"Professor Brian Cox"

Hi. Hey. Hey. I don't mean to bother you guys or anything, but about to start a podcast. I'd love a little help. I don't know if you guys are busy, but. No, I guess I could jump in. What's the podcast called? Well, we just sit and talk and visit. What's it called? I'd love to visit. Well, I'm not bright, right? So I'm thinking about unsmart. Oh, that's good. But it doesn't really roll off the. I'm without smarts, so I'm. You don't have more smarts. No, I'm less than smart. So what do you. Maybe dumbass? Less smart. Let's come up with it later. Let's do the show we'll come up with later. Okay, great. Welcome to an all-new Smart List. We'll be right back. L.I.E. just keeping it real. Yeah, you're lying. Did you ever see that movie, by the way? L.I.E. with Brian Cox plays like a child molester? Incredible movie. What? No, I didn't see it, man. Sorry, I didn't want to start with that, but. Wait, what are you talking about? Let's bring it down for sure. It's some horrible story. Let's talk about it. When did that come out? Oh, 20 years ago, I'll bet. Okay. Shawnee, I just narrowly missed seeing JB this morning. I'm so sad. Oh, are you guys okay? And last night, because he was working last night. He's working. Splits. Now, tell Tracy what a split is, Sean. We take a banana, and. Jason. I'm in. Jason. A split is like when you start at noon, and then you end at midnight. So you can shoot some day scenes and some night scenes all in the same 12 hours of work. And it's kind of fun, because you can avoid. You can avoid a full night shoot, which everybody dislikes. Yeah, it's not. And at our age, doing a night shoot. Also, it's summer, because. So the light is. It takes a long time to get dark. Oh, explain that to us. You have a short. You don't have a lot of night hours, so it's not ideal. Sean. Yeah, Shawnee. Hi. How's everybody doing? It's so good to see you. We haven't seen each other in a long time. I know. I mean, I FaceTimed you a few days ago, but it's been a minute. A minute. And Jay's working his balls off. Jay's worked. He worked them, right? I heard he worked them clear off. Yeah. I gelded myself yesterday. Oh, no. No. What? What? Wait, are you. How was the first week, JB? Really, really good. I'm very, very happy. It was hard. It was a lot. It's a lot of work. God damn. Yeah, it is. I mean, how long are the days? Like 12, 12 hours? They're 12-hour days, but, like, you know, you'd, like, you raise your hand for the, you know, the position of, like, supposedly having the answers to everything. It means you gotta, like, try to think about everything. And everybody looks at you. Everybody looks at you like, what's next? Yeah. You can't just sit in your trailer and wait for them to say, okay, we're done. We're ready for you. All right, isn't that nice? I know. Actors have it nice. Yeah. I went to my niece's wedding, Laura, in Iowa. I've never been to Iowa. Wait a second. I know. By the way, there's no direct flights from Los Angeles to Iowa, so you have to go Los Angeles to Chicago or Dallas to Iowa. Anyway, on the way back, everything was canceled. It took 12 hours to get home. Why? Because you had to do some driving? Yeah, because of the weather. Then everybody changes their seats, and then we got. Then we're gonna go to Cleveland, and then that. It was delayed, and then we. Cleveland? We got a driver to drive us because there was no cars to rent when we landed to get there, and it was a four-hour drive, and. Wait a second. Yeah, but it was worth it. Hold on. It was worth it. Was it really? Yeah. Who is this? Who are we talking about? It's my niece, my niece, Laura, and her new husband, Christian. But when's the last time you saw this niece? Last year, I think. So once a year. She came out to visit, right? She came out to visit in L.A. No, this is a different one. I have a lot of them. Oh, Laura's never been invited. No, Laura. She's never. She's never gotten a nod. Okay. So you. Anyway, that's what happened. I know, but this whole sort of. How. And then it was outside, which you would have hated. I didn't mind it. Really warm? Well, it was bugs, humid, hot, and all that under a tent. But it was nice. And you were wearing a suit. I was wearing a suit. Yeah, by the way, which I borrowed. Do you guys ever do this? Do you ever borrow suits from the shoot you're doing, whatever job you're on? Sure. Yeah, so I'm doing the morning show, and I just was like, can I have this suit to wear to. They're like, sure, just bring it back. People are going to watch the show and go, hey. Hey, there's that Iowa suit. I was at a wedding in Iowa, and I think I. But what about. I'm so fascinated with everyone's family, feeling like family obligations, because it's, you know, usually the family that you. I know, here we go. But it's just like. I'm laughing before we start. The best days of the year, right? Yeah, yeah. Like holidays and things like that. You kind of. You have to spend with the people you never see. You know what? And like. What do you mean? I just. JB, not only that. JB, I'll take it a step further. I just said within the last week, I think that weddings on summer weekends should be outlawed. Yeah. Yeah, but you're with your. Because you get a finite. I know, but you get a finite amount of summer weekends. Why do we got. Let's do them in the winter when everybody's bummed out and got nothing to do. But we're older. We don't have school to go to in the fall. What are you talking about? I'm not saying. Well, just for in general. No, but the kids are off school, and it's a time, you know, like. Yeah, well, that's true. But when you're talking about finite number of weekends, talk about a rarity. What about Christmas? Or, you know. What, to get married? Thanksgiving. No, no, I'm just saying like you have these singular days or Thanksgiving is like a four-day weekend. You don't want to spend those incredible moments with the people that you have spent the 350-some days prior to that four-day weekend. You don't just want to like. I mean, listen. Love my family and all that stuff, but. And all that stuff. I just don't want to see them at Christmas. No, I just like. Well, I never get to see. I never get to see my family because I live in Los Angeles and everybody else is there, so it was great to be there. It was awesome. Right, but why not pick some times that are kind of off those moments to see each other? That's what I'm saying. Let's fill. Let's start filling January weekends up with weddings. Yeah. You know what I mean? Okay. By the way, you know what the food was served at the wedding? Portillo's. