SUBTITLES:
Subtitles generated by robot
00:02
um for those of you who may not know
the academy forum is a program that is
organized and funded by pamka uh it is
to bring
to campus outstanding speakers who will
engage our students and our faculty
and our families and it is also our
pleasure to be able to open it up to
uh the larger community so we welcome
you all we're really delighted that
you've
braved the elements to join us tonight
before we get going uh with our program
tonight they're just a couple people
that i want to thank
for making it possible for us uh first
00:34
uh amy south
amy where are you getting this around
somewhere
amy is our community vice president
she is ultimately responsible for for
the entire event tonight
uh next is lucy boxing and lucy is in
the doorway up there
has executed every single detail for
tonight
we have trish perlmutter trish is has
shepherded this program from
the very beginning and last but not
01:10
least
judy palinovsky and debbie kozak who
make absolutely everything happen for us
here at mka so thank you very much
so now without further ado it's my
pleasure to introduce
the headmaster the montclair kimberly
academy tom nammick
good evening and welcome um i'm
delighted to welcome you to the
montclair kimberly academy
and i want to also thank again our
parents association
they have made this even possible for us
while the program
01:48
is free of charge it's not free of
expectations
for how we will conduct ourselves as an
audience i have a couple of things i'd
like to ask of you
please there's to be no electronic
recording audio or video please don't
hold your
phones up to take pictures mostly
because it distracts the people behind
me
and we'd really like to focus on our
very special guests this evening
um it's my privilege to introduce our
guests
02:19
and uh i think they're well known to all
of you but i do want to say a couple
things about them
dr tyson has been a frequent guest on
the
colbert report but for rapport i guess
is the proper
pronunciation we're delighted that he's
here
and we are also delighted and
very grateful that mr stephen colbert
has agreed to
interview him for our benefit stephen
colbert
comedian author and host of the colbert
02:51
report
is both one of the funniest and possibly
the bravest comedians
of our time i want you to consider his
performance
at the national press club dinner in
2007
as he uh as he stood just a few feet
from the president of the united states
known to the rest of us as the most
powerful man in the world
dr neil degrasse tyson astrophysicist
director of the hayden planetarium
author of nine books
teacher lecturer host of nova's
03:27
four-part series origins
and member of two presidential
commissions on the united states
aerospace
industry and the future of our country's
space exploration
dr tyson has a gift for working
successfully
within the realms of research education
and policy formation
i owe you all an explanation about our
theater tonight what you see
on stage is the beginning of a set for
seventh grade production
of romeo and juliet this year's
03:58
selection
for uh what is as i said an annual
performance
and i think it's fitting that dr tyson
is going to warm up the stage
for the two most famous star-crossed
lovers in all of american literature
it occurred to me that there are a few
things that stephen colbert
and neil tyson have in common and i
wanted to comment on them
both of them share an overarching
purpose to make sense of the world
04:30
they also share a common strategy they
often look to the stars
human or heavenly for evidence of how
things work
though stephen colbert is far tougher on
the objects caught in his gaze
whereas dr tyson is only known to have
obliterated pluto
they share methods in their respective
fields whether whether it is to search
for evidence that makes sense of the
world and the universe
or the creative construction of
questions and tests
05:03
by which the truth and significance of
who
or what is before them are evaluated
perhaps then they both have something in
common with william shakespeare
the desire to provide their audience
with a lens
to see the world from a previously
unconsidered
point of view and not just as others
would have us see it
so while the stars may be dazzling
training and instinct appear to have
taught each of them
to look away from celestial bodies i'm
05:34
really sorry i have to get that bad
cliche in there somewhere
and to consider the effects that those
celestial bodies have on
everything and everyone around them
in addition to the challenging questions
that each of them
make us confront their work has given
the world
a little more of that very rare and
gem-like substance
known as the truth or in stephen
colbert's case
truthy ness and we are very grateful
06:05
ladies and gentlemen mr stephen colbert
and dr
neil degrasse
romeo romeo
i don't know neal thanks so much for
coming
yeah thank you miss uh mr dr
neil degrasse tyson is um he's been on
my show six times
and often when i come out to greet the
06:52
audience before doing my show they asked
me who's your favorite guest of all time
and i say not just for volume but it's
neil degrasse tyson
because not only do i love
what neil knows but uh i
love that he loves what he doesn't know
always interested in the next thing to
learn
and always roll to whatever idiocy my
character wants to throw on him
i think the only time i ever surprised
you as you told me a little while ago
07:22
uh was i asked you should should
scientists go to argentina or hike the
appalachian trail
yeah i want people to talk about them
the universe talking
amplifier yeah that one what i i missed
that one yes you missed that news story
yeah so to go on a show it seems like
the hardest
interview ever i have to like i'm laden
with current events
just to mix with my science because i
don't know where he's going to come at
me
and i got to be like ready with seven
07:55
tennis racquets to hit it back and upset
because that one news story remember
what the guy was it south carolina guy
who remembers
he goes to argentina and becomes well
known for having done so and you asked
me
straight out should scientists visit
argentina more often to become better
known
and it just went i just me
you're welcome neil uh we've got a lot
to talk about tonight
a lot of subjects science is a big thing
but i want to start off with
this is not a bribe i want to start off
08:29
with these chairs i see myself sliding
this way i said oh welcome to the barn
raiser
make it tough to talk about science and
technology
all right neil i want to start um
i want to start in a in a in a broad way
are you tweeting now or are you actually
no i'm just looking at i'm just looking
at photos of myself
work done i need a little freshen up now
let me ask you a very basic question
science
09:12
from sky uh scientia latin meaning
knowledge
i didn't take latin but i'll take your
word for it
is it better to know or not to know
i think well my blunt answer is
it's better to know all right but that
is debatable though
why says my answer i mean somebody else
might have a different answer
for instance oedipus might have a
different answer
yeah i mean i think is is is knowledge
09:49
always a good thing i have to say yes
why because it empowers you
to react and possibly even to do
something about it
if something about it needs to be done
okay but who we are
is what we know right part of who we are
is what we know
and our identity is often based
on how we see the world yes and our
personality for sure
and if we learn something that does not
10:21
jive with how we think about the world
what we have to re-examine who we are
yeah it could mess you up
yeah once again i'll go back to edifice
he plucked his eyes out rather than know
anymore
yeah well back you know people back then
you know
they did stuff like that yeah people
back then
not people today so so i think
there's you know there are people who
would not know who would rather
i remember the old days i don't know if
it still happens would doctor would find
10:52
out if you had cancer they wouldn't tell
you
they wouldn't tell you yeah and why
would you even have
have to say give it to me straight
unless there was a day when they didn't
give it to you straight
i'd like if i have five years left i
want to know i have five years left
because i'm gonna like do something
different in those five years if i feel
yeah i have some terrible news
so i but there are some people who don't
want there are there are some people who
don't value science
and if they don't value science are they
valuing ignorance
yes but i will not pass judgment on them
what i will say
11:25
is if they are at maximal comfort in
their ignorance
fine except that they will not be the
participants on the frontier
of cosmic discovery they will be
disenfranchised
hello i'm sorry i've got a phone call
hello
sorry i have to take this
my mic is my mic isn't working
not only will they not be on that
frontier making any discoveries
12:11
they're not in a position to enhance
their life for having
access to those discoveries themselves
