StarTalk Radio

I remember in real time, I read the book. Rare for me to read a book before I see the movie, but I did that for The Andromeda Strain of Michael Crichton before he was famous with Jurassic Park and whatever his doctor show was on TV.

The Andromeda Strain was a sample return from space and it was a bug that got out of the capsule and it didn't bode well for the town where the capsule landed.

Well, watch out for Texas then because that's where the sample's going.

That's what they said about Andromeda stream.

You may remember the novel, The Andromeda Strain, which came out right around that time, which was a bug from space that totally wreaked havoc.

And of course, I think that was Michael Crichton's first novel before he wrote Jurassic Park and a whole lot of other things.

It still really holds up as a pretty good film.

The Andromeda Strain was, you know... For one.

Wait, wait, Chuck is too young. He won't remember.

Oh, heck no.

Okay, but you should.

The same guy who wrote Jurassic Park.

Oh, get out of Christian.

Michael Crichton.

And it was... Crichton.

Andromeda Strain was his first big breakthrough book and film.

And you know when he wrote that? While he was in medical school.

It still really holds up as a pretty good film.

Oh, heck no. Okay, but you should. Okay. No. The same guy who wrote Jurassic Park.

And it was... Crichton. Andromeda Strain was his first big breakthrough book and film.

And you know when he wrote that? While he was in medical school.

which by the way was picked up by Michael Crichton and became his famous book Andromeda string.

One of my favorite books of the era actually.

Michael Crichton the same author of Jurassic Park.

And you know that has been a constant question. Just a little didn't know in The Andromeda Strain there is a space probe that returns to earth, but it had been contaminated by a space virus, right and It basically killed everyone in the town where this thing landed and it became a major public health issue How to deal with it what they're doing why was it militarized was it a project what was going on?

...if we go to the moon and we take our human microbes as hitchhikers with us to the moon. Unavoidable....and there is any life form at all that we don't know about on the moon our microbes might kill that life form and conversely if there's any life form on the moon we might bring it back with us.

...His question spawned a very large effort by NASA to deal with the possibility of one direction or another spreading disease which by the way was picked up by Michael Crichton and became his famous book Andromeda string.

One of my favorite books of the era actually.

I was trekking through Chile, long story. I was carrying Ray's book, The Singularity Is Nearer, which is an interesting title.

He just came out with a new book, The Singularity Is Nearer.

And you haven't stopped thinking about it since. And so tell me, why do you think we'll one day live forever?

Well, I can't go on your show and say, I've done it. I've lived forever because of...

So, I mean, right now when you go forward a year, you lose part of that year. We pick up technologies that will extend us, but not a full year.

And if you're actually in touch with the technology, I believe we'll get there by 2029. On October 12th, at 9am.

No, December 31st. That's awfully specific, dude. December 31st.

You haven't stopped thinking about it since. And so tell me, why do you think we'll one day live forever?

You're also the co-founder of The Singularity Group. That's a topic we'll get into a little later. But some of that derives from you had a book back in 2005, The Singularity is Near.

I was honored for you to have shared with me the manuscript of your next book for a book not coming out until 2023. And you had an audacious title for it. The Singularity Is Nearer.

And you had a fascinating set of charts in there. Tell me about this first one, which to me was the most mind-blowing of them all.

You're saying, yep, maybe it's happening even sooner than I'd predicted. No, it's happening on schedule, but it's actually less alarming when I wrote this in 2005. Things we just assumed today are reality.

And you haven't stopped thinking about it since. And so tell me, why do you think we'll one day live forever?

You had a book back in 2005, The Singularity is Near.

When I wrote this in 2005, things we just assumed today are reality.

The whole thing was very surprising in 2005.

But there was no smartphone in 2005.

And he was the author of The Singularity is Near.

And he was the author of The Singularity is Near.

I retell that story in my book, Accessory to War. The unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military. And more broadly, it's between astrophysics and security.

I don't know how many people read my 600,000 page book.

It's what role being an expert on the universe has - what that has to do with any kind of military operation, military hegemony, domination.

And so if anyone is interested in sort of the deep history of that relationship, it's all in the book.

Ooh. I wrote a whole book, okay? I had a co-author because it was a huge 600 page book called Accessory to War, the Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military and you're damn straight.

