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Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Sammy Jay and welcome back to this

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Speaker 1: week's episode of The Left Bureau Podcast. I am so

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Speaker 1: thrilled you're here. This week's episode is so special. We've

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Speaker 1: never had an episode like this before, and we're probably

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Speaker 1: never going to have an episode like this again because

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Speaker 1: I got to chat with astrophysicists Neil de grass Tyson.

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Speaker 1: You heard that right, And I am so excited for

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Speaker 1: you to listen to this episode because I genuinely learned

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Speaker 1: so much and I know you will too. I hope

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Speaker 1: you guys enjoy it. Welcome to my podcast. I am

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Speaker 1: so honored that you're here. You're my first astrophysicist on

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Speaker 1: the show. And now I have to say, science is

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Speaker 1: something that I've always been super fascinated by, but it's

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Speaker 1: something I've always struggled with learning and understanding like many others.

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Speaker 1: And I just want to simply start with what do

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Speaker 1: you love about what you do? What do you love

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Speaker 1: about space in the universe? So much? Everything, And first

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Speaker 1: of all, for you to say i'm your astro physicists

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Speaker 1: on the show, there aren't many of us in the world, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So basically everything, I like the immensity of it, I

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Speaker 1: like that that the boundary between what is known and unknown,

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Speaker 1: and you put one foot in what is known and

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Speaker 1: one foot in the unknown, and you try to deduce

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Speaker 1: or invent or discover what lies beyond. And so so

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Speaker 1: I think that the takeaway is as a scientist, you

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Speaker 1: have to learn to love the questions themselves, because if

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Speaker 1: you if you only think of science the way the

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Speaker 1: media reports on it, because the media does a story

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Speaker 1: when there's a discovery, right, and you think their discoveries

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Speaker 1: are happening all the time. But you have to learn

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Speaker 1: to love the journey. And in your whole life you

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Speaker 1: might make only one discovery or no discoveries. So the

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Speaker 1: journey is what excites you every morning, the possibility of

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Speaker 1: reaching into the unknown and pulling something back in and say, WHOA,

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Speaker 1: I knew this before. Does that give you any comfort

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Speaker 1: in knowing everything you know? Or does it make you

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Speaker 1: a little bit more terrified of the beyond? I think

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Speaker 1: you have to train yourself. I don't think it's natural

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Speaker 1: to walk around in stupefied ignorance of what's going on.

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Speaker 1: You know, nobody wants that, all right, And I get it.

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Speaker 1: I have sympathy for people who feel that way. And

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Speaker 1: one way that that shows up is someone might ask

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Speaker 1: me what was around before the Big Bang, and I'll say,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Go top people working on it, and

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Speaker 1: they say, that had to be something. It must have

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Speaker 1: been something, it must have been God, God did it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was it. And so once they say God, they

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Speaker 1: have their answer. And then you know, if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to insert deity every place where we have yet to

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Speaker 1: tread scientifically, then that's that's kind of a slippery slope,

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Speaker 1: because science ever moves forward. So I empathize with the

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Speaker 1: need to have an explanation for everything. But if that's

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Speaker 1: how you are, you won't make a good scientist because

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Speaker 1: most of what we think about every day has no

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Speaker 1: answer yet yet, and we don't even know if we're

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Speaker 1: asking the right questions. Crazy, it's crazy, It's completely crazy. So,

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Speaker 1: Storry Messenger, A Cosmic Perspective on Civilization. You said, the

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Speaker 1: troll of insights, informed by the universe and brought to

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Speaker 1: you by methods and tools of science. I love that sentence,

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Speaker 1: and I was wondering if you can expand more upon that. Well,

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Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. So this book, Starry Messenger Cosmic

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Speaker 1: Perspectives on civilization. Each chapter has a different title, as

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Speaker 1: most chapters would, but in this case, the chapters address

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Speaker 1: different sectors of society that have historically been rather combative,

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Speaker 1: uh in social settings. So there's a chapter on truth

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Speaker 1: and beauty, All right, that that might be good sort

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Speaker 1: of bar conversations there, But let's get a little more

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Speaker 1: intense a conflict and resolution where I go into political

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Speaker 1: factions who are battling for who has access to, if

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Speaker 1: not control of the truth. Objective truths, which I'd like

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Speaker 1: to distinguish from other kinds of truths. There is an

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Speaker 1: objective truth, and there is opinion. Then those need to

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Speaker 1: be right right right, Or there's there's like political truths.

