Professor Brian Cox: How To Find Your Place In The Universe

I think they were hoping to have this nice guy on TV. You're going. It's great, the stars are pretty, right? Robin in my friend is great. Yes, he looks at that bright light in the sky. I know that's all. Me, of course, bright, nice, big smile, Brian, welcome to high performance, thank you, it's a pleasure to be here to see you again after we talk about our story. I met you in the year 2000, yeah, together, 20-something years ago, um, and I was kind of starting sport. presenter and I think it was probably his first job at Telly, yeah, yeah, so we both learned that you can evaluate how well we did, now please don't because one of us has achieved global stardom and the other one still . living in Norwich um we always start this podcast with the question what is high performance.

I think for me, I mean, I've had three careers, really you know, I started actually what I'm probably talking about in music, then I got into the Academy, which I still do and then live radio and television shows, but I think which in all of them I think is doing a good job,

find

ing a way to do a good job and, for me, I

find

their attention to detail. I discovered that in any of those professions, nothing is easy. practical and it requires attention to detail and it requires that you too I think for me to take responsibility for doing it well and those are without rambling for 50 minutes that would be my definition well let's dive into some of them and then I'll start with the first one that you mentioned, which is becoming good at something.

There is a great phrase. No? How good you are willing to be at something depends on how long you are happy to be bad. Yes, that makes sense. for you absolutely and I think it's all about practice, right? I say it often because I said I think it was one of the first times I was on a chat show. I think Jonathan Ross started to become known and I said, you know, with my test results I did well in physics but I got a D in math and then everyone was surprised that you got a D in math and it's because I didn't practice enough. and I said at the time and I firmly believe that it's true that very few people are naturally great at something that I certainly am not and I suspect that most of the people that you've had on this podcast know that there are weird or messy Moes or something like that, but I think most people Maybe they have a little bit of an aptitude for something, but it's mostly about practice and I found that with math I definitely found it with music and I also found it doing TV shows.

Do you remember when you first understood that? Probably when I got a D M actually, I mean honestly it was unexpected, well I mean I actually joined a band beforehand so I didn't think I'd really need it, it was a level and I didn't think I'd need it . I followed that path, I thought I was going to be a musician, so I lost interest a little bit, but I think that's probably how it was. I realized that even though I had done well in school, you know I could do things and I could do physics. I think that was the first time I realized that you actually have to work hard at most, if not all, the things you do to reach a really high or high enough standard.

Now I can. I have heard you. In a previous interview with Brian, where you said that kind of message, I imagine, was being instilled in you by

your

parents and now you are the father of a 14-year-old son. How do you get kids to understand that? the effort to be good at it without having to go through that bitter experience of having one day. I'm not sure if you can, I mean, my experience is that if you're lucky,

your

kids will find something they like to do actually with my son is play the guitar, so he, he, the moment he started playing the guitar, he's been practicing over and over again, he picks it up and practices and he's getting good at it, but that wasn't it.

I, you know, I think you know most parents will say you can't, you can't force your kids to be interested in something, it just doesn't work well. I very rarely, but I hope you can encourage them when they find what they need. that they are interested in and I hope that then they are learning a more general lesson, which is actually you, the more you practice and the more you work, the more enjoyable it is, the more you enjoy it, the better you do it. the more you enjoy it, there is a virtuous circle and I really think that applies to pretty much everything we do in life, but I think you have to find it yourself and I'm really glad you mentioned luck because people rarely talk about it.

Particularly successful people rarely say well, I was lucky and in this podcast we are very aware of survivorship bias, successful people tell everyone else how they did it thinking it's easy because it was easy for them. Yes, but I would love to know a little more about your relationship with luck, but also the fact that you clearly understood from a very young age that luck was there, but without hard work, that luck would eventually run out, yes, that's it. If I have one piece of advice and like you said, it's very boring to listen to people who have been lucky describe how it wasn't like that, it was all my doing and you're absolutely right, it's for me, it's about opportunities if you're lucky and I guess You could argue that you can try to get in the right position and things like that, but generally speaking, if you're lucky, you'll get some opportunities and I think that's what you have to do. that knowing that you can't, you're not going to get ahead, so you really have to do the work to try to take advantage of that opportunity, sometimes it will go wrong and sometimes it won't, but that's what I would say that's what I learned CU at Part of it is because I've had at least three different careers, so I've actually gone through it three times thinking how can I.

I've been lucky and I want to do this, so what? What do I have to do now? Could you then explain your process to people about how you go from that moment when you make the decision to change careers, maybe to figuring out how you're not just going to be okay at it? but be great at it or be successful at it, what happens? Yes, I mean with the caveat that you never can. I don't think you can plan to be great and successful. Can you, but do you try? You can plan to do your own thing.

The best thing is to try, try and, with a good example, I think for me it was with physics, so I was in music, so I was 23, I think when I went back to university and, of course, Behind those people at the time most of the people in my year were 18 and they just moved through levels and probably did better than me in the exams initially because they all got better grades but they were also fresh and I just left school and I had been in a rock band for five years, so I realized that I had to work very hard, especially in mathematics, for which I had and do not have a natural aptitude, if anyone does it well.

So, so, I think the key for me is that I realized and I still think that it's very important that I had to take responsibility for my own success or failure and it's really important in Academia at all levels, ultimately, You know it and I say. I teach this at the University of Manchester and I tell first years: you really know that you don't need to take a test to know if you understand something. In fact, you know deep down, you know whether you understand something or not. If you don't, then go and understand it and know that we, the teachers, all the teachers, whoever, we are here to help you, come, but probably in my case, usually, if I don't understand something, it comes. from reading three different textbooks and sitting there and thinking and sometimes it can take a couple of days and sometimes it can take weeks eight months sometimes I never quite understand it but it's going through that for me it's very important to take responsibility for your own in in this case understand something be able to understand a little bit of physics but it could be, you know, running fast, it could be playing football well, it could be playing keyboards well, ultimately I don't think anyone can teach you to be great, but don't just be great, but to be at the level you want, I think they can help you if they teach you, but I really think you have to take responsibility for it because just to say that people got different rates, I mean , You know?

