Transcription
This planet is the only one that we can live on. Perfect for us because we evolved on it. So, it is the best place in the universe by far to be a human. How many civilizations are there in a galaxy like the Milky Way? So, there's a lot of places where life could begin and evolve. But on this planet, it took 4 billion years roughly to go from the origin of life to us. And 4 billion years is a third of the age of the universe.
>> What are your thoughts on life after death?
>> Professor Brian Cox, lovely to see you.
>> Good to be here.
>> Last time I interviewed you, it was actually on radio too. And I think I had all of about 8 minutes to talk to you, which is an impossible task.
>> About the universe.
>> About the universe. Tell me what the universe means in eight minutes. But today we can take our sweet time. So it's really great to see you. You are next year embarking on a whole massive world tour for quite literally like 12 months. You're off.
>> Well, more than that actually.
>> Really?
>> That the last one in the end went on for about four years.
>> Oh my god. Like coplay.
>> You just kind of Yeah. You just keep adding on to it. Actually, the Boston Globe said that my tour was the Taylor Swift eras of science.
>> Yes.
>> And I thought I'll take that.
>> Yeah. Put that on your post.
>> Taylor Swift. It is. I think it is on the poster. You're absolutely right.
>> I love it. So um and yes, so this one at the moment is about 18 months I think.
>> Wow. Long.
>> Wow.
>> And here in the UK the big the big shows are in um October and November next year. So there, you know, the the O2 and the the arenas in Manchester and Birmingham, Nottingham and like all that.
>> So amazing. And it's wonderful that it's basically cosmology, you know, it's astronomy and cosmology, but it's kind of like Prague rock as well in a sense, you know, because we've got the biggest possible screens that you can fit in those places, which is at the moment. So, we've got things like the James Websp space telescope, which wasn't active last time that I taugh. And almost every day you see beautiful images like ultra high resolution magnificent images of um sort of exploding stars and colliding galaxies just beautiful stuff.
>> And so putting those on those screens is really exciting to me because the screens are massive as I said as big as we can fit into those arenas.
>> It's so beautiful. You know, I think a lot of the time we just think, "Oh god, everything's so doom and gloom out there and everyone's feeling rubbish and a bit down." And then you filling venues of that size, like huge arenas, there are so many people out there that want to feel awe and wonder and have big questions to ask. And I think we forget that.
>> Yeah. I think I mean almost everybody I would say everybody that I meet is interested in the questions that are raised by astronomy and cosmology but also biology just science in general but it's how you phrase the questions because there are questions you know are we alone in the universe is a question that people think about even are we alone in the solar system are there microbes on Mars but also these bigger questions about how did the universe begin why is there a universe at all how come there things like us in the universe which are just little patterns of atoms that can have a conversation. I mean we you know we are there's an observation a few weeks ago from the James Webb Space Telescope of a galaxy from which the light had been traveling for 13.5 billion years to reach us. So the universe is 13.8 billion years old. So you're seeing this thing as it was just after the universe began.
>> Wow. And so you can see that. So you say, well, how did the universe go from that, which is these early galaxies, and even before that, just a load of hydrogen and helium, nothing else. How did it go from that to us, which is really part of what the show's about? One of my great heroes, Carl Sean, said that um said that a physicist a physicist is a hydrogen atoms way of learning about hydrogen atoms. And you go, that's what a beautiful way of putting what a what a human being is. We started off as just a load of hydrogen.
>> Yeah.
>> A couple of minutes after the Big Bang.
>> Yeah.
>> And now we're these things.
>> Yeah.
>> And that story is quite majestic. So I think everybody's interested in that.
>> Yeah. And I think we are desperately wanting to land on that because we get so bogged down with the minutia of our everyday lives and our worries and our idiosyncrasies and the issues that we've got going on that actually when we pull focus and we go oh my like we ask big questions like that. How the hell did we end up in this civilized world with AI and all of these technological advances? I think we want to constantly pull focus but we get dragged back to the minutia again and again on a daily basis. Do you think because this is such a huge part of how you operate in the world, who you are, how you think, do you think having that greater perspective impacts your happiness levels and helps you maybe distract from the everyday stresses?
>> I think it does for for several reasons. And one is a bit more abstract as you said, the perspective. I mean, it is a remarkable thing to be a human being and we don't know how far you'd have to go out into the universe to find anything remotely as complicated or wonderful as us. It might be beyond our galaxy you'd have to go. So that but that's as you rightly say that's a it's a very wide perspective and it's kind of a luxurious thing to be able to think like that when you're busy every day and you and you've got real things to do. But I also think that the it's kind of so it's like it's almost meditative in a way. So thinking learning about nature which is what we're talking about and nature is not just leaves and plants. its stars and the universe beyond is is kind of quite a diverting and experience and it's full of it's quite a joyful pleasurable thing to you know and ask very simple questions about you know for example why is why is the grass green is a good question so you can sit there and look at the grass and maybe you don't think about it too much you say why is it green and it's green because it does photosynthesis and so it takes energy from the sun and you say why does it do that and why does it reflect the green light so we see it is green and in the end actually you'll end up going on a journey that takes you back through the whole history of life on earth and so suddenly you start asking questions about you know that how did the plants come to be on the land and it was 500 million years ago or something like that and so it's actually I think it's a it's a joyful distracting experience as well as so it's just like doing a cross word really or something else what people do but it's also has this profound quality that ultimately By asking those little questions, you end up going on journeys in your mind that span billions of years and billions of light years. And so, yeah, I think that I mean, obviously, I would recommend it is what I'm saying.
>> Well, that and also I think it forces you to be open-minded because with science things change constantly and although we can maybe get we can land on a theory or land on something that we know to be true, in a hundred years that can all change. So, it's really important to remain openminded. A really important point there because the there was um in 1955 actually one of the great physicists Richard Feman wrote an essay called the value of science and so what is the value of this so it's obvious that it we wouldn't have an iPhone you wouldn't have modern medicine you wouldn't have all those things right that's obvious stuff but actually he said what you said which is it's because you're trying to understand nature and the amount of knowledge we have is changing all the time and so the picture we have of how things work and the theories and our understanding changes all the time. You get used to the fact that you're often wrong. So as a scientist, you're almost always wrong. Actually, if you're doing a PhD or something like that, you I think it works like this and and nature will say no and you okay. But so you learn to be delighted actually when your opinion turns out to be incorrect. And that is a skill that I think we can all agree that many people in public life and elsewhere have lost gone.