can knowledge
ever be a bad thing i don't think so
what about actions
that knowledge takes us to do you think
that oppenheimer
when the bomb went off and he said i am
become death destroyer of worlds
do you think he perhaps questioned for a
moment whether the knowledge they
achieved that led to the creation of the
bomb
perhaps should have been left
undiscovered do you know what he said
in response to those kinds of questions
12:44
yes he said
because the people said do you have you
usurped the power of god have you
and he said if god didn't want this
power to be there he shouldn't have put
in any adam in the first place
kind of an interesting point i think
what are we saying is that
the world is accessible to us so would
you say
don't smelt the oar and make iron
and make a sword out of it because you
could cut yourself
back then that's what you would that's
13:13
the counterpart statement
from the iron age and if you were around
back then you'd be sitting in this chair
saying don't make the sword because
you'd unleash
evil on the world okay i'll step back
from don't make the sword how about
don't
lick the flagpole in february
you will learn something you will learn
something but at a price you know that'd
be data it's a data call
for that isn't it also adam and eve
the eight of the tree of knowledge
13:44
of good and evil and they paid a price
yeah so
god does put things into atoms he
doesn't want us to know about
yeah however
i think yes i don't want to blame the
knowledge
i want to blame the behavior of people
in the presence of the knowledge so
maybe
we need better knowledge management do
you think that scientists
go you can applaud him
well how about how about this do you
think that scientists should be allowed
14:19
to do
anything they can i heard a big no
someone just said no you know people
made fun of him for doing this but
uh during one of president bush's state
of the union speeches which one or two
uh bush ii um he said uh we have to
he spoke about he warned against
man-animal hybrids
okay and a lot of people like me
made fun of that by showing pictures of
like senator alligator man going
14:50
yay man animal hybrids and but if
scientists could make man animal hybrids
wouldn't they there are scientists who
want to make man-animal hybrids
should we make man-animal hybrids i ask
you
senator tyson should there be any limits
like that i think there's some
creepy things about that and i've met
some scientists
who who would think that be an
intriguing thing to do
yes okay um so i i think
we as a society as a as a
15:22
dem as a democracy what we should do
is come to some understanding
of what the prevailing social mores are
and no science should not cross those
barriers
and not and by the way scientists are
often ones
to try to prevent that einstein among
them for example
he didn't want to make the bomb after he
first told roosevelt he should make the
bomb he changed his mind
because his conscience his moral
conscience descended upon him
scientists are not without moral code
15:53
here so
as a culture and as a society we decide
what
should be the prevailing cultural mores
and i think we should all be
beholden to those what do you think of
the portrayal of scientists
in movies because often often
for instance the scientists who make um
uh
the terminator they're the bad guys
scientists lead us to the terminator or
they create the superbug that wipes out
the world or
or they enrage the monster at the bottom
16:24
of the sea
when you park the curtains and at the
bottom of all of that
there's a politician funding that
research
is this working again no
it's not he says yes you say no yeah we
got it we're getting we're getting bad
data
we're good that was good that's good
you're good oh yeah
so scientists don't lead marching armies
scientists don't invade other nations
scientists
yes we have scientists who invented the
bomb
17:04
yes but somebody had to pay for the bomb
and that was taxpayers that was war
bonds
there was a political action that called
for it
so everyone blames the scientists we are
collectively
part of a society that is passing that
is that
is that is using or not using
to its benefit or to its detriment the
discoveries made by science
and at the end of the day a discovery
itself is not moral
it's our application of it that takes
that that has to pass that test
17:38
would you agree that there's a there's a
distrust of science
on a certain level in our country i mean
unless it's you know
going to grow my hair back the science
there's some other things to your
anatomy right exactly science exactly
science i've gotten those emails science
science is sometimes distrusted because
it is it is more complex than the
average person can understand
i think that is the core of it it's
distrusted not because of what it can do
but because of what because people don't
understand
how it does what it can do and that that
18:12
absence of understanding or
misunderstanding
of the power of science is what makes
people afraid of it
and so i remember back when they first
split the atom you know shouldn't split
the atom
or shouldn't i mean you hear this at
every discovery that happens in science
there's a mystery to it for example
irradiated foods in france they call it
franken food
all right which is kind of a cute word
when you think about it but it makes
food last
longer and you're healthier for you
don't get sick from it and so for from
it turning bad
in fact nasa does it all the time nasa
18:44
can make a slab of meat you wouldn't
necessarily
put this in your refrigerator but nasa
can make a slab of meat in the last 30
years
i tasted it and
delicious you know there's some rest
some restaurants food reminds me of what
that tasted like
but i'm just saying that just because
you don't understand it doesn't mean
it's bad for you
go figure out how it works that's why we
need a scientifically
literate electorate so that when you go
to the polls
you can make an informed
19:15
judgment and you can draw your own
conclusions
rather than turning to a particular tv
stations
to have your conclusions handed to you
now uh you know arthur c clark comedy
central accepted
exactly okay aren't they see clark's
famous
uh dictum about sufficiently advanced
technology
yes it is martin c clark had several um
laws of culture and
the world one of which was any
sufficiently advanced
19:45
technology is indistinguishable from
magic
so if something gets too complex for the
average person to understand
it's magic it's like magic and you have
powers that i don't trust because i
don't know what you're going to do with
it next
whereas if you understood how it worked
you say hey give me one of those
i mean that's that's how that would work
that's how that's how that plays out do
you think that's where the debate
over i think that's where the debate
over
um evolution and creation science comes
is that the complexity of
20:17
evolution is so grand that it is hard to
conceive
of how the incremental changes come and
once something becomes so complex that i
can't understand it
there's nothing between that and god
saying
let it be well one of the beauties of
evolution is that
that complexity does not come about from
complex ideas the ideas are actually
quite simple
and you can show on a computer how those
simple forces
can generate complexity given enough
time and enough
variation in environment which is just
what the history of the earth
20:48
supplies so so science literacy is an
important part of what it is to be an
informed citizen of society
let's get let's get away from our
understanding of science or lack thereof
and get to science itself okay okay
here's here's
here's a transition from talking about
us mixing science and religion
and getting back to science god is truth
people think
okay some believe god is truth uh truth
is beauty
is there anything in science to you that
21:20
is beautiful or rather what is the most
beautiful thing
that you know of in science the equals
mc square
really oh it's awesome it is so that
equation doesn't just have a great
publicist it's actually
because everybody knows it everybody
knows it but also everybody knows coke
you know it's like a coca-cola
of science you learned equals fc squared
before you even know what any of those
symbols mean you you hear it
in elementary school it's a gorgeous
thing it's it's what is beautiful about
e equals mg squared first of all
21:50
tell everybody what all the pieces mean
well e i
stands for energy m is mass c
squared is just the speed of light
squared that's just ignore that for the
moment the
thrust of that equation is that energy
and mass are equivalent to each other
which means you can transmute one into
the other and back
what makes it extraordinary is that that
hardly ever happens in our everyday
lives
yet it's going on all the time in the
rest of the universe and so
so so we're in this little pocket where
e equals m c squared
22:22
is not visible it's not visible it's not
it's not happening in our lives no
no but if it did the world would be
really different light coming from that
bulb
would all of a sudden pop into a
