Neil DeGrasse Tyson On Who Started The Universe, Stephen Hawking's Legacy & Trump's Space Force

on Larry King now I welcome back astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to ask you a direct question I've never asked you what's that who started all this do you believe in God the proper question would be who or what started it but I don't know if I don't know I'm gonna say I don't know I don't implicate elected leaders for anything because they're elected so as an educator what concerns me is not what the person you voted for says what concerns me is who's doing the voting would you go to Mars to the moon Mars I'm there if I can take the family get a good Netflix account you know and some good wine add some good wine exactly plus Elon Musk my gosh why is everyone getting all on his case if he wants to get high on a Joe Rogan podcast and you've let him let him be the individual that he is all next on Larry King now [Music] welcome to Larry King now he's in New York City and we're thrilled to welcome back to the show Neil deGrasse Tyson thanks Larry thanks for having me Thank You Neal Neal's a recipient of the sivan Hawking Medal astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History and director of the world-famous Hayden Planetarium he hosts the Emmy nominated shows Startalk and is the New York Times bestselling author of astrophysics for people in a hurry the new book and I'm putting it up on camera is accessory to war the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military neil good to have you with us he you wrote this with Avis Lange is she or researcher yes so she's a longtime editor of mine I've written a series of essays for Natural History Magazine she actually has a background in art history and English turned science enthusiast became an editor for a science magazine Natural History magazine that was tasked to me so we have a long understanding of her making sure I say what I mean and mean what I say and she's a great researcher and I didn't want it to be Neil deGrasse Tyson sort of with office lying or some sub we were total co-authors on this book the last time we were together was in Norway at the starless festival that was a lot of fun where I learned you and your wife are wine experts well we like wine I think it's the expert has such an attitude to it let me just say we're a wine enthusiasts how about that and and of course since then Stephen Hawking has left us right what is his legacy well it's on many fronts I think first the fact that he just kept going you know his death for me wasn't even so much a tragedy because none of us expected him to live that long you know it was and we said all we don't know if we'll make it out of the 60s or the 70s or the 80s or the 90s or the 2000s and for him to live well into a 70s suffering from a condition that kills most people who have that condition much earlier than that is a triumph of whiz it is medical attention or is it as something about his genetics I don't know but he was a source of inspiration for so many people seeing what he could accomplish in the face of the challenges and for the hand that he was dealt in genetic hand that he was dealt so so there's that side of it but also he's he was one of the deepest thinkers we have we had in in in the physical sciences just realizing how he could take the the laws of physics established by Newton and Einstein and others and then put them together in a new way and give us a new understanding of how black holes work about how what happened at the Big Bang about the structure and formation of the fabric of the space-time continuum all of this and he had a sense of humor and he had fun with parody he he was parodied many times and he wasn't he didn't shy away from it he embraced it I think he was on The Simpsons and you know I asked him once what's something you don't know about and he said women oh okay Neil by the way we're gonna discuss you became a rock star scientists don't become rock stars right ya know ya know but let me remind you though that the word star in rock star refers to heavenly bodies so they took our word to describe themselves when they get famous ask your direct question I've never asked you what's that who started all this do you believe in God I mean the whole universe yeah whose star I'm happy to say when I don't have an answer to something I said I don't know the proper question would be who or what started it because who implies that there's a man in the sky or some kind of human entity but I don't know if I don't know I'm gonna say I don't know there are people though among us who when they don't know something they still have to have an answer think of the people who spot UFOs in the sky there's some light moving in a way they don't understand and so it's an unidentified flying object but listen to what they do next they say wow I don't know what I'm looking at it must therefore be intelligent aliens visiting us from outer space no you you don't you you have not justified you can't say that you now know what it is after you just said you don't know what it is so if I don't know how the universe got here I'm not gonna then assert that I know I would say I don't know we got top people working on it before we talk about the book you recently tweeted sometimes I wonder if the natural state of an electorate is to be lied to by people in power because believing lies almost always feels better than believing truth why why else would you lie to someone unless you don't want them to react negatively to the truth right if everything would be fine by telling the truth we will all tell the truth so the motivation for lying is to lessen the consequences of people having learning learned the truth this is this is the number one reason I've ever seen people why so now you try to build a government a system an electorate a civilization and lies if wise percolate up into that which is spoken by people who are your leaders then you have a house of cards in yours in your society and there are things that are built in society that actually have no foundation because you got there by lying so yeah I wonder and I