Neil DeGrasse Tyson - The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - FULL VIDEO

[Music] hello and welcome to the origins podcast I'm your host Lawrence Krauss Neil deGrasse Tyson is perhaps the most famous spokesman for science in the world today he's known around the world as the presenter of cosmos the director of the Hayden Planetarium whose renovation he helped oversee and the host of the podcast Startalk I've known Neil for over 20 years and we've worked together often he's invited me to present many times for programs of the planetarium and he's come to participate in my own public events most notably one that erupted into a wrestling match between him Bill Nye and Brian Greene I wanted to explore Neil's own origins what motivated his career path and what obstacles he overcame to get where he is I was also eager to record a conversation between two scientists about our own unique perspectives on science and on science communication our discussion presents I believe a perspective that complements that which many people may get from his tweets his television appearances and is writing Neil was as always witty lively and at times pretty loud patreon subscribers can find the full video of this program in all our programs the day they appear at patreon.com slash origins podcast I hope you enjoyed the show [Music] you [Music] Neal thank you for welcoming us into your abode you set up shop like this is your own studio but in my office yeah that's why we did before you came in and I really appreciate your letting us I might compliment you on your vest where the bottom button is unbuttoned well there's two things I what happened last year old detail well you know very few people know show the camera you're walking and I want and I want you'd know two reasons I wore the vest in honor of you mm-hmm and he's and my camera guys where's the vest and he was the one who told me I should be at the bottom button yeah I never knew that yeah that's a tradition it's a joke I think there was some overweight king who wouldn't really actually button it so he unbuttoned into that nickname the style like they're like the Spanish Lisp yeah yeah exactly like ischium plus it allows you to sit down and not bunch up the vest the vest will naturally then split I want to start with some with questions that I've never really talked to you about by the way I can't think of a question mm-hmm that you would ask me that you wouldn't already know the answer to most of what I know is a subset of what you know oh well that's right well thank you okay just to be clear okay and I'll try and return that favor I'll try to pull some places maybe you never visited okay just to enrich the podcast I never visited your childhood okay so let's start there mm-hmm plus I want to say origins you mean yeah your wings of every my or yeah yeah your origin story yes that what your origin story your parents you come from a family of educated parents your mother was a gerontologist is that right well my mother did not go to college until we were pseudo empty-nest or relied prior arrangement in the marriage okay so when they got married they agreed that we'd have been have kids first mmm and then afterwards if she retained that interest she would go back to school which she did well a graduate degree and then a graduate degree in gerontology so she got an undergraduate degree when you were you and when I was in high school just getting out of it almost graduated at the same time I've heard some people do that where they graduate they're pretty well sheets so the way she did it was she had programs for adults yeah I had to go back there education is what you could do is a brilliant if you wrote up your life experience mm-hmm they would then evaluate it and establish a certain number of credits it was worth towards the degree oh that's crazy something that if you're 18 or 21 you wouldn't have the legs yeah if you raise kids you well you know I think I mean I've now become a having taught at universities I found a lot of kids gold in the university without really knowing why they're there and it's really nice to know have a sense of why you're why are in school if that's more people in community colleges know why they're in school then and sort of regular colleges four-year colleges they because they they've they've tasted the real world yes some way yeah something real happen to them did you ever think of taking time off or did I mean I never I took time off actually in the middle of college I worked on a history book but I when I was growing up it just didn't seem the thing to do but did you ever think it's no no I've enjoyed my arc through life and time off didn't seem like mmm it would serve that trajectory what but okay so what if my mother yeah father studied sociology in college mhm and had a master's and I've got precisely the wording of it but he got it from Teachers College at Columbia so they New York their home yeah yeah yeah but home grown yeah New Yorkers and so my father had sort of academic roots mm-hmm ultimately worked for Mayor Lindsay Oh in New York City during that you know heat of the Civil Rights yeah yeah and so I was sort of baptized into social cultural racial issues of the a yeah even though that early I knew I wanted to study the universe well so this juxtaposition kept me grounded I had a hard time deciding to go into science in a way although I always knew I wanted to do it because it seems so divorced from people and I was quite political even all the time growing up I don't know if you had the similar conflict no I was it was not so much a conflict but I just carried the awareness with you in it through my life and I exploit that it was oh oh I gotta also do this yeah it was never it was never you knew you want to do science early oh yeah why age 9 I was called by the universe you were called by the interview first visit was your planet I just say divinely I just in the universe you put the divinity in the universe that's well I like to it's one of my divine but so I my first visit to New York City's Hayden Planetarium is it and that we're that's where our office is right yeah we're recording this it's a story that I think plays better in a small town you know small town kid goes away comes back and runs this stuff here I tell that to people to say yeah and your point is it's not as impressive out of town but a part of me is delighted even enchanted by the the duty that I have to bring to others what educators and scientists of your have what had brought to me when I was up-and-coming well I mean I think yeah that I think that notion I mean there's various people of who are as renowned science communicators as you and so with great power comes great responsibility [Laughter] but but was it really I mean there's a script for a superhero I don't know what I don't know having to worry about that but you need a deeper work with great power comes great responsibility coming here or was it I mean when you were growing up it was for happy fanuc yeah yeah I'm in the dome and the lights dim the stars come out and I'd only seen the stars from the Bronx which almost dozen of them yes right and so the stars come out in the Dome of the planetarium and think about it it's kind of planetarium experiences we probably all remember our first time you know planetarium dome and in a way it was the world's first virtual reality yes base do you think about yeah absolutely you're transformed the room disappears and you're just floating in space and I was just awestruck starstruck and that starstruck miss stayed with me and first I thought it was a hoax daren't this many stars I know yeah Brock's evidence that there aren't this many stars and I learned later that that is the how many there's more than that yeah yeah and and it was not this space program even though these years occurred in the late 1960s yeah yeah yeah I was I loved that we went to the moon but that had no forces operating on my ambitions and to study the universe I knew enough then that the moon is like sitting in front of our noses okay saying I cared about you know the big galaxies and quasars on a scale far beyond just joyriding in orbit 100 miles above Earth surface or even the moon that is far to our spaceships but close yeah for a lot in space program I I knew I was interested science well before I'm a little bit older than you but not law I was I think sir I was probably 14 when when they went to the moon and it still was I mean I was profoundly interested in what was going on because I was already interested in science but I found that profoundly interesting as a kid growing up in Canada I want in fact I think I started to draft a letter saying that they should have a Canadian astronaut SM but that for you was not the epiphany Epiphany was coming here not at all and you decided then did your parents had they any did they have any plant my mother wanted me to be a doctor no they actually quite I was a proud of them because in my elders but yeah I'm I'm deeply respectful of how they raised us yeah they they didn't put any of their own life's ambitions on us either what they achieved or didn't achieve yeah yes either those can end up a force operating on what your yeah oh yeah these kids because I couldn't become a doctor you're gonna become exactly right you know who knows who how many people's actual ambitions were derailed yeah simply because the forces operating on them by their parents so they showed no force of alignment among me or my two siblings but what they did do is expose us we had the fortune to be raised in New York City yeah in this context right yes it was dangerous yes it was you know there were riots and all yes though all that well yeah that all actually did happen but we're embedded in quite a repository of cultural institutions sure and so every weekend we did something different yes it was we went to the Opera we went into play we went to a musical we went to the ball game on the hockey game went to the art museum went to the zoo Wow and each of these weekends it might have been two weekends a month it felt like every weekend that's great and these were this was exposure two things trained adults do yeah yes beyond just the doctor lawyer Indian she at surgeons yes and my brother ultimately became an artist having been moved by our visits to art museums and he ended up going to the High School of Music & Art God is MFA and and now teaches art in paints and you know so and my sister she's the big sellout she she went into corporate America oh well yeah someone had to she left school but then came back and got her MBA and and so but my point is we it enabled us it empowered us yeah to follow our own drummer yeah they sort of planted seeds and you and you got to decide which one's grooving correct and then once they saw these seeds germinate yeah they would then feed don't what's they nourish them so my best example okay best example I think you would appreciate this as an academic and someone who's a voracious reader it in middle school my mother not knowing anything about astrophysics she would she would visit bookstores and go to the remainder okay alright and just find any book yeah that said math or science on it or the universe of which there are many interns yeah yeah sure and she bring them home and these books cost 50 cents 25 cents all that I had the largest library of any middle schooler so nice and also brainteaser books anything yeah just fun things to do with your brain rather than just hang out in the street and so I probably still have books some of those books on my shelf they don't have some marker line across the yeah the binding yeah saying that it has been marked down yeah I don't I haven't lately seen remainder shelves much in bookstores I used to go looking to see if my own books weren't on but you got to feel like it's a good thing about that yes my books were every remaindered it would be a bittersweet yeah yeah somebody who couldn't otherwise afford it is picking it up for a dollar yeah yeah exactly yeah it's exactly it's bittersweet that's so neat and so and just if you want to I've never seen any of your books on remaining - thank you and no thank you same here by the nothing uh so she fostered it what about teachers and you know I'm where I am now because of teachers yet in spite of them yeah okay and that happens and yeah for in physics in science unfortunately that happens a little too much yeah well so it would happen with girls at the time yeah we're going way back now we're going yeah forty fifty years yeah anyone who did not fit an expectation of what a scientist look like Gert yeah sounded like it's not I'm growing up late enough in the history of the United States that and in the North so that what I'm describing to you was not explicit it's just implicit implicit so it's for example oh you look athletic why don't you stay after school enjoying