I've worked with some brilliant physicists that I've been very lucky with and very often you'll meet someone brilliant who just doesn't understand something about their concept and you ask why not and it can take them weeks to understand it. It might come in 10 seconds, but the flip side is also true. I will go. I just don't understand that and they, what do you mean you don't understand it? It's obvious, but could you then explain to us about the courage to ask what? could be the obvious question or exposing an ignorance because I think that can often get in the way of people learning because they don't want to look stupid or they think they should know something they don't know, yeah maybe that's what I mean assuming the responsibility because it sounds a bit harsh, right?

But you're right, it's understanding that's true for everyone, no matter how brilliant you think they are, there will be times when they just couldn't. they didn't do something they just didn't understand it, they couldn't play that chord sequence smoothly on the piano or whatever that is and so and so it's about you're right, it's about not being embarrassed because everyone is like that just to say I don't understand. I just don't understand it and there's two there's two steps there's actually no you have to be honest with yourself and say you don't understand it's pretty easy to fool yourself by saying yes, no, it's okay.

I'll be able to do that, you know, and you can, so you have to say it in physics, for example, you have to say: do I really understand that concept? and very often you find that. Don't you find it when you teach, actually, when you become a lecturer or a

professor

and give a lecture course? It's always like that, even if it's during the first year, the first term, where it might be the simplest part of physics that you do in a degree, you will always find when you try to give that lecture course, there is something there that you go, in Actually, no, no, I didn't understand, I didn't understand it, I went through all these years and I just didn't understand it, so you have to be very honest and then you have to persevere.

I think you have to keep going anyway because ultimately if you stick with something you want. You will understand, but it may take you six months, yes, but then you have to have that perseverance and what about your learning style? Because you've talked around you, you never had formal music lessons, but you taught yourself to play. Then I said that when you go to college you have to ask questions of mentors and

professor

s, what have you learned about the best way to learn that you could pass on to our listeners. For me, it's to keep doing whatever I can until I can.

Either you understand it or you do it, you know and you know that sometimes you won't be able to. I mean, if I try, I recently discovered a brilliant recording by Keith Jarett, who is one of the great pianists of all time. Somewhere over the rainbow and he's done it several times, in fact he does it live quite a bit and I think the best one is on an album called Scala and I had a big argument with a friend of mine about what was the best performance ever made. He did that, but I thought he was going to do it.

I want to know what he did because it sounds pretty simple and melodic actually and there's no way, right, there's no way I'm going to play it like Keith Jera plays it and you do. I've tried, I've tried and I'll keep going, you've made the effort that you would normally make and I keep going, but he's actually one of the great jazz pianists of all time, so you know you'll do it. reach its limit at some point and I could spend probably 30 years trying to play that like Keith Chrot, but I still wanted, generally speaking, to figure out what I was doing correctly, so I'm still spending quite a bit of time. trying to figure out what he was doing, there's another interesting element to this, even though it's not like that, which is passion and I remember when we worked together, you know, 20 years ago, OD, watching you talk about things that you're now famous for.

Speaking of thinking this guy has so much passion for it I think that's why people can relate to you and the way you talk so we can also talk about that later but I think the reason why the passion It's so necessary that I think it keeps you coming back for more, but it also means that if you don't get to the point where you can play a piece of music like anyone else or kick a soccer ball like a famous soccer player, it doesn't matter because you still love . I'd love to hear your thoughts on the importance of passion when it comes to high performance.

Yes, I mean you. I don't think you'll ever be good at something you're not passionate about. You already know. Sure, that's probably true, so and I think like we said before about kids, what you're passionate about is completely unpredictable, right? I think you understand, for some reason I'm excited about stars, right? I know why I know I have no ideaActually, it's always been since I can remember. I liked the space, whatever it is. The Apollo program. Stars. Anything about space. I liked it and that's just one of those things that must have captured myimagination when I was little.

I don't remember why, um, so I guess you're right, but when you get into the TV business that we're in, then you have the confidence, what's it like to just show your passion and just say, well, it's me. No, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be professional, I'm not going to try to break down these things and try to deliver them in any way that you would be taught to deliver things as a television host. on that I'm just going to say how I see it this is what I find exciting about it and then I'll just talk about that that's what I've always done because I don't really see any other way to do it partly probably because I've never seen myself same.

I have never been interested in being a television presenter or have seen myself having that as a job. I've always seen myself as a physicist I would look at again. I was lucky enough to be offered some of these television shows. What is the passion there? So it's sharing with other people. What you know is seeing other people get interested and excited. I think I know you well enough to know that it's not for the networks. social follows you the right autographs and improvements in restaurants and hotels that's not what it's about is that they are nice, you haven't denied it R, a lot of all of them I mean, I could, you know, the serious answer is, so I grew up, what One of the things I grew up seeing was that one of the people was KL Sean, who I don't know if anyone old enough will remember.

I think KL Sean's Cosmos was on the BBC for 13 episodes over 13 weeks and there is very little science on TV. at that time three channels or something, I think at that time, but Cosmos was on and Sean presented astronomy and talked about astronomy in the solar system and the

universe

, but he put it in a context, the context of our civilization, and it was explicit. that this way of thinking, this way of interrogating nature, trying to understand the natural world, is vital to our survival as a species, is central to one of the necessary foundations of civilization, so it was a controversy and, um , so gen I really think that science has the thought process, the things that we discover and that way of thinking about the world, acquiring reliable knowledge about the world is the way we do it, that's important, so I have a agenda when I talk about science on television. or live shows or whatever because I think it's important, so there's an underlying feeling that I have that I said this once, actually someone asked me once why do you want to host a show on BBC1 for example about astronomy and I said that I think science is too important to not be part of popular culture, yeah, so I really believe that, so if you believe it and you have the opportunity to look again, you have the opportunity for the platform to do it, so would do.