worry and this is a this is an interesting psychological problem it's an issue with us as a species why is it that we want to be told nice things rather than bad things even if the bad thing is true we were referring to the current administration I can refer to any bits today everybody's lied at some point some lie more than others and so that's why I made the general statement I generally I don't I don't implicate elected leaders for anything because they're elected so as an educator what concerns me is not the person you voted for says what concerns me is who's doing the voting and if you're okay with people who are misrepresenting the truth or outright lying you have that prerogative in an in a democracy but I I think we're all better off knowing the truth that's maybe that's my bias excuse me is a stupid prerogative lie to me lie to me lie to me every year after the break excessively the war neil degrasse tyson details his new book on the alliance between national physics said the military plus we'll talk about the latest from NASA and Trump space force stay with us the book is accessory to Ward the guest is Neil deGrasse Tyson okay what prompted you to write about astrophysics and the military well I'd always known there was some resonance between what we do in astrophysics and what the military cares about because for example we care about detecting really dim things with multispectral imaging not just visible light but infrared ultraviolet gamma rays x-rays microwaves we care about this oh by the way so does the military they care about detection the entire intelligence foundation from high ground and in modern times high ground of space is founded on the ability to detect something with high resolution that overlap with us in astrophysics has created this long relationship oh by the way it's not only detection its navigation and I can make the obvious point that the early explorers needed to know where they were going on earth who's going to help them do this it's the astronomers of the day who know that from different parts of the earth the sky looks different to you and you can figure out where you are on earth if you know deeply what's going on in the night sky and how does the military is that the military would see what we can contribute to their ability to find their targets as an important asset to their command-and-control so I gave you an example Captain Cook we all know Captain Cook he went to the South Pacific by the way he was equipped with navigate brand-new navigation tools and he was told find the coordinates of all new coastlines you find you come across and bring them back and within 20 years of his voyage in the South Pacific Great Britain took control over Australia Fiji Tasmania New Zealand Cook Islands there's a whole set of countries down there that have the British Union Jack as part of their flag this all traces back to Captain Cook the navigational ability that he had was given to him by astrophysicists have you worked with the government on aerospace and stuff do you have you personally sat with generals yes I was appointed to a commission in 2001 under george w bush to study the future of the aerospace industry and that commission was 12 of us had captains of industry captains of labour head of the aerospace machinist Union it had members of Congress from both extremes of political stripe it had four-star generals and in this we discussed the future of something fundamental to the American identity our ability to get around with using aerospace assets its transportation its security its its commerce you got something from Amazon on your step the next morning a airplane brought it there so that industry was falling on hard times and they needed advice so I contributed to this but it was around then that I realized there must have been astronomers an astrophysicist in these kinds of conversations across the world and through time and that's when I thought to myself maybe there's a book in this I can compile all the ways my scientific brethren especially astrophysics brethren have contributed to this to this enterprise military people want to kill people scientists astrophysicists do not is there any problem there excellent question Larry thank ya so there's yes there's conflict there's the fact that I can invent something in my field that the military could look over the picket fence and say oh we like one of those let's take what you just did I actually have no control over that because I'm in the a bomb there you go you have you have you publish in in peer-reviewed journals that are publicly available now here's where the rubber hits the road the military invent something for command and control or reconnaissance or whatever and it's used for clearly military purposes and we look over their fence and say hey when you declassify that that will greatly help my work do you take that or do you not and almost all of us take it that best example is project keyhole there's a series of telescopes that look downward from orbit and we said hey that's a pretty good telescope when they got Declassified we got one of those you know we thought what was called the Hubble Space Telescope you damn straight we took the telescope even though it had complete military foundations behind it what do you make of Trump's space force a lot of people mocked it just because there's a people who just always mock the president just because it came out of his mouth doesn't mean it's a crazy idea automatically and it's it's not a crazy idea I don't have a horse in that race by the way but the Air Force already has the US Space Command as part of its operations and if you have a space force that just slides out and comes out under this new branch of the military and if you're gonna do that I would throw in a couple extra things like like I throw in why don't you clean up the space debris while you add it that's a defense posture and how about asteroids that might render us all extinct so it's not a crazy idea it's no crazier than the air force separating from the US Army which happened after the Second World War so and no one questions the value of an Air Force