Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150526

So the very ingredients that comprised life are traceable to stars. They gave their live lives billions of years before we arrived. Rose so we are starred in. We are not only figure difficultly but quite lit reallyly stardust. Rose Neil Degrasse tyson for the hour, next. F funding for charlie rose has been provided by additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from the wnet studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Neil Degrasse Tyson is here, many know him as the most powerful nerd in the universe. He calls himself simply a servant of science. He is the long time direct are of the hadeon planetarium in new york and also the host of a new talk show on the National Geographic channel called star talk, it combines science culture and comedy to help bring the universe down to earth. Im pleased to have Neil Degrasse tyson back at this table. Welcome. Thank you charlie. We go way back. My first time was like in the 90s. Rose we started in 1991. I feel like im in the family. Thank you. Rose so congratulations on star talk on television. Yeah we are all very happy about that. And were pretty sure we think its the First Time Ever there being a science talk show on television. Rose good for you. We think it is precedent. We didnt do it for that purpose, but it just turned out that way. Rose what i like about it in reading about it they came to you and wanted you to do a television show. You said why dont you just bring the little cameras into my radio show and that will be just fine. Exactly i said keep it simple. I dont want to do anything more. But there was some budget to do some set dressing and part of that is we film in the hall of the universe of the American Museum of natural. Rose cant get better than that. I get to announce that from the hall of the universe who knows where this is. From the room of dark curtains. Rose yeah thats right. You have come to the deep hole and im here in the deep hole. Youre down youre so but its still structured the same. And we have a comedian. I have a guest. Rose that would be you. I happen to think the universe is completely hilarious. But i have someone who thinks that way professionally. And the theres a main guest who is typically from pop culture. That is the real difference here between what you might otherwise expect for a science talk show. My guests are many. Same guests you see turning into late night talk show circuits but im asking them different questions. Im asking about them about their nerdhood, about their science teachers in their life that they liked or hated. Find out how science and technology has impacted their livelihood. Rose youre not looking for people of pop culture who happen it like science. Youre liking just simply for people who are interested in having a program. It matters that you have heard of them. Because then you will take an interest in them from the beginning. And then you learn these extra things about them. Like i said do they have a nerd underbelly that wouldnt reveal itself in anybody elses interview. Rose how do we define a nerd underbelly . Oh its if they want to break into a fight about which captain they preferred in star trek, okay. Or did you know did hans solo shoot first you know. Or did you know there are these nerd questions drawn from the nerdiverse, from the geekiverse and so i think there are many people who have hidden interests. Or maybe theres an ember that just needs to be fanned and then it will ignite and then youll see and feel and hear all of their interests that they express about science. Rose is it the fact that people are simply curious about things they dont know about, and curious about the future . We were kuns every one of us to a person was deeply curious about our environment as children. Scientists tend to not ever lose that, and they stay curious their whole lives. I think other people get it beaten out of them. They get it worn out of them. And so i am in search of that soul of curiosity that i think continues to lurk in all adults. Rose so what happened . Do we tamp it down do we in a sense what happens if you are in a class and you say oh lets what let me go to the window. No, sit down, its not time. Do your lesson. Rose they talk rather than engage. Exactly. And our School System tends to be reward people who obey people who do exactly what theyre told. People who hand things in on time. Those are the those are the honor the best students as we have come to define them. If the student who is distracted by the butterfly could be the next great naturalist but that doesnt get rewarded in school. Because you should be studiesing for this curriculum that weve established for you. So i think we should do it all but dont suppress. Yes, you need a curriculum yes, you need exams. But if you see energy in a student being expressed by questioning their environment that should be nurtured and not somehow declared that its out of line. Rose is that you as a kid. It was so me as a kid. No, i think teachers i had energy in the classroom, there was a sixth grade teacher who noticed that i had all this energy social energy bordering on disruptive. And i had an interest in the universe, all my book reports were on what the moon was like and mars and the Space Program. Rose even then. Yeah, starting at age nine but it didnt really gel until age 11 fifth or sixth grade. And then and then the teacher noted for me that the hadeon planetarium the local planetarium in new york, had classes on the universe. And i started taking these classes after hours. That can get you tired right. After school you go to do another thing. And that kind of tapped me down in the class. But now i had a whole new universe literal and figure difficult universe to devote my energies to. Rose when did you know that what you wanted to do was be an astrophysicist. At age nine a first visit to the planetarium. Rose did it for you . That put something in my veins. I dont know, to this day i still think it was the universe who called me and not i who called it. Rose really sm. And so i said wow this is and of course, growing up in the bronx there arent many stars visible anywhere in new york especially not the bronx at the time. And so the sky in the planetarium was magical to