leaves a house.

31:59

into a aquifer

32:02

where they washed all the vegetables

32:05

and cleaned the chickens and all that. And

32:07

I thought, you know, my great-grandmother,

32:09

probably what then,

32:12

and this isn't a scientific principle, but I'd

32:14

love for you to go with it anyway. Well,

32:16

water is the most magical thing in the universe,

32:20

isn't

32:23

it? Yeah, it's almost miraculous. I have a physics teacher

32:25

who's one of the proofs of God, although

32:28

he's tongue in cheek.

32:30

Right. Well,

32:32

oxygen

32:36

and hydrogen combined

32:39

makes...

32:40

I mean, you'll help me with... I

32:42

just finished a sentence. You'll help me understand

32:45

why water has so magical properties. But

32:47

there is a photographer

32:50

in Japan who claims that he can

32:52

take pictures of the crystallization

32:54

of water and see the crystals

32:57

changing shape when there's love

32:59

or harm or... Okay,

33:02

yes, yes. The scientific

33:04

mind goes,

33:06

okay, but the romantic goes,

33:08

of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

33:10

I washed in the water

33:13

that

33:14

had the memory of my... Look,

33:17

you know, I was going to save this for later, but

33:19

I'm going to make you feel even better. What's later?

33:22

Later? No, there's no later. It's now. It's

33:24

right now. I can't read any more of that. I know. I'm

33:26

not going to say it again, but you

33:31

talk a lot about connectedness. It matters. You

33:33

love Carl Sagan's line about where all starts up, and

33:35

I've written that too. No, string theory.

33:37

I want to talk to you about string theory. No, but we'll get

33:39

there, but hold on. I want to tell you something that

33:42

is really important to you right now in your

33:44

life. Yeah. Because you talk... You, you.

33:46

Yeah, I know I'm very

33:48

important right now in your life. I know for the moment I

33:50

am, but also so your family

33:53

and your grandkids, you dedicate the

33:55

book to Clive, who's your grandchild,

33:58

and you talk about...

33:59

the future. And although you know,

34:02

although you're not a two and you have many, many,

34:04

many years left ahead of you, you do talk

34:06

about the about the leg about

34:08

legacy and memory. And I want

34:10

to tell you something really neat that will even although

34:13

I don't buy some of the stuff you say about connectedness,

34:16

here's something that's going to make you more connected. I don't know

34:18

if I were doing about that. We'll have an argument about that.

34:20

But here, but first, I want to, I want to change.

34:22

I want to tell you something that will be so wonderful

34:25

if you don't know it. I forget if I've ever told it to you.

34:27

So

34:29

you are more connected, not only are we made

34:31

of the same atoms, and not only and

34:33

I want to tell you something about when you are washing through

34:36

that water. Okay, take

34:38

a deep breath for a second. Take a deep breath. Hold

34:40

it in. Two. Yeah, and let it

34:42

out slowly. Okay, let it out slowly.

34:45

Now,

34:46

I could show you and when we're together, next time

34:48

I'll show you that every time you

34:51

take a breath, you're breathing

34:53

in atoms that were breathed out by almost

34:55

everyone who ever lived. You're breathing in at

34:57

least 10 atoms from Julius Caesar.

35:00

When Aristotle and you're all but

35:02

that's

35:05

great. You're you're you're and Frank

35:07

Sinatra and the neat thing is Aristotle

35:10

Aristotle better but but Einstein

35:12

also Hitler but you know, it's

35:15

you don't have a choice. It's all there. And

35:17

when you wash your hands,

35:20

it's quite likely

35:21

some of the water that you're washing your hands from atoms

35:24

of that were the same atoms

35:26

that your grandmother was no

35:28

came from a meteorite.

35:31

Yeah, but but since then, Lucy, you know,

35:35

three, three million year old little girl might

35:37

have been drinking water from and every time

35:40

you drink water, like my mom used to say

35:42

when I picked up she'd say don't touch touch that you don't know where

35:44

it's been. She would have been really amazed because

35:47

literally every time when you were washing your hands,

35:49

it's quite possible that some of the atoms quite

35:51

likely some of the atoms that

35:54

your your grandmother actually drank. Oh,

35:56

what do you mean? We're not interconnected. We are

35:59

interconnected.

35:59

But let's Let's not make it too new

36:01

agey. That's all. I don't want to become-

36:03

What do you mean new agey? I'm writing a book.

36:06

I'm writing a children's, not, not,

36:09

Robert Chernow and I,

36:12

and Dan Miller who's writing the music. We've

36:15

written a book called Bill, which is out there now. We're

36:17

writing right now, right in front

36:19

of me. It slipped

36:21

down there somewhere. Our 10

36:26

songs that we have written

36:29

for children about how interconnected

36:31

all of nature is. That's wonderful. The

36:33

extraordinary things, termites

36:37

and elephants and things like that. Oh

36:40

yeah, you talk about that, the termites building the mound

36:42

that the elephants then rub against.

36:45

And what about sucker fish? And

36:48

what about fungi and

36:50

the way it, I

36:52

mean- We

36:55

know, connections are amazing.

36:58

And we work with everything. Yeah, everything.

37:01

Everything. And our atoms, as

37:03

you say- What about- If your atoms

37:05

came from your left hand, probably came

37:08

from a different star than your right hand. It's amazing. Exactly.

37:11

So what about, what's his name who talks about

37:13

string theory? Doesn't that have a

37:15

valid- Well, string theory is,

37:19

it's got a lot of

37:20

play and a lot of press because

37:22

it, one hoped

37:25

it would be the first theory that would unify two

37:27

central pillars of modern physics, quantum

37:30

mechanics, which we briefly mentioned, and relativity,

37:33

gravity, Einstein's theory of gravity. Those

37:35

two things don't work together mathematically. We

37:38

can't combine them into a simple theory

37:40

that makes sense. What doesn't combine?

37:42

General relativity, Einstein's theory of

37:44

gravity. Right, is that Newtonian?

37:47

Is that the universe works? Is that Newtonian physics? What

37:49

was that? No, it's- Newtonian

37:51

physics. No, no, even Newtonian physics

37:53

was Newton. Einstein changed Newton

37:56

and said that gravity is due to the curvature of space,

37:58

not

37:59

just things- So Einstein changed

38:01

the world and you need general

38:03

relativity

38:04

to To explain the way the

38:06

world universe works on the largest scale So we we

38:08

test it all the time One of the predictions general

38:10

relativity if is that if you shake something

38:12

you produce waves We were talking about waves

38:15

waves in space and time called gravitational

38:17

waves. We detected them with

38:19

an amazing Ligo

38:22

detector that was just amazing what

38:24

it had to do. So what did that

38:26

prove by the way?

38:28

What did the this thing? Oh

38:30

my god, we saw gravitational waves. Why

38:33

was everybody so excited? Well, first of all, it

38:35

was a central prediction of Einstein's here of general

38:37

relativity that had never been

38:38

That's that had been never been measured over the

38:41

last eight years but the other thing was that

38:44

it proved to us that

38:47

the only things that you could

38:49

Gravity is so weak when I'm moving my

38:51

hands around even though this camera is moving around

38:53

because it's got a mind of its own But

38:56

when I'm moving my hands around I'm creating gravitational

38:58

waves But gravity is so weak that we could

39:00

never detect those waves those ripples in

39:02

space. You need humongous dense

39:05

Massive things to create enough Gravitational

39:08

waves to detect them so there

39:10

were these two supermassive black

39:12

holes 50 times the mass of this one

39:14

was 30 and one was 25 times

39:16

the mass of the Sun huge things that

39:19

the 25

39:19

times the mass of Sun But the size of

39:21

Manhattan, I mean just unbelievably

39:23

dense When those collided 1.8

39:27

billion light years away They

39:30

produce enough gravitational radiation that we could

39:32

detect and you know, and this was amazing This

39:34

is the this is how amazing technology

39:36

is so that the LIGO detector.

