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Speaker 1: Let's talk about fantasies. Scientific fantasies, of course, because every

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Speaker 1: scientist out there has got one a dream scenario in

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Speaker 1: which they discover something that shocks the world, or they

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Speaker 1: stumble across some new species or an ancient artifact.

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Speaker 2: If you've been.

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Speaker 1: Listening to this podcast, then you can guess my scientific fantasy. It's,

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Speaker 1: of course, first contact. I want to meet the aliens.

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Speaker 1: But wait, you might think Daniel's no biologist. We know that,

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Speaker 1: and he's admitted to having no nat for chemistry either.

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Speaker 1: So what's Daniel's scientific interest in aliens? Well, the reason

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Speaker 1: I got into physics was because I thought the topic

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Speaker 1: was bigger than biology or chemistry. It doesn't try to

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Speaker 1: solve just the puzzles of life here on Earth, which

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Speaker 1: might only be relevant to life on Earth. Physics tries

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Speaker 1: to understand the laws of the whole universe. Its questions

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Speaker 1: are so much bigger they literally span the whole cosmos.

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Speaker 1: How did the universe begin? What is it made out of?

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Speaker 1: So alien contact is my scientific fantasy because I long

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Speaker 1: believe that physics is something that should be cross planetary

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Speaker 1: and cross species. I believe that somewhere out there was

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Speaker 1: an alien Daniel working on particle physics, and I'd like

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Speaker 1: to meet him and to make a mental connection over

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Speaker 1: our common interest in the mysteries of the universe. Physicists

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Speaker 1: don't need any bigger egos, but it's quite a boost

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Speaker 1: to think that you're studying something that could be the

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Speaker 1: topic of a galactic science conference. But is that just

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Speaker 1: fantasy or is it on solid ground? Could it actually happen?

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Speaker 1: I just wrote a book exploring this juicy topic. The

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Speaker 1: book is called Do Aliens Speak Physics? And it's out now.

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Speaker 1: Please pick up a copy. Today's episode is just a

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Speaker 1: little taste of what the book dives into. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Alien Universe.

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Speaker 3: Hello.

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Speaker 4: I'm Kelly Wadersmith. I study parasites and space, and I

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Speaker 4: am so excited that I finally get to meet Andy

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Speaker 4: Warner on today's show.

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Speaker 3: Hi.

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Speaker 2: I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I want to meet aliens

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Speaker 1: and talk to them about the nature of the universe

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Speaker 1: or find out that they're bored by that question, either one.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited about it, Daniel.

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Speaker 4: None of us are surprised to find out that you

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Speaker 4: want to meet aliens, so here's my question, since we

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Speaker 4: are chatting with an amazing cartoonist today, do you have

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Speaker 4: any artistic skills at all? Where do you stand on

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Speaker 4: the art spectrum.

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Speaker 2: I do do a lot of doodles.

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Speaker 1: Actually they're embarrassing, so I would never show them to anybody,

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Speaker 1: but I do enjoy doodling. I used to play this

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Speaker 1: game with Hazel where she would pick a random object

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Speaker 1: and then we would both dry without looking at each

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Speaker 1: other's page, and then compare and you learn a lot

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Speaker 1: about like how people imagine things and how they portray things.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. And for this book, I

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Speaker 1: did a bunch of doodles. Sometimes you try to explain

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Speaker 1: an idea and you need the visuals, and so I

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Speaker 1: would do what are kind of embarrassing basic drawings to

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Speaker 1: share with Andy, and then he would come back and like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about this, and he would do this incredible

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Speaker 1: sketch which really just captured all the ideas and conveyed

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Speaker 1: them beautifully. So yeah, I'm a big fan of art.

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Speaker 1: I do a little bit of art, but it's all

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Speaker 1: private art that would never show to anybody except for

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Speaker 1: my close collaborators.

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Speaker 4: Excellent, my art skills are like, I don't even get

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Speaker 4: the proportions right on stick figures. I am awful. And

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Speaker 4: it was so embarrassing because I took parasitology and we

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Speaker 4: were supposed to draw what we saw underneath the microscope

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Speaker 4: and that was a big part of our grade. And

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Speaker 4: all of my parasites were just blobs. This blob has

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Speaker 4: a uterus over here that I put an arrow towards,

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Speaker 4: and like, you just have to believe it was there.

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Speaker 4: And then it got worse because I married an artist

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Speaker 4: and at one point he was like, well, let me

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Speaker 4: teach you how to draw, and I realized that I

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Speaker 4: had just decided, well, I don't need to know anything

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Speaker 4: because this is your job, right and I'm offloading this

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Speaker 4: to you.

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Speaker 1: And so, uh, I got the fish stuff covered, you

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Speaker 1: got the drawing stuff covered.

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Speaker 4: That's right, equal distribution of labor. But luckily you and

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Speaker 4: I found people to work with who are good artists.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, it's a joy to collaborate with artists, isn't it?

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Speaker 4: It is? It really is. I mean, especially because I

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Speaker 4: think you and I really like to dig deep into

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Speaker 4: topics and really get into the details, and it's hard

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Speaker 4: for people to follow you on that journey sometimes and

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Speaker 4: partly it's hard for them to follow, you know, one

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Speaker 4: because it's complicated material. But two sometimes it just gets

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Speaker 4: kind of exhausting, Yeah, to be like trying to understand

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Speaker 4: complicated topics for too long. And so it's nice one

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Speaker 4: to have an illustration that clearly shows it in case

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Speaker 4: you're not imagining it right in your head. And two

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Speaker 4: to give you a second to laugh and be like

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Speaker 4: huh okay. And you know, if you get the joke

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Speaker 4: because you got the science, that feels good too. It's

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Speaker 4: like a nice payoff, you know. And then also like

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Speaker 4: I love that our will show me that they're you know,

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Speaker 4: seeing things in a different way than I am, and

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Speaker 4: it makes me think about things differently. And anyway, it's

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Speaker 4: a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's one reason why like this podcast is

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Speaker 1: fun because it's not just like one person talking about science.

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Speaker 1: It's a conversation and you help me explain the physics,

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Speaker 1: then I help you explain the biology, and you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a back and forth there. And in these books

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Speaker 1: where you have like a scientist and a cartoonist, there's

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Speaker 1: also a back and forth between the dialogue, the written

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Speaker 1: word and the cartoons. Right, they make fun of each other,

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Speaker 1: they refer to each other, and you're right, that's much

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Speaker 1: more interesting and relaxing because you need those little breaks,

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Speaker 1: you need to back and forth. So it just doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem like such a monologue.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, Well, today we're going to hear a little bit

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Speaker 4: more about this process. Andy's going to describe what it

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Speaker 4: was like, so we don't just have to take your

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Speaker 4: word for it, and we'll hear what it's like for

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Speaker 4: the poor cartoonists working with us. And so today we're

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Speaker 4: talking about your book. Do aliens speak physics? That's right,

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Speaker 4: the greatest book ever, sure to be a New York

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Speaker 4: Times bestseller, now available in all finebal stores. And so

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Speaker 4: we we asked our audience to get this conversation started.

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Speaker 4: Can we use physics to communicate with aliens? And let's

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Speaker 4: see what our audience thinks. Given that Daniel talks about

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Speaker 4: this all the time and we always love hearing about it.

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Speaker 6: Physics is the basis of absolutely everything.

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Speaker 5: We can't have a conversation just between two people without physics.

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Speaker 5: So absolutely physics is the only way we could communicate

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Speaker 5: with aliens. Physics and math are probably the most universal languages,

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Speaker 5: so I would.

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Speaker 6: Say probably yes. I think that if we make an

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Speaker 6: experiment where the outcome is different from what the aliens expect,

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Speaker 6: that would be interesting.

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Speaker 2: What else would you like to use? Magic?

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Speaker 7: Or verse chemistry, general relativity, and the speed of light

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Speaker 7: in our conversations are more likely pen pal exchanges over

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Speaker 7: centuries than a phone call.

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Speaker 8: I'm actually of the mind that we probably never will

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Speaker 8: encounter aliens.

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Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure if we contact alliance, physics will be

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Speaker 5: involved in some way or another. And doun say I

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Speaker 5: couldn't be.

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Speaker 6: I would think so because the only thing I can

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Speaker 6: think of is using the bands of the electro magnetic

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Speaker 6: spectrum to encode or entangle to send out communications.

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Speaker 8: I don't know if we can use physics to talk

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Speaker 8: to aliens, but if you figure it out, please let

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Speaker 8: me know, because I'm pretty sure my stepmother is an

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Speaker 8: alien and she is impossible to communicate with.

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Speaker 3: Yes, because there must be some values or firm lass

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Speaker 3: which are universal and we could base a recommunication on that.

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Speaker 5: Communication requires some kind of shared experience or viewpoint, and

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Speaker 5: I think physics could provide that. Yeah, because the distances

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Speaker 5: are so great that they exceed human lifetimes. Can we

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Speaker 5: even use physicists.

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Speaker 4: I think we can and probably should.

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Speaker 5: We can depict things like one thing and another thing

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Speaker 5: equals to things numerically, and then we can display the

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Speaker 5: pytheg orient theorem once.

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Speaker 7: We get the units of measurement figured out. Yeah, using

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Speaker 7: physics to talk to the aliens would probably work. It's

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Speaker 7: the one coming thing that we can discuss. This is

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Speaker 7: how fast light goes, and then that gives us their

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Speaker 7: units of measurement, and we figured it all out and

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Speaker 7: everything's wonderful. I'd rather a physicist was doing the talking

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Speaker 7: rather than a politician, but it's obvious that the best

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Speaker 7: scenario of the humanity would be to let me moderate.