particle and the particle would combine
and pop back into light again would it
hurt
it can yeah it would sterilize you
there's a lot of yeah the kinds of
particles that would do that
that they would sterilize you yeah
that'd be bad i've had my kids
so it goes under the center of the sun
it went on at the big bang it goes on
throughout the universe wherever it's
22:54
hot and heavy
uh that's what what is beautiful about
it to you it's simple
it's simple yet it accounts for hugely
complex things
and for me that is where the beauty lies
in the truth if i had to give you a
complex
theory to understand a complex
phenomenon
you know send me home because what's the
point
what no now there's nothing there's no
tablet in the sky that said it had
to be simple to end up being complex and
just a remarkable fact about the
23:25
universe
so why not celebrate it the fact that pi
pi that pot pi
right let's say the numbers together
three 8.1415926
the fact that you take a circle of any
size
a circle the size of the universe itself
23:55
and divide it by its own radius and you
get that number
that's beautiful i have to pause and i
get misty
thinking
another one another that the atoms and
molecules in your body
are traceable to the crucibles in the
centers of stars
that manufactured these elements over
its lifespan went unstable on death
exploding its enriched guts across the
galaxy
scattering it into gas clouds that would
24:29
ultimately collapse
and make a star and have the right
ingredients to make planets
and people which means we are part of
this universe
as i've said many times and this goes
back the not only are we in the universe
the universe is in
us that is a profound
concept and it was i think it's the
greatest gift that astrophysics
gave culture in the 20th century it's a
research paper 1957
and i say that because one of the
authors just died like two days ago
24:59
jeff burbidge burbridge burbridge fowler
and oil one of the most famous research
papers that no one ever heard of you
know why i think
because it had four authors not just one
and it took decades to figure out
and it wasn't just somebody burning the
midnight oil so it doesn't lend itself
to poetry or screenplays
because it's a collaboration so nobody
wrote about it but
we knew that we are star stuff we knew
that we are stardust at the middle of
the 20th century
that connects us to the universe like no
other fact that's beautiful
sounds like you have written poetry
25:38
about it
well once it gets in you you have you
know the only way it comes out
no you don't write poetry you write
sonnets i don't know if they're sonnets
but occasionally a word rhymes in it and
i
don't know what to call it but sometimes
if if you feel deeply
about something i think the greatest
poetry
not that i not that i'm i'm an
astrophysicist right that's my
disclaimer
but some of the greatest poetry is
revealing
26:07
to the reader the beauty in something
that was so simple you had taken it for
granted
that i think is the job of the poet
and so
the simplicity of the universe which
started this part of our conversation
i think if it doesn't drive you to
poetry it drives you to
bask in
the majesty of the cosmos
what drew you you said that this is the
beauty of astrophysics or the gift that
26:42
astrophysics gave us in the 20th century
what drew you to astrophysics take us
to neil degrasse tyson before
he's an astrophysicist take us
who you are i'm living in the bronx
which in vernacular would be
the bronx and i'm going to build down a
lot of stars
no there's like a dozen or so in the
night sky so
you do not have a relationship with the
night sky
as a city dweller and
my parents would i have a brother and a
27:13
sister they would take us
to each weekend we go to visit museums
and other sort of cultural things in the
city
and one of those weekends we went to the
hayden planetarium
the local planetarium the one right
there in manhattan and
you sit in the chair and the lights did
and the stars come out
and i thought that's a nice hoax you
know that's
that i'll enjoy it while there's it but
not fast they think there's that many
stars up there
what kind of are they pulling my leg and
a couple years later i'd go out to
pennsylvania
27:43
in another trip we took and i looked up
at the night sky and what persists to
this day
in what is an embarrassingly urban
thought i look up it's a night sky from
the finest mountain tops in the world
and i look up and i say it reminds me of
the hayden planetarium
wow so strong was that imprint
that i'm certain that i had no choice in
the matter that in fact
the universe called me and i wondered
that if i had grown up on a farm and the
28:17
universe in the sky was just always
there i wonder if that would just have
become wallpaper to me
and i wouldn't have then been struck by
it as i was at age nine
i'd never known anything of it and then
it just slaps you in the face
and from then on i was hooked it took
two years for me to figure out you can
do that as a career
but starting at age 11 you asked me you
know that annoying question adults ask
kids where do you want to be when you
grow up
i heard a comedian saying you know why
they ask because they're looking for
ideas
because paula poundstone said that all
right so
28:49
um if you ask me from age 11 where do
you want to be when you grow up i would
have told you
flat-out astrophysics astrophysicist and
my whole life
aligned to got a telescope got a camera
photographed it all my science fair
projects
one was uh getting a specter of the sun
and analyzing features in the spectra
i i i built the spectroscope so i was
like nerd kid
card carry but i was bigger than other
kids so
i was insulated from a lot of what might
otherwise happen to nerd kids but
you wrestled i was captain of my high
29:21
school's wrestling i've seen you in that
wrestling outfit
so you you became you wanted to become
an astrophysicist that leads me another
question which is
you know is it better to not know it's
better to know um
can it be beautiful yes it's gonna be
beautiful
is science a thing
or is it a way to look at the world is
it is it a verb
or is it a noun it is both
the world is not just is it this or that
is it a planet or not a planet it's
30:07
sometimes you must choose it's fuzzier
than that
sometimes so i know if i know if i have
a lot of facts in my head if i can
absorb a lot of facts
am i a scientist no no you're you're a
fact memorizer in fact
i'll accept that as a compliment our
academic system
rewards people who know a lot of stuff
and generally we call those people smart
but at the end of the day who do you
want the person who could figure stuff
out that they've never seen before
30:39
or the person who could rattle off a
bunch of facts the end of the day i want
the person to figure stuff out
and scientists were trapped on an island
exactly
exactly what you know the professor on
gilligan's island
it's not a matter of how many facts he
can recite it's like there's a coconut
and there's a thing and you have a ham
radio exactly okay
so it's an understanding of the
relationships
while we're on it ginger or marianne
31:11
totally did it
ginger complete that was like she came
around the wrong time of my life
it was like ginger all the way
for sure so it is a way it is
um it's a way of approaching the world
it's a way it's not only approaching the
world it's a way of equipping yourself
to interpret what happens in front of
you
i think of science the methods and tools
that enable it that's kind of like a
utility belt
31:45
that you walk around with you know and
you come upon something are you a
superhero
in your mind are you super science
actually when i was a kid i wanted to be
mighty mouse when i was a kid
really and i want to sing opera as i
went
is a tool belt you know if you have a
hammer
as they say you can hammer in the
morning yes i am in the morning
if i had a hammer the problem is if you
start wielding a hammer then all your
problems look like nails
and maybe they're not maybe it's more
32:29
subtle than that and so your toolkit has
to be able to morph
into what is necessary for what it is
that you confront at that moment
and so yes there you're equipped with
methods of mathematical analysis
methods of interpretation you know some
basic laws of physics so when someone
says
i have these two crystals if you rub
them together you'll get healthy
so rather than just discount it
because that's that's as lazy as
accepting it
both of those is lazy brain what you
33:00
should do is inquire
so do you know how to inquire and every
scientist would know how to start that
conversation
they would say well where'd you get
these what kinds of ailments does it
cure
how does it work what does it cost can
you demonstrate
that it works and you go through this
one and at the end the person is in
tears
because they weren't prepared for that
level of questioning and
so science literacy is vaccine
against charlatans of the world that
would exploit your ignorance
of the forces of nature neil if you
don't like the crystals i gave you you
33:30
can just say