the sports teams you know I want to be on the physics Club you know and no no you we need you in the sports thing and and they think they're doing me a favor with these suggestions when in fact deep down they have no alignment yeah with my ambitions yeah they're they're they're they're staring they're typing you stereotyping and and it was worse for women at that time yeah in fact I still have a book where it's called Neil school years and their pages for each grade and it's use put report cards in there and this was a parent your mother keep that book I kept the book you don't gift to me from a grandma and then I you feel that different third grade onward oh that's neat and so they're the pre printed pages where they say list your friends uh-huh and list your interests and one of them is what I want to be when I grow up and if your boy there's this set of options for either the other girl you know the other set of the options and the boy could be you know a policeman fireman and dr. wertham girl was you know stewardess waitress housewife yeah this sort of thing so it's or mother mother was odd that the girls had the options of being mother I'm not my father was or guy so that so I was I was actually disturbed by that even at age nine that this is this is not symmetric and yeah didn't understand why not yeah so but there was a [ __ ] feet of right in we wanted to be when you grew up and it was fifth grade where there's a first appearance to where I wanted to be in a strong really yeah okay interesting I that was my first visit to the Hayden Planetarium oh that's a Maci oh well as my origin story yeah yeah no I mean it's very different in fasting because we and I do meant a lot of things similar things in certain ways why my parent neither my parents went to college and and and wanted and buy exactly what they want us to be professionals my brother to be a lawyer me to be a doctor he he unfortunately became a lawyer actually worse a professor of law I don't even know if I would have known quite what an astronomer was for me actually in a way I would have cuz the book that really got me interested was of grad grade five or six a book about Galileo what book was that it was a some kids book I forget the name and you know Voyager to the Stars or some you know some meaning and I think what appealed to me is much probably because of my rebellious spirit was was seeing the troubles he had I mean that he was he confronted the the misconceptions world and so I saw kind of scientist as hero you know and I think that was but I would never known I remember a friend of mine who parents were educated that many years later I learned he when he was in grade five you wrote a poem said when I grow up I want to be a doctor of philosophy and I wouldn't know what that was anyway it's neat so just on what point about Galileo if I may sure over my years of reading history and thinking about how people think yeah something you surely spend a lot of time doing I would not have characterized Galileo confronting people's misconceptions okay I hope have characterized their way because most of what people thought is exactly what it looked like yeah yeah yeah so in that sense it's not an they're not misconceiving it they just didn't have the benefit of a telescope so I don't want to fault people for thinking what looks like it's true I would rather fall people for once being confronted with an objective reality experiment still then resisting what is true ya know in in in a stronger subtle is even Samantha no I don't want to break out if gonna fight on it no know what your absolute right it's a good point I think in astronomy it's true in in in physics is kind of interesting because I did this experiment once for leaders of the free world where I you know they all learned in high school that you know things fall at the same rate but that had gone in one ear and out the other but you could do the experiment you confront they said why that's because heavier yeah and you do an experiment and well I loved when I read his books about the he was there which are very funny enough and say they're Galileo's yeah yeah yeah and in fact it's a dialogue is yeah quite witty I'm exactly witty and I often think it's a shame when they force kids to read great books of literature that they don't include like it's easier to read than James Joyce and funny or Mycenaean but but you know where he and he makes fun but he gets but he doesn't might have easier to read than James but he always has a foil so in some sense is the person who has the misconception you know and one of the one of the ones I love is it's just a simple thing about well so heavier things fall faster what if you have two books and then well they're falling you tie them together with the rope so they become one thing and they suddenly gonna fall and you know that's not gonna happen it's so that's what I meant but anyway yeah but I was too far more subtle than I thought at age 11 or whatever it was just yeah but it was it that book exposed me to and and in my case my mother told me doctors were scientists and so I got interested in science that was much later when I discovered that that doctors don't have to be I don't want to say doctors aren't scientists cuz that but for the training is different is yeah you don't have to be in and unfortunately did you did they teach you in school the same way I know you hear about teachers let me just yeah yeah yes so so I had one teacher in sixth grade mmm-hmm who noticed that all of my book reports were on astronomy books uh-huh and that I had a level of social energy that bordered on disruptive yeah in class yeah and so rather than try to muzzle me mm-hmm she noticed in the newspaper there was an ad for classes that you could take on a strong strong at the Hayden Planetarium oh and she cut out the little ad and handed it to me and then I took it home and my parents read it so let's try this yeah inside when I was in the Bronx so I took a good you know public transportation into Manhattan and this was great because this institution the American Museum of Natural History beyond the exhibits you see on a first time visit yeah there are programs offered in the evening that transcend everything that's written on an exhibit text yeah in all fields yeah so there were extra courses and advanced courses and that set me on a of further enlightenment beyond the school curriculum and so that was an important step but that's not a teacher praising me for anything I was doing in class that the teachers saying how can we bottle this energy yes emotive way or twinkle Channel yeah it's exactly what it unfolded so she could be one of the more significant people in my life yeah exactly not you know just giving you that opportunity you know right beyond that there was no teacher anytime in my life unlike what is surely the case with you who would have ever pointed to me I said he'll go far oh that's a guy because my grades were never you know they they indexed to grades yeah yeah and they think the people to high grades are the ones that are gonna be significant shakers and movers in the world because the system is constructed that way yeah yeah and if you hold aside people who become academics mm-hmm who basically all have near-perfect and everything cuz that's the that's the landscape yeah hold aside people who become academics other people who enter the real world if you separated them by who got straight A's and who didn't you are not separating the people who are the most ops absolutely were the most significant on what matters in this world the inventors the entrepreneurs and creative types the poets yeah journalists the comedians the the people with the actors the people we that shape civilization as we know it and have an impact and you know what I guess as the famous ones are college dropouts exactly and you know it took me a long time I mean I've been an academic most of my life and my trajectory my personal directory was always that way i I've you that as the as the goal and what I wanted to be a professor and and and and of course I you know I was interested in writing and I had a I had models of people who were communicators like fine men and other people but but I guess it does everyone in your audience know you talk about Richard Fineman the Caltech physicist now they do okay okay thank you it's not just a fine man yeah he's a fine man richard fineman thank you keep it so I love when you correct me it's great correctly I just don't know it's it's it's you did the right thing building an audience you are you exact room them all with you but it took me a long time to realize that now I would say and it's really true that among the people that I consider the most the the the most intelligent the most not just most ambitious but broadly intelligent and creative I would list more people outside of academia than inside academia I don't know do you agree of course oh by all means yeah not only that people who are well in academia you tend to get deep thinkers about things that most people don't care about but outside of academia you get deep thinkers about people on topics that people do care about and that's that it has value it's but it's more than that and academics are more more conservative in many ways you'd imagine it there's a discipline where you're supposed to be open to anything but the discipline of academia and the good feature of tenure is it makes it very secure whereas when you're not in academia you're not at all secure and you you really have to constantly recreate yourself or at least create your own opportunities where in an academic institution you got the whole institution behind you supporting you and you just do what you want and it's a very different feeling it's not only that in academia I didn't realize this until I came to this museum which has an academic infrastructure that we have grants office yeah a deep you know I'm about to reappointed Dean never Provo I report to a Provost yeah so there's the academic trappings that we have in his tenure structure but most people don't know that yeah but coming here my mission is bigger than what is my next published paper is I'm a servant of the public yeah whereas in academia it's actually not that it's I need my lab these are my graduate students I'm gonna publish my paper where's my grant money where's my office space and everything is selfish but it has to be selfish if the university is the sum of the selfish conduct of researchers yeah because teachers have to I mean and that and that yeah again we're fine you can't really be that selfish yes the the fundamental dimension of the mission statement is this you're a servant of the public's appetite exactly it's a different and it's it just it's not as if it's not pejorative to say one versus the other there's a difference right it's a different mission and I'll add another thing just to you but I hit this some time ago it might have been when the movie The Devil Wears Prada yeah yeah I had not thought about the fashion industry mm-hm in any charitable way until I saw that film and here's here's why and in that film it's all about fashion mm-hmm the fashion movie yeah some of the dynamics that goes yeah sure inside some could be you know exaggerated whatever but if you don't know anything about fashion this is like Wow yeah yeah yeah as an interest I mean it's interesting encounter watch yeah so I say myself is there anything that is as far from academic physics as a profession that you can possibly come up with and I would say being a fashion model okay that is the most opposite I can possibly think all right okay now I thought about it and I said there exists people mm-hmm walking among us that other people will pay money just to look at them yeah oh my god this is an extraordinary fact and there are fewer of them than there are physicists yes yeah so what and they will out earn you yeah so I said to myself Who am I to value judge an academic intellectual pursuit yeses whatever anybody else does and I'm embarrassed how long it took me to achieve that revelations now about two decades old for me yeah as a that's late in my life as far as I'm concerned yeah yeah they kept saying well I could your intellectual yeah yes what matters yeah yes all these and and you just care about fashion yeah and I'm thinking my god somebody designed the clothes I'm wearing yeah and it wasn't me yeah and what that also did it freed me up to this was a liberation to not criticize politicians who academics would otherwise criticized for being dumb or stupid or whatever but you talked about so let's take George W Bush for an exam okay let's take him comedians made fun of everybody made fun of him yeah in academia which as you know is mostly liberal damn antiwar mm-hmm as voters yeah yeah point is you could say whatever you want about the intelligence of George W Bush but you know what he's