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Speaker 9: I think so. In fact, I think we're using basic

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Speaker 9: physics on the voyager probes the records that will allow

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Speaker 9: us to know and not communicate directly, but at least

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Speaker 9: give an alien civilization a starting point on how to

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Speaker 9: communicate with us.

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Speaker 4: As always amazing answers, I had a good laugh at

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Speaker 4: the step mom comments.

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Speaker 2: And the chemistry joke of course, and the chemistry.

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Speaker 4: Joke of course. Yep. But this is a question you

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Speaker 4: have thought about a lot, and your co author Andy

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Speaker 4: has thought about a lot. So maybe we should just

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Speaker 4: jump right in and hear more about it.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: So then it's my absolute pleasure to welcome my co

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Speaker 1: author and collaborator and new favorite cartoonist to the podcast,

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Speaker 1: Andy Warner. Andy is a non fiction cartoonist. He's the

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Speaker 1: author of the New York Times best selling and hilarious

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Speaker 1: book Brief Histories of Everyday Objects.

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Speaker 2: He was a.

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Speaker 1: Contributing editor at the NIB and teaches cartooning at the

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Speaker 1: California College of the Arts at Stanford and at the

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Speaker 1: Animation Workshop in Denmark. He works in South Berkley and

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Speaker 1: comes from the sea.

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Speaker 4: What does that mean, Andy, What does it mean to

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Speaker 4: come from the sea?

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Speaker 5: Well, I actually I grew up on a series of

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Speaker 5: small islands, first sam Blast and Panama, then Saint Croix

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Speaker 5: and the US Virgin Islands. That's where my sister was born,

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Speaker 5: and then goes to spend a lot of time in Corsica.

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Speaker 5: My dad is a marine biologist or was. He's retired now,

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Speaker 5: and he studied sex changing fish while I was growing up.

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Speaker 5: So for a summer job, sometimes I would be, you know,

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Speaker 5: floating above a reef with a snorkel, counting off how

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Speaker 5: many blue head wrasts there were, and there was always

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Speaker 5: tubs out back where he and various postdocs were removing

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Speaker 5: their go nads. It was a fun childhood.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I have two siblings and so we kind of grew

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Speaker 5: up running around on these islands.

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Speaker 4: I was a fish person when I was a baby scientist,

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Speaker 4: and I love fish so much and blue headed rass.

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Speaker 4: I read all about sex changing and what we know

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Speaker 4: about the mechanisms behind that, and your childhood sounds absolutely

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Speaker 4: amazing to me.

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Speaker 5: So I didn't even need to talk to you about

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Speaker 5: sneaker males. You already know the.

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Speaker 4: Drill, totally know about sneaker mails.

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Speaker 5: Nice, that's my party story, Like, let me tell you

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Speaker 5: about sneaker males.

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Speaker 4: Awesome.

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Speaker 1: I mean it does sound like a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: But I noticed, Andy, but you didn't grow up to

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Speaker 1: become a marine biologist. What does that say about your experience?

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Speaker 10: Yeah?

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Speaker 5: Much the less sorrow of my dad. He definitely was

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Speaker 5: like he'll be the one. But you know what it

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Speaker 5: did teach me is how to talk to scientists, because

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Speaker 5: I grew up with him with all the people who

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Speaker 5: was working with his friends, my parents' friends in these

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Speaker 5: you know, somewhat isolated environments where there weren't a lot

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Speaker 5: of other kids around, and so in the absence of that,

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Speaker 5: I would talk to these grown ups. And talking to

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Speaker 5: scientists is a really interesting thing because they are very

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Speaker 5: fascinated by things, and so it taught me how to

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Speaker 5: be interested in things that maybe I'm not specialized in,

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Speaker 5: absorb their fascination, get fascinated by it in a similar way.

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Speaker 5: And then you know, you go and swim and you

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Speaker 5: see these fishs that they were talking to you about,

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Speaker 5: and it makes the science very real. And so, you know,

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Speaker 5: I ended up making a lot of comics about science.

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Speaker 5: I'm a nonfiction cartoonist and I do history, but I

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Speaker 5: also do science interpretation. And I like to think, or

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Speaker 5: at least I like to tell my dad that his

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Speaker 5: influences there.

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Speaker 4: Well, so how did you learn to translate scientists? Because

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Speaker 4: you're right with like, we as a group get really

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Speaker 4: excited about stuff, but we're not always really good at

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Speaker 4: explaining that to other people. You know, we like jump

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Speaker 4: right to the mechanisms and we're talking about goodnetotrope and

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Speaker 4: releasing hormone or something instead of like, yeah, how did

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Speaker 4: you learn to communicate science to nonscientists?

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Speaker 5: It's all about the asking questions, right, Like, these people

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Speaker 5: know things. It's not just somebody at a party blathering

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Speaker 5: on about something that they know nothing about. These are

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Speaker 5: really specialists that have devoted their lives to you know,

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Speaker 5: maybe it's somewhat esoteric knowledge to like the general public,

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Speaker 5: but like they can break it down into its little parts.

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Speaker 5: And so if you just sit there with somebody and

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Speaker 5: you kind of probe them and you question them, and

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Speaker 5: if you don't understand something, that's what you ask about.

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Speaker 5: Now that leads you into a new direction. It's that

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Speaker 5: technique that really gets me a lot of places is

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Speaker 5: being nice and interested in what people are talking about

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Speaker 5: and then asking them questions about it, you know, not

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Speaker 5: just like absorbing it, because that also demonstrates to them

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Speaker 5: that you're actually interested. A lot of people who have

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Speaker 5: specialized have this experience where they talk about what they

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Speaker 5: do to somebody whose eyes glaze over and they really

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Speaker 5: part way through, oh I've lost this person, and so

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Speaker 5: just not being that person they've lost being that person

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Speaker 5: that's like, oh no, like tell me more. It's you know,

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Speaker 5: it takes you along for the ride with them, and

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Speaker 5: that's been a really fun part of my entire career.

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Speaker 5: I mean, even with Daniel. Daniel was explaining a ton

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Speaker 5: of stuff, and as we put this book together, it's

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Speaker 5: one of my favorite parts about being the kind of

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Speaker 5: cartoonists that I am.

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Speaker 1: Frankly, I love how you talk about talking to scientists

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Speaker 1: the way we think about talking to aliens, you know,

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Speaker 1: as if scientists are the aliens. And so you're saying

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Speaker 1: that this whole time we've been writing a book about

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Speaker 1: talking to aliens, You've been practicing on me this whole time.

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Speaker 2: That's awesome, absolutely.

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Speaker 5: Firsthand knowledge. It is really interesting because scientists are often

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Speaker 5: used to talking with each other and this kind of

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Speaker 5: specialized language develops, and so as a layperson, like I'm

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Speaker 5: sort of a professional layperson in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 5: Like I talk to people and I get them to

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Speaker 5: talk to me about what they're interested in and then

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Speaker 5: breaking down And yes, Daniel, you're absolutely on the examination.

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Speaker 4: So I'm interested in how this collaboration came about. And

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Speaker 4: so maybe Daniel, So I know Daniel is the one

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Speaker 4: who initially had the idea. So maybe Daniel, you can

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Speaker 4: tell me about how you came up with this idea initially,

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Speaker 4: and then we can talk about what it was like collaborating.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, I'm of course interested in physics

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Speaker 1: and like how does the universe work and all that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff, But anybody who listens to the pod

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Speaker 1: knows that I'm also really interested in philosophy, and not

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Speaker 1: like weird abstract philosophy, but the context of the physics questions,

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Speaker 1: like what does it mean that the universe is made

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Speaker 1: of strings or springs or sprayings or whatever it's actually.

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Speaker 2: Made out of.

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Speaker 1: You know, to me, the reason physics is exciting is

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Speaker 1: because of the philosophical implications of what we've learned. Space

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Speaker 1: is curvy or it's not or whatever. The universe is

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Speaker 1: infinite or it's finite. All those things have meaning. But

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Speaker 1: you know, they have meaning if you think you're discovering

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Speaker 1: the truth. They have less meaning if you think, hm,

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Speaker 1: this is just our description of the universe, and maybe

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Speaker 1: it's telling us just about ourselves and not the universe.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to write a book about that by figuring out,

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Speaker 1: you know, is physics the map or is it the

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Speaker 1: territory itself? Also because a lot of physicists deeply believe

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Speaker 1: that it's the territory and can't accept the concept that

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Speaker 1: it's the map, and I was a little bit more skeptical.

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Speaker 1: So I pitched this idea for a book to my

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old at the time, and he was like,

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Speaker 1: m boring, come on, I would never read that book.

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Speaker 2: I know. I was totally crushed.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, I was like, this is my passion project. But

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Speaker 1: I also really respected his honesty.

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Speaker 5: No better editor than a fourteen year old.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, right exactly. Your kids will make you humble.

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Speaker 1: But then I thought, well, how can I make this

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Speaker 1: more fun? Well, maybe it's more fun if you think

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Speaker 1: about why.

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Speaker 2: It matters, you know, like, does it matter at all?

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Speaker 1: Is it only of interest to philosophical interested people who

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Speaker 1: smoke banana peels on the roof? And I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: it matters if our description is human or if it's universal,

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Speaker 1: if somebody else has a different description, and like who

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Speaker 1: else might have a different description, Well, you know, alien scientists.

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Speaker 1: And so it was fun to imagine what might happen

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Speaker 1: when aliens arrive and we get to talk to their

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Speaker 1: scientists and learn like, oh, are we describing the universe

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Speaker 1: or is it just our description of.

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Speaker 2: Our experience of it?

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Speaker 1: And I went back to my fourteen year old and

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Speaker 1: I was on pins and needles, and he was like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would read that book, and so boom, I was

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Speaker 1: off to the races.

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Speaker 4: Has he read the whole book?

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Speaker 2: He has read the book?

