[00:00] Brian Cox, welcome.
[00:02] >> Thank you.
[00:03] >> It's particularly nice to have you in
[00:04] the studio, not down the line somewhere.
[00:06] Yeah. In a hotel room. Um, I just wanted
[00:09] to start by talking about your uh
[00:11] Australia and its skies because you're
[00:13] here. Why is Australia a great place for
[00:15] stargazers?
[00:17] >> Well, part of it is the geometry of the
[00:19] solar system. So, the southern
[00:20] hemisphere points towards the galactic
[00:22] center. So, the Milky Way is far richer.
[00:25] If you come from the north, you're
[00:26] dazzled by the Milky Way here because
[00:29] Australia points towards the galactic
[00:31] center. And you also have the two
[00:33] satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, the
[00:35] Melanic clouds, which um just dominate
[00:38] the sky, beautiful things which you
[00:39] can't see from the north. So in the
[00:41] north, we're pointing outwards to the
[00:43] outer sort of backwaters of our galaxy.
[00:45] So you're very lucky here. So for
[00:48] someone who's never gone out and looked
[00:50] at the stars with any particular focus,
[00:55] what is it that looking at the stars,
[00:57] what does it do to you, to your mind?
[00:59] >> Oh, it's it's it's always been um it's
[01:02] the thing that got me into science in
[01:04] the first place. Um so for some reason
[01:06] when I was very young and I don't know
[01:08] why I became fascinated by these points
[01:11] of light in the sky and it's an example
[01:13] of something that's common I think
[01:14] throughout science which is the more you
[01:16] know the more magical it becomes. So for
[01:19] example now we know that I would say
[01:22] pretty much every star you see in the
[01:24] night sky has planets which we we now we
[01:26] didn't know that when I was growing up
[01:28] in the 1970s but we know it now. So you
[01:31] your imagination can begin to wander
[01:32] that they're all solar systems. Every
[01:35] single one of them is a solar system.
[01:36] Then you start thinking well you know
[01:38] are the planets with oceans on them and
[01:40] if there's oceans on the planets is
[01:42] there life out there beyond beyond our
[01:44] solar system beyond the earth and so on.
[01:46] So I think it's um it's a it's a science
[01:49] that you can do from your back garden as
[01:51] you said and it's a science that allows
[01:54] your imagination to wander.
[01:56] >> So is that what it does? We understand a
[01:58] little of what it did to you to put you
[02:00] on the journey that you're on, but for
[02:02] someone doing it for the first time, how
[02:04] much does it change you to have that
[02:07] sense of wonder in the sky?
[02:09] >> I think it's it's a good question. I
[02:11] think astronomy has always been in part
[02:14] about our place in initially with our
[02:17] place in creation. My my show starts
[02:20] actually in around 1600 people like
[02:22] Galileo and Kepler laying the
[02:24] foundations of the modern science modern
[02:26] science at the time cosmology was
[02:29] Aristotle's cosmology that so the earth
[02:31] is motionless at the center of a finite
[02:34] universe nothing changes beyond the
[02:36] orbit of the moon and this is 1600 and
[02:40] within a few decades we have Newton's
[02:42] law of universal gravitation and within
[02:44] a few centuries we've discovered that
[02:46] there are two trillion galaxies in the
[02:49] observable universe
[02:51] the universe 13.8 8 billion years since
[02:53] the big bang. That raises questions
[02:56] though to your to your question because
[02:58] obviously then you immediately say what
[03:00] is our place and I think astronomy and
[03:03] cosmology are the two sciences that
[03:05] really force you to ask that question.