It would be ridiculous not to try to do it right. I think that scientists, if they want to and if they have the opportunity, have in a sense a responsibility to talk about it because, you know, I mean, and there are obvious things that we could talk about by topic. Oppenheimer, so I don't know if anyone saw the movie. I think it's an Offenheim masterpiece and I was interested in Offen Heimer. I became interested in him as a character quite some time ago because I discovered that he gave lectures on wreaths on the BBC in 1953. and they have almost been erased from history because they are very difficult and that is why we don't usually think about them, but in those lectures, when the I found, I saw this scientist who obviously played a famous role in developing the atomic bomb to deliver the means by which we could destroy ourselves as a civilization and he obviously knew it and it tortured him so much that what that made him think about was how We could avoid getting it right, so he started Thinking about politics, society and civilization, and are there any lessons from this wildly successful approach? um that requires acquiring reliable knowledge that we call science, are there any lessons that we can apply in broader society?

He certainly wasn't saying that scientists should run the He clearly decided that was a bad idea, but but and some of those lessons could be called transferable skills that maybe go back to the heart of what we're talking about, I think they're important and one of they are not. Don't fool yourself, don't fool yourself into thinking you understand something. Not so much. In reality, you don't understand that the world is very complicated. And there are many ways to do it. It's hard to understand a collapsing black hole or star, but it's also hard to understand how.

Running a society is really complicated, so there are no simple answers and since we were able to talk, I'll stop talking about it, but I could talk about it forever, but that's what I think it's always when I have the opportunity to talk. about science in my mind that I enjoy talking about it I think it's wonderful I'm excited to talk about these great ideas but also in my mind there were also the things that Heimer and Sean Richard Fman and other of my heroes had also said, which is that There should be a responsibility to talk about this way of thinking and the things that we've discovered, which brings us to one of the areas where I think you're a master, if you want, if you don't mind, I'll tell you. overcoming a common trait that you see in many intelligent people, the curse of knowledge, that you know a lot, but your ability to translate that knowledge and make it accessible to seven-year-olds or a mass audience on the BBC is a unique skill set in itself and I'm interested in exploring how these complex and difficult ideas can be communicated in a way that people can understand and begin to understand.

You know, part of it is what we talked about. earlier about honesty, being honest with yourself about how hard it is to understand some of these concepts, so if you've been through the process and I find this, I'm pretty slow quite often, I just don't understand, I don't understand. I don't understand, oh yeah, that's it, so what I usually do is just talk about the way I understand something and very often it's the way a seven year old would understand something because, like you've done, I find it anyway. If you're honest with yourself then if you really understand if you really understand something, you've been through that process and you've seen how hard it is and it's almost always hard, so you're not going to wave your hands and get upset and say when you see someone doing that and you see it in college, you know, I see I saw it with people who taught me, you can tell when they don't really understand something because they resort to jargon and wave their hands and walk away, and usually that's because They haven't gone through that process and they're just not fooling you, you know, but that's probably how it is.

They're fooling themselves into being comfortable saying, I don't know, I don't know the basis of the science, it's fundamental. I, Richard, fan, mentioned, you know, fan. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist also worked on a Manhattan Project, in fact, one of the great masters too. and he called science a satisfying philosophy of ignorance, right, and it's actually a very profound point because he meant that all knowledge begins when the individual accepts that he doesn't know that it begins with I don't know how that works. I don't know why the sky is blue I don't know why the leaves are green I don't know why the

universe

is the way it is and that's the point you have to start from that point and then you build, you try to build. a reliable picture, some model of the world in your mind, but being a scientist, of course, is about doing research and that means you are always on the edge of knowledge and you are extremely comfortable standing on the edge of the known, the dividing line. . between the known and the unknown and trying to find out a little bit more so you have to be thrilled to not know that and excited to get back to what you said passionate about not knowing to be able to move forward and so on and I think it's a skill that It's about, it's about getting rid of any fear of the unknown, right?

And I think a lot of times we get into a lot of arguments as a society about things that are pretty unknowable, well, unknowable right now. I don't know, even basic things like whether the universe had a proper beginning and we know that the universe was very hot and dense 13.8 billion years ago. That's good, we call it the Big Bang, but if that was a beginning in time, if the universe existed. somehow before that, which means talking about the beginning of time, we don't even know what the right time is, we don't know, we have some feeling from the way it could be built with smaller things, but I can leave that at that , but the thing is, it's key, isn't it? because a lot of people talk with great confidence about how do you know, I know how the universe started, I know why the universe started, the answer is how can you nobody knows we don't know yet and that's interesting and exciting, yeah, if you can sit here and say I don't know, so that's great for everyone, yes, and if you think about it, we accept in certain professions that it is good or good to be to know what you are doing, such as flying an airplane, yes, being a captain of airline doing an operation, a surgeon, the designer of a nuclear reactor, you know there are things where the knowledge you know and the experience is valued, but you're right, I guess it's if you look at how our knowledge and I use the term before reliable knowledge, how that knowledge was acquired, it was acquired by people from a basis that they did not understand and then, at the time this is. critical in science at the moment when new data appears, some new evidence appears, some new observation arises that conflicts with your image of the world, then you start to get interested, you start to get excited, well, if I'm wrong about my image, So I am delighted because I have learned something.

I can discard that image and then I can move on to a new image. So you have to be delighted when you're proven wrong because you've learned something and that, of course, that does apply, I mean, that's how we have reliable airline flights, that's what pilots do, the airline industry does. You know, when someone makes a mistake or fails, a mistake is analyzed and in detail you're not supposed to know how to point fingers and in those industries you're supposed to figure out how not to do it again, it's like building a bridge, TRUE? knowledge about doing better next time it's not about everyone thinking that you were right that's it and that we should just apply that it's pretty obvious really when you think about it it's not right it's in terms of the result but you have Like you mentioned some things there that have made me resonated, Brian, and I think it would have been helpful to pick anyone listening to this because we all want the best possible outcome, whether it's better knowledge or something else. topic, but I'm interested in the ingredients that go into creating an environment or a culture where it's accepting, where people aren't afraid to be challenged, and what I'm interested in is what you think are the most key. ingredients to do that, I think, I mean, I think it's pretty simple, it's, it's, it's not, it's not, it's almost, it's almost rewarding people for being wrong, but you know the sense in which I mean that That is, part of the process of Doing this better is that you can recognize when you are wrong.