>> And so it but of course if you're not comfortable with uncertainty and comfortable with uh being on the edge of the known then you never learn and and Fman actually in this beautiful essay strongly recommend it. You can download it from anywhere. It's Richard Feman the value of science. It's about four pages and he he says in there that even if you think about what democracy is, democracy is the admission fundamentally that you don't know how to run a country because you have you accept that you change the government every four or five years and that's a positive thing. So the moment you see someone saying this is the way to do it.
>> Yeah.
>> then you know that it's that you know that is not the right person for the job. They're not actually a democrat because democracy requires you to think that you you're flawed and your understanding improves and you get most things wrong but sometimes you get something right and that's how we make progress.
>> Yeah. And that's what science is. So there would be no modern medicine without that process. You need to almost be egoless because I think you know ego is the thing that is you know if we look at all the biggest problems in the world right now it's because of everything you just said that people are so certain this is how the world should run this is who should be in power this is who should control this part of the world and that's where why we're seeing so much conflict and divisiveness and these huge canyon between different people's sets of ideas and actually we need more uncertainty to create a level of peace which is maybe sort of a bit of a general sweeping statement, but it seems like uncertainty is so undervalued.
>> Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting that Fineman um also he work he works on the atom bomb. He works on the Manhattan project. So, it's not surprising that in the 50s he was thinking about this stuff because he thought he'd delivered the power to destroy ourselves. He had delivered us the power to destroy ourselves. and the other mo more famously Robert Oppenheimer you know, so everybody knows Oppenheimer yeah especially because of the brilliant film recently um so Oppenheimer did this wrote about the same things in the 50s and again he was writing about this idea that you have to embrace doubt and not fear doubt but embrace it and also actually Oppenheimer he gave the BBC wreath lectures you know, really famous lectures in in the 50s I think he's 53 and he spoke about this stuff and and and he said there's a wonderful thing I remember where he said that everyone to be a person of integrity to a thoughtful person you'll have an anchor you so you you'll have beliefs and you'll have a framework and a moral framework and you'll believe things so that and that's really important to be a person of substance you have to have a position but the trick the key is to realize other people have different anchors and so we all have our different anchors and the challenge on this planet is to make sure that we work together in the interests of the planet as a whole and the civilization. And and that sounds like a bit hippie maybe and whatever, but actually if you think about it, if you're the person who built the atom bomb and you saw two of them dropped on Japan then and so you know what the power of those weapons is, one of the things you might think about is how to not do that.
>> Yeah.
>> And and they're worth reading these people because I think in some ways we've forgotten it. Well, we massively have. I mean, we had I had this episode of the podcast quite a few years ago now, but it's one that I always come back to. We had this amazing he sadly late um ex Buddhist monk. He he had sort of finished his mastic lifestyle and was living in Sweden and he wrote a book called I may be wrong. And that was the mantra constantly was in any conversation or conflict to have that in the back of his mind. I may be wrong which immediately sort of like takes the heat and the anger out of certain situations. And it's really interesting because in the leadup to this talk I listened to a bunch of podcasts where you've been the guest just to see because obviously your your subject matters are widely spanning and you could go on any different path of conversation. So, it's really interesting hearing you talk, but one common theme was that you use the word argue a lot, but in a way that we don't normally use it. I think, you know, if you were just to say I was arguing with or I argue in an everyday setting, you imagine it's kind of heated and people are pissed off and they're butting heads. But actually within the context of science, you use it in a much gentler way, perhaps in like the truest way that it should be spoken, that you're you're bringing another idea to the forefront of the conversation.
>> Yeah, that's really I didn't know that I used that word a lot. So, thank you for that analysis.
>> But yeah, it's right in in the context of science, you make an argument. I think in other disciplines as well, you talk about making an argument, not having an argument, but making one, which is laying out a position.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's what science is. You know, what is a theory? A scientific theory? It's basically a guess. So you guess Einstein guessed about the nature of gravity in 1915 and it looks like it was pretty close because and that theory ended up suggesting there may be an origin to the universe. So it's quite a good guess there.
>> But we still we still don't think it's complete and completely right. So that's the process. So you make a guess and then you'd make an argument and then in that sense and then you'd test it and so you do some experiments and you'd see and and really what you're doing is not looking for confirmation of your guess. You're looking for the thing where it's frayed where it starts to not give the right answer because there's the place to go next to learn some more. And you're right, what you said earlier was interesting about ego because I think if you really are a if you're a scientist and you really are a good scientist, what you're interested in is finding out how nature works, you're not interested in being seen to be right.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's the difference, I think. And of course, I'm not naive enough and I'm not suggesting that scientists don't have egos because they do. There's all sorts of politics. I mean the Nobel prizes were awarded today. Everyone wants a Nobel Prize and people feel really good about it. But ultimately most scientists I've met are pure in the sense they just want to find out how things work.
>> Yeah. And also curiosity is such a brilliant again underrated quality because you can never be bored. There's no chance of being bored if you're relentlessly curious about things. And that's probably something we all have as children. and we're curious about the world around us and then it sort of gets beaten out of us a bit and we kind of stop wondering and stop thinking and that's why I guess again your shows are so popular because people are naturally deeply curious.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Actually um it reminds me of this um one of my heroes is Carl Sean and um so he did a great series called Cosmos when I was growing up. Um, but he wrote a book called The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. And I strongly recommend it and beautiful book. But right at the start, he tells this story of getting in a taxi in New York and the taxi driver was like, "You're the astronomer off TV, aren't you?" And he's like, "Yeah." So he said, "What about aliens? Do you think UFOs have landed?" And so Sean said, "No, I don't." He said, "What about Atlantis? Do you think there used to be a city under the sea?" And Sean said, "No, and whatever. And what about horoscopes and things? No. And but Sean, he was really wise, I think, because he said he didn't think he is a person who's just asking silly questions. He thought he is a curious person who's really interested and and really he he just hasn't been served well by society, by education, because there are answers to some of these questions. And the real universe is infinitely more wonderful than imagined civilizations beneath the waves and things. It's far more interesting than that. But he hadn't had access to the information. And and I think that's a really important thing to remember that you said at the start. I think there are no there aren't silly questions. There are just people being curious.