president yeah yeah he convinced people to vote for him and you didn't you know so to sit on your Duff yeah and complain that he's president and you're not and whatever it is about his intellectual prowess that he has or does not have you've got nothing to say all right you you want you want to become president and bring your ideas to the table then go ahead and run for frickin president see if you'll get 60 million people vote for you and kid you probably can't yeah yeah okay we'll talk about no no that's sorry scream at you but I love this tree I'm screaming because I these were revelatory to me I should since then I've just been so more balanced yeah in my sense of who and what people are what they think would they believe what they care about pomposity is you it's great to great to be humbled at some point by observing exactly especially people people I'm always what amazes me is the older I get I discover people who can do so many other things better than me but you know actually your story's interesting its resonates because I once knew I was on it I had some programmers once years ago with a guy who had been vice president of Halliburton where Dick Cheney had been and he told me and he was talking but Tim Chaney about about Bush when during during the whole time when Duffy was running yeah yeah w yeah and Cheney said you know and he was this guy was complaining about you know during the campaign well how can you you know support this guy and he said you you know and he and Cheney said exactly the same thing he said you don't like it you run yeah you run see how you do and it's and it's a really important point and didn't know did a democracy or a republic yeah yeah yeah these are the elements well this actually leads me in a roundabout way which is always fun with YouTube did I finish my origin story that amazes me first of all I have to say among the people I've known you are the most one of the most focused in knowing what you want to I've known you an awful long time and is we actually go down way way back I don't remember when it began but we go back yeah I'm trying to think I know I used to you inviting me to programs here a long time and I remember you once coming to a lecture I did on science and religion or something but I enjoyed that actually it was something yeah you and your wife came and I was touched I remember that but anyway it's a long time and and so I've watched well I've got I've watched you progress and it's been focused III my life is surviving had plans that sort of haphazard I planted seeds and seen which ones take off but I'm I've not been directed and I've always thought of you as as directed historically you made a decision early on after doing your PhD to essentially leave academia or leave conventional academia yeah did your PhD and then you came to you know shortly thereafter word to the museum that was that with malice aforethought mean you'd you already plan your trajectory and that was part of it or it it'd just be an opportunity that came along that may been what it looked like but that's not how it happened okay good that's what always fundal so I never wanted to leave academia okay never nor did I ever have ambitions of being some famous scientist okay if by what I did it brought sort of Fame yeah and attention fine but that was never a goal okay okay I guess the counterpart to that in the performance world would be I want to be a really good actor rather than someone saying I won way famous and yeah wonder when the Academy was good after and yeah it ever happens happens yeah okay so I want to be a good scientist and I deeply value and love academia I like the structure at students classes research papers conferences okay so I get my PhD and I postdoc at Princeton University that's where I am so the academic trajectory is pretty good for name his work it's doing its thing yeah yeah and by the end of my postdoctoral research fellowship it's a three-year thing there is buzz that the museum the American Museum of Natural History wanted to sort of update the planetarium it had seen it was growing long and tooth and exhibits were kind of old and and so they were looking for advice yeah and I grew up here that's my place yes I said I'm happy to offer advice for your plans to upgrade upgrade the Hayden Planetarium so I was on a committee how did you get on the committee so others knew this before I knew that the museum needed this to happen it was folks at Columbia University and that connections there yeah yeah I just got my PhD in form yeah and the Board of Trustees actually visited Princeton as well they went to the nearby places that had astronomy departure instant being just 50 miles away in New Jersey so and I just come from Columbia I was post docking at Princeton the faculty there's both faculty said well there's this guy who we know he's had some talents in this way he might be able to serve you so then they came knocking on my I managed refuse again how did they know yet talents that way just because they knew as a person I mean I published my first book while I was still in graduate school okay it's so as clear and so so you can say oh I like doing public things but if you publish a book yeah yeah yeah the conversation yeah yeah it's done cuz you meet you with you found a publisher they're saying so my first book was Merlin's tour of the universe that was two years before my PhD okay let's step back on game because somehow you had to make that decision which impacts on your ability yeah so go on okay before I was at Columbia I was at the University of Texas at Austin I know well I heard a great story by Hannah and Steve Weinberg Wow I was there when he Robin he moved there I think was on the same airplane and after he was recruited by the University of Texas from Harvard yeah to bring his physics to there and you know the headlines were at the Daily Texan the next day cuz they every section also had a very good football team yeah yeah okay highly celebrated and and so the headline was UT Austin finally gets a faculty member that the football team could be proud it was a cute losing Hewitt headline because they were had aggressive recruiting posture yeah they did I remember when I was in I was in Harvard at the Simon we're watching them trying to recruit a lots of people just assembled that program and then do that or why not if you if you care yeah so so so where was I oh you were at Texas while I was there too make extra money because we were very underpaid as graduate students I wrote a column for the then known as the mcdonald observatory newsletter yes then became stardate yeah and it's a thin little sort of thing but I it was a I wanted question answer column called Merlin's tour of the universe ah so then you able it and then after five years of that you had a lot of I had and I said maybe this will work as a book so I didn't say let me write a book in school you had already yeah it had assembled for that had you written anything before had you written in high school I mean look editor-in-chief of my schools high schools physical science journal but your these are writing science order yeah but I mean I I did history which is where I learned how to I mean for a while which I learned I always attribute for me anyway we're learning how to write generally I think well I know that the way to learn how to write is to write it's just read to write exactly to read a lot and I was as you I was and then average I subscribe to The New Yorker for many years yeah and I said to myself it would be extraordinary if one day I had the facility with words the way these writers do yeah yeah and so that was I had sort of ambitions of being as good a writer and what I was weakly exposed to in that magazine I haven't read it much lately so I don't know where it is or where it has headed since then but that's definitely they used to have a science stuff in it and then they stopped I remember used to reading the Jeremy burns you know I've new used to know years ago and still no but he used of a common but then they removed it more far later I was I was very pleased to write for The New Yorker but interesting enough my my columns were always on the online New Yorker they would they would never it was some firewall with science and and in The New Yorker but anyway so you so you know so that first book so what I'm saying is it was not some ambition to be it was just yeah it was available and I could do it and it was fun you know you found an agent or an editor or how did it work it was it published by Columbia University Press as a general you don't use agents first yeah yeah yeah yeah anyhow I I'm in graduate school and for a while I'm still writing that column yeah right but then I it gets harder to keep up with it I just don't and so it stops but that made it was enough column for two books so you know okay meanwhile there's other things I'd written again it was just to get money through if you write an essay for for this magazine or that and I get $500 here or $1000 there and this that makes a very big difference on when you're on it's a very severe budget and then after all I had a collection of essays and that was another book that I published and it was called the universe down to earth so what happened was the Faculty of Columbia and of Princeton saw that I had this real interest entry okay and said you should look up Tyson okay they didn't even know that I was native to New York but I said native New York and I have this I've done of thoughts yeah here's here's some plan for you here for free there's here's a ten page growth plan for the future the Hayden Planetarium and afterwards they started knocking on my door more I say do you want to come and be ahead of the place we're gonna renovate it and I said there is no academic Astronomy Department and so I have no interest yeah I said oh but you can be head of the plan you'll be famous yeah and you overnight because we're facing like money be a lot of media and later on we could talk about whether we build and I said no uh-huh no yeah no and I don't think they believed me they didn't believe me for like two years at the end of the three years I said are you clear on believing here's a list of people you should look up because I think they would be jump at this opportunity but without an academic department I'm simply not interested you have the wrong guy mmm-hmm and then I walked away then walking away then they came back and said okay then you come be director and we will commit to building a department I do remember that birth of this I remember that vividly I don't know I mean I could lecture here there's a long-standing astronomy program as you point out that these evening long ago and I did 40s to deny men in the 70s and 80s the storming apartment evaporated was never rejuvenated okay so the museum viewed it the plantain is just an income-generating source rather than as an academic dimension such as the other departments were the department of mammalogy you know vertebrate paleontology this sort of thing the the the zoological departments that are common in Natural History Museum's were all represented here Department of Anthropology as well the Astronomy Department evaporated and was never so I my biggest achievement in life which will no one is gonna know or remember and I don't care that they nor remember things they'll now know because of us right now thing is is basically convincing an institution and a Board of Trustees and donors and and in time that we can build a department from scratch because it's a buyers market at the time yeah though other departments here they said well you know they're worried that it would take resources from them and there's a normal academic infighting and but I knew we could do it and I knew we could make a competitive department and that's exactly what we have now yeah I do I was gonna say I remember that sea change I so at that point I said I'm there yeah so I finished my postdoc I came here we built the department and now we have a research department as well as all the rest of what goes on here yeah yeah yeah so and I've never left academia forged academia where I landed but your activities oh no that's different now and so so now my personal activities right now I would say are 90% public yeah work and 10% research and that's just to not fall off a cliff yeah I have possibly delusional ambitions of giving up all of my public activities and just going back to the lab and you never seen that yeah that's not gonna happen are you too valuable thanks for saying that let me give my interpretation of that yeah I'm thankfully in a position where I am evaluated professionally in whatever is the activity that I do that I can excel in and whatever is the ratio of the public versus research it'll be it's whatever that is yeah it was 5050 is it seven yeah thirty thirty seventy yeah whatever that is that is the landscape