Professional Documents
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Interview
Interview
to campus outstanding speakers who will engage our students and our faculty
the larger community. So we welcome you all. We're really delighted that you've
Before we get going, uh, with our program tonight there are just a couple people that i want to
thank
for making it possible for us. Uh, first Amy South. Amy, where are you?
she is uh, ultimately, responsible for, uh, the entire event tonight
Good evening, and welcome. I'm delighted to welcome you to the Monclair Kimberly Academy
is free of charge
Please, there's to be no
electronic recording
audio or video
and we'd really like to focus on our very special guests this evening
Doctor Tyson
pronunciation
Stephen Colbert
comedian, author
as he, uh, as he stood just a few feet from the President of the United States
and I think it's fitting that Dr tyson is going to warmup the stage
for the two most famous star-crossed lovers in all of American literature
both of them
share
an over-arching purpose
human or heavenly
for evidence that makes sense of the world and the universe
Perhaps then,
point of view
i'm really sorry i had to get that bad cliche in there somewhere
and I say, not just for volume, but it's Neil DeGrasse Tyson
always interested in the next thing to learn (Oh yeah) and always rolled to whatever
Yeah that ... I missed that one Yeah you missed that news story
To go on his show
to mix with my science cause I don't know where he's gonna come at me
to hit it back
And on set with that one news story remember with that guy, was it south carolina guy
who remembers
He goes to Argentina and becomes well-known for having done so and you ask me straight-out
should scientists
Now, Neil, we've got a lot of talk about tonight (yeah) a lot of
I want to start off with .. with these chairs I feel myself sliding
No, no
That's gonna
are you Tweeting now, or are you actually trying to interview me?
from
is it better
to know
or not to know
i think
well I said "my" answer. Someone else might have a different answer
why?
because it empowers you
to react
that does not jive with how we think about the world
Yeah, well, you know people back then you know, they did stuff like that
so i think
I don't know if it still happens where a doctor would find out you had cancer, they wouldn't tell you
give it to me straight unless there was a day when they didn't give it to you straight?
If I have five years left I wanna know I have five years left
are they valuing ignorance? Yes, and.. but I will not pass judgment on them
of cosmic discovery
Hello .. hello
Hello?
So they won't be in control of the next.. they won't be participants in the next cosmic discovery
they're not in a position to enhance their life for having access to those
discoveries themselves
Can knowledge
i don't think so
Yes?
he said
and he said
If God didn't want this power to be there he shouldn't have put it in the atom in the first place
statement
And if you were around back then you'd be sitting in this chair saying
OK, I'll step back from don't make the sword how about
Yeah, that
so god does put things into atoms he doesn't want us to know about
Yeah, I ..
However, I think
Yes?
I want to blame
the behavior of people in the presence of the knowledge so maybe
do you think that scientists .. you can applaud him.. he's the hero
Well how about this: do you think that scientists should be allowed to do with anything
they can
you know, uh, people made fun of him for doing this but
Bush 2
Uhm, he said
"Boooo boooo"
Or should there be any limits like that? i think there's some creepy things about
yes okay
So i think
we as a society
as a .. as a
democracy
what we should do is
come to some
understanding of what the prevailing social mores are
and know science should not cross those barriers and not and by the way
Einstein among them for example he didn't want to make the bomb
after he first told Roosevelt he should make the bomb, he changed his mind
uh... in movies?
the terminator
scientist leads to the terminator or they create the super bug that wipes out
the world
So scientists don't
scientists
yes but somebody had to pay for the bomb and that was taxpayers
that is
that is
a discovery
would you agree that there's a .. there's a distrust of science on a certain level
in our country
science
because people don't understand how it does what it can do. And that .. that
and so
i remember back when they first split the atom you know "shouldn't split the atom" or
or shouldn't .. you hear this at every discovery that happens in science
there's a mystery to it
which is kind of a cute word when you think about but it makes food last longer and your
put this in your refrigerator but Nasa can make a slab of meat that will last thirty years
you know there's some rest.. it reminded some restaurants food reminds me of what
just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's bad for you
That's why we need a scientifically literate electorate so that when we go to the polls
and you can draw your own conclusions, rather than turning to a particular TV station
uh, laws of
So..