39:39

It's got two arms

39:40

Right angles and when a gravitational

39:42

wave comes by it when a gravitational

39:45

wave comes by me here This my arm

39:47

here gets shorter a little bit and that arm

39:49

gets longer and then this arm gets shorter

39:51

and that arm gets longer Because it really literally

39:54

stretches space out

39:56

You could calculate how what with the

39:58

different so LIGO has two arms four

40:00

kilometers long apiece. And

40:02

you could calculate when those two black

40:04

holes collided

40:06

and produced gravitational waves, 1.8 billion

40:09

light years away,

40:10

what you'd need to be able to detect, to be able

40:13

to detect those gravitational waves, was a change

40:15

in the length of each of those four kilometer long

40:17

arms by

40:18

a length equal to 1,000th the size of

40:21

a proton.

40:25

But they did it. But what it

40:27

did was it told us that in fact, it

40:29

told us about the existence of black holes and it's a

40:31

way to see if that black hole- Did that shock shake

40:33

the universe? It's

40:35

a earthquake. Is there a quake in

40:39

the universe? One second long quake.

40:41

And it went by the earth. And you know what's really neat about

40:43

that? They turned on the detector three hours

40:45

earlier

40:46

that day and it was still being tested

40:48

and they weren't gonna take data, but the gravity was

40:51

gonna take data. And if they'd waited three hours

40:53

later, then that thing which was

40:55

traveling was rolling 20 billion years away.

40:58

So if you believe that there's no coincidence-

41:01

Well, no, what I believe is there- Wait,

41:03

wait, wait. No coincidence. Do

41:05

you agree with that? No.

41:07

There are coincidence. You say in your

41:09

book, for example, there are too many coincidence. What

41:12

I say is they're

41:14

just right. There's just as many

41:16

coincidences as you'd expect. There's

41:18

not more or less. Exactly

41:20

the right number. You don't think that as imagine

41:23

those guys did you know- It's magical.

41:25

Let's go for a coffee. And the other guys said, no,

41:28

let's turn it on. I'll turn it on.

41:30

Why? There's nothing. And you turn

41:32

it on and three hours later, they get proof.

41:35

Yeah, exactly. But if they turned on a month later,

41:37

they would have got a different proof maybe.

41:39

But here- Well, it hasn't happened again since then.

41:42

No, it has. No, no, now they detect about one a week.

41:45

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's

41:47

now- My thesis has just

41:49

gone out the window. My work

41:51

is done here then.

41:56

No, you know what, Richard,

41:58

you've never met him. I loved him, Richard Feynman.

42:01

He was a wonderful physicist. But he was the mathematic

42:03

guy. He was everything. I've seen his name

42:06

so often. I wrote a book about him.

42:08

He's just an amazing guy. But

42:10

what he used to say, when he was talking

42:12

to people, he'd say,

42:13

you won't believe what happened to me today. You won't believe

42:15

what happened. People say, what? And he'd say, absolutely nothing.

42:18

And what he meant by that is that we only, the

42:20

reason coincidences jump out is

42:22

we remember those things that seem significant. Like

42:25

you have a dream every night and every

42:27

night most of the time it's nonsense, but one night

42:29

you have a dream that your daughter's

42:31

gonna break her leg. And then you find out, you get a

42:33

phone call that she broke her arm in a car accident. And

42:36

then you say, oh my God, it's cosmic. But

42:38

you forget all of the millions and millions

42:40

of dreams that you had that don't give a thing. Yeah, no, I understand that.

42:42

I understand that. But I bet you mathematically

42:47

that the coincidence

42:50

of the guy turning on the thing just

42:53

prior to a major reverberation,

42:57

ah, no,

42:59

no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a wonderful coincidence.

43:01

And I think coincidences are fantastic.

43:04

And the coincidence of you and I being here, you

43:06

point out,

43:07

although I think again, it's,

43:10

you were quoting someone else, that's a mathematical possibility,

43:12

that impossibility that you and I even exist,

43:15

right? Given all of the sperm that

43:17

had to, that

43:20

could have connected with the right egg or the

43:22

fact that your parents would matter or the fact that your parents' parents

43:24

met or the 100,000 generations before them, it's

43:28

amazing than any of this happens.

43:30

But I- What is the

43:32

coagulation of matter? What

43:36

is the basic

43:37

building? What is holding us

43:39

all together? What is the basic building

43:41

block? Electricity and magnetism. That's the thing, everything

43:44

around us. What is that? It's larger than the Earth's

43:46

gravity. Well, what is that?

43:49

What is it? It's one of the four forces of nature,

43:51

electricity and magnetism. What is it? Explain

43:53

it to me. I'll tell you what I can explain to

43:55

you. Don't tell me what it does. Explain

43:57

it to me.

43:59

How can I explain it to you without telling you what

44:02

it does?

44:06

Oh, well, tell me what the definition, what was the explanation

44:08

without telling you? I mean, how can I explain you? Explain

44:11

to me what, what I mean is don't

44:13

make your explanation. It does. I

44:15

want to know what it does and why.

44:17

The strange things is that, is that

44:20

elementary particles like electrons

44:22

and protons have this property called

44:24

electric charge. And when

44:27

you have two electric charges together, there's a

44:29

force and the force falls off as

44:31

a square of the distance between them.

44:34

And when you have positive charges and positive

44:36

charges, they repel. When you have a positive and

44:38

a negative charge, they attract. And

44:41

that's that attraction. Yes.

44:43

What, what, what causes individual

44:46

atoms to bind together. It's

44:48

the electrons in those atoms that are,

44:50

and that's important matter. How

44:53

does it work? What's, why is it, why

44:55

does it do that?

44:56

How does it do that? Now that's the right, there

44:58

you go. See, I've, I've written once in one of

45:00

my books that there's, why questions don't really have a meaning

45:03

because they presume purpose. How,

45:05

how is the important question? Because whenever you say why

45:07

you really mean how, don't you? Yes. Yeah.

45:09

And I mean, you really did end up saying how you

45:12

did. I was impressed. And, and, and

45:14

you get, and I do want to impress you. Yeah, I

45:16

can, I know that's what you live for. But anyway,

45:20

but how it works is even stranger because that's

45:22

where we needed quantum mechanics.

45:25

Because, okay, let's, here's

45:27

an elementary lesson in physics. You know

45:29

what I love? You know, you know what I love? Right. What

45:31

I love. If I were playing you, you know,

45:34

here's what I would do. Well, here's what we

45:36

do. Let me, let

45:38

me, that's a, that's

45:41

a question. Well, it's exciting.

45:43

Anyway, it's exciting. That's, I know

45:46

you like that. And that's why many things I

45:48

like, reasons I like you. But so

45:51

the weird thing is, so, so let's picture

45:53

a classical atom, which has got a pro,

45:56

let's say a hydrogen atom, it's got a proton in the center,

45:58

positive charge, and the.

45:59

That's the classical picture of an atom as it was.

46:03

It doesn't orbit, does it? I mean, it exists, but not

46:05

in orbit. Well, classically,

46:08

we see it was... When I went to school, it orbited.

46:11

Exactly. It doesn't orbit anymore. That's

46:13

right. So classically, it orbits. But

46:15

there's a problem with classically orbiting.

46:17

And here's the problem. If

46:20

you take an electron and run it

46:22

around in a circle, it

46:24

emits radiation. It accelerates and it loses

46:26

energy. It

46:27

emits force. It emits light. The electron exudes

46:29

radiation? Yeah,

46:34

that's why the... Well, what is radiation? My

46:36

lights are working. I thought the electron was the radiation.

46:39

What was that? I thought the electron was the radiation.

46:41

What's radiation? Radiation is photons.

46:44

It's particles of light. And

46:46

electrons interact

46:47

with particles of light. They absorb them

46:49

and they emit them.

46:50

Is that a basic thing? A photon of light? That's

46:53

the basic thing. Electromagnetism. Electrons

46:57

interact with... Before you said a photon of light has

46:59

attraction. No,

47:02

no, no. I said protons. Protons,

47:04

photons. So in our previous conversation, a particle

47:07

of light has... Oh,

47:10

it does in fact. It has gravitational attraction.

47:12

What is that attraction? It's got energy and therefore

47:14

it has... What is it? Why does it interact?

47:17

Because Einstein's... What is it? It's

47:19

got energy. What is it? Why

47:21

does it interact? Because Einstein

47:23

told us that everything that has energy

47:26

has a gravitational field

47:29

around it and either attracts or... What

47:31

is that gravitational field? It's the curvature

47:33

of space. So a photon that has energy

47:36

curves space around it. Wait a minute.

47:38

What the hell is it? You mean... You

47:40

mean that curvature, that curvature...

