We go way back here i feel like im in the family. Thank you. Were pretty sure we think it is the First Time Ever of there being a science talk show on television. We didnt do it for that hurt this, but it turned out that way. Charlie they cant you want to do a television show. Why dont you just bring in your cameras into my radio station. [laughter] neuil keep it simple. We filmed in the hall of the universe. I got to announce that come from the hall of the universe. Who knew where that is . It was a room of dark curtains. [laughter] it is still structured the same. We have a comedian. A guest. I think the universe is completely hilarious. I is no zone who thinks that way professionally. There is a main guest who is typically human from pop culture. That is the real difference. Many of the guests are the same ones you would see on the late talk show. I asked them about their nerd hood and their science teachers that they liked or hated. I found a house Ident Technology has impacted their livelihood. Charlie you are not looking for people who like science, but just people who simply neil it matters that you have heard of them. Then you take an interest in them from the beginning. Then you learn these extra things about them. Do they have a nerd underbelly . Charlie how do you find a nerd underbelly . Neil if they want to break into a fight about which captain they prefer in star trek. [laughter] or did han solo shoot first . There are nerd questions. I think there are many people with hidden interests or maybe there is an ember that needs to be fanned and ignite. Charlie is it the fact that people are simply curious about things they do not know about an curious about the future . Neil everyone of us was deeply curious about our environment as children. Scientist tend to not ever lose that. They stay curious. I think other people get it beaten out of it. Im in search of that soul of curiosity that continues to lurk and all adults. Charlie do we tamp it down . Neil what happens if you are in a class and you say, what is that . Sit down. Do your lesson. Our School System tends to be rewarding people who obey and do what they are told. People who hand things in on time. The honors students. The best students. The student is distracted by the butterfly back to be the next great naturalist, but doesnt get rewarded in school because you should be studying for this curriculum that you have established that we have established for you. Yes you need a curriculum and exams, but if you see energy in a student being expressed by questioning their environment, that should be nurtured and that somehow declared as out of line. Charlie was that you as a kid . Neil yes. [laughter] no, i think teachers had energy in the classroom. A six great teacher who noticed that i had 6th grade did you notice that i had energy bordering on destructive. Charlie even then. Neil starting at age nine, but they deny jones until age 11. The teacher noted for me that the local planetarium, Hayden Planetarium had lessons on the universe. Now i had a whole new universe here. Charlie when did you know you wanted to be in astrophysicist . Neil that put something in my veins. I still think it was the universe who called me and not i who called it. Growing up in the bronx, there arent many stars visible. The sky in the planetarium was magical to me. I thought it was a hoax. I have seen this guy from the bronx. This is the sky from the bronx. This is not the sky. I had the answer to the annoying question adult asked children. What do you want to be when you grow up . Astrophysicist. That ended conversations clearly pretty quickly. [laughter] charlie you have said before we go outside too many of us dont do that. Neil i did that even back when it was dangerous to do that. Prepooper scooper laws, you had to look down every few seconds. [laughter] i would risk the incident just for looking up. Especially at night, but also in the daytime. It is harder to see it. The sun is so dominant. You look for the moon. The most beautiful time of the night photographically speaking is the curtain of twilight colors. The moon becomes more apparent. They the the first rcc are generally planets because they are brighter. The first stars are generally planets because they are brighter. When you make a wish on a star, star light, first start i see tonight, your wishes do not country because you are wishing on a planet. [laughter] when viewed from new york city, it is kind of over new jersey. You would confuse it with planes coming out of newark airport. If your western horizon is near an airport, you had seen the lights. Charlie have you ever wanted to write a Science Fiction novel . Neil yes, but i dont have the talent at writing. But ive got a story that is ready to go. [laughter] charlie you just need a good writer. Neil ive got a good story. In terms of Character Development and emotions, i dont have the experience. Certainly not writing it. I have one in my right now. Im happy to tell it. World is at war, ok . Charlie the world that we know. Neil the world that we know is at war. In some very disruptive way with regional battles everywhere and people are accusing sides and an asteroid is discovered. Charlie tell us what an asteroid is. Neil a chunk of rock that berries in sizes. Varies in sizes. The orbit they cross the orbit of the earth. You do the math. You learn that earth and these asteroid will collide with one another guaranteed eventually. What we want to do is keep track of all of the objects and monitor them. Ideally, where are you now at this time at 10 00 p. M. Where the killer asteroid is . We learn there is an astra that could render us extinct. At that moment, everyone comes together and sees that asteroid as the common enemy. The technology that has been developed all around the world it is the future developing countries are now technology enabled. They had to assemble pieces of all of these technologies. We need different pieces of technology for the deflection device to put together. Then we all sing en kumbaya. [laughter] than the heads of state come into play. Run with that. Charlie go back to the sides. This is real. You could make this as a real possibility. Neil the Space Mission to deflect it and the tools you would use to engage if something doesnt exist, you could invent something that