You will find it a positive experience and learning science in schools. Doing experimental science in schools is really important. It's not that you need to know how to swing a pendulum or know what. the speed of light is or something like that, you don't need to know that, but you need to know how to acquire Reliable Knowledge from nature because that is the same process as acquiring Reliable Knowledge from observing how a policy works or trying to Run a country is same process, but it's easy to learn when you boil it down and say, "Okay, I'm going to swing this pendulum and see how long it takes to swing and then put a little more weight on it and swing it again." that's how you learn those important skills, so we need to be better at asking questions instead of answering them, yes I think so, we need to be less confident in our answers and ask better, let's take your world for example, how much do you think ?

We don't know about what's around us, I mean, we know almost, we know a lot, but almost nothing at the same time, so, like I said, it's interesting that there were some stories the other week, for example, about the new space telescope, The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It was designed to see further into the universe than ever before and looking further into the universe means you're looking back in time because, for example, the furthest thing you can see is the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye. You can practically see it on a dark night.

Maybe you know where to look. You can see it with binoculars and it's a wonderful thing, so I would recommend it to anyone listening or watching. go, just look for it, you'll see it in the sky tonight, if it's clear, it'll be there, what you'll see, it's kind of, if you know, like it's a hazy spot in the sky, it's actually quite big, it's almost reasonable. fraction of the size of a full moon in the sky, um, but it's very faint, but if there is a constellation called copy, which is w-shaped and close to that, what shouldSearch people on the Internet to try to find? what's the best way is with the app and the other phone apps so you can get those phone apps that are free, most of them Star War type and you will find them and then if you have a pair of binoculars, look for around you and you'll see this hazy spot and it's wonderful because it's the most distant thing you can see without a telescope and it's 2 million light years away, which means it took 2 million years for the light to reach your eye from that galaxy, so it means that it started its journey before we had evolved on earth right, we, the human Homo sapiens, are not that old, right, 2 million years, so you are looking back in time, 2 million years, you're seeing this thing as it was before it existed.

If humans existed on Earth 2 million years ago and you can see it in real time, then what the web Space Telescope can do is look at galaxies so distant that you're seeing the first galaxies in the universe form and that's it. what it was designed to do and the reason we want to do it is because we didn't understand, we don't really understand how they form, right, we are, how far away is that well of light, which is over 13 billion years of time? journey of light. Wow, so we're talking and the universe is 13.8 billion years old since the Big Bang, so we're talking about seeing the first galaxies form in the universe and taking pictures of them, and not surprisingly it's not like we.

I expected it and I saw some headlines that said: "Crisis in physics and it's not a crisis, this is how science is done right." The reason we built this big thing and sent it to you to make those observations is because we weren't sure we got it right, we probably won't get it right because we've seen it before and there's actually something interesting and it could be deep or It could be a little twist on our model and we're still not quite sure, but this is how it's done. That's how it went. We were never going to be right.

The biggest crisis is having all the answers. Where we go? So, yes, then, yes, and not even yes, well, it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I don't think we'll ever have the answers either way. I mean, there are deep questions. Know? are we alone in the universe? I mean, probably not, you would guess that there are two billion galaxies in the universe. observable universe, so not to be expected, what have you made of all the recent headlines about? You know someone in the state who says he's seen evidence of extraterrestrial life forms on Earth, something that was picked up from the bottom of the sea, those little balls. bearings and they say that this has been formed by a life form outside of our Ian, our galaxy, as if it were a theory, right?

I mean, there's a theory there and you can get the little things and we'll look at them and have a Look, I mean, wouldn't it be funny because you mentioned social media. I think you're on social media from time to time. Quite often, I will tweet something that says and there will be quite a few people who will reasonably disagree with what I said and one of them is the UFO thing, you know, I mean, there are people who actually believe that there are UFOs visiting the Earth and I always say, you know, I haven't seen any evidence of that which I think is strong.

There is evidence that it is a big claim that there are other civilizations that are visiting us, but it wouldn't surprise me in a strict sense if I said to someone the other day, do you know if a big UFO came now. We walk outside and above Westminster there is a spaceship floating. It wouldn't surprise me in the least because I know there are trillions of planets in the Milky Way alone and hundreds of billions of stars and it's been a long time and one of the great mysteries of physics is why we don't seem to see much there. out there, nothing we don't know, there's solid evidence that there's nothing out there right now, we don't have solid evidence for life beyond Earth and that's a puzzle and a paradox, so it's about those claims, no you throw them out if someone says well, I've got this, I found this thing at the bottom of the sea and I think it's really strange, then the right thing to do is to go, well, we'll put it in a lab, we'll get an electron microscope, we'll poke it and we'll find out the strange thing. what is and nature.

Fineman said again that the thing to remember is that nature doesn't care at all what you do. think nature just doesn't matter who you are or how famous you are many letters you have before or after your name whatever it doesn't matter nature should be like this if in fact an alien spaceship crashed wherever it was they found these things a billion years ago and they left all the fragments there and we've dug them up so that's interesting, right? But that's it, you know, but if it wasn't, then it's also interesting because then you get a deep professional puzzle about why there don't seem to be many civilizations out there, but what I love about your response to Brian is that you step on that line between being agnostic and saying I don't know versus being cynical in saying I know and that's not right and I'm interested in asking that good question, I mean because with that it's a pretty profound statement that there's a part of whether that's what It's this Abby Lo, she's a professor at Harvard.

