Professor Brian Cox: How To Find Your Place In The Universe

I think they expected to have this this nice bloke off the Telly you're just going to go it's great the stars are nice aren't they Robin in my friend is a great yeah look at that shiny light in the sky know that's it that's me right shiny nice big smile Brian welcome to high performance thank you pleasure to be here to see you again after we talk about our history I first met you in 2000 right yeah together 20 odd years ago um and I was a sort of Starting Out Sports presenter and I think it was probably your first was it your first job on the Telly yeah yeah so we both learned you can assess how well we did now this please don't because one of us has gone on to Global stardom the other one's still living in Norwich um we always start this podcast with the question what is high performance I think for me I mean I've had three careers really you know I started out actually music probably talk about then went into Academia which I still do and then the television radio live shows but I think across all of them I think it's doing a good job finding the way to do a good job and and for me I find its attention to detail I found that in any all those professions uh nothing is easy it requires practice and it requires attention to detail and it requires you to also I think for me take responsibility for getting it right and so those are the without rambling on for 50 minutes that that would be my definition well let's dive into a few of those then we'll start with the first one you mentioned which is kind of getting good at something there's that great phrase isn't there how good you're willing to be at something depends how long you're happy to be bad for yeah that make sense to you absolutely and I think it's about practice isn't it I I often say because I said I think it was one of the first times I'd been on any chat show I think Jonathan Ross I just started to get well known and and I said you know with my exam results I got I did well in physics but I got a D in maths and then everyone was surprised you got a D in maths and and it's because I didn't practice hard enough and and I I said at the time and I strongly believe it's true that very few people are naturally great at something I'm certainly not and I suspect most people you've had on this podcast you know there the odd Moes out or messy or something like that but most people I think have a maybe a bit of an aptitude for something but it's mainly about practice and I found that with maths definitely uh I found it with music and I found it with making TV programs as well so do you remember when you first understood that probably when I got a D M actually I mean honestly it was was it unexpected well I I mean I had actually I I joined a band beforehand so I didn't think I was actually going to need it it was a level and I didn't think I was going to go that route I thought it was going to be a musician so I'd sort of slightly lost interest but um I think it probably was I I noticed that although I've been okay at school you know I could do things and and I could do physics I think that was the first time where I realized that you actually have to put work in in most if not all the things that you do in order to get to a really high standard or high enough standard now I can I've heard you interviewed before Brian where you've said that that kind of message I imagine was being drummed into you by your parents and now you're the father of a 14 yearold son how do you get kids to understand that that you've got to put the effort in to get good at it without having to go through that bitter experience of getting a day I'm not sure if you can I mean I my experience is that you're you're if you're lucky your kids will find something they like doing actually with my son is playing guitar so he he he the moment he started playing guitar he he's been practicing over and over again he picks it up and he practices and he's getting good at it and so he's but that wasn't me you know I think you know most parents will say you can't you can't force your children to be interested in something it just doesn't work right I very rarely but you can hopefully give them the encouragement when they find the thing that they're interested in and and I hope then that he's learning a more General lesson which is actually you the the more you practice and the more work you put in the more enjoyable it is the more you enjoy it the better you get at it the more you enjoy it and there's a virtuous circle and and that I I really think that applies to virtually everything that we do in life but I think you have to find it yourself and I'm so pleased you've mentioned luck because people very rarely talk about it particularly successful people they very rarely say well I kind of got lucky and we're very aware on this podcast of survivorship bias successful people telling everyone else how they've done it thinking that it's easy because it it was easy for them yeah but there is I'd love to find out a bit more about your relationship with luck but also the fact that you clearly understood from a young age luck was there but without the hard work then that luck was eventually going to run out yeah that's if I've got one tip and as you said it's so boring to listen to people who've been lucky describe how that it wasn't look it it was all my doing and you're absolutely right it's for me it's about opportunities if you if you're fortunate and I suppose you could argue you can try and put yourself in the right position and things like that but Bas broadly speaking if you're lucky then you'll get a few opportunities and then it's having that I think that knowing that you can't you're not just going to sail through then you you've actually got to do the work to try and seize that opportunity sometimes it'll go wrong and sometimes it won't but that that's what I would say that's that's what I've learned CU partly because I've had so at least three different careers so I've been through it really three times thinking how do I I've been lucky how and I want to do this so what do I have to do now could you explain your process then to people of how you go from that moment where you make a decision that you're going to change career maybe to working out how you're going to not just be okay at it but be great at it or be successful at it what what do you go through yeah I mean with the caveat that you can never I don't think you can plan to be great and successful can you but you try you can plan to do your best you try and have a go give it a go and uh with a good example I think for me was with physics so I've been in music so I was 23 years old I think when I went back to University and of course I was behind those people the mo most of the people in my year were 18 and they just come through a levels and they'd done probably better than me in the exams initially cuz they' all got better grades but also they were fresh and they'd just come out of school and I'd had five years being in a rock band so I realized that I had to work really hard particularly maths which I didn't have a and don't have a a natural aptitude for if indeed anyone does right so so so I I think the key thing for me is I realized and I still think it's very important that I had to take responsibility for my own success or failure right so and it it really matters in Academia every level you ultimately you know and I say this I teach right the University of Manchester and I say it to the first years you actually know you don't need to do an exam to know whether you understand something actually you know in your deep down you know whether you understand something or not and if you don't then go and understand it and and and you know we the lecturers everyone that teachers whoever it is we're here to help you come but it but it probably in my case usually if I don't get something it comes from reading about three different textbooks and sitting there and thinking and sometimes it can take a couple of days and sometime it can take weeks eight months sometimes I never understand it right but it's it's going through that for me it's really important to take responsibility for your own in this case understanding something being able to understand some bit of physics but it could be you know running fast it could be playing football well it could be playing the keyboards well ultimately I I don't think anyone can teach you to be great to not just be great but to be