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Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I mean he and my daughter read it

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Speaker 1: and they both contributed some jokes.

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Speaker 4: So that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know Katrina has not yet read the book

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Speaker 1: though I know, yes, she's on spouse probation for that.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I also wanted a book that was

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Speaker 1: really accessible, and you know, I know a lot about physics,

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Speaker 1: and you guys know, the translating physics to what everybody

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Speaker 1: else out there can understand is not always easy, especially

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Speaker 1: when you're really close to the topic, and it's sometimes

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Speaker 1: hard for me to remember, like which of these concepts

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Speaker 1: are intuitive, ones are really a struggle to get over,

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Speaker 1: and what is the journey to really incorporating them. So

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Speaker 1: it's important to me to work with somebody who was

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Speaker 1: good at translating ideas, who knew how to speak to

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Speaker 1: aliens or physicists or alien physicists. And so I was

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Speaker 1: a big fan of Andy's work. I knew about it already.

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Speaker 1: I'd read his book, I followed his comics and so

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Speaker 1: I just cold emailed him to see if he was

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Speaker 1: up for this kind of collaboration.

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Speaker 4: And so, what did you think, Andy, when Daniel pitch

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Speaker 4: this alien idea. Were you like, oh my gosh, a

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Speaker 4: crackpot has sent me an email, or were you like, what,

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Speaker 4: this is a great idea.

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Speaker 5: Well, of course I was into it from the immediate

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Speaker 5: second I popped up in my email inbox. I'm like, hello,

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Speaker 5: I'm a physicist and I want to write a book

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Speaker 5: about aliens with you. It's a dream. I'm a cartoonist.

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Speaker 5: As long as I was on like a fishing scam,

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Speaker 5: I was on board.

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Speaker 1: Oh it still could be, It still could be, It still.

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Speaker 5: Could It's really elaborate.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, I do the long con.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you need those bank account details for the book tour.

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Speaker 5: This is pretty standard in the industry. That's what I'm talking.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that's what I tell my husband.

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Speaker 5: Also, yeah, exactly, a very elaborate fishing scam bound.

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Speaker 4: That's right. Yes, I'm committed.

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Speaker 5: So yeah, I responded as quick as I could before

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Speaker 5: I emailed some other cartoonists, and I said, yes, of course,

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Speaker 5: this sounds really interesting. Let's get on the horn and

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Speaker 5: talk more about it, and so I think we did

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Speaker 5: a zoom meet up and just kind of discussed back

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Speaker 5: and forth, and it immediately became apparent to me that,

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Speaker 5: you know, this wasn't just a guy who was interested

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Speaker 5: in aliens and knew some stuff about physics, which obviously

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Speaker 5: Daniel is, but you know, he was approaching this project

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Speaker 5: using it as like a framing device, as a way

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Speaker 5: to look at all these really interesting, really profound, sometimes

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Speaker 5: frankly unsettling questions that are just out there in the

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Speaker 5: air around us, and if you care to look at them,

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Speaker 5: you can have a pretty crazy time digging deep into them.

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Speaker 5: It's just most of the time you choose to focus

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Speaker 5: on other things. And this book really digs into the

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Speaker 5: fundamental pieces of how science came to be what we

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Speaker 5: consider science, the paths of it. I mean, one of

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Speaker 5: the things I love that Daniel brought to this with

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Speaker 5: this notion of rather than the progression of science being

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Speaker 5: this sort of like path, this river moving ever forward,

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Speaker 5: it's that it's this kind of you know, so river system. Sure,

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Speaker 5: this progress, but there's these dead ends, these streams come

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Speaker 5: out and then they rejoin.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 5: It's this really braided thing, this braided object, rather than

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Speaker 5: this just like path up the mountain to the peak

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Speaker 5: the summit, and you know, I'm I'm really interested in

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Speaker 5: how people frame things because it's how you tell a story,

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Speaker 5: it's how you get across information. And so the fact

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Speaker 5: that Daniel was able to take this very high concept

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Speaker 5: idea of the fundamental nature of the universe and marry

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Speaker 5: it to this like really grabby idea of just talking

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Speaker 5: to Aliens, I mean I was I was sold. And

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Speaker 5: then the more we were working together, it just never

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Speaker 5: wasn't fun, which is a great thing about working on

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Speaker 5: a book, you know, like there was always a new

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Speaker 5: thought experiment and a new way to consider the idea.

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Speaker 5: You know, like we get into our perceptions of the world.

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Speaker 5: And one of the things that was fun about working

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Speaker 5: with Daniels he has a very He's as excited to

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Speaker 5: learn new things as I am. And so we would say,

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Speaker 5: you know, we need to learn how dogs do it,

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Speaker 5: we need to learn how cuddle fish do it, like

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Speaker 5: what were the Mayans up to? And so like there

427
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Speaker 5: was this like exhilarating collaboration where we were just continually

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Speaker 5: bouncing stuff off of each other until the book went

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Speaker 5: to print. Frankly, and you know, and I think we

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Speaker 5: got somewhere interesting with it too. It's it's this. It

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Speaker 5: deals with pretty profound ideas in a very silly way,

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Speaker 5: but that doesn't make them not profound.

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Speaker 1: Awesome, Yeah, and we really wanted the book to be

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Speaker 1: accessible and to be fun, because yeah, it does deal

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Speaker 1: with pretty weighty issues, but we didn't want people to

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Speaker 1: feel like this is a dry academic text about philosophy

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Speaker 1: or even one of those like popular science books that

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Speaker 1: from a great famous person that you read and you

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Speaker 1: feel like, I'm in the presence of great ideas, but

440
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: I don't really get them, you know, those books.

441
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 2: You know.

442
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:17,159
Speaker 1: Our style is sort of like in the tradition of

443
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,119
Speaker 1: like your book, Kelly, A City on Mars, and you know,

444
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 1: with Randall Munroe's book What If, and like all the

445
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,879
Speaker 1: way back to like logic comics, where like you're touching

446
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:28,359
Speaker 1: on deep, abstract, philosophical, fundamental stuff, but you're making it

447
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 1: fun and accessible. And I think the key to that

448
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,720
Speaker 1: is cartoons, because they are fun and they make you

449
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:36,800
Speaker 1: feel like, hey, how serious could we be Anyway? We're

450
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 1: like making dad jokes and there's you know, silly drawings here,

451
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:43,399
Speaker 1: and Andy, I think is really underselling himself because he

452
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:46,119
Speaker 1: did a lot of the translation, like, I you know,

453
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,679
Speaker 1: I tried my best to make these ideas understandable. But

454
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,080
Speaker 1: the way you ask great questions, Kelly, so does Andy,

455
00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 1: and he's like, what does this really mean? And I'm

456
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,119
Speaker 1: not getting it and keep explaining it until it makes sense.

457
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:58,280
Speaker 1: And then of course the cartoons really bring it together

458
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: and add that note of levity that you need is

459
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 1: a break. You know, you're like, whoa, I really swallowed

460
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 1: a big concept here. Okay, I need to laugh, right,

461
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:09,280
Speaker 1: you know, nobody can think hard for like twenty pages straight.

462
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:12,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's a reason why the New Yorker

463
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 5: has gag cartoons or yeah, exactly exactly helps the medicine

464
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 5: go down easy.

465
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:20,119
Speaker 4: When you were clearly having a lot of fun with

466
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 4: the comics, Andy, and so tell us about what was

467
00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,120
Speaker 4: your process for like figuring out what the aliens would

468
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 4: look like.

469
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 5: I mean, I gave myself a lot of leeway because

470
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:30,840
Speaker 5: one thing that was fun about this book is that

471
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 5: from the get go, we're just like, we have no

472
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,480
Speaker 5: idea what it's going to be like, Like not even

473
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 5: any guests, right, Like anybody that says they have a

474
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 5: guess is putting you on, and so we were always

475
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 5: interested in breaking stuff down too, it's constituent parts. And

476
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 5: because we were doing that with history of science, with philosophy,

477
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 5: I felt complete artistic license to do that with anatomy,

478
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 5: especially goopiness kind of dripping blobs and things like that.

479
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 5: And so what I would try to do is just

480
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 5: make them as different from the last one that I

481
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 5: had drawn, which was a fun experiment, and it's very

482
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 5: similar to how I sketch. I kind of sketch naturally

483
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,919
Speaker 5: these little monsters in my sketch books, and so as

484
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 5: an outgrowth of that, it was just like, make these

485
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:16,919
Speaker 5: little monsters. Maybe this one is a floating orb. Maybe

486
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,159
Speaker 5: this one has a thousand limbs. Maybe this one has

487
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 5: a bunch of eyes. What do alien eyes look like?

488
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,479
Speaker 5: Let's dig into that, and then you know, what are

489
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 5: these aliens doing? Usually they're in conversation with a human

490
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 5: in some sort of humorous way. And that was a

491
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:32,919
Speaker 5: fun thing to me because it kind of demonstrates one

492
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 5: of the powers of cartooning, because the whole book is

493
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 5: about how difficult it is to connect with aliens, right

494
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 5: to find this common ground. Is it even possible? Maybe

495
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 5: it's not. And so then almost every cartoon in it

496
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 5: is this human speaking in English in a bubble to

497
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 5: an alien. Right, it almost works counter to the concept,

498
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,199
Speaker 5: but because that's a cartoon, it acts instead as a commentary.

499
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 5: And so often these little characters are like a little

500
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 5: Great Chorus or something like that, where they're commented on it,

501
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 5: they're adding a joke, they're undercutting the authors, they're making

502
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 5: fun of us often and the reader just takes it

503
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 5: and strive it's funny to them, and it then maybe

504
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 5: hopefully deepens the experience, because you know, they're reading about aliens,

505
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 5: you might as well get to see a few.