and they're not working for you because
you don't believe
is there any science fiction you admire
or that you enjoy
or do you see the holes in science
fiction ago i can't enjoy that of course
he would know the effects of a neutron
star he doesn't know title forces
like you don't you have that problem
right do you think
the other problem i only have the
problem if the movie is
marketed for its accuracy number one
number two
34:06
they gotta get some basic science right
after that i'm okay
so for example in the latest star trek
movie they had this like this red
this this liquid the red matter the red
matter thank you
release the red matter release the red
matter and you drop it into the core of
a planet and it turns a planet into a
black hole
i thought that's kind of cool look what
was a little weird was
why didn't it turn the ship into a blast
because they had the special apparatus
that surrounded it effort
it's the anti-black hole apparatus
34:39
see i was not losing sleep over what
held the black hole i don't have an
issue with that
but probably what i had an issue with
was
they needed this drill which is a very
cool kind of that was the coolest thing
i'd ever seen
exactly a drill that would drill to the
center of the of your planet
and they dropped i'd say if that would
turn a planet into a black hole from its
center
it surely would turn a black hole and
turn into a whole from its surface
i know right they have to fight on the
platform so i'm okay
35:13
i got angry with jim cameron in about
titanic
that's how i got angry i tell you i'd
never tell you the story you did not oh
no i've never seen you this angry before
hold me back i can't wait to see what
you have to say about avatar
there's a colleague of mine who saw
avatar and he got home and
he told his wife he wanted to paint her
blue and that didn't go over very well
is she 10 feet tall so
titanic you may remember was marketed as
a film of
35:48
high accuracy because cameron had funded
this submersible to go down
and and checked out the state rooms and
the wall sconces and the china patterns
and so they reproduce that to detail
and so here they recreate the ship for
the movie can you double check that
no because he had the submersible you
just have to trust him
okay no you gotta trust him so now
the ship sinks yes right did i give away
that
one
okay so the ship sinks i do i remember
you remember okay very sad and it's kate
winslet
36:22
on the on the floor remember that and
she's a little she's delirious this
isn't the scene where she's naked
no she's on the floor on the on the
whatever
the plank and all right
she's looking up we know the day
the day the time the weather conditions
the longitude the latitude
we know all of this about the sinking
spot of the titanic there is only
one sky she should have been looking at
and it was the wrong
sky
worse worse than that worse than that
37:02
the left side of the sky was a mirror
reflection of the right side
and i wrote a letter to jim cameron no
reply
five years later i bumped into it he was
on a nasa committee and my sort of
presence with nasa was growing by then
but i bumped into him in a meeting and i
said mr cameron
i just want to i just have to ask you
know the sky
it's not the right blood what what he
says well actually that happened in
post-production
so he's absolving himself of guilt but i
37:46
wanted him to grovel in front of my feet
when she didn't
so i was angrier after that later on
wired magazine honors him for discover
of the year explorer of the year
and they want to hold their party at the
rose center for earth and space
you're loud enough you don't need a
microphone yeah
so he's in my house and as a courtesy
they extended me an invitation to have
dinner
with a small group of them after this
award ceremony so
38:28
yeah so we go to dinner there's six of
us at the table
the wine is pouring
so i said jim i don't know if you
remember but i brought this up some time
ago
about the sky and i wouldn't be so upset
except that everything else you boasted
was so accurate
and we can't even check how accurate
that is but anybody can spend fifty
dollars for a planetarium sky
program and look at the sky and know
that you got the wrong sky what gives
and you know what he said he said last i
checked
worldwide titanic has grossed
39:01
1.3 billion dollars imagine how much
more it would have grossed if i got in
the sky right
oh
that that if i had a tail it would have
been like between my legs
and i would and i think you won that
conversation
no actually i did which he retreated
into his bank account
you know but that money will all
eventually be gone and he would still
have gotten the skyrocket oh that's an
interesting point that's right this guy
will outlive even james cameron
however however as dejected as i was
39:42
two weeks later i get a phone call
forgot the guy's name he calls me up and
says doctor tyson i said yes
he said this i forgot johnny said i work
in post-production for jim cameron
he is releasing a 10-year director's cut
anniversary edition of the titanic and
will be adding new footage
from the deck and he tells me you have a
sky that he can use
you know if you're gonna make if you're
gonna claim it's right then i'm going to
40:38
hold you to it if you're not then i'll
just sit back and enjoy it
you know what i don't like no i don't
like it because the people you go see a
movie with
who read the book first get rid of them
they don't belong in the movie theater
all right it's like i don't know the
book was better
well get the hell out of there get out
of the movie
get back to your book leave me alone
those people i can't stand stay home we
should not go to the movies together
now okay what is the what is i got three
41:11
different things
what is the latest discovery in
astrophysics that we should all know
about
uh one of my favorite i to go back maybe
six months for that eight months man
uh um okay okay
uh well we discovered water on the moon
that's kind of cool
because where you're going you want
there to be water right that's a good
thing for life
but what struck me the most earlier in
2009 we discovered methane
41:40
on mars methane if you have a gas stove
and you live in a city chances are
it's methane it's a flammable gas you
say well so what who cares
except that methane is the byproduct
it's it's a part of the of the gaseous
effluences
of anaerobic bacteria which on earth
operates deep in the intestinal tract of
farm animals
that's a very scientific way of saying
there are mars farts
42:24
or is that or is that yeah there's life
but no one will come out and say it
it means while you can generate methane
other ways
such as well it's sunlight it's
it's a combination of pressure
temperature
and energy source you can manufacture
methane magic so
what chemical magic chemical magic
but it is a natural byproduct of
bacteria that thrive in the absence of
oxygen
and you don't have oxygen deep in your
42:56
intestinal tract neither do any farm
animals
and if you're down under the mars
doesn't have oxygen so
it's tantalizing to think that maybe
there is
there are life reservoirs in aquifers
beneath the martian soils as i was
saying before about
is better to know or not to know there
are things about our own identity that
we take from the knowledge that we have
or the things or the things we don't
know the assumptions of things that are
not there to be known
instead of using the word identity i'd
say they have an impact on our ego
yeah the more we learn about the
43:26
universe the smaller we get right
in time and space in size and so
not the way you just described it the
way you described it
you're a supernova well what makes you
bigger
well i think if you know about what's
going on then it's not mysterious and
you're a participant
in the unfolding cosmos otherwise
you are consumed by it and
you fear it and you shun it and you say
i don't want to know
that i live on a speck called earth
orbiting an undistinguished star
43:57
in the corner of an ordinary galaxy in
an expanding
void of the cosmos there are some happy
thoughts in there
like like understanding how that worked
recognizing that the human brain figured
that out that's kind of cool there's a
lot we still don't know
but what we do know i think we can sit
proudly
and celebrate what we know about the
universe
maybe now not every one of us figured it
took a few key people like newton and
einstein but
but we learned what they taught us and
each of them stands on the soldiers of
giants that came before them
44:29
just as the quote goes let's celebrate
it
not fear it but if we found out
that there was life someplace other than
earth
what do you think that would do to our
identity
or our ego it may
signal a change in the human condition
that we cannot foresee
or imagine i think it would now i think
the issue would be not if we find
bacterial life
which is kind of what's what we're
45:01
looking for now bacterial life
there's no question about whether in our
mind's eye
we reign supreme over bacteria although
it can win bacteria do you know in one
linear centimeter of your lower colon
lives and works