>> Yeah.
>> And if they don't know the answer, you know, how how did the universe be begin is a very good question. And actually, we don't know. We don't even know he had a beginning, right? We know it was very hot and dense 13.8 billion years ago, but we don't know what happened before that, if there was a before.
>> And so I think that it's really important to, as you said, the curiosity is the important bit. And then it comes down to it's part of the responsibility of a society to give people the tools to satisfy their curiosity and investigate their questions. Yeah, I think people are nervous to ask questions because we hate feeling like we're a bit stupid. You know, we hate thinking is that such a basic question or I think the thing we hate the most is saying I don't know. You know, even if someone goes, "Have you read that book?" And you're like, "Um, yeah." And you're, you know, you're lying. Like, you don't want to admit that you don't have that knowledge. And actually, I think again, science seems to be constantly humbling because although we know a hell of a lot, we know there's like so much we don't know. So much we don't know.
>> I'll get it slightly wrong. There's a great there's a great scientist called John Wheeler who's one of the most famous physicists of the 20th century. And he said that we live on a we live on this little island of knowledge surrounded by an ocean of ignorance. But as the size of our island of knowledge increases, so do the shores of our ignorance, which was brilliant. It's a lovely way of putting it.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and actually the the the live show that I'm doing now, it starts with um a story about a scientist called Johannes Kepler. So Kepler was working in the early 1600s and he's famous for the laws of planetary motion. So in a way that I cannot conceive how he did it just from watching the planets like Mars and Jupiter and Saturn which was some other astronomers had cataloged where they are in the sky, you know, which we known for thousands of years. is part is astrology, right? You know, where the planets are against the stars. So, he took that data and figured out that planets go in ellipses around the sun and they and he figured out a relationship between how how long their year is and how far away from the sun they are. It's remarkable just from this data, but he was really clever. And in 1609 there's a beautiful story that he wrote about where he was walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague in a snowstorm and it was snowing and it was New Year's Eve as he tells it and he was going to his benefactor's house to a party. So he was going over the New Year's Eve party to the guy that pays him and he realized he hadn't brought him a present. And so he noticed the snowflakes landed on his arm and he and he looked at them and he said, "Why are they all six-sided?" Right? They're all different and really beautiful, but they're all six-sided. So, what is it about that? So, he wrote this book going, "Why?" And and he said, "Well, they come from water. So, maybe there's something in the water. Maybe it's what the water's made of that makes the snowflake, which is right." He didn't know it was 1600 and maybe so something to do with the maybe he didn't know about molecules but he he makes all this progress and he talks about beehives and pomegranate seeds and everything that's got these geometric shapes and he's on the right track. Yeah, we now know it's the water molecule and we know about that but it's a 20th century discovery. But right at the end after he's written this wonderful book which you can just but I recommend it. It's called the six cornered snowflake. We need like a whole book list after this episode in the notes.
>> Yeah. The six corner snowflake. Right at the end, he says he just says, "I can't I can't go any further with what I know." And he says, "I leave it to you, dear reader."
>> Wow.
>> To to to the people of the future. And he says in the the translation I have, he says, "I'm knocking on the doors of chemistry."
>> Wow.
>> But we didn't have chemistry. We didn't know anything. So, but you so you see this brilliant mind asking all these questions and then almost being happy at the end going it's great it's something for the people of the future. M I think also like because I watched the trailer for your show and heard that story and I was again sort of bowled over by the simplicity of a question that you know that many of us probably haven't wondered why does a snowflake look like that and actually our appreciation for the natural world and the fact that we know we're not really looking after it probably does boil down to the fact that we've lost th that sort of simple curiosity about yeah why a snowflake has six sides. We sort of don't give a [ __ ] We're like, "Oh, well, how, you know, can we go to space?" And I know we'll get on to that, but you know, we we've lost that sort of simplicity, that curiosity about the real simple aspects of the natural world around us.
>> Yeah. And and this is one of the greatest minds, I would say, the Kepler. I mean, he was a genius.
>> But you're right. He's asking this really childlike question, which is a very deep question. Yeah. And and actually I someone wrote recently um it was a one a Nobel Prize winner I forgotten who it was but he was asked like what if you were to go to kids school and say everything's made of atoms things are made of atoms is there anything you can do as an experiment in a school to show that it's very difficult you know this is a 20th century discovery and he said it's probably this shapes of things like snowflakes because if you see something And Kepler said, you know, I I I cannot believe that this beautiful shape exists at random.
>> Yeah.
>> there's a reason why this thing is like that.
>> And the reason is the water molecule and you have to know quantum mechanics and all sorts of things to know understand why the water molecule is the way that it is.
>> Yeah.
>> But that idea that crystals, crystal structure like a snowflake is telling you something about a deeper picture.
>> Yeah.
>> Is a really modern way of looking at it. And it's right. It's correct. So, it's probably snowflakes. Snowflakes are probably the example of something that's telling you there's something else going on.
>> How does that play into just like our human lives? Do you personally believe that life is a random string of events that happen or is there some sort of destiny, fate, pre-ordained something about how we're living as humans?
>> No, I think it's a random series of events.
>> [laughter]
>> We are not snowflakes.
>> Well, the snowflakes is the snowflakes. So, they're all six-sided. But then you say, why are they all different then, which Kepler also noticed. They're all different, but they're all kind of similar.
>> They're all different because they have different formation histories. So, it's the path they take through the clouds when they form that gives them their shape.
>> That's true of a human.
>> Yeah.
>> That's true of us.
>> Yes, very much so. So, so we're shaped by the path we take through life.