to be whatever level you want to be I think you can be helped by being taught but I really think you have to take responsibility for it because just to say people got different rates I mean I've you know I've worked with some brilliant physicists I've been really lucky to and and quite often you'll meet someone who's brilliant who just doesn't get something his concept and you go why not and it can take them weeks to get it that I could get in 10 seconds but then the flip side is also true I'll be go I just don't get that and they what do you mean you don't it's obvious but will you explain to us then about the courage to ask what might be the obvious question or to expose an ignorance because I think that can often get in the way of people people's learning because they don't want to look silly or they think they should know something that they don't yeah maybe that's what I mean by take responsibility because that sounds a bit harsh doesn't it but you're right it's it's it's being understanding that it's true for everyone that no matter how brilliant you think they are that that they there will have been times when they just couldn't do something they just didn't get it they couldn't play that chord sequence smoothly on the piano or whatever it is that and so and so it's about you're right it's about not being ashamed because everyone's like that just to say I don't get it I just don't get it and and there's two there's two steps there actually isn't there's being honest with yourself that you don't get it it's pretty easy to kid yourself going yeah no it's all right I I'll be able to do that you know and and you can so you've got to you've got to say in in in physics for example you've got to say do I really understand that concept and very often you find that you don't you find it when you teach actually when you when you become a lecturer or a professor and you give a lecture course it's always the case even if it's to the first year the first term that what you might be the simplest bit of physics that you do in a degree you will always find when you try to give that lecture course there's something in there that you go actually no I didn't I don't get that I didn't understand it did I I went through all these years and I just didn't get it so you've got to be really honest and then then you've got to persevere I find anyway you've got to then keep going because you will ultimately if you keep going at something you'll get it you but it might take you six months yeah but so you've got to have that perseverance then and what about your learning style because you've spoken around you you never had formal music lessons but you taught yourself to play you've then said when you go to university you having to ask questions of mentors and lecturers what have you learned about the best way that you learn that you could pass on to our listeners I for me it is keeping going at whatever it is until I can either understand it or do it you know and you know sometimes you won't be able to I mean if I if I try to just recently actually I I um discovered a brilliant recording by Keith Jarett who's one of the great piano players of all time of somewhere over the rainbow and he's done it several times actually he does it live quite a lot and the best one I think is on a album called a Scala and I had a huge argument with a friend of mine about which was the best performance he ever did of that but and I thought I'm going to I I want to know what he did because it sounds pretty simple and melodic actually and I no way right there's no way I'm G to play it like Keith jera plays it and you've tried I've tried and I'll keep going you've done the effort thing that you'd normally do and I keep going but but it's just actually he's one of the great jazz piano players of all time so you know you will reach your limit at some point and I could go for probably 30 years trying to play that like Keith chrot but I still I still wanted to roughly speaking work out what he was up to right so and spent I'm still spending quite a long time trying to work out what he was up to there's there's another interesting element to this though isn't there which is passion and I remember when we worked together you know all those 20 OD years ago watching you talk about things you're now famous for talking about thinking this guy just has such a passion for it which I think is why people can relate to you and the way you speak so we can talk about that later as well but I think the reason why passion is so necessary is I think it keeps you coming back for more but it also means that if you don't get to the point where you can play a piece of music like someone else or kick a football like a famous footballer it kind of doesn't matter because you still love it I'd love to get your thoughts on the importance of passion when it comes to high performance yeah I mean you I don't think you'll ever get good at something that you're not passionate about um you know I'm sure that's probably true actually so and and and I think as we said earlier about kids the the the thing that you're passionate about is is completely unpredictable isn't it I think you you get for some reason I got excited about stars do you know why I know I have no idea really it's just always as far back as I can remember I've liked space whatever it is Apollo program Stars anything right about space I've liked and that's just one of those things that must have captured my imagination when I was little I don't remember why um and so I suppose well you're right then but when you go into the television business that we're in um then having the as is it confidence what is it to just displaying your passion just saying well it's I'm not I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be professional I'm not going to try and break these things down and and try and deliver in any way that you would be taught to deliver things as a as a television presenter in that I'm just going to say how I see it this is what I find exciting about that and so I'll just talk about that that's what I've always done that because I don't really see any other way to do it partly actually probably because I've never seen myself I've never been interested in being a television presenter or or seen myself as as having that as a job I've always seen myself as a a a physicist who would again look was fortunate enough to get offered a few of these television programs what's the passion there then is it sharing with other people what you know is it seeing other people get interested and excited I think I know you well enough to know it isn't for the social media follows on the autographs right and the upgrades in restaurants and hotels that's not what it's about is it they're nice you've not denied that R you a lot from all them I mean I could I you know the serious answer is so I grew up what one of the things I grew up watching was was one of the people was KL Sean who I don't if anyone's old enough will remember I think KL Sean's Cosmos and it was on the BBC 13 episodes 13 weeks and there's very little science on television at that point three channels or something I think at the time but Cosmos was on and Sean presented astronomy and he talked about astronomy in the solar system and the universe but he put it in a context the context of our civilization and and he he was explicit that this way of thinking this way of interrogating nature trying to understand the natural world is vital for our survival as a species it's it's Central to the it's one of the one of the necessary foundations of civilization so it was a polemic and um so I gen genuinely think that science has the the thought process the things we discover and that way of thinking about the world acquiring reliable knowledge about the world is the way we do it that's important so I do have a a an agenda when when I I talk about science on television or or live shows or whatever it is because I think that it's important so so there is a there's an underlying feeling there that I have that the these I said once actually someone asked me once what why do you want to present a program on bbc1 for example about astronomy and I said I think science is too important not to be part of popular culture yeah so I really believe that so if if you believe it and you get a chance look again you get the chance the platform to do it then it would be ridiculous not to try and take that right I do think that scientists if they want to and get the chance