me. I didnt even think it was real. I thought it was a hoax. Ive seen the sky from the bronx. And this is not it. Therefore, it must be a hoax not knowing that, of course its portraying the real sky. By age 11 then i had the answer, that i had the answer to that annoying question that adults asked children. What do you want to be when you grow up. Rose and your question was. Astrophysicist and that kind of ended ended the conversation pretty quickly. But i have been on a mission ever since. Rose you have said before that when you go outside you always look up. Oh yeah yeah. Rose and too many of us dont do that. I did that even back when it was kind of dangerous to do that. Because prepooper scooper laws you have to rel look down every five seconds. So i would risk i would risk the incident just for looking up. And any time, especially at night but also in the daytime, i will look up to see what the moon is doing. Moon is up in the daytime as much as it is as night contrary to many people. Rose do we see it . Oh, yeah its harder to see it. It is visible but the sun is so some nant that the moon does not call attention to itself in the daytime as it does at night. You look for the moon what phase is it. At night i check for what planets are coming out. And the most beautiful time of night, you know photographically speaking is twilight. There is the guy twilight the curtain of twilight colors the sun just set the upon becomes more apparent. The first stars you see generally arent stars they are planets because they are brighter. And i always joke with people if you ever do starlight star bright make a wish on the star and your wishes dont come true because you have been wishing on planets. Rose you were off course from the beginning. So right now, in this season. Venus is quite striking over in the Western Skies after sunset. And when viewed from new york city its kind of over new jersey, and you would confuse it with planes coming in out of newark airport. So if your western horizon was near an airport you have surely seen venus and thought it was an airplane, that is how bright its light is reflected. Rose have you ever wanted to write a Science Fiction novel . Yes. However i dont have talent at writing. I wish i did. Im happy to. Rose would you have a story. Ive got a story. Its ready to go. Rose it just needs a good writer. Ive got a good story and coy advise on such a story. But in terms of Character Development and emotions, i dont have the experience writing certainly not writing it. And probably also not thinking it. Rose but you would know a story that would be compelling. I have one in mind right now. I am happy to tell it. Rose okay, tell me. Okay, so the world is at war. Okay . Rose you mean the world we know is at war. The world that we know is at war. And in some very disruptive way, not with large weapons but regional battles everywhere. And people are choosing sides. And then an asteroid is discovered. Rose tell us what an asteroid is. An asteroid craggy chunk of rock, in varying sizes there are countless tens of thousands of them probably hundreds of thousands of them. And they orbit between mars and jupiter most of them. Some of them have wayward orbits. They cross the orbit of the earth. Some, like in thousands of them. You do the math you learn that earth and these asteroids will collide with one another guaranteed eventually. So what we want to do is keep track of all the earth crossing objects. And monitor them. Ideally you want to like put lojack on them or something, where are you now at this time, 10 p. M. Do you know where your killer asteroid asteroid is. So once we do that we learn there is an asteroid that could render us all extinct. So at that moment everyone who sees other humans as their enemy then come together and see the asteroid as their common enemy. And the Technology Bits that have been developed all around these countries of the world, there is a bit in the future, so that formally developing countries are now technologically able and they have been developing their technology to fight wars, we find that we have to assemble pieces of all these technologies. Rose we develop a common front. Not only a common front but we need different pieces of technology for the deflection device that we put together. And we all and then we all sing kumba ay. Rose but you could make this so real that oh, yeah, heads of state come into play. The conflicts not only within countries but between countries. Run with that. Rose but go back to the science though you could make the science so this is real you could make this as a real possibility. Yes. So the science would be not only in the threat of the asteroid and finding it and searching it. The Space Mission to deflect it, the tools you would use to engage that deflection. If something doesnt exist you can go into the laboratory, see the pressure on them to invent something that will work. And you find out that i have a piece of this. But now i have to go to my enemy that inventedded some other piece that comes together to make the whole thing work. So it can be quite dramatic. And maybe we can have a little piece of the asteroid still hit earth. Because you have to flood a city or something otherwise hollywood doesnt buy it. You have to destroy some city. I remember in arm geto armageddon they managed to save earth but some hit earth. One decapitated the capitol building. They were aiming for major human mondayments around earth. Movps of earths surface is ocean. They will probably hit the social. And you can still get to destroy the city with a tsunami. Rose what was the last big one that came to earth. Two years ago february in russia. Two years ago one the size of this studio traveling 40,000 miles an hour, collided with earths atmosphere above the town of in the euro mountains of. Rose what would have happened if it hit the center of manhattan island. Well, so so that that happened to explode about 20 miles up okay 20, 25 miles up. And thats high enough so that that energy gets deposited into the atmosphere and dilutes before it reaches earths surface. But even so that was enough of a shockwave to shatter essentially every single window in the city while people were looking out their window to wonder what the light was that they had just seen. Light travels