>> Oh, I like that.
>> So, in that sense, we are the same as snowflakes. We're a frozen history in a way, which is what a snowflake is.
>> But in terms of the the thing about destiny, so it has a name in science called teology, which is the idea that there's a final there's a the cause is in the future. So, you're evolving towards something you're going towards. And that's not the way that we think of the universe scientifically. So evolution for example, like why why are we the way that we are? It's all about our evolutionary history. We're not evolving to become smarter or something like that. You evolve to fit your environment, but it's so it's not that there's a we're not some kind of ascent to some grander sort of form. So that's not the way that we we think in science. Well, because I guess also if you look at the human race, we are undoubtedly getting smarter, but in some ways getting so much more stupid.
>> I'm not sure if we're getting smarter. I mean, when when you look at even recently people like Kepler, if you read that book, you see a modern mind, a very very clever person. So, I don't think we've got smarter in the last few hundred years. In fact, in the past few thousand years, no one's got smarter. The really interesting question is what happened to civilization and society that allowed us in about 1600 to suddenly start basically doing science which has led to the modern world. But if you think about it without being dismissive to everyone who lived before that we didn't really do we didn't make much progress. Right?
>> [laughter]
>> If you went to ancient Egypt with horses,
>> Yeah.
>> If if a someone from ancient Greece went back 2,000 years to ancient Egypt, they wouldn't really notice a lot different.
>> Yeah.
>> But they, you know, it'd be a bit different. They'd have pyramids rather than temples, but it had basically the amount the knowledge they had about the world hadn't changed. So, it didn't change ever basically thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And then around 1500600 suddenly we start accumulating knowledge and in only 400 years from Kepler thinking about these points of light. We've visited them all.
>> 400 years we've been to every planet that Kepler saw and discovered some that he didn't know about.
>> And now we have a spacecraft the Voyager one. It's 50 50 years since it was launched.
>> It's on the edge of the solar system. It's on the way to the stars. And that happened in 400 years.
>> Yeah. So I find it really interesting that it's that it's not people have got smarter, it's that our society got smarter.
>> And how important is space travel in terms of our longevity as a human race? Is it essential?
>> Yeah. Um it is it well so I mean you could say well it's going to be essential eventually but it's essential now actually. So if you look at the way our civilization works a large amount of the things we take for granted are delivered from space. So there's a number I think there was a report from the Royal Society which is the UK's big oldest scientific society about a year ago and I think the number is 16% of UK GDP requires space-based infrastructure it's a very big number and and because if you think about it we use it for all our communications we use it for the timing of our computer networks financial transactions weather forecasting understanding climate and all that kind so it The list goes on and on and on.
>> Also med how they're making certain medicines kind of essential that they're in the future.
>> Yeah. So already we're talking about that there's experiments to manufactured drugs and medicines as you say on the space station. It's some things are better manufactured in in z in zerog and and so on. So but even now it's so integrated with our society that if we lost that infrastructure we it would literally the civilization would grind to a halt.
>> Yeah. So we're we're already completely entwined with it.
>> And and I think so we make a mistake when we think of space as science fiction. It's really not. It's it's part of I had an argu a discussion with someone the other day. I was going to say argument, but it was a discussion [laughter] and about and and they said um you shouldn't think of the you we talk about the space economy which is growing and we're thinking about things like mining asteroids and putting power stations in space and so on. and then the Earth economy. But they said, "No, it's just the economy. It's all the same. We're expanding outwards."
>> Yeah.
>> we're already near Earth orbit is completely entwined with everything that we do. So, it's becoming very important actually to to manage it as well and to regulate it to to to make sure it's not the wild west up there because it's essential to all our lives.
>> Yeah. Well, exactly. And I guess also like looking at how you know meddling with asteroids for instance, putting power stations on certain other planets is going to impact everything is going to impact
>> I mean it yeah it's I mean asteroids so there's more the resources there's an argument which a lot of the people the early sort of evangelists for space there's a guy called Jered O'Neal later a guy called Robert Zubrin who influenced Elon Musk quite heavily and they all had this view that the what we're putting too much pressure on the planet obviously which I think everyone agrees upon resource extraction and so on. But the thing is that there are resources an infinite amount of resources up there above our heads.
>> Yeah.
>> if we can access them and and and a lot of the early sort of pioneers and thinkers felt that that would relieve the pressure on Earth and it would in principle if you can do it. It relieve the pressure on Earth because you're not fighting over resources on Earth. Yeah. You you you realize that you can just go to that asteroid, that asteroid, that asteroid, the moon, Mars, and so on.
>> And it often sounds like, as I said before, it sounds like science fiction and naive. and it maybe was in the 70s, you know, maybe it was rather sort of wishful thinking, but it sort of isn't now. Yeah, it's coming. Um, and so I think there's there are great benefits to be had from moving into space and it gets a bad name sometimes because, you know, we all know about the controversies around some of the people who go there and space tourism and all those things which would be fun. I'd quite like to do it, but obviously it's a you know, whatever. But actually the the real potential there is to allow us to expand as a civilization without damaging the planet.
>> Yeah.
>> that's the potential. It seems like it needs to rally alongside us actually just taking care of the planet as well because I think yes, you know, absolutely we can see how that could be the future of us and not annihilating the planet that we're living on. But equally, will that make people even more apathetic? Like, oh, we don't need to worry about Earth because we can just go up there and go to an asteroid and nick something off of that.
>> And that's definitely not true. No.
>> So, the thing to say, and this always has to be said, you're right. At the same time, it's talking about the potential of space is that this planet is the only one that we can live on in large numbers in the way that we do. It's perfect for us because we evolved on it. So, it is the best place in the universe by far to be a human.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's just a statement of fact. That's the way that it is. So yes, we can build colonies on Mars and the moon first probably and there'll be a few hundred people or maybe a few thousand people, but it'll be horrible. It's not a nice place and it never will be a nice place. No, you might have some nice green houses and some big sort of buildings. But imagine living your life confined to a building.
>> They're not going to be rivers on the surface of Mars anytime soon.
>> No.