506
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So, what was the hardest comic you had to

507
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 4: do for the whole thing? Because I know for Zach

508
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 4: there's always like an image where he just can't draw

509
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 4: the thing the right way, And so was there a

510
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:31,239
Speaker 4: particular one that you got hung up on?

511
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 5: Well, I mean a lot of the diagrams and stuff

512
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 5: like that. Daniel, Daniel will help me with them. And

513
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 5: that's a very fun thing, is that Daniel, you know,

514
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 5: using whatever graphics program he does, will put together these.

515
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: Little cartoons embarrassingly kludgy.

516
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,479
Speaker 5: They're not embarrassing Daniel, they're beautiful, and then I'll I'll

517
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 5: draw over them. And so having somebody around to really

518
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 5: help me out with the kind of nuts and bolts

519
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 5: of what I needed to get right was good. But

520
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 5: in terms of the difficulty, I mean, I really had

521
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 5: a lot of license because we start every chapter with

522
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 5: sort of a science fiction fable, almost a hypothetical scenario,

523
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 5: and so most of the time I was drawing the comics,

524
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 5: I was drawing aliens and humans interacting, sometimes in a

525
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 5: fictional setting with the hypothetical scenarios, so I could get

526
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 5: as crazy as I wanted to. You know, I wasn't

527
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 5: like having to get every single part of a diagram

528
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 5: right as I would and like say, in a city

529
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 5: on Mars, if you mess up the way that look,

530
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 5: somebody's gonna call you out on it. Yeah, nobody seen

531
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 5: me aliens.

532
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 4: A little bit of that happened, but that's all right.

533
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: And that was one of my favorite moments, is getting

534
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 1: the first draft of Andy's drawings, because you know, we

535
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: have this text we've been working on and then it's

536
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: time for him to illustrate it, and I get to

537
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: be the first person to see these and like they

538
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: always just added so much humor and levity and clarity

539
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,479
Speaker 1: to the work. So I was really glad for how

540
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: the whole thing went. I had a great time.

541
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 5: We also ended up cutting a bunch of them too.

542
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 5: I mean I over we also overwrote. Oh my god,

543
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 5: cal the little.

544
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: Draft was like Kelly knows because she read the first draft.

545
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: She read the whole first draft, which is like two books.

546
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 5: I loved it.

547
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 4: I wish you could have kept it all.

548
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 5: It was a great We were having a lot of fun.

549
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 5: There was like an extended sequence about Harvey wallbangers we

550
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 5: rarely got into. We had to cut a lot of jokes,

551
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 5: but we also you know, it's it's good. I think

552
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 5: in writing humor, to overwrite and then cut down you

553
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 5: end up on a stronger product. But you know, some

554
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 5: of my favorite little gags ended up on the cutting

555
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 5: room floor. But I always remember the aliens.

556
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 4: So how did the co writing process work then with

557
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 4: you two, Well, we.

558
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: Would put together an outline just to make sure we

559
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 1: were sort of aligned with where the book was going,

560
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: what topics are we going to cover, what is the

561
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: big idea? And then I would write a first draft

562
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: and send it to him and he would cut a

563
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff and ask me questions and revise a

564
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff, and then also add a bunch of stuff.

565
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: Because Andy's not just a cartoony st also knows a

566
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: lot about the history of science and history in general,

567
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: and so he wrote a bunch of the chapters on

568
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: like you know, the path of science and where things

569
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 1: have gone, and added a bunch of wonderful details. And

570
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 1: then we would go back and forth, and then when

571
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: we thought the text was in shape, and you would

572
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: do a draft on the comics, and then I would

573
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: comment on them, which meant like, Wow, I love this one.

574
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 2: No, I love this one.

575
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: Ooh, this one's amazing ha ha ha lol, really sharp comments.

576
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're very critical.

577
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 2: I was trying to be. I really was. I was like,

578
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: what can I add? I don't know. I could just

579
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: tell them which ones I laughed at.

580
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 5: It helps, it really does. It was such a collaborative process. Yeah,

581
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 5: we I don't know. We would go through maybe like

582
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 5: three to four ping pong backs so for each chapter,

583
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 5: because we ended up again, we you know, we would

584
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 5: cut a bunch and then add a bunch back in.

585
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 5: And it's hard at this point reading through it to

586
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 5: remember I mean, you know, I did all the heart

587
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 5: physics on that. Yeah, But aside from this stuff that

588
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 5: I really just can't wrap my tiny little brain around,

589
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 5: A lot of the style has sort of melded into

590
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 5: the hybrid of Dan Andy two dad joke styles. I

591
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 5: think we have a similar sense of humor that made

592
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 5: it easy and a similar urge to kind of meander around.

593
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 4: It was fun, amazing. Well, thank you both for sharing

594
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 4: information about the process of working on this. Let's take

595
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 4: a break, and when we get back, let's talk about

596
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 4: how do we know aliens even do science? We're back,

597
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 4: I am grilling Dan Andy. What did you say that?

598
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 3: Yeah?

599
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Andy? About do aliens speak physics? So let's

600
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 4: jump into some of the science here. So why do

601
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 4: we even think that aliens do science?

602
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: I think we hope that aliens do science, and that's

603
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: part of just like our human projection, you know, the

604
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: question of like, are we the only intelligent species in

605
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: the universe, which is an ancient question and one that

606
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: resonates with everybody. The fact that we ask that question

607
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: says that we think intelligence is important. Right, We're not

608
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: just out there looking for like slime molds on other planets.

609
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: There's a specific kind of alien we want to meet,

610
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: and that kind of alien is similar to us, because

611
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: the important thing about us is that we're intelligent. But also,

612
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: for me, the important thing about us is that we're

613
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: trying to unravel the nature of the universe, where this

614
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: weird part of the universe that looks inward and tries

615
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: to understand. And so I think we are very curious

616
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: about whether aliens are like us, and so that's why

617
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: we want to know, like do they think about the

618
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: universe the way that we do. But you know, part

619
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: of the book is trying to make the strongest case

620
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: against those assumptions so that we can really figure out,

621
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,239
Speaker 1: like how do we know? And so even though there

622
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: are some things that seem obvious, like well, if aliens

623
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: are technological and they figured out how to travel the stars,

624
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: then obviously they must know how you know, space works

625
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: and how to bend it or how to curve it

626
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: or how to create wormholes and they can explain it

627
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: to us. But you know, that's an assumption. And so

628
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: in the book we dig into that very question, like

629
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: is it actually necessary to do science to think about

630
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: the universe as a puzzle that you're trying to unravel

631
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: in order to master technology that lets you navigate the stars.

632
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 5: Right, And we have so many examples even in just

633
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 5: human history, of humans developing wildly complicated technologies with very

634
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 5: little conception of what's going into those technologies on a

635
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 5: fundamental level, like what makes them work. We're very willing

636
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 5: to then improve, you know, iterate on those technologies. I mean,

637
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 5: think about blacksmithing, metallurgy, right, I mean or breadmaking, you know,

638
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 5: these things that are not necessarily intuitive to the human brain.

639
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 5: We're able to harness and derive incredible complexity from with

640
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 5: really no knowledge of how it actually works. And so

641
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 5: that gives you this idea that maybe you could have

642
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 5: this very technologically advanced alien species that just kind of

643
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 5: iterated there and doesn't have that curiosity that makes them wonder,

644
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 5: what is the fundamental basic part of the universe? Is

645
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 5: there a fundamental basic Maybe they just don't care. Maybe

646
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 5: they just sort of iterated their way into warp drives

647
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 5: and ended up on our front door and they just

648
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 5: want to sample our food. We have all these assumptions

649
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 5: because we got there and because we're curious in this

650
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 5: very specific way. And one thing that we do over

651
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 5: and over again. That's kind of fun in this book

652
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 5: is sort of a rug pull where we get people

653
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 5: hyped up about a possible connection. Then we say, oh no, no, no,

654
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 5: pull the rug out, and then we dig deep into why.

655
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 5: Maybe it's a lot more complicated, a lot more difficult

656
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 5: to connect in that way than you would.

657
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 4: So I've got a question for you then, Andy. So

658
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 4: when Daniel was, you know, answering the question, it seemed

659
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 4: pretty clear to me that what he was saying was

660
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 4: that if he ended up on a planet and they

661
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 4: made sourdough bread but they didn't understand why, and that

662
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 4: was where they maxed out, he would be really disappointed.

663
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 4: If you got to a planet and the aliens made

664
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 4: sour dough but didn't know why it worked, but they

665
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 4: were would you still be excited about meeting those aliens?

666
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 5: I'd still eat the sour dough. I mean, we actually

667
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,719
Speaker 5: we have a hypothetical situation. One of our little chapter

668
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 5: starters has this hypothetical situation where we have this group

669
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 5: of aliens that arrives and everybody meets them and they

670
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 5: explain some stuff, and the physics meet them, and you know,

671
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 5: there is this communication and they're just not interested and

672
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,239
Speaker 5: what the physicists are interested in, and the physicists kind

673
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 5: of walk away disappointed while everybody else is having a party.

674
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 5: So we have that, We imagined that exact scenario where

675
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 5: I'm kind of chilling eating the sour dough with Daniel's

676
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 5: weeping in a corner.

677
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 4: Do you think there are going to be alien cartoonists?

678
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 2: Ooh?

679
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 5: I mean I would say that cartooning is simply a

680
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 5: fundamental at the universe. I cannot conceive.

681
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 4: Why live in a universe without cartoons? I agree, exactly, yeah.

682
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: But I also want to defend myself a little bit there.

683
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm making it sound like our book is

684
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: a bit of a wet blanket, you know, sort of

685
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: like your book, Kelly Yep.

686
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 4: I was gonna call us the wet blankets, but now

687
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 4: it sounds like you're trying to back out.