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Speaker 1: I'll call it that because the politicians think it's true,

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Speaker 1: but it's what becomes true simply by them repeating it

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Speaker 1: often and with intensity. And our brain has a weakness

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Speaker 1: in it where if you see something repeat he did it,

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Speaker 1: or here's something repeated, the urge to think that it

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Speaker 1: must be true, otherwise why would it be repeated so often? Exactly,

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Speaker 1: So I applaud the fact that we have that urge

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Speaker 1: to think that way, But that urge that evolutionary urs

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Speaker 1: can be and has been hijacked by people who would

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Speaker 1: want to exercise control over you and what you think.

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Speaker 1: In the old days they called it brainwashing. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that would be a political truth. And then there's a

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Speaker 1: personal truth, right. Personal truth is just stuff that you believe,

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Speaker 1: and they don't require that other people have to believe.

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Speaker 1: It is your own personal sense of the world. And

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Speaker 1: all religions come under personal truths. So that's why I

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Speaker 1: distinguish those truths from objective truths. And objective truths are

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Speaker 1: true whether or not you believe in them, and high science.

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Speaker 1: And so getting back to the sentence that you extracted, Um,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for looking for cool sentences, because I

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Speaker 1: do spend a lot of effort composing sentences that go

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Speaker 1: in the book, and if the fact that they sort

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Speaker 1: of rise up off the page or in your because

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Speaker 1: you listen to the audiobook, as you told me, I'd

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Speaker 1: want those sentences to to live within you. You're very powerful.

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Speaker 1: The methods and tools of science are exquisitely tuned to

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Speaker 1: find objective truths, and when you do, you then apply

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Speaker 1: them to these sectors of society that are famous for

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Speaker 1: not embracing objective truths. And because of such people, fight

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Speaker 1: and so so, and other chapters are a gender and identity,

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Speaker 1: race and color, risk and reward. People really don't understand

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Speaker 1: risk and probability and statistics, and I don't want to

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Speaker 1: blame people for that. Somehow, it's it's just not natural

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Speaker 1: to think statistically about the world, all right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: here's't just in an example. Let's say you're ready to

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Speaker 1: drive a car off the lot. You just it, and

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Speaker 1: someone is driving into the lot saying, wanting to return

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Speaker 1: the cars. There's the worst card had it broke the

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Speaker 1: wheel fell off. I hate it. And you're just watching

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Speaker 1: this and you begin questioning your decision. And it's amazing

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Speaker 1: how impactful the testimony of one person can land within

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Speaker 1: you relative to the statistics of thousands. You mentioned a

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Speaker 1: really interesting point in your book that scientists don't look

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Speaker 1: for other scientists opinions but their data, which I think

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Speaker 1: is a very important distinction. I don't care how you

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Speaker 1: feel or think. I don't care. That has nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with my research here, But I just have nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with the data less. How you feel biases

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Speaker 1: your data. So we have methods and tools to establish

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Speaker 1: objective truths, and it requires repeated, verified experiments on whatever

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Speaker 1: the first thing is you said was true. So we're

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Speaker 1: living in a world today where social media and misinformation

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Speaker 1: is traveling so fast. I feel like as soon as

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Speaker 1: you pull up a social media app, there's just new

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Speaker 1: information you don't and it's hard to verify whether it's

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Speaker 1: true or not. I mean, I want to take away

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Speaker 1: from this conversation is what advice do you have for

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Speaker 1: like a go to way to shut down a flat earther.

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Speaker 1: I'm not that aggressive. It may feel that way sometimes

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Speaker 1: if you read my tweets. Uh So, I just tweeted

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Speaker 1: yesterday last night there was a total lunar eclipse, and

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Speaker 1: I said, here's a lunar eclipse flat earthers have never seen.

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Speaker 1: It would be like the disc of Earth casting horizontal shadow,

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Speaker 1: which would just be a skinny, little thin thing. And

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Speaker 1: that it went almost viral. I mean it was, it

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Speaker 1: went pretty high up there. That's so good. Point is,

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Speaker 1: in a free country, I'm not going to beat you

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Speaker 1: on the head if you want to think Earth is flat.