>> if at all. You know, even if you can terraform the planet in hundreds of years time, it's just not nice. So, we have to remember that as a human being, this is the best planet in the universe because we evolved on it.
>> Mhm.
>> And there will not be a replacement.
>> No. I mean you started a global um sort of summit with all of the world leaders giving this quite punchy statement that like this is it and you were saying you know even they were kind of perhaps assuming you would turn up and go like have a great time chatting about leadership guys and actually you delivered some extremely punchy facts that they needed to hear. What I said to them was that so we could ask the question how many civilizations are there in a galaxy like the Milky Way or specifically in the Milky Way galaxy and the answer is we don't know. So it's a big galaxy 400 billion stars. Most of them have planets. So there'll be trillions of planets. There's an estimate that there might be over 10 billion potentially Earthlike worlds in the Milky Way galaxy. So there's a lot of places where life could begin and evolve. But on this planet, it took four billion years roughly to go from the origin of life to us. And four billion years is a third of the age of the universe. And so many people I speak to make the argument that that might be unusual. It might it might be microbes on Mars and all over the place. But if that's what it usually takes, which is what it took here, to get things like us, there's probably very few planets which have been stable enough to allow life to live on them for four billion years. So what I said at that climate summit was to the world leaders was, let's imagine that we're the only civilization in the Milky Way galaxy. Just a working hypothesis. Might not be, but might be. So let's imagine that we are. And let's imagine that you being the leaders through deliberate action which would be something like nuclear war or inaction like you know failing to address the climate crisis or whatever it is you you cause this civilization to be damaged or even removed from the earth. If you do that, then each of you may be personally responsible for destroying meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion sons potentially forever. Have a nice meeting.
>> [laughter]
>> was my message forever.
>> Which is true.
>> [laughter]
>> You know, the thing is I think we don't know if it's correct then, but it's possible.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I think it's just just let's work on the basis.
>> Does that terrify that there's nobody else?
>> That terrifies me that thought. It sort of does that. There's a very famous quote by Arthur C. Clark, you know, the great who wrote 2001 amongst many other things who said that either we are alone in the universe or we're not. And both of those are terrifying.
>> Yeah.
>> So, which choose the one that terrifies you the most?
>> I mean, I agree with you. I I [laughter] wish I could talk about it. Um, but I can't because I went to a film set um and I won't even say when it was because you'll never well but it was science fiction film and there and I signed an NDA and everything so I can't talk but it was that I was talking to the actor was a very famous actor about um and it was a scene that he was playing when he saw some aliens for the first time or saw his alien spaceship and and it was before he did it and he said to me what would you kind of feel if what would be your reaction if you saw it and I know that you you've interviewed actors, right? You know what they do? They watch you and they ask you questions and then they nickname Killian Murphy [laughter] as an aside. Killian Murphy. I worked on a film called Sunshine years ago with Danny Bole and and Alex Garland wrote it. Killian was to play the physicist and we spent a lot of time together on that film and I took him to CERN right where I worked at the time and and we we had a great fun and went out for a few drinks and got to know each other. In the film, he does this thing where he's sending a message back to Earth. Um, and he knows they're going to the sun and he knows that his his family won't receive it. He'll never see them again really. And he does this thing like that with his like and he's kind of nervous and he does this thing. And I said to him, why why'd you do that? And he said, because you do it. [laughter] So he said, he said, when I ask you difficult questions deliberately, then you if it's a personal thing and you're not really comfortable, you do this thing.
>> I love it.
>> And so he does it. So he just basically Yeah. And he said we did a thing recently and he said he said yeah I just did an impression of Brian. [laughter] So but so this this actor had said yeah what would you think if if you saw the aliens they landed like outside here now? What do you think? And I said I'd just be relieved.
>> Yeah.
>> And and he was like really confused. He was like, "But but you're like you're scared of me." No, because the responsibility I'd feel the weight of of of being the only repository of meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion sons lifted off my shoulders.
>> Yeah.
>> And then he looked so confused. I thought, I wonder if I've ruined this scene because I remember if he's like going, I know what I'm going to do.
>> Yeah. I'd be terrified.
>> And then he's like, Yeah. And then and then he's like, [laughter] what was he going to do? Is he going to look relieved when he sees this thing which wouldn't kind of work? So yeah, I mean that is the terrifying bit I think is the lack of meaning, isn't it? Because yes, there's the lack of life, but the lack of meaning, which is only cultivated via the human brain.
>> That's what I Yeah, that's my position. You know, I think that I mean, you could, you know, argue if you're religious, you would not say that, right? But I think that as far as we can tell, meaning is a prophecy of consciousness. It comes from consciousness. It comes from thinking and thinking is something that we do and we're physical structures. So it's something that emerges from a very complex physical system, the most complex thing we know of anywhere in the universe, which is the human brain. So my argument is that if there are no structures as complex as human brains on any of these other planets in the Milky Way galaxy, then there's likely no meaning there. So it means meaning I have a friend who is um who is the dean of Guilford Cathedral, a wonderful man called Victor Stock who's great and we I had loads of conversations with him and in the end we figured out that the only thing we disagreed on was that he thinks meaning is eternal and universal, right? Because he believes in God energy.
>> Well, he believes in God, right? He ran a cathedral, right? So whereas I think it's local and temporary, right? So I think it comes from us. It's a property of things like us. And I think that it's sort of weird to say that because it's very it's a scientific way of looking at the world, right? It's just there's not that that's what it is. But it kind of puts us back at the center of the universe in some strange sense or elevates us. I think it makes us very valuable because of the rarity of structures like us.
>> Yeah. So I mean science has spent we we've spent the last 400 years demoting ourselves from the center of the universe physically and finding that we're physically insignificant. But I also think we've got more and more knowledge about what a remarkable and probably rare thing a human being is.