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. I mean, Sean. It was amazing. Did you leave anybody for anybody else? It was amazing. Did you do some dancing, Sean? I did. I don't think I've ever seen you dance. Do you dance? I'll dance for you. How much you got? No, seriously. Do you. Are you a dancer at parties? Not really. I mean, I was when I was young. I was just. I didn't care. I danced like no one was watching, Jason. Yeah, but that was like on a pedestal, like inside a cage, like when you walked out of the club. Yeah. That's with a gag ball and nipple tassels. Sean and I. That was me dancing on a box. Sean and I once had a dance-off. Yes, on the Willow Bridge. Oh, on Willow and Grace. On the Willow and Grace program, yeah. Willie, I don't think I've ever seen you dance at a party either. I was just talking about it on the way out here on the L.A. I will dance and I do a lot of. Mine's very suggestive. Yeah, mine's really suggestive. What does that look like? Mine's really suggestive and it's a lot of like. A lot of hands come toward, you know, come hithery. And you kind of turn your back to your partner and just kind of arch and offer? Yeah, I just. Arch and offer. That's the name of your biography. That's a good name for like a bookstore or like a cafe. Hey, you guys, I'm just going to get a coffee from Arch and Offer. You can send me one. Do you guys want anything? And it turns out it's my son Archie and my attorney Robert Offer. Oh, yeah. There you go. Arch and Offer. Oh, gosh. Speaking of. I don't know how to get in there. Get in there. I can't wait to see if there's any relevance at all to Arch and Offer and your guest. There's zero transition other than. Okay. I've been waiting for this and so excited. And Jason kind of already tipped it maybe. Today? Today already? Yeah, he already tipped who this might be or who this is. Okay, so I'm going to guess this real fast. Okay, my guest today grew up in Oldham, England, the son of two bank employees. In high school, he got a D in math, but then in college went on to graduate with honors in physics, earned a PhD, and worked on the largest science experiment ever built. Before all that, he played keyboards in a band that hit number one with a song that became the soundtrack to a British prime minister's election victory. He's broken the Guinness World Record for biggest selling science show four times in a row. It's the wonderful, brilliant physicist and professor, Jay, Brian Cox. No. Yes. Brian Cox. No way. The other one. Hello. Isn't that crazy? It's the other one. Hello. It's we, Brian Cox. Yeah. Oh, Brian, I've watched so many of your videos and you've confused me so much and also just, oh, I can't wait to ask you everything. I literally wrote, I have over 60 questions. Wow. Really? Yeah. No way. But we'll get to like four. That's very good. First of all, Brian, I'm sorry that we've lowered the bar here for you that you have to come and join us today. So let me just say that right from the get-go. What is your area of expertise in science? So, it's particle physics and cosmology. Particle physics and cosmology. So any question about the universes? There's a hole. Yeah, any question about the universe? So should I give him the mirror question and see if he can give me an answer on that? Not yet, not yet. No, hold it, hold it, hold it. Jason was once, we once had another episode where Jason was confused about light travel. I want to destroy the podcast, yeah. And I forget, oh no, it was time travel. It was time travel. Anyway. We can do that. Anyway, yeah. Thanks for doing this. I know you're very busy. And like Will said, thanks for doing it for us today. No, it's a huge pleasure. I'm a huge fan. Oh, that's such, I am starstruck, Brian. I honestly don't know where to start. I'm so like excited. You start with a pun there with starstruck. I did start with a pun. So wait, before I start on everything, because this will launch us into what I want to talk about. So first of all, did you really get a D in math? And if that's true, what made you continue to explore interest in the thing that you were doing well in? I did get a D in math. And the reason was that, so I, as you said, grew up in Manchester. And New Order were doing a gig at the Hacienda. Wait, that's one of my favorite bands of all time. Yeah, so they were at the Hacienda the night before my math A level. And I thought, well, it's more important to go and see New Order at the Hacienda because I thought I was going to be a musician. As you said, I thought, I'm going to be in a band. I'm going to be a rock star. This stuff doesn't matter. So I went to see New Order instead and got a D in math. I love that. I can say that I've never been to Manchester, but so many of my favorite bands are from there. And even I know about Hacienda as just this. Yeah, this mythical place to go and see all these, all those great bands back in the Oasis, as you said, New Order, the Smiths, everybody, right? Like that's just stone roses. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. And then, and actually the, so Peter Saville, who's the great designer who designed the Hacienda, and he designed the Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures album cover, New Order's album covers. So he designed the t-shirts for my tour. You mentioned that I do these live shows. He designed the t-shirts. You guys, they're stadium shows. I mean, I can't wait. I can't wait to go to one. He's, yeah. We're in LA, actually, next year. Really? Dolby Theatre, I think. I can't, I'm going. But, yeah. So Peter, he's famous for not putting the name or the whatever on the album cover, you know, very famously the Blue Monday 12-inch, so it cost more to produce than it sold for, you know, and lost the money. So he did the t-shirts, and he just wrote, Existence, what does it matter? So that's the t-shirt. Whoa. So I can, if you'd like me to answer that, I'm welcome. Yeah, yeah. I'll have a go. So, Brian, what happens at your stadium shows? What do you do? They're basically big LED screens, as much as we can get in. So, you know, 100 foot across kind of LED. And the current show, I just got back yesterday, actually, from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, where we'd done some shows. And I basically start with the beginning of science. I talk about life in the universe, the origin of the universe, the evolution of the universe, and the future of the universe, and discuss the Fermi Paradox, the Great Silence, pretty much everything, actually, and the meaning of existence. Oh, my God, I want it all. I know, that's why I'm here. I know. Let me just ask you right off the bat, why? Why is there a universe, or why do the shows? Yeah, well, you can start there. We can start there. Simply why? It's a good question. So, we don't even know if the universe had a beginning. But what about the Big Bang Theory, and people are like-- So, we know there was a Big Bang, which is that we know that the universe was hot and dense 13.8 billion years ago. Yeah. But whether that was an origin in time, or whether that was something that happened in a pre-existing universe that could be eternal, we don't know. We don't even know what time is, actually. Right, it's invented. So, it's very difficult to speak about a beginning. So, the answer, the question, why? Well, it's a question to you, really. Does that-- If the universe is infinite and has always existed, is it possible to ask the question, why? Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, come on. We got to take a break. Brian, Brian, Brian, sorry, I just got to go empty my brain. I think-- But also the concept of like, what is the universe in? You know, you just can keep going back, back, back, and back. What is-- Right. At some point, you need to find something that contains all of it. And what is that boundary? There isn't anything, right? Well, that-- Jason, I would suspect, JB, though, that that's something that we think that it needs to contain, that we can't possibly conceive of the idea of it not being contained. Because we want to form-- We want to-- Our brains want to make a formality. There are boundaries to everything, yeah. Yeah, because according to Einstein, it's space, time. So, space and time, they don't exist in anything. Mm-hmm. You know, there isn't like a container that contains-- Well, it's like saying space, right? So, like the room that you're in, you don't imagine there must be a container that contains space. Yeah, yeah. If you think about it. But time definitely exists because we can all agree that this interview started in the past and the end of the interview is going to exist in the future. And so, sort of by definition, that