47:44

Little thing curves space a little teeny bit. Is

47:46

what? And you curve space around you. Right now, space

47:48

is curved around you. Because you have mass. What

47:51

does that mean? That means that if light,

47:53

if I send a beam of light... Hold

47:55

on. Let me finish my sentence. No,

47:57

but it does. What does it mean?

48:00

It means that you and I can have

48:02

this conversation. I

48:05

don't understand what

48:07

the attraction is. What is the photon

48:10

of light giving off that attracts? Okay.

48:12

Well, the photon of light

48:15

is giving off is emitting other

48:17

particles called gravitons that

48:20

convey the gravitational field. Okay.

48:22

So now then a graviton has to

48:24

have

48:25

some explanation as well, right? Well,

48:27

it's in fact it in the quantum

48:30

theory of gravity, which we don't have a full theory of but

48:32

in general relativity, we predict the existence

48:35

of these particles called gravitons. Just

48:37

like in the quantum theory, getting it

48:39

well, as we understand we have never

48:41

yet measured what the gravitational pull is of

48:44

a of a photon. We've never detected

48:46

an individual graviton because gravity is so

48:48

weak. We've never been able to do it. But if you put a lot

48:51

of gravitons together, you know what happens? They

48:53

form a gravitational wave

48:56

and that we've detected just like we

48:58

can detect now individual photons

49:00

individual part of your student has a question.

49:07

Okay,

49:08

so we do with theoretical gravitation

49:11

graviton. Yeah, but if you put enough

49:13

of this theoretical gravitons together,

49:16

it forms a gravitational wave,

49:18

but that's theoretical as well because you

49:21

know, because we measure them.

49:22

Well, then what is it? It's

49:25

still longer theoretical. Gravitational

49:27

wave is a ripple in space and time. It's

49:29

a it's a it's an undulation in

49:31

space and a revelation undulates

49:34

just like a water wave undulates

49:36

up and down. How do we know that if

49:39

we measure it with LIGO

49:40

we measure the undulations. Wait

49:43

a second. Wait

49:45

a second. The

49:48

photon of light is a particle

49:50

of energy which has the enough energy to

49:52

travel. What was what's pushing

49:55

it?

49:55

What's making no no,

49:57

that's not right. No, in fact what Einstein

49:59

sort of. first of all, something doesn't

50:01

need... Einstein knew everything. Well,

50:04

he didn't know everything, which is... Well, that's the

50:07

point. It's like, I was gonna say like Freud, which

50:09

is slowly being disproved. Well,

50:11

Einstein so far hasn't, but what he

50:14

showed, but

50:16

first of all, actually, let's go back. Let's go back to Galileo.

50:20

Good old Galileo, one of my heroes. Looking up at

50:22

the sun goes around him. Galileo is hysterical. You

50:24

should read him. He was very funny. He was a real, he

50:26

really, his book on the two new sciences

50:28

is hysterical to read. Yeah,

50:31

probably one of the reasons the church hated him.

50:33

But anyway,

50:34

so Galileo was the first one to show, you

50:37

don't need anything to push something, have

50:39

it keep going.

50:40

You need to apply a force to stop things.

50:43

If something's moving, it'll keep moving forever

50:46

unless you stop it. It's got its impetus

50:48

from somewhere. Yeah,

50:50

you gave it a kick, but once it's moving...

50:53

Oh, I didn't, you didn't, what gave

50:55

it its kick? Okay, now the weird thing about photons

50:57

is, and this is the really strange thing, is

51:00

because they're massless, photons have no

51:02

mass. They have to travel

51:04

at the speed of light.

51:05

They can never travel slower or faster.

51:08

Photons are always traveling

51:10

at the speed of light because they're massless. All right, I'll accept

51:12

that. Why is it, what's

51:15

the little engine? What's the, where...

51:18

There's no engine. They just travel at the speed of light and

51:21

then... No, no, no, there has to be a reason. You

51:23

can stop them by putting something in front of them. Just

51:26

like, look, you turn off the engine on a locomotive

51:28

and it'll keep going, right? Unless the boiler

51:30

was heated up in the engine

51:33

to begin with. Okay, well, I'll give you a kind

51:35

of answer that

51:38

may please you. No, I want an answer.

51:41

When the electron emits the photon,

51:43

it gives it... When the electron emits the

51:45

photon. When the electron emits a photon...

51:48

Wait a minute, we didn't say that before. I did, I

51:50

told you when an electron goes around, it

51:52

emits radiation and a photon is

51:54

a particle of radiation. A photon is the quantum.

51:56

You didn't mention that before.

51:59

You weren't listening. It's

52:02

so, Larry, it's so mysterious. It's

52:06

so, you know, I'm reading

52:08

a lot of history

52:10

and I'm reading like the Battle

52:13

of Actaeon, which was the battle

52:15

that separated Anthony Cleopatra

52:18

from the mountain cave. I love reading

52:20

the Roman history myself, yeah. Right, it's

52:22

fascinating. It reads like a novel. Yeah,

52:25

it's amazing. And then she went and then he

52:27

did and they got escaped and they went, what? So

52:31

science is like that as well. It's

52:33

like

52:34

every discovery is like a new chapter. You're

52:36

like, no kidding. And then

52:39

the folk town did what? And then there was

52:41

the logarithm and it's like

52:44

just,

52:44

it goes on and on. It's an ever ending

52:47

novel. The never ending part is what's really

52:49

neat because each time we discover something new, we produce

52:51

a new question. And the question drives

52:54

us further. It's quite cosmic job

52:56

security if you're a physicist. Somebody else say we don't

52:58

know. Like for example,

53:02

I love the word graviton. So the electron

53:05

going around the molecule,

53:07

going

53:09

around the proton, going around the

53:12

proton emits photon.

53:17

Yeah. But now-

53:20

And it gives an energy. Has weight

53:22

and mass in it. No, it has no mass. It has

53:24

energy,

53:25

just energy, no mass. No,

53:28

no, it has gravity. And that

53:30

gravity- You don't need general, Einstein told us you don't

53:32

have to have mass to produce a gravitational field. You just

53:34

have to have energy.

53:36

That's the first big discovery. What's energy?

53:38

That's

53:41

a good question. I'll give you an answer

53:43

and you'll hate it. Energy is a source of

53:45

gravity. That's

53:48

called elliptical. But

53:52

it's a- No, that's what I mean. Cause

53:55

I haven't gotten anybody to explain space-time

53:58

to me. Oh yeah.

53:59

It takes time, it goes to space.

54:02

So then why isn't it space and time?

54:04

That's gone. 13.8 billion light years, that's time. Space

54:09

doesn't. Here's one of the reasons no

54:11

one can explain to you because you won't let them talk. Oh,

54:14

is that one? I

54:18

know because I'm the same way. But anyway,

54:20

here's a look. Look at me now.

54:22

I'm gonna look at you. And I'm gonna turn here. Now

54:25

I'm fine. Oh, what a great profile. It's

54:27

very good. And so the

54:29

point is, what's weird is that when

54:33

I turn around

54:35

this direction, let's call the direction of

54:37

my nose sticking out as the X direction.

54:40

When I turned around here, it's suddenly the Y direction.

54:42

Okay, you okay with me there? Yeah. You

54:44

know, it's turned around, okay?

54:45

So I can turn, the thing

54:48

about space is I can rotate.

54:49

I can go from one direction to another, right? Just

54:51

by turning around. I can look around this

54:54

room and I rotate. The weird

54:56

thing is that Einstein eventually

54:58

told us, although he didn't realize it was his teacher,

55:00

Minkowski, who first realized it, that

55:03

in fact, space and

55:05

time are that way. You can rotate. One

55:08

person's space is another person's time.

55:11

If I'm moving with respect to you, what

55:13

you would call a space interval, I would call a

55:15

time interval.

55:17

And so I sort of, so space

55:19

and time are connected just like the X

55:21

and Y axis are not quite the same. The mathematics

55:23

is a little different. Sorry,

55:26

that totally escapes me. You're gonna have to- Okay,

55:28

I'll show you, I'll give you an example.

55:30

Take my pen. Yeah. Damn,

55:32

it's moving very fast, close to the speed of light.

55:35

Right. Well, if it is moving very fast

55:37

with respect to you, close to the speed

55:39

of light, you will see my pen and it looks shorter.