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Speaker 1: There are plenty of jobs for you where you and

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Speaker 1: still think Earth is flight. Science isn't one of them.

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Speaker 1: Science is not one of them. Here's here's one thing

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Speaker 1: to do. You say, what would be the best evidence

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Speaker 1: you would need to show that Earth was a sphere

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Speaker 1: in space? What what evidence would you seek? If you

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Speaker 1: ask that of such people, typically there is none, There

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Speaker 1: is none. Well, sorry, I did that once with someone

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Speaker 1: who was sure we didn't go to the moon, okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: And I said, well, what evidence? I went through this exercise.

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Speaker 1: What evidence would you want? And he said, well, photographs

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Speaker 1: of the landing sites? That would that would work. So

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Speaker 1: I said, well, we do have photos of the landing site.

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Speaker 1: You said really, I said, because there are satellites that

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Speaker 1: were put in orbit around the Moon. That's close enough

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Speaker 1: and you could see the rover tracks. You can see

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Speaker 1: the landing site. And so go to this web page.

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Speaker 1: So he so the next day, but this is a

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Speaker 1: full grown adult human being with with kids, always concerning right.

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Speaker 1: So the next day, uh, he says, nil, I went

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Speaker 1: to that website and sure enough I saw the tracks

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Speaker 1: and I saw this. But then I looked at the

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Speaker 1: bottom and it said that the web page was sponsored

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Speaker 1: by NASA. So how am I going to know that

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Speaker 1: they didn't fake this? And I said, pause, hold up, rewind.

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Speaker 1: You asked me what would convince you, and I provided

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Speaker 1: that evidence, and now that evidence isn't working for you.

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Speaker 1: So this is the end of our conversation. But anyhow,

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Speaker 1: so a good test would be ask what would convince

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Speaker 1: you otherwise if you don't really have a good answer

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Speaker 1: for that then, or if your only answer is I

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Speaker 1: know the truth, it's just be hidden from us by

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Speaker 1: this organization. It's never going to be good enough, never

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Speaker 1: good enough. Correct. There's an old saying in the skeptics

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Speaker 1: community which I think is correct. It's you can't use

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Speaker 1: reason to argue someone out of a point of view

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Speaker 1: that they didn't use reason to get into. So true.

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Speaker 1: Something that I'm very interested in talking about is what

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Speaker 1: are your thoughts on managing space trash and programs like starlink,

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Speaker 1: especially with the impact of satellites in space imaging. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so those are two separate issues. Starlink is you know,

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Speaker 1: how many elon how many satellites do you need in space?

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Speaker 1: How how many? How many do you need? And it

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Speaker 1: it becomes a form of light pollution, where especially we

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Speaker 1: have a telescope about to come online this coming year

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Speaker 1: that will be taking basically snapshots of the entire sky

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Speaker 1: every night and and stitching them together. It basedically in

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Speaker 1: a movie, which will allow you to watch asteroids that

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Speaker 1: might be headed towards Earth. But if while we're trying

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Speaker 1: to find an asteroid headed towards Earth, there's you know,

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Speaker 1: hundred seventy eleven Starlink satellites coming through your field. If

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Speaker 1: you I don't want to miss the asteroid, because you're

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Speaker 1: contaminating my data with things that otherwise look like asteroids

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Speaker 1: but they're not. So there's the how it will contaminate science,

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Speaker 1: but there's also how it will change what the night

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Speaker 1: sky will beat to you as you look up affect

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Speaker 1: the Earth. So there's fortunately, there are there's an organ

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Speaker 1: there are people today who are thinking about this and

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Speaker 1: trying to find ways to reduce the impact of this

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Speaker 1: technological progress on what is otherwise the sanctity of the

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Speaker 1: night sky. And as for trash, we've got nothing for you, okay.

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Speaker 1: And I think people say, where the aliens? How come

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Speaker 1: they haven't visited. I think they tried to visit and

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Speaker 1: they saw all the trash around the Earth. We're going

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Speaker 1: to pass on this one. Let's let's let's go to

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Speaker 1: the next planet. Okay. Yeah, these folks are just nasty.