But I did write a whole book on this.

It's an unspoken alliance that's the subtitle.

I spent some time putting that in this book

Yes Accessory to War

Accessory to War, the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military

Yeah Probing all the ways that we've been sort of handmaidens to military conflict

It came out last year It came in 2000... No, it came in 2018 Accessory to War

Because it's 500 pages A little bit more Yeah, a little bit more You need a little more I have a co-author, Avis Lang Long time editor of mine from Natural History Magazine I couldn't have finished this in any sense

And I tell that story in Accessory to War with my co-author, Avis Lang.

Well, you're in my office, so the book is there Well, that's how I came across it I was snooping around his office and in between all the bobbleheads of him and all the Campbell soup, the Star Wars Campbell soups that he has up there on the shelves But this one is primordial soup Get your soup straight here Well, what's the...

Primordial soup, that's what it is, okay On that shelf over there you have... Oh, those are Star Wars Campbell soups Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay But this is Accessory to War, the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military You... this is a book you got a few months ago?

It came out, yeah, last September Co-authored with Alvis Lang A major, it's like 500 pages So my book before that was Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Yes This is Astrophysics for People not in a Hurry Not in a Hurry, yes Just to make that clear

The other book I read on a subway ride This one's going to take me a subway ride with four stops It's going to take me a little more extra time But again, you are so... Well, thanks for that plug, thanks for that plug That's another labor of love The history, because science is not untouched by war And the funding for it, that enable it, that empower it, that feed it And so this is just a candid review An assessment of what that relationship has been Between the history of astrophysics and war itself

I got into a little dustup on the late show with Stephen Colbert because I just we have both seen Dune.

So what'd you think of Dune because he loves these big fantasy stories, right?

Okay, but there's a scene where the worm moves really fast and it is straight as it does that the worm has no legs or arms or wings.

So you can't take a straight thing and just zoom down the highway.

If you ever see a stretched out snake, it is harmless to you.

Dune, certainly. If you want to learn about leadership, I think Dune is a fantastic book.

Yusel was the name of the character in Dune by Frank Herbert. It was the nickname given by the Fremen to Paul Atreides.

I saw the movie, the book was too thick for me to read.

And don't forget fold space from Dune.

Dune, the movie was 1980s but the book is 1950s I think.

It is the star about which the Spice Planet orbits in the novel Dune.

And don't forget fold space from Dune.

Dune, the movie was 1980s but the book is 1950s I think.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war. And in fact, that book is becoming a movie titled World War Z, starring, guess who? Brad Pitt.

In my stories, you have to get bitten or the virus has to get in your bloodstream. You get sick, you die, then you wake up again.

And we get to my first clip from him, which puts outbreak in the context of politics and culture.

And the point that I tried to make in World War Z is that it's a global crisis because I think there are no real American crises anymore, except maybe snooki.

Your contribution to the genre is the extent and depth to which you're thinking about the reaction function, if I will, yes, of culture of society and of people.

Because I don't want to do little adventure stories of sort of there's a group of people and they got some guns and they're going to go from point A to point B. I want to think how would the government react? How would you reorganize the economy? How do you feed 100 million refugees when the global supply chain has shut down?

I was invited to speak at the US Naval War College because the president of college, I've been waiting. Did they know something we don't know? Well, the part that kept me up at night was the breeding zombies for the next military encounter.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war.

And in fact, that book is becoming a movie titled World War Z, starring, guess who?

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war. And in fact, that book is becoming a movie titled World War Z, starring, guess who? Brad Pitt, one of the leading men of the day.

The part that kept me up at night was the breeding zombies for the next military encounter.

If you take the zombies out of World War Z, apparently I have presented a very credible step by step scenario of how society could unravel.

The point that I tried to make in World War Z is that it's a global crisis because I think there are no real American crises anymore, except maybe snooki.

I don't want to do little adventure stories of sort of there's a group of people and they got some guns and they're going to go from point A to point B. I want to think how would the government react? How would you reorganize the economy? How do you feed 100 million refugees when the global supply chain has shut down?

For me it's about coming together not splitting apart. And I think the problem is with a lot of zombie fans is they want a zombie outbreak to happen cause they want to be the individual, the alpha male, society by themselves, no government.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war.