you'd say "Hey, give me one of those" I mean, that's how that would work
That's how.. that's how that plays out
is that the
complexity of evolution
is so grand
of how the incremental changes come and once something becomes so complex
can generate complexity given enough time and enough variation in environment
citizen of society
Truth is beauty
because everybody knows it, everybody knows it but also, everybody knows Coke, you know
You learn E=mc^2 before you even know what any of those symbols mean
"m" is "mass"
ignore that for the moment. The thrust of that equation is that
and back
would make's it extraordinary is that that hardly ever happens in our everyday lives
yet it's going on all the time in the rest of the universe
and so.. so
never happens (is not visible) it's not visible it's not happening in our lives
no, no
light coming from that bulb would all of a sudden pop into
a particle, and the particle would come by and it would pop back into light again
Would it hurt?
pi ...
3 point 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 ..
we got a few geeks over here looks like we got a geek thing going on over there
that's beautiful
Thinking of [???]
went unstable
on death
and people
as i've said many times and this goes back not only are we in the universe
the universe is in us
and it was ... i think it's the greatest gift that astrophysics gave culture
it was a research paper in 1957 and i say that because one of the
one of the most famous research papers that no one ever heard of
because it had 4 authors, not just one and it took a decade to figure out
about it
that's beautiful
sounds like you have written poetry about it
about something
the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted
and so
i think
bask in
the beauty of astrophysics or the gift that astrophysics gave us in the twentieth century
to astrophysics? Take us
before
as a city dweller
and
to.. each weekend we'd go to visit museums and other sort-of cultural things in the city
and I.. you sit in the chair, the lights dim, the stars come out
you know
i'll enjoy it while there, but they think there's that many stars up there
urban thought
i look up at the night sky from the finest mountaintops in the world
it's embarassing
it took two years for me to figure out you can do that as a career
astrophysicist
and my whole life aligned to that got a telescope, got a camera, photographed it
all my science fair projects .. one was getting the spectrum of the sun and analyzing
I ...
I was insulated from a lot of what might otherwise happen to nerd kids
they know
uhm
Is science
a thing
Is it a verb, or is it a noun?
It is .. both.
who do you want: the person who can figure stuff out that they've never seen before,
at the end of the day, I want the person that can figure stuff out.
exactly
like there's a coconut, and there's a thing and you have a ham radio
you hook the wires up to Gilligan's fillings and you listen to his ears
Totally Ginger
Ginger, completely
That was like .. she came around the wrong time in my life it was like
for sure
so it is a way ... it is ..
i think of science
enable it
you know, and you come upon something .. Are you a superhero?
Actually, when I was a kid, I wanted to be Mighty Mouse, when I was a kid
really?
because tools.. I'm picturing you in the singlet, with a utility belt
If you start wielding a hammer, then all your problems look like nails
"I have these two crystals if you rub them together you will get healthy"
So
because that's
"what kinds of ailments does it cure?" "How does it work?" "What does it cost?"
And you go through this whole ... and at the end the person's in tears
vaccine
against
Neil, if you don't like the crystals I gave you you can just say it.
and they're not working for you because you don't believe
or do you see the holes in science fiction and go "i can't enjoy that of course
he would know the effects of a neutron star! He doesn't know tidal forces?"
if the movie is
number one. Number two .. they gotta get some basic science right. after that, I'm OK
so for example in the latest star trek movie the had this like ..
this red
this liquid .. the red matter ... the red matter thank you
release the red matter, and you drop it into the core of a planet
Now what was a little weird was Why didn't it turn the ship into a black hole?
... over what held the black hole I didn't have an issue with that
they needed this drill, which is a very cool kinda .. that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen
i'd say
If that would turn a planet into a black hole, from its center
so, I'm OK
Hold me back
you might turn blue with rage go on.. so what was your problem with "Titantic"?
There's a colleague of mine who saw "Avatar" and he got home and he
he told his wife he wanted to paint her blue, and that didn't go over very well
So "Titantic", you may remember, was marketed as a film of "high accuracy" because
and the wall sconces and the china patterns and so they reproduced that
to detail
and so here they recreate the ship for the movie, can you double check that?
and she's delirious This isn't the scene where she's naked
Oh sorry.. go on
she's looking up
We know
Worse,
the left side of the sky was a mirror reflection of the right side of the sky
So halfway through they went, "Just flip it, just flip it"
No one'll know
no reply
you know the sky that .. is not the right.. what? what?
later on
you don't come into MY house and get the sky wrong!
my microphone working?