I think that's a pretty deep claim that this is a piece of spacecraft or something from outside the solar system, and the right thing to do is to say, well, that's an interesting theory, let's take a look, it could be like that, so no. I would have no doubt. There's no basis for saying, well, that's nonsense, right, it's a completely meaningless statement, right? I don't know how I could know. Don't know. It could be like that and that's it when you talk about social media, so you move on. there and you provoke some strong reactions from the people of yesteryear.

I can't help it, that's who I am, whether it's a yes, a character flaw or a positive part of my character, there's an element of that, right? What keeps you humble to be able to accept these diverse points of view? But to me I think this might sound cool. It's nature in the sense that we talk about the transferable skill of science and because I spent most of my knowledge. time really learning how to be a research scientist you're wrong all the time it's actually practice fan again I still go to Fan he was wonderful he's a great philosopher even though he hated philosophy well he acted like he hated philosophy right but he said he said that the Scientists have a lot of experience in being wrong and that's probably the transferable skill because it goes back to this thing that you can't argue with, let's say you're trying to understand how a star works, yeah, and you say.

You think it works like that and then you look at the star and the star doesn't work like that. You can't start yelling at a star, can you? Because he's bigger than you and you're not going to win the argument, you never win. an argument with nature that you would say has been the closest to the most powerful Revelation about yourself that you've discovered was wrong, oh, in terms of science, it's almost, it's almost all the time when you're, when you're doing Al research, you have the feeling that you understand some new data and you have the feeling that there might be something there.

I mean, I did particle physics for a long time and I work at

place

s like CERN and Ferm Lab in Chicago and those

place

s. you get a bunch of data and you sit at your computer looking at these new Deb particle collisions and one of the things that would be the Nobel Prize gold scenario if you saw a new particle, you discovered a new one that you know and no one ever for the particle from higs is a good example when we did it very rarely, but late at night, because you have a lot of data, it's like flipping a coin and it comes up heads 20 times and you say, no, there's something, there's something. there and you can convince yourself that there is something you go on and you know I'm not right on the Nobel Prize so every time I thought it was leaving otherwise I would be a Nobel Prize winning physicist but you keep coming back because you know you're trying of understanding nature and you're trying and very occasionally there will be something that will rise up and something new will appear, but that process goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of that process. of trying to understand something that is difficult to understand and forming views, models and opinions and then discovering that most of the time you are not right, that F Oppenheimer and finding out that they were right when they said that that skill you should transfer is difficult .

Also, don't just do it with some particle physics and little graphs on your computer screen, do it with your political views, then it becomes more difficult, but if you understand what those great thinkers were really telling you they you would do. is that it tells you that you understand now that you have practiced a little you are not right when you try to understand nature now imagine that you are not right with your point of view about the maximum level of taxes or whatever it is imagine that you are not right in that too, so what's been the biggest thing that you've changed your mind about?

So for you personally, who like to get away from physics or your professional life, it's a good question, I mean, in um in. I think in politics, so I've been through a long process of learning something that I didn't agree with, so let's say Brexit, so let's be careful when talking about Brexit, but something that I didn't agree with and, So, I learned to try. to understand why a majority of voters voted yes, it's not because they're wrong, although I don't agree, it's like what do you want, why would someone come to the opinion that doing something What I think is wrong , it is the right thing to do and maybe it is the right thing to do, so what are the data that could come and what would they tell me?

Well, not really, I was wrong. there I am I am I would be again and I would be doubly delighted to be wrong about that by the way because I want the country to do well because I'm in it it's my this is where I grew up so that's an example of where I really am, although some people hear this if they see me on Twitter from time to time they go or is it ever called now we'll go we'll go this just isn't it's not me I'm looking for evidence that I'm not right and that there is a route to a better future through, ya You know, outside the European Union, that would be an example and we've talked in great detail about, you know, holding beliefs lightly, seeking to push the envelope being humiliated by what's around us being okay with failure because failure is growth and I hear you talk often about these types of topics because this is your area of ​​expertise and you are amazing at it, but I don't listen to you very often.

I often talk about how that influences your life as a father or your life as a husband with Gia, Which is another person I remember Fally working alongside over 20 years ago. You obviously asked him out before me. I don't know, we should compare the Diaries later and find out that no, it's true, I was already with Harry at that time. Give, let's not compare. Dar, um, I'm really interested in how this idea of ​​being a lifelong learner, which you clearly are, informs those. The soft sides of your life, if we can call them that, as a couple, as a parent, as a friend, well, yeah, again, I mean, we touched on it, right?

I think certainly that element of seeing your children. They grow up and no matter how much you want them, you might want them to be physicists, historians, footballers or whatever, then you're really happy when they discover what interests them, whatever that may be. I think that's really very important, but we've already talked about that, right? What advice do you give your son about all the things we've already talked about? the things that you've learned, I mean, I'm humbled by the size and scale of what's around us and I think that keeps me from obsessing over the little things, it's actually a big help at the beginning of the story, because you know . thousands of years of things, what happens to me doesn't really matter.

I'd love to hear what you tell your child about keeping him in the right direction or the things you share well. I say that, um, and we actually talked about it on the radio show I did last night, so I think the idea that it's so unlikely, you're unlikely to exist in the first place, which is a great point and It's kind of obvious, but secondly, it's pretty unlikely that you exist in a time and place where you can, if any, spend time learning to play the guitar, if that's what you want to do, it's surprising, so, it's an amazing piece of luck, then it would be ridiculous if you just didn't find anything, didn't do anything you know how, just kept going through life without realizing that you are lucky in a very deep sense in the way that you are even lucky to exist, but and I also think in scientific terms, it actually seems to me that we live in this bewildering, amazing, beautiful universe and it seems to me that no, no, we don't make any attempt to understand it in any way and it could be understanding it, it doesn't have to be doing mathematics and physics, but just realizing that something is worth pursuing and being interested in.