Did you put all that in your book?

I did. Alien Earths, the new science of planet hunting in the cosmos.

And so the cool thing that when I think about these alien worlds, like some of them could be like ours. So they could be habitats as we just talked about. Hence Alien Earths, not just alien aliens.

So I think we're biased but in a good way. Because we have to be ultra conservative to tell you that we found life. We don't want to just make it up. And so what we do is we look for something that we cannot explain other than with life.

And then I did put a blank page for your work here.

When I was, you know... When I was 17, I saw Alien. It took me five years to get the aesthetic of H.R. Giger out of my system. I had to recapitulate the aesthetics that he was doing because I found it so powerful until I kind of understood it.

In fact, in Cosmos, we went to that very same street corner.

And I walked up to the street corner and I had no such epiphany.

Millions and billions of what was it stars? A journey through that's how I remember it anyway. Very deliberate measured kind of wrapped himself around the words.

And right now in one of my recent books, we actually give the very latest calculation for this, and there's like billions, so we're good.

Millions and billions of what was it stars? A journey through that's how I remember it anyway.

Yeah, that's the theme in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five

Where the protagonist is in his backyard and he's lifted up by aliens which I always want to have happen to me when I go into anybody's backyard and I look up I want to be abducted by aliens

And he can see his entire timeline from birth to death and he can access any point in that timeline

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five that time travel scenario is what you're describing, right? Because in it his entire time he's picked up by aliens and he lives in a cage an alien zoo but it doesn't matter to him because he still has access to his entire life's timeline and when he's describing this or they describe it to him, he said, when will I die? You're always dying. When was I born? You're always being born. When did I go to college? You're always going to college.

And by the way, that's also what happened in the story Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, which is a time travel story on top of being a World War II story.

But his, and I think Kurt Vonnegut got it right. Correct me if I'm wrong, Brian. He just described your life is always there. You're always being born. You're always dying. You're always in school. You're always in love.

And you just rejoin where you were on that timeline and relive that.

Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, which ostensibly takes place at the end of the Second World War, and there are other sort of historical details I won't get into.

What I was most intrigued by is the time travel that goes on in that.

So what happens is the lead protagonist gets abducted by aliens, gets put in a cage, and that sounds bad, but they said, no, you're still there, you're still being born, you're still dying.

And they went outside of his timeline.

So he would sit there and daydream, but by daydreaming he was living his life, and he could relive his life multiple ways and in multiple times.

So, for example, in Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, that involves cleanup efforts in Dresden after the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War. Okay, fine. But the rest of the book folded into that is the encounter that the protagonist has with space aliens.

And he has access to the fourth dimension in doing so, where he sees his entire life all at once. He's always being born, he's always dying, he's always living it out in between.

Who's the guy who wrote Slaughterhouse-Five?

I think it was Kurt Vonnegut

In one of his novels He said, I'm paraphrasing This is the last sentence ever spoken by humans It'll be one scientist speaking to the other saying Let's try it the other way

And you've written two of my favorite books that are out there, Fire and Ice, The Volcanoes of the Solar System. We did a whole show on that.

Yes, we did. Where we talked about ice volcanoes.

Oh my God, that was fun.

You have a book called Fire and Ice.

I do.

Fire and Ice, it's a great title.

And is it like as Matt saying, you were not content with just volcanoes on Earth?

I've dedicated almost half the book to the volcanoes on Earth because we know them so well.

And I've written now my second book on space science. And it's just what I love doing. And I hope that book will come out yet.

No, it'll be out in September 2021.

So yeah. And you have ice volcanoes in there as well? Yeah, so it's fire and ice it's called.

And so we've got volcanoes in the solar system that are places other than Earth. So it's cool to have you helping us think about those problems. That's the thing, because actually my book coming out next year is all about space volcanoes.

So I've written, yeah, my second book's just finished. So it's going to be a while until it comes out, but it's about all the volcanoes in the solar system made of ice or made of rock.

And the title of your next book you're working on?

It's called Fire and Ice, Space Volcanoes.

But it's really just as objects where there's a lot of pressure.

Yeah, it's basically the effort a body makes to cool itself down.

