known political, american political names going to tokyo. i.e., mike mansfield, walter mondale both lived in a beautiful ambassador residence in central tokyo. i know you lived there and worked there. not in the residence. quite a bit smaller where we lived. but you and your husband were both working journalists. the bureau chief for the new york times. and you know that going all the way back to mike mansfield and howard baker and vice president mondale, the japanese loved having ambassadors with big names. and there isn t a bigger name in politics other than obama and clinton and kennedy. and of course, you know, the white house is extremely grateful to caroline kennedy for her support of obama in 2008. her early support. it was a big moment. so it makes a certain amount of sense, although i don t know what caroline kennedy, what her background is in japan at this point. and is there going to be any
look like. that s what we re able to do here. larry larry: ben, how did this come about? how did you and stephen and john all get together and do this? well, discovery wanted to do a new and exciting show on cosmology. and so we sat around the table for a while and thought who best to do it. and there isn t a bigger name than stephen hawking. so it was a very simple, very, very short list of who we wanted to work with. and then we pitched it to him. and you may know that stephen takes quite a while to respond to questions. so we gave him our pitch, showed him the tape, and we had to wait a while. but thankfully the answer was yes, i d love to do it. so that s how it got going. larry: john, are you surprised at the reaction it has gotten around the world? no, i m not, because, you know, professor hawking is this distinguished academic, as we ve said. but also, he wants to bring science to a new generation, to
credentials to second guess professor hawking. i m prepared to believe him because he is such a great scientist. and what we said about aliens in that program was very much what stephen hawking wanted to say. for years he had been lecturing about about lots of things, including the possibilities of alien life. what we were able to do for the first time using the wonders of computer graphics was to visualize with professor hawking hypothetically what they might look like. that s what we re able to do here. larry: how did this come about? how did you and stephen and john all get together and do this? well, discovery wanted to do a new and exciting show on cosmology. and so we sat around the table for a while and thought who best to do it. and there isn t a bigger name than stephen hawking. so it was a very simple, very, very short list of who we wanted to work with. and then we pitched it to him. and you may know that stephen takes quite a while to respond
here. larry: how did this come about? how did you and stephen and john all get together and do this? well, discovery wanted to do a new and exciting show on cosmology. and so we sat around the table for a while and thought who best to do it. and there isn t a bigger name than stephen hawking. so it was a very simple, very, very short list of who we wanted to work with. and then we pitched it to him. and you may know that stephen takes quite a while to respond to questions. so we gave him our pitch, showed him the tape, and we had to wait a while. but thankfully the answer was yes, i d love to do it. so that s how it got going. larry: john, are you surprised at the reaction it has gotten around the world? no, i m not, because, you know, professor hawking is this distinguished academic, as we ve said. but also, he wants to bring science to a new generation, to
about aliens in that program was very much what steven hawking wanted to say. for years he had been lecturing about the about lots of things including the possibilities of alien life. what we are able to do, for the first time using the wonders of computer graphics, was to visualize with professor hawking hypothetically what they might look like. that s what we re able to do here. larry: ben, you did this come about? how did you and steven and john all get together and do this. well, discovery wanted to do a new siexciting show. we sat around the table a while and thought who best to do it? there isn t a bigger name than steven hawking. it was a very simple, short, short list for who we wanted to work with. then we pitched it to him, and you may know this even takes quite a while to respond to