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Very excited to welcome to the show astrophysicist and author of the new book To Infinity and Beyond, the one and only Neil de grasse Tyson. Welcome star. So great to have you. It's an honor.
Thanks for having me. I'm delighted by the Lincoln memorial behind you. It's probably just a photo.
That's fine, it's a it's a video screen to be clear.
Yes, and I appreciate your background as well. It's quite quite lovely and appropriate.
There you go.
So let's start with the most basic question. What do you want people to get from the new book?
Yeah, that's a basic a question there is. I want to remind people that the discoveries we've made in our attempt to ascend from Earth involved a lot of fits
and starts. Often, if you read a book on how we've come to where we are, how we've come to know what we know about the universe, the storytelling and the accounts that you get the hits and not the misses, and you lose track of the fact that there's a human spirit that persists, and it's been active ever since we stood flat footed and looked up at.
The moon and asked, how would you ever get there?
Now, think about it, if it was the year seventeen hundred and you had that thought, what answer would you give yourself? Is there a sailing ship that can float through the air, and does the air go all the way to the moon?
And then would you land? Like what would that be?
And because rockets don't exist yet, rocket fuel doesn't exist yet, so how would you even.
Have that thought?
So this is a it's a chronicle of all the ways we've looked up and wondered how we would ascend from Earth. Now, not only ascend with our physical body, which we've gotten to the moon as the farthest we've taken ourselves, but we've looked beyond the moon, of course, and so now we've sent our robotic emissaries, space probes, this sort of thing, and then how about like to the galaxies and the universe. Well, the only thing that can get us there is our minds and our laws
of physics. So maybe one day there'll be some technology warp drives or something fantastical to get there, but not at this moment. And I don't know that this moment thinking about the universe is any different from the seventeen hundreds thinking about just ascending to the top of the atmosphere. And along the way there's always some movie that is that tried to do what it is we're talking about right or did do And I comment on did they get it right?
Did they get it wrong?
And that's the sort of the pop culture thread of this book, because it's not just the science and the history, it's how does it relevant to stuff you've thought about and care about. So the takeaway would be the human spirit knows no bounds.
Well, one of the things we wanted to get your take on, sir, is a recent development about the understanding of cosmology. We knew that if we were going to ask somebody and they're going to explain it to us, it could be you let's put this up there on the screen from the New York Times about how the story of our universe may be starting to unravel as a result of developments and understandings from the new telescope.
So could you put it in perhaps to plain English for us and for the viewers, for what is unraveling and what are the questions that are raised that we've previously had a model to understand that may not have been correct.
So you're assuming I agree with that title?
Oh well, perfect, Well will you disagree.
With Yeah, the titles such as that are irresistible to the press. Of course, you can't get enough titles that say everything we thought before might be wrong and we have to redo it. You can't, So let me just start with that. By the way, it's not just the press. Every YouTube video where there's an infomercial that begins the establishment things this or you've always eaten this way or exercised that way, but this is the right way for
some reason, those are irresistible. So let's collectively recognize that fact. So the James Webspace Telescope was conceived, designed, and invented with the intent to probe the early universe. At the time galaxies were being born. Okay, let's just put that out there, and it does it very cleverly.
All right.
It's sensitive to infrared light, and galaxies being born actually give off a lot of for violet light. But since the time, the time that has elapsed and the stretching the expansion of the universe that has unfolded, since then, the ultraviolet has become infrared light. So we have tuned the telescope to view galaxies being born in how they would look to us today. This is the kind of
thinking that goes on in this all right. So there's a period of the early universe when all the matter and energy is slowly cooling and it hasn't yet formed stars. It's still trying to coalesce gravitationally to make stars and galaxies and all the things we're familiar with. So there's a period we called the Dark Ages. It's a great term and fully explainable and understandable concept. The James Webspace Telescope found five five galaxies, full red bloody galaxies alive
and kicking in the Dark Ages. We have no explanation for that, Okay, So what we can say is, well, maybe we don't understand galaxies or the distances we're giving to them. Maybe there's a flaw, or you can say, let's throw everything out. That has answered a thousand other questions we've had about the early Universe's throw all of
that out because of this one observation. Now that's maybe, but unlikely because of how successful the account of the early universe has been with so many other observations that have been conducted. Now, in all fairness, the James Webspace telescope is more powerful than all previous telescopes. So it's bringing to us access. It's giving us access to the early universe that no other telescope has. So we're going to take this seriously. But I want to give an
example from history. Copernicus decides that maybe the Sun is in the middle of the known universe, in the middle of the world, rather than the Earth, and people before this said Earth. It's obvious Earth is in the middle. It's clear when everything rises and sets around us and fed our ego, and it was consistent.
With what we saw.
Copernicus says, No, maybe we are a planet among others and we go around the Sun. No watch, he presumed orbits were perfect circles. They're not, but he presumed why assume some other shape he didn't know. Plus, if God made the universe and God is perfect and a circle is perfect, of course planets would orbit in perfect circles. So he does this and it does not match the position of planets on the sky.
So do you.