faster than sound. So they see this bright light, the light of the explosion, look out their window, the shockwave comes. Lacerated faces hands and skin. 1600 people were injured. That was a shot across our bow. The universe telling us asking us how is your Space Program coming. Rose so if that if that happened over manhattan it would have shattered manhattan you have a different problem when you shatter windows because then the windows fall. And they become these sabres sharp sabres descending to the street possibly hurting or killing people pedestrians. Rose so has the United States or any other country done a lot because they learned the lesson that happened with that asteroid two years ago. More people are talking about it. But that asteroid we didnt know it was coming until it was two late. You pite have three minutes of evacuation time of your city. That one was not large enough to catch it farraway. Rose and if we catch one far enough away, we shoot it down with something. No, thats the macho way. Are you a macho man. Shoot. Blow the sucker out of the sky. Rose i think theres with a movie like that. I think i heard of those movies. The kinder gentler way is to deflect it. Rose how do you deflect it . Well, there are some interesting plan tas are out there. They are all on paper. Nothing has been built. Nothing has been funded to make this happen. So one way to do it is you take your spaceship let me borrow your outliner. If that is the asteroid, you can bring your spaceship fearby and just park it there. And they will feel one another and want to drift towards one another because of their mutual gravity but you dont let that happen. You for a little ret ro rockets to prevented that and the act of doing so slowly tugs the asteroid out of harm away. You dont have to destroy it, just make sure on its route it doesnt hit earth any more. And it is there to hurt you another day but if you get good at this its just like shooting, you know, pool cues. You just knock them out of your way so that it doesnt. Rose so thats one of the theories. That is one way to do it. And you can monitor your progress. If we just go and blow this thing out of the sky you know, here in america were really good at blowing stuff up. And less good at knowing where the pieces will go when youre done. So its very messy to try to explode the asteroid. You dont know will it break into two pieces now you have to evacuate both coasts. You know its a challenge. So by the way this is exists and works on paper. The engineers have worked this out. But there is no plan in place. There is no sneerl collaboration in place to fund this. Suppose its headed for the indian ocean. Do you tell all the indian ocean countries oh you have to fend for yourself. If we have the most advanced Space Program at the time . So then should we pay for it. If you tax everyone like as part of their gdp the way the membership at the u. N. Is taxed. And then do you hand that money to the most abled country who can deflect it . And heres another one. Lets say its headed for the United States and we deflect it and the deflection fails and now its going to hit europe. How what do you do . This so all these problems. Rose we could put this in the movie too. Yeah, exactly. You are still thinking hollywood. Rose no. What are the most important questions unanswered for you . Thats a great question. And i have an unorthodox answer for you, okay. For me the greatest question and it will sound like a copout but its not. I really feel this and think this. For me the greatest Unanswered Questions are those questions we dont even yet know to ask. Because they only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. And so yeah i want to know what dark matter is. Its 85 of the gravity of the universe. We have no idea what is causing it. We shouldnt even we dont even have the right to call it dark matter because that implie its matter. Rose i thought there was we have top people working on this with top equipment. So i get that. But at this moment we dont know what it is. And it doesnt interact with. Rose whats the most likely answer . I have a preferred answer. Rose what is the preferred answer . Thats my preferred answer. Particle physicists they want to say it is particles. Because theyre particle physicists. Gods particle. Well the hicks bosan is very powerful if you want to be a particle, that is the one you be, you grant mass to other particles. I grant thee the mass that you will measure for it. So theres dark energy. The universe is accelerating in its expansion against the wiferns of graphity. We dont know what is causing that. We dont know how you went from organic molecules in early earth to animated life. That is a transition that is on the frontier. Rose say that again. How do you go from lifeless organic molecules. Rose which is chemistry. Chemistry, organic to selfreplicating life. Based on those organic molecules. Were not there yet. Rose we dont know that either. And we dont know if it was around before the big bang. So these are great questions. Rose are we working on it. We have top people working on it and i will put you on my speed dial if you want to know the latest. Rose okay, so what is dark matter. We dont know. Rose we dont know that. We should call it dark gravity. Rose thats one of the big questions. Yes it is. Rose and the other one daring energy, we dont know what that is, what was around before the big bang how did life get here from nonlife. Rose what was the big bang. The beginning of the universe. Rose i know that, but what was before if you turn the clock back what you will notice about the universe is that it was smaller and hotter for every day you turn the clock back. Rose smaller and hotter. And so you run the clock all the way back and you learn that the entire universe was in the same place at the same time. And at extremely high temperatures in the trillions, you know trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with. But the temperature was much hotter than that. And so when you have these temperatures you,ed thing sun table and it explodes so you have the birth of our universe. We dont foe what was around before this. Rose so the universe burst and then you have i am an astrophysicist, i care about the dna more than i care about how you got i know we have life and i got that. But all of those are very real questions that exist with us today. And answers to those you just start dishing out the nobel prizes. Rose if you can answer those. If you can answer those. But i want to know. Rose youre on the stage if you can answer those. I want to know what questions were not even intellectually mature enough to ask yet. Because they will reveal themselves after we answer these questions we just put on the table. Rose but has a new question revealed itself in the last 15 years . Oh, yeah yeah. Dark energy was discovered in 1998. 