So,
he's in my house
and as a courtesy, they extended me an invitation to have dinner
So I said "yeah"
So I said "Jim, I don't know if you remember but I brought this up some time ago
and I wouldn't be so upset except that everything else you boasted was
so accurate
and look at the sky and know that you got the wrong sky
What gives?"
worldwide
imagine how much more it would have grossed had I gotten the sky right"
Oh
that ... if i had a tail, it would have been like between my legs, and I would've
No actually I did
forgot the guy's name he calls me up and said "Is this Dr. Tyson?" I said "yeah"
I work
in post-production
from the deck and he tells me you have a sky that he can use
Not bad (so) Not bad you got your taste, right?
Me too
if you're gonna claim it's right then I'm gonna hold you to it
(what is) you know what I don't like? I gotta.. you know what I don't like?
Alright
Leave me alone
Stay home!
i gotta go back maybe six months for that, eight months? may I?
Uhm, okay
Earlier, in .. 2009
we discovered
methane
on mars
Methane
if you have a gas stove and you live in the city, chances are it's methane
it's a flammable gas, you say "well so what? who cares?" except that
methane
is the byproduct
You can't say stuff like that I can't say stuff like that
"yeah there's life" and no one will come out and say it?
It means
while you can generate methane other ways
Such as?
it's .. there
methane (magic!)
so.. but
bacteria that
And you don't have oxygen deep in your intestinal tract, neither do any farm animals
and and if you're down under the.. Mars doesn't have oxygen, so
in aquifers beneath the martian soils Speak.. as I was saying before about
and there are things about our own identity that we take from the knowledge
And I .. instead of using the word "identity" I'd say: They have an impact on our ego
(yes) because the more we learn about the universe, the smaller we get
in time, and space, in size and so if you go .. except not the way you just described it
you're a supernova
unfolding cosmos
otherwise
and you say "I don't want to know that I live on a speck called Earth
recognizing that the human brain figured that out that's kinda cool
and celebrate
maybe not everyone of us figured.. it took a few key people like Newton and Einstein
but we learn what they taught us and each of them stands on the shoulders of giants
but celebrate
not fear it
to our identity
or our ego
It may
i think it would
bacteria
more bacteria
than the number of people who have ever been born in the history of the world?
for bacteria to lead their lives so from the point of view of a bacteria
and they don't believe there's bacteria in any of the other planets
that used to be, well, we're humans and we're on Earth and Earth is small
that'd be the last one and I don't know how we'd be able to handle that
do you think that there have been discoveries that have happened.. for instance
I have heard
discoveries that have changed our point of view about the universe that we are not aware of
that they've changed; in other words the change has been so gradual
in the 1920s,
in that decade
we discovered that
not only our galaxy, the milky way, is not the only
that recently
1920s ... Was it just the optics didn't exist for that?
that there were these spiral fuzzy things in the night sky
systems of stars
not only was that discovered in 1926 1929 he discovers that the
universe is expanding
which means
well there must have been a day when it was all together in the same place
okay so now
also in that decade
quantum
the space program ... without our understanding of the laws of physics as
and so
and that's there, why this mates with that and why that makes a molecule with that
you asked me if there is any discovery that has changed how we live
It is quantum mechanics
I'm ready to
today you hear people saying
and how that's going to transform your life later down the line
all they want is a quarterly report that shows the product that comes out of it
that is so shortsighted and that's the beginning of the end of your culture
So it's
Q and A?
Uh, let's start right here with just one please, sir.
okay uh...
that would swing by Earth in the year 2012 and tip us on our axis
and have it be the end of civilization as we know it. Is that right sir?
Yeah, yeah.
Pluto's relatives
Apophis
Apophis
it's not alone, among asteroids headed towards Earth except that this one
is headed, excuse me
that alone is not a problem. You cross the street all the time
so the issue is
are you crossing the street, when the truck is driving there at the same moment
Apophis when you ran the calculations showed that there was a chance of it hitting us
this is the size of the Rose Bowl and on April 13th, 2029
it'll come close enough to Earth to dip below our orbiting communications satellites
Do you think 2.5% is a big number, for that asteroid to come to Earth?