>> I mean you say when you open shows often you'll say what does it mean to live a finite life in an infinite universe? And I wonder what your personal reaction to that question is because for me it feels extremely motivating like oh my god I mean it is quick it's ephemeral I need to get a move on I need to experience life and live it to the max but I think equally it could make you feel quite nihilistic and go what's the [ __ ] point of anything.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So there are two two reactions to it. But I think you know if you um if you if you're walking through some forest and you and um and you and you just um tread on on an orchid, let's say a rare orchid is there. It's just there and it's just one thing you tread on it. Do what's your reaction to that? Is it is it to say it doesn't matter. It was going to be gone tomorrow anyway. It's a little it's a rare thing. They don't last very long. Or do you think that there's something of immense beauty that should have should be protected because of its the ephemeral nature of its existence?
>> Yes.
>> Um I once visited Frank Drake actually. So there's a thing called the Drake equation that is very famous. It was Frank Drake in the 50s and 60s was one of the founders of SETI the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And so he had a thing which how can we try and work out how many civilizations there might be in the galaxy? But I went to meet him quite late in his life. if he died a few years ago, but it was wonderful at his house and he collects orchids and there was an orchid there that we'd arrived and it it blooms for one day a year. Wow.
>> This thing and it was just happened to be on the on the day that we arrived and he said, you know, this make obviously makes it more beautiful. Obvious no one could argue that this one that blooms on one day a year is less beautiful than the one that's just always there, right? Obviously, it's a beautiful thing. So we all understand that. But he but he said actually that maybe that's what civilization's like. So maybe the fact that we haven't seen anyone or heard anyone is just because they're like these little orchids that just flower and then disappear.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> But that would make them more beautiful to me.
>> Yeah. Without a doubt. Yeah. And that is so that's what we are. We're just things if we're kind of immortal. That's the thing in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that Douglas Adams wrote where someone got made accidentally immortal. Yeah.
>> And life was so pointless that they went around the galaxy insulting everybody in alphabetical order.
>> So good.
>> Not even per planet, [laughter] but in alphabetical order.
>> That's so good.
>> Maybe that's the only thing that would be left if you're immortal. [laughter]
>> Yeah.
I mean, what what are your thoughts on life after death? Because it again I'm going to quote you and I've got to try and find I've got a whole list of quotes here but you say life is a conduit through which energy in the universe passes. So say a human an animal or plant dies. Where is that energy going?
Yeah I mean it's it's what is life? I mean that's a very good question by the way. Um the answer is we don't really know that there are two very famous books on the reading list.
The reading list is immense. One is called what is life by Irvin Schroinger which was a very famous book in the 40s that sort of predicted the existence of DNA which was discovered later. Um a a great friend of mine actually Paul nurse sir Paul nurse who's got a Nobel Prize who runs a Francis Crick Institute here in or founded it in London he wrote a book recently called what is life which is brilliant from Nobel Prize winning biologist and he ultimately says that we don't really know but you can pin some things down. So one as you said is it's it's something that happens. It's it's that there's energy a flow by by energy I mean what what do we do? We burn food in oxygen and if we stop burning food in oxygen then we die. So there's there's an energy in the way a steam engine does things. So there's that part of it
and then there's information that it processes information as well. So that's what we do. We So there's an information component and an energy component. But the point is it's it just a fundamental level. It's no different to something like a a a computing device in the sense that it obeys these basic physical laws which there's got to be a source of of energy and you've got to be able to do things and and your structure is remains and things like that. So that would imply that it's the same as if you your iPhone will stop processing information if you take the battery out.
Yeah.
So it's dead. It's a dead iPhone then.
Um admittedly you can bring it back to life. So it's probably not a good analogy because you put the back you can recharge it which we can't do
currently.
So but you you get the the bas the idea is that we and this was all the way back in Schrodinger's book. He said this in the 40s. Life obeys the laws of physics. So it is part of the physical universe. And so therefore you you don't have any there's no conceivable way that your your your conscious experience can persist when the the thing that that the machine stops working.
M
so and that might sound harsh but I I would flip it around as we did before and say isn't it remarkable that there's this kind of thing it just it's just obeying the laws of physics and the laws of physics are pretty simple.
Yeah.
You know there only four forces of nature that we know of and and and it all started out as hydrogen helium 13.8 billion years ago
and we managed to get into these patterns that can genuinely I I really mean it bring meaning to the universe.
Yeah. Do you find that that again personally enables you to look at your reactions to and I'm talking about everyday stuff here? You know, nothing particularly traumatic or extra stressful, but like the everyday either mundanity or or maybe it could be the bombardment of like outside news we're receiving daily or stuff you've got going on in the family home. Can you look at everything through the lens of science and go, I'm reacting to this because of, you know, my history and the data and whatever. Can you can you apply it to your own life in that way?
Well, no. Obviously, I just get pissed off. [laughter] But, but I think there is something to be said like you mentioned data. So it's quite liberating if you say you know like let's say you don't like flying for example so some people don't like flying and you get nervous but you can actually go and look at the data and find out that it's safe compared to other modes of transport.
Yeah.
So you could just say okay I'm not going to be scared of flying then.
Yeah.
If you really if you really can trust the data. So it does it is useful to look at facts are useful. I agree
data is useful. I know it's difficult and I know that we all have different you know sort of things that worry us for different reasons and that's you know that's the that's part of being human but you can kind of liberate yourself a bit from it.
I agree. I think like I I don't deal with it so much now but I had like really bad OCD at one point and you have to apply logic and fact to it because it's so illogical. It's so like fantastical and over the top and enlarged at times that you need to have whether it's like photo evidence, fact, data that you've done this thing before, it's nothing bad's going to happen.
Yeah.
And treat yourself like a machine, like a computer.
Yeah. Because I mean it's I mean you are basically I mean it's it's a good question. I did um at talking about the Crick Institute there's a podcast. I'm not promoting that but I'll promote it anyway. We here very friendly podcast. We'll promote other ones.
We do. There's a podcast called the question of science and I I love it actually and it's out at the moment. They're coming out once a week and it's just at the Crick Institute and it's just experts on a panel and I chair it and the audience ask questions. So it's like question time but with people who know what they're talking about basically is the difference.