55:43

It'll instead of doing say six inches, it'll be four

55:45

inches, okay? It'll be four

55:47

inches and you'll measure it going past, you know,

55:49

say it's only four inches long. Okay,

55:51

so it's shrunk in space. That really

55:54

happens. That really happens when

55:56

things move back close to the speed of light relative

55:59

to other people.

55:59

objects they they're they're length

56:02

shrinks I thought that was I thought

56:04

that was a I thought I'm

56:06

a trunk no no no time dilates

56:09

it goes in the other direction I like

56:11

shrinks dilation though is shrink

56:13

violations expansion but hold on forget the word

56:15

let's forget the word

56:17

your eyes dilate when you take your

56:19

eyes dilate is getting enlarges okay

56:22

but anyway here's a dilation so

56:24

but what's the opposite of dilation

56:27

shrinking okay okay

56:31

okay as is my argument but anyway so

56:34

this so this pen is now smaller

56:36

when it's moving very fast convinced me to like but

56:39

the really weird thing is that

56:41

if I have a little clock on either end of my

56:43

pen and I set them up so that

56:45

they're exactly the same time that when this ticks 12

56:48

noon this ticks 12 noon

56:50

when it's moving very fast with respect to you

56:52

this clock is ahead of that clock

56:55

so the so the pen has

56:57

shrunk in space but

56:59

it's got extended in time

57:01

it used to be that this and this had the same where it's

57:03

instantaneous but now when

57:06

you look at it it's smaller but if you look

57:08

at this clock in this clock you'll say no this

57:10

clock is behind this clock this one's a second

57:12

faster than this clock so it will

57:14

expand extend and spent in time

57:17

and contract in space just

57:19

like if just like here watch this watch

57:22

my pen

57:23

see how it got shorter it

57:24

got shorter because projected

57:27

to you the

57:28

the amount of the pen that you can

57:30

see perpendicular to this or to

57:33

the screen right now gets smaller

57:35

and smaller and smaller until the pen looks very very

57:37

short indeed but that's a function

57:39

of sight that's just but it's a function

57:42

of artists worked with that exactly

57:45

it's a function of sight but the reason that site it's a function

57:47

of three dimensions it's the fact

57:49

that I can rotate in an extra dimension if

57:51

that extra dimension was there I couldn't rotate into it

57:54

but in fact the pen is the same

57:56

length it is site but

57:58

the instruments

57:59

My instruments are measuring it incorrectly.

58:02

No, they're not. Well, no, they're measuring it correctly. They're measuring

58:04

the x component of the,

58:07

and we know there's a y component.

58:10

Okay, but your instruments like this, like

58:12

this camera can only measure the

58:14

x component of the pen.

58:17

It can't see in the other direction.

58:19

But if I had a camera right here, it could see in the other direction.

58:21

And we know, so we know, we're smart enough to know

58:24

that the length of the pen doesn't change. It's

58:26

just the x component changes. And

58:28

so does the y component. And the two always add up.

58:31

So the x component is

58:33

the ability to measure

58:35

the

58:36

speed. Yeah, okay. But

58:38

what Einstein told us is everything is measurement,

58:41

right? And that's, if we want to look

58:43

at the world around us, the world is what we measure. And

58:45

I'm telling you that

58:47

if I, when I move this

58:49

pen very fast, it's like it's

58:51

rotating into an extra dimension of time.

58:54

So that it's length that we measure it,

58:57

the measured length is smaller.

59:00

And the, and the, and the time spreads

59:02

out and the measured time spreads out. The thing that

59:04

remains invariant is not the length

59:07

of it,

59:07

but what we call the space time length. The

59:10

thing that remains invariant

59:12

is not length or time.

59:14

Length and time are relative. That's why the theory of relativity

59:16

is called relativity. What's invariant

59:19

is a certain combination

59:21

of length and time.

59:23

And one person's length can rotate

59:25

into another person's time.

59:27

And that's why depending on the viewer,

59:29

depending upon the viewer and their relative motion.

59:32

That's why reality is relative. Your

59:35

clock, when you went up in space

59:37

for a little bit for 10 minutes,

59:39

when you came back down, your watch

59:42

was about a 10,

59:43

one 10 millionth of a sec, a second

59:45

slower. It was late for that. But wait

59:47

a minute, but wait a minute. But wait,

59:52

the measurement that

59:54

you just offered that the clock in

59:56

front is a little bit ahead of the clock.

1:02:00

And if we didn't take that into account and

1:02:02

correct for that, then within

1:02:05

an hour, you'd be within actually three

1:02:07

minutes, you'd be

1:02:08

a kilometer away from where you thought you were supposed

1:02:10

to be. Every day in

1:02:12

GPS, we rely on that weird fact that

1:02:16

clocks slow down. How is it corrected?

1:02:18

We know the formulas of special

1:02:20

relativity and general relativity. Oh, you don't correct

1:02:23

the satellite, you correct

1:02:25

the measurement. Yeah,

1:02:26

we have to.

1:02:27

Because if it wasn't, isn't that amazing?

1:02:30

Eventually, you've got to go to another satellite. You'd

1:02:32

be using another satellite. But

1:02:34

I want to even make it weirder for you. The

1:02:37

clocks aren't just going slowly because

1:02:39

they're going around like that. It turns out,

1:02:42

Einstein also told us, if you take a clock

1:02:44

in a gravitational field

1:02:45

and you lift it up, the

1:02:48

rate at which the clock kicks will be different.

1:02:51

So in fact,

1:02:53

because those clocks are high up and farther

1:02:55

away from the Earth

1:02:56

in a gravitational field, they're actually ticking

1:02:58

a little faster due to general relativity.

1:03:01

And we have to take that effect into account

1:03:03

as well.

1:03:04

So we have to take the fact that gravity changes

1:03:06

time and speed changes time.

1:03:09

It's very esoteric, but it's so

1:03:11

damn normal that without

1:03:13

it, you wouldn't be able to get around Los Angeles. And

1:03:15

your conversion with that. You

1:03:17

know that is like I know.

1:03:19

Yeah, and the engineers who built

1:03:21

it had to be conversant with it. Otherwise, you wouldn't get

1:03:24

to where you wanted to go on. Literally,

1:03:26

those satellites would put you a kilometer

1:03:28

away. I tell you what is mind boggling and

1:03:30

sad. Yeah.

1:03:33

People like myself lacking

1:03:36

understanding that magic.

1:03:38

I don't know if that's sad so much. Look,

1:03:40

we all can't be experts on everything. What's

1:03:42

sad? Do you have to be sad? That's

1:03:45

an incredible fact. That's like the

1:03:48

apple falling through all the apple falling. I think

1:03:50

it's so important that I like to scream it from the treetops.

1:03:52

That's why I write books, because I think these

1:03:54

are some of the most fascinating ideas humans have

1:03:56

ever developed. People should be interested in them. What

1:03:58

should be really sad to me?

1:03:59

What's your book talks about? Yeah, sure.

1:04:02

All 12 of them. What's your book

1:04:04

called? The new one is called The Edge of Knowledge.

1:04:07

And I'll mail you a copy right after this.

1:04:10

I think you did.

1:04:11

Oh, I give you a PDF. That's an electronic

1:04:14

copy. If that's good enough for you, that's fine. I'll

1:04:16

mail you a physical copy if you want. But

1:04:19

what's really sad to me is not so much

1:04:21

that people don't understand it. That's sad. And

1:04:23

I'd like people to at least appreciate

1:04:25

that these things are out there. What's really sad is

1:04:27

how many people just don't care.

1:04:30

And that aren't as excited as you are. That's

1:04:32

why it's such a pleasure to be with you.

1:04:34

Well, you know what? I can't believe that. I have

1:04:36

to believe that humanity, the

1:04:39

brain, as we

1:04:41

were said earlier, getting the fruit from the tree,

1:04:43

comes down and said, my God, how

1:04:46

did that fruit grow on that tree and not on

1:04:48

that tree? So at some point,

1:04:50

the mechanism

1:04:53

must have garnered that

1:04:55

thought. And then that...

1:04:57

You know who thought of it when the apple fell on its head was

1:04:59

Newton, right? But I think

1:05:02

he asked those questions and then they stop

1:05:04

asking those questions. Well,

1:05:08

that's my theory, that

1:05:11

you've got to cultivate that child

1:05:14

of what do you mean?