have in some sense a responsibility to talk about it because you know I mean and there are obvious things we could talk about one topically actually is Oppenheimer so I don't know if anyone seen the film I think it's a masterpiece offenheim and I was interested in offen Heimer I got interested in him as a character quite a long time ago because I I discovered that he gave the BBC wreath lectures in 1953 and they've they've almost been obliterated from history because they're really hard and so we don't tend to think of it but in those lectures when I found them I saw this this scientist who' obviously famously played a role in developing the atomic bomb so in delivering the means by which we might destroy ourselves as a civilization and he obviously knew that and it tortured him so so that what that made him do was think about how we might avoid doing that y right so so he started thinking about politics and society and civilization and and and are there any lessons from this tremendously successful um approach to require acquiring reliable knowledge which we call science are there any lessons that we could apply in wider Society certainly wasn't saying that scientists should run the world right he he clearly decided that was a bad idea but but and and some of those lessons you might call them transferable skills which perhaps goes back to the heart of what we're talking about uh are important I think and one of them is not kidding yourself not not deluding yourself into thinking that you understand something not not so so really understanding that the world is very complicated Y and there are many ways of that it's difficult to understand a black hole right a collapsing star but it's also difficult to understand how to run a society really tricky so there aren't simple answers that there were and from we could talk I'll stop talking about that but I could talk about it forever but it's that that I think is always when I got the opportunity to talk about science in my mind that I enjoy talking about it I think it's wonderful I get excited about talking about these big ideas but also in my mind there was also the things that Heimer and Sean Richard fman and other of my heroes had also said which is that there should be there is a responsibility to talk about this way of thinking and the things we've discovered which leads us into one of the areas that I think you're masterful at if you want if you don't mind me saying is overcoming a common trait that you see with lots of intelligent people the curse of knowledge that you know an awful lot but your ability to translate that knowledge and make it accessible to seven-year-old children or to a mass audience on the BBC is it is a unique skill set in itself and I'm interested in exploring how do you go about being able to communicate these complex difficult ideas in a way that people can understand and start to get to grips with you know in part it's about that we talked earlier about honesty being honest with yourself about how difficult it is to understand some of these Concepts so if you've been through the process and I find this I'm quite slow quite often I just I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand oh yeah that's it then what I do in usually is just talk about the way that I understand something and it's quite often the way that a seven-year-old would understand something because because you've been I find anyway if if you're honest with yourself then if you really do understand if you really deeply get something you've been through that process so you've seen how difficult it is and it's almost always difficult right so so you're not going to you're not going to wave your hands around and obfuscate and say when you see someone doing that and you see it at University you know I see I saw it with people who taught me you can tell when they don't really understand something because they fall back on jargon and so wave their hands around and go and usually that's because they don't they've not been through that process and they're just they're sort not tricking you you know but they it's probably that they're tricking themselves into thinking comfortable saying I don't know I don't the basis of science it's fundamental me Richard fan we mentioned you know so fan Nobel prize winning physicist also worked on a Manhattan Project actually one of the greats great teacher as well and he called science a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance right and it's a really deep Point actually because he meant that all knowledge starts from you one the individual accepting that they don't know you start with I don't know how that works I don't know why the sky is blue I don't know why the leaves are green I don't know why the universe is the way that it is and and that's the you have to start from that point and then you build you try to build a reliable picture some model of the world in your mind but being a scientist of course it's about doing research and and that means that you're going to the edge of knowledge always and being extremely comfortable standing on the edge of the known the dividing line between the known and the unknown and trying to find out a bit more so you you have to be delighted to not know that's and excited about it to go back to what you said passionate about not knowing in order to make any progress and so and I think that's a skill it's about it's about jettisoning any fear of the unknown isn't it and I think a lot of time we get into a lot of arguments you as a society about things that are pretty unknowable well unknowable at the moment we don't know so even basic things like did the universe have a beginning right and we know that the Universe was very hot and dense 13.8 billion years ago we that's good we call that the Big Bang but whether that was a beginning in time whether the universe existed in some form before that what it means to talk about the beginning of time time we don't even know what time is right we don't know we've got some sense by the way that it might be built of smaller things but we can leave that alone so but but the thing is that it's key isn't it because a lot of people talk with great confidence about what how you know I know how the universe began I know why the universe began the answer is how can you nobody knows we don't know yet and that's interesting and exciting yeah if you can sit here and say I don't know then that's great for everyone yeah and if you think about it so we do accept in certain professions that it's good to good to be to to know what you're doing like for example flying a plane yeah so being an airline Captain doing an operation a surgeon the the designer of a nuclear reactor you know there there are things where knowledge you know and experience are valued but you're right it it it the I suppose it's if you look at how how our knowledge and I used the term before reliable knowledge how that knowledge was acquired it was acquired by people starting from the basis they didn't understand and then the moment this is critical in science the moment that some new data appears some new evidence some new observation comes in that conflicts with your picture of the world then you start to be interested you start to be excited you well if I'm wrong with my picture then I'm delighted because I've learned something I can rule that picture out and then I can go on to a new picture so you you have to be delighted when you're shown to be wrong because you've learned something and that of course that that does apply I mean that's how we have reliable airline flights that that's what pilots do the airline industry knows this when someone makes a mistake from fail a mistake is is analyzed and in detail you're not supposed to you know point the finger and in those Industries you're supposed to find out how not to do it again it's like building a bridge right you don't there are certain things usually engineering or you know surge medical procedures as you say where it's all about the the success is about acquiring knowledge about doing it better next time it's not about everybody thinking that you were right that's and and that we should just apply that it's pretty obvious really when you think about it isn't it well it is in terms of the outcome but you've like you've mentioned a few things there that have sort of resonated with me Brian that I think had be helpful just to onep pick for anyone listening to this because we all want the best outcome we can whe