[03:08] What is the value of of of our
[03:10] civilization? What is our place in that
[03:12] vast universe? So what happens to that
[03:14] question if you say that's 400 years
[03:16] that we got from Galileo and his
[03:18] telescope
[03:20] to now to conceiving of the possibility
[03:23] of of humans living on the moon even the
[03:27] remoter notion of a colony on Mars if we
[03:31] survive what's another 400 years going
[03:33] to bring us
[03:35] >> you know that that's also a very great
[03:37] question because it it feeds so I would
[03:40] say it will take us to the stars if we
[03:42] carry on at this rate of progress just a
[03:45] few centuries. We've already got two
[03:47] spacecraft now in interstellar space
[03:50] that we are communicating with primarily
[03:52] actually through the deep space network
[03:53] in Canberra. So that's pointing towards
[03:55] those telescopes that those um
[03:57] spacecraft. So in in 400 years of modern
[04:00] science, we've gone beyond our solar
[04:02] system. So you're right, we should be
[04:04] voyaging to the stars in the next few
[04:05] centuries if we survive. does raise an
[04:08] interesting question that actually which
[04:09] is why does nobody else appear to have
[04:11] done that which is sometimes called the
[04:13] Fermy paradox which I do discuss in the
[04:16] show. It's one of the I I I think it's
[04:18] one of the most puzzling observations we
[04:20] have made that as far as we can tell
[04:23] there isn't anybody else out there.
[04:25] >> I I noticed that you said a friend of
[04:27] yours, a biologist I think said don't
[04:30] worry about it. It's just if there's
[04:31] anything out there it's slime. Could he
[04:34] could he be wrong?
[04:36] Absolutely. I mean it could, you know,
[04:38] we we systematically look for signs of
[04:41] other civilizations. It's called SETI
[04:43] and it's we use radio telescopes like
[04:45] the parks telescope here in Australia
[04:47] and we we listen and we look for
[04:49] signals. So the reason we do that is
[04:51] because we would not be surprised if we
[04:53] saw something tomorrow. But it's
[04:55] actually you said don't wor it's
[04:57] interesting you said don't worry it's
[04:58] all slime. I would worry if if
[05:00] everything
[05:01] >> if we are alone. Well, yeah, because
[05:03] then in in some sense I would say that
[05:06] we have the responsibility to um allow
[05:10] meaning to persist in a galaxy of 400
[05:13] billion suns. We're the only intelligent
[05:15] civilization of weight on our shoulders.
[05:17] >> Yes, indeed. So, I actually personally
[05:20] would perhaps be more relaxed about
[05:22] events here on Earth if there was
[05:24] somebody else carrying the torch as
[05:26] well.
[05:27] >> The the show that you're doing here is
[05:29] called Emergence. What is the emergence
[05:32] of the title?
[05:34] >> It starts with a story of Johannes
[05:36] Kepler. So the idea that planets move in
[05:38] ellipses around the sun. This is Kepler.
[05:41] But um in 1610 he wrote a book called
[05:44] the six cornered snowflake and it's
[05:47] still available. I strongly recommend
[05:49] it. It's a beautiful book. And he just
[05:51] asked this question about snowflakes.
[05:53] Why are they all six cornered? Why are
[05:54] they all similar? Um and it's actually
[05:57] extremely deep question um for for many
[06:01] reasons. One is that you it's a 20th
[06:03] century answer. It's to do with the
[06:05] water molecule and quantum mechanics and
[06:07] all these things we discovered in the
[06:08] 20th century. So he couldn't have
[06:10] answered it. But one of the most
[06:12] important things is that at the end of
[06:14] the book he says I don't know the
[06:16] answer. He he writes, you know, I leave
[06:19] it to to you to it's actually to his
[06:21] benefactor this who he wrote the book
[06:23] to, but also to future generations to to
[06:26] to find out. And if you think about
[06:28] progress, I' i've seen it written that
[06:30] progress was invented pretty much around
[06:33] that time. You real progress starts. We
[06:36] talked about 400 years after that we're,
[06:39] you know, flying to the stars.