on which I'm evaluated and as you know especially in physics if you are an academic in a research program of a competitive University and you start writing books nobody looks positively you do that in spite of its effect oh yeah folk when I was professor at Yale and system professor oh yeah it does not the public doesn't know that it does not accrue to you're not evaluation any it negative correct at least in astronomy because we had Carl Sagan yeah where you guys had yeah it became neutral yeah I don't think it subtracted it was like okay we don't and and now it's positive I think for the precise reason that science has become big science and I think scientists finally learned that after the Cold War stop giving him free money all the time yeah in order to get the government to spend money in science they actually got to start convincing people that it's interesting and that is worth doing and then it's worth having some people who can do that so that's the correct who that's the landscape we're entering where other academic fields have have basically joined astronomy and astrophysics and say can I change the culture I think so there were other popularizers before him James gene yeah yeah what a lot of property law that was the book that got me interested physically which one which one of the physics and philosophy oh yes a good book it's Anna you know and I and I he's got a half a dozen eight books or so yeah ya know and I remember thinking you know I originally inspired the fact that pooh-poohed philosophy a lot later I I really that got me fascinated I almost went when I grew up is not yeah scholarship to go study philosophy in physics and I decide in the end to come the United States and do physics which I'm happy about in retrospect you could have done physics as a row scholar yeah but I wanted to do physics and philosophy and I would have been seduced I think oh yeah so what I do is when a request comes my way mmm-hmm I don't evaluate oh do I have time to do it should I do it I'd it's not right do I say can I do this uniquely mmm-hmm and if I say no I think other people can do this than I do fine interesting because I mean I've we've talked a lot over these wider cosmos yeah yeah I was approached by Andrew Young who's this the keeper of the flame yeah Carl Sagan cousin she's his his his widow yeah Widow yeah and she's a creative force in the original cosmos in her second coming of another cosmos and she approached me and I said so husband's gonna happen again maybe are you interested yeah and I said and I thought about and I said you know they're probably a lot of people who would want to do this I don't need to get it but I said wait a min I met Carl in a certain yeah with a story and I could possibly do this uniquely yeah yeah so then I said yes but only after thinking about that interesting I mean I talked three years before cuz you know I was already sort of interested in or been doing and stuff we talked about this you know she'd been thinking about this for years I mean because Karl you know she wanted to carry his legacy on and as you've done it successfully I think yeah oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely but I have to say I do remember I think the time I remember meeting you now that comes in most specifically and it may have been before is is I done some things at this museum public lectures evening lectures that was a long tradition of evening lectures I remember there's one book that me sign oh no that was for the amateur astronomers are so yeah yeah no yeah and I'd done that when I was he Yale but then when when you inviting me back I just remember the pride I mean you it all had changed and you'd said look at me and showed me the research and said look what I've got here and you was like a kid in a candy shop it was just it was really exciting okay but that's interesting so the fact that you wrote in McAuliffe sorry one last thing when I started working here yeah I was interviewed um for there's some cosmic event and there's always a room to interview in tirana mer and the editor-in-chief of Natural History Magazine overheard that interview was on NPR uh-huh and immediately called me a assembly once would you write a column for the magazine and I said I don't you know every month that feels oppressive let me just pause for a min and think this through and I said if I were to write articles what would it be on and I wrote a list of 50 articles that I could just do off the top of my head yeah and I sent them to her that that's good enough to start this and so I would ultimately write about 120 articles and that became a source of three other books yeah yeah that I've written is it I mean a huge seller is is that oh yeah from that yes a modified are almost every essay in there had first appeared near the Natural History ministry that's correct but at a time where I mean I it's been tuned and and shaped for an audience with a slightly shorter attention span it's generated mind-blowing national physics yeah sure and it's not astrophysics for dummies totally aside the fact that that title was already taken yeah yeah yeah holding that aside it's actually real astrophysics yeah go in there no you can't just breeze through it yeah yeah it's but the chapters are short the atactic was there's attack it's if you haven't trouble with this paragraph the next paragraph is four words long ok so you see ahead that means there's a little bit of breading you having trouble with this page the the chapter ends in three pages yeah right so there's none also done I'm never dragging you through the muck and mire I I've often thought in terms of that kind of thing that if people can read in the bathroom that that they're not gonna be so daunted by the possibility if they think they have to spend four weeks reading it intensely something nor get the ideas because science - say that when it comes to history books people want long books science books people want short because it is immediately too many people daunting and the book that I published just after that is basically a history book ya know the accessory to war yeah I was proud of you for that see I never told you but your unspoken Alliance began astrophysics in the military that's a full up you know that's the league next and yeah no no 500 page yeah it took 15 years basically from yeah yeah I did the math and I said if I wrote this alone it would take me a thousand years keeps that going ya know it's it works in many ways like if you have a co-author in a research paper you know you it forces you to keep that moving yeah and the base of course you know otherwise you can get lazy I let me go on vacation for now no no I'm gonna you know be running some programs on my origins project on collaboration creativity and in different fields including signs because I don't think people realize how collaborative enough science is and how how its exact it's not just ideas if someone carries the ball while you have other things or your and people have this idea that science is like because of Einstein I think then maybe Newton you know science is done by someone in a room in the middle of the night burning the midnight oil alone with you know with sudden revelations just so not that yeah it is so not that it's not that oh I wanted one last thing for you before we move on there's a reason to talk about you because you are you are a public figure and I want to talk science and you and I have talked about many things over the years but I think it's important for people to see two different trajectories just like one thing you said there's also really important about gray I think a lot of kids get turned off science because they're not the best in their class and there always be people better at anything almost than anyone it's true for everyone but two people loves that it's true for all but ya ought to be better and worse people than you yes for all but yeah exactly yes but I know Nobel laureates who were not the top of their class I mean it takes all types and the key thing I think is what your teacher did for you the one teacher who had a positive impact which is to say let me encourage whatever it is that interests you because that's the ultimate thing it's interest it's as you said it's it's I mean academia is selfish for a reason most scientists aren't doing it because they're trying to change the world or they're doing it cuz they like it and that's what causes good science because if you don't like it you're not gonna spend 20 years of your life trying to solve something it may go nowhere so I think you're the your enthusiasm I think was one thing the last thing when I asked though is it interested me that it was your writing it opened doors but then you mentioned this interview because you won can't be in a room with you without recognizing your charisma you are just of course no I mean if you did you wouldn't be charismatic but yeah I think it does I think it does some people could fake it but I think in the whole but the interesting thing to me is that you didn't do a lot of public speaking before it wasn't you didn't take advantage of going to planetary speak or going when you're a student or or or before they no no no I mean other than scientific conferences where you just present your yapper I see oh no it was not I mean I did do some public speaking but no was not a fun it was not a deep part of my activities and I would say my modern public speaking mm-hmm is largely shaped by my efforts to communicate in the media yeah yeah yeah I remember my first interview where I was on national television they the new planet had been discovered planet had ever been discovered and I get my best professorial reply and the whole thing got sound bitten down to 90 seconds and I said oh they don't even though they came here to interview me at a planetarium yeah they don't want what I would normally do here they want something it fits their media yeah so I practice sound bites oh and it helped me sharpen the juxtaposition of information with something that makes you smile mm-hmm and something that's tasty enough that you want to run around somewhere else yeah yeah that's the anatomy of a sound bite yeah and that's what they found within my 20 minute interview yeah yeah yeah to make it 30 seconds and I said why don't I just give 90 second sound bites and that way pre parceled when I started doing that they all came running no it's really I remember well that's interesting it helps that I'm sitting here in New York City yeah the major news gathering had gotta sit that really helped but I it's funny when I you know I've over the years done many many interviews and I've always had fun saying okay I'm gonna try and do a sound bite and I'm gonna I'm gonna bet it'll become the last line of the column or whatever and it's all we it almost always is because coming up with good sound bites is not just pandering it's really there's a reason for it as you pointed out yeah and it's it it can trigger interest and spawn further did you say you practice did you I looked in the mirror and I had what you have is you have someone sort of bark out to you yeah single word of anything in your field yeah black hole yes a turn yeah yeah the Sun yeah big bang and we can try it all right yeah say anything in my field say anything in your field to dust dust hang on so regions of the universe where gas clouds become so cold that atoms come together and make molecules and molecules come together and make dust and these are atoms forged in stars that had given their lives beforehand and this dust ultimately makes planets and life so we are sighs okay good that's a celebrate that's Mbytes a great sound use that entire yeah yes yeah yeah yeah oh I never knew that oh my gosh that's what happens and you get a little education in there atoms become molecules molecules become something we call dust so that's so I practice that then I said well let me think well you take some hydrogen you know that's not relevant or not gonna remember yeah yeah yeah yeah this the sound bite should contain that which they would have remembered the next day okay in a longer explanation that you would have give Hannah okay good no I I'm with you and and it you know I'll do a sound bite for you sometime when you invite me in back okay we're ready okay okay was try it okay what the heck ready and your particle guy right yeah what throw it at me and I'll tell you if I can do it or not okay and if I can't what cut it okay quark quark it's a kind of cheese the amazing thing is that people are as different as you can imagine and when you look around the universe it seems like it's made of so many different things as its unfathomable what's amazing to me is that what science has discovered is that you and I and everything we see are made of the same things these particles called quarks at the basic level we are all the same made of things