17 years ago. But its still a big mystery. Rose who discovered it . Two teams. Theyre measuring supernova exploding stars out to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. And supernova what is interesting, a particular species of supernova, they are like a standard candle like a yardstick in measuring time and distance in the universe. And so you can theyre very potent in your ability to measure the expansion rate of the universe and the size of the universe. And two teams won in california and one in on both coasts were working on the same problem and arrived at the same answer and they shared the nobel prize for that just recently. Rose do you everybody this is a simple question that you have asked. I assume its the most frequently asked question. Are we alone. Yeah, i would sayn airplane. Rose thats what they want to know. Once they learn that i do astrophysicist. They kind of recognize me now. But in the prerecognition days. Rose how do they get to the question sms. I think i think some people still look up. And you cant help but wonder all these stars. We know enough to know that they are stars just like the sun. And they have seen the newspaper headlines there are planets orbiting the stars. If there are planets how could you not wonder if there is life. And if there is life is it intelligent life and if it is intelligent life, could they be smarter than us. Should we be scared of them or should we you know there is a whole. Rose what is your best guess. My best guess is the university is teaming with life. Rose the universities. And our galaxy in particular. Our galaxy is sort of proxy for other galaxies is teaming with life but that complex life might be much rarer. Rose why is that . Well i if you here is the argument. You have the time line of earth the earth is born and this is today. That is 4. 5 billion years. Now put this planet out there and some planets are born yesterday, some are born at the beginning of the universe you dont know when in the time line of a planet you are going to land there. So here is earth throw a dart at the time line. Most of the time the darkity dart hits earth there is only single celled life. Rose wow. And so if we are randomly coming upon planets and earth is any measure of thing. Rose single sell like an amoeba. Yeah, yeah. We spent 3. 5 billion years as single celled life on earth. And then we have something called the cambrean explosion of life where the at chemistry of the at ms. Fear changed there is oxygen oxygen is like rocket fuel for complex life. And life now has the Carte Blanche to become complex because the system can support it. And now you get limbs and detectors like eyes and sensers. And it is a Stunning Development in the fossil record of life on earth. And so then you will have complex life. Now ask so that is a smaller piece of the total time line. Now you ask how often when you throw the dart will you find intelligent life. Well thats the last thats this little bit. That we define as intelligent. And so if earth is any measure of anything throwing darts at planets that we might land on who is to say that were going to land right at that moment where what we call intelligence has a risen. Maybe that planet has conditions that are especially ripe for complex life and they start complex life early. If they did then they would have billions of years to develop intelligent life. And if thats the case it is quite clear to me that if they observed us landed here and looked around it would be clear to them that there is no sign of intelligent life on earth. Im just saying. Rose you mean they would land and look around. And say nope. Rose this is not what we would define as intelligent life. Not what we are looking for. We dont want to mate with these people no. Rose they may be people but theyre not intelligent. Exactly. Yup, yup. Rose what is on mars . Rover is on mars. Im happy to report. Working the curiosity rover is the size of an suv. Rose is it still projecting. Yeah, yeah. Rose so whats up there . Well mars is. Rose water. War, the martial surface has rampant evidence of there once having been running water. Rose so that says something. Yes, yes. And so what i mean by evidence, i mean really awesome evidence like the river beds that meet dried meandering river beds. The thing if you fly over the midwest and you look at the things that floodwaters have done and long time rivers have done cut into the landscape the grand canyon kind of things you see all of these telltale features on mars. Rose when do we see them. Any time we take a photograph of its surface. Rose we could have known that without going there. No the resolution is very hard to pick up. You want to get close. And then you can see ridges and valleys and mountains. Rose that tells you water was there. Yes, or a liquid. Were pretty sure it was water, but its certainly a liquid. And, by the way to meander a river, that means the river was there for some time, right. You dont meander overnight. Rose okay. Its a very slow thing that rivers do. Not only that, there are are dried lake beds where you see salt deposits at the bottom. And how do you get salt deposits you get that from standing water that had minerals deposited in it. The water evaporates concentrating the mineral deposits. And when there is no water left you have got a salt lake. You fly over utah that is what Salt Lake City is sitting next to. Rose should we go to mars. Yeah, why not. Rose its feesable and doable . Yeah the only chall people say oh, the radiation that we have we have clever engineers i have no doubt that theyll figure out all the technological problems. Its money its just money. Rose is it really . Oh, yeah, its only ever money. Only ever money