more bacteria than the number of people
who have ever been born in the history
of the world
so in fact we are just hosts for
bacteria to lead their lives
so from the point of view of bacteria we
are we're just a place to live
but you know a dark warm place to live
45:32
but we're we're a planet
and they don't believe there's bacteria
in any of the other planets
that'd be interesting sci-fi yeah so the
real issue is
if we find life on another planet that's
smarter than we are
that would totally mess with our ego
that'd be the last
like nail in the coffin of our ego that
used to be well we're
humans we're on earth and earth is small
and so
the sun is insignia we that'd be the
last one and i don't know how we'd be
able to handle that
do you think that there have been
46:03
discoveries that have happened for
instance i have heard
discoveries that have changed our point
of view about the universe that we are
not aware of
that they've changed in other words the
change has been so gradual we don't
realize
we see the world differently has e
equals mc squared because
that's coming up on 100 years i'll tell
you yes it is actually well no it passes
last year was 100 no 1905 so
has that changed i got one for you i got
one for you in the 1920s
which was a watershed decade in the
history of science
46:33
in that decade we discovered that
not only our galaxy the milky way is not
the only
existence of anything in the universe
there are other milky ways out there
that recently 1920s was it
just the opposite optics didn't exist
for that we needed a big enough
telescope and edwin hubble
wielded all the glass that necessary to
accomplish that back in the 1920s he's a
hubble before the telescope was a man
and
and had his own telescope the biggest of
its day and he made that discovery
47:05
that there were these spiral fuzzy
things in the night sky we thought they
were just local to us to hold other
systems of stars 100 billion stars
unto itself outside of our system
not only was that discovered in 1926
1929 he discovers that the universe is
expanding
which means it may have had it beat back
then and man had a beginning
if it's expanded that meant it was
littler in the past well there must have
been a day when it was all together in
the same place thus was born
47:34
the big bang okay so now
also in that decade quantum
quantum mechanics quantum physics was
discovered that is the science of the
small
the science of electrons protons
neutrons particles nuclei
at the time you'd say this is just the
this is just physicist burning tax money
because who cares about the atom i got
my horse to feed
i got kids i got you know you got issues
in society
48:05
yet it's quantum mechanics that is the
entire foundation
of our technological revolution there
would be no computers there would be no
there would be none of what you take for
granted your ipod your iphone
cell phones the space program without
our understanding
of the laws of physics as they operate
on that atomic and molecular and nuclear
level
and so the the chemist has no
understanding of the periodic table of
elements without quantum mechanics
to them it's just a list of elements
quantum case tells you why this column
48:36
is there and that's there why this
mates with that and why that makes a
molecule with that
that's quantum mechanics and it's
unheralding you asking is any discovery
that has changed how we live
it is quantum mechanics and i make this
point
because i'm ready to
today you hear people saying why are we
spending money up there
we got problems on earth and we and
people don't connect
the time delay between the frontier of
scientific research
and how that's going to transform your
life later down the line so
49:08
all they want is a quarterly report that
shows the product that comes out of it
that is so short-sighted that that's the
beginning of the end of your culture
so it's
so it's better so it's better to know
that's a really long answer to my first
question my second question
is let's take some questions do we have
time to do that
wavy but it hit me in the head with a
rubber band okay
very quickly before we get the questions
here how many can i ask
you ask one do we have microphones are
we going around the room we can repeat
the question if there aren't enough
49:45
microphones to go all right let's start
right here with just one please sir
is there a brown dwarf star approaching
is there a brown dwarf star approaching
okay
uh dare i suggest that i think i know
much more deeply about what's behind
that question
he's asking about planet x
that would swing by earth in the year
2012 and tip us on our axis
and have it be the end of civilization
as we know is that right sir
well i heard about that yeah yeah i'm
50:16
digging a subterranean chamber yeah
me and my kids are gonna be fine yeah go
on
once again here uh it doesn't exist
but moving on
planet x all gravity and all principal
sources of gravity in the solar system
are present and accounted for and yes we
discover now tiny and insignificant
like pluto's relatives yes
an asteroid the size of the rose bowl
discovered december 2004
headed towards earth it's not alone
among asteroids headed towards earth
50:58
except that this one
is headed soothing there's a whole set
of asteroids that cross earth's orbit
that alone is not a problem you cross
the street all the time
but at different times the trucks drive
by okay so the issue is
are you crossing the street when the
truck is driving there at the same
moment
that simultaneity is what matters
apophis when you ran the calculations
showed that there's a chance of it
hitting us
in the year 2036 with a close approach
in the year 2029 on april 13th
51:29
of friday by the way and but here's
what's significant about that
we've had close approaches before but
none this close
this is the size of the rose bowl and
into on april 13th 2029
it'll come close enough to dip below our
orbiting communication satellites
do you think two and a half percent is a
big number for that asteroid to come to
work
right now the best estimates are several
in a million
that will hit us in 2036 and if it does
it will likely hit the pacific ocean
plunge into a depth of three miles
52:00
explode
cavitate the ocean send waves of
tsunamis
the first one from the impact the second
one because the water splashes back into
the cavity
goes high into the air drops back down
and sends another pulse this will go on
about 40 times
there'll be multiple tsunamis i was just
on the santa monica beach
two nights ago because santa monica is
the first city to get hit
because it's it's the bee line right up
for santa monica
600 kilometers into the pacific
five-story tall tsunami
would take out the entire west coast of
52:30
the united states but nobody has to die
because we know this well in advance and
but i think
two people will die the stupid
surfer who wants to surf that scenario
you know
we know people like this right you know
movie
tonight there's a wolf moon can you
explain what that means
what's a wolf moon okay each full moon
of the year has a name
and depend and their regional variations
among those names
and the wolf moon it's when it's snowing
53:17
and the wolves howl
you can see the wolf in the light of the
moon because it's all the landscape is
white
and the wolf doesn't the wolves don't
turn white so you can see them against
this
and so depending on where if you live in
a region where there are wolves
that would be what you would call it
other full moon names you've heard of
the harvest moon is one of them the
honeymoon is one
that's the the moon that's in june the
honeymoon
because that moon actually never gets
very high in the sky
and it's amber the entire time it takes
on the color of honey
53:48
it's just called the honeymoon and you
get married in june and that's where you
get the name honeymoon
for that yeah anyone over here no
yes sir um
i think you know in astronomy probably
dark energy was sort of a real game
changer about 10 years ago the discovery
that the expansion universe is
speeding up if there's a game changer in
the next 20 years
what is it uh the question is uh dark
dark energy he said 10 years ago was
like a game changer can i foresee any
game changers
54:18
on the horizon well turns out dark
energy was not as much of a game changer
as you might think
because that just we already had a slot
for it in einstein's equations
we already had a placeholder no one had
ever measured it before so we just
assumed it was zero and got on with life
the moment it was discovered we said hey
now we can stick it in the equation it's
like whoa
it's presence in the equation shows that
there's this fork this is pressure
operating against the action of gravity
making the universe accelerate
54:49
in its expansion and that's
extraordinary because it means that they
will come
where these galaxies that hubble
discovered will expand will
move away from us with such speed that
they will disappear beyond our horizon
and the total known universe at that
time
will only be the milky way restoring the
state of mind of our universe
that existed before 1920.