that are as far as we know infinitely small and amazingly even though we know they're there we also know that you can never see a single quark not bad amateur what do we give cameraman give a B+ quarks are harder than dust okay I mean I wanted to do this but the interesting thing is it and it's one of the reasons that I think biologists sometimes have a hard time is that because some of the aspects of the field are so complex it's hard to get to them in a way that people can Intuit and the point is the challenge that core and I've wrote a book on this recently the challenge to getting to quarks versus dust and this is that I've learned you buy books it probably the book you buy yes and find enough to blurb a bunch the problem and that I consciously read one where I called you the Bard yeah you did you dog you it was a beautiful blur yeah well in fact you're good with blurbs as you are what sounds like you know my goal in a blur is for it to be the shortest blur on the jacket because you and so then generally put that first first yeah yeah and then you it's not that I don't want to put words but you it's the choice of words yeah okay but I was afraid oh I'm sorry this letter is so long if it was so long if it was better I ran out of time to make it short yeah if I'd worked out longer I would have been shorter yeah but here's the thing that more serious a little bit when the challenge of science and say with particle physics versus to some extent astronomy the frontiers of particle physics are so far removed from people's experience that it takes many steps to get there before you can really appreciate what said that's why my last book is a lot longer than it would have been and the point is to get to quarks is a lot more is you know atoms molecules and dust or something as people can have in some sense at some basic level and to ative appreciation of because of school and stuff quarks are just so far removed that that that it's hard to know how to get there in a really short time but I don't agree okay quarks you do it no okay yeah remember chemistry class you learned about like protons and neutrons and huh they're particles inside of those they're called quarks and proton had a positive charge and a neutron identity quarks have fractional charges mm-hmm oh my gosh and when we discovered this the guy who discovered it named them after a word in a james joyce novel mm-hmm and and three quarks for quark muster another demarked it must to mark and that's back when we thought there were only three quarks we've discovered more since then now we recognize that quarks are more fundamental than protons and neutrons quarks one of the fundamental particles in the universe well it just sounds better when you say come back from warm since if they come out from Wharton I add we've only ever found them in pairs actually they come in three through okay than pairs and pairs at least pairs you say to me okay we've never isolated a single what I tried to yeah yeah they're always bound with other quarks but once you just split them apart we tried that here's what happens you try to pull it apart and to do that you're putting energy in it like you're pulling a rubber band apart you gotta takes energy you know how much energy you're putting in eventually it snaps you put in so much energy the equals mc-squared kicks in and it creates another quirk yeah bada bing bada now you got pears two quarts just the way you begin that's what I was just gonna sit and say to you I was first gonna say it takes more energy than there is in the whole entire universe to create a single cork but the point is that's not the case because if you got that much energy can produce a lot of other particles and you get the the rubber band stretched actually the way I would say it now is I'd say it's like you break the rubber band and now you got two rubber bands and that's what happens of course anyway together we could work on this okay well this would this one in an interesting direction I think one of things people wanna hear is the time how would a science in the end there's only four as far as we know only four fundamental particles and you have quarks electrons photons light mmm and neutrinos this other mysterious particle we'll get into later yeah instead of electrons that's leptons really cuz there's three kinds of electrons yeah but you say who was it that see that's your problem yeah what you're trying to do is give you my yeah yeah yeah right so you start with something that is defensively pedagogically sensible mmm-hmm you talk about the particles that exist in the realm in which we experience okay yeah then when they come back is it you know something those just represent families of particles hmm we have three or four if whatever is the the supersymmetry we had family to these poor families yeah we got a heavy electron mm did you know that then you take them there and then you say what your guy here in Columbia said Rabi which when they discovered it when the heavy electron he said who ordered that I'm gonna say about everything yes yes no it was a great thing like who ordered that it's like why should the world we still one of the big unanswered questions is why are their families mm-hmm I'm of particles we could we could do a whole program we start with the desire to whose sound bite about a quark and lead that and so but I do this all the time for example I I want to say I delight in this because it's a bit snarky so let me just say I watch for it when it happens when someone wants to correct something I said because it's wrong mm-hmm okay yeah so I'll say the earth has a circular orbit around the Sun and they'll say so you're wrong it's a no they said no it's elliptical and so I say well then I draw on a page the elliptical orbit that is in Earth orbit and it's so and then I draw a very elongated ellipse they say which of these do you think comes closest no no do I draw a perfect circle yeah and then I draw and they point to the ellipse which is wrong and it's which is wrong right so I say it is more a circle than it is any ellipse you're currently thinking of yeah apart from that okay let's call it any lips actually it's not an ellipse because Earth orbits the common center of mass that it has with the moon yeah yeah so it does little loops yeah around this arc okay exactly oh by the way the path that the earth takes around the Sun does not close back on itself it's not really an orbit in that sense all right because the processes so there's a non closed a listed you drawing elliptical shape the point is if you put all that information up front you're losing the other points you're trying to make and you are allowed pedagogical approximations otherwise you cannot communicate in any way with someone who doesn't know anything oh absolutely you you can't communicate with people who know more and the other ones you're usually showing off their knowledge that they can take you to levels better but I know I think you're right although Australia and I said mammals got to Australia and they all became more soup anywhere else someone said wait a minute there's the opossum North America that's it had that and carries a job I said okay fine I don't I don't have a problem with it but I was making a whole other point yeah yes taranta branch as long as of a genome and it takes on properties there yeah we could and one could talk about in isolated populations and an echo but look this it's actually fun to have for us because we're both you know we both communicators to talk about the things that we think are good and bad one I don't say it's good events necessary necessary I of course it's necessary to make approximations communicate even in even in in well in any field I mean science is an approximation of the university every level you're parking but but I think it's important at some level especially when you're given the time and writing to make it clear it's an approximation the only thing we all mislead I remember the first time I wrote a book and and I got a you know I got a fan letter and a guy said I loved your book and I learned this and it was whenever he learned was nothing what I said and I was depressed for a while and I thought well the problem is I can't control what people get or what I write and I'm you're sort of can well in spite of that what I want to see there will there will always be misconceptions about what you write the one thing you shouldn't do is leave is given knowing miss Coates knowingly given misconceptions that's the only thing as a writer or reader of other popularisation signs that I have no tolerance for is when people knowingly mislead because I could say I could say do you know what you know what you know inside a quarks are little elephants okay and there be people that would believe it because I said it you know and I'm a particle physicist and the point is I may have some reason for doing it maybe because it's my pet theory that there are little elephants inside quarks and I want to get that out there although none of my colleagues like that idea so we we at some level we have to make approximations but we we have to be very careful to sort of frame them within the context of sort of innocent approximations that don't lowing Lehmann lead you mislead you on the wrong direction course you know of course and that's I think that's the skill and demand have to be skillful about when you make an approximation and when you don't yeah yeah and exactly what the consequences of that approximation are and saying the earth is this you know if the orbit of the Earth's is a circle go and read son that's perfect which I can never have because people do know oval yeah I don't have to get them up to I don't use elliptical is the first time they know that an ovoid shape is an oval it's not much of an oval but an oval yeah I do I could do go there but if if the shape of Earth's orbit was something they never heard of and a circle comes very close to it I'm going with a circle later on yeah if they want to get deeper we can get ember and so that better so to say that I've say that is kind of it especially since oh I know where you're going it's kind of an innocent and useful approximation as opposed to one that leads you to think something to go in a direction of course yeah and then people depend on the quote experts to to lead them in the right direction given the correct perspective if not the details because the details didn't almost never mattered correct SPECT and people don't know that details don't matter in most cases yeah the other the other thing that I want to talk about in terms of technique before I actually we talked about science and government and some other things is that I know I said I know you're you're trying to engender and you do very well is all by the way you do that by not telling them that it's awesome of course yeah of course but what but it's part of its delivery okay and you knew you were and part of it is the fact that you know you delivered the way you do it then you have a Neil deGrasse Tyson delivery and and that's well I noticed that I mean it's you know and besides being louder but but no but it's almost and I want to use this word apply wait it's almost religious in the sense of saying yeah it is on and it's fine and I think we shall be advantageous for science but I guess I want to ask you uh did you go to church when you were younger yes my as a family we went to half a church catholic weekly so it wasn't he so I'm just wondering if this style is just unique to your personality or did you ever see role models who sort of had an evangelical fervor to the way they spoke that got a group of people moved as happens in in a lot of churches not in Catholic Church this is not the Baptist yeah yeah yeah no not definitely not in Catholic churches and I went to church early enough mm-hmm on in in the history of Catholicism yeah so early off when the priests faced away from the parishioners and yeah and spoke only in Latin yeah yeah during the important parts of the mass and would face you later and give a delivery but the mass is a very sort of impersonal say yeah yell to two other yeah Protestant traditions yeah yeah so so no no it was more empirical it was I'm being called to communicate because there's an eclipse or Pluto or whatever yeah I might as well try to be as good at it as I can be let me monitor their reactions as I speak and then you when I use these words or their eyebrows open yeah when I you know this may be impossible if you're autistic or on the spectrum yeah b-but I'm reading people's body language sure as I communicate with them wherever it is I'm good if it's in the street is their body Square to me or they turn slide because they really want to finish the conversation sooner and they can't just tell me that I gotta leave so so I'm monitoring this to their eyes bright and sure they come back with a question