So we think of volcanoes as hot objects, but it's really just as objects where there's a lot of pressure. Is that a fair way to say?

My book coming out next year is all about space volcanoes.

So I've written, yeah, my second book's just finished. So it's going to be a while until it comes out, but it's about all the volcanoes in the solar system made of ice or made of rock.

Fire and Ice, very nice, very nice.

And he wrote the bestselling fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire And that was adapted into the world's most popular TV drama Game of Thrones

author of the very bestselling The Elegant Universe, followed by The Fabric of the Cosmos, followed by The Hidden Reality.

Our buddy Brian, author of the best-selling book, The Elegant Universe, and he followed it up with The Fabric of the Cosmos.

He's right up the street from us in Columbia University.

And indeed, light travels at the speed of light over that thing, that surface, that fabric.

But if not then there's so many excellent popular level books. Brian Green's The Fabric of the Cosmos

So that was followed with Fabric of the Cosmos.

But if not then there's so many excellent popular level books. Brian Green's The Fabric of the Cosmos

When you brought this crusty old weather-beaten book with you, Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast, written in 1992.

But one can find all of the content and you were boasting off camera that nothing changed because your foresight was impeccable.

because it's no longer in print.

The only thing in this book that I predicted that seems to be unusual is there's a line in the book where I say again, I was writing this in 1991 and I said perhaps Earth scientists of the future will determine that we're in a geological age of our own making, a post-Holocene geological age of our own making. And maybe they'll call it the anthracene.

But he endorsed this old book back when he was still Senator Al Gore in 1990.

And the short answer is that these folks weren't interested in the scientific evidence. What they were interested in was a kind of political argument about preventing government interference in the marketplace, preventing the EPA and other organizations like the EPA from taking action to control the hazards and the damage of fossil fuels.

So the idea is that it's us against them it's democracy against totalitarianism it's capitalism against communism and any threat to democracy any threat to freedom any threat to the free market system is so profound that it has to be resisted and even if that means misrepresenting the science, ignoring the science these people were prepared to do that.

I wrote a book in 1992 About global warming That was part of an exhibit At this museum 1992

When you brought this crusty old weather-beaten book with you, Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast, written in 1992.

But one can find all of the content and you were boasting off camera that nothing changed because your foresight was impeccable.

In this book, I mean you're a journalist, right? So you are compiling basically the fruits of the research that's going on among scientists around you.

The only thing in this book that I predicted that seems to be unusual is there's a line in the book where I say again, I was writing this in 1991 and I said perhaps Earth scientists of the future will determine that we're in a geological age of our own making, a post-Holocene geological age of our own making.

But he endorsed this old book back when he was still Senator Al Gore in 1990.

And the short answer is that these folks weren't interested in the scientific evidence. What they were interested in was a kind of political argument about preventing government interference in the marketplace, preventing the EPA and other organizations like the EPA from taking action to control the hazards and the damage of fossil fuels.

So part of the mystery was trying to make sense of that.

I am so biased here. Of course you are. What are the odds? Well I mean if anyone who is listening doesn't know the ship of the imagination it's what I got around in.

And that's the spaceship of the imagination version two. The original one Carl Sagan wrote around the universe back in 1980.

No, spaceship of the imagination does not have photon torpedoes or phasers or anything like that because it doesn't need it.

Confirmed really actually by watching Cosmos, the first Cosmos, which was 1980 I think.

You get 13 hours of Carl Sagan on television and that was it for me.

His books with Android were in my grandparents shelf I remember going through those books like fascinated and I went to Yale and thought that I was gonna be an astronomy major

Oh yeah. He took over the reins.

He was very polite and very, it was almost, he cared. I mean that's really, he cared about the trajectory of others who would come behind him.

Man, he could have at least given you his turtleneck and his jacket too. That would have been sweet.

And that's the spaceship of the imagination version two. The original one Carl Sagan wrote around the universe back in 1980.

it seems a little bit more democratic and universal not everybody gets to be on the Enterprise but anybody can be on the ship of the imagination.

Confirmed really actually by watching Cosmos, the first Cosmos, which was 1980 I think.

You get 13 hours of Carl Sagan on television and that was it for me.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen, had not terror and disaster blinded our minds.