as its own entity all and you know the the command and control is different what you need to train a soldier is different the engineering is different so it makes sense but I actually personally don't care one way or another next a special round of if you only knew with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson can't wait to get at this and you don't want to miss this book accessory to war we'll be right back the back with Neil deGrasse Tyson the Booker's accessory to war NASA's newest space exploration campaign what do you make of it it's called low-earth orbits for the moon exploration and Mars missions well so these ideas are things we thought would have all been in place back in the 1980s you know we went to the moon we are now celebrating the 50th anniversary of moon launches it's 1968 we first went to the moon with Apollo 8 and then Apollo watch it go on watch yeah there you go and so over the next several years will be the 50th anniversaries of these it's it's a it's an occasion to take pause and say why didn't we continue why why are we talking about this now why isn't it just history that we've got colonies on the moon Mars and Beyond so it's one can get excited that NASA has these new initiatives but I'm remained a little disappointed that these initiatives were not in place decades ago but better late than never for sure r+ we have private enterprise that is becoming a partner a major participating partner in this exercise these are people who had those dreams they're like my age maybe a little younger they had these dreams and now they're fabulously wealthy they say if the government's not gonna do it we're gonna do it do you still get up little morning and look at the sky anytime I exit any building in my life I look up day or night because sometimes you'll see the moon in the daytime you will you also check the weather what's the Sun doing is it a particularly beautiful red sunset I'm looking up all the time in the city it's frustrating at night because you can see about 6 stars but I'm off I'm dumbstruck starstruck when I visit Arizona or these pullet desert places I look up and the sky is what I remembered it to be when I first saw it at the Hayden Planetarium as a kid would you go to Mars I so people said you want to go to space if space is only driving around the block boldly going where hundreds have run before the answer is no that's not space to an astrophysicist you wanted to go to send me his face sent me to a destination to the moon Mars I'm there if I can take the family get a good netflix account you know some good wine add some good wine exactly we play a little game of if you only knew we just throw some questions at you let's do it best piece of advice you ever got in the world that got this for my father you only really start making money when other people figure out how to make money off of you worst piece of advice you ever got arrange your life so that it it is as orderly and as controlled as possible what's the last good book you read oh I read a book I mean I read historical books as well so I mean books from history a book by Schrodinger what is life published that may be 60 years ago a Nobel Prize winning physicist is there something you long believed to be true and found out wasn't I try not to believe things are true in the absence of evidence so that rarely happens to me I just sit there saying I don't know and then it's confirmed so that doesn't happen often because I don't I don't hold strong truths that are based on beliefs rather than evidence so yeah something you've changed your opinion or mind about in the last decade on whether you can keep a eye in a box against its will I used to think yeah I keep an eye in a box because it comes out of box I can just shoot it and then I've changed my mind about that AI artificial intelligence if it's smarter than I am it will completely outsmart me and it will know in advance what I want to do or choose to do and it'll be ahead of me at every step and I will be helpless in its intelligence Ted tease oh I've stupid pet peeves one of them is people don't use the word hopefully correctly in a sentence and that's a stupid it's a literary pet peeve and it's a whole example people say oh hopefully we'll get there on time no that's not how you use the word okay it's you you travel to the game hopefully in the interest of getting there on time you do it with hope hopefully you're full of hope yeah yeah so it's a stupid one and I don't make a big deal of it but I just don't use that word that way that's you yeah something people get wrong about you they think that at home my books all are about things that I already care about most of the books I have at home are about completely different things people say oh are you do you anti-god or hate it I have shelf upon shelf of religious books shelf about shelf of books on pseudoscience on astrology on mysticism on all of this because I'd like knowing how people think about this so that when I encounter them in the real world I can have a meaningful conversation with them and not discount them without having walked a few miles away you meter a deeply religious person who believes that someone is up there that there is God as Heavenly Father do you discount them how do you approach that from a scientific mind I know I approach it from the mind of a citizen of the United States of America where our founding documents protect the free expression of religion because I in that I am an American citizen first and in that capacity I have no issues with any kind of religious expression that people have provided that they don't then presume that their religion is a foundation for a science curriculum that would end up in a school in a school room because you don't have scientists knocking down the sunday-school door saying that might not necessarily be true and you should be teaching Darwin we don't do that atheists don't even do that so for a deeply religious person to knock down a school door of a science classroom that's when I say you're crossing a border there what's a technological advancement you wish didn't exist Wow against I'm