that's a spooky time we would have to
hand down
the annals of cosmology from previous
55:20
centuries
to hear about the galaxies that were
once in the night sky
so game changers going forward if we
discover
the dark matter particle that'd be kind
of cool
if we if dark energy and dark matter
because we don't know
what's causing either one of them but we
measure them
so they are real in their action on the
universe
we just don't know what they're what
what it is okay
as this thing from the ether 100 years
ago we never measured it we just assumed
55:50
it was there there was no data
it was just a pl dark matter dark
we could call it fred and wilma don't
think it's matter or energy we don't
know what it is
don't let the name fool you i'll for
henceforth call it fred and willman
okay so with fred and wilma these two
things
it may be a game changer once we figure
out what it is
it's a new particle that then we can
exploit
to our benefit in the same way our
understanding
of quantum physics enabled us to exploit
the behavior of atoms
56:21
and nuclei to our benefit so a new kind
of physics
would transform how we live
yes
will pluto not only be humiliated by
neil degrasse tyson
you may not know this
excised from uh from the the family of
planets
neil was on the group that
uh gave the recommendation that pluto be
demoted correct
we uh we
we thought differently about pluto's
identity
than pluto did and other supporters of
57:11
it we just grouped it with other icy
bodies in the outer solar system that at
the time
were being discovered you know don't you
know don't shoot the messenger
pluto was alone for 65 years
and so you can't have a category of one
you that doesn't work in science you
need a few things to make a category so
it's okay it wasn't a category there was
a planet
well you know my very elegant mother
just sat upon nine porcupine
now now she just sits upon nine it
doesn't make an issue
where's the porcupine if she's then i'll
57:41
get she wouldn't have sat on a porcupine
i don't think
uh but so once we found other icy bodies
we
all we did was group them together we
said pluto
we found family for you in fact we think
you're happier there because now you're
one of the biggest
icy bodies and i'd rather the pipsqueak
you sent pluto to a farm upstate to run
and chase rabbits
it's much happier there it's happier
there
and i didn't do it is there a supergiant
beyond pluto that pulls comets in is
there is there a chance there's
58:12
something out there that's drawing
there was a hypothetical star which is
related a little bit to what
led to this invention of this
there was a suggestion that there was a
companion star to the sun
provisionally called nemesis that would
have to say long orbit
that would jostle comets in the outer
solar system and send them raining down
on earth
creating mass extinctions accounting for
the extinction
episodes in the fossil record but it was
an interesting hypothesis that was never
58:48
supported by data
and so when you're not supported by data
you discard the hypothesis
that's how science works you don't
believe something just because
you want to or think something's true
just because it
feels good at some point you gotta
confront
the data so getting back to the point
you've never been in politics
so getting back to the point the
recognition that pluto was made half ice
and ice evaporates so we'll totally one
day disappear
no clue it's too far away from the sun
for that to ever
meaningfully evaporate and disappear
59:21
completely
yes
what was the plan to do the point the
point what
was the point he speaks in past tense as
though we're done with it
we just turned on the switch the large
hadron collider
in switzerland the point of the large
hadron collider was to embarrass
america to make us feel bad that we
didn't have our collider built
back in the 1980s when it was first
funded that's the whole point of the
large hazard collider
it's europe saying gotcha this time
now apart from that ego bit
59:54
it's to probe nature
on levels of energy never before seen
and right now it's hard it's practically
impossible to discover a new law of
physics
on your tabletop we've been there we've
done that
and almost the entire history of physics
is
go to the edges of your points of
exploration and then take a step beyond
that
you're bound to discover something new
it's like climbing the next mountain
crossing the next valley so the large
hadron collider
the energy inside that particle
01:00:26
accelerator will exceed the energy
of all accelerators that have never been
built before
probing nature has never uh previously
imagined
what is the higgs boson higgs boson
that's a particle
proposed that you can think of it as a
kind of a
it's like a
think of it like molasses
okay uh well okay not molasses um
it's a field through which all particles
move
and the interaction of those particles
01:01:05
with that field
endows them with the mass that we
measure for them
it is granting them the property of mass
we have yet to find this particle but if
we do so mass is not explained
presently that's correct we just
mentioned we don't know why
we get fat we don't know we don't know
why something has mass right now that's
correct
and so we now now let me ask you
something if you have
if you build uh let's say you build an
01:01:36
equation this way
you've got an equation over here you
built it and it's a house okay
and you've got another equation over
here that works it's another house but
in your mind you think uh these two
houses are actually probably should be
one house
you invent this
you invent something that fits into the
shape between the two houses right like
you've got a ship that does
okay there's something in the universe
that is the shape of the space between
these two houses yes
does that necessarily mean that thing is
there
the history has shown that
01:02:08
almost every time we propose something
that connects one house to another
if those two houses themselves work
do something between them connecting the
two for example
for example in 1930s we had this
experiment with the 1930s quantum
physics is in place
we start probing the atom we find out
there's a there's
a there's a there's an atomic reaction a
nuclear reaction
where there's some missing energy
we have for all it is and there's
01:02:40
something missing
this much energy and then it's missing
here and we
swear we account for entering everything
fermi comes up a famous physicist said
i bet there's a particle that came out
of that reaction
that escaped with the energy before you
had a chance to measure it
equals m squared oh well that would have
endowed that particle with its energy to
do so
the mass to do so and even squares in
every one of these
it's all over the place it's written
with equals mc squared the point is
01:03:11
he hypothesized the particle gave it the
properties that it would have to have
to account for what was seen that's your
that's your conduit between the two
houses
then he says gotta have this much energy
and it's gotta be pretty hard to detect
because we surrounded this and led and
it just got went straight through the
lead so
i'm going to propose a particle it's
hard to detect and it's got to be little
because it's not that much mass and it
has no charge
so it's neutral so he called them
neutrinos
little neutral ones he hypothesized he
01:03:44
said let's look for them
20 years later they were found neutrinos
and now we kept them coming out of these
reactions
he built he built the porch the the
the the walkway between the two houses
practically every time you have two
working understandings of the world
and they have to coexist in the same
universe there's something that's going
to connect them
it's like electricity and magnetism
previously discovered as separate things
until
faraday and maxwell said hey wait a
minute this works and that works
01:04:16
and they kind of smell like each other
though maybe they're the same thing
so a whole theory came out to put the
two together
and it is the theory of electromagnetism
you know this word
you just take it as a single word but
those used to be separate concepts
so we're going good with this being with
this
we're on a roll here so why not continue
that's right do parallel universes exist
do parallel universes exist we don't
01:04:46
know
um the parallel universes are losing
favor to the multiverse
we have some cogent theoretical
expectations that our universe might be