These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things, taken toll of our pre-human ancestors since life began here.

By virtue of this natural selection of our kind, we have developed resisting power.

To no germs do we succumb without a struggle.

And directly these invaders arrived. Directly they drank and fed. Our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.

Already when I had watched them, they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro.

It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths, man has bought his birthright of the earth.

And it is his against all comers.

It will still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are.

For neither do men live nor die in vain.

Woo! Stillin'!

There's HG Wells for you.

Out of way with words.

Man.

Aliens from Mars attacked humans. They fell sick and died because they caught some microbe that we all had immunity to and it did not.

You know who narrated it?

Was it?

Wait, give me a second.

Oh God.

Morgan Freeman.

Okay. So.

I remember Andy Dufresne and his alien friend.

So generally, if you have to guess a narrator, it's 50% chance it's going to be Morgan Freeman.

In fact, it was him.

I'm not going to read his ending narration because it made some changes from the original.

Here's the original and this will take us out.

Just to remind you, aliens from Mars attacked humans. They fell sick and died because they caught some microbe that we all had immunity to and it did not.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen, had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things, taken toll of our pre-human ancestors since life began here.

By virtue of this natural selection of our kind, we have developed resisting power. To no germs do we succumb without a struggle. And directly these invaders arrived. Directly they drank and fed. Our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.

Already when I had watched them, they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths, man has bought his birthright of the earth. And it is his against all comers.

You can read War of the Worlds, which involves invading space. This is classic literature, written of course by H.G. Wells.

By the way that's why it's good for you to have a talent that other people value That they can't just take from you Like your knowledge of how to do things

I thought you were gonna say comedy

I guess so The king's jester Right?

But if you're not funny Well yeah well the first time you're not funny that's the end of your career

No no it's the end of your hand Well true The end of your life right By the way this has been studied in The Walking Dead

What's that?

The- it's- so the danger is not the zombie, the zombies really Okay The danger is how people respond to each other Right so the interpersonal relationships become most important Most important and who do you value and why is someone overtaking the resources relative to other people or are some people power hungry that exploration became most of what made The Walking Dead interesting not all the innovative ways they would kill The Walking Dead because that's that gets redundant right after like the fifth episode Only so many ways you can kill a zombie You always kill a zombie right so so that exploration I think was the most intriguing part of it

That's yeah I'm gonna give it to you I have I didn't watch it that much but what I did watch that is that's what was most interesting it's like a soap opera believe it or not

It is exactly It's like a soap opera with zombies

Yeah zombie soap opera

Really?

Yes Okay They did not follow the script from the original HG Wells story Right This is the one 2004 Tom Cruise Tom Cruise Right Okay in that version The aliens lay dormant and buried underground

That's right Damn it I forgot about that part And then they found the right moment And then they all rose up Right Okay now that idea Which perhaps they thought was clever It undermines the entire plot of the movie

Which is?

Which is?

Alien invasion From another planet Right Who are overcome not by our weapons But by germs that they do not have immunity to Because they did not evolve on this planet Right So that premise means They had to be here a long time ago to put that stuff in the ground

Yes and now they're in the ground Now they're in the ground They can develop an immunity to our germs

Interesting That entire premise unraveled in the presence of this new idea They're gonna pre-bury the aliens

Gotcha Yeah So that pissed me off I'm just saying

Well I'm with you on that It was a crap movie So I mean you know don't get me wrong Love Tom Cruise Okay love him You know that movie had a narrator

Wait no Yes it did No Yes it did How?

Yes it did I've seen it twice I don't remember a narrator Okay just take a guess and there's a 50% chance you'll get the right narrator Tim Robbins Morgan Freeman

What?

Yes That's right it did He's oh my god and he comes on at the end At the end and I got the end quote right here

That's right I carry it with me All right here we go I carry this narration with me All right All right The end of the 2005 War of the Worlds From the moment the invaders arrived Breathed our air Ate and drank They were doomed They were undone Destroyed After all of man's weapons and devices had failed By the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth By the toll of a billion deaths Man had earned his immunity His right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms And that right is ours against all challenges For neither do men live nor die in vain

Nice Translation Whose house? My house Anyway That wouldn't happen if they were here for millions of years Right And by the way I just find it so ironic that One of the most recognizable voices on the planet Is doing a reading of the most recognizable voice on the planet So weird How meta is that?