688
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: No, I think the answer either way is fascinating and wonderful. Like, look,

689
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: either the aliens do science the way that we do

690
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: and have a lot in common with us intellectually and emotionally,

691
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: because science is emotional, right, It's this curiosity that drives us.

692
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: It's it comes from within us. It's not rational either.

693
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: They are similar to us in that way, in which case, like, yeah,

694
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: we can have a lot of fun like cooking up

695
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: sour dough and standing at chalkboards right in lagrangeons and

696
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: figuring out the mysteries of quantum gravity. It's going to

697
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: be a great party. Or they're not, and they're more

698
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: alien than we can imagine. And that's sort of what

699
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: the book is exploring. But I don't think that that's

700
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: a negative outcome, you know. That's really interesting. That's when

701
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: we learn about ourselves, when we learn like, oh wow,

702
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: there are assumptions we've been making in this whole time

703
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: we didn't even realize we were making. It's sort of

704
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: like the you know, the equivalent of traveling to another

705
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,240
Speaker 1: country and discovering that they don't have coffee for breakfast

706
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: and you're like, what you have spicy fish soup or

707
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,359
Speaker 1: like this other weird thing for breakfast, or like what

708
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: that's fascinating?

709
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 3: Right?

710
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:32,720
Speaker 1: How disappointing would it be to go to another country

711
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: and just discover Starbucks everywhere?

712
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 2: Right?

713
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: And so yes, you get your Starbucks on when you're

714
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: in Thailand or whatever, and that's nice, but it's more

715
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: interesting in some ways to not get that, because that's

716
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: when you learn about yourself and you learn about what's

717
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: possible out there.

718
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 4: You must be so good at writing grits. Whether I

719
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 4: get the answer I want or I don't get the

720
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 4: answer I want, it's interesting either way, and I would

721
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 4: fund your grant.

722
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: Dat he'll oh, thank you, yes, yes, well you know

723
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:00,320
Speaker 1: that is the case in particle physics.

724
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 2: We publish no matter what.

725
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: Find something published, don't find something published.

726
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that's how you have thousands of publications

727
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 4: job security.

728
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:09,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, exactly.

729
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 4: So we got a question from a listener, Sarah. So

730
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 4: let's go ahead and listen to that question real quick

731
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,720
Speaker 4: and I'll see what you two think about the answer.

732
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 10: Daniel and Kelly. This is Sarah from Lousville, Kentucky. My

733
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 10: question is our opposable thums necessary for the development of

734
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 10: tools and technology? Would aliens need to have fingers and

735
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 10: sums to make spaceships to visit us? Thank you and

736
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 10: keep up the good work.

737
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 4: All right. So I love that we got a biology question,

738
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 4: sort of biology adjacent. I think the one of the

739
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 4: only other organisms that have opposable thumbs is it pandas

740
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 4: And they use it to hold bamboo.

741
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 5: Raccoons.

742
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: Raccoons, Ah yeah, garbage.

743
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, no, raccoons, dude, I.

744
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 4: Love it.

745
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 5: They're still spreading, you know.

746
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just because raccoons are your neighbors in Berkeley, right.

747
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's alias you can't go through because there's signs

748
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 5: posted about how they'll beat you up and take your life.

749
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's great. Yeah, they're made of much

750
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 4: s turner stuff in Berkeley than they are out here.

751
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 4: They definitely run from us out here.

752
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: Maybe we should send in the National Guard to clear

753
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 1: out the raccoons.

754
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, yeah, don't give anybody any ideas. But in

755
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 5: all seriousness, I mean, an interesting aspect of this book

756
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 5: actually is that biologists have actually spent a lot of

757
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 5: time already thinking about aliens. It's this part of the

758
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 5: thought experiments that people have already engaged them that we

759
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 5: turn to to write this book. Actually, there's already books about,

760
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 5: you know, how humans evolved and how unique our evolutionary

761
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 5: path may be compared to other environments, you know, ammonia

762
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 5: based life forums, things like that, and so we actually

763
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 5: already had, you know, this sort of rich tradition of

764
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 5: thought experiments of writing to look to for this book,

765
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 5: and the answer is, of course no. Like opposable thumbs

766
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 5: they've developed a few times. It's great, they're super useful,

767
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 5: but there's a lot of different ways to articulate things

768
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 5: in the world and engage in tool use. I mean,

769
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,919
Speaker 5: dolphins attached to spunge to their nose as they dig

770
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 5: around and the inner title or I guess it's for

771
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 5: in the sand. But you know, we have all these examples,

772
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 5: even just on Earth, of pretty complicated tool use developing

773
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,399
Speaker 5: and being engaged in with animals that don't have these

774
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 5: opposable thumbs. Don't get me wrong, they'd be really useful

775
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 5: and it'd certainly be fun to meet aliens with the

776
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 5: possible thumbs.

777
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to give kudos here to the

778
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: biologists because they really have done their homework much more

779
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: than the physicists have. Well, you know, imagining like what's

780
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 1: beyond the box of our Earth assumptions. You know, what

781
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: could alien life be like? As Andy says, you know,

782
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: does it have to be based on carbon? Could it

783
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 1: be silicon? That's exactly the kind of thinking I think

784
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: physics hasn't done enough of, you know, looking back inwards

785
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,399
Speaker 1: and saying like, well, where are we making assumptions? Where

786
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: could things have gone differently? And so, yeah, biologists have

787
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 1: done a lot of this, but this is a great question,

788
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: and I think there are examples of like fairly intelligent

789
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: critters on Earth, like octopus. They're very smart, and they

790
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: obviously can interact with their environment. They have these grippers,

791
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: et cetera. But they don't have opposable thumbs. So I

792
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: think the heart of Sarah's question essentially is like, do

793
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: you need some way to manipulate the environment so you

794
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: can like build up on stuff and interact with it

795
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: in a sophisticated way. And I think that's probably is required.

796
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: But I wonder if that's possible underwater, you know, if

797
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,359
Speaker 1: it's possible to develop as complex tools underwater, you know,

798
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: like can you do metallurgy, can you extract minerals? You know,

799
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: I think that might be required some sort of land

800
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: based thing. But again, you know, that's just our one experience.

801
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: Who knows great questions?

802
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 4: Sarah, Yeah, so are you ruling Enceladus out then as

803
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 4: a place where we'll find intelligent life because there's just

804
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 4: too much water.

805
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to having my mind blown by being

806
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: wrong about that when we discover alien technology under the

807
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: surface of Enceladus.

808
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 5: Well, okay, I mean one one interesting thing that we

809
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 5: while we're on the subject of hands and thumbs that

810
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 5: we get into with this book, and Daniel kind of

811
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 5: was probing at this as how much of our own

812
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 5: the way we do science and what we're curious about

813
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:13,359
Speaker 5: is literally our structure, how our bodies are, the ten

814
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 5: digits on our hand that form how we count things,

815
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 5: the fact that we're bipedal, and so our neck cranes

816
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 5: up to look at the sky pretty easily, and so

817
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 5: we wonder about the stars in a way that may

818
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,240
Speaker 5: be an animal on all fours that it's slithering around

819
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 5: just simply wouldn't. And so a lot of the way

820
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 5: that we track the development of science may actually come

821
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 5: down to our very human form. And so if an

822
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 5: alien evolves this entirely different way, they may have just

823
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 5: a very different alien preoccupations based on something as simple

824
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 5: as them not having thumbs. Right, Yeah, that may be

825
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:50,240
Speaker 5: the fundamental difference.

826
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 4: So the genus Homo has been around for a long time,

827
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 4: and we've had this sort of general body shape, but

828
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 4: we haven't, as far as I know, been doing science

829
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 4: the whole time. When would we say that we started

830
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 4: doing science?

831
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: Man, that is such a deep question, and I know

832
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: that they like typical popsie explanation is like, well, Galleo

833
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,879
Speaker 1: and Francis Bacon decided to do experiments about five hundred

834
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: years ago, and then science began, and we've been doing

835
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: science ever since. And you know, that's like true, maybe

836
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,839
Speaker 1: at the very zoomed out level, but when you look

837
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 1: at it, like most stories, it's much more nuanced and

838
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: interesting because people have been doing experiments for much longer

839
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: than Galileo and Bacon. You know, even the Greeks, like

840
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: they tested stuff out. I think this simplified cartoon.

841
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 4: Version, watch it, watch it.

842
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: I do mean cartoon in a derogatory way.

843
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 3: There.

844
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Wow, I just realized I said that this oversimplified

845
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: version there you go, doesn't tell the true story because

846
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: people have been as Andy said earlier, they've been doing

847
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: stuff for a long time, but they've also been sometimes

848
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: wondering why does it work, and how does it work?

849
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: And what is the mechanism.

850
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: They haven't always figured it out, and the technique for

851
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: figuring that out has definitely evolved. But also it's evolved

852
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: since that, you know, moment of the scientific revolution. The

853
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: way we do science today is not the same as

854
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: the way we did science five hundred years ago. We

855
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: don't just have experiments anymore. For example, now we have

856
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: like simulations. Here's a whole new category of this of

857
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: scientific investigation that didn't exist before, you know, in vivo

858
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: in vitro, in silico. You know, so we don't know

859
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: like what the future holds. Also, so science is like

860
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: a gradually evolving process. The science itself is not a

861
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 1: static idea.

862
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 5: I just love the idea of science not being a

863
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:40,879
Speaker 5: static idea. I think that was one of the things

864
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 5: that really drew me to the book was Danielle articulating

865
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 5: that in the first email he sent to me. And

866
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 5: the idea of you know, a lot of concepts that

867
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,479
Speaker 5: we have being these kind of living things that are

868
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 5: re examined and evolved and maybe had a few different

869
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 5: times that they were quote unquote invented and then fused together.