I think that's the basis, really, just realizing that there's something thatIt's worth getting excited about, whatever it is. I think that's why you do so much of what you do. You know a lot of people would be successful and write a book and stop doing it or do a bunch of TV shows and think I've done enough of that, but you don't stop and you know. doing live experiences for people I know something you're really passionate about I wonder if that's if we talk about, you know, we mention passion I wonder if for you it's really just lighting fires inside people to go and explore, yeah and also Actually , I like to learn curves that we haven't really talked about, so I like, like I'm doing it with the live shows, so I've done these big live shows on my own with my friend Robin Inson, uh, what? who is it?

I'm a comedian and now I'm doing some live shows with a symphony orchestra that we did in Sydney at the Sydney Opera House in December and the opportunity came up and there's a great conductor, actually Ben Nory, who is a conductor in Australia and New Zealand. and he had told me: there is this music, it's Strauss, so everyone knows the beginning of 2001, that St thing, well, it's part of a 20-odd minute piece of music and no one listens to the rest, but the music is based on a book of n and the book of n is about the way Ben told me is how can humanity justify our existence when we are faced with the power of an infinite scale of nature, how can we justify it and this piece of music is a The exploration of that thought was written at the beginning of the 20th century years or more ago, but it is an exploration of that idea but musically based on this philosophy through the work of the famous book of Nature and I thought it was the challenge of taking that music and weaving a narrative of cosmology and astronomy and what we know about the size and scale of the universe that N and Strauss didn't know they wrote this, it's amazing that we're talking about the TW, say 1900, that that kind of area Just before that, We didn't even know there were galaxies of our own, we didn't know until the 1920s, it's incredible, so the context has completely changed in what we know about the size and scale of the universe, so there is something else.

It must be said that there is a dialogue between those ideas and that music and the things that we know today in the latest images of the universe something will come out of it something interesting will happen it's really exciting well, come on, I'm excited about this Then someone tells you: look at this amazing piece of music, listen to it. How involved are you in helping turn that into an event for thousands of people at the Sydney Opera House? What is the process for you? Well then. I sit there with that music and its ideas, so in this case the collaboration, Ben sent me, he actually sent me a recording with him talking about it as a director saying, well, this is incredible, actually the depth to which goes this is a quote from the Catholic mass that says this and this and this is a quote from this and this is like this the complexity of the music is incredible actually intellectually brilliant I sit there and I sit and I listen to it over and over again and is another thing we could actually talk about be patient so don't think oh no I've sat down I've listened to it twice and I don't know what I don't know what to do so I'm confused so let's not do that.

I keep going and at some point something occurs to me and I say this image that the Web Space Telescope took of a stellar nursery, for example, stars being born. and if you compare it to that part of music then it says something else, it says something about the birth of things and the life cycle of stars and that's a bit like the life cycle of a human being and you can start to make connections and and that's what I want from that collaboration, I want something to emerge that's not really obvious in music or science, but somewhere in a conversation between different art forms.

Something might happen that you might be interested in and then you have to have the patience to say, I'm not going to rush it. I'm just going to find it. The only thing that really makes me impatient is when I have to do other things. If I really get into something I don't want to do anything else, so suddenly it becomes boring, the other thing is boring now because I want to. I just want to sit there with Strauss and nature and the Hubble Space Telescope and think about That's what I'm interested in now, so I don't bother doing the other things, so yeah, that's how I do it.

It's just about having the lesson for me, it's about having confidence in it, if you keep it up. So we go back to what we said before, you really stick with it and that may be when you need some creative spark. Yes, if you continue, everything will work out, so at some point you will get the idea, but let's explore. that patience thing because we live in a world of super fast speeds, fast opinions, you know, instant access to whatever we want, so the idea of ​​accepting sometimes that it's going to be slower than what we want or what we have to deal with feel comfortable. the discomfort of not knowing yes, what have you learned about patients that you could share with us, that you can't, there is no magic formula to have an idea or be good at something, as we talked about before, there is no The magic formula is the moment and I think very often you have to know that you have to let your head fill with ideas and then just trust that at some point something will come of it, so I think and I think.

From the way we talked about luck before, I am also aware that having time to be patient is a luxury, you are lucky if you have it. That's one of the things I feel luckiest about, actually, is that I've managed to stumble across it. jobs and they've all been a bit like that, actually, if you're in a band, if you're musical or you're an academic, although you know there's all kinds of pressure on academics now, like in everything. With bands, you actually know you have to put out the album and tour and all that stuff, but I think ultimately if you can get to a position where you have that luxury, it's very fortunate, then you'll be able to use it. .

You know, I think you should give yourself time because you could work all day every day and do speeches and tours and books and TV shows. I mean, you could work 365 days a year, yeah, so I think you can, and again, some people. I can't, but if you can, then it's very important not to be, you know, it goes against the saying, it's not making hay while the sun shines, it's the opposite of that, it's if the sun shines, then go and, um, go and have. Think about what you are going to plant. I don't know how we can push this forward.

Can I ask you about the doubts because we toured the UK and we were both full of doubts about whether people would come? people like it, we would ruin our words, it would have value, people would laugh at us, they would ask questions that we can actually answer during the question and answer part of the show, like what is your relationship with doubt, because a good example is the Sydney Opera House. and some amazing music. I would immediately think: Am I worthy? I'll deliver how you do it right? The first thing I have to say is that it goes back to what we said earlier about not fooling yourself, so only I will know if I'm happy with what I came up with and what I'm going to say.

Yes, I will only know if those images and the things I have done will be on stage. The big screens show the right images and it's up to me so I take responsibility so when I go out on stage I will have made sure I'm happy with what I'm going to do and that's important I think but also The Fan again , I remember this great quote. In the end he wrote a brilliant essay called The Value of Science, which I recommend to everyone. It's about three pages long, it's online, and at the end there's a quote where it says that what we have to learn is how to doubt. it is not to be feared, but to be welcomed and disliked, so doubt is not to be feared, but welcomed and discussed, which I think is deeply important, actually, how do you do that, but I think, like I said , accept that clearly, you, all.