1:05:16

I mean, like, I mean, it's just

1:05:20

everything is magical. Everything,

1:05:23

everything on earth is phenomenal.

1:05:27

It

1:05:30

is phenomenal. And I remember, you know, one of

1:05:32

the... There's so

1:05:34

many of your statements in your book that

1:05:37

I resonate with that I love, but I remember you talk

1:05:39

in your book about looking out at sunset

1:05:41

from your house, I guess, is it for San

1:05:43

Fernando Valley? Is that what it is?

1:05:45

And you say, you know,

1:05:50

it's beauty, it's miracle of tectonic

1:05:52

plates, of organic, original

1:05:55

volcanic material that's hardened a million years ago,

1:05:57

like the sugar on top of a creme brulee, then it's...

1:05:59

even just a little and slipped and became a mountain.

1:06:02

So every time you look out at the sun, you

1:06:04

see the miracles of nature.

1:06:08

And they are miracles in the sense that they see miraculous

1:06:11

are something that you get excited about. And

1:06:13

that's why it's important that you write these things. Cause

1:06:15

a lot of people care about you

1:06:18

and they seem like you're excited,

1:06:20

excited. And they can be. What, what,

1:06:23

what? You know, it's

1:06:25

just- The acquisition of knowledge, the

1:06:29

acquisition of knowledge is the voyage of

1:06:31

humanity. Isn't it? It

1:06:33

certainly is. It's what's kept us.

1:06:36

Yeah. And it's a shame to

1:06:38

think that some people might want to stop

1:06:40

that in one way or another, because it's what, it's

1:06:42

what actually,

1:06:44

one of your sentences reminded me of the last

1:06:46

sentence. I brought it an old book of mine by Steven

1:06:49

Weinberg, who won the Nobel Prize in physics, who

1:06:51

was a mentor of mine, but probably the greatest theoretical

1:06:53

physicist of,

1:06:55

partly close to the second half of the

1:06:57

20th century. He was the one who unified,

1:06:59

helped unify two of the four fundamental

1:07:01

forces in nature. But let me,

1:07:04

let me read you the last paragraph. I think

1:07:06

you might get- Did he do the strong and weak

1:07:08

thing? He did the weak and electromagnetic.

1:07:10

The weak and electromagnetic. The electro-weak theory.

1:07:13

Okay.

1:07:15

If there's no solace- I

1:07:18

have no idea what I've just said. It's all right. It's

1:07:20

okay. It sounded good. Not okay. If

1:07:22

there's so- I'm mouthing words like a child does

1:07:25

Latin. You know, I did it. But

1:07:27

it's easy to do. But then you ask the questions

1:07:29

why, but let me give Steven a chance

1:07:31

here. He said, if there's no solace in the fruits

1:07:33

of our research, there's at least

1:07:36

some consolation in the research itself. Men

1:07:39

and women are not content to comfort themselves

1:07:41

with tales of gods and giants,

1:07:43

or to confine their thoughts of the daily affairs of life.

1:07:46

They also build telescopes and satellites and

1:07:48

accelerators and sit at their desks for endless

1:07:50

hours, working out the meaning of the data

1:07:52

they gather. The effort to understand

1:07:54

the universe is one of the very few

1:07:56

things that lifts human life a

1:07:59

little above-

1:07:59

the level of farce and gives it some

1:08:02

of the grace of tragedy.

1:08:04

Isn't that beautiful? I thought you'd like that. I

1:08:07

love it. I love it. And yet, the

1:08:11

overarching

1:08:14

question is,

1:08:23

it's

1:08:26

so intricate

1:08:29

and yet so simple.

1:08:32

It does seem weird that the universe

1:08:34

of some level, that's called reductionism.

1:08:36

And I'm a particle physicist by

1:08:39

training. We tend to say that as you

1:08:41

look smaller and smaller scales, this universe,

1:08:43

which has so many different things, all the different materials,

1:08:46

all the strange way things behave, if

1:08:48

we look at a fundamental scale, there's just a

1:08:50

few fundamental laws that govern all

1:08:52

of that and a few elementary particles, just a

1:08:55

few. And it is amazing. And we have

1:08:57

discovered, yeah, there's only four fundamental forces,

1:09:00

not five, but four electromagnetism,

1:09:02

the weak force, the strong force and gravity.

1:09:05

And they govern everything

1:09:07

that we've ever been able to measure. If there's a

1:09:09

unifying one. Well, no, no,

1:09:11

no, that we think we're going to try and unify those four.

1:09:14

There's no we don't know of any other forces yet. So the

1:09:16

problem is the three strong,

1:09:18

weak and electromagnetic seem like they can be easily

1:09:21

unified. Gravity is the outlier. And

1:09:23

no one yet knows, except some string theorists

1:09:25

thought string theory might be a way to do it, how to

1:09:28

unify gravity with

1:09:30

the other forces. I would do this, but I just learned in

1:09:32

your book,

1:09:32

you can't do that. So but

1:09:35

but gravity, so what when

1:09:37

we look for a unified theory that unifies

1:09:40

all the forces, unifies a strong,

1:09:42

weak electromagnetic and gravity, and

1:09:45

we don't have such a theory. Right now, the

1:09:47

only real theory we have that unifies forces

1:09:50

is the weak and electromagnetic. The

1:09:52

strong force looks very much like

1:09:54

the weak and electromagnetic. And we

1:09:57

know at some extremely small scale.

1:10:00

16 orders of magnitude and size smaller

1:10:02

than the proton, the strength

1:10:05

of the weak electromagnetic and strong

1:10:07

forces will all become the same.

1:10:09

And therefore it seems quite likely to us that

1:10:11

they will unify together in some

1:10:13

single force.

1:10:15

But gravity is still out here.

1:10:17

And we can't yet figure out how to unify

1:10:19

gravity with these other forces, because

1:10:21

the difference is each of these other three

1:10:23

forces can be described by quantum

1:10:26

theory, quantum mechanics works. With

1:10:28

gravity, quantum mechanics doesn't work.

1:10:31

And in some sense, it's an open

1:10:33

question still, some people, some really

1:10:35

good physicists still say, do we have to dispense

1:10:38

with gravity and change the theory of gravity

1:10:40

so it becomes a quantum theory? Or at some

1:10:42

fundamental scale, do we dispense with quantum

1:10:44

mechanics?

1:10:45

And we don't know.

1:10:47

String theory is a quantum theory that

1:10:49

purports to be a theory of gravity. So

1:10:51

it's great, that's what got people excited. The problem

1:10:54

is it requires there to be a whole bunch of extra dimensions.

1:10:57

And whenever you've gone on stage and

1:10:59

walked off, you've never gone into

1:11:01

an extra dimension.

1:11:03

Well, but then

1:11:05

everything is, things

1:11:08

have evolved from that original explosion.

1:11:12

Such weirdness to such strange

1:11:15

things that the

1:11:18

brains would not have thought of,

1:11:20

because it

1:11:21

just- It's not complicated,

1:11:24

the world got complicated. It got complicated. When

1:11:26

I was born. That which didn't work died

1:11:28

away, and that which worked stayed

1:11:30

in extent. And then that multiplied.

1:11:33

And over the billions and billions of years,

1:11:36

all this

1:11:37

matriculation became

1:11:40

something. And- In

1:11:42

fact, yeah, I wrote, I'm gonna send

1:11:44

you another one of my books, it's called Adam, which is a

1:11:47

biography of an atom from the beginning of the universe to

1:11:49

the end. A-T-O-M or A-T-O-M

1:11:52

or A-D-A-N. Yeah, in the beginning, I said there

1:11:54

were no atoms or eaves, but A-T-O-M,

1:11:56

there is, but it's A-T-O-M, it's

1:11:58

the story of an oxygen atom.

1:11:59

But it is really amazing that evolution

1:12:02

from the earliest moments in the universe. That's why, by

1:12:04

the way, I

1:12:05

got into cosmology and astrophysics.

1:12:08

My training is in particle physics, but I realized that

1:12:10

if I really want to understand

1:12:12

the universe, that the universe was a great experiment.

1:12:15

It was a great particle physics experiment. It was only done

1:12:17

once, as far as we can tell, our universe, the Big

1:12:19

Bang.