at all times. Rose are you supremely disappointed that we dont do more in space . Im the the curiosity part of me is disappointed but the politically astute side of me fully understands why thats the case. We went to the moon because. Rose we have other priorities. No, no, we always have had other priorities so thats a false excuse. When we went to the moon we had plenty of other priorities theres with a civil rights movement. There was the hot war in southeast asia. The cold war with the soviet union. Campus unrest. Rose we did it because we were at war with the that was an act of war essentially, without the weapons an if we were not at war, the motivation to go to the moon, we would tell ourselves, oh we went to the moon because were americans. Were explorers and its in our dna, okay. That that might all be true but the people who write the checks dont give a rats about any of this lot ofy speak. Its is your security at risk. We will spend any amount of money to protect that. And thats when money flows like rivers and we went to the moon in that climate in that climate. Rose but should we create that urgency again for Something Like going to the moon . You know what i joke about . Rose no. I say let me go visit china. And whisper to the head of china, psst, can you leak a memo that says you want to put military bases on mars . Shhh dont tell anybody. That memo shows up at the pentagon. We will be on mars in ten months. Im sure. One month to design build and fund a spacecraft and nine months to get there. Well have astronauts that is how motivated i think we would be because that is how motivated we were back in the 1960s. Now i dont want to go to mars for military reasons. I think theres a strong economic reason one can make for it. Its a little more subtle and i think it takes slightly longer than the proverbial elevator ride that you have to save up for your member of congress. This takes maybe twice as belong as long as an elevator ride. And im thinking, i voted for my representation in congress. I want them to listen to me for longer than an elevator ride. And so its simple. You have if you are going into space in a big way visiting asteroids mining asteroids, to the moon science on mars. You are doing all of these activities. There might be military activities all of this, to accomplish this will require advancing a space frontier. You will be inventing innovating patents will be granted. And youll have these discovers weekly if not daley in your newspapers. And that that infuses a culture of inquiry a culture of exploration, a culture of innovation. When you come from a culture of innovation stuff gets solved when you encounter problems because your whole mindset is different. Rose do you believe we have lost the culture of innovation. Yes, it has been gone since we stopped going to the moon. It has been gone since the 80s. Rose what have we done in silicon valley. Yes, that say great culture of innovation but i was misrepresented in some headlines when i said i gave a talk and at the end of the talk in response to a question someone say was i do think of it. I say well the world has problems that are bigger than can be solved just waiting for your next app. We have problems in transportation. Housing. Poverty disease energy climate. And so these are huge problems. And if we all sit down and play with our apps theyre not going to get solved. That is what i said. The headline went tyson attacks entrepreneurs saying that they are like cavemen. Rose so what did you mean . No, no. Rose what did you mean . What i mean is to bask in the pleasures of your next app will hide from you the fact that there are larger problems that need to be solved. Rose but are you simply saying attention on the next app ought to be something that could influence Climate Change and not something that could get you a car faster sm. Yeah, i dont know how an app can help fix the climate just yet. If there is one i want to know about it. I dont know how an app can get rid of poverty. Rose in terms of conservation some things. Rose poverty could develop an economic model. Sure. Sure. But okay. Okay. But an app doesnt build bridges and doesnt build tunnels. And transportation systems. Rose so which raises the question of all these people like jeff bezos and elian musk and Richard Branson who wants to create some kind of vehicle to send to space. Okay, dont laugh with me. No, no, no im with you. Somebody has got to do that. Whether or not they will succeed, you want somebody there. And they affect how other people think. Ive had students in my class, in classes i have spoken to say one day i want to work for space x. And theyre not saying i want to work on wall street and get rich. They say i want to work. The smartest kids in the class. I want to be exploring. I want to invent a new car. I want to invent a new transportation system. I want to invent the next rocket that is the influence that im telling you infusions into a culture when you go into space in a big way. The space is the carrot and Everything Else comes in after that. Rose is that part of your mission somehow to i dont have a mission. I would rather just stay home. Rose when you get up in the morning. When i get up in the morning, i hope the phone doesnt ring. I want to stay home. Rose why are you going to work. I want to play with my kids, have a plate date with my wive that is all i want to do. And then i will go to my lab. Rose are you serious, comes on. But what happens in there i will till tell you what happen something i get a phone call because something spliferjtsed in the universe and they want a sound bite for the evening news or a documentary has an idea that wants to explore storytelling and i get the phone call. I serve those interests. Im a servant for the public app tied appetite for the universe. I dont go doortodoor. You dont see me marching with pla cards. I will never tell someone who to vote for. Its not what i do. Im an educator. Rose so when they came to you to do kos moss 2. Yes. Rose whatever we call it. Yes. Rose first was carl sagan a mentor of yours. People that that is the easy way out for people to mention the relationship. We met a few times. But my first time meeting him was quite influential on me. Note i was in high school. He was a professor at cornell. Rose