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Speaker 1: It's the trash that's in the higher orbits that will

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Speaker 1: basically be there forever unless someone goes around and vacuums

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Speaker 1: it up. And we have no such plans nor such

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Speaker 1: ideas about how to make that happen. It's too trashy.

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Speaker 1: We need to fix it, too trashy. Give it up.

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Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break. But when we

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Speaker 1: come back, I'm going to talk about what types of

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Speaker 1: research and that's going on in the world of science

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Speaker 1: you're most excited about and what you love list about learning.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back and we're back. Are there any

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Speaker 1: scientists work that you're really interested in that isn't very

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Speaker 1: well known or talked about. I generally look at sort

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Speaker 1: of consensus work. So uh, it's not whether one science

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Speaker 1: just did one particular thing, because that's not what makes

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Speaker 1: an objective truth. As I said earlier, it hasn't been

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Speaker 1: verified by someone else. So for me, one of the

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Speaker 1: more interesting sub branches of astrophysics is one where we

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Speaker 1: have people looking for bio markers in the atmospheres of

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Speaker 1: exo planets. Well, so, can you explain what bio markers

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Speaker 1: are for totally? Well, first, ex planet is so exo

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Speaker 1: planets are planets orbiting other stars, and the first of

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Speaker 1: these was discovered in all right, so what year were

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Speaker 1: you BORNO? Two two? So you count as someone who

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Speaker 1: has been born since and so I now I will

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Speaker 1: night you generation X planet. You've only known life in

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Speaker 1: a world where we've had exo planets to talk about,

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Speaker 1: all right, that is that is if you want to

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Speaker 1: attach a generation to a scientific result, there you have it,

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Speaker 1: all right. And when you were born, we might have

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Speaker 1: known maybe a few dozen exoplanets, and now we know

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Speaker 1: more than five thousand. That's how old you are. We're

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Speaker 1: up in the five thousands. A lot can happen in

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Speaker 1: twenty years. A lot can happen in twenty years. So

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Speaker 1: you're just an old fart now because we're up in

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Speaker 1: the thousands. But will we ever know if they have life? Well,

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Speaker 1: if the planet has an atmosphere, light from the star

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Speaker 1: will pass through the atmosphere on the edges and continue

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Speaker 1: on to us, so that whatever is the chemistry of

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Speaker 1: that atmosphere, it leaves its fingerprint on the starlight. Oh,

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Speaker 1: this is this opened up an entire new field in

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Speaker 1: the search for life in the universe, because if your

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Speaker 1: planet has life. Life has certain gaseous consequences. Alright, Oxygen

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Speaker 1: on Earth is only here because we have photosynthesizing life,

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Speaker 1: trees and plankton. That's the only reason why we have oxygen.

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Speaker 1: And so if you find an exo planet and you

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Speaker 1: let the light of the star pass through and you

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Speaker 1: see oxygen in that atmosphere, oh yeah, I put that

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Speaker 1: higher on your list of one of the first planets

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Speaker 1: you might want to visit. So what am I following.

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Speaker 1: I'm following the work of that group of researchers who

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Speaker 1: are searching for bio markers in the atmospheres of exoplanets,

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Speaker 1: and the James Web Space Telescope is helping with that.

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Speaker 1: By the way, Sorry, I'm just processing all that you said.

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Speaker 1: That's incredible. Yeah, No, I'm totally I'm all in on it.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. So I'm assuming you love stars,

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Speaker 1: don't we all? Actually, I'm sure I'm not alone there.

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Speaker 1: You know, our star is pretty important. I think clouds

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Speaker 1: are also very underrated. I love seeing them. They're so

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Speaker 1: beautiful and I just see them. Gonna go shout out

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Speaker 1: clouds because they don't get enough appreciation out there. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So uh, in the book Starry Messenger. Um, I quote clouds.

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Speaker 1: I quote a line from Joni Mitchell her song both Sides. Now,

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Speaker 1: that's so good. Wait wait, wait, we have to be

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Speaker 1: very precise here. Okay, I just want to properly quote. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull up this quote. The glasses are coming on.