Yeah. And um so we did one on we did for example can we cure cancer which because it's mainly a lot of the Cricst institute is cancer research and it was a tremendously optimistic program actually because you realize how rapid the progresses in understanding this disease and just looking at the statistics as you said earlier the survival rates anyway. So we did cancer, aging, dementia, those things. But also we did one on AI which was really interesting to me because the question is you know is there any difference between us and a a computer let's say. So so could you imagine they call it AGI a general artificial general intelligence that's like us rather than just a thing that does one thing at a time which is what we have now. And there was some debate actually and and the the more neurosciency people felt no that it's really very difficult that the human brain is much not that there's anything mystical going on but it's so complicated and it's all to do with our experience of the world. It's connected to our bodies. So you can't have a brain in a jar. you know that thing that you could just imagine just having taking your brain out and putting it in a thing and just but yeah so it's like
so I think the jury is still out on on whether we are just whether you could whether we now in our conversation whether we could be having this in a big computer
right it's kind of the are we living in a simulation kind of question
and I think the jury seems to be still out amongst the experts on that whether biology ology is really difficult to simulate.
I mean, our brains are not that different to space in terms of the fact that there's so little we know still. There's so much more to be learned about how it works. And
yeah, it's it's amazing. I'll probably get it wrong now, but someone was telling me at the creek about uh some work they've done on on mice and they they're looking at how they smell you olactory sort of system and they had these sort of they're just beginning to see that there's there's little co-processes in the brain. So, so a smell will come in and this thing will kind of take that data which is just some it's the same data that comes from your eyes or your ears, right? They're all just neurons going in there. So, your brain figures out what is it? It's a smell thing. It's not a sight thing. And then what is it? And then what would that do? Where is it? So it sends some data to a spatial bit of the brain that is dealing with where it is and how far away it is. And then another bit to is it something you should not like or like like a reflex sort of thing or is it something that you use to build your model of the world? So is it telling you there's some a forest around the corner or something like that? And it's so remarkable that they're just beginning to map out which bits of the brain do this and and how they get the data and where they distribute it to. And it was amazing to me because you're right, we don't know.
We know a lot about it, but we don't know as much as we would like to know about it. It's like the universe, as you said, in that sense.
Yeah. and you know and we we're living amongst you know I'm sure there's been bad poor mental health forever but
it seems like and that's the sort of thing that I'm deeply interested in is people's mental health and how we can help ourselves better it and you know we're still yet to crack that one because we're in you know we're up shit's creek with that one at the moment.
Yeah. Yeah. I I think it all comes back to what we were talking about earlier that we've not figured out how to run a world definitely and we we've sort of figured out how to run societies but maybe we're not doing a very good job at the moment and I I
I would guess it's something to do with the rate of change and the you know the the I I suppose social media and things have fed into that and we're having to live in a different way and interact with people in a different and we've not adapted to it
and and but I think it's the it's the number one challenge that we face
for all the reasons we've spoken about how valuable this society is. But you know, one of the one of the uh possible explanations for why we don't see any other civilizations out there is because they don't get very far. So if you think about us at the moment, it's only in the last century, half a century, that we've had the power to destroy ourselves.
Yeah.
And and we don't we've managed to avoid it. It's remarkable probably that for 70 years or so since the the invention of the atomic bomb, we haven't used them again.
Yeah.
After we used the 200 pound.
But we might do. And maybe there's there's a theory that essentially says it's too difficult to manage a planet.
So so when you when you have so many billion living things, people in this case on the planet, you just can't get along.
There's too many.
Yeah.
So I would hate that to be the case
because I think that we're so valuable and so rare.
Yeah.
But we don't really, you know, the progress we've made seems to be unraveling somewhat at the moment.
Yeah. I mean, as we are running out of time really quickly. There's so many different tangents again running out of time. [laughter]
We are like ah the world's whole civilization.
Um but I think one burning question I have and this is more from talking to my kids. So my son who is 12 is bang into science like it's his whole world. He loves it. He and I'm constantly trying to learn from him and go back to the drawing board with my like lack of scientific knowledge. And my daughter who's 10, she's, you know, I spoke to her in the car yesterday about this chat today and what would you ask Professor Brian Cox and it was all around aliens obviously. Um, but there seems to be a point in the education system where girls are whether it's discouraged or feel like they don't have so much of a place in the science world and we can see that reflected throughout history with the few scientific women that are, you know, historically held up and shown as an example of someone that's done I can think of like Mar Cury and then I'm sort of out of ideas. How can we encourage women to get more into science or for young I think this starts at the school, doesn't it? How can we how can we really focus on that and ensure that we're creating space and room for young women to really find their place in this conversation?
I think as as you said, we have to and this applies to all fields actually. You have to when when a a a child shows interest in something, you've got to really make sure that you don't snuff out that curiosity, that you encourage it. And also you're right that there's what could it be that's preventing girls going into science that it's quite complicated and and I the only bit I know is I was involved a few years ago now in um a prize the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering which looked at this because engineering there's there's an equal problem if not a larger problem and one of the things that was found is that there are unconscious biases from parents If if you think of engineering, your your view of what engineering is might be building a road with a with a hard hat on. Now, that's actually quite high-tech now and really interesting. But you might think, I don't want my daughter digging up roads, you know, with all these big blocons.
And so, in engineering, that is the case. And so then and it wouldn't be that it's very rare that parents would try and put their daughter off going into something but your reaction might not quite be might not be quite as encouraging as it should be because you might be under and so science maybe has that image that maybe you know like being a a rocky engineer for example and we have a shortage of spacecraft builders in the UK. We're very good at it. It's one of our big one of our great industries that we're world leading in and we we don't have enough people going into the industry.
Wow.
So it could be that if if your your daughter you say which rocket building you might have this unconscious image of a load of geeky blo you know [laughter] playing with computers or something. So, so that we have to make sure that teachers and parents re don't transfer any lack of understanding of the career to their daughters in this case, but it applies to sons as well. It's we try and let them do what they want to do and encourage them whichever way that they want to go.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then but and then you're right and then you get into more complicated issues about career structures which many industries have that um and and that's true in academia as well that and people try to do that. So so yeah it's a very good question. Yeah.