was he a Television Star at that time. Yes he was. He hadnt done kos moss but he was already multiably guested on Johnny Carson for the tonight show. And he published best selling books. So i already knew he was famous and there he was making time for me, a 17yearold kid. He was showing me his lab in cornell. Trying to attract me to attend cornell for college. I was a sen your senior in high school, attending the bronx school of science at the time. He reached back didnt even look grabbed a book and signed it. And i said wow thats really cool. He didnt even look and thats with a book that he wrote. I thought that was he didnt even look. Whatever he picked that was a book that he wrote. So i still have that book and its sciened to future astronomer. Rose that was the extent of it. And i met him a few more times after that. But that was indelible. You know people sometimes think that big things are what is big. But almost i think more often in life they are Little Things that are big. I was a little part of his day. But he was a big part of my life. The little thing was big. Rose roll tape, here it is. There are two types of things, one is what i just talked about that we have arranged the society based on science and technology. Which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this come bustable mixture of ignorance and power sooner or late certificate going to blow up in our faces. I mean who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people dont know anything about it. And the second reason that i am worried about this, is that science is more than a body of knowledge. Its a way of thinking. A way of interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us that something is true to be skeptical of those in authority, then were up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes amabling along. Its a thing that jefferson laid great stress on. It wasnt enough he said to enshrine some rights in a constitution, a bill of rights. The people had to be ed cated and they had to practice their skepticism in their education otherwise we dont run the government, the government runs us. Charlie, was that the same table . Same glasses . Rose same me. Thats kind of spooky seeing him, he is as alive now as he was back then. Rose but that was a famous interview i did which he talked about dying. Yes, that would have been 95 or 896ee. He didnt live much longer than that. Rose that was 1996. He died that year. Rose the year he died. So he said its better than any of us connecting science literacy with what it is to have an informed democracy. If you want to take control of your fate you cant do it if you are misinformed or underinformed about what actually matters. And in this the 21st century, its going to matter. Rose im concerned about this. Im concerned about the things you talked about. You just got another award for your service to science in terms of raising the necessity of paying attention to science and popularizing science and making us understand the importance of training new science, all of that. There is a Public Welfare medal national academy. Rose i worry that we are are we losing not our sort of Competitive Edge but are we losing the race to develop the brightest minds in sufficient quantities that we serve science as well as other people may come to serve science. Yeah, i think a lot of focus tends to be on who the brightest students, can we get them interested in science and can they invent something to save the world. I think that there will always be the smartest kids in the class. There will always be that. So im not really worried about them. Im worried about the rest of everyone else who is given the freedom to say to themselves and to others i was never good at math. Ha ha ha. Or science thats not for me im into this other stuff. And somehow be okay with that. Suppose i said to any other person, you know i dont read cuz i was never good at knowns and verbs. I stick with science. You would laugh me out of the room. These are fundamental parts of civilization. The arts and the sciences. Have defined civilization ever since theres been civilization. To separate yourself from one or the other and claim to be informed as the good doctor sagan said that is a combustable mixture especially if that kind of ignorance is in is wielded by people in power. So for me its sufficient to say let us spread an appreciation of science to everyone. You dont have to be scientists but understand what it is,. Rose is it more likely to support it . Sure but its not support it like its a thing and. Rose but it is its clear what you are supporting. You are supporting the idea that science is important and youre creating a culture that respects it and therefore wants to enhance it. Couldnt have said it better myself. So if the people understand what science is and how it works and why it works then you can vote intelligently on issues that involve scientific principleses and issues. And you can know who is not telling the truth and who is you can analyze it. Rose the question is do we have too many skan tific deniers in our country or do we give too much prominence to those that want to look the other way in science. There are some of those. And dare i implication implicate some elements of journalism in this, because theres your journalisticketteos not to tell you what youretteos is as i understand it and its been told to me, the journalists obligation when writing a story is to give equal column space to all sides. Or have to one of each side. And if someone says the earth is round and someone says the earth is flat, at some point youre going to make a judgement, the earth is flat, people is just flat out wrong. I will not be giving them the attention. Were wasting time and im not doing a service to in my role as informing the public. And so i think journalists are really smart people. And theyre highly educated and theyre curious. They have the curiosity that kids have that they still have as adults. That the others kind of branch of curiosity manifested in society. Scientists and journalists. And thats a great thing to have. But at some pint invest your brain energy to recognize when something is fringe. And report it that way. And so when you do that people then are properly informed about what is and is not