whether that's improved knowledge or of of any topic but I'm interested in the ingredients that go into creating an environment or a culture where that can be embra brace where people don't see it as fearful to be challenged and I'm interested is what would you see are the most key ingredients to do that I think I mean I think it's pretty simple it's it's it's it's not uh it's it's almost it's almost rewarding people for being wrong but you know the sense in which I mean that it's it's saying that it is part of the process of making this better is is for you to recognize when you're wrong uh find it a positive experience and learn science in schools um doing experimental science in schools is really important it's not that you need to know about swinging a pendulum or you know the what the speed of light is or anything like that that you don't need to know that stuff but you need to know how to acquire reliable Knowledge from nature because that's the same process as acquiring reliable Knowledge from that observing how a policy works or trying to run a country it's the same process but it's easy to learn when you boil it down and say right I'm going to just swing this pendulum around and see how long it takes to swing and then put some more weight on it and swing it again that that's how you learn those important skills so we need to be better at asking questions rather than answering questions yeah I think yeah we have to be less confident in our answers and better asking let's take your world for example right how how much do you think we don't know about what's around us I mean we we we know almost we we know a lot but then almost nothing as well simultaneously so you know as I said we're it's interesting there a few stories the other week for example about the new Space Telescope the James Webb Space Telescope so this is the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope it was designed to see farther out into the universe than ever before and looking far out into the universe means you're looking back in time because for example the the most distant thing you can see is the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye you can just about see it on a dark night mayd you knowwhere to look you can see it with binoculars and it's a wonderful thing to do so I'd recommend anyone who's listening or watching go just find it you'll see it in the sky tonight if it's clear it'll be there what you'll see it's kind of a if you know like it's a misty patch in the sky it's actually quite big it's almost it's a reasonable fraction of the size of of a full moon in the sky um but it's very faint but if you there's a there's a constellation called copia which is kind of a w shape and it's close to that what should people search for on the internet to try and find what the best way is with the app the other phone apps so you can get those phone apps which are free most of them Star War kind of things and you you you'll find it and then if you got a pair of binoculars you'll search around you'll see this Misty patch and it's wonderful cuz it's that's the most distant thing you can see without a telescope and it's 2 million light years old away which means the light took 2 million years to reach your eye from that Galaxy so that means it began its Journey before we had evolved on earth right we the human Homo sapiens are not that old right 2 million years and so you're looking back in time 2 million years you're seeing this thing as it was before there had been H the humans existed on the Earth right 2 million years and you can see it in real time so what the web Space Telescope can do is look so far out to such distant galaxies that you're seeing the first galaxies form in the universe and that's what it was designed to do and the reason we want to do that is because we didn't understand we don't really understand how they form right we're how far away is that light well that's over 13 billion years of light travel time wow so we're talking and the universe is 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang right so it's so we we're talking about seeing the first galaxies form in the universe and taking pictures of it it and not surprisingly that it's not quite as we expected so and I saw some headlines that said you know Crisis crisis in physics and it's not a crisis that's how you do science right the reason we built this big thing and sent it out to it to to make those observations is because we don't we weren't sure that we had it right we probably won't have it right because we we had seen it before and there is indeed something interesting and it could be profound or it could be a little twiddle to our model and we're not quite sure yet but that's how you do it that's so it was we were never going to be right the biggest crisis is having all the answers where do we go then yes so we yeah and we don't even yeah well it's interesting isn't it yeah I mean I don't think we'll ever have the answers by any means I mean there are deep questions you know are we alone in the universe I mean probably not you'd guess there are two two trillion galaxies in the observable universe right so you would expect not what have you what have you made of all the recent headlines about you know someone in the state saying he's seen evidence of alien life forms on Earth something that was collected from the Bottom of the Sea those tiny ball bearings and they say this is this has been formed by life form outside our Ian our galaxy like it's a theory that isn't it I mean so there's a theory there and so you can get the little things and we will analyze them and have a look I mean I wouldn't it's funny because on you mentioned social media I think you occasionally on social media I I'll quite often I'll tweet some say and and there'll be quite a few people who disagree reasonably strongly with what I said and one of them is is the the UFO thing you know that I mean there are people who really believe that there are UFOs visiting the Earth and I always say you know I haven't seen any evidence of that that I think is strong evidence it's a huge claim that there are other civilizations out there that are visiting us but I wouldn't be surprised in a in in a sense in a strict sense that if I said to someone the other day you know if a big UFO came now we walk outside and over Westminster there's a spaceship hovering I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised because I know that there are trillions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone and hundreds of billions of stars and there's been a lot of time and one of the great Mysteries actually in physics is why we don't seem to see much out there anything we haven't you know there's strong there's strong evidence of nothing out there at all at the moment we no strong evidence of any life beyond Earth and that's a puzzle and a paradox so it's a it's about with with those claims you don't rule them out if someone says well I've got this I found this thing at the bottom of the sea and I think it's really weird um then the correct thing to do is go okay we'll put it in a lab and get an electron microscope and prod it around and find out just how weird it is and nature Fineman again said the thing to remember is nature does not care at all what you think nature just doesn't it doesn't matter who you are or how famous you are many letters you've got before or after your name whatever it doesn't matter nature should just is so if indeed an alien spacecraft crashed into wherever it was that they found these things a billion years ago and left all the fragments there and we've dug them up then that's interesting isn't it but that's it very you know but but if it didn't then that's also interesting because then we get a profound Pro puzzle about why why there don't seem to be many civil ations around but what I love about your answer to that Brian is that you tread that line between being agnostic and saying I don't know versus being cynical by saying I know and that's not right and I'm interested in in in walking that good question I mean because with with that so it's it's quite a profound claim that that there's a piece of a if that's what it this Abby Lo he's a professor at Harvard I think so it's quite a profound claim that this is a piece of a spacecraft or something from outside the solar system um and the correct thing is to say well that's an interesting Theory let's have a look it it might be so so I would have no no basis for