It's taking risks all the time, but as long as you're happy that you've done everything you can and you're happy with what you have to do, then going on stage shouldn't be like that. a problem if you think there is nothing else I can do here, right, I have. I think this is what I mean. I know what I want to say and then you are right if people don't understand it. what you have to do is learn, okay and I always don't know about your live shows, but I'm always learning that you always do something in one night and it doesn't work and what's your attention to detail like on these. it shows how involved you are in the various elements, oh completely, I mean because because of this process I wouldn't have confidence walking and I can't actually do the same with TV shows, in fact I'm very bad at doing a piece for camera, you know, in the cliché The World on the Top of a Mountain with a helicopter shot and I'm really bad at that if I try to say something that someone else wrote for me, right, I can't really do it.

It doesn't work I can't remember I'm not an actor Why am I really bad? Don't know. I just don't have that ability, so I can't remember the lines at all, but it also plays into the authenticity. Well, part of it is just because I'm rubbish, remembers L, but what I can do is if I know what I want to say and I say it, then I can say it eloquently enough for it to be right and work. you know, streamable as we always say, we always say it's that stream, yeah okay let's go to the pub, streamable, but that's how I work, I have to know what I'm going to say with a point I want to make and then I can say it to my way.

What I can't do is learn. I just can't do it, so as a scientist I am always open to the possibility of new information. There is new evidence that challenges your view. How do you feel comfortable being good enough? For example, when you leave it, you leave something and you just walk away, you're not constantly trying to refine it, so like the show you're doing in Sydney, it's a big question. That's because the other thing we haven't talked about in, say, creative industries, writing a book or a piece of music, being in a band, writing a song, is actually finishing it and it's the same in science, it's what I usually do. say. students who want to do a doctorate I think that doing a doctorate is wonderful because you grow enormously intellectually and as a person because you have to produce new research but you have to write a thesis and that's why you have to stop. and you have to write this which is new knowledge, a contribution to knowledge and you have to know when to do it and you have to finish it and that is the most difficult of all and, in fact, in bands.

I've been into the great songwriters Peter C of d, for example, the band he was in, he would say this, he's the craft, some inspiration, right, you have a little bit, you write something great. Things can improve. in your head, but turning that into a four-minute pop song is the professional part, it's the craft, so you're right that you have to stop and produce something at some point and that's a decision. I think you know we all know in our lives that there are things that you just keep going, little projects and you never do them, you never finish them, so I agree that it's a skill that you get disciplined and then you have to do.

What's your limit? So what do you have? We generally sold out tickets for this concert that will take place tomorrow. Yes. Obviously, you announce a date for a show that you have to deliver. Is there any other method you use? I don't like pressure. I like a deadline, but I don't like the pressure of the deadline, so I tend to try to overwork myself early on and I always did this, in fact I was also doing exams at University. It wasn't one. one of those people who like it I didn't like to put it all in I like to be relaxed yes, like that, like that, I like the deadline in three months and then I will do most of the work in the first month actually, that's the way what I work on because then everything gets better, then you get the great ideas when there's no pressure, when you have the framework and you're okay, I've got it, that'll work, then you get a lot better, we're about to ask our quick questions before we do it .

One of the comments we find in this podcast is optimism. High performers tend to be optimistic, no matter what happened today yesterday, they think tomorrow will be great. You know a lot about the universe and, as you've admitted, you know as little about the universe as everyone else. um, where are you regarding our future? Are you optimistic? um, yeah, uh, I, we, we seem to have avoided, obviously, we have avoided. destroying us so far um so I think yeah I'm worried because I'm worried that um look it seems to me that our political debate, I don't know, has become extremely polarized in a way that really matters particularly. in the United States, actually, yeah, where it's very important for that country to remain stable and so I'm worried about that and I and you see it here to some extent, although actually, you know, it seems like we are. driving quite a bit.

Well, in this country I mean we generally don't give credit to our political system, but it seems to be dealing with a lot of turmoil,particularly starting with the Brexit referendum and those things he seems to be dealing with. I'm worried, and one of the reasons I'm worried, I was actually asked to give a talk at the Police Climate Summit in Glasgow just by one minute video and it was just a small project and they said yes. If you could tell world leaders what you would tell them, and I said very simply that, given what I know and given the large number of people I've spoken to, we may be the only civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy at the right time. , it's worth considering that that might be the case and there are reasons we can look at as to why that might be the case, but it's possible, so if it's true, imagine it's true.

I think if we're talking about the meaning, meaning of it. everything is as we talked before, what does it mean to be human in this universe? Good intentions are a property of intelligence. I clearly believe that the universe means something to us, so meaning exists here, but if there is no other intelligence in our galaxy and we destroy ourselves, then we could eliminate meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion stars forever, that is what we could do, so consider world leaders, I mean, you potentially have a galactic-sized responsibility, wow, maintaining meaning in a galaxy, and that's me. why it bothers me because I think it's true, so I think that what we do here will have ramifications in that sense, far beyond the shores of our own planet, because you know you look at me as a lifeless world, a lifeless galaxy . a meaningless galaxy, totally true, really power, there's something really powerful about that, like we like, we were looking hard enough to interview Tim Peak, who talked about the general effect that a lot of astronauts talk about about being able to see the world from out of the atmosphere. a feeling of how small we are but also of how magnificent life is here, yes, on the planet you see with the i, as I said, I was lucky to know many Apollo astronauts, astronauts also who used to be pilots of tests, you know? so they tended to be those guys from the '60s and '7s and they tended to be guys at the time when the Apollo astronauts were really focused on flying those things like airplanes, but still you're right, each and every one of them.

I've been looking hard enough to find us, he said the same thing and the moment you leave Earth and look at it against the blackness of space, you start to get the feeling that there is something really important here, far beyond everything. others, so I think that's powerful. That's why I think I said one time that um, I thought it was when I don't know which cousin Min, I think it was B, it was boring John, so I said, I said, I think he should be sent to space and I actually meant. I didn't say it, I meant that he should bring it back too, but I think that he, as a taxpayer, would do it, he would pay, gladly, a part of my taxes went as soon as you became prime minister, he went up to one of those.