Neil deGrasse Tyson does Morgan Freeman You know that's cool But did you like mine?

I did I liked it And by the way that's a great little quote Okay I got a fast one and a quick aside Okay Okay a quick aside All right When I read when I heard it I said it's beautiful Right Now the novel was a 19th century Victorian era novel And I said that's beautiful language I bet it was verbatim from the story Okay because nobody today writes like that Nope For neither do men live nor die No that's not coming out of anybody in Hollywood today No So I said let me find the original But I had another little issue I said this makes very strong mention of God And I said well H.G. Wells was highly scientifically literate Did he make mention of God? I went back and found the passage No he does not make mention of God Here is H.G. Wells' original passage

Oh snap Covering that part of what was used for the movie Okay You ready?

Go ahead For so it had come about as indeed I and many men might have foreseen Had not terror and disaster blinded our minds These germs of disease have taken their toll of humanity Since the beginning of things Taken toll of our pre-human ancestors Since life began here But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind We have developed resisting power To no germs do we succumb without a struggle Indirectly these invaders arrived Directly they drank and fed Our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow Already when I watched them They were irrevocably doomed Dying and rotting Even as they went to and fro It was inevitable By the toll of a billion deaths Man has bought his birthright of this earth And it is his against all comers It would still be his Were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are For neither do men live nor die in vain

Woo! Hashtag Darwin rocks He's got pre-human ancestor He's got natural selection of things No mention of God These are two different things I think Hollywood was afraid to get real on it

Oh yeah There you go

For so it had come about as indeed I and many men might have foreseen Had not terror and disaster blinded our minds These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things Taken toll of our pre-human ancestors since life began here But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power To no germs do we succumb without a struggle and to many those that cause Putrefaction in dead matter for instance, our living forms are altogether immune but there are no bacteria on Mars and Directly these invaders arrived directly. They drank and fed our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed Dying and rotting even as they went to and fro it was inevitable by the toll of a billion deaths Man has bought his birthright of this earth and it is his against all comers It would still be his with a Martians ten times as mighty as they are for neither do men live nor die in vain Oh

Funny you mentioned War of the Worlds. I keep with me a quote from the original book That summarizes the entire story and if you with your permission, I will read it

Wait, wait funny you mentioned War of the Worlds. I keep with me a quote from the original book That summarizes the entire story and if you with your permission, I will read it Please do as we take out this first segment of StarTalk cosmic queries. Let's make America smart again

The premise was what saved the world Was that the invader got infected by an earthly virus exactly Exactly Creepy turn in fact,

Within a few years of this, H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds inspired by those observations.

There's this wonderful book by Matt Ridley about the, you know, why did human beings manage this extraordinary rise for, you know, from being just just animals?

There's this wonderful book by Matt Ridley about the, you know, why did human beings manage this extraordinary rise for, you know, from being just just animals?

And the most important thing he points out is whenever we encounter diversity, we flourished, you know, just even scientifically.

Matt Ridley wrote a great book about The Rational Optimist and he did a TED talk all when ideas have sex and he basically talks about the last 100 years of progress in all the ways in which the world is getting better through all these incremental increases.

There's this wonderful book by Matt Ridley about the, you know, why did human beings manage this extraordinary rise for, you know, from being just just animals?

And the most important thing he points out is whenever we encounter diversity, we flourished, you know, just even scientifically.

There's this wonderful book by Matt Ridley about the, you know, why did human beings manage this extraordinary rise for, you know, from being just just animals?

Matt Ridley wrote a great book about The Rational Optimist and he did a TED talk all when ideas have sex and he basically talks about the last 100 years of progress in all the ways in which the world is getting better through all these incremental increases.

Called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex.

Yeah, I know a lot about sex.

And that makes you an expert.

It does.

So we also have clips from my interview with Mary Roach, who wrote the book Bonk.

And I got you here because not just because you're funny and I like having you around, but on this show of the science of sex, who knew that you had written a book called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex?

Yeah we have a section about art. What we did is we went into the jungle and we lived with the bonobos.