yeah yeah as I do this I'm honing methods tools and tactics to communicate as potently as I possibly can and I will add to this that in the era of Twitter mmm I have been more effective than ever before because I will post a tweet that it's not where I am and what I'm doing it's something about the universe especially a sound byte yeah and I mothers are gonna get to the fact that your sound bites lead to beautiful tweet what exactly so I look to see how people respond yeah did they laugh where I thought they should laugh yeah or laugh or something I had not intended do they misinterpret it well could I have been clearer this has honed my communication skills like no other force on my life yeah no feedback yeah I know and I want to talk to her Twitter because he you are a huge force in Twitter and Twitter's had a huge impact on you in certain ways it's a but one versus the other but it's interesting when you say this because I was talking to Ricky Gervais and we were talking about humor and I want to talk about humor too which is another facet of I think both of our we try and approach reaching people but he was pointing out as I as a Canadian yeah yeah Ricky was pointed as comedians you're doing the same thing as a scientist you're honing your act and you're watching the audience so by the time you get to see the act of Ricky's on a television show it's gone through a lot of empirical testing so that you use what works and you and you and you throw out what doesn't and I think even if it's against your you know what you thought would work yeah yeah yeah yeah no that's the best thing and that's the thing I think where scientific training helps because the great thing about science is learning to throw things out you've felt so dearly about I think that for me that's the greatest legacy of science isn't is that you're required you have a pet idea that turns out to be wrong and you have to throw it out it's probably almost the only area of human activity where not only do you have to do that it's it's it's a central part of progress and and III for me I like to say and I don't know if you've had subway to say that a central part of progress because as you're going down the road you don't even know where the road leads exactly in the way yeah and you get the bulldozer to push it off the road because it's not helping you move forward it's not and and and I don't know I'm for me I've had those experiences I always say I hope some student or every kid everyone has at some point in their life that the experience of having something that they hold very dear to them some idea proved to be wrong there's something that literacy theorists don't understand did and this you miss maybe out of left field and do you do you have an example of that where you first saw something you thought was you know what was the first thing you saw in science that really support of went against what you really thought was the way the universe was I try not to think how the universe is without actually learning how it is in the first place why's that but I'll give but I do have some examples there are things that I thought were true that later in life learned they were not true or I slightly misunderstood it yeah and that was astonishing to me it was whoa whoa yeah okay I have one for you you ready Easter mm-hmm for me I for 20 years of my life it was the first Sunday mm-hmm after the first full moon after the vernal equinox uh okay okay okay that's really that was for the first rose life that's how you define Easter what no no no that's what it's not how I define good say I'm very impressed it was my understanding of monster in the Gregorian calendar tally redefined he's yeah okay for all of the Catholic world at the time in 1582 and the Protestants were later to UM take this um this new definition anyhow turns out is not that it's the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st after me literally March 20 yes so that's the religious Luminox oh then there's the astronomical Luminox which is not which could go to the 22nd or go to the 20 yeah absolutely and right now it happens to be this happens to be in March 20th which was awkward in the year 2019 because there was a full moon on March 21st oh so Easter would have been according to my yeah definition the very next Sunday when two days later yeah yeah and but it was not and that confused me I had to call up all my expert friends said no no you're using the astronomical equinox it's the religious equinox which by definition is March 21st okay yes and and what was your reaction to learning that was it I was a little embarrassed that I would have been publicly saying okay well that decide yeah okay cuz you're a public figure but let but personally I was without a glance who have is it was fun corrected it oh yeah that's like point and and I tell people often I want to learn something new every day yeah I mean oh yeah being proved you're wrong is actually personally well for not for everybody but if is fun it the Hawks perience is essentially saying aha I never realized it was that way right and we get a kind of inner joy at that because they always said March 21st and yeah many decades that was when the equinox landed and I did not give myself the occasion to imagine yeah that even the Jesuit priest who came up with this would have anchored it to that day on the calendar and not actually chased it to the equinox because they knew enough astronomy even pre Galileo to know when the equinox what what you know what day the equinox occurred on anyhow that was the most recent and that was just yeah that's weeks ago about a subject of an Easter which I never and Passover is the first full moon is after the equinox because the Jewish calendar is really lunar base is lunar based and but you do it on the full moon don't don't I don't look at me your people your your genetic breath ancestors your genetic brethren yes yeah fact my in fact I have to say the 23andme told me that there definitely might generate okay what is it again so I know okay so so it turns out the Jewish definition of the equinox is the same as the Christian one is just March 21st oh I said okay so it is the first full moon after March 21st oh and so the way the Catholic Church said we're never gonna have these overlap because there was a risk of that happening the way it was previously defined yeah okay loosely defined as the first Sunday after the equinox okay that's the the full moon was not even in the picture okay okay and until 1582 the Julian calendar was not properly accounting for leap days yeah and so it had a leap day every four years that overcorrected the calendar we had to start taking out leap days to recorrect it and we had accumulated ten days that didn't belong there you got me started on this yeah I know I'm finished in ten seconds so I've heard that before they took out the ten days jump started the calendar October that year lost ten days which was interesting for how you gonna pay rent you have to invent sort of advertising rent schedules and so therefore and they added just for good man I could I'm gonna let you go cuz I know that ten seconds good ad it's a good rating five minutes so it's the Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st and the Passover is on the full moon and so we're good okay good they'll never be on the same day okay alright okay that's that's okay that's good to know that everybody but they almost were and that was the close this year yeah in 2019 everything lands in the religious pasta most religious possible way yeah Passover is on Thursday night as Holy Thursday Passover you have your Seder it's rumored that the lesser yeah I know that then Good Friday Jesus gets tortured and crucified why it's called good I don't know yeah one of the mysteries of the Trinity yeah and three dates you know on the third day Sunday he rose and then you get Easter that's the story yeah yeah yeah and of course they had to go through a lot to turn the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday the Sabbath was everybody sad to tell me the Christian Sabbath's they said we can't do it you can't do this with Jews Jews are bad and some took another day so they picked Sunday but if you look at the name for Saturday in the romance languages in a Sabbath Sabbath yeah I know yeah it's all it's all rooted there yeah I love I love letting you go yeah yeah yeah no and it's a funny thing yeah seventh day God rested and a sabbatical you're gonna sabbatical it's the seventh year see so any other any no we're good yeah beat that one into the ground what's next i dunno the one thing I hadn't intended to talk about was Easter Passover no it's good but as an example but you my goal is ever never to know when Easter Passover is but anyway now you know yeah I know um but the point that I was getting at was was was discovering you're wrong it's fun but it's also but I wanted to combine it with this all thing we were talking about before let's talk about something that is fascinating yeah you know in a cosmic sense oh I just want to talk about the the black hole observation which it for a second then recent one which is no doubt provoked incredible ah and wondering everybody ran off and I headlines and all the major news yeah and you probably got a million requests that I did about to talk about it some or at least to comment if I declined all requests because okay I was not in a position to answer those questions uniquely now and when I do that it forces the media to signal that in their rolodex yeah yeah and fine any physicist way any okay that was good so I was the same with the Eclipse the 2017 August Eclipse yeah I did not offer myself to be interviewed you can get community college professors local planetarium folk any number of thousands of people could be so for that what is it that makes you decide when you're a unique source is if I think I have a unique take yeah a unique take or a unique or if it needs me because no one else knows why it's interesting if everyone already knows it's interesting you don't need me my biggest my biggest contribution is helping people recognize what is mind-blowing in the world that they might not have otherwise seen yeah okay and I I think I can do that don't know and I think that's what the by the way there's a whole chapter in astrophysics for people in a hurry on the periodic table of elements for goodness sake but why it's fast and so I just riff on the periodic table of elements what you surely thought you'd never see after heist chemistry mmm and there it is in a best-selling book and so I'm I'm happy to say that that was succeeded in having people celebrate something that they always know was there but never really thought to think about it okay know that yeah I agree i think that's wonder it's always I give an example okay let me give my opinion of art I think an artist artists task is not to capture that which is evident to everyone for being extraordinary mm-hmm they should capture things that we forgot to notice or never noticed at all and let's take music for example there's obviously there's some important exceptions to this yeah yeah holding aside the fact that Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture was panned when it first was written yeah it's a highly celebrated thing for a big event oh yeah fine but have you ever heard Beethoven's wellington victory it's one of the worst pieces of music I've ever heard in my life you've never heard it no I've never heard yeah sort of labeling okay well it defeats the poll yeah yeah yeah you go to your greatest composer of the day and say and give me something to commemorate this and I'm saying what is this what have you done here you've you've wasted might there might be some Wellington victory fans out there for the piece of music but I bet you if you speak for two music scholars it would be very low on the in the portfolio of Beethoven compositions yeah that's one of many examples I can give let's go to poetry okay um who is Paul Revere who is it you mean the who is it yeah well he's he's famous in American history that Paul Revere for for his for his ride and which he which he brought in any war silversmith it has ever been a computer computer I have who knows in any war that has ever been fought the name of the person who told everybody the enemy is coming yeah you had you know that name of that person in any war that has ever been fought no no no you know Paul Revere why because a poet wrote a poem about yet okay he took a nighttime ride can you name generals from the from that war other than General Washington no though you can't but you named Paul Revere I can name the British ones because I grew up in Canada okay so the poet now I don't know if the midnight ride of Paul Revere is considered high poetry yeah but it's memorable poets yeah okay ah how about Joyce Carol I mean Joyce Kilmer Joyce Kilmer mm-hmm