saying well that's nonsense right it's a completely contentless statement isn't it I don't know how would I know I haven't I I it might be so and that's it when you talk about social media then so you do go on there and you do elicit some strong reactions from people from old them I can't help it that's the thing it's I whether it's a yeah a character flaw or a positive part of my character of it there is an element of that isn't it what is it that keeps you humble to be able to to accept these diverse views but for me I think it's this might sound great it's nature right in the sense that we talked about the transferable skill of Science and because I spent you know most of my time actually learning how to be a research scientist you you're just wrong all the time it's practice actually fan again I keep going to Fan he was wonderful he's a great philosopher although he hated philosophy well he acted as though he hated philosophy right but he said that he said scientists have a very great experience with being wrong and that's probably the transferable skill because it goes back to this thing you can't argue with a let's say you're trying to understand how a star works yeah and you go I think it works like this and then you look at the star and the star doesn't work like that you can't start shouting at a star can you because he bigger than you and you're not going to win the argument you never win an argument with nature that would you say has been the most like the most powerful Revelation about yourself that you've discovered was wrong oh in in in terms of science it's almost it's it's almost all the time when you're when you're doing research you have a feeling feeling that you you understand some new data and you have a sense that there might be something there I mean I did particle physics for a long time which is working at places like CERN and ferm lab in Chicago and and those placees you get loads of data and you sit there on your computer looking at this new Deb collisions of particles and one of the things the golden scenario the Nobel Prize would be if you saw a new particle you've discovered a new one you know and no no one ever all by the higs particle is a good example when we did very rarely but at late at night you because you got loads of data it's like tossing a coin and it comes up heads 20 times and you go no there's something there there's something there and you can convince yourself there's something you keep going and you know I've not got a Nobel Prize right so every time I thought that it went away every time otherwise I would I be a Nobel prize winning phys you keep going back though because you know that you're trying to understand nature and you're trying and very occasionally there'll be something that will stand up and something new will appear but that process of it goes back right to what we talked about at the start that process of trying to understand something that's difficult to understand and and forming views and models and opinions and then finding out that most of the time you're not right that F Oppenheimer and find that they were right when they said that skill you should transfer that's hard as well so saying don't only do it with little particle physics and little graphs on your computer screen do it with your political views then it gets harder but if you if you if you understand what those great thinkers were actually telling you to do it is that it's saying you you you you understand now you've done some practice you're not right when you're trying to understand nature now imagine you're not right with your view about the the top level of tax or whatever whatever it is imagine you're not right about that as well so what's been the biggest thing that you've changed your mind on then that for you personally that like away from physics or your professional life in it's a good question that I mean in um in I think in politics so I've been through a a long learning process for something I didn't agree with so let's say brexit so let's be careful talk about brexit but something I didn't agree with and uh so I've leared to try to to understand why a majority of Voters voted for it it it's not because they're wrong right even though I don't agree with it it's like what what is it that that is is wanted why would someone come to the opinion that doing something that I think is wrong thing to do is the right thing to do and perhaps I'm Perhaps it is the right thing to do so what is the what is the data that might come in that would say to me well actually no I was wrong there I'm I'm I'm I'd be again and and I'd be doubly delighted to be wrong on that by the way because I I want the country to do well because I'm in it it's my this is where I grew up so so that that's an example actually of where I am actually although some people listen to this if they watch me on Twitter occasionally they go or ever it's called now we'll go we'll go this is just not it's not I'm looking for for evidence that I'm not right and there's a route to a better future through you know outside of the European Union that would be an example and we've talked in great detail about you know holding beliefs lightly looking to push the boundaries being humbled by what is around us being okay with failure because failure is growth and I hear you talk often on these kinds of subjects because this is your area of expertise and you're amazing at it but I don't hear you very often talk about how that informs your life as a father or your life as a husband to Gia who's a someone else who I remember Fally from working together with over 20 years ago um obviously you asked her out on a date quicker than I did um I don't know we should compare Diaries afterwards and find out no it's true I was already with Harry at that time should Dar let's not compare Dar um I'm really interested in how this idea of being a lifelong learner which you clearly are informs those soft sides of your life if we can call them that as a as a partner as a parent as a friend well yeah again I mean we we touched on it didn't we about the I think it that certainly that element of seeing your your children grow up and no matter how much you want them to you might want them to be a physicist or a historian or a football or whatever it is then really just being delighted when they find their their the thing that they're interested in whatever it is I think that really is really important um but we've we've talked about that haven't we um what is the advice then that you give to your son from all the things that that we've we've spoken about already but the things that you've learned about I mean I'm humbled by the size and the scale of what's around us and I think that stops me from obsessing about the little things it's actually really help first while of History so much cuz this you know thousands of years worth of stuff what happens to me doesn't really matter I'd love to hear what you say to your your boy about keeping him going in the right direction or the things that you share well I I say that um and we actually we talked about it on the radio show I just did last night so I think this idea that it is so unlikely first of all it's it's unlikely that you exist which is a big point and it's kind of obvious but secondly it's quite it's it's quite unlikely that you exist in in a time and in a place where you can actually in his case spend the time um learning how to play guitar if that's what you want to do it's astonishing um so it's it's astonishing piece of luck that and so it would be ridiculous if you just you just didn't find anything didn't do anything you know just just coasted through life not noticing that you're fortunate in in a very profound sense by the way you're even fortunate to exist but and and also I think in in scientific terms actually it seems to me that we live in this baffling astonishing and beautiful universe and it seems to me that not not making not making any attempt to understand it in in some way and it might be understanding it in in it doesn't have to be doing mathematics and doing physics but just notice something is is worth pursuing and being interested in I think that's the foundation actually just notice that there's something worth worth being excited about whatever it is I think that's why you you do so much of what you do you know many people would be successful and write a book and stop or do a bunch of TV shows and think I've done enough of that yet you don't stop and you know