just one of many
spawned from this sort of this
hyperdimensional
medium which we'll call the multiverse
there's no data to support it
but we have good theoretical um
premise to think that it's there and we
have philosophical precedent
01:05:16
we used to think earth was special and
unique it wasn't we got eight nine eight
planets
we think that we thought the sun was
special it's one of a hundred billion
sun thought the galaxy was special those
100 billion galaxies
we have one universe or do we
the track workers said why should there
only be one
be open to the possibility that you
don't live in the majority looking
universe that's out there
would it separate universe when you say
different universe
like slightly different laws of physics
01:05:47
which makes it oh yes well this is the
this is the fun part
because if you find if you manage to get
a portal to another universe
don't be the first one to volunteer to
go through it because
you you your atoms are working in this
universe
in the slightly different law of physics
yeah you could
implode explode come out with three
heads who knows
there's a different exchange right over
here
someone i'll go in the back in the
middle and i think you have a white
sweater on yes
um is it possible to tunnel through a
01:06:19
black hole
like quantum handling can a black hole
be used to travel how about that can we
say that no no
it's a little different steve
as if it creates a tunnel in space or
time
quantum mechanically quantum
mechanically can you tunnel through a
black hole
i'm not going to try to interpret this
one uh what i have to ask did you want
to land someplace else when you're done
or are you content with being dead when
it's over
01:06:52
i need to know before i answer i guess
it's okay if i die
it's okay if you die um for science
for science stephen hawking showed just
recently that
and for me this was kind of spooky
amazing
that black holes remember
everything that they have ever eaten
means it's not a tunnel to anywhere
everything that it ate is sitting there
at the singularity at its center
now the spooky part that's not the
spooky part the spooky part is
01:07:24
stephen hawking showed 40 years ago that
black holes can actually evaporate
the matter that's within a black hole
can
rise up out of the gravitational field
that surrounds it
and spontaneously birth a pair of
particles that's just
equals mc squared doing its thing equals
mg squared
the gravity field has high energy
density
out of that pops particles and those
particles escape taking
matter away from the black hole from the
01:07:56
from the gravity field of the black hole
does that fly in the face of what
how we think of a black hole in a black
hole gone forever
because nothing escapes because nothing
has nothing can uh surpass the energy
needed to go faster than the speed of
light except quantum mechanics this
quantum physics from the 1920s gets you
out of that problem
that's a classical understanding of
black holes you
layer quantum mechanics on it weird
stuff happens completely legitimately
weird stuff happens
so you burst these particles outside the
thing now here's what happens
i'm dumping that sounds like that i'm
not interviewing that sounds like
01:08:27
a science is making magical exceptions
for itself
it's quantum physics is kind of magic
because none of it issues forth from
your common sense
particles pop in and out of existence
one time it's a wave the next time it's
a particle
and it interacts with itself and pop and
you measure it here but it shows up
there if we
were forged in that world then all that
would be common sense
and equals mc square would be a daily
phenomenon you would need einstein to
figure it out you'd be learning it in
01:08:59
elementary school
but that is a foreign universe to us and
so what goes on there
you are prone to say that doesn't make
sense you know something it's of
no no obligation to make sense to you
because your senses
didn't come out of that universe out of
that universe of
tiny particles we don't live there if
you let something go
and it drops you say that makes sense if
you let something goes up you say that
doesn't make sense
in quantum world that happens all the
time
it would make sense in the quantum world
so i submit to you
01:09:30
that if i take your body and dump it
into a black hole what stephen hawking
showed
is that all the particles that went into
the black hole let's say it's
stephen colbert black hole okay no other
contaminating bodies
but your atoms in the center of this
black hole and i weighed around
and out here in the gravity field
particles pop into existence
and i check make a check how many
protons how many neutrons
how many electrons how many neutrinos by
the time this black hole was evaporated
it would have been every single particle
01:10:01
that you were having fallen in in the
first place
extracted out of the energy field of the
black hole so it remembers who you were
even out in in the gravitational field
that's spooky to me
uh
this pops out of existence evaporated it
takes
by the way it takes several trillion
years for that so don't wait around for
it
right there how do you figure all this
out
how do you figure all this out
uh it's an excellent question yeah
that's a good one
01:10:39
isaac newton did it all by himself he
was like really
really really smart a quick as you knew
the story he discovered he discovered
laws of motion laws of gravity
just shows that planets don't orbit in
circles as copernicus had
thought but in slightly flattened
circles we call it ellipses
and and so friend said i i why
that may be quite overwhelming what why
that
shape and not some other shape he
couldn't answer that question
i'll get back to you goes home for two
01:11:11
months come back here's why
it's that shape they're conic sections
that cuts through the thing and so how
did you figure that out and said well
i had to invent integral and
differential calculus to figure it out
so some people invent their own tools
and methods
to discover the world most people
learn the tools from someone else and
then apply them to make
incremental changes some people make
huge changes like isaac newton and
and and and einstein and others isaac
newton
once said if i can see farther than
01:11:46
others it's because i've stood on the
shoulders of giants
who have come before me but i've read
isaac newton
his stuff makes the hair on the if i had
hair it would rise up on the back of my
neck
how plugged in he was to the universe
and i'm saying to myself
that quote cannot possibly have been
honest
what it really meant if i i'd re give
that quote to him i'd say if i can see
farther than others
it's because i'm standing among among
midgets that's why he can see farther
than everybody else
are you surprising
01:12:21
i'm afraid we me have time for one more
question yes sir oh actually it was a
great segue to my question
we organized this all for your question
sure
early in the evening you brought up the
the ideas of scientific literacy
and technology manage management i'd
like to hear your opinions of
where the policy needs to go to make a
positive impact in that area
all right neil can you repeat that very
much the question is
we were talking earlier about scientific
literacy and our approach toward science
01:12:51
as a nation in your opinion and you you
serve on science advisory panels yeah
where do you think we need to go as a
nation what do we need to do
to increase our scientific literacy
uh to i'll go i'll answer two problems
one is what do you do with your kids and
kids need to
be able to explore freely and if you
look at most households
they're not designed for that they're
01:13:21
designed to have the kid not explore
the kid comes into your kitchen and
pulls out the pots and pans and starts
banging on what's the first thing you do
as a parent
stop that you're getting the dishes
dirty
yet these are experiments in acoustics
that's what that is
okay whatever the kid is doing if it has
the chance of breaking something
you're going to tell them to not do it
without thinking that that's the
consequence of an experiment that they
are conducting
and every time the kid wants to do
something provided it doesn't kill them
it's an experiment let it run its course
01:13:54
even if it makes something messy you
agreed to have a kid in the first place
fine clean up after them
because it's those seeds of curiosity
that is the foundation of what it is to