what's your most famous poem it's about a tree okay a tree is it about some famous event some general so down some so no it's about a tree and you read that poem you never look at a tree the same way again and you've been walking by him every day or you're less so up so you're right but that's the look I think those everywhere that's what I'm saying my my what I I see one of my tasks is to help people celebrate things about the world about the universe about laws of physics that they either take for granted or never knew were there and they walk away from it having a new appreciation of their world well look Anna and that's that's a metric again it's okay I'm making a scream at you home all the time and I love it I know you mean well but no but III guess I uh I think of it the same way but I think of it I put it slightly differently so which is that it's great that you gave poetry art and music as examples cuz I always point out one of my books on my wall here is I know I okay then go that riff and my and my and I did it and you're vented Phoenix let your venom where a story yeah I go story like t-shirt good I you did as fifties first this painting is it of a battle yes it of a famous no it is one of the most famous paintings in the world in part somebody wrote a song about it it's called starry starry night yeah yeah it's in part big part I think it was full in part well wasn't until it got more famous that the Museum of Modern Art is here in New York City yeah put it on a more visible wall yeah it used to be around the corner in the back in a room that was not centered I remember this okay and then they put a fancier frame they're responding to the public's reaction as the popularity of an NGO has risen because mango has been written about in movies and pop culture and so it's because the poet the artist took ownership of vengo I don't think he did he portrayed any famous anything yeah he he did sunflowers but it's okay I think I'm a little more jest about portraying famous things in the sense that or things that people think are or any extraordinary and the famous one right but I know I'm famous no George Washington okay what's the most famous one it don't cross the it him in battle yeah is it him punching somebody help him stand in there in a freaking boat okay yeah Crossing the Delaware okay a completely unmanned both Inge but rendered memorable by the creativity of an artist yeah absolutely and so I got artist you what you've demonstrated there was that what I think is why if you ask me what what my sort of overriding goal is in that sense is to demonstrate that science is part of our culture that science art music and literature are the same thing and the way I put it and maybe a less poetic or soundbite way maybe maybe not is that the I view the goal of science or that one of the beauties of science and the reason it's the same as art music and literature is each of them forces us to reassess our place in the cosmos stories see how we fit in to the universe at good poem a good piece of music a good piece of art forces you to reassess what you always thought the universe was all about or your personal universe if it's a story about something you can resonate to and science does that very well and that's why we have to celebrate it not because science has the misfortune of also producing technology so people well I don't know if people come up to you because astronomy isn't practical and that people come up to me I'll say I mean what's the use of this because they're trained to think that science produces useful things lights motors engines it's changed our life we're here because of Medicine but you know Picasso or that didn't produce something that that you know allowed you to live longer so never even ever say what's the use of a van Gogh painting because they don't know what has that technology science does so unfortunately people think science is only useful because of its technology but I think you and I would agree that the real virtue of science is exactly that is to inspire us to re reassess ourselves but on the other end I would disagree I would say it's ok to portray things that people already think is extraordinary if they if you reveal new facets of it rainbows are something people are fascinated by but Fineman were did a big riff once about how knowing how a rainbow works doesn't make it less beautiful it makes it more beautiful I have the the New York Times from January 20 from June 21st 1969 okay and it covers the moon landing that took place on June 20th yeah there's an entire pull out section where poets and writers are waxing about in this event mm-hmm and is the most boring yeah yeah yeah tracks of literature I we have reached out to touch the sky and we Pierce the image of our ignorance that we have we have opened a new it's like do I need the poet to make me excited about landing on the moon mm-hmm no the event is sufficient enough to trigger whatever emotion I need in me I don't need the artists for them yeah okay the bother none of those poems survive to this day dig them up it's like you can't even read them i sir say I'm being very opinionated here I'm not normally opinionated well I'm glad well that's the bottom line is there things that are fascinating intrinsically but if but it's always possible to add something new and interesting to those things of course and and so the fact that it already is wonderful there are things that you've commented on that people have found fascinating where you think you have a new take but it's not you don't do it rainbows among them yeah exactly I tweeted once yeah the people didn't know I said everyone sees their own rainbow I mean because it's where you're standing every rainbow is unique to every person who sees it and that's why every rainbow is exactly sideways to you you've never seen a rainbow John yeah quite a proportional angle and and and if you approach a rainbow it stays that distance from you yeah so this is why you can never get a product that potable is a good place to put the pot of gold it's a yeah it's good places say it's there because you know someone can ever portray right now excellent ok I want it there's a few more before we get to last night I want to talk about space at some point because I know we've had interesting discussion about the relative space space explorations two things run tear yeah the next frontier I like that okay but I do want to talk about humor a little bit because that that helps in my I mean it's integral to my own approach just because I like jokes but I I know it is for you too and I think you have a I'm reasonably certain you have a thought process for why you and why you want to include humor in your discussions of science so maybe you could talk about that a little bit well a couple of fun of me becoming a good joke sure a couple of fundamental facts I thought that that when people are happy they're more they come back for more mmm-hmm so you get the repeat visitor yeah that's one fact another fact I found that people if they're happy they're more willing to learn it's related to becoming a researcher more willing to stay mmm-hmm and and not run away but not only that I think people like having fun yeah more than they like not having fun yeah I think that think that's a empirically drive these facts so even though while you're in college you attend lectures the word lecture is a bad word for all of your life after college yeah you don't lecture me on this yeah yeah you know why are you lecturing me stop lecturing me all of a sudden lecture is a bad word when that was the fundamental thing of what's going on in college so the implication is the lectures don't contain humor and if there was the lectures that did you remember that class and you enjoyed it and you're on time every day yeah the format of my star talk radio program is I my co-host is always a professional stand-up comedian yeah yeah they bring a source of levity to the conversations and the academic expert that I bring in if it's not myself depending on the topic the bring a source of gravity to the conversation see how the levity in the gravity and I I have a valve that vents or does not one or both of those at any given moment to make sure we hit a consistent delivery of content and fun I tried to do it I tried to violate that when I was on Star Trek I tried to be a source of levity as well as gravity yeah so I also think the universe is particularly hilarious yeah so I don't actually tell jokes yeah I just find talk about things in ways that the context can be humorous and make you smile mm-hmm one of the reasons I chose humor is it is it opens people up it it removes barriers and I heard someone say that anyone told em you told them and I thought it was is a different way of framing and I thought was a nice thing I was is that is that you can't laugh and be afraid at the same time that that that sort of humor removes the fear mm-hmm which i think is a really thing i said that but someone i they probably heard it on a star talk cuz i've interviewed some key oh you know did it you know said that was a stephen colbert okay sitting and sitting in this chair interviewing him okay yeah yeah no it's but it is and and and point is to this what they associate me with it because I was in the program on the program yes but I think that for me that's the point I mean science not not because it intrinsically is but largely partly because the educational system that you talked about where people try and steer people away if they can and especially if they're stereotyping them mm-hmm but people have this impedance bearer this this fear this wall that science is something to be afraid of and so if it's funny then it doesn't then at least you've tried to tear that down that wall a little bit for me that's part of the reason also because I you know I do find the universe absurd and I think interesting Gail Collins was saying that that to try and write something that people who want to kill themselves you don't want to it can be depressing but it's more fun if it's absurd mm-hmm and and and and so it's I that's how and why I titled my one of my books death by black holes okay yeah I'm an acid about that is that would that be your favorite way of dying oh it's me my preferred way and favorite is probably not the right yeah yeah if I'd rather if the choice get hit by bus withering away on a deathbed or falling to a black hole and being able to report to others right till the last moment where I can't yeah then I be part of an experiment I would totally do that you'd rather be part of the experience oh yeah yeah although Fineman said you know when he was he he did that when he was dying he said I'm gonna you know basically report the experience and he said was very boring no really he thought you know he would take he would of course did indeed died of cancer unfortunately but but he he was as he did everything his life it was sort of I want to be clear like you say unfortunately not specifically because he died of cancer but he died younger than he otherwise would yeah yeah well both ways I mean it's so you know you're right younger people die so people die it happens unfortunately he died yeah it's he died sooner yeah it's not and in my case it was personal I he died before I got to tell him something else that I'd meant to tell him and I was really sad that I never which is why I've I've at because are you telling me everything that's on your mind about me that's exactly why that's not exactly a reason but but it's probably I don't know I mean if I Manhattan impact me that maybe that's a can had on you and and it's why I've told people that if they want to if they shouldn't go back if they want to relate to someone it's a good idea to do it when you have the opportunity rather than later on because you often regret it and and let me let me then there's two there's one last thing I want to ask you twit Twitter has been a huge part you you were one of the earliest as far as I know kind of a top not earliest in the Twitterverse but earliest to use it as an educational platform I would say because the early users we're all I'm having a hamburger now I'm crossing apartment to see this movie yeah yeah yeah it's more a storytelling of your life rather than as a tool yeah so I may have been certainly was in my own field I don't know about other educational but you use it but I was intrigued when you say use it empirically because when you talk to an audience you can use it empirically or talk to people you can see if their eyes are glazing over what else but one of the only problems I can see with Twitter and maybe this is adjusted I'm wondering how you've adjusted your Twitter twittering from being just wonderful sound bytes to get people thinking to maybe something else is that it seems to be a medium that unfortunately does encourage negativity in response more than almost