true what is an emerge ent truth. What say truth in doubt what say truth what is something that has been refuted. Be responsible on that frontier. And i think that will help. That will help my job certainly. Rose i am sorry to have to tell you this. But you are a journalist. You are a journalist. You dont have to to apologize. I host a talk show so i cant say im not a journalist. Rose well, not only that. Not only that. But youre in pursuit of questions. Yes. Rose which is what journalism is about too. Im just saying you i thought you would have a disparaging sense of journalism and so therefore since i was characterizing you as a journalist you might be offended. No, no not in the least. We need all the journalists i think we can get. I attended for my very first time the white house Correspondents Dinner where its like teaming with journalists, you know. Thats fun. Its a zoo for sure. So yeah so i agree that im a journalist as are scientist was ask questions. The only part of the question we dont ask is the who. The who what when, where why. Were good at the what when, where, why how but the who who moved the black hole, there is not an answer to that who. Rose do we know what is at the bottom of the black local . No. In fact. If you sake einsteins equation. Rose do a primer on this everybody has heard this by has no idea what the black hole is. Sure, sure its a region of space where matter has collapsed to such density that the gravity cuz as matter collapses and gets denser and denser and as its surface gravity gets higher and higher so if are you standing there you weigh more and more and more. It will be harder for you to escape. At some point this collection of this blob of matter has condensed so significantly that for you to escape you would have to travel faster than the speed of light. And so which means light cant escape. Well if light cant escape youre not getting out of this place. So its not only dark its a hole. Its a hole in every direction you fall in. A three dimensional hole. Its a black hole. And in my field were into one syllable visions black hole that is what it is. Rose how long have we known about the black hole. Einstein could have predicted their existence with his own occasions but he didnt interestingly enough. Rose why because he wasnt interested in them . No, no no. To quote Stephen Hawking because i asked him directly over dinner you know, why didnt isaac newton make certain discoveries with his own mathematics. His own he case that he invented. And his response was you know einstein didnt come up with black hole. You cant think of everything. That was. Rose what else did you talk about at dinner with Stephen Hawking. The conversation is slow of course. Rose it is. I have talked with him as well. And you have so many questions. That is if you are scheduling an interview. This is just ban ter. Rose just with banter how does he do it. Im going to tell you. So he will the conversation is going. And you might even send something his way but then you just keep your own conversation with others. And then later on that answer comes out. And then you rejoin the conversation where he kicked in. Thats how that unfolded. Rose what dazzles you about him . The sheer triumph of his life or the quality of his mind. I would say all of the above. And im delighted that the public got a glimpse into his life. Rose theory of everything. In the theory of everything. I got to see a prescreening of it. And it was clear to me that if there were going to be an Academy Award for best acker it is going to go to that fellow his name. Rose eddie redmayne. Yeah. It was clear to me even though that was kind of an endie dz. Rose he captured him. He became Stephen Hawking at that point the actor has transsended acting. There is Something Else going on. And so i am delighted that the public got a glimpse of this. And i think what it says is and i cant speak for disabled people cuz i have never been disabled in any way that matters in this world, but when you see someone with that level of disability meaningfully contribute to the world and be held up as one of the greatest minds there ever was if i needed hope thats a place i would mine that for hope of what i could do and what i could be if i were disabled at least physically disabled. The mind is still there and as an academic, i value with what you can do with your mind. So yeah i mean if anything it gives you hope for what our species is capable of. Rose explain to me time travel. Well, its been suggested that there might be some law of physics we have yet to discover that will prevent you from going backwards in time. Because think about it. Rose its been said. Maybe there is a law of physics we have yet to discover that will declare without hesitation that thou shallant not go backwards in time. Because if you do and you prevent your parents from meeting one another unlike the terminator series where you have to kill people so that they dont mate all you have to do is prevent them from meeting or prevent them from having sex thats really all you have to do. Rose . And then whoever started the revolution, is not there. Have the people have sex ten minutes later than you would have, you give birth to a different person than who would have lead the revolution because it wouldnt have been the gorefest that it turned out to be. If you prevent your parents from meeting one another would you have never been born to have then lived to go back in time to prevent your parents from meeting one another. So you have this paradox. Its a causality paradox. And so but that being said we have no shortage of interesting ways to go forward in time. And we can speed you up send you on a spaceship, you go very fast. Your time ticks more slowly not just your clock. And then the electronics in your digital watch i see you have but your physiology, everything about you will tick more slowly. You will age more slowly than your twin here on earth. You come back, youll be younger than your twin so you have effectively gone into the future that is one way to do it. You can also do it by in gravitational fields, you can as they portrayed this in the film interstellar very strong gravitational fields also have an effect on what rate your time ticks. And we can measure this by the way. The gps satellites