1:12:20

But if we look out and are careful enough,

1:12:23

we might see things in the universe that allow

1:12:25

us to work back to the very beginning

1:12:27

of time. And that's, and

1:12:30

we have a- Help me with this one. Help

1:12:33

me with this. So

1:12:35

a hundred years ago, along comes Einstein, 150 years. And

1:12:39

you know, one of the great minds, and we begin

1:12:41

to understand more. Why

1:12:44

did it take up until now,

1:12:46

the hundred years, tectonic plates,

1:12:49

why did it take up until now to,

1:12:52

somebody suggests, well, there was a Big Bang and

1:12:54

that's how it all started. What do you

1:12:56

mean? I already thought there's a Big Bang. We

1:12:59

see in science, things change all the

1:13:01

time. The speed

1:13:03

of light may not be the final

1:13:05

defining measurement. Well,

1:13:08

come on, everything changes. And 90%,

1:13:13

95% of what we're

1:13:13

looking at, we don't know. That's true. But

1:13:16

there's some things we don't know. What you shouldn't confuse

1:13:18

about, and this is really important, there's a tremendous

1:13:20

amount we don't know about the universe, but that's

1:13:22

not the same as saying we know nothing.

1:13:24

So you're right, at the forefronts of science,

1:13:27

where I wrote my book about, anything goes.

1:13:30

But where things have survived the test of experiment,

1:13:33

those things aren't going to change. If I

1:13:35

take a ball

1:13:36

a billion years from now, even when I know about quantum

1:13:39

gravity, if I take a ball here and let it go, it's

1:13:41

going to fall.

1:13:42

And Newton's laws will describe how it fell. Now,

1:13:45

Newton's laws have been subsumed in

1:13:47

a more elegant theory called general

1:13:49

relativity. And so the

1:13:51

boundaries of knowledge push forward. But

1:13:54

it's not as if the things that have survived

1:13:56

the test of experiment are ever going to

1:13:58

change. is always

1:14:00

going to be electromagnetism. Even if we discover

1:14:03

it's part of a unified theory, the force

1:14:05

between an electron and a proton will be described

1:14:07

a billion years from now. And

1:14:10

if you ask me why Einstein was

1:14:12

Einstein when he was,

1:14:14

because as Newton would have said, he stood on

1:14:16

the shoulders of joints, Einstein wouldn't

1:14:18

have developed what he did if Michael Faraday,

1:14:20

the British experimentalist, had

1:14:22

discovered the laws of electromagnetism. And

1:14:25

James Clerk Maxwell, 40 years earlier,

1:14:27

if Einstein had been born 50 years earlier, he

1:14:31

never would have been Einstein.

1:14:32

So does that not tell you about coincidence?

1:14:36

It was, well, I like, and as long as we

1:14:38

call it coincidence, it's an accident. There's

1:14:41

no, it wasn't preordained that Einstein would be born

1:14:43

there. He was lucky.

1:14:45

He was lucky. And we're lucky to be born

1:14:47

now because of all the things we're learning. But

1:14:49

as you say, your grandchildren will

1:14:52

be lucky to have been born when they are because when

1:14:54

they're your age and my age, they're presumably be

1:14:56

a lot more than they know about the universe than we know. If

1:14:58

the world still exists, though. If it still exists,

1:15:00

we hope,

1:15:02

but one of the ways that'll

1:15:04

be happening, if the world will only continue to exist,

1:15:06

if we continue to ask questions and are

1:15:08

willing to say, we don't know,

1:15:10

one of the things I just wrote a piece for a newspaper, it'll

1:15:12

come out in a few weeks.

1:15:14

I think part of this culture war nonsense

1:15:17

that I know you and I have the little patience for is

1:15:20

that people aren't willing to say, I don't know.

1:15:23

They all know this is

1:15:25

the way, this is the way it is. And you're wrong. And

1:15:27

this is the way it is, you're wrong. And you're evil because, and

1:15:30

if we just said, maybe, I don't know, let

1:15:32

me listen to you

1:15:33

and see if maybe you're right.

1:15:35

Then all that will go away, I think. And-

1:15:38

Well, that's a neat political idea, but

1:15:41

humanity is

1:15:42

very perverse. It

1:15:45

is, but you know what, I think, but that's why science

1:15:47

is so useful. That's one of the reasons

1:15:49

I, it's not just the results of science, it's

1:15:51

the methodology. It's the process

1:15:54

of constantly questioning and testing and requesting.

1:15:57

How many billions of dollars did the,

1:15:59

the, the-

1:15:59

web telescope cost us 10, 12. $10 billion.

1:16:03

Used to be a lot of money.

1:16:04

Not anymore, right? I mean, you know, $10 billion

1:16:08

over 20 years. I was going

1:16:10

to say in 20 years time, it was

1:16:12

a lot of money. $10 billion is a lot of money.

1:16:14

Even now, I mean, you'd get an

1:16:17

argument. If you were to say today in

1:16:19

Congress, you know, let's spend $10 billion

1:16:21

on a telescope.

1:16:24

We got the border. I've been

1:16:27

through this many times. We had the super super

1:16:29

glider that was killed because it costs $10 billion, but $10

1:16:32

billion over 20 years

1:16:34

is half a

1:16:34

billion dollars a year. And if you look at what

1:16:36

we spend half a billion dollars on it, and it's

1:16:39

one aircraft carrier is a billion dollars.

1:16:41

And so you got to ask the question, but it's also

1:16:44

the

1:16:45

leaders of

1:16:48

our country, of the world need

1:16:51

to be invested with

1:16:53

the, with

1:16:56

the holy

1:16:58

light of the quest for knowledge. Of curiosity,

1:17:01

the quest to knowledge. Exactly. That

1:17:04

there's nothing else exists other

1:17:05

than being fed and have a roof of your head.

1:17:13

Nothing else exists after the

1:17:15

amenities of living are met.

1:17:18

Nothing else exists, but

1:17:20

why and where do we live? But

1:17:22

why and where and how the

1:17:25

wise, what's the point of being human? I mean, you said it in

1:17:27

the very beginning of your book, you said, knowledge feeds me. It's as

1:17:29

necessary to my existence as oxygen. And

1:17:32

ultimately, you know, and in fact, I've

1:17:34

said this before, but I'll say it again. People,

1:17:37

science in some sense, suffers by

1:17:40

the fact that it produces technology that makes the

1:17:42

world go around.

1:17:43

Because when I, when I ask questions about

1:17:45

the beginning of the universe and do the, and I propose

1:17:47

the dark energy and all those things, people

1:17:49

say, okay, big deal. Why is it going to make a better toaster? Is

1:17:51

it going to make a car better car? And,

1:17:54

and the answer is yes.

1:17:56

Well, maybe, but it doesn't matter. It's the

1:17:59

ideas.

1:17:59

People don't ask,

1:18:01

what's the use of a Mozart symphony

1:18:03

or a Picasso painting?

1:18:05

It's what makes being human worth being human,

1:18:07

because it gives you a different perspective of your

1:18:09

place in the universe. I know you love music.

1:18:12

Music transports you and gives you a different

1:18:14

perspective of what it means to be human. So

1:18:17

to science. And for me, the greatest

1:18:19

gift of science is not the technology that

1:18:21

made this conversation between you and I possible

1:18:24

across a country with

1:18:27

computers. It's the ideas. The

1:18:30

idea is it's a notion, the understanding

1:18:32

that we share atoms, that

1:18:35

all of those ideas are what makes science

1:18:37

so wonderful. And that makes it like art, music,

1:18:40

and literature, a central part of our culture.

1:18:42

And that's really the purpose of my podcast

1:18:45

and also the books. Science and culture

1:18:47

are connected.

1:18:48

And having this disconnect, where somehow

1:18:50

people say, ah, science,

1:18:52

it's like saying you don't like music, or

1:18:54

you don't like art, or

1:18:57

movies, or any of the things that

1:18:59

we all love, it's what raises humanity

1:19:03

from the level of farce to tragedy. It's what makes

1:19:06

human entity worth being human. So I

1:19:08

would argue technology is wonderful. And science has made

1:19:10

the world a better place.

1:19:11

No doubt about it. And

1:19:13

it's produced technology that every day

1:19:16

astounds both you and I. But it's the

1:19:18

ideas, to me, that are the most important thing.