doing live experiences for people I know something that you're really passionate about I wonder whether it's that's re if we talk about you know we mentioned passion I wonder whether for you it really is just igniting fires inside people to go and explore yeah and also me actually so I like learning curves which we haven't really talked about so I like um like I I'm doing so about live shows so I've done these big live shows kind of on my own with my friend Robin Inson uh who's a comedian and but now I'm doing some live shows with a symphony orchestra we did Sydney in Sydney Opera House in December and uh it came up the opportunity and and there's a great conductor actually Ben Nory who's a conductor in in Australia and New Zealand and he had said to me there's this music it's Strauss so so the everyone knows the start of 2001 that thing the St well that's part of a 20 odd minute piece of music and no one ever listens to the rest of it but the music is based on a book by n and n's book is about the way Ben said it to me is is how can Humanity justify our existence when faced with the power an an infinite scale of nature how can we justify it and uh so this piece of music is an exploration of that thought it written just a the turn of the 20th century years ago or more and but it's an exploration of that idea but musically based on this philosophy by work by Nature famous book and and I thought the the challenge of taking that music and weaving in a narrative of cosmology and astronomy and what we know about the size and scale of the universe which n and Strauss didn't know that they wrote this it's astonishing it's we're talking about the TW let's say 1900 that that sort of area just before that we didn't even know there were any galaxies be our own we didn't know that till the 1920s it's unbelievable so the the context has changed completely in what we know about the size and scale of the universe so there's something more to be said there's a dialogue between those ideas and that music and the things we know today in the latest images of the universe something will come out of it there's something interesting that will happen it's really exciting well let's let's that's I'm excited about this learning curve thing then so someone says to you look at this amazing piece of music have a listen to it how involved do you get helping to turn that into an event for thousands of people at the Sydney Opera House what's the process for you well so then I I sit there with it with that music and and and his ideas so in this case collaboration so so Ben has sent me he sent me actually a a recording of it with him just talking over it as a conductor saying well this is and it's incredible actually the the depth he's going this is a quote from the the the Catholic mass which is saying this this and this and this is a quote from this and this is a so the complexity of the music is incredible actually intellectually brilliant I sit there and and I I sit and I listen to it again and again and again and it's another thing actually we could talk about have patience so don't think oh no I've sat I've listened to it twice and I don't know what I don't know what to do so I'm just confused so let's not do that I keep going and at some point then something occurs to me and I say actually that this image the the web Space Telescope took of a stellar nursery for example the Stars being born and if you put it against that bit of music then it kind of says something else it says something about things being born and the life cycle of stars and that's a bit like the life cycle of a human and you can start to make connections and and that that's what I want out of that collaboration I want there to be something that emerges that wasn't really obvious in the music and wasn't obvious in the science but somewhere in a conversation between the different art forms May something may occur which you'll be interest in and it's and then you have to have patience to to say I'm not going to rush this I'm just going to find it the one thing I get impatient about actually is when when I have to do other stuff if I get really into something I don't want to do anything else so I just suddenly it's boring the other thing is boring now because I want to I just want to sit there with Strauss and nature and the Hubble Space Telescope and come up with that's what I'm now interested in that so I'm not really bother doing the other stuff so that's that's yeah that's how I do it I just it's about having the for me the lesson is it's about being confident that if you keep at it so it goes back to what we said earlier really you keep at it and that can be when you need some creative spark yeah if you keep going it'll come right so at some point you'll you'll have the idea but let's explore that topic of patience cuz we do live in a world of super fast speeds quick opinions you know instant access to whatever we want so the idea of sometimes accepting that it's going to be slower than we want it to be or we have to be comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing yeah what have you learned about patients that you could share with us well that you can't there's no magic formula to um to having an idea or indeed being good at something as we spoke about earlier there isn't a magic formula it is time and I think quite often you you have to you know you have to let your head become filled with ideas and then just trust that at some point it'll something will come out of it so I think and and I'm well aware by the way we talked about luck earlier also having the time to be patient is luxur is a luxury you're fortunate if you have that's one of the things I feel most fortunate about actually is that I've managed to stumble into jobs and they've all been a bit like this actually with if you're in a band if you're musical or you're an academic although there's you know there's all sorts of pressure on academics now as there is in everything right same with bands actually you know you have to put the album out and do the tour and all those things but I think ultimately if you can get yourself into a position where you've got that luxury that's it's very lucky then you you you can use it you know so I think being give yourself time though because you could work all day every day and do speeches and tours and books and TV show I mean you could work 365 days a year yeah so I think if you if you can and again some people can't but if you can then that's really important to not be you know it goes against the saying isn't the make hay while the sun shines it's the opposite of that it's if the if the Sun's shining then go and um go and have a think about what you're going to plant I I don't know if how we can push this um can I ask you about doubt because we we did a a UK tour and it was racked with doubt for the two of us would people come would people like it would we mess up our words would there be value in it would people laugh at us would they ask questions we can actually answer during the Q&A part of the show like what's your relationship with doubt because a good example is the Sydney Opera House and some amazing music I'd immediately be thinking am I worthy am I going to deliver how do you it well the first thing to say is that it goes back to what we said earlier about about being not tricking yourself so only I will know whether when I walk out onto the stage I'm satisfied with what I've come up with what I'm going to say yeah only I will know if those images and the things that I've done they're going to be on the big screens the right images and it's it's up to me so I take responsibility so by the time I walk out on the stage I will have made sure that I am happy with what I'm going to do and that's that's important I think but also the again fan I remember this great quote the end of he wrote a brilliant essay called the value of science which I recommend to everyone it's about three pages it's online and at the end is a quote where he says what we have to learn is how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and disgusted right so so doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discusted which I think is profoundly important actually how do you do that so you you but by I think as I said accepting that clearly you you everybody is taking risks all the time but as long as if you're happy that you've done everything you can and you're happy with where you've got to then walking out into a stage shouldn't be a shouldn't