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Speaker 1: That's when you know it's been serious. I've got to

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Speaker 1: go there. Okay. Yes, So clouds are one of the

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Speaker 1: things she looks at in one of the verses. But

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Speaker 1: I get that's not the verse I chose. I'm really

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Speaker 1: I'm remembering now, but I will get you that cloud

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Speaker 1: verse because you sound like a cloud person. I'm a

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Speaker 1: cloud person because they're just not appreciated and they do

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Speaker 1: so much. Okay, they make my day. So here we

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Speaker 1: go rose and flows of angel hair, and I scream

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Speaker 1: castles forgive Mike because I can't. I think you should

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Speaker 1: become a singer and a rare path for you. Everywhere

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Speaker 1: looked at clouds that way, but now they only block

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Speaker 1: the sun. They rain, and they snow on everyone. So

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Speaker 1: many things I would have done, but clouds got in

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Speaker 1: my way. I've looked at clouds from both sides, now

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Speaker 1: from up and down and still somehow it's clouds illusions.

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Speaker 1: I recall I really don't know cloud so any that

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Speaker 1: that's all those singing I'm going to give you here

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Speaker 1: because I was like, I do not expect a performance.

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Speaker 1: I feel like this is a new career path for you.

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Speaker 1: So here's the so for me, obviously, it's a song,

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Speaker 1: it's a poem. It's it's metaphorical of course, and so

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Speaker 1: um So she starts out by saying, clouds they rain

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Speaker 1: and snow on everyone. Yes, they do, but when they're not,

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Speaker 1: they're not right. And most of the time they're not,

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Speaker 1: They're just floating there. And if you look at it

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Speaker 1: from both sides. And I really don't know clouds, and

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Speaker 1: most people don't understand what clouds are. Why they up

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Speaker 1: there and they're not down here? Well, sometimes they are

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Speaker 1: down here. But we have a different word for them.

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Speaker 1: You know what we call them? Am I totally missing? Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's just it's a cloud that's in your face. So

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Speaker 1: so we just have a different word for it. But

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Speaker 1: it's a cloud, all right. So all air in most

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Speaker 1: parts of the Earth has some amount of moisture in it. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: And if the air gets heated, and then it rises.

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Speaker 1: As you ascend, the temperature drops, so as you ascend

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Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, it gets colder and colder and colder.

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Speaker 1: You might notice that from the temperature if you see

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Speaker 1: it on the video monitor of airplanes outside, it's forty

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Speaker 1: degrees below zero outside the window. Okay, so it's because

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Speaker 1: the ground is what's heating the air. The sunda and

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Speaker 1: heat the air. The sun heats the ground and the

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Speaker 1: ground heats the air. So I watched it happens if

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Speaker 1: a pocket of air with a little bit of moisture,

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Speaker 1: as it ascends, it gets colder, and the colder is

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Speaker 1: the pocket of air, the less capable it is of

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Speaker 1: carrying that moisture. And so what happens is something called

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Speaker 1: the relative humidity goes up because the air can it's

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Speaker 1: becoming less and less able to hold the moisture. And

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Speaker 1: at a particular temperature at the dew point, which is

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Speaker 1: a combination of how much humidity is in it and

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Speaker 1: the temperature at that dew point, the the water molecules

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Speaker 1: they coalesce and they become basically droplets. Okay, it's no

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Speaker 1: longer water vapor, it's water droplets. And in that moment

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Speaker 1: that that pocket of air is high above your head

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Speaker 1: and bend, a cloud forms and there it is. You're

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Speaker 1: making me love clouds even more. Okay, No, it's a

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Speaker 1: beautiful thing. That's why the clouds are high up and

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Speaker 1: rarely on the ground. How do you know all this information?

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Speaker 1: Just off the bat? What about learning do you love?

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Speaker 1: I know that's a two parter, but you've just so

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Speaker 1: much information. Here's what I here's my normal and we

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Speaker 1: only just met, so I don't know, but it for

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Speaker 1: most people, for many people in the United States, here's

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Speaker 1: what I would tell them. They said, how does it

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Speaker 1: you know all of this? How do you have time

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Speaker 1: to write these books? And how does you do this?

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Speaker 1: And my answer is I bet I watched less football

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Speaker 1: than you do. That's a great answer. That's my simplest answer. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So whatever you do on the weekends or when you're

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Speaker 1: otherwise doing nothing, are you binging? You know the Bachelor?