No, right now the best estimates are seven in a million that it will hit us
in 2036
the second one because the water splashing back into the cavity
goes high into the air, drops back down and sends another pulse
there will be multiple tsunamis, I was just on the Santa Monica beach
because it's
it's the bee-line right up from Santa Monica 600 km into the Pacific
five-story tall tsunami would take out the entire west coast of the United States
you know, we know people like this, right? you know, you see them!
OK, take him out too. we don't need either one of them.
Ah, yes.
Tonight there's a wolf moon can you explain what that means?
"What's a wolf moon?" OK, each full moon of the year has a name
that would be what you'd call it other full moon names you've heard of
because that moon actually never gets very high in the sky
and it's amber the entire time it takes on the color of honey
and it's call the honeymoon and you get married in june -- that's where we get the name
"honeymoon"
Yes sir
Uhm, the I think, yeah, in astronomy probably dark energy was sort of a real game changer
about 10 years ago, the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up
What is it?
he said ten years ago was like a game changer -- can I foresee any game changers
on the horizon?
we said, hey
there's this pressure operating against the action of gravity making the universe
will expand
restoring the state of mind of our universe that existed before 1920
that's a spooky time, we'll have to hand down the annals of cosmology
if we ... if dark energy, and dark matter, cause we don't know what's causing either one
that then we can exploit to our benefit in the same way our
[???]
That's not the word she said she didn't say that word
Excised from
we just grouped it with other icy bodies in the outer solar system
that doesn't work in science, you need a few things to make a category
well yeah. My very elegant mother just sat upon nine porcupines
Now she just sits upon nine it doesn't make any sense
If she's that elegant, she wouldn't have sat on a porcupine, I don't think
but, so once we found other icy bodies we .. what we did is group them together
we said
in fact, we think you're happier there cause now you're one of the biggest icy bodies
You sent Pluto to a farm upstate to run and chase rabbits, is what you did
is there a super-giant beyond pluto that that pulls comets in? is there
invention of this 2012 , the 2012 brown dwarf (the brown dwarf that you won't talk about)
There was a suggestion that there was a companion star to the sun
and so when you're not supported by data you discard the hypothesis
so won't Pluto one day disappear? no, Pluto's too far away from the sun
"what was the plan", did you say? "The point?" "what was the point?" he speaks in past tense
the point of the the Large Hadron Collider was to embarrass America
and almost
it's like one climbing the next mountain, crossing the next valley
so the large hadron collider the energy inside that particle accelerator
Higg's boson
that's a particle
proposed
it's like a
think of it like
molasses
endows them
it is granting them
we have yet to find this particle but if we do .. so mass is not explained presently
we get fat
and so we
let's say you build an equation this way you've got an equation over here, you've built it
and you've got another equation over here that works, it's another house
you invent something that fits into the shape between the two houses, right?
(yes) [??]
we propose something that connects one house to another .. if those two houses
themselves .. work
for example
for example
energy
there's this much energy here and then it's missing here
that escaped with the energy before you got a chance to measure it
E=mc^2
That would've endowded that particle with it's energy to do so.. the mass to do so
he hypothesized a particle
and it's gotta be pretty hard to detect because we surrounded this in lead
and it's gotta be little, cause there's not that much mass, and it has no charge
so it's neutral
at they have to coexist in the same universe there's something that's going to connect them
it's like
and they kinda smell like each other a little, maybe they're the same thing
you know this word, you just take it as a single word, but those used to be separate concepts
uhm
parallel universes are losing favor to the multiverse
expectations
premise
it's one of a hundred billion suns, the galaxy's special, no there's a hundred billion galaxies
or do we?