contains time there, right? It's good-- It's one of the deep questions. So, there are ideas now from the study of black holes that suggest that space and time emerge from something deeper. So, we're even starting to talk about building blocks of space and time. What does that mean? Well, talk about the arrow of time. Hang on, what does that mean, the building blocks? So, where is that coming from? Well, if you think of emerge-- So, an example of something that emerges is consciousness, right? We say, well, consciousness, it emerges from all these atoms in a particular pattern that's your head or your brain. And in the same way, people are beginning to speculate that space and time emerge from something, some kind of building blocks. And we don't really know what they-- Well, we don't know what they are. So, but until we know that, it's difficult to talk about a beginning. Because you're right, Jason, that when you say time, then you're right, that container is a good picture, isn't it? If you have a beginning and an end, that contains everything or brackets it. -Right, right. -But we don't know that. But we also like, we know that stuff happened, right? Like, I could go upstairs and I shut this door and I know that that happened a couple of minutes ago that I shut this door because it's shut, right? I have-- But at the same time, I remember saying to somebody, you know, sort of trying to understand the conception of just now that we actually potentially only have this moment that we're in. And I used to always say, you know, try to go and buy a lotto ticket, winning lotto ticket from yesterday. You can't, right? It's already happened. And therefore, in a lot of sense, it does not exist. It doesn't exist anywhere yesterday, right? Do you know, so Einstein's picture, so relativity back from 1905 and 1915, there's this idea called the block universe. Which means that every moment is still there. It's like a map. So you could imagine drawing a map of the world now. So I could leave London and come and fly to Los Angeles. You wouldn't say that London has gone. You'd say it's somewhere. So in this case, in Einstein's picture, all those moments, all your memories, all your past and your future exists somewhere in space time. And you just travel over the map. That's an idea called the block universe. But that sort of reminds me of like this. I'm on the wrong gummy. That makes me think of the concept that I still can't sort of get my head around is, you know, since we've all seen these pictures with these new powered telescopes where we have images of what that first separation was of the Big Bang, right? So that is, we are looking into the past. Because presumably the Big Bang is what started all those rocks came out of there. And one of those rocks is the planet Earth, right? So everything that we know is on that one rock. So everything that has happened since that rock was born is. So if we can already look back to when that rock happened, we've already looked way, way, way, way back. So we figure if we have a less powerful telescope, we can see less bad things back in the past. And we could see, like, eventually, if you had a really weak telescope, you could see yesterday. Like we already have a telescope that can see the beginning of time as far as Earth goes. So all of that time. That's what I was trying to get at with the other scientists that we were talking about. If we can already see back to the beginning of when the Earth started, then we should be able to see, like, four or five years ago, right? So the way to think about it, what's happening is, so light travels one foot per nanosecond. Or 186,000 miles per second? 186, is that right? Yeah, it's one foot per nanosecond. So if you're now one foot away from your computer screen, let's say, then you're seeing it one nanosecond in the past. Right. Exactly. So it's in that sense that if you look at a galaxy, the most distant one we've seen at the moment is called MOMZ-14, actually. M-O-M-Z-14. Oh, that's cute. My travel time from that is 13 and a half billion years. so you're seeing it as it was 13 and a half billion years ago but that's just in the same sense yeah it would be easier to see the heat we're feeling from the sun left the sun 7 minutes ago that's how long 8 minutes yeah so it's been traveling at 186,000 miles per second for 8 minutes and now it's finally hitting your cheek and you're feeling it yeah so you're seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes in the past so shouldn't we be able to see if we really like dialed in our telescopes just right. We should be able to see what we were doing last week if you had that mirror up there. JB is, I tell you something, Brian, JB has been hung up on this for five years and you are going to answer him to his satisfaction. No, you're right. If you put a mirror where the sun is, then you can see that. Then I guess you're right. You'd see a reflection of the earth as it was 16 minutes ago. Thanks for joining us today. Holy shit, he's right. That's the end of the interview. He did it, he did it. That's the end. Brian, thanks for being here. You've got to go on tour with Brian. I think the flaw in my math though is that it takes seven minutes, if we're doing the sun, it takes seven minutes to come down to our eye and seven minutes to go back up to the mirror. So we really could never catch up to seeing the past perfectly, I guess. I don't know. Well, you'd see it's just in that sense that it's in exactly the same way that you're seeing your computer screen in the past. Yeah. But it's only, it's only a nanosecond. Okay, we're going to move on from time. All right. Boy, I wish we could go back in time and gather all that back. Jamie is going to, you're going to, till the day you die, it's going to be on your tombstone. So if you had mirrors. I'm just going to take with me, Jason, you're right. He is right. That's what I'm going to take from this. Yeah, by the way. He is right. That is interesting. He is right. You are right. So can I talk about, go away from the cosmos for a second and talk about science for just a bit. And you may not know these things, but I wrote them down because I wanted to ask you. So at preparing for you coming on, first of all, I'm so excited because I've wanted to meet you for a long time. So this is a thought I had. This is bizarre and it's going to take a minute to get to my question. I'm sure I'm saying it wrong, but we started with symbols, drawings, hieroglyphics, right? And then language and writing, probably because it was faster than drawing everything. And then phones and texting. And then we got tired of typing full words and went back to shorthand and emojis. Are we kind of like weirdly heading back towards symbols just as at a much faster speed? Does that mean the end point of all of this is like telepathy, AI or some device where what we mean before we have to say it or type it, people will understand? What is your opinion on that? Like vibe and all that stuff. That is a legitimate form of communication. I feel like animals have that. Yeah, right. They can start like, you know, you see like those dogs, they kind of like, they're like their nose to nose and they don't say anything like, fuck you, fuck you. And then they, they start snapping into each other. It's just like a vibe. And then it's like, you know, like they're communicating, you know, beforehand. I feel like they know how to talk without speaking. Thoughts on vibe. Thoughts on vibe. I have absolutely no idea what that question means. Okay, fine. That's fine. What about like a flock of birds? A flock of birds. All these birds, they turn at