But in terms of real youngsters I really believe that it's it's making sure that if you're like if your daughter says I'm interested in astronomy
you go right.
Yeah.
So you take them outside and you start to know what the stars are. if you could you buy him some binoculars maybe and and which you can get you know and and and you can start you encourage it I think it's all about encouragement and not putting barriers in the way the the one thing I would say also is that it's really important as parents that
you can if let's say you you haven't been to un let's say university you haven't been to university and your your son or daughter says I'd like to do that then you can go to the universities as a parent and you can find out what it's like because you might not know people who've been to university and that's one of the big blocks actually and so the universities are really happy if you say what would happen to my child if they came to where would they stay what the where would they live what because you might be anxious about that and you can transfer that to your child as well
but all the universities higher education colleges all this are really happy if you come and say I don't I don't understand this myself can you show me and then you can provide encouragement and you can you can begin to remove the blocks that might be there.
Yeah. I think there's just some brilliant young women out there who are ready to change the world and it's it's exciting
there are you know I mean you said about the scientists I mean so one one of the questions I get asked a lot is how do we know how far away the stars are? I got asked that in a school the other week. How do we know how far away the stars are? One of the most important measurements, it was a a great astronomer called Henrietta Levit who was the first to work out that there are some stars they call seed variable stars, but it allows you to work out how bright they actually are by looking at them. And she noticed that in the early part of the 20th century, that's the foundation. That work was used to prove that the Andromeda galaxy, which is our nearest neighboring galaxy, is far outside the Milky Way. But it was her work.
Yeah.
So there are actually quite quite a lot of famous women in the history of astronomy, but also science. But as you said, it's usually Mary Cury.
Yeah.
But there's I mean now
I felt embarrassed that I couldn't think of any more earlier. I was like, I'm going to have to ask chat GPT because I'd like I need to like know about more of them. The men you can list off, but the women they're they're maybe harder to find. Maybe that's a slight block for young girls, too. They're not seeing it in history. Yeah.
Yeah.
But there are increasing numbers now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Of role models. But you're right. It's just, you know, the history of science. I said that it really did start modern science in like 1600.
Yeah.
So those names like Newton and Einstein and you know, Galileo, they're men. But of course we're talking about a society in 1600.
Yeah. Yeah.
When that So there's part of that I think just historically until you get to the 20th century it was extremely difficult to be a woman. Yeah.
And go into science.
Yeah.
And it's changing but as you said when when you say I was going to say not fast enough. The reason I would say that is because what we need in all sort of areas of human endeavor are people who are who are good at it and want to push the boundaries. You need talent. And if you're only drawing talent from a small pool, in this case, you should say men, right? You you're missing
Yeah.
half the potential to advance human knowledge.
Yeah.
So, it's it's it's there's a practical point to be made as well. You just want to find the best
talent. Yeah, exactly. To end things, where is your happy place? [laughter]
Yeah, that's the title of the podcast, isn't it?
I forgot to ask so bad.
I was too busy thinking about space and female scientists. I totally forgot.
I think it I think it is if you're allowed to Does it have to be a physical? Can it be kind of a state of mind?
Exactly. Yeah. I think it is trying to understand something that I don't understand and at some point figuring it out.
I really love that process.
Is the figuring out essential? Does that lead to frustration if there's not a conclusion of sorts? I think I mean I think that if you're trying to understand something that is understood but someone understands it but it might be very difficult then that process of trying to trying to find your own way of internalizing that idea so that it becomes natural to you and you really understand it is is a really exhilarating thing to do. And I I always say to students actually so I I teach at the University of Manchester. I teach first years and I always say to them that the these ideas I talk about relativity right relativity is a bit confusing quite a lot.
Yeah.
Um, but ultimately it doesn't matter how long it takes you to get a particular thing into into your mind right to understand it. And it's different for everybody and it's different for each different idea. some ideas someone will get in 10 seconds and go yeah I understand that and sometimes it might take a month for someone else but it doesn't matter and there was I interviewed a recently a great Nobel prize winning mathematician Roger Penrose sir Roger Penrose who got the Nobel prize for in the in the 60s he proved that black holes would form so this very famous paper in 1963 and he got the Nobel prize in 2020 and someone asked him so a young person from the audience said to him how do you win a Nobel Prize eyes
and he said he said he said I I was really slow at school so and actually I was so slow that they thought I wasn't very good at maths and he's one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th and 21st century
but he's slow so so he understood that really that the thing the thing that's really enjoyable is just taking your time and keeping going until you understand something you know then you don't need to do an exam or have anyone get tested You you know when you understand something.
Yeah.
And the thing is not to be worried about the fact that it might take you ages.
Well, our culture is like tomorrow, yesterday, like it should have been done. Why am I why why are things not moving more quickly? So, it's amazing advice in life in general to not be in a rush for any conclusion or any moment.
You can't rush understanding. You can't be in a rush to understand stuff.
No,
you just you know it, when when you understand it, you know it.
Yeah. Yeah, I think you know that goes for just learning about yourself, doesn't it? You know, you think if you look back to my 30s, I'm like, "Oh my god, I didn't know who the hell I was or what I was doing." And you can't rush that. You It's with age and experience. Um Basil, who I work with, said that I should have asked you, "Where is your happy space instead of place?"
Happy space.
Yeah. Well,
is there anywhere in space that you love the If you look at the history of the universe, in which point in that history would you like to hang out in? now
right
here because I think that all the things that we talked about earlier about the challenges that we face it is true that there's no better time to be a human being than now you know if you it's it's obvious in some ways the way if you go back go back to our grand when our grandparents were born there were no antibiotics they didn't exist when our grandparents were born [laughter]
mad It's postcond world war really that we have access to antibiotics in any large amount. So it really if you think about it certainly in in a country like this that we're lucky to live here there is no better place in history to live. Um now it's up to us whether we whether that continues to be the case. It might not, you know, we we could we could have the third world war and then it would not be the best place to live. But that's a choice.
Yeah.
>> That we have to make.
Yeah.
>> But at the moment it's I I I would rather live in a time where there were antibiotics.
Me too. Me too.