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Speaker 1: Are you whatever else is going on or Jersey Shore

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Speaker 1: or whatever whatever people do. I'm not doing that, and

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Speaker 1: I'll do it a little bit just so I know

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Speaker 1: what interests people, because that I value that. But no,

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Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time a lot of time

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Speaker 1: that other people spend doing nothing, I spend learning. That's

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Speaker 1: so awesome and so cool. I have always loved learning,

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Speaker 1: but it's always been a struggle for me because I've

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Speaker 1: grown up with learning differences, so being able to understand

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Speaker 1: information has been a struggle. But when it's you're very

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Speaker 1: good at visualizing it and just explaining it very complicated topics.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for that. And I try to

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Speaker 1: be a responsive to the what do they call it,

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Speaker 1: the neurodiversity of us all? Uh, some people think in pictures,

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Speaker 1: some in words, some in gestures, you know, hand gestures.

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Speaker 1: So I try to fold all of that in. So

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Speaker 1: thank you for noticing that. But what I would say

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Speaker 1: is with all the learning differences that exist out there,

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Speaker 1: and finally the education system is coming to terms with that,

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Speaker 1: figuring out slowly but surely slowly. Um My daughter was

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Speaker 1: a special ed teacher and people ask her what's different

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Speaker 1: about a special ed teacher? She said, She said, especially

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Speaker 1: teachers are simply better teachers. I went to a special

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Speaker 1: ed school, so I can vouch for that. Yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: just better teachers. They know more about they know how

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Speaker 1: to teach in different ways exactly exactly. Oh, I got

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Speaker 1: in big trouble one time. What happened? I should have

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Speaker 1: left it to my forbidden Twitter file. Um, so I tweeted.

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Speaker 1: I said, for the teachers who feel compelled to say,

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Speaker 1: these students just don't want to learn, And I said,

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Speaker 1: maybe they should consider the possibility that they suck at

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Speaker 1: their job. I believe you're not wrong, but you know,

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Speaker 1: I put it out there. I've had a maybe in

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Speaker 1: front of it. I said possibly, like a possible. You know,

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Speaker 1: people said, do you remember? Remember? And then of course

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Speaker 1: it's Twitter, so it's the cesspool of opinions. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: not every teacher is sainted, okay, and we all had

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Speaker 1: bad teachers in our lives. Well maybe you didn't because

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Speaker 1: you had speciales. I did before I moved to special

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Speaker 1: at and then I went there. You go, and you know,

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Speaker 1: and you can you can list not here, don't do it,

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Speaker 1: but you can list bad teachers right who really should

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Speaker 1: have never entered the profession. All right, we have to

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Speaker 1: take one more quick break. But when we come back,

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about how you define success for yourself.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back and we're back. You've accomplished so

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Speaker 1: many incredible things. Throughout your career, and everyone has a

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Speaker 1: different definition of what success means to them, and I

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Speaker 1: was wondering, how do you personally define success for yourself?

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00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: Thank you? That's an excellent question. It's excellent on many levels.

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Speaker 1: And I don't often get that because now it gives

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Speaker 1: me the opportunity to for me redefined success. All right,

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Speaker 1: uh so let me take a slightly windy route to

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Speaker 1: get there. So let's say you have someone who wants

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Speaker 1: to be an actor, and then you say what kind

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Speaker 1: of actor you want to be? Well, I want to

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Speaker 1: be a famous actor. Oh so they don't want to

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Speaker 1: be a good actor, they just want to be a

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Speaker 1: famous actor. So that's a different goal, always the same

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Speaker 1: thing as you want to be the best actor you

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Speaker 1: can be. Sometimes I would even say often being the

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Speaker 1: best actor you can be will lead to that. But

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Speaker 1: if your goal is simply to be famous, then all

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Speaker 1: the times you're not famous, you're miserable. Right. You put

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Speaker 1: so much like definition on one thing and you're not

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Speaker 1: that right, right, right, and so much emphasis, and you're miserable.

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Speaker 1: If you instead say I want to be the best

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Speaker 1: actor I can be, then every performance you give on

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Speaker 1: stage or in a uh, which is I'm from New York,

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Speaker 1: so we entirely value stage performances in New York. Okay,

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Speaker 1: at the end of that performance, how'd you do? What

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Speaker 1: would you have done differently? How can you And now

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Speaker 1: that you've given that and you deliver that line that way,

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Speaker 1: is there a better way to deliver that line? And

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Speaker 1: then this is you constantly and persistently focusing on how

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Speaker 1: much better you can be at your craft. The goal

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Speaker 1: here to be as good as you possibly could be.