You can get that on Amazon.

in your sexy book of sexy sex...this is a couple years old now, but what prompted you to write this?

There's so much blue humor in my acts that I was like, I might as well just put it all out there.

So you have the future of sex. That's right.

And then you have the history of sex. It happened in the past too.

Yes. Called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex.

Yeah, I know a lot about sex.

Yeah, I know a lot about sex.

Yeah, we have a section about art. What we did is we went into the jungle and we lived with the bonobos.

So are you in denial of this result?

100% I agree.

One of them was to go to the slow zone and that might have been what Mary was talking about a little bit too about being in the moment and just not like a Wham-Bam thing.

You can get that on Amazon.

So you have the future of sex...And then you have the history of sex.

Regular sex...And you follow that with the gay chapter.

And there's another chapter here that got my attention. It was the dark side of sex.

There's so much blue humor in my acts that I was like, I might as well just put it all out there.

Hello, StarTalk. This is Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Artemis.

Currently the cheapest way to get mass into low earth orbit is to buy space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. The price works out to be about $2,700 per kilogram. I predict that in 2018, there will be at least one commercial space launch where the price per kilogram to low earth orbit is $2,200 per kilogram or less.

And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir, Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson today.

So Andy, you couldn't leave it alone. I just couldn't.

Putting a dude on Mars was not enough. Insufficient. Insufficient. I'm putting a city on the moon.

Having a movie about the book was not enough.

It's a heist story. A heist crime novel that happens to be on the moon.

And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir, Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson today.

You just had to keep doing this.

Just can't.

It's a sickness.

Putting a dude on Mars was not enough.

Hello, StarTalk. This is Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Artemis.

Having a movie about the book was not enough.

Yeah, no, I mean, it was a good start.

You just had to keep going.

Gotta.

That's my whole job.

And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir, Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson today.

So Andy, you couldn't leave it alone. I just couldn't.

You just had to keep doing this. Just can't.

I'm putting a city on the moon.

It's a heist story. A heist crime novel that happens to be on the moon.

It was just called Optics.

One of the rare books that he actually wrote in English. All his other books were in Latin, which was the... Wow, he really was a nerd.

There's a whole section of one of his books, one of his books, Optics, written in 1704.

There's a whole section of one of his books, one of his books, Optics, written in 1704.

If learning the truth is the scientist's goal, then he must make himself an enemy of all that he reads. He should also suspect himself so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.

For a man to imagine an arrangement in the heavens does not make it exist.

There's a whole section of one of his books, one of his books, Optics, written in 1704.

There's a whole section of one of his books, one of his books, Optics, written in 1704.

It was the cover, I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title of that book was Universe Down to Earth.

I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title of that book was Universe Down to Earth.

I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title, that book was Universe Down to Earth.

I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title of that book was Universe Down to Earth.

I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title of that book was Universe Down to Earth.

I chose it as the cover of my second book. That title, that book was Universe Down to Earth.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war.

I mean, he wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and that's a book.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war.

Just to put Max Brooks on your radar, he's the author of the book, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, which is an oral history of the zombie war.

I mean, he wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and that's a book.

I hate to sound like my boy who wrote the book on this the 10,000 hour guy I forgot his name Malcolm Gladwell

And that's, I think, where this idea that I talked about in one of my books, The Notion of 10,000 Hours, comes from.

I always come back to Malcolm Gladwell and thin slicing that you just look at a number and you realize hey something doesn't feel right about this or something is going to create an opportunity

I hate to sound like my boy who wrote the book on this the 10,000 hour guy I forgot his name Malcolm Gladwell

I notice you have his book right there, right behind Chuck.

Yeah, it's right here. That is the book I learned cosmology from.

But I have one of his books is sitting here on my shelf. Gravitation, the only book that you ever learn about just by carrying it around.

I have a book in my office co-authored by him the title of the book is gravitation and it's like a zillion pages thick and we always joke it's the only subject you ever learned about just by carrying the textbook around

In one of the most famous books ever written on gravity, it's called Gravity.

Right, it's gravitation.

But I have one of his books is sitting here on my shelf. Gravitation, the only book that you ever learn about just by carrying it around. It's it's huge thick book with the proportions of a of a New York Yellow pages of back and young enough to remember the yellow page.