exactly the same time. They're all coordinating. There's no like signal. All right, ready? One, two, three. Everybody go left. No, it's like, I feel like, I feel like they know how to talk without speaking. Right. But that might be out of your thing, Brian. I just didn't know if you knew about like medical stuff and like AI stuff. What about, show them your rash, Sean. We'll be right back. And now back to the show. Let's talk about simulation theory. Okay. Because that, that's fascinating to me. Explain that to me. Well, is it, meaning like, are we living in a simulation? Is any of this real? Because if tomorrow we discover the universe was a simulation, what would be the first clue? And would anything look fake? But I've always heard talk about that and I've never really understood what it, what it means. Like there's somebody like watching up a mission control that this is all just sort of like a gag. Let's see what Brian says. Yeah, we did a, we did a radio show on this sort of a few years ago now. And some, and the, the, there's a guy called Nick Bostrom who thinks about this quite a lot in Cambridge. And he managed to convince everybody that we probably were. Living in a simulation. Yeah. The basic, the basic idea is just if you think about how computers are at the moment and how powerful they are and virtual reality and all those things. The, the question ultimately is in principle, if you can imagine the most powerful computer, even if it's a computer that we could only build in a hundred years or a thousand years time, is it possible in principle for the simulation to be so good that you would not notice? Right. That's the basic idea. And, and, and although it sounds completely mad, it turns out it's quite difficult to try to form an argument that says that we're not in a simulation. I don't think we are, but that I, I was convinced after the end of the radio show that I would, that was just me saying, I don't think that we are without any, without any logical argument. I mean, yeah. How did that, how did that theory come about then? What, what evidence was presented to? I mean, that's the thing. There isn't any evidence. It's, it's just, it's just the, the idea that if you, you, can you imagine, even, even, even simulating your experience, your conscious experience. You mentioned the AI. So, AI is again very powerful now. That, then there's debate about whether those things are actually conscious or whether they could be conscious or whether they could be considered living things. The idea is that if a computer can run a simulation of reality, Right. it's so perfect that it even, it's so perfect that it even has, you know, sort of, well, things that operate like human brains or AI's in it. I mean, think of an AI, for example, actually. Think of an AI, it's running all over the computer somewhere. But if it becomes conscious and intelligent, and we don't know whether they can, but if it did, then it's in a computer. Right. It is operating. So, the question really is, are we that, I guess, basically, are we one of those? Well, it kind of goes to the issue of like, of like, you know, is there a formula to a thought? Like, is there, is there a mathematical equation to an idea? In other words, in your brain, you know, it's not like a series, it's not like a combination, like in a computer, it's a combination of zeros and ones. Right? In your, in your, like, that's literally like numbers and the combination of those and all the coding. Please say vibe. Please say vibe. And in your brain, there obviously aren't numbers in there, but it's like a series of electronic impulses and a combination of all that and some blood and all that give you an idea to, you know, for me to ask this question. I like got the idea and then I, then I spoke it. I don't think they figured out what that mathematical formula is for that idea to ask a question or that idea to walk outside or that, they're all different equations that give you different ideas. And as soon as they figure out what that, what that equation is, then perhaps that, like, in other words, how do they give, AI consciousness, you know, how does it, how does it become, you know, thinking on its own instead of just dealing with prompts? Have you heard of Alan Turing? Yes, of course. So Alan Turing had an idea called a Turing machine, a universal Turing machine. And that, that was basically the idea that all computers that have some kind of basic sort of functionality are equivalent to each other so that they can all do the same thing So even this thing that he imagined with a little paper tape going through sort of this 1930s kind of picture of what a computer might be, could, if given enough time, do everything that the computer on our desktops can do now? Or everything that all the computers that are running all the AIs and chat GPT and everything in the world, they're all equivalent to each other. And so the question just becomes, is our brain a universal Turing machine? And many people think it is and a few people think it isn't. I would say most people think it is. So all you're saying really is that a sufficiently powerful computer could do precisely what you are doing now. In fact, that's the idea. But we are informed by, and JB, this kind of goes through it too, part of what, you know, inspired you to ask a question, for instance, as the example, was informed by years of your living on this planet, years of trauma, exhilaration, sadness, joy, all those things, emotion. A lot of trauma and a lot of sadness. I know. And so, right. And so, like, and then that becomes the question, like, how, those are the things that, that's the information on an emotional level that potentially maybe AI could have, but can a computer ever understand those, you know, the compounding, not just those emotions, but the compounding of them in various ways, the piling on, the stripping off, all of that stuff forms, forms the basis of who you are and why you woke up the way you did today. Yes. But if you think, think about your brain, what is it? Then it's just a collection of atoms, which is a remarkable thing to say, actually. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, the origin of the universe, 13.8 billion years ago, there's just hydrogen and helium and the generations of stars and they build carbon and oxygen. And those atoms have come together in a pattern, temporary pattern, which is, is you and me, so, but if, your brain is just that and i would say it is right so it's just a collection of atoms a very complex collection yeah then the idea is that it it's in i can't conceive of anything it could be other than a computer it's got a lot of data in it you're talking about your memories they're in there and it's processing them so i don't see if you want to if anyone wants to say well there's a there's a real fundamental difference you have to say what it is and i don't see that anything it could be it's it's a load of atoms in a remarkable pattern yeah what are you what are you most excited um uh for ai to possibly accomplish is there one thing you really have your fingers crossed on i mean it's it's it's there are enormous questions in science we talked about one the origin of the universe uh there's what happens inside a black hole we don't know about that there are all the questions that you mentioned about biology biology the way the human brain works to me if ai can be powerful enough to answer those questions right if it can be like not only a single einstein or stephen hawking but it can be a thousand einsteins which is not yeah it's not beyond the realm of possibility we could get answers to but it's