against the cellphone yeah no that's good no married nominee you're not getting me to say that I think there are too many video games and they become a distraction from productivity in our lives it's a planet that intrigues you the most Saturn the beautiful rings moons it's just striking it's the first object cosmic object I saw through my first telescope and that that's you're imprinted for life after that person you think has had the most profound effect on society in the last several decades yeah yeah if I had people I'd say a President Obama just of the first black president the first and people had to contend with that and deal with that and come to terms with it and whether you was for him or against him it had an impact on what went on in this nation what's your personal proudest accomplishment whoa no I don't because I'm pride is not something I walk around with actively thinking about okay I hear one I got one ready I got one that book you're holding now yep just showed up on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time as my astrophysics for people in a hurry so there are now two science books in this list of 15 on the New York Times bestseller list and I happen to be the author of both of them that's gratulations I'm really feeling that maybe I look calm here but I'm feeling it in our final moments with Neil deGrasse Tyson will be answering your questions from social media the book is accessory to war we'll be right back with Larry King now the back we have some questions from the internet at kjm 1016 on twitter what do you think will be the biggest life-altering innovations for humans in the next hundred years oh I got one for the next twenty years and that's our power of control over the human genome where we can then alter the genetic identity of what it is to be human and yes there's total diabolical consequences to that if in the wrong hands but if in the right hands you can get rid of diseases that have curtailed the lives and and and and alter the lives of so many people you can possibly live longer and if you can hang on long enough for that Larry we keep you going okay yep so a bio bio genetics is in the near future not even the next hundred years look for it at buff eggs or on Twitter on one of your Larry King interviews you had a very moving scientific explanation of what happens when you die after watching and I wanted to know if you're afraid of death I yes I fear death because I'm born knowing only life and it's it's of course you fear something for which you have no life experience touching but at this point I do not fear death because on my tombstone what I want written is a quote from Horace Mann be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for Humanity and I think in my life at this week I turn 60 I know that I'm a young tyke to you but I'm born the same week that NASA was founded I think I've accomplished enough in my life so that if I die that I'm that tombstone will still be true for me huh good so no I don't fear death I fear not having accomplished all that I could have before I died Daniel MA and the Larry King now blog you had a day to spend with President Trump what topics would you cover with him I would give a full explanation of what role innovations and Science and Technology play in the growth of the economies he's a businessman at some level in there he thinks about business decisions and there's no more impactful force operating on the profitability of a business then what innovations you have that give you an advantage over anyone else your competitors in this case would be nations can we get back in the ring the way we weren't in the second half of the 20th century I think he couldn't respond to that in a way that could benefit us at all if that's if I had a day in the room with him Ian Thompson on the Larry King now blog despite some of his recent troubles what do you make of ill and musk oh I think he's he Elon Musk my gosh why is everyone getting all on his case if he wants to get high on a Joe Rogan podcast and you let him let him be the individual that he is and he he's creating he is he's a force in society that's like like a a cross-pollination of Thomas Edison and Tony Stark from the Avengers okay you cross pollinate those two folks you get Elon Musk now he's got a publicly traded company you don't cross the SEC okay you must obey the regulations regarding your public company but otherwise give the man some space let him be an individual what do you wanna modernize him so he looks like any other person in a boardroom what would that be and they green balled on the Larry oh look by the way by the way as they say to be a genius is to be misunderstood but to be misunderstood as not to be a genius just let's make that clear okay and the green bar on the on Twitter do you think there is a flat planet in the universe no let me say it louder no Lisa Dooley on the naree King Larry King now blog do you ever want to retire Oh retired I mean think about what retire means historically it's you have some job this is your labor you're a farmer in the field you work at a factory and so you take vacations from that to get a break you retire because you so you have some retirement income to not do this anymore but suppose what it is you do is your first love then retirement is not some reward it's punishment vacation is not some thing to escape from it's like when is my vacation over so I get back to doing what I really want to do so no I'll do this to my Greg as you are that's Larry you're right as milton berle once said when asked do you want to retire he said retired to what Neil thank you so much congratulations on the book and Larry I'm delighted to even count you as a friend in that several times that we've spent time together you're a great man thank you big thanks to my guests Neil deGrasse Tyson coming to us from New York City be sure to get a copy of his new book accessory to war and as always you can find me on Twitter at Kings things [Music] you

Channel: Larry King

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Id: v-qU4F0lNfU

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 07 2019