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Speaker 1: And what I've done in my life is whatever I've attempted,

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Speaker 1: I tried to be as good at it as I

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Speaker 1: could possibly be without regard to how people see it

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Speaker 1: or receive it or value it. And well that that's

426
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: not entirely true. So for example, let's go back to

427
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: the first what was discovered? Shoot, what was discovered? A

428
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: nineteen oh the uh space um a planet thing with

429
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: my age twenty years Okay, you gotta be plus on that,

430
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: but you know is in it? Okay? Yeah, So the

431
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: first exo planet was discovered, Okay, generation X planet, and

432
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 1: so I was interviewed by I was then the interim

433
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 1: director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, This

434
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: was banner headlines that exo planet was discovered. So NBC

435
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 1: News sent one of their action cams, you know, up

436
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,239
Speaker 1: to do an interview to air that evening. And they

437
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 1: sent them up and and they said, and they didn't

438
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: know me yet. I just they just wanted me for

439
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: my title. And I gave my best profess soil response.

440
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: I talked about the Doppler shift and the physics of

441
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: the movement of the stars and the center of mass

442
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: of the system. And I did all of this, and

443
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: I said, and once we discovered that there was the

444
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: Doppler shift on that star, and you can make it

445
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: very hard measurement. And because the star is kind of moving,

446
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: it's like jiggling. Uh, And so that's what you're going

447
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: to measure. And so I moved my body and in

448
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 1: the way the star would move. And all they used

449
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: from that interview was me jiggling my That was it, okay,

450
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: And maybe one sentence, you know, And so I said, oh, well,

451
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear my professor reply. They want

452
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: to sound bite. So I went home and practiced sound bites,

453
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: and so the next time I got asked, I just

454
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: get handled them sound bites and they came back for more,

455
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: and then other people came back, and this just continued

456
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: to build. And I said, I'm a servant of their curiosity.

457
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: I want to be the best servant I can be.

458
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: And one other example I'll give is the first time

459
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: I was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, okay

460
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: before Trevor Noah. John Stewart hosted that. And he's sharp,

461
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: he's smart, and he's funny. And I've seen politicians deer

462
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: in the headlights as he's dancing circles around them because

463
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: they're trying to get their speech out and he's not

464
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: letting them, and it's a disaster. I said, that is

465
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: not going to happen to me. So I studied him,

466
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: and I said, with a stopwatch, and I said, how

467
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 1: many seconds does he give you on average to speak

468
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: before he comedically interrupts, Okay, it's like time back. He

469
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: really studied this. I forgot the number like between eight

470
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: and twelve seconds, which doesn't sound like much, but it's

471
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: actually you can say a lot in ten seconds. So

472
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: I got on the show. I also had to know

473
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: three days of current events, I judged, because he's blending

474
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: it's a new show. He's blending current events with whatever

475
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: he's talking about. Because I did this, and I get

476
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: on the show and I deliver the ten seconds and

477
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: he jokes and then I come back, so I complete

478
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: the idea. He completes the joke, we go on to

479
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: the next thing. So it's it's working like it's it's

480
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: But was your dance, thank you, beautiful reference. It's a dance.

481
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: It's a dance. So in dancing in the interview and

482
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: at the end of it, people came up to me

483
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: and said, Neil, you and Johnston would have such good chemistry.

484
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: That's it's so natural. Little do you know? You have

485
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: no freaking idea? What kind of homework went into this?

486
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: And that was trying to be the best I can be.

487
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: So for me, I am successful if whatever I did

488
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: it was the best I could do in that time

489
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: for the research I was able to conduct. That's that's

490
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: how I measure my success. And if that, if the

491
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: public happens to like that, that's just bonus. I'm glad.

492
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: And that's all you can do at the end of

493
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: the day is be the best version of yourself correct

494
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,479
Speaker 1: And if you're not that I think you are, how

495
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: should I put this you. If you don't do that,

496
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: I think this one time you have on life is

497
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: under capitalized for all that you could do, think, accomplish, feel,

498
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: and why waste any of it. So if a day

499
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: goes by where I didn't learn something or improve something

500
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: about myself, that's a wasted day. And you can guarantee

501
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: unless you happen to be the generation that will live forever.