it's limited to all of the questions we've already answered right you upload all of those answers and then its ability to kind of merge and combine um all of those answers to maybe formulate a new answer to a question we haven't even asked yet that that's a that's a possibility right i read the other day i can't remember who was who said it but um i said imagine that you could restrict it so it only knew stuff to let's say 1904 right so it only knew the whole data but the only data it could average to 1904 would it invent einstein's theory of relativity interesting in 1905 that is an experiment you could actually do but would it would it be able to predict all of this since 1904 right even in a bigger sense right that's the question about free will isn't it another day yeah exactly brian brian what was the what as you started as you began your your sort of study uh um and got into your field was there when you were a younger man was there one big question or idea that really captured your imagination that took you in this direction was there one thought do you remember having a moment like that yeah one of them and i still have it the question is is there life beyond earth in the solar system yeah is there life beyond earth in the milky way galaxy um i hesitate to say the universe because there are two trillion galaxies in the observable universe each with hundreds of billions of stars and so observable is is the key there sorry yeah right it's a good i i was careful with my language because we don't know whether it's infinite and a lot of people don't a lot of people don't know when you say galaxies right is so the milky way is a galaxy and in the galaxy is our solar system and how many solar system in each galaxy ish yeah so the milky way 400 billion stars so 400 000 so there's 400 billion suns just in our one galaxy i mean it's mind yeah our island is right so we look up when we look up in the sky those little white dots up there those are each each one of those is a sun right those are called those are stars that's a sun right yeah they're not planets well they could be planets yeah well we actually think that virtually all of them will have planets which is a beautiful thing in itself actually the other answer to your question will was that it was astronomy that really captured my imagination and when you think about it when i was growing up in the 70s we hadn't discovered any planets beyond the solar system beyond our solar system in the starting in the 1990s we're discovering them so what that means is you go outside tonight when you've listened to this and you look at the night sky and if you see the stars all of them will have planets around them so solar systems every one of those points are light and that's the one of the things that i think is so the most beautiful thing about astronomy is then your imagination can wander you can look at any of those points of light and say what do those worlds look like are they oceans are they planets are they planets are oceans right but but sometimes they say when you look up in the in the sky uh one of the the white dots is like jupiter or mars sometimes has like a little but they look exactly like all the other little white dots which are suns as well right like our sun is a star the earth is not a star correct the the earth is a planet but i wonder like but so then so then why do we call them stars yeah but why do they look white as well because they're not emitting emitting light so it's a good question i think that also influences will also diminish stars too because there used to be real stars and now it's just legitimate stars legitimate stars the big movie stars sorry so yeah the planets in our solar system you're right so you can see jupiter venus is often very bright in the morning or evening sky you'll see mars saturn um so those are just reflecting the light of the sun okay so that's why you see them they don't emit their own but they but they often look like exactly like likes like other suns stars yeah although you know you get a really small telescope or and you look at them um then you will see even with a small telescope you'll see the clouds of jupiter you'll see the rings of saturn with a small telescope so they're very they're nearby and they're just reflecting the sun's light we are every other thing that isn't a planet every other point of light so the overwhelming majority of them are the stars i but by the way i i had i had maybe i talked about this once i had said to me once trying to uh trying to understand the the infinite or the vastness of of the universe and the potential infinite nature of it he said um imagine a library and in that library was a book on every imaginable subject right that even a book about me describing this on this podcast a book about you're thinking about me talking asking this question on this podcast every possible subject right about my relationship to the door that i talked about closing and in books and then imagine libraries right that like that stacked in every direction going off forever and i was like fuck man that blew my brain out well what was i i can't even imagine as sean said a single galaxy the milky way i mean four hundred thousand million stars it takes light a hundred thousand million light a hundred thousand years to cross the milky way it's not possible yeah right to imagine it takes light a hundred thousand years light to cross light years to cross the milky way a thousand years yeah traveling at that speed at the speed of light and that's just one galaxy yeah so i have uh guys i'm out that's it for me if there's this you know we talk about the the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy right and and that's swallowing up everything right everything is going in it so why it's just everything's just going around it oh around it it's not sucking it in don't black holes suck it all in no if you turn the sun into a black hole yeah now by the way it would be only about two miles in radius if you did that so it'd be it'd be really small but um really everything just carries on going around so the earth would just carry on going around the oh i thought i thought black holes sucked in the sun and then it sucked in the black hole and then it sucked in the sun and then it sucked in the sun and then it sucked in the black hole and then it sucked in the sun everything like the light and everything around it okay so uh i'm gonna do like i'm gonna do uh what is it called rapid fire right right will we ever figure out how to travel faster than light or is that just no no okay i'm gonna confidently say no really will will we ever be able to travel at the speed of light no um so as far as we know this is einstein it's been known for a hundred years um you you can't travel you you if if you're if you've got any mass at all so unless you're light which has no mass you you can get really as close as you want to the speed of light but you can't travel at it or faster than it and that's as far as we know but we but we can travel faster than the speed of sound yeah we've done that um so i wonder then is what is the limit of the speed that the body can travel at i mean it like will will will our matter start to break up like because all of our atoms somehow stay together um i wonder if you travel at two too many g's or whatever do you does the skin start to fall apart it's a great this is a great question and yeah so there's two things there's acceleration there's acceleration you said g's you know that's right you know anyone who's if anyone's been i'd be lucky enough to be in a fighter plane or something like that and gonna it's like 7g or 