1:19:21

Because they're the knowledge. They're like the

1:19:23

stealth of not only no,

1:19:25

but promulgate. And that's

1:19:27

incredibly, well, as you

1:19:30

stated, the word important

1:19:32

doesn't even apply. It's as necessary

1:19:35

as food.

1:19:36

Yeah, and I think, and

1:19:38

one of the things that I admire

1:19:41

about you, besides just liking

1:19:43

you, is

1:19:45

that curiosity, is that child's curiosity,

1:19:47

and the fact that you've

1:19:49

been able to use your, just like

1:19:51

I use my, to some extent, my profile

1:19:53

as a scientist, to have a platform to try and

1:19:56

get people interested in science. You use your platform

1:19:58

of celebrity.

1:19:59

to get people excited about the world in

1:20:02

part. You do many other things.

1:20:04

But I think that's the greatest thing you can do

1:20:06

is

1:20:06

to try and encourage people

1:20:09

to, and

1:20:10

especially encourage people who

1:20:14

may not view themselves as being scientists.

1:20:17

There was a movie that was made about

1:20:19

me and a biologist

1:20:22

called Richard Dawkins who you may have heard of, and

1:20:25

it was called The Unbelievers because both of

1:20:27

us are sort of atheists. But

1:20:30

in that movie we asked people about science

1:20:33

and we got a bunch of celebrities and we

1:20:36

should have gotten you but probably couldn't get through your agent

1:20:38

at the time. But anyway,

1:20:40

I remember convincing Cameron

1:20:42

Diaz to be on it and I said to her,

1:20:44

look, I knew she was interested in science

1:20:47

because she'd once attended a lecture of mine, and

1:20:49

I said, look at all the young girls

1:20:51

who admire you because for all the reasons that

1:20:53

they admire you. If they see you talking

1:20:55

about science as something fascinating,

1:20:58

then that's something, that's a gift you're

1:21:00

giving them and that's what we use to convince

1:21:03

her to to be on it. But I think

1:21:05

it's really important that people see that

1:21:08

science is anyone, you don't have to

1:21:10

be an expert to be to be,

1:21:12

enjoy science. It's like, it's again, I

1:21:14

can't play, I'm not Eric Clapton, I

1:21:16

can't play the guitar but I can enjoy him. But

1:21:19

for some reason people think you have to be an expert

1:21:21

in science to enjoy it, even though you can enjoy

1:21:23

art and music and literature and movies

1:21:26

without being an expert. It's

1:21:28

a very valid thought,

1:21:30

thesis,

1:21:32

argument.

1:21:38

You just said something that tantalized me

1:21:41

because I don't understand. Atheism

1:21:45

is

1:21:47

not believing at all,

1:21:50

but you're a scientist who believes in the mystery, and

1:21:53

you have a solution to the mystery. So

1:21:56

I think people, well you're, I don't like to use the word belief

1:21:58

as a science. I'm thinking of that.

1:21:59

fascinated by it. I'm awed

1:22:02

by it. I'm amazed by

1:22:04

it. And maybe the word believe will be

1:22:06

given to me. But

1:22:08

atheism, I don't think, I don't even think atheism, I'm

1:22:11

not, I don't want it to be a, you know, a

1:22:14

salesman for atheism, but I think people

1:22:16

also mislabel atheism. They think it's like religion.

1:22:19

All atheism is saying the arguments

1:22:22

to believe in a god are convincing to me. That's

1:22:24

all. Well, except the most

1:22:27

basic one, which is what?

1:22:29

How did it start?

1:22:31

And that's, I wrote a book called The Universe from Nothing.

1:22:33

It showed you don't need any supernatural shenanigans. The

1:22:36

whole universe with 100 billion galaxies,

1:22:38

each containing 100 billion stars, can all come from

1:22:41

nothing without violating the laws of physics

1:22:43

and without supernatural, quantum

1:22:45

mechanics and

1:22:47

universes are popping into existence

1:22:49

all the time around us.

1:22:51

And if you asked yourself

1:22:53

the following question, what would a universe

1:22:56

that popped into existence from nothing

1:22:58

by just the laws of physics that

1:23:00

survived for 13.8 billion years look like,

1:23:04

and you asked what the properties of that universe would be, it

1:23:06

would turn out to be exactly the properties of the universe

1:23:08

we find ourselves living in. Does that prove

1:23:11

that our universe came from nothing? No, but it certainly makes it

1:23:13

possible. It makes it possible. But the

1:23:16

great thing about science is not that it says,

1:23:19

we're back to the brain that can't encompass

1:23:23

something coming from nothing.

1:23:24

You're right. It seems crazy. It seems

1:23:26

crazy. Well, the word nothing is nothing.

1:23:29

Well, what do you mean? Actually, this is an important question, because people

1:23:31

ask me, what do you mean by nothing? So let me ask you, what do you

1:23:33

mean by nothing?

1:23:36

Everything ceases to exist.

1:23:39

Okay, so there's no space, no time,

1:23:42

no particles, no matter. That's

1:23:44

correct.

1:23:45

Okay. And what I tell

1:23:47

you is that out of that, where there's no space,

1:23:49

no time, no radiation, no particles,

1:23:52

suddenly the laws of quantum mechanics and

1:23:54

general relativity allow suddenly boom, a

1:23:56

space to pop into existence.

1:23:59

And long. But that very

1:24:01

fact, the laws of quantum

1:24:04

mechanics. So you might say the laws are

1:24:07

pre-existing. Okay, but

1:24:09

even that may not be necessary. Where did that law

1:24:12

come from?

1:24:15

Who knows? But why do you

1:24:17

need a God? Why

1:24:19

do you need a God to put it? I'm not saying God. I'm

1:24:22

saying who knows? Exactly. Atheism.

1:24:25

That's agnosticism. But no,

1:24:27

but agnosticism is just a form of atheism.

1:24:29

That's what people I wrote. I actually wrote

1:24:32

the preface of a book written a long time

1:24:34

ago and I didn't realize it was called the case

1:24:36

for atheism. And the guy was very clear agnosticism

1:24:39

is just a form of atheism. There are different

1:24:41

kinds of a there are people who say God can

1:24:43

exist. It's impossible.

1:24:45

But but they're just people say

1:24:46

I'm not convinced by any of the arguments

1:24:49

that have been given to me that a personal God exists

1:24:51

and that's atheism too.

1:24:53

That's atheism too. It's just saying it's

1:24:56

not a belief system. It's just saying but

1:25:00

it's bad.

1:25:01

I think scientists like yourself

1:25:03

who who who speak

1:25:05

that way get a bad rap. Of

1:25:07

course.

1:25:08

Because you're not saying

1:25:12

it's a mystery. Well, in fact, you

1:25:14

are saying it's not a mystery that

1:25:16

it can exist from nothing. It could

1:25:19

it's a mystery, but we still say

1:25:21

all we're saying is we don't know the

1:25:24

details. But

1:25:26

but the arguments that the but the

1:25:28

argument that it has to be God is

1:25:30

like is just giving up and stop

1:25:32

thinking. It's like Ricky Gervais. I

1:25:34

talked to it's like going why

1:25:37

mention God is just a way I don't understand.

1:25:40

I don't go to heaven God. That's not

1:25:42

the God we're talking about the God of Spirit more

1:25:44

like the Gimesons God the God of Spinoza the

1:25:47

awe and wonder of the universe is what is your God

1:25:49

right? That's exactly it and you

1:25:51

call yourself. I've heard you say spirituality.

1:25:53

I hate when people use that term because I don't know what is I think

1:25:55

it's somewhere you wrote. It's like sitting at home watching

1:25:58

movies while smoking pot.

1:25:59

The odd wonder is the spirituality.

1:26:02

Yeah, that's fine. Great. That's

1:26:05

great. That's wonderful.