be an issue if you think there's nothing more I can do here right I've done it I think this is what I want to say I know what I want to say and then and then you're right if people don't get it then what you should do is learn okay and I'm always I don't know about your live shows but I I'm always learning you always do something in one night and it doesn't work and what's your attention to detail like on these shows how involved are you in the various elements oh completely I mean I because because of this process I would not I would not be confident walking and and I can't actually same with TV shows actually I'm really bad at doing a piece to camera where on you know in the cliche World on top of a mountain right with a helicopter shot and I'm really bad at it if I'm trying to say something that someone else wrote for me right I really can't do it doesn't work I can't remember it I'm not an actor why that I'm really bad I don't know I just don't have that skill so I can't remember lines at all but also it plays into authenticity as well well it's partly just because I'm rubbish remember L but but what I can do is if I know what I want to say and I say it then then I can say it in with with sufficient eloquence for it to be okay and work you know broadcastable as we always say we always say is that broadcast yeah it's all right let's go to the pub broadcastable But but so so that's what the way that I work I have to I have to know what I'm going to say with a point I want to make yeah and uh and then I I can say it in my own way uh what I can't do is is learn line I just can't do it so as a scientist that's always open to the possibility of of new information new evidence challenging your view how do you get comfortable with just being good enough like where you leave you leave something and just walk away you're not constantly trying to refine it so like the show that you're doing in Sydney it's a great question that because the the other thing which we haven't talked about in in uh let's say creative Industries writing a book or piece of music being in a band writing a song is actually finishing it and it's the same in science it's that I often say to students who want to do a PhD I think doing a PhD is wonderful that you grow intellectually and as a person hugely because you have to produce a new piece of research but you've got to write thesis and that's so you've got to stop and you've got to write this thing which is new knowledge a contribution to knowledge and you've got to know when to do it and you've got to finish it and that's the hardest bit of all and actually in the bands I've been in the great songwriters Peter C from d for example the band I was in he was would say this he the craft some of it inspiration right you have a little you write a great thing things can I get better right you get this great thing in your head but turning that into a four-minute pop song is the professional bit it's the craft so you're right that you've got to you've got to stop and produce something at some point and that that's a judgment call I think I you know we all know in our lives you know that there are things where you just keep going that little projects and you never quite do it you never finish it so I agree that's a skill you get discipline then you've got to do what's your cut off then like what do you have it's usually that we sold the tickets for this gig's happening tomorrow yeah you have obviously you announce a date for a show you've got to deliver on that is there any other methods that you use yeah I I don't like um the pressure I I like a deadline but I don't like the pressure of the deadline so I tend to try and overwork on it early and I always did this actually doing exams at University as well I I I wasn't one of those person who like to I didn't like to cram it all in I like to be relaxed yeah so so so I like the dead deadline in three months time and then I will do most of the work in the first month actually that's the way that I work because because then it gets better then then you get the great ideas when the pressure's off when you've got the framework and you okay right I've got it that that'll work then it gets a lot better we're about to do our quick far questions before we do um one of the comment trats we found on this podcast is optimism High performers tend to be Optimist no matter what's happened today yesterday they think tomorrow is going to be great um you know so much about the universe and as you've admitted you know so little about the universe as everybody does um where are you regarding our future are you optimistic um yes uh I we we we seem to have avoided the we obviously we've avoided destroying ourselves so far um so I think yeah I'm I'm worried about it because I'm worried that um it see seems to me that our I don't know political debate has become extremely polarized in a way that really matters particularly in the United States actually yeah um where it's very important that that country stays stable and uh so I'm worried about that and I and and you see it here to an extent and so although actually I you know we seem to be handling it quite well in in this country I mean we don't usually give credit to our political system but it seems to be dealing with quite an upheaval particularly starting with with with the brexit referendum and those things it seems to be dealing with it um so yeah so I'm worried um and one of the reasons I'm worried actually I was asked I was asked to give a talk at the the cop climate Summit in Glasgow just by video one minute and they just it was a little project and they said if if you could say into the world leaders there what would you say and I said just very simply that given what I know and given a lot of people I've spoken to it's possible that we're the only civilization in the Milky Way galaxy at the moment right it's worth considering that might be the case and there are reasons we can go into about why that may be the case but it's possible so if it's true imagine it's true I think that if we're talking about the meaning meaning of it all is as we talked about earlier what does it mean to to be a human in this universe well meaning is a property of intelligence I think so clearly the universe means something to us so meaning exists here but if there's no other intelligence out there in our galaxy and we destroy ourselves then we might eliminate meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion stars forever that's what we might do so consider that world leaders that's that you you have potentially a galactic size responsibility wow to maintain meaning in a galaxy and so that's I that's why it bothers me because I think that's true so I think I think what we do here will have ramifications in that sense Way Beyond the the shores of our own Planet because the you know you look at to me me a a a lifeless World a lifeless Galaxy is a meaningless Galaxy totally right really power there's something really powerful on that like we like we were looking enough to interview Tim Peak who spoke about the overview effect of that a lot of astronauts talk about being able to see the world from outside the atmosphere gives you a sense of both how small we are but also how magnificent life here is yeah on the planet you see with the i as I said I've been lucky to meet a lot of astronauts Apollo Astronauts as well who tended to be test pilots you know so they tended to be in th those guys from the 60s and 7 and they tended to be guys at the time the Apollo Astronauts were really um focused on flying those things as aircraft but yet you're right all of them every single one that I've been looking enough to meet said the same thing which the moment you're off the Earth and look at it against the Blackness of space you start to get a feeling that there's something really important here Way Beyond everything else so I think that's powerful that's why I think I did say once that um I thought it was when it I don't know which prime Min I think it was B it was borish John so I said I said I think he should be sent into space and I actually meant I didn't me I meant he should bring him back as well but I think he I would as taxpayer I would I would pay I gladly a bit of my taxes went to as soon as you became prime minister you went up on one of those even the little suborbital hop go up and have a look and I think it would be a very good use of money yeah and then come back and it' be you know you could get a ticket for