870
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 5: I think Daniel's ability to perceive that is frankly what

871
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 5: jurmany of the project in the first place cool.

872
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: And I think it's fascinating because it lets you imagine

873
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 1: how aliens might be doing science, and like, maybe they

874
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: don't do science at all, as we talked about, but

875
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: also maybe they do some super crazy advanced version of science.

876
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,959
Speaker 1: You know, we've added to our technique for building knowledge

877
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: about the universe. There's no reason to imagine aliens a

878
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 1: million or billion years more advanced than us have developed

879
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: some new technique and they look back at ours and

880
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, y'all are so primitive. You're

881
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,839
Speaker 1: still doing that. It takes so long to figure out

882
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: the universe. They might think about us the way we

883
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: think about you know, this hypothetical scenario of aliens who

884
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: are not interested in all at how things work, right,

885
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: And so even just a question of like do we

886
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: do science the same way tells us so much about

887
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 1: our history and the assumptions we're making about the way

888
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,240
Speaker 1: that intelligent critters can understand the universe.

889
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 4: YEP, I love the conversations about that in the book.

890
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 4: All right, so let's assume that we get to meet

891
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 4: aliens one day, which would be awesome. What would be

892
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 4: some challenges communicating with them? What would would you imagine

893
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 4: that would be?

894
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:04,479
Speaker 1: Like, well, I mean number one is are we talking

895
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: to the alien physicists or the alien cartoonists, right, I.

896
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 4: Think we should let Andy answer this one first.

897
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 6: Yeah.

898
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 5: I mean it's from the get go it's a more

899
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 5: difficult prospect than you think, right, because we have a

900
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:22,319
Speaker 5: bunch of examples, even just on Earth, of things that

901
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 5: demonstrate a clear intelligence, clear complex behavior that changes contextually,

902
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 5: Like all these things. You know that we're looking for

903
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 5: overn governywhere like this makes humans and we have to

904
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 5: redefine it every time a biologist like raises their hand

905
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,319
Speaker 5: and says, well, actually right, there's like a bunch of

906
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 5: other species that do that, but we can't. You know,

907
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 5: we find actual communication with these other organisms very difficult,

908
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 5: if not impossible, right, like people you know on TikTok

909
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 5: they have those boards where the dog presses the buttons

910
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 5: the talk like come on, give me a break, And

911
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 5: we basically made dogs like dogs are a human project action.

912
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 5: You know, that fundamental issue that we deal with here

913
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,360
Speaker 5: on Earth with all of our species client or not

914
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 5: is something that would immediately come up with aliens. It's

915
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:11,399
Speaker 5: just you know, where is that point of connection, where

916
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 5: what is communication and how does it actually happen? And

917
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 5: so that's why you know, we go down this Karl

918
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 5: Segan route of finding the most basic things you could

919
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 5: talk to one another about. But you know that dream,

920
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 5: that Star trek dream where everybody's got the communicators and

921
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 5: stuff like that, Like we don't have those for dolphins,

922
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 5: and they're right there.

923
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

924
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: And you know, we don't have a concrete answer to

925
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: this question, of course, because we haven't met the aliens,

926
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: which is why we have to do this biological game

927
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: of like, let's look around on Earth and try to

928
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: imagine what the most difficult communication scenario is on Earth

929
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: and then make it ten times harder to imagine what

930
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: it's like for the aliens. And as Andy says, we've

931
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,719
Speaker 1: already stumbled. Right, we can't communicate with whales. We know

932
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: they're talking to each other, but we don't know what

933
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: they're saying. But also we have trouble communicating with humans, right,

934
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: Like translating human languages is possible when you have like

935
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: two existent populations who can like point to stuff and

936
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: say this is an apple, that's an apple. But when

937
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: you have when one of those populations is gone but

938
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: they've left a bunch of written writing behind, we really

939
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: struggled to figure out what they're talking about, even if

940
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: we have enormous numbers of examples, even if we have

941
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,359
Speaker 1: a lot of culture in common obviously the same biology,

942
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: without like crazy cheat sheets like the Rosetta Stone, we

943
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: may not have even ever translated Egyptian hieroglyphics. And there

944
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 1: are still ancient human texts that we don't know what

945
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: they mean. And so if we don't know how to

946
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: do it for humans, if it's like too hard for humans,

947
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: then like one are the chances we're gonna be able

948
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: to decode an alien message? And you know, like we've

949
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 1: received weird messages from space. I don't know messages, but

950
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: signals from space like the Wow signal? Right, what does

951
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: that mean?

952
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: We don't know.

953
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 1: We don't know how to translate it. Is it encoded?

954
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: How is it encoded? How would you know if you

955
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: decoded it correctly?

956
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 2: Right?

957
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 4: We don't know.

958
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,760
Speaker 1: And that's the whole problem, is that there's always an encoding.

959
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: You can't take an idea and just give it into

960
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: somebody else's head. You have to pass through some sort

961
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: of symbols, and those symbols are always fundamentally going to

962
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: be arbitrary and cultural. They reflect who you are and

963
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: what you think about those ideas. And as Andy mentioned,

964
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan made a great effort on the Pioneer Plaque

965
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: to try to communicate with some potential alien civilization that's

966
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: going to pick up the Pioneer probe. And you know,

967
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: before we rag on him, which we're about to, we

968
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: should say that NASA only gave him like two weeks

969
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: to come up with this. They're like, oh, wait, last

970
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: minute idea. Maybe we should add a message to aliens?

971
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 1: Can you have one by twosday? So he did a

972
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: great job for you know, the time constraint. But in

973
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: the end, what he drew on the Pioneer plaque and

974
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a again cartoony version of the

975
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: hydrogen atom.

976
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 4: You mean, the best of what we're able to do.

977
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 4: When you say.

978
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, done by good looking people. You know, it's

979
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: our sort of mental image. And of course he avoided

980
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: any English, and he even avoided like math. He was

981
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: just trying to come up with pictograms that he thought

982
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:09,839
Speaker 1: would inspire in alien minds the same idea. But you know,

983
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: I showed the Pioneer Plaque to a bunch of grad

984
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,879
Speaker 1: students here at U c Irvine to get a sense

985
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,959
Speaker 1: for like does this work even on the same biological

986
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: construct for physics grad students, and they had no idea

987
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: what this thing was, you know, they were like, I

988
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: don't know. They came up with clever interpretations, but nobody

989
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: got anywhere close to what Carl Sagan was thinking. And

990
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: it just highlights like how difficult it is to invent

991
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 1: a communication system that really is universal. You can't do it,

992
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:39,359
Speaker 1: and this whole like linguist and philosophers of language who've

993
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: worked on this and they've concluded it's essentially impossible to

994
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: translate a language without those people around to like point

995
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: it stuff.

996
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 5: What blanket club or you should still buy your books, that's.

997
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 4: Right, support the community of wet blanket people.

998
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: And that's why in the book we don't focus on

999
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: this SETI like scenario where we get a message and

1000
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 1: we're like writing back and forth to the aliens over

1001
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 1: thousands of years. Instead, we imagine the aliens are here,

1002
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: we have a physical context together where we can point

1003
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: at apples and try to use that to build up

1004
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,919
Speaker 1: a communication system, because that potentially could actually work.

1005
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, even just you're using the word cartoony

1006
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 5: is actually a good example to talk about like the

1007
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 5: way that visual language is so contextual, right, Like comics

1008
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 5: is the art of simplification, like down to the dots

1009
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 5: of the eyes and like a triangle for a No,

1010
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 5: somebody unfamiliar with comics does not recognize that as a

1011
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:38,240
Speaker 5: human face necessarily, or like you know, the sweat beads

1012
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,720
Speaker 5: going like that's like this is contextual stuff that people

1013
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 5: familiar with the language are like, Oh, I understand that

1014
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 5: somebody unfamiliar needs to be taught, right. You extrapolate that

1015
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 5: out to the universe, and my god, good luck.

1016
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 4: I think there are these Japanese comics where when they're sleeping,

1017
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 4: there's like a bubble coming out of that bubbles. Yeah,

1018
00:48:57,920 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 4: And I had no idea what that was. I was

1019
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 4: like eight A, I know all why it is. My

1020
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 4: daughter's like, why do they all have snot bubbles and

1021
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,239
Speaker 4: she's like, no, they're sleeping, mom, And I don't get

1022
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 4: bubbles when.

1023
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 5: I'm sleeping, you, I mean, I don't know. Like, sweat

1024
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 5: definitely does erupt from my head whenever I'm nervous, but.

1025
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 2: That's that's just I see.

1026
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: That's the equivalent of like a string of z's coming

1027
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: out of somebody's mouth.

1028
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,239
Speaker 2: You might be like, what fascinating?

1029
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 4: So the wet blankets need to go grab a little

1030
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 4: bit more tea, and when we're back, we're going to

1031
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:50,680
Speaker 4: talk about whether or not aliens do math. All right,

1032
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 4: the wet blankets now have our tea, and that's right,

1033
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,879
Speaker 4: that's right, we're back. And so so in the book

1034
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 4: you also deal a lot with the question of how

1035
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 4: do we know aliens will do math? Because you know,

1036
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,879
Speaker 4: often people will be like, well, well, just communicate in math,

1037
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 4: because it's like this most this basic thing. We must

1038
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 4: all share it. But you know, as what blankets, you

1039
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,479
Speaker 4: have to critically examine that. So what do you think?