8g you know it's like a lot of things and i think it's a lot of things and i think it's a lot of things yeah so that's acceleration but speed you can travel at any speed that you want and and a good example this is what so the example is if you're on a plane right if you're on an aircraft it feels like you're not moving right so it might be going at 500 miles an hour or whatever it is but you can't tell and we're all traveling at about a thousand miles an hour anyway because the planet is spinning at about a thousand miles an hour right 24 hours to make a full rotation and it's a it's about a 25,000 mile around earth, right? What would happen if the, earth stopped spinning right now we'd hit the wall uh yeah because you'd accelerate it would be the end of everything right uh well if it just stopped if it slowed down gradually then you'd be stuck in night or day or whatever it is right but um but you wouldn't if it just suddenly stopped then we'd yeah we'd accelerate and you'd get thrown against the wall so if so we're spinning let's say we're spinning from left to right a thousand miles an hour and if you get on a plane and you and the plane only goes 500 miles an hour and you're also going left to right on the plane in theory you'd never reach your destination in fact the earth would be spinning twice twice the speed that you're traveling so your destination would actually come up behind you and then you just sort of settle back down again you'd finally get there um but the reason that we're all sort of traveling at the the you feel the 500 miles an hour you get progress in the traveling attraction is because everything within three miles right isn't that that the atmospheric sort of bubble around the earth that as long as you stay only at three miles off the off the planet no higher than that you you're traveling in relatively the same speed and that's what enables our spacecrafts to whatever speed they're traveling when they leave that atmosphere they can shut off their engines and maintain that speed because there's no gravity up there is that right no there's gravity there's no air so there's no friction oh right right so they just carry on going at whatever speed they're going at and they don't run out of fuel it's not there's loads of gravity right there's superman used to go again he'd go the opposite way remember he'd go right he made the earth turn the other way yeah well he'd go back in time that's how i went back yeah they got that wrong yeah they got that wrong in the comic book it's not it's not a documentary wait a second oh wow wait a second okay so um what okay wait i guys so wait oh we talked about the the the universe expanding this blew my mind i read this like if if the universe is expanding at this incredible speed very very very far in the future will it be probably it'll probably be a real fact that who's ever living on a planet like earth we won't be able to see anything else we won't even know anything else exists we'll just see darkness yeah that's right so all the galaxies beyond will be so far apart that we won't even be able to see them wait because of why because the universe is expanding still expanding it's expanding and expanding faster and faster right why won't our stars stay with us when we're as we're expanding because they're moving away from us but why isn't this why aren't the stars expanding uh aren't they in the same expansion as the planets are really that's a great question as well so that's four you are doing well it's it's the distant galaxies that go away so that they disappear beyond what's called the but the gravity in our galaxy keeps our galaxy together so we don't think the universe is going to expand in such a way that rips everything apart it could do that there are we don't think ideas where it could do in the real distant future but we don't think that's what's happening okay so aliens you first you said that they might you used to be a believer and now you're not so much is that fair to say no i i can't believe it took you this long to get to aliens if i'm being honest i have 12 questions on aliens it depends what you mean right because um we're looking for and getting we haven't got absolute evidence yet but we're getting more and more right circumstantial evidence that there might be a life on mars right microbes though yeah but what about i thought you were going to say all the photo and video evidence that's come oh no no no i'll get to that but so microbes i would not be surprised if they're on mars if they're on jupiter's moon europa places where there are oceans in the solar system uh i don't know if you're going to say that but i'm that which and we there's several moons where we think there are oceans below the surface so that'd be microbes um complex life so i'll give you one idea that if you look at the history of life on earth then we know that life began around 3.8 to 4 billion years ago so pretty it's pretty much as soon as the earth had formed then you see microbes on it let's say four billion years ago but for you see nothing more complex than a single cell back beyond about a billion years ago so three billion years of the four billion years of life on earth was single cells just slime basically and it's only the last sort of little three three for the for the first three billion years that's how long it took for us to get where we are so so it took four billion years to go from the origin of life to us on this planet that which is one third of the age of the entire universe so many people and i would put myself in this camp if you had said guess how many civilizations are there in a galaxy like the milky way i'd say on average less than one which is a guess but it's a guess based on what the the only observation that we have we've got two observations right one is we haven't seen anything so an astronomer's called that the great silence and we could talk about that it's kind of a surprise i'll talk about that in a sec but so that's one observation and the other is that it took four billion years for us to evolve right now many stars don't live for four billion years so what we're saying is this little planet earth remained safe and stable enough to support an unbroken chain of life for one third of the age of the universe which is what it took to produce us and when you do it like that even though there there are hundreds of billions of planets in the milky way galaxy but i often say that people say well surely there must be loads of civilizations but a very big number multiplied by a very small number which is the chances that things about is not necessarily a big number right a really big number multiplied by a really small number can actually be a really small number so so i so that's the first the other thing i would say that the other bit of evidence that i'm really persuaded by is something called the fermi paradox yeah what is that which which is Imagine, so we've seen that today as we're speaking, right? SpaceX have just done their thing on the stock market and all those things. So, you know, we're building rockets. We have two spacecraft that are in interstellar space that we're still in touch with, the Voyager spacecraft, after 50 years in space. Yeah, are we still getting information from that? We are, yeah. And they're in interstellar space. So in about, most people would say, modern science has been around for about 400 years, right? Give or take, from Galileo and people like that. So in 400 years, we've gone from basically inventing modern science to building interstellar spacecraft. So imagine what we would look like in the Milky Way galaxy if you let us have another