Say, Copernicus, you're wrong, it's not working. Let's go back to epicycles and the geocentric universe. Or do you say it explains a lot of other stuff. Maybe there's an adjustment that's necessary. And sure enough, though it would take you know, fifty sixty years Kepler were cum aloys say no, that orbits are not perfect circles, ellipses being everything fits into place, and it retains the Sun in the center
of the known universe. So science, like science, has many fits and starts, And the book chronicles how we think one thing is true, more data come in and it supports it, and another one.
More data come in and you have to discard it.
So there's chance we have to rethink the early universe, as that clickbait title indicates. But I wouldn't be so quick, given how much else the Big Bang model of the universe accounts for very helpful.
The book is really a celebration of human exploration and curiosity, and are.
Twin engines the twin chariots of cosmic discovery love?
Yes, yes, indeed. And I was wondering if it was partly inspired in this moment when we have such a focus on machine learning and AI and large language models and all of this extreme technological development, if there was an intentionality around in this moment, recentering around the spark of all of you know, this exploration and scientific discovery, which, as you put it, is, you know, human inquiry and creativity.
You know it's not spoken enough, is the fact that your language models and all the AI that AI can be creative in some ways. Yes, it's found new ways to checkmate you on a chessboard, new ways to beat you at go. Of course AIS beat us at Jeopardy. You know why people didn't run for the hills at that point, I don't know. Apparently, you know, when AI started composing your term paper, then people lost it.
It was like, oh my guys, AI.
It was like, dude, We've been using AI for decades in my field. In AI's all around us. AI is driving Siri in your iPhone giving you the shortest distance to Grandma's house without.
Checking with a human being in the loop.
So don't all of a sudden complain or be concerned about AI. Yes, there are certain tracks of AI that, yeah, you want to regulate that or keep an eye on it, But AI as an encompassing basin of a catch basin is so we're embedded in it, So just deal get used to that. First of all, Now I can tell you this. I was once interviewed by AI in a podcast, okay, by a chat one of these chat programs, and it was very clear right off the bat that it could not know what it didn't have access to on the Internet.
So it's body of knowledge and source of creativity was completely fed by the Internet.
And even when you wanted.
To be creative, you can say write me a sonnet in the style of Shakespeare, it'll do that. But if I say write me a sonnet in the style of Arnold Schmednick, who's exit on the internet. Yet, it's not going to know or write me a style that has yet to be discovered. It's got no place to hang its hooks on. And so so the spirit of cosmic discovery and human ambitions. I'm going to go to the shoreline and discover a new fish. AI is not going to do that, a new bacterium, a new life form,
because I'm out there in the field. AI is not walking around doing this. It's stuck as it's a chunk of silicon in the middle of your computer. So, yes, it's a celebration of being human and not being AI.
Absolutely, that's such an incredible answer.
I did want to ask you, though, sir, about this human celebration creativity. I've all I've been so fascinated also about human exploration, about going to space, the moon. I remember you once said, I think it was on the Joe Rogan podcast, about whether we would be interesting to an alien species. So I'm curious, like, why would an alien species not be curious?
Not only just curious about us, but why.
Would they not be you know, if they are to be like Seafare or a space faring civilization and reach this level, why would why is it inconceivable that they would be interested in visiting us?
Yeah, so let me so sure.
Sure, it's just it's funner to say they're not interested in us because we're too far below them.
Uh.
But no, all if they're deeply curious about life forms, they might be curious.
That they're there.
They're more species of insects than there are human beings in the world, so I think Darwin someone once said, like beetles. There's like some uncountable number of kind of beetles. So if you come to Earth, you would say, Earth must really love beetles. Okay, forget the humans. The beetles are the thing that's all about, or the biomass in ants or in fungus or in trees. So it's our ego talking to presume that we would be the most interesting thing to an alien who's interested in life forms.
But I joke that we think we're who's we're intelligent? But who declared that we did? Okay, the third party declare it no humans, declare that humans are intelligent, and we may be so far below the intelligence of aliens. And then they see us kill one another based on who you worship, who you sleep with, what side of a line in the sands you're born, on how reflective your skin color is to sunlight, and they might run home and say, there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.
So there are a lot of ways I think we can slice this. One of them would be maybe they're interested in humans or perhaps beetles, or maybe they're not interested in us at all, or maybe there's so much smarter than us that we don't even know that Earth is a literal aquarium terrarium that they created for their own amusement.
Well, now you've really set people off on that one.
But I wanted to ask if you had any reaction to the UFO whistleblower. He actually came out just a couple of days ago and he said, of you actually said, you have a PhD in physics, where is your curiosity? I have credentials. I would be happy to go toe to toe with you. If he wants to debate me, I would be fine with that. So first, just any reaction or if you have any interest in debating.
The UFO, we'd be happy to which we would host.
Of course. Yeah, so I don't. I don't.
You've never seen me in a debate on anything. Debating is not the path to objective truth. The path to objective truth is data, all right, So when two scientists get into a quote debate, there's an implicit contract between the two.
Either I'm right.