1040
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 1: I think that's a really fun idea, and it is

1041
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: a powerful idea. And I actually got to talk to

1042
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: Noam Chomsky when writing this book. Yeah, because he famously

1043
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: answers all of his emails, which is incredible and one

1044
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: reason why I tried to do the same thing. I'm

1045
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: not nearly as famous as NOMSCONSI. I'm sure he gets

1046
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: more emails about aliens than I do. But I wrote

1047
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: to him and asked him what he thought would be

1048
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:37,439
Speaker 1: a good protocol for beginning a conversation with aliens, because

1049
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: like very smart dude obviously thought about language, and he

1050
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 1: actually wrote back and I had a conversation with him,

1051
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: and his basic argument was aliens will do arithmetic, and

1052
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 1: so we can connect with them on the concept of

1053
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 1: like one plus one equals two, which he thought was universal.

1054
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 2: And we can argue the other side of this in

1055
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:55,720
Speaker 2: a minute.

1056
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: But it is really fun to think through, like how

1057
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:00,040
Speaker 1: do you go from one plus one equals two? You

1058
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: to like explain to me how you build a warp drive.

1059
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: There's some really interesting and fundamental concepts there, because over

1060
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 1: the last one hundred years or so, mathematicians have been

1061
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 1: digging into the basis of math, and they've been wondering, like,

1062
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 1: where do the rules of math come from? How is

1063
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: it all connected? What are the smallest number of axioms

1064
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 1: you can begin from and then build up all of

1065
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: human mathematics. What are the foundational rules? And they discovered

1066
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,879
Speaker 1: something really cool, which is that it's all based on arithmetic.

1067
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:31,879
Speaker 1: Like if you start from I know how to add

1068
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 1: numbers and have a recipe for going from smaller numbers

1069
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: to bigger numbers for putting them together, then you can

1070
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,759
Speaker 1: derive like calculus and linear algebra and differential equations. All

1071
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: of the cool, amazing, fantastical math we have comes from arithmetic,

1072
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: and I think this is where Noam Chomsky was coming from.

1073
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 1: He's like, you start there and you can build up

1074
00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: to everything else. That is really the foundation of how

1075
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: we think and express ourselves. And of course all of

1076
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: modern physics requires fancy math. But in the end, it's

1077
00:51:57,400 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: all just arithmetic.

1078
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 4: But has arithmetic always been the same, Like, if you

1079
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 4: go back to ancient cultures, do they do arithmetic the

1080
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 4: same way that we do? Is it really that basic?

1081
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really cool question because obviously people have

1082
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:11,719
Speaker 1: been doing arithmetic for thousands of years, right, but it's

1083
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 1: only like one hundred years ago people formalize what the

1084
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: rules are. Like before that, arithmetic was more like a

1085
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: bunch of examples, like I can write down thirty plus

1086
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: thirty one equals sixty one. How do I do arithmetic

1087
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: for some new set of numbers I've never seen before?

1088
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:29,799
Speaker 1: You need like a rule that applies always. So yes,

1089
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: people have been adding numbers the same way, but only

1090
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:35,440
Speaker 1: recently have they like found those fundamental rules that underlie

1091
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: all of it. And it's really cool because those rules

1092
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 1: are kind of computational. They're like a little recipe like

1093
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: if you have a number, how do you get to

1094
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: the next one? And you can build up from there.

1095
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 1: And so the next thing Chomsky said was, yeah, you

1096
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:53,839
Speaker 1: start from arithmetic and then you go to computer programs,

1097
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,359
Speaker 1: because if arithmetic is like a little bit of computation,

1098
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 1: then you can go from there to like the simplest

1099
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: kind of computer. And this is something Alan Turing figured

1100
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 1: out like almost a century ago, is that there is

1101
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: a basic computer, a way to describe like the most

1102
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: simple way to do computation to like manipulate information. It's

1103
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: called the Turing machine. And you can go from like

1104
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 1: how does arithmetic work? Thinking about that as computation, to

1105
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: building up to a Turing machine. And then if you

1106
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 1: can exchange basically computer programs with the aliens, then you

1107
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: can encode really complex ideas and you can go from

1108
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 1: there to like here's the Lagrangen of quantum field theory,

1109
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,320
Speaker 1: you know, or here's why sleeping people have snot bubbles

1110
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: or whatever, right, basically everything. And so this is the

1111
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: idea is like try to find the fundamental ideas, start

1112
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:50,799
Speaker 1: from there and use that to build up to the

1113
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: more complex because incredibly the world is organized that way,

1114
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 1: or our ideas are. They're built on these few foundational

1115
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: concepts from which you can extrapolate.

1116
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 4: So could you help me understand how we get from

1117
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 4: understanding arithmetic to explaining, you know, for example, the endocrine system.

1118
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 4: So I can sort of understand how math helps you

1119
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 4: explain physics and biology absolutely has math. I don't want

1120
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 4: to imply it doesn't. But how does math help you

1121
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 4: understand something like the endocrine system? How would you explain

1122
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 4: that to an alien? Once you have math as a foundation,

1123
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 4: is the idea that the computer program lets you do it?

1124
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 5: After that?

1125
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: Well, to answer that, I'd have to understand the endocrite system.

1126
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: Though I actually do understand it.

1127
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 4: It's complicated a.

1128
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: Little bit because of Concuter's diabetes, but fundamentally the endocrine system,

1129
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,399
Speaker 1: as you say, there's a mathematical model for it. Right,

1130
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: you know, these things create those things, and you put

1131
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:41,280
Speaker 1: insulin in the cell and the sugar goes across the barrier.

1132
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,920
Speaker 1: And though we have a very rich sort of experience

1133
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:47,320
Speaker 1: with it, fundamentally it is a mathematical description.

1134
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 2: Right.

1135
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: We're talking about number is going up and down in

1136
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: their relationships with each other the differential equations. One of

1137
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: the reasons the endocrine system is complicated because it is

1138
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: a bunch of differential equations. And so if you can

1139
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: go from a arithmetic two computer programs, you can use

1140
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: those computer programs to describe models, right, to build models

1141
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 1: of an endocrine system. Then you can be like, oh,

1142
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: this is my model of the endocrine system. This connects

1143
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 1: to this part, and this connects to that part, and

1144
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 1: so you can make those links between your mathematical model

1145
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:16,880
Speaker 1: and what's happening in reality.

1146
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 4: Clearly, you should be one of the delegates on the

1147
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 4: first group that gets to talk to the aliens.

1148
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:27,359
Speaker 1: I want to be the second group actually.

1149
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 4: Because the first group might get eaten.

1150
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll send in the biologists and the cartoonists for

1151
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: the first group. Okay, but you know, all this assumes

1152
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: that aliens do math the way that we're talking about

1153
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 1: that one plus one equals to one alien planets, and

1154
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: nobody's being Terrence Howard.

1155
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 3: Here.

1156
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:46,320
Speaker 1: We're not suggesting that you know, one times one equals

1157
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: two or or something crazy, but that there are human

1158
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 1: assumptions in even in arithmetic. You know, the idea of

1159
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: oneness or twoness. And here We're going to sound totally

1160
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: like bonkers philosophical for a minute, but these are of

1161
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,319
Speaker 1: the questions we're asking, you know, like would aliens come

1162
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: up with this concept that one plus one equals too?

1163
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,440
Speaker 1: It's not that one plus one doesn't equal to around

1164
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 1: some alien planet, but that they might never arrive at

1165
00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 1: that mathematics because they might not like care about the

1166
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 1: distinctions between things. You know, saying one plus one equals

1167
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: to requires a few basic assumptions, like saying that a

1168
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: thing is a one thing, which means it has an edge, right,

1169
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:25,200
Speaker 1: you're distinguishing it from the rest of the universe. And

1170
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: where is that edge anyway? Like where does an apple

1171
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 1: end and the universe begins? Or where does my body

1172
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: end and the universe begin? These are cultural dotted lines

1173
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: we're drawing around stuff because it makes sense to us,

1174
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 1: and as Andy says, that's our context, but it doesn't

1175
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:39,920
Speaker 1: have to be.

1176
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:40,560
Speaker 2: Right.

1177
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: If you like grow up in the atmosphere of a

1178
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:44,959
Speaker 1: star and everything is sort of fluid and constantly merging

1179
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 1: into itself, maybe you're never like drawing those dotted lines.

1180
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: Maybe that seems totally made up, and like, yeah, maybe

1181
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:54,240
Speaker 1: you can invent weird mathematics based on those arbitrary dotted lines,

1182
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,200
Speaker 1: but maybe they're mathematics is based on real numbers instead

1183
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: of integers. You know, it's all continuous and fluid.

1184
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 3: All right.

1185
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,799
Speaker 4: So let's say that we do we meet those aliens

1186
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 4: and we find a way to communicate with them through

1187
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 4: math and computer programs. Do you think that they would

1188
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 4: have made some of the same discoveries as us, Like,

1189
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:13,799
Speaker 4: would they have gone on the same path that we

1190
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 4: went on.

1191
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 5: One thing that is really fascinating about science as the

1192
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 5: way humans practice it, at least, is how dependent it

1193
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 5: is on our own very human fascinations, right, our preoccupations,

1194
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 5: Like my dad with the sex changing fish, right, he

1195
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 5: devoted his life to that, and now we all know

1196
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:34,120
Speaker 5: that much more about sex changing fish, and it's great.