1:26:07

That and I buy that and I think

1:26:09

the universe and Einstein said that, you

1:26:11

know, he talked about the goddess but he

1:26:13

didn't really mean God. He talked about the fact that the universe

1:26:16

is comprehensible was for him the

1:26:18

greatest wonder and mystery of

1:26:20

nature at all. The fact that we can even comprehend it

1:26:23

in any at even any level, maybe not completely,

1:26:25

maybe we'll never understand it completely. The fact

1:26:28

that we we can even comprehend it a little

1:26:30

bit is just remarkable and the

1:26:32

universe is awe inspiring. In fact,

1:26:35

that's my point. You don't need the

1:26:37

nonsense. You don't need the fairy tales. The

1:26:39

universe itself is so amazing

1:26:42

that you don't need to add on, you know, someone

1:26:46

parting the waters and all the rest of the universe

1:26:49

is pretty darn amazing. The fact that the moon

1:26:51

causes the tides on earth is pretty

1:26:53

damn amazing. Yes, but please remember it and I am

1:26:56

not a religious

1:26:58

person at any

1:27:01

way, any shape of the word.

1:27:05

But if water is parted

1:27:07

to people who had no idea of

1:27:09

the explanation of the winds and

1:27:11

the tide, there's a possibility, as

1:27:14

you know, the

1:27:16

water is separated because of the waters

1:27:18

and because the winds and the tide and

1:27:20

the people ran across and then the

1:27:22

winds and the tide change and here comes

1:27:25

the pursuers and they get inundated.

1:27:29

That's possible. That doesn't have to be.

1:27:31

It might have been possible. You're right. And people ascribe

1:27:33

it to God and all you can say is, well, you

1:27:35

know, but you know, there's another explanation. It's

1:27:37

a lot simpler. And not only that, we

1:27:39

can test it and we can make a prediction and

1:27:41

we can actually test it. And that's the

1:27:43

difference. But you know, then you get

1:27:45

into the mystery of the brain. Oh,

1:27:47

yeah. The very mystery of

1:27:49

us thinking what

1:27:54

some of the ideas that you and I have talked about

1:27:56

are, how did we arrive at that?

1:27:59

consciousness. And not

1:28:02

our dogs. I think that's the biggest mystery.

1:28:04

I mean, literally, the last chapter of that book is unconsciousness,

1:28:06

because it's far, I tell people, I'm

1:28:08

a physicist because it's easy. It's

1:28:10

easier than trying to understand consciousness,

1:28:14

because we don't even, the weird thing

1:28:16

is, we can't even define consciousness very well.

1:28:18

And there's a great experiment I talk about in there that

1:28:20

shows you can't even trust people when they tell you

1:28:22

why they're doing what they're doing. They think they

1:28:25

know why they're doing what they're doing,

1:28:26

but they're not really doing it for that reason. It's

1:28:29

a rationalization they've invented to

1:28:31

create this sense of self.

1:28:33

But what creates this sense of self? And

1:28:35

we don't know. And I think ultimately, as

1:28:38

I described there, I again

1:28:40

use another line from the physicist Richard Feynman who

1:28:42

said, if you can't build it,

1:28:44

you don't understand it.

1:28:46

So maybe the only way we'll finally understand

1:28:48

consciousness is if we create a machine

1:28:50

that's conscious.

1:28:52

Now, before we part

1:28:54

company. Yeah, because I know it's getting on, but

1:28:56

I appreciate it. You talk to me about that.

1:28:59

Okay. I'm doing a lot

1:29:01

of work with AI. And

1:29:04

I even interviewed a guy, the strangest thing.

1:29:07

I interviewed a guy, I think, or else it was a dream.

1:29:10

It

1:29:13

was so unreal that it may

1:29:15

not have been real. That's how I feel about it. Wow.

1:29:18

On the other hand, it may be on tape. I

1:29:22

believe I talked to the

1:29:25

curator who must have been a scientist

1:29:29

of renown

1:29:32

whose job it was

1:29:34

to manage

1:29:41

the most sophisticated

1:29:44

computer that we have that was fit, everything

1:29:46

written in English that exists. Okay.

1:29:50

One of these things. I have a pure knowledge. So maybe

1:29:52

it wasn't a dream. So I talked to the guy.

1:29:55

And the guy, there's

1:29:57

a cavernous opening in back of him.

1:29:59

And I said,

1:30:02

do you think that

1:30:04

could ever come alive? And he

1:30:06

says, no, I don't think it could, but I got to tell

1:30:08

you every so often I sit here at

1:30:10

night

1:30:11

and the hair of my arms goes up because I

1:30:14

think there may be an intelligence

1:30:17

behind me. I think we're

1:30:19

far, far, far away from that. I

1:30:21

mean, what these things that appear intelligent are,

1:30:24

they data mine, they get all

1:30:26

this data and

1:30:28

they're good at selecting and parsing it,

1:30:31

but that's not the same thing as necessarily

1:30:33

intelligence. Well, but aren't we computers,

1:30:35

aren't we? You're

1:30:39

scientists. I think we're

1:30:41

computers, but we're not the same as

1:30:46

the computers we build. Hold on a second.

1:30:49

So your science teachers

1:30:51

said, oh,

1:30:52

Larry, this and that, and they fed you

1:30:54

that information. And now you're

1:30:56

spouting back that information. No, but I'm doing other

1:30:58

things. I

1:31:01

think I'm creating new information,

1:31:03

hopefully over my life. You're planning the thoughts

1:31:06

that you... No, maybe when I'm

1:31:08

proposing something new that hasn't been done before,

1:31:10

I like to think once or twice in my life I've done

1:31:13

that. And when you've done that, when

1:31:15

you create a character that's

1:31:17

new, sure it's been influenced, it's been

1:31:19

influenced, but

1:31:22

the question is, do they computer, does

1:31:24

chat GPT for whatever you wanna call

1:31:26

it, does it understand what it's doing?

1:31:29

And I think almost everyone who's thought

1:31:31

about it would say no, but that doesn't mean it's not, it

1:31:35

might not happen eventually. What's love

1:31:37

and what's justice and

1:31:39

you ask it moral questions, it

1:31:41

spouts back

1:31:43

Plato, it spouts back

1:31:45

Spinoza. So can

1:31:48

a student that memorizes a dictionary, but that doesn't

1:31:50

make him intelligent,

1:31:52

right? That doesn't make him a good teacher. And

1:31:55

people will jump on me here

1:31:57

because it's changed, but

1:31:58

when I was chair of a physical...

1:31:59

department, we used to get graduate

1:32:02

students, and the students from China would

1:32:04

always come in with the best test scores.

1:32:07

And one of the reasons was they'd been

1:32:09

educated to

1:32:10

be able to do well on the tests. And

1:32:12

they also

1:32:14

had a tendency to always sort

1:32:16

of revere their instructors and not question their instructors.

1:32:18

So what happened is when they came to graduate school,

1:32:21

they would be great at tests,

1:32:23

but when it came to doing research

1:32:26

and questioning sometimes

1:32:28

what their instructors are saying, it wasn't they

1:32:30

weren't always so good. Now that's

1:32:32

changed a lot. China's changed a lot. But

1:32:35

so just doing well on tests and knowing

1:32:37

the answers,

1:32:38

it's important. It's knowing what good questions

1:32:41

to ask.

1:32:42

And that's intelligence. It's knowing

1:32:44

what good questions to ask. And that's the hard

1:32:46

thing. That's what's driven people.

1:32:49

And the people who've moved us forward are the ones who asked

1:32:51

who learned to ask the new question. The best time

1:32:53

with you, Richard.

1:32:55

This has been like a bath.

1:32:57

Look, you know what? I've

1:32:59

been with you once a decade for

1:33:01

two decades now. And for me, it's

1:33:03

far too little. And I want you

1:33:05

to move here. And by the way, you've

1:33:07

got the Confederation

1:33:10

Center for the Performing Arts. You got the phone

1:33:12

number. I want you to suggest a real

1:33:14

estate agent. I will. And

1:33:16

Confederation Center for the Arts, which is beautiful,

1:33:19

wants me and you to do a dialogue there. So

1:33:21

we should do it on stage.

1:33:23

Okay. I'll come there. And

1:33:26

you'll look at real estate and we'll do that. And that'll pay

1:33:29

for a trip. Best of

1:33:30

all, you and I. It's

1:33:34

been a lovely, lovely time. My

1:33:37

goodness. It's great. It's been great. Thank you. And

1:33:39

you take care of your Terry. I'm

1:33:42

going to tell you something. This

1:33:44

is my definition of love. I love

1:33:46

you. Me too. Me

1:33:48

too. My definition too. Absolutely.

1:33:52

Take care. Take care. I'll see

1:33:53

you soon. See you soon. Bye bye.

1:34:04

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1:34:07

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