would work. I have a piece of this, but i have to go to my enemy to make the whole thing work. It could be quite dramatic. Maybe we have a piece of astra that hits the earth. Maybe water. For hollywood. [laughter] i remember armageddon. They managed to hit the earth, but it had good aim. They were aiming. It will most likely hit the ocean. Charlie a big one came to earth . Neil two years ago, there was one the size of the studio that collide with earths atmosphere. Charlie what wouldve happened if it hit the center of Manhattan Island . Neil that happened to explode about 20 miles up. That is high enough so that energy gets deposited into the atmosphere and dilutes before reaches earths surface. That was enough of the shockwave to shatter every single window in the city. People were wondering the light was that they had seen. They see this bright light. They look at the window. Lacerated hands and skin. 1600 people were injured. The universe telling us, asking us [laughter] if that happened over manhattan manhattan would have a different problem. Shuttered Windows Windows would fall. It would dissent into the street descend into the street. Charlie have they done a lot with the lessons that happened there . Neil people are talking about it. We didnt know it was coming until it was too late. That one is not large enough to catch it. Charlie and if it is far enough away, we shoot it down . Neil macho man. Shoot i think i have heard of those movies. The kyler, gentler ways to kinder, gentler ways to reflect it nothing has been built or funded to make this happen. When we to do it is to take your spaceship. Bring yours patient nearby. Park it there. Bring your spaceship nearby. Park it there. Slowly tug the asteroid out of harms way. You dont have to destroy it. If you get good at this, it is like shooting pool cues. Just knock them out of the way. That is one way to do it. You could monitor your progress and you dont just blow the thing out of the sky. In america, we are good at blowing stuff up and less good of knowing of where the pieces will go when we are done. It is very messy to try to explode the asteroid pit will it break into two pieces . Now you have to back both coasts . The asteroid. Will a break into two pieces . Now you have to evacuate both coasts . Suppose it is heading for the indian ocean. The you tell them they have to defend themselves . Should we pay for it . Tax everyone . The way the membership at the u. N. Is taxed . Here is another one lets say it is heading for the u. S. And we deflect it and the deflection fails and now it will hit europe. Now what do you do . All of these problems. Charlie we could put this in the movie, too. Neil yeah, exactly. [laughter] youre still thinking hollywood. Charlie what are the most important Unanswered Questions for you . Neil that is a good question. I have an unorthodox answer. It will sound like a copout, but it is not. The greatest Unanswered Questions are those questions we dont even yet know to ask. The only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. I want to know what dark matter is. It is 85 of the gravity of the universe. We have no idea. Little he have the right to call it dark matter. We are on it. We have top people working on it. Cap equipment. At this moment, we do not know what it is. I have a preferred answer. Particle physicists want to say it is a particle because they are particle physicists. [laughter] bigs boson is a very higgs b oson is a very powerful particle. There is dark energy. The universe is accelerating and expanding against the wish of gravity. We dont know what is causing that. We dont know how we went from that is a transition that is on the frontier. How do you go from organic molecules to self replicating life based on those organic molecules . Charlie we dont know that either. Neil we dont know what happened before the big bang. We have top people working on it. [laughter] i will put you on the speed dial. Charlie dark matter. Neil we dont know. We should call it dark energy. Dark energy we dont know what it is. How did life get here . Charlie and the big bang . Neil the beginning of the universe. Charlie i know that. Neil duh. [laughter] if you turn the clock back, it was smaller and hotter. Charlie smaller and hotter. Neil you run the clock all the way back and you learned that universe was in the same place at the same time. Extremely high temperatures. Trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with, but the temperature was hotter than that. It was unstable and explodes. You have the birth of the universe. Charlie the universe neil i would order it that way. I care about the dna. All of those are very real questions that exist with us today. The answers to though, you start to tbohose, you start dishing out nobel prizes. I want to know what questions we are not intellectually mature enough to ask yet. They will reveal themselves after we answer these questions. Charlie a new question has revealed itself in the last 15 years . Neil yeah. Dark energy was discovered in 1988. Charlie who discovered it . Neil two teams. They were studying a supernova. A particular species of supernova is like a standard candle. A yardstick and measuring time and distance in the universe. They are very potent and the ability to measure the expansion rate of the universe and the size of the universe. Two teams are working on the same problem and arrived at the same answer and shared the nobel prize for that. Charlie i assume it is the most frequently asked question are we alone . Neil the people as it next to on an airplane once they learned that i do astrophysicist charlie how do they get to the question . Neil i think some people still look up. You cannot help but wonder. All these stars. We like to know there are stars just like the sun and planets orbiting the stars. If they are planets, how could you now wonder if there is life . If there is intelligent life, are they smarter than us . If they are, should we be scared of them . My best guess is the universe is teeming with life. The galaxy is proxy for other galaxies. Teeming with life, but the complex life might be much rarer. Charlie why is that . Neil here is the argument you have the timeline of the earth. 4. 