And you're wrong. Either you're right and I'm wrong, or we're both wrong. In a rare case, we can both be right, but it's very rare. And it's another like we can be blind and touching an elephant and I can well, elephants are these hard you know, I read things and you say, no, elephants are these stringy thing you're touching the tail on. We're both right, right, because we're talking about the same object. But in most cases
that's not the case. Right, So what happens to the when the two scientists, they'll have the conversation and at some point they'll say, okay, we can't agree. We need more data to resolve this. Now let's go have a beer. So it is not it makes no point to debate someone who's talking about classified information that nobody else can see.
I can't have.
N't that's not so what needs to happen It needs to release the information. We did that in the Apollo era. We got moon rocks, brought it back, shared the rocks with the world so everybody can investigate it and evaluate it. So if you have a result. The way science arrives at objective truth is not by debate, which politicians like doing. And by the way, I've never seen a debate ever where one person says, you know, you convinced me.
I agree.
That was on this show sometimes sometimes.
Quick point is that all he has to do is release release it for independent analysis. And in science and objective truth is established by multiple verifications of acclaim and I witness testimony. Sworn testimony is irrelevant to science. We don't care what you saw or what you say you saw.
We care a little bit. We'll make a note of it.
But in the end, if I want to, if I want to declare that what you said you saw, what you did see is objectively true, other people have to verify it, yes, and you and bring it forward. And by so so the aliens in Mexico where they roll them out.
Right, that's a start. I love it. I love it. Okay.
So now to verify whether this is true or a hoax, allow others to study your your three foot tall alien bodies.
Yeah, especially skeptical.
Lab study it and find out, hey, there's something here about it. Bing we got two aliens that were hanging out two thousand years ago. By the way, I wonder, by the way, your nose is just an empty cavity into your skull, and so old mummies and things don't have noses. These aliens were bones the whole rest of the body, but they had a nose. Car what how do you keep a nose opens in aliens? So maybe there's a bone in its nose.
Yeah, maybe they got a different thing going on.
All right, hips, ribs, femur skull. So anyhow, fingers, okay, three fingers. There was alien. Okay, so I'm looking for I love it.
I love it. Now release it to the world.
I agree. So let's let that heed to Congress. Congress had really send.
It from Okay, I got one last for you before we let you go. We were talking about the James Web Research telescope and how incredible that has been and you know for people like you and the new discoveries that it could unleash. You also have a lot of private sector in investment thing about you know, SpaceX and these other companies in terms of exploration. Do you worry at all about the profit motive sort of supplanting the
motive of just scientific curiosity. As private space exploration becomes a larger and larger chunk of this type of inquiry, Yeah.
Just to be clear, I wrote a whole other book on this called Space Chronicles, Facing the Ultimate Frontiers a few years back. But in it the point I make is, first of all, there's been private enterprise in space exploration from the beginning. Yes, the Saturfy rockets, said NASA on the side, but it was built by the Space Industrial Complex. In fact, the lamb that which landed on the Moon
was built. I live in New York City, built right out here on bethpage Long Island at the headquarters of Grummin Aerospace.
People still walk tall because.
They had an aunt, an uncle, a cousin who worked on that project. So it's not like private enterprise is a new participant in it.
First.
Second, the difference is private enterprise is leaving the goals. Okay, because back then private enterprise responded to the needs of the government. Okay, they're they're leading the goals and building the capacity for people to access space, including governments. It is you are witnessing the birth of a new industry that can't be bad, not in a capitalistic sense, that can't be bad. Sure, all right, When planes were invented first, only rich people flew in planes just to make that clear.
Then it became commoditized, and then it got cheaper and cheaper. Now basically everyone has flown an airplane. Okay, who's Who's who has a job and has to travel? So so uh I tourist industry, which would be the driver of this. I presume I think it's let it, let it go that the science frontier will not be done by private enterprise, because the frontier is you got to go where no one has gone before. The risks are uncertain, the return
on the investments is not yet established. So now space as much as Elon says I'm sending a rocket to Mars, no, if it's his rocket that goes to Mars. First, it's because the government will say we're going to Mars.
Who's got a rocket?
And then Elon rolls out his rocket and we ride one of Elon's rockets to Mars. Then we ended up paying for that. But he has no business case to send people to Mars other than the dream state that that represents, which can trigger other investments for other things in the pipeline below it, which is nothing wrong with that either.
Well, sir, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. Really got us thinking and we appreciate you joining us. We got the book right here in front of us. We're gonna have a linked down in the description encourage everybody to go and buy it.
And I just want to just conclude here by saying, are UFO guy? Yes, who's got I'm flattered and honored that he would call, you know, name check me in the press, politely name check me. And I just want to say, it's not to debate and just bring it out.
Bring him Okay, Well, it's not just him, it's Congress too, though, to be fair, it's what you say. It's not just him, it's well he wants to put the information out. It's Congress who has had some issues there as well as the intelligence community.
But I agree with you. You should come out, yeah, figure it out and then then call me.
Okay, did you hear that, David Rush?
Yeah?
What it is is that the aliens come. It's like they say, take me to your leader. I'm not bringing it to the president.
No, okay, I.
Don't care who the president is. Is going to NASA.
Okay, Well, thank you very much, sir. I'm sure that will go out all right.
Thanks for your interest.
Appreciated.
Great chatting with you,