Even the little suborbital jump go up and take a look and I think that would be a very good use of money, yeah, and then come back and you know you could get a ticket, it could be a million dollars. a brilliant use of a million pounds would be fantastic because they come back with the idea that they're not going to fly, it's not going to be a very popular suggestion that we pay the prime minister to go to space, but I think should the prospect For world leaders it wouldn't do us any harm? This is fast.

V, am I not sorry? Now it never works with me. that you would like yourself and the people around you to accept, then what one fan said, doubt is not something to fear, but it is welcome, humility in your life in general, but also in front of nature, actually , and be absolutely delighted when you find I realize you're wrong, those would be my three right ones, what advice would you give to a teenage Brian just starting out? um I don't wear that plaid suit when you're on top of the puppies for the first time because it's a great suit.

Come on, I guess maybe not, it might actually have been the 90s, right? Listen to what we just said. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You were wrong that day. Bri was right. Look how you've grown now. with a beautiful blue t-shirt, yes, it's actually tour merch, people are watching this on YouTube, they can see the tour merch. I didn't do it deliberately, actually, when you said it, I realized that I think he already did what I did. A lot of those free t-shirts probably aren't free because no, I have a PID for it, exactly someone paid for them.

Well, can I ask? I mean, it's like I know there's an element of humor in not wearing the plaid suit, but how do you do it? See, you're trying to make it sensible now, adding psychology to the plaid suit. No comment, but I'm interested when you look back at previous iterations of yourself, whether in music or your early days in television, how do you do it? See it, do you shudder? Do you watch it to see what you could learn? What would you do differently, no, you know, I don't think anyone can be even remotely happy, you know, if you look at where you have to go and say well, okay, then I don't think it's too complicated, right?

I don't think you can undo things. You don't know, I mean, yeah, so, I just don't think in those terms I don't think, I wish I hadn't done that, I mean, obviously there's always things and sometimes they can be serious things and we're like, I wish Haden was a mistake, but you know, you get to where they are and I think you have to accept the fact that your story is the story that you don't regret or anything, I mean, but you know you have to be careful with those things, I want say, I'm lucky. that I haven't done anything that I really really had to regret, you know, so someone's going to check my Twitter history on Twitter, what's your biggest weakness, what's your biggest strength, that's a good question, right?

I don't feel comfortable answering any of those questions because I haven't really thought about it, so what weakness do I mean? I probably mean I understand. I find it difficult to make decisions that everyone who works with me professionally, especially people on the more adamine kind of side of my world say God, can you make a decision? I tend to make especially difficult decisions. I tend to stay away, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to bother people, so you know. I don't want to disappoint people, so I have this tendency to go. I'm not going to do that, but I'll tell him tomorrow and force him.

I think you probably mentioned optimism, so I tend to be an optimist. that, that, there will be something interesting to do, yeah, you know, I will find interesting things, things that interest me, learning new learning curves, so I tend to be quite optimistic and, again, some people who know me say that. It's a flaw because it's probably over, maybe overly optimistic, but you know, I think it's a strength, that nice sense of possibility. What do you think people most commonly get wrong or misunderstand about you? It was funny that they asked me a government. The department asked me to come in and chat with them about something and I think they were hoping to have this nice guy from the Telly.

You're going. It's great. The stars are nice, aren't they? Robin in my friend. It's cool, yeah, look at that bright light in the sky, you know, that's it, that's me, right, they have a big bright smile and of course, you know I added something to them about, you know, higher education policy or whatever. that out and I had some they had some data that threw them off a little bit, you know, some data to look at this, look at this and it was about and in the and they didn't answer the question and they said I got this years later, actually someone told me said yes.

Word got out that you're intellectually aggressive, oh wow, right, so they didn't want me in the room, you know? So I think sometimes people think I'm very, very, very nice, I just sit there and watch. Look at this sky and think nice things, but of course you also know that I was trained, you know, as an academic, that's what I did in physics and, as we said before, it's a pretty brutal profession, you're trying to get it. down to the core of how nature works and so there's not a lot of room to just float around and be nice, you're trying to understand things so I think sometimes it takes people to come by if someone asks me in a private environment for example, to get some opinion on educational policy or whatever, sometimes it is necessary and I am surprised that it is not as fluffy and nice as they thought, don't believe it, I thought you are charming, we have a high-quality book club performance.

We have tens of thousands of members who love talking about books. What I mean is, obviously you can't mention yours because it's against the rules, but what would be the book you'd love to throw into the mix? for the high performance book club there is a book by there are a couple of books by a great physicist friend of mine named Sean Carrol that I really like about the origins of the meaning of life in the universe itself it's called The Big Picture by Sean Caroll and it's a really great walk through a lot of the things we've talked about today, so I think it's a really good book.

Lovely, he had another great book that's a little bit but it's also called something deeply hidden and it's one of my favorite quotes and I say I do it on my live show it's actually a quote from Einstein and Einstein said that if you really pay attention to nature and you pay attention and you move forward and you try to understand something and you keep pulling on the intellectual. thread everything that we have talked about today, if you do it and you are persistent and also lucky and fortunate, there is a chance that you can glimpse something deeply hidden that is the deep structure of nature, but it flies through all. all disciplines something deeply hidden that's what everyone looks for what's the best advice you've ever received and why I think it was probably during my time as an undergraduate and graduate student when it was saying no just keep doing Don't beat yourself up if you can't understand something , but don't stop, just keep going, go at your own pace, we've talked about this a few times, in fact, go at your own pace and trust that if you keep going, at some point.

He points out that you will understand and I think that is very good advice. I love it. And the final message for people who have listened to this conversation today, which has been fascinating, what would you love to leave ringing in their ears? We call it yours. Golden rule for a high performance life um, I think it's perseverance, I think G, given the luck that we've talked about, we talked about what, if you really want to be good at something, then be persistent, I love it, a lot thank you.