that you don't live in the majority [looking?] universe that's out there
in the middle of
Can a black hole be used to travel how about that, can we say that? No
Well I have to ask, did you want to land someplace else when you're done
can
E=mc^2
taking
from the
doesn't that fly in the face of.. how we think of a black hole
nothing can surpass the energy needed to go faster than the speed of light
quantum physics from the 1920s gets you out of that problem
so you birth these particles outside the thing now here's what happens
quantum physics
is kind of magic
one time it's a wave, the next time it's a particle, and it interacts with itself
as to what goes on there, you are prone to say: that doesn't make sense
if you let something go and it drops you say "that makes sense"
if you let something go and it goes up you say "that doesn't make sense"
so I submit to you
that if I take your body and dump it into a black hole, what Stephen Hawking showed
is that
all the particles that went into the black hole let's say
extracted out of the energy field of the black hole so it remembers who you
that's spooky to me
Isaac Newton
really smart
and
goes home for two months, comes back, here's why it's that shape
and said well how did you figure that out he said, well
most people
and then apply them to make incremental changes some people make huge changes
Isaac Newton once said, "if i can see farther than others
and i'm saying to myself that quote cannot have possibly have been honest
among midgets, that's why he could see farther than everybody else
I'm afraid we only have time for one more question, yes sir
I'd like to hear your opinions of where the policy needs to go to make a positive impact in that area
the question is
we were talking earlier about scientific literacy and our approach toward science
as a nation
and kids
the kid come into your kitchen and pulls out the pots and pans
and starts banging on them, what's the first thing you do as a parent?
okay
and every time the kid wants to do something provided it doesn't kill them
it's an experiment
you agreed to have a kid in the first place, fine, clean up after them
i don't want everybody to be a scientist that'd be a boring world. i want the poets
and i want
musicians
they start playing in the mud "don't do that in the mud I just cleaned those pants"
they start plucking the petals off the flowers you just bought
and you say "stop that I just paid $10 for the flowers"?
had you let that continue they'd find in the middle the stamen, and the pistil
if you think
and so
or
what it is to be smart
what is your lens on the world? how do you figure things out?
in this world. this is a famous school right here, I saw the banner in the opening
all right, but the whole world is not educated in this building
I've tried
you do a simple Google like "youtube and tyson" well, put "Neil" so you don't get "Mike", all right
but lawmakers
the powers of technology has enjoyed economic wealth the likes of which the
do you call out the marines, or do you get your best chemists
as the brain of the scientist who you could bring to bear on the problem
and so
infusion
the problem is, it's not going to boost the economy next quarter
it's got a time horizon longer than most people have the patience for, and most
on those investments
I don't want to have to have NASA going hat-in-hand trying to get money to stimulate
and that frontier now involves biologists in the search for life
chemists, in understanding the soils of Mars
uh, aerospace engineers. you know what I don't want to do, I don't want to
fifteen percent more fuel efficient than the one your father flew?"
and design an airfoil that will fly in the rarified atmosphere of Mars
I'm going to get the best students in the class and you know it
because that's an exciting project for smart people work on motivated people to work on
and when you have them, they invent stuff they discover things, they transform the
tell someone
how many times have you heard people say if you're not among us here
why are we spending money up there when we have the problems down here.
Have you ever asked how much money were spending up there?
I've asked people how much money do you think we're spending there
how much is it? ten percent? fifteen percent? those are the kinds of answers I get
you know how much is getting spent the rovers, the space station, the
the space shuttles, all the launch vehicles all the NASA centers, is 6-10ths
of one penny
if you need that money to solve these problems, you got some other problems going on OK?
so
the greatest
need
he hooked up to it
[now this guy?] you do this, and this happens. That's kinda cool
if you're nerdy .. to a nerd that's a cool thing right you do this and this happens
and it would take another sixty years before electricity would come to homes
Russia says
by the way, I said if that hits it's gonna hit the Pacific
which affects us
we're gonna start designing it now and we're gonna fund it. oh by the way
the United States is welcome to join us and people say oh that's nice
who are supposed to be starting missions and then advising other people to join us?
one of many
is fading
and the day will come, where the rest of the world just makes their own decisions
Neil
we already proved
so there's our fantasy: we don't do it in the real [world], we do it on the silver screen
instead of nothing?
just because
at all
I am well-rebuked
Neil deGrasse Tyson, it is an honor to have you here and an honor always to talk to you
Uhm, Dr. Tyson is going to be down here he will signing books until 9:30 so
if you'd like to come down and have then signed, feel free
For the rest of you, thank you all for coming and get home safe