1197
00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 5: But had he not fallen in love with a blue

1198
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 5: head wrass, maybe that wouldn't have happened and we would

1199
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 5: know that much less. And so science as humans practice it,

1200
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 5: you know, it doesn't you don't get an assignment or rarely,

1201
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 5: I mean maybe in Soviet Russia, but you know you

1202
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 5: it's usually based on your preoccupations, your fascinations, and then

1203
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 5: that kind of drives the whole thing forward because somebody

1204
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 5: else gets fascinated by what you were fascinated by and

1205
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 5: what you found and what you explained to them, and

1206
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 5: they get preoccupied by it, and then they develop it

1207
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 5: and make it more complex and it compounds and ladi

1208
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 5: da da da. But it all comes down to this

1209
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 5: very human brain becoming interested in something. And what humans

1210
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 5: become interested in is very human, right. I mean, we

1211
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 5: evolve to protect ourselves, to pass on our genes and

1212
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 5: to you know, exit right like, and so whatever works

1213
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 5: in service of that is probably what we're preoccupied by,

1214
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 5: what we're fascinated by in some way. You know, there's arts,

1215
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 5: there's all these things that you can get into that

1216
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 5: aren't you know, the basic things that help you not

1217
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 5: get eaten by the lion. But the circumstances that aliens

1218
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 5: evolved under are by necessity going to be different. I

1219
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 5: mean it would be. So it's unlikely enough we're going

1220
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 5: to meet aliens having an alien walk out of the

1221
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 5: alien ship and it looks like andy would be you know,

1222
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 5: it's unimaginable. And so whatever you're dealing with, you're dealing

1223
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 5: with an organism, something intelligent that has evolved to survive

1224
00:59:07,720 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 5: a completely different set of circumstances and so therefore has

1225
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 5: a completely different set of interests that have just shaped

1226
00:59:13,840 --> 00:59:17,200
Speaker 5: the path of its science. And so from that level,

1227
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 5: I mean, it's going to be pretty wild and wooly

1228
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:23,560
Speaker 5: compared to ours. I mean, maybe they're maybe there's these

1229
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 5: questions that are fundamental they can dig down into that

1230
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:31,080
Speaker 5: preoccupy them. But what gets them there, what gets them

1231
00:59:31,120 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 5: to that fundamental question, is going to be a different

1232
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:36,040
Speaker 5: path than the one that took us there, And so

1233
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 5: it's going to look different to an outsider, i e.

1234
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 3: Us.

1235
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:43,240
Speaker 1: And even if they are like biologically identical to us,

1236
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 1: like take the most extreme version of this, where there's

1237
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: just humans on planets all over the galaxy. Right, even

1238
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: in that scenario, how similar would their science be to ours?

1239
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: Because if you want to imagine, like we're meeting these folks,

1240
00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: we're having an interplanetary science conference, we want to see

1241
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: if we're at the same place or were asking the

1242
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 1: same questions to have answers to our puzzles. Right, and

1243
01:00:06,280 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: even if they are humans, then they're very likely going

1244
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 1: to have taken a different.

1245
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 2: Path through science.

1246
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 1: And as Andy suggests, like if you look back to

1247
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 1: the history of our science, you can find all these

1248
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 1: moments when science pivoted on a happenstance, like an accident,

1249
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: and we talked about some of these on the podcast.

1250
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: You know, somebody leaving something in a drawer over the

1251
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: weekend and then coming back and developing it anyway, even

1252
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: though that doesn't really make sense, and discovering radioactivity and

1253
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: X rays and all these things were discovered accidentally, and

1254
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: it could have happened one hundred years earlier or one

1255
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: hundred years later, And the path of science depends on

1256
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: these things. And so even alternate earths, we think, probably

1257
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: would have a very very different path through science. Even

1258
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: if you believe that there's one fundamental explanation to the

1259
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: whole universe, that there is an answer out there that

1260
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 1: is discoverable, we're probably all climbing different sides of sort

1261
01:00:57,240 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 1: of physics mountain, which is fun to think of about,

1262
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:02,640
Speaker 1: you know, if you imagine what would we like to

1263
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: meet all those folks. But we can also do something

1264
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: more concrete, which is to look back into the history

1265
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:12,040
Speaker 1: of the Earth before we've had sort of one global

1266
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 1: scientific community, you know, when we weren't as connected and

1267
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:19,480
Speaker 1: so like the Mayans and the Chinese and the Greeks.

1268
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 1: They all developed sort of initial proto scientific mathematical approaches

1269
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 1: to understanding the universe independently.

1270
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 2: And that's sort of like the.

1271
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: Best we can do without actually meeting the aliens to

1272
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: try to figure out, like how universal is it at

1273
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:37,920
Speaker 1: least you know, in the human biological brain to begin

1274
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: on the same path, or you know, is it vastly different?

1275
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: And so in the book we dig deep into what

1276
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 1: the Mayans were up to and how the Chinese mathematical

1277
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:46,920
Speaker 1: structure was different.

1278
01:01:47,080 --> 01:01:48,439
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot

1279
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 2: about history.

1280
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 4: That's one of the things I love about this book

1281
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 4: is that it's so interdisciplinary. You get a lot of

1282
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:56,840
Speaker 4: history and a lot of philosophy and a lot of science.

1283
01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 4: And I learned a lot also while writing it.

1284
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 1: That was also a terrifying part of the book, because

1285
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: there's a long tradition of physicists writing books outside their

1286
01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: discipline and embarrassing themselves, and I did not want to

1287
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: add to that canon. So I sent each of these

1288
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 1: chapters to like an eminent scholar in that field, like

1289
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:18,000
Speaker 1: did I misrepresent this? I'm reading this this way? Is

1290
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:21,440
Speaker 1: that right? And so I was always on pins and needles.

1291
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 2: When we got those.

1292
01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 4: Reviews back, your humility will pay you back. I'm sure

1293
01:02:26,080 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 4: that that was a good thing to do.

1294
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd rather hear you're wrong about it before

1295
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: you publish the book than after.

1296
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 4: Yes, yep, that was absolutely my attitude. We also sent

1297
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 4: our chapters out to experts. I'm like, please, like, be

1298
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 4: as brutal as possible. I want you to tell me

1299
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 4: that I'm wrong in secret, that's right, that's right exactly,

1300
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 4: and can you spoil the ending a little bit? Were

1301
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 4: the Chinese, Babylonian Mayans approaches to these things super different

1302
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 4: or were they pretty similar?

1303
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:57,520
Speaker 1: They were similar in some ways and different in others,

1304
01:02:57,560 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: Like everybody started from wow, the sky is really interesting,

1305
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:04,520
Speaker 1: and there seemed to be patterns and let's describe those mathematically.

1306
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 1: But they were also different, Like the Greeks are very geometric,

1307
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: you know everything. The answer to every question in Greek

1308
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:14,560
Speaker 1: astronomy is like where are things in three D space?

1309
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 1: Whereas the Chinese were more like algebraic. They're like tables

1310
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:21,120
Speaker 1: and patterns that they would use, and to them that

1311
01:03:21,200 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: was an answer which is really fascinating. Even though like

1312
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:28,360
Speaker 1: the Chinese sort of early model of the universe has

1313
01:03:28,400 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 1: sort of geometric inconsistencies, and you can see in the

1314
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 1: early literature some Chinese scholars were like, hold on a second,

1315
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 1: if you're saying this and that, then how do eclipses happen? Hmm, Well,

1316
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: maybe let's just not think about that. Yeah, and so

1317
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:42,480
Speaker 1: there are different ways of thinking about it.

1318
01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 5: The tradition of sweeping things under the rug goes a lot, yeah.

1319
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 1: You know, because to them the answer was in geometry,

1320
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:53,040
Speaker 1: it was algebra. Also, we see like the different cultural importance.

1321
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 1: Like to the Babylonians, which became the Greek tradition, this

1322
01:03:56,920 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 1: is like foundational and became like really the core of

1323
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: modern intellectual thought, whereas to the Chinese, like this was

1324
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 1: useful and it was important politically, but then they got

1325
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 1: really interested in things like, you know, material science and

1326
01:04:10,240 --> 01:04:14,439
Speaker 1: gunpowder and astronomy didn't play as deeply important a role

1327
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:17,520
Speaker 1: in their culture. So it's really fascinating to see sort

1328
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: of the similarities and the differences.

1329
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 4: All Right, Well, I highly recommend the book. It's amazingly

1330
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 4: well researched, it's super clear, it's funny, the comics are amazing.

1331
01:04:27,160 --> 01:04:29,160
Speaker 4: I highly recommend that people should go out and get

1332
01:04:29,200 --> 01:04:32,200
Speaker 4: to aliens speak physics. And you too are amazing little

1333
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:37,600
Speaker 4: little you too, You too are amazing collaborators. I'm sorry

1334
01:04:37,640 --> 01:04:38,439
Speaker 4: I talked to my kids.

1335
01:04:41,200 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 1: Well, you too are my favorite two collaborators. I've been

1336
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:46,400
Speaker 1: working with both of you for years on fun topics,

1337
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:47,840
Speaker 1: so it's a joy for me to talk to both

1338
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 1: of you.

1339
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 9: Yay.

1340
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:50,880
Speaker 5: It was an honor to be on the show, and

1341
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 5: it was an honor to make this book with Daniel too.

1342
01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:54,919
Speaker 5: This was such a fun time and it was also

1343
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:58,040
Speaker 5: so fun to talk to you about it. Kelly had

1344
01:04:58,080 --> 01:04:58,920
Speaker 5: such good questions.

1345
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 4: Well that's because Daniel were it be an outline, but

1346
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:07,560
Speaker 4: it was, it was I know how well. It was

1347
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 4: great to meet you Andy, Thanks for being on the show.

1348
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:10,240
Speaker 5: Want to rest.

1349
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 2: Thanks very much everybody.

1350
01:05:18,280 --> 01:05:22,120
Speaker 4: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1351
01:05:22,160 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 4: would love to hear from you.

1352
01:05:23,680 --> 01:05:24,720
Speaker 2: We really would.

1353
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1354
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

1355
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 4: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1356
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 4: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1357
01:05:35,560 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 4: back to you.

1358
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1359
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:43,000
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly.

1360
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:44,160
Speaker 4: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1361
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 4: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on

1362
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 4: all of those platforms. You can find us at D

1363
01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:52,040
Speaker 4: and K Universe.

1364
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:53,800
Speaker 2: Don't be shy, write to us