5 billion years. What this planet out there. Some planets were born yesterday. You dont know when in the timeline. Here is earth. Most of the time, the darkness hits earth, there is only single cell life. If we are randomly coming upon planets and earth is any measure of things we spend 3. 5 billion years as single cell life on earth. That we have an explosion of life. The chemistry of the atmosphere changed. Oxygen is like rocket fuel for complex life. Life now has the launch to become complex. The system could support it. Now you have limbs and detectors like eyes and sensors. It is a stunning development. Then you have complex life. That is a smaller piece of the total timeline. Where will you find intelligent life . We only know this little bit that we define as intelligent. There are planets we could land on. Who is to say we will find what we call intelligent . Maybe the planet has conditions that are specially right for complex life. If they did, they would have billions of years to develop intelligent life. If that is the case, it is quite clear to me that if they are observed us and landed here and looked, it would be clear to them that there is no sign of intelligent life on earth. [laughter] charlie they would land and look around. Neil nope. Not what were looking for. [laughter] charlie they may be people, but they are not intelligent. [laughter] charlie what is on mars . Neil the curiosity rover is the size of an suv. Charlie what is up there. Water . Neil the martian surface has rampant evidence of running water. Charlie that is something. Neil yes. When i mean evidence, the riverbeds dry riverbeds when you look at things that floodwaters have done and longtime rivers have done and the grand canyones on mars. Charlie when do we see them . Neil anytime you take a photograph of a surface. The resolution is very hard to pick up. You want to get close. Then you could see ridges and valleys. Charlie that tells you water is there . Neil certainly liquid. That means that a river was there for some time. You do not meander overnight. Not only that, there are dried lake beds. Salt deposits at the bottom. How do you get salt deposits . Standing water that had minerals deposited in it. The water evaporates. When there is no water left, you get a salt lake. You fly over utah, that is what Salt Lake City is sitting next to. Charlie is it feasible and doable . Neil people say, the radiation we have clever engineers. I have no doubt they will figure out the technology. It is just money. It is only ever money at all times. Charlie are you disappointed we dont do more in space . Neil the curiosity part of me disappointed. The politically astute side of me fully understands why that is the case. Charlie a pr move . Neil we have always had priorities. When he went to the moon, we had plenty of other priorities. The civil rights movement. The cold war. We did it because we were at war with the soviets. That was an act of war essentially without the weapons. And we were not at war, the motivation to go to the moon, we would tell ourselves, we went to the moon because we are americans. We are explorers. It is in our dna. That might be chu, but the people who wrote the checks dont care that might be true but the people who wrote the checks dont care. When security is at risk, that is when money flows. Charlie but should we create that kind of urgency again for Something Like going to the moon . Neil let me go visit china and whispered to the head of china psst, can you break a memo that says you want to put military bases on mars . [laughter] dont tell anyone. The memo shows up in the pentagon. We would be on mars in 10 months. One month to design, build, and find a space craft. That is how motivated i think we would be. That is how motivated we were in the 1960s. I dont want to go to mars for military reasons. I think there a strong, economic one to make. I think it takes longer than the proverbial elevator ride. It takes maybe twice as long as an elevator ride. I voted for my representation in congress. I want them to listen to me for longer than an elevator ride. It is simple. If youre going to space in a big way, mining asteroids tourist jaunts on the moon, military activities, all of this to accomplish this would require advancing space here. Patents would be granted. You have these discoveries weekly if not daily in your newspapers. That infuses a culture of inquiry. A culture of exploration. A culture of innovation. You come from a culture of innovation, stuff gets solved. Your whole mindset is different. Charlie how we lost the culture of innovation . Neil yes. Charlie what about Silicon Valley . Neil a great culture of innovation. I was misrepresented in some headlines when i said i gave a talk and there was a question. Someone said i said the world has problems that are bigger than can be solved just waiting for your next app. We have problems interpretation. Housing. Already. Disease. Poverty. Disease. Climate. If we sit down and play with our apps, it wont get solved. The headline was tyson attacks entrepreneurs. Charlie what did you mean . Neil what i mean is to bask in the pleasures of your next app will hide from you the fact that there are larger problems that need to be solved. Charlie are you saying the next app should be something that could influence Climate Change and not something that could yet neil i dont know how an app could help fix the climate just yet. If there is one, i want to know about it. I dont know how an app to get rid of poverty. Charlie maybe develop an economic model . Neil sure. Ok. That doesnt build bridges or tunnels and transportation. Charlie of all these people like jess bezos and elon musk who want to build vehicles in space dont laugh at me. Neil no, somebody has got to do that. You want someone there. They affect how other people think. In classes i have spoken to, one day i went to work at spacex. They are the smartest kids. I want to explore what he is doing. I want to invent a new car. The next rocket. That is the influence that fuses a culture of when you go into space in a big way. Everything else comes in after that. Charlie when you get up in the morning neil i hope the phone doesnt ring. I want to play with my kids. Fsdate with my wife. Then go to my lab. Charlie are you serious . Neil what happens when i get a phone call because something switched in that universe and they want a soundbite for the evenin