[06:41] >> But for progress, you need to accept
[06:44] there are things you don't know. Is that
[06:46] why you describe certainty as something
[06:48] brutish? I yeah I say yeah the at the
[06:51] end of the show actually I say that um
[06:54] we we that we live in a world where the
[06:56] silence necessary for progress is
[06:59] drowned out by the vulgar noise of
[07:01] certainty and it's it is it's a it's a
[07:04] noise if you see so if you think about
[07:06] it if if you think you know everything
[07:08] you cannot make progress and the idea
[07:11] that that was radical only a few
[07:14] centuries ago is is really central to
[07:16] the show I say right at the start and
[07:18] we're going to focus on a lot of things
[07:19] that we don't know because that's where
[07:22] the excitement is and that's where
[07:24] that's the reason the future will be
[07:26] better than the past is because we
[07:28] accept that there are things yet to be
[07:29] known.
[07:30] >> At the same time I I I see that you tend
[07:33] optimistic in the way you think about
[07:35] the future and progress. But at the same
[07:37] time there's an enormous amount of
[07:38] exploration going on around the moon
[07:41] around possibilities of of
[07:43] exploitation of the moon and indeed the
[07:47] universe. How much damage could we do
[07:50] with satellites and radio waves?
[07:52] >> I I don't think that's the the way to
[07:55] think about it. So because the so the
[07:58] space economy is one of the fastest
[08:01] growing areas of the global economy.
[08:03] Indeed, many economists I speak to say
[08:06] don't don't talk of the space economy
[08:07] and the it's just the economy. You think
[08:10] about the GPS system, for example. It's
[08:13] it's central to the way that we live our
[08:15] lives. Um I think the number in the UK
[08:19] is I think it's 18%
[08:23] 16 or 18% of UK GDP is relies on
[08:27] space-based infrastructure and that's
[08:29] including things such as financial
[08:30] transactions that take the timing
[08:32] information from space and so on. So it
[08:35] tells us that already our economies the
[08:38] global economy and our national
[08:39] economies are reliant on that
[08:41] infrastructure. And so the more we
[08:44] expand that infrastructure then really
[08:46] what you're talking about is growing the
[08:48] economy.
[08:49] >> So so we we should learn to trust people
[08:51] like in a way learn to trust Jeff Bezos
[08:54] and Elon Musk. Obviously people have all
[08:56] these doubts and anxieties about what
[08:58] they're doing along with the the
[09:00] brilliance that attends a lot of the the
[09:03] engineering
[09:04] achievements. Should we trust them a bit
[09:06] more? The reason that we have
[09:08] international bodies like the the UN and
[09:10] intergovernmental organizations that are
[09:12] working on that framework is of course
[09:14] that we don't just trust industry or you
[09:18] know this is not a judgment on industry
[09:21] being moral or otherwise industries are
[09:23] industries but we do have frameworks
[09:26] that that obviously regulate how
[09:28] industries operate in our countries and
[09:29] internationally and we need to make sure
[09:31] the right frameworks are there because
[09:33] it's becoming as I said it's it's some
[09:35] like something like approaching ing a
[09:37] fifth of the UK economy reliant on that
[09:41] infrastructure, then you begin to
[09:44] understand that there needs to be some
[09:46] it's just like it's no different to the
[09:48] the the rules and regulations that
[09:50] govern international air travel or or or
[09:53] travel on the oceans. We understand that
[09:55] that's necessary. In fact, in some ways
[09:58] to you call me an optimist. So the
[09:59] optimistic take on it is that we are
[10:02] forced to collaborate and to operate as
[10:05] a world when we start to try to
[10:07] understand how we navigate the
[10:09] challenges of space. It makes no sense
[10:11] does it if you think about the
[10:12] international space station for example.
[10:14] >> You think well it's in it's in
[10:15] Australian airspace if it goes I don't
[10:17] know how often it goes over Australia
[10:19] but but it's in your airspace as a
[10:21] country for a few minutes. So it makes
[10:24] no sense to but I I take that as very
[10:27] positive because it forces collaboration
[10:30] on us.
[10:31] >> Brian Cox, thank you very much indeed
[10:32] for talking to us.
[10:33] >> Thank you.