thousand years. Or actually, let us have another million years at this rate of progress. We haven't been around our species for that long, but give us another million years. Imagine what we would look like. Surely, we would have gone out to the stars and anyone else in the Milky Way galaxy would see us. We'd have written the evidence of our existence across the sky. But we've seen no evidence that any civilization has done that in the 13 billion year history of the Milky Way galaxy. So that's the Fermi paradox. But what if those folks out there don't look like us and in fact have figured out a way to separate themselves into such small matter and are able to travel in that small matter such that we can't see them and see it in the same way that all the information on your phone is traveling in and around us. We can't see it. Like that incoming phone call that's coming to your phone right now. On the satellite. Yeah. No, no. Just like if you called me right now, whatever those little particles are that lights up my phone and makes it go ring, ring, ring, I don't see that traveling. And I don't see it going into my phone. And so like maybe they figured out how to just like be really tiny and come back together and form a body with those almond eyes, when they want to. But at other times, they're just, they're zapping around as quick as, yeah. JB, JB, didn't we talk to that guy, that idea of them living what we would consider to be. That was his suggestion. His suggestion is that they do exist. They are here. They just exist in a space that we can't see, much like your radio frequencies. But even, it's a very good point. And it could be, let's just really simply imagine. I'm not keeping count, but it is five. Imagine that they're looking at you. Little spaceships are as big as a phone, like you said. It could be that they've got little spaceships all over the place. They're as big as a phone. They're orbiting around the earth. We wouldn't see them. That is a possibility, right? Right. There are ways out of the Fermi paradox. All we can say is that we've kind of looked. We have this thing called SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and we use radio telescopes, and we have a look. We haven't seen anything. Sean, are you masturbating? As soon as he said SETI, I thought you got real close. Oh, my God, yeah. He started when he said hot and dense at the start of the show because it reminded him of his first boyfriend. SETI almost finished you off. We've done black holes as well. Yeah, black holes. Oh, please don't. That got the blood flowing. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. But I will say this, Brian. I saw this. Not to bring up, I saw this, you know, this, I don't know if you guys have ever listened to the telepathy. tapes there's a wonderful podcast that talks with about people these non-verbal people who are able to seemingly seemingly communicate with each other hundreds and and if not a thousand miles away from each other in ways that are very sort of provable and and i and i've and and i've since seen since seen a cut of this documentary that is absolutely stunning that that actually shows that and that they are able to communicate in a way that we can't that we can't understand right i mean not even like that we can't comprehend meaning that with all of our reason we can't seem to accept that they're able to do this and so we people say no it's bullshit and yet they are communicating and that's what i meant about this other dimension brian that potentially exists that we don't appreciate there is not the the argument against that is if i did about 30 seconds yeah is that a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a the argument against that is if i did about 30 seconds yeah is that the argument against that is if i did about 30 seconds is that is that the particles out of which we are made. So each of us, we're only made out of three things, actually. Two things. Donuts. Up quarks, down quarks, and electrons. Yeah. Donuts. So three particles. And we understand in massive detail how they interact with each other, how the forces of nature that stick them together. We look for other forces of nature. I worked at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. It's a 27, well, it's a 16-mile circumference thing. I want to talk about that. We're looking for anything that's a different, a new force of nature, new particles, and we haven't seen anything. So what most scientists would say in response is that we understand perfectly how particles interact, how the particles that make up our bodies, and we understand perfectly how they interact with each other. And we understand perfectly how they interact with each other. but it's a computer. If you turn the computer off, you don't ask what's happening inside the computer. We know what's happening inside the computer. It's nothing. So it goes back to all the questions we were discussing. So otherwise, I suppose you have to imagine there's something else other than the particles out of which we're made. There's, call it a soul or whatever you want to call it, but there's something else that we've not detected any evidence for. There's something else. That's what you have to. Yeah, it's like a be. It's like Jason going back. It's kind of like Ibiza at the end of the summer. Like the party's done, but the vibe continues on. Like the vibe. The vibe keeps going. But then what's the most thing? I don't find it frightening, though. I find it wonderful. I mean, in a sense, it means that we have this finite time in which to enjoy ourselves and explore the universe and live. Right. So I think that's. I find that uplifting. Do you live for tomorrow or do you live for today, knowing that? That's a good question. Well, one for. Surely. Good for you, Willie. You got on the board. Surely both, don't we? It goes back to that question. I was thinking about this the other day. Actually, imagine you know everything. That's what we were just talking about. If you know everything, it means you know what's going to happen. So what kind of a life is that? If you knew what was going to happen tomorrow, I think it might. Our existence might be pointless. In fact, that's what I think. The key to our enjoyment of the universe is our enjoyment of life is not knowing what's coming. If you knew, what would you do? How would you live if you knew? That's why I like to believe that whatever our eternal battery is, like whatever keeps our. We don't have gasoline or battery power inside our body, but somehow our heart keeps beating. Even when we're sleeping, it just doesn't. So whatever is fueling. And I like to think that it's sort of a friend of or part of our consciousness. Our consciousness is like this thing that. It's sort of. It's in the ether. And that when our vehicle runs out of fuel and dies, our body dies, runs out of time, that consciousness, those thoughts, those feelings, that it can travel and maybe either occupy another body or a dog or a tree or whatever that it keeps. There's this perpetual sort of. There's this sort of loop that this consciousness does and it advances each time it goes through a body or a being or an object or something. Well, I like to think that it kind of dissipates into the. You know, that we're all connected to the. Combines, yeah. Yeah, and then at a certain point, it becomes sort of our turn and then it sort of. Yeah, finds another vehicle. Yeah, I feel connected to the universe. I really do. I feel like I'm removing the magic if I say that. Sean answered the question. He said, what's fueling us? I just thought donuts. Yeah. He said it earlier. So