become a scientist
now i don't want everybody to be a
scientist that'd be a boring word i want
the poets and i want
the musicians and the po we need that
and i don't have
but i'm talking about promoting science
literacy and so the first step
for the parent is to get out of the way
allow the child to explore
01:14:34
if they start playing in the mud don't
do that in the mud i just clean those
pants
you're getting in the way of another
experiment they start plucking the
pedals off the flowers you just bought
from the
from the florist and you say stop that i
just paid ten dollars for the flowers
how'd you let that continue they find in
the middle the stamen and the pistol and
they'd learn something about the flower
for ten bucks that's cheap
derrick bach one time president of
harvard once said if you think
education is expensive try the cost of
01:15:05
ignorance
and so that's
so that's got to start at home in the
schools
i don't have a problem with the fact
memorizing but don't equate that with
what it is to be wise
or what it is to be smart
smart should be some combination
of that yes but also what is your lens
on the world how do you figure things
out
and you promote that by stimulating
curiosity
and i don't see enough stimulated
01:15:38
curiosity in this world
this is a famous school right here i saw
the banner in the opening corridors
so you probably don't have that problem
here all right
but the whole world is not educated in
this building so
a lot of change would need to happen in
that regard now getting back to policy
i have tried you do a simple google
like youtube and tyson my name but put
neal so you don't get mike
dining on someone's ear half my
half of what up what ends up thrown onto
youtube
01:16:10
are talks i've given where i'm trying to
convince people
not only the public but lawmakers and
people in power that
investing in the frontier of science
however remote it may seem in its
relevance to what you're doing today
is a way of stockpiling the seed corns
of future harvests of this nation and
those sea corns what they do is whether
or not you know it today
01:16:42
advancing a frontier history has shown
has advanced the culture
ever since the industrial revolution got
underway
and we can speak more humanistically
about it that anyone
who has embraced the powers of
technology
has enjoyed economic wealth like the
likes of which the world has never seen
attendant with strength strength of
security
okay and so people say today
they'll say suppose the next attack
terror attack is like a chemical attack
01:17:13
do you call out the marines or do you
get your best chemists
to figure out what to do about that
there's a point where
your weapons are not as useful as the
brain of the scientists who you could
bring to bear
on the problem and so i see science and
technology
and creative investments in it as the
most significant
in infusion to our economy that could
possibly be conceived
the problem is it's not going to boost
the economy next quarter
it's got a time horizon longer than most
01:17:44
people have the patience for
and most politicians have the
re-election cycle to be tolerant enough
so what we need is a longer view on
those investments
i don't want to have to have nasa going
hand in hand trying to get money
to stimulate the frontier of cosmic
discovery
and that frontier now involves
biologists in the search for life
chemists in understanding the soils of
mars aerospace engineers
you know what i don't want to do i don't
want to stand in front of 8th graders
and say who wants to be an aerospace
engineer
01:18:15
so that you can design an airplane
that's 15 more fuel efficient than the
one your father flew
that's not going to get him but if i say
who wants to be an engineer
and design that airfoil that'll fly in
the rarefied atmosphere of mars
i'm going to get the best students in
the class and you know it because that's
an exciting project for smart people to
work on
motivated people to work on and when you
have them they invent stuff they
discover
things they transform the culture in
which we live
on a time horizon that is not easy to
just tell
someone in a one sentence sound bite
01:18:47
and what i want is a level of science
and cultural literacy
that will allow the public to be able to
think beyond the election
cycle to think for themselves and say
this is a good investment
how many times have you heard people say
if you're not among us here
why are we spending money up there when
we have the problems out here have you
ever asked
how much money we're spending up there
ask that question you know what the
answer is
i've asked people how much money you
think was spreading here's your tax
dollar how much do you think 10
15 those are the kinds of answers i get
you know how much is getting spent
01:19:18
the rovers the the space station the the
the space shuttles
all the warm vehicles all the nasa
centers is six tenths
of one pay on your tax dollars
six tenths of one penny pays for it all
and you're telling me
why are we spending a month there down
here if if if you need that money to
solve these problems you got some other
problems going on
okay that's a whole other problem with
society
so i'm sorry i'm getting off
01:19:48
so my point is i think the greatest
the greatest need is to be able to have
the foresight necessary
to make investments on the frontier of
science even if at the time you make
those investments
you cannot figure out how that might
make you rich tomorrow
michael faraday in 1840s was the first
one to pass a wire
through a magnetic field and it made a
little meter
tick on on a it moved a a meter
he hooked up to it that's going to do
01:20:22
this and this happens
that's kind of cool if you're nerdy it's
a to a nerd that's a cool thing right
you do this and this happens
and so what was happening is it induced
a current through the wire
he showed his colleagues it looked like
just kind of a curiosity a toy
showed it to paul they say why this is
what we're funding
we're funding this toy and this may be
apocryphal but it is said
of faraday in response to this inquiry
said
this because they asked what value is
this to the british empire
01:20:53
and to the king he said i don't know
what value it is today
but i know one day you're going to tax
it
and in fact that is the foundation of
how all
electricity is made today and
it would take another 60 years before
electricity would come to homes
but who could have known it at the time
i don't want to be left behind
i will not leave you behind nothing okay
yes
the biggest news story last year to me
it was not the methane uh flatulence no
01:21:36
the biggest news story happened december
22nd something like that
i forgot what day a press release comes
out
russia says they want to send a mission
to deflect office the killer asteroid
oh yeah by the way i said if that hits
it's going to hit the pacific
which affects us okay russia says
we're gonna launch a mission we're gonna
start designing it now we're gonna fund
it oh by the way
the united states is welcome to join us
and people say that's nice
the little international thing i'm
01:22:06
saying wait a minute
something's wrong here aren't we the
ones who are supposed to be starting
missions and invite
other people to join us isn't that how
it's been
so that was a sign one of many
that our significance and meaning on the
world stage
is fading and it's fading fast and
it's not a cliff it's just a fade and
the day will come
where the rest of the world just makes
01:22:37
their own decisions about the future of
their own
space exploration and technologies and
we're sitting back saying
hi fellas can we join the law
neil we already proved we can deflect
asteroids
in the movie armageddon
so there's our fantasy we don't do it in
real we do it on the silver screen
and we're happy about that maybe we got
to fix that disconnect
last question why is there something
instead of nothing
01:23:13
10 words or less
just because
so i gotta do this in haiku then okay
okay five seven
five
words that make questions
may not be questions
at all
i am well rebuked neil degrasse tyson
is honored to have you here and honor
always to talk to you
please come on
01:24:23
um dr tyson is going to be down here you
will be
signing books until 9 30 so if you'd
like to come down have a book
signed feel free and for the rest of you
thank you all for coming
and get home
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