any other medium I know and I wonder how you respond to that it encourages negativity when you say something that someone else doesn't agree with if you express an opinion there will be people who have a different opinion and we live in a world where if you're not going to talk about the opinion you'll be attacked for your opinion yeah that is what's changed in this world yeah and I knew that early on in Twitter so I said I will never present an opinion okay and so the negativity lands on hollow ground and others who read a negative comment let's not what he said okay yeah no he knows that aren't you I agree but aren't you surprised I mean or are you surprised and this to disappoint you that you write something or you know or I read something about science which is wonderful and people say oh yeah but yeah but I hate you for this or I or oh yeah but something you know they'll find some reason to dislike and you're right no they're just like that on that level they're just trolls you just yeah schema but I but it's interesting that that medium encouraged it seems to sum up everywhere shows have been maybe not on reddit before yeah Witter even existed trolls and they're just a part of life well unlike a stand-up comic I found for example that trolls are rarely at public events I mean you know no seriously I mean well it's rare that I that we've done a ball a lot of public events together it's rare its efforts every now and then but it's rare that someone makes an effort to try and sort of a confront you as they might a comic have you found that um sure but again I'm less confront about if I'm not always trying to tell you what your opinion should be or who you should vote for or what politician you should love or hate I just don't do that I give you information that you okay well let us into your worldview and then make your own opinion okay let's end asking you some opinions okay sure okay um specifically I don't care that other people know my opinions I just don't care no that's fine because they're my opinions no no I what and nor do I want people to adopt my opinion because they like me yeah yeah absolutely I want them to make their own opinion because I think because I know as an educator I have fed them tools to shape opinions of their own that would be informed ideally that are thought through ideally that way we have a more and more a more powerful democracy of course in fact it's the essential part of in democracy unless you have an informed public you can't possibly and ultimately informed one major informed electorate yeah yeah yeah formed electorate yes and a no and form legislatures at some level and if the public is informed in principle they wouldn't vote first why should legislate electro yeah let's talk about opinions not informed opinions about space because we've had these discussions and I don't think people really you know people think we somehow are angry about it partly because you let you like to yell at me but it's relevant now because we are in principle it seems to me at the truth the cost of something that you pointed out very eloquently when we've had debates about human explorations of space and you pointed out when I said once you jumped on me I remember once that I was saying you know human exploration of space has not you know is not best waiting science and you jumped in said but Lord sits never had to do with science it was always geopolitical and you talked about the moon landing as a geopolitical Enterprise so so we were in violent agreement with each other yeah I was just noting that you implied by your comment yeah that it once did yeah now it doesn't know but the interesting question I have now is we're a tweets we're almost in the cost of that now in terms of we saw mister pins talk about the United States trying to go back to the moon in five years it seems to me practically unlikely that that may happen but well there's a reason for it because we're seeing India and China it's going back to the moon has become once again a mark of national prestige and national eminence and I wanted to wanted to get your reflection on weather so I worry that a lot of the money is gonna be diverted to that enterprise that could be spent on other aspects of space exploration which I find more fascinating and I wanted to get your take on that it's not about prestige or eminence you can get that but it's never been about that it's been about power so power now okay prestigious design yeah power and without power can come prestige anemone yeah yang but it's but what drives it is power what kind of power military military military power cord or soft power works as well in the interest of your military ambition mission statement so soft power is you come to Rome and you see they built the Colosseum mm-hmm and you say oh my gosh who are these people who did this so soft power being the technology the demonstration of demonstration of what you can do of the exactly that was the demonstrating that way is you don't [ __ ] with us yeah okay all right it's it's a it's it's in the subtext of what the what the demonstrated power so let's put the current okay let's put their current what's going on in perspective and and where would you like to see it go where do you think it's gonna go and yeah both those yeah so the motivation meant relations and motivation to do so is yet India but it's also China yeah yeah sure yeah so primarily China yeah I think so China says they're gonna do something they do it yeah you know yeah it's amazing just do it yeah because they have the power over industry and money well they have allocations they have a dictatorship yeah yeah yeah so it's something that a democracy can only do once everybody agrees and if we live in a fundamentally disagree I'm not sure everyone you could win the PIA anyway what do I mean well democracy does things not when everyone agrees but when you convince enough people who are there are tipping points yeah where are enough people agree where it might as well be everyone in Korea okay because all votes then go in that direction yeah and you're done yeah right so so it's how we could get into the second world war as thoroughly as we did yeah it's how we can found NASA as quickly as we did on that on your birthday right the day before David here in a day before me but I heard someone from someone was telling me that I don't know I didn't know that okay oh sorry I'm sorry I did say that right NASA was founded the same week I was born Sputnik was a year in a day before NASA was founded the same week you the same week right okay and you've had you've been involved in NASA and advisory panels yeah when celebrate that so you have an experiential relationship with NASA as well and so NASA so NASA's good also in public and that matters here yeah yeah NASA is not some isolated age yeah it more than any other it's it's sort of play rec plays to the public correct it really does play much more efficiently the public than National Science Foundation or why people think NASA's budget is way bigger than it actually is because I wanted to start a movement where all agencies get paid what people think that yeah yeah no no I was once a Department of Energy once put together a group that I was on how can we be as effective as NASA in terms of trying to promote what we you know we're trying to do which sound asks is done it effectively but now we're gonna spend a lot of money and there's a lot of neat projects and you know that I have a huge love of Michelle of nonhumans exploring the universe I find it not just from scientific they will actually find it more romantic I find Rovers on Mars more romantic than a human where are Mars personally but why didn't a well then had we not sent people to the moon would you have been as enchanted by science I was younger then what I'm saying is there was a rover on the moon at the time yeah yeah yeah no one knew because we were sending people to the moon yeah you can say all you want about how good robots are you put a person in any place a robot is the robot is chopped liver relative to the interest and energy that would be invested in following and tracking the human beings who are the Rovers and why do you think we are humans well maybe I am a B no we are okay but at this base well some of us but I would also argue this because humans can die when a robot when the rover dies is just not as interesting I know I sound very cynical about that but I think we are we find astronauts exciting because they're there they're confronting death they're brave they're there they're going boldly going where no one's done before but there's a reason no one's gonna I don't have an argument with that but let me enhance it okay by whatever genetic encoding the human species has endured over the millennia tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of years one thing is for sure if somebody leaves the tribe and goes over the horizon mm-hmm and comes back you want to know what they saw what takes you want to know everything every story they can possibly tell and that has been the stuff of Legends ever since we've been able to communicate with each other with one another and so so these are the voyages of Odysseus these are voyages that are and then you come back and you tell your story yeah statues are built to those people I've yet to see a statue built to a robot well so you should not deny humans the value of the story that another human brings back to us yeah yeah and can then tell ya know I think that that's a beaut I'm taking my cue from the history of this exercise in our species yeah I suspect in the future robots will be able to tell stories and people will find in fact they may be better at it but that's a wonderful way to end this discussion because one of the reasons why I wanted to hear your stories is you have gone over the horizon in in in in communication and understand and discussion and I wanted you to come back and tell me your stories and as always in spite of the yelling I find it fast I think you can agree cuz you've been in this you have you you've been on tour with you made a movie this sort of thing I am astonished every morning I look wake up and look at how many people follow me on Twitter hmm I feel like reminding them at least once a week you realize you're following an astrophysicist yeah it's still time to go out I'm astonished that I can show up in a theater and have it on a Thursday night date night yeah and have a full house and people coming just to hear about science I'd like to think however delusional this is that given all the challenges that scientists and scientific ideas confront in modern culture mmm-hmm that there's a groundswell of people if they're not scientifically literate they want to be yeah there is and they value all of the efforts that scientists have put in to write books to make youtube videos to testify in court which I've never done you've been there yeah and I tell you anytime I see you you're one of our Bulldogs you go in there fight in that fight in the trenches and what anytime science confronts religion in na in the school classroom for example that these are important frontiers so but I'd like to think that we are transitioning from US culture and a society that didn't care about science or didn't know how how and why science mattered to a culture this certainly this next generation 30 and under yeah to who who are ready to say an understanding of science is the difference between a future where I'm alive in a future where my descendants are dead i I certainly I certainly hope that I think I'm maybe more optimistic I think people always been fascinated in science producers didn't understand that people are fascinated by science and I'm just really happy that they're people like you who for whatever accidents of history or in a talent have been able to convince the public and to some extent producers that there's that that need that desire and that the end product can be so good so thank you Neil the origins podcast is produced by Lawrence Krauss Nancy doll Amelia Huggins John and Don Edwards and Rob's EPS directed and edited by Gus and Luke Horta audio by Thomas a misen web design by Redman Media Lab animation by tomahawk visual effects and music by Rick Alice to see the full video of this podcast as well as other bonus content visit us at patreon.com slash origins podcast

Channel: The Origins Podcast

Views: 221,579

Rating: 4.8516493 out of 5

Keywords: neil degrasse tyson podcast, neil de grasse tyson, joe rogan neil degrasse tyson, neil tyson degrasse, neil tyson, degrasse tyson, neil degrasse, neil degrasse tyson, The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss, Lawrence Krauss, Podcast, The Origins Podcast, Video Podcast, The Origins Project, Science, Culture, Physicist, Physics

Id: N2qjse4a6s0

Length: 102min 51sec (6171 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019