that is actually technically correct. Sean, what did you have for breakfast today? I haven't eaten yet. What? I know, I haven't eaten. But what do you think it will be? I'm probably going to have eggs and toast today and also maybe like a yogurt drink. That's it, though. That's what's fueling us. And then the answer to the question about what happens, it's obviously, it's a wonderful question, isn't it? But the. The thing is, it's like saying what happens to Zoom when we turn the computer off. We keep Zooming. I don't think we do, though. I think when you turn the computer off, Zoom stops. Will's going to love this and then we're going to let you go. You are a season ticket at Oldham Athletic soccer team, right? Yeah. Well, I was. Oh, I thought you still were. No, I used to be. It's my local club, my local football club in Oldham. Oh, wow. How about that? Who do you support now? Oldham. Oldham. And that's it. We're famous. Oldham Athletic are famous for being the only club in history to have been in the Premier League. So we're in the Premier League with Man United and Liverpool. And then we got relegated out of the entire football league. Wow. All the way down. All the way down. And then, but last year, and I was at the game, we got promoted back into the football league again. Wow. So now we're in the lowest division of the football league. Come on, Oldham. Which is what, four divisions down? Yeah. Eight. Wow. We went all the way down into what we call non-league. So that's kind of our claim to fame. But we're on our way back. JB, that's your nickname, isn't it? Oldham? Right. Thank you so much for being here. You know, it's spelled Oldham. Oldham. Yeah. That's how they spell it, you know. That's Jay. Also my name. I know you just got back from Australia. You probably got to be exhausted. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. And the next tour, it's called Emergence. Right now, your tour? Yeah. And I really, is that the one that's going to come to Los Angeles? Yeah, yeah. It'll be in LA and across America towards the end of this year and through next year. I can't wait. I can't wait for that. You're very kind to speak to us today. Yeah, thank you for putting up with our questions. Yeah. No, it's wonderful questions. Yeah. Well, thanks, Kyle. Have we got anywhere, though? Yeah. Yeah, we never do. We never do. We never get anywhere. We're smart more. We're smart more today. Yeah. Thanks, Brian. Thanks so much. It was such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian. See you later. Thanks. Bye. Wow. He's like the guy now. Like, he's the guy everybody talks to. Like, he's always in my feed, and I'm like, stop, and I listen to what he says, you know, my Instagram feed. I'm really interested to see what the format of his show is. He says there's a big screen there, which I guess is, you know, supports some of the answers that he's talking about. Yeah, like all the graphics. With some pictures and things like that. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't it be cool to go? Yeah, let's do it. Let's get all gummied up and get there. Yeah, I would love that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I guess I'm driving. I would love it. I also wanted to ask about CERN, which I didn't get to, you know, that. Wait, are we allowed now to bring on academics now? Because I've got some ideas for like, you know. Of course. Some smarties, smarties like that again. Of course. I felt like we kind of like went away from that, and it was like. I love that. Celebs only, but like, yeah, let's bring in some like some brain food. Yeah, I love that. Which is not to say our celebrities are not smart people. No, no, no, no. We're not suggesting that. Yeah, but I like this. I'll bring on some artists and some. I love it. Yeah, I love. I can talk to that guy all day long. The, um, did you guys know. His nightmare is you talking to him all day long, by the way. I'm sure. He looks on his phone that just somehow just rang. So we never got to Tatooine. Is it real? Yeah, I know. We should have him back once we all get a chance to see Disclosure Day. You know. I'm seeing it right after this. No way, really? I'm hanging out with you guys. I'm seeing it. Yeah. Oh, my God. A matinee. I love it. Just so you can't be. Just so no one bothers you, right? That's exactly right. You'd be alone in the theater. Yeah, I love it. What are you going to eat at the theater? I'm probably going to have some popcorn. I'm going to eat good. I have to start eating better. Why? Because my blood is. Sex scene coming up? No, I feel like my blood is creme brulee. I texted that to you. And I think it is. Yeah. It's all fat and sugar and salt. What is your go-to at a movie theater? You have popcorn and then you buy some candy and you like sprinkle it on top of it. If I could, I'd get pretzel bites with cheese. I put them in the. I dip the pretzel bites in the cheese. Yeah. That's the best. So that answer was so quick. Yeah. Do you put. Do you put. You one of those guys that likes a few pumps of butter sauce on your popcorn? A few pumps. Butter sauce, I think, was your handle in high school, right? A few pumps. Butter sauce. Hey, guys, look who's coming down the hall. It's butter sauce. Here comes old butt sauce. Hey, do you, do you, what, what is it? What's your, what's your go-to when you, when you like fucking stomach up to the, the old counter there? Hey, hi. What do you say? Hey, guys, it's butt sauce. Can I get. You know what I get? I went to the, I went to the movies by myself for the first time in a long time a few weeks ago. I went and saw. Oh, bless. I went and saw the project Hail Mary. Oh, yeah, Hail Mary. Which I really, which I really liked. Why don't you talk about that with Brian Cox? Well, because we were talking about other stuff. I love that. Like what's real about it. Wasn't it good? Yeah, so good. And, and, and old, old. Brian Gosling. Brian Gosling did a great job. Brian. And he's so good. I like that guy a lot. He's amazing. He's so good. And then, and it's our buddies Phil Lord and Chris Miller who made the movie. Shout out to those guys. We love those guys. But I went to the theater by myself to see it and I got a large popcorn with peanut M&M's and I put them in the popcorn. In the thing, yeah. That's what I did. I get that. I understand that. Now, and then, so did you, did you kill that large popcorn? I sure did. And, and, and can I. Yeah. I didn't have dinner that night. Yeah, go ahead. Can I ask you if the, if the, if your morning routine the next day was the same? It was. Were you okay? I was okay. I, yeah, I was okay. I felt, I felt it when I woke up. I felt it when I got out. I felt super warm. What do you mean felt what? Like your stomach? Just the sugar and the crash of all that garbage and a large soda and I just felt crummy and I went home and I went to bed and then I woke up and I. Jay, did you, do you usually just bring a bowl of nuts with you to the theater? No, I do. I do. Okay. Sure. It's a trail mix. It's a Ziploc bag with some trail mix. Oh God. Is that Amanda organized for you? No. I enjoy the popcorn. I just can't have a lot of it because then it wrecks my, my routine in the morning if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't do it. I don't really. Just elaborate. Yeah. Well, it's a binder is what it is. Okay. Got it. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a binder. But, oh boy. That, I like that guess. Thank you, Sean. Me too. - What is it? - It's a real. - Bye. - Bye. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbico, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarff. Thank you.