it could be a million dollars it'd be a brilliant use of a a million quid be fantastic because they come back with that in their mind it's not going to it's not going to fly that's not going to be a very popular suggestion that we pay prime minister to g a jolly into space but I think they should perspective for the world leaders would do us no harm at all this is a quickfire V isn't it sorry it never works with me now right Brian um what an amazing conversation thank you so much we finished with this the three non- negotiable behaviors that you would like you and the people around you to buy into so uh what fan said doubt is not to be feared but welcomed um humility in the in your general life but also in the face of nature actually and um be absolutely delighted when you find out that you're wrong those would be my three right what advice would you give to a teenage Brian just starting out um I don't don't wear that check suit when you're first on top of the pups because a great suit come on I suppose it might have no actually may it was the '90s wasn't it listen what did we just say don't be afraid for being wrong you're wrong on that day Bri was right look how you've grown now with a beautiful blue t-shirt yeah it's actually tour merch people are watching this on YouTube they can see the tour merch I didn't do that deliberately actually I just realized when you said it that I believe he's done that I've got so many of those free t-shirts probably not free are they cuz no I PID for him exactly someone's paid for them well can I ask about I mean that's like I know there's an element of humor there about not wearing the check suit but how do you view are you're trying to make it sensible now arit adding psychology to the check suit comment no but I'm interested in when you look back at previous iterations of you whether it's been a music or your early days on the television how do you view it do you cringe do you look at at it for what you could learn what you you would do differently no I you know I I don't think anyone can be um even remotely happy you know if you look at where you've got to and and you say well that's that's okay then I I don't think it's too complicated isn't it I don't think you can unpick things I don't you know I mean I I yeah so so I just I don't think in those terms I don't think I I wish I hadn't done that I mean there obviously there's always things and and sometimes it can be serious things and we say I wish Haden that was a mistake but you know you you you get to where you are and I think you have to accept the fact that that your history is the history that so you don't do regret or anything like no I mean but then again you know you have to be careful with those things I mean I'm lucky that I haven't done anything that I really really really had to regret you know then someone will go on Twitter through my Twitter history that what is your biggest weakness what is your greatest strength that's a good question isn't it um because because I don't feel comfortable answering either of those questions because I haven't thought about it really um so what weakness I mean it probably I mean I do get I I do find it hard to make decisions which everyone who works with me professionally especially people on the kind of more adamine side of my world say God can you just make your mind up I I I do tend to especially difficult decisions I tend to push away you know I don't want to I don't want to annoy people so I you know I don't want to disappoint people so so I do have this tendency to go I'm not going to do that but I'm going to tell him tomorrow and strength I think it's it probably you mentioned optimism so I tend to be optimistic that um that that there'll be there'll be something interesting to do yeah you know I'll find interesting things things that interest me learning new learning curves uh so I tend to be quite optimistic and again some people that know me say that it's a it's a flaw because it's a it's probably over maybe overly optimistic but uh you know I think it's a strength that nice sense of possibility what do you think people most commonly get wrong or misunderstand about you it was funny that I got asked a government Department asked me to go in and and have a chat with them about something and I think they expected to have this this nice bloke off the Telly you're just going to go it's great the stars are nice aren't they Robin in my friend is a great yeah look at that shiny light in the sky know that's it that's me right they shiny nice big smile and of course you know I kind of piled in on them on something about you know higher education policy or whatever it was and I had some had some facts which threw them somewhat you know some data to look at this look at this and it was about and in the and I didn't get ask back and they said uh that I got this years later actually someone said to me yeah there was this word went around that you're intellectually aggressive oh wow right so they didn't want me in the room you know and so I think sometimes people think that I'm very very very very nice like I just sit there and look at this sky and think nice thoughts but of course also you know I was trained you know as a as an academic that's what I did physics and it's it's a as we said earlier it's it's quite a brutal profession it's it's you're trying to get to the bottom of how nature works and so there's not a lot of room for just sort of floating around being being nice you're trying to understand stuff so I think I think it takes people by sometimes if if someone's asking me in private setting for example for some opinion on education policy or whatever it is then sometimes it takes and by surprised that I'm not quite as fluffy and nice as they thought don't believe it I thought you're lovely um we have a high performance book club we've got tens of thousands of members they love discussing books on there what I mean obviously you've you can't mention your own because that's against the rules um but what would be the book that you would love to throw into the mix for the high performance book club there's there's a book by there's a couple of books by a great physicist friend of mine called Sean Carrol that I really like on the origins of life meaning in the universe itself it's called the big picture big picture by Sean Caroll and it's a really great sort of wander through a lot of the things we've spoken about actually today so I think that's a really a very good book lovely he had another great book which is a bit but also it's called something deeply hidden and it's one of my favorite quotes and I say I do it in my live show actually it's an Einstein quote and it's Einstein said that if you pay attention to Nature really and and pay attention and keep going and try to to understand something and keep pulling the intellectual threads everything we' spoken about today if you're if you do that and you're persistent and also lucky and fortunate there's a chance that you can catch a glimpse of something deeply hidden which is the Deep structure of nature but it flies across all all disciplines something deeply hidden that's what everyone's looking for what's the best piece of advice you've ever received and why um I think it probably was during my time as an undergraduate and postgraduate when um it was to to to not to just keep don't beat yourself up if you can't understand something but don't stop just keep going go at your own pace we've talk about that a few times actually go at your own pace and just trust that if you keep going then at some point you you'll understand it and I think that's that's very good advice love that and the final message for the people that have listened to this conversation today which has been fascinating what would you love to leave ringing in their ears we term it your one Golden Rule for a high performance life um it's I think it it's it's persistence I think G given luck that we've spoken about spoken about what where if you really want to get good at something then be be persistent love it thank you so much

Channel: High Performance

Views: 428,510

Keywords: Podcast, The High Performance Podcast, Jake Humphrey, Damian Hughes, Liquid thinker, brian cox, neil degrasse tyson, space, universe facts, stars, professor brian cox, nasa, space station, tim peake, apollo space mission, moon landing, nuclear war, oppenheimer

Id: lsCC_G5G9YE

Length: 71min 37sec (4297 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2023