that are farther away if earths center than we are their time ticks at a different rate than our did. Their time ticks more clocks on gps tick faster than clocks on earth. But they send you the correct time. How do they do that . Knew in advance about einsteins relativity. Rose we knew . The gps satellites are precorrected for this time change by the formulation of einsteins general theory of relativity. And now it can send the direct time down to us. Otherwise the times would separate from one another and you couldnt use gps satellite to tell you anything about where you are on earths surface. So this is real. Its physics. It works. Its not something that we cheree pick by people who have political philosophyes that differ from the truth. Rose exactly. And tell me finally about this thing about dust. You know you remember you told me on the 60 minutes profile about dust and the chemistry. By the way not everyone comes out of 60 minutes profiles better than when they went in. One never knows about those. But thanks for your interest. Rose depends on whose hand you are in. Thanks for your interest in my life and work. Rose i was saying in this, it was dust to dust. It is a composition of the earth and the dust and what is within the human body. Oh, oh okay. Rose i just need to understand. You want to get a piece of that, okay, all right. Rose the kiam of basic fundamental things that are the essence of science and your work. I think the sing single greatest gift that astrophysicists that astrophysics have brought to civilization is the discovery back in 1957 by four authors no movies are made about them because its four of them not just one. And our romantics we romant size the lone researcher burning the midnight oil. This is four scientists working for a decade to get this result. They realized that the elements on the periodic table that we might remember from chemistry class owe their origin to thermonuclear fusion in the cores of stars. Fusion, light elements under high temperatures coming together to make heavy elements. If they only stayed in stars that would not be interesting. But these particular stars also happen to explode and scatter this enrichment across the galaxy. And this enrichment carbon nitrogen, oxygen silicon, all of these elements skalter into gas clouds. That then collapse and form next generation star systems. One of which was ours. So the very ingredients that comprise life are traceable to stars. They gave their lives billions of years before we arrived. Rose so we are stars . So we are not only figurively but quite literally stardust. Rose i like that. Finally this. The notion of you you dont have a mission. Not really, no. Im a servant like i said. Rose youve a servant. Thats how i think of myself. Rose but do you have things you want to accomplish beyond being at the end of a phone where somebody has to ask a question and you are going to give credibility to whatever their project is by giving them a direction. Just a quick bit. People had seen me on tv in so many ways shapes and sideses. Someone once came up to me and said who is your agent without et gos you on tv. I said my agent must be the universe because there is no human being there thats doing it. I would say my one of my favorite quotes i dont remember if i told this to you in the 60 mintion piece. One of my favorite quotes was out ired by horas mann the educator who said be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity. And i i want that on my epitaph. I will be buried and want that on my tome stom stoem. Rose be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity. That could be on any level, raising kids that are responsible. That is a very broadly defined victory. And so i think im not the first to say this. At least leave the world a little better off for you having lived in it. Just why not. Just its like clean up your mess and after you have cleaned up the room that you just lived in, maybe leave a flower behind. Something where people can come in and say this is this is a slightly better place. And then we could all celebrate each of our existence in this world and not lament it or regret it or there is so much in the world that regresses civilization. Its sad. I wonder how far we would be were it not for such forces that operate in this world. Rose thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Rose Neil Degrasse tyson for the hour. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Gene rodenberry really deserves and should be up there. Because star trek was more than just he felt that television you know it certainly needs to be entertaining. But it also needs to inform and inspire. Did you know this at the time . At the time are you just doing television or are you saying to yourself this [bleep] going down here. This is whoa. Because the show did get cancelled, right. Right. But i knew that it was a. Rose the kardashians went longer than the original star trek. But on star trek we had the kardashians. Rose thats right. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us yen line at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose on the next charlry rose we consider the brain and the biology of parenting. 10 to 20 of women come down with post partum depression it is as you mentioned also occurs in men and david is a person that suffered from his. It is 5 to 10 of men. These feelings are not theyre not actions i shouldnt feel bad that i felt this way. I just have to see them for what they were. Funding for charlie rose has been provided by additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. This is nightly business with tyler mathise good evening, everyone and welcome to a special memorial day edition of nightly business here. And im Tyler Mathisen welcome. Memorial day, the day we honor the men and women who serve this country, also the unofficial start to summer a time when you plan the get away secure that summer job, enjoy a movie, maybe have a barbecue. Whatever your plans are, you can bet on spending some money. And tonight we take a look at some of the things that impact the economy and. But we begin with the markets, with stocks sitting at or near alltime highs, its a good time to examine the factors that could fuel or derail the rally. Dominic chu takes a look at whether the bears