502
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: And I don't think they're born yet, that's another sort

503
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: of generation where we increase life expectancy. So right now,

504
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: increasing life expectancy by one year every five years something

505
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: like that, okay for of the general population. So but

506
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: what the day will come where we increase life expectancy

507
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: by one year for every year of research that we do,

508
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: that generation will live forever. I think that's younger than

509
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: you at this point, because we agreed you're an old part.

510
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: That is going to be my new bio on Instagram.

511
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: So I don't really want to live forever because I

512
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: like a motivation knowing that I'm going to die. Because guaranteed,

513
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: if a day goes by that you do not serve

514
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: your own curiosities and your own enlightenment in your own wisdom,

515
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: that's you've seen the calendars on the prison walls. It's

516
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: an X in a day that you're never getting back,

517
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: and so my motivation correlates with that. Okay, the fewer

518
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: days I have left, the more motivated I am to

519
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: get stuff done. And so I don't envy the first

520
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: generation who will live forever, because I wouldn't want to

521
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: live forever. That sounds exhausting, Yeah, it can be exhausted.

522
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: Why put why do today what you can put off

523
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: until tomorrow? Well, thank you so much. This conversation has

524
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: really been eye opening for me. I feel like I've

525
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: learned a lot today and I've been really inspired, and

526
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: I would now want to learn a lot more. So

527
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: I really appreciate why why not? Right? You know the

528
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: people who graduate from school and throw their books in

529
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: the air and say schools out? It's like, why are

530
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: you be about that? What I know isn't you should

531
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: always be curious and want to keep larring correct what

532
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: school should teach? I granted school is a pain, I

533
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: get that, But the least that should happen in school

534
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: is when you do graduate, you you your curiosity is

535
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: stoked to continue to learn on your own. So my

536
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: great regret in the system is that school doesn't teach

537
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: us all to continue to be curious. It's kind of

538
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: like you stop when it's done. If you stop it,

539
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: and then you get ossified, which is a great s

540
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: a t word. You get ossified in your thinking. Whatever

541
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: was your last thoughts the last time you were in

542
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: a classroom, that's it. And then you want to start life.

543
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: You get married, have kids, and that's how you're going

544
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: to think about the world. And do you see these

545
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: older folks that are just sort of crusty in their

546
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: ways because they didn't keep learning. They didn't they didn't

547
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: stay flexible, nimble, nimble in the mind. There's a quote

548
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: in the book, second to last page of the entire book,

549
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: which is from Horace and an educator, and there's school

550
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: is named after him. He's a brilliant educated in New

551
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: York City right in the Bronx, actually from two centuries ago.

552
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: And he was giving a commencement speech and he used

553
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: the word beseech in his Nobody uses that word anymore,

554
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: and it's very I feel like it's Shakespearean, but maybe

555
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: we should bring it back. He says, I beseech you

556
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: to treasure in your heart. These my parting words be

557
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 1: ashamed to die until you have scored some victority for

558
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,879
Speaker 1: humanity that I want that on my tombstone and has

559
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: nothing to do with being famous or rich. And it

560
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: is the world a little better off for you having

561
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: lived in it. And here's what I'm gonna recommend. Because

562
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: I don't like telling people what to do. I like

563
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:50,839
Speaker 1: compelling them to want to do something on their own,

564
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 1: but not going to tell people what to do. I

565
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: tell all your your viewers and listeners, I'm gonna say,

566
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: if you're gonna get this book at all, do it

567
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: be for Thanksgiving. So all of your arguments will be honed.

568
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: So that when the crazy and and the and the

569
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: weird uncle will all come over and they want to

570
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: talk about the flat earth they wanted to, you'll be equipped.

571
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: You have answers for everything, for every comeback, and ways

572
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: to help them think through what as they're thinking about,

573
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: because a cosmic perspective is and always is transformative of

574
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:32,879
Speaker 1: whoever basks in its light. Well, thank you so much

575
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: for coming on my podcast. I am truly honored to

576
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: have had this conversation. It's truly also made my day.

577
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 1: I'm delighted sim Thanks for having me