Exploring the astrophysics behind Project Hail Mary

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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Stories

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podcast. I'm Andrew Glester, and I'm delighted to

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say that today we're joined by Andy Weir,

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the writer of The Martian and, of course,

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Project Hail Mary, and doctor Becky Smethurst, you

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may know her as Doctor Becky

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on YouTube, as we talk the science behind

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Project Hail Mary. The new film, based on

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the book

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by Andy Weir,

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adapted by screenwriter

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Drew Goddard for the Phil Lord and Christopher

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Miller

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directed film, which is currently,

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as we speak, in cinemas.

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Those not familiar with Andy Weir's books they

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are dense

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with

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lovely

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beautiful

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depth of science behind the stories. You'll hear

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all about that in this podcast in this

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process, but he's really keen on getting

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accurate science into

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his stories. If you haven't seen the film

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yet, I do recommend that you find a

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way to watch it, get yourself to the

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biggest cinema screen you can find to watch

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the film and then come back and listen

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to this episode. If you don't mind spoilers

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or if you've seen the trailer, I don't

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think we'll be talking about anything in here

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that is a spoiler that isn't already revealed

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in the trailer for the film, But if

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you'd like to, go away, watch the film

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and come back. We'll still be here when

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you are ready. But to kick us off,

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who better to describe the story

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than the man who wrote it, Andy Weir?

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The initial sizzle is that a guy wakes

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up aboard a spaceship with no memory of

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who he is or why he's there. And

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as his memories start to come back to

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him, he realizes that he's on a last

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ditch desperate,

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space mission

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to save humanity from an extinction level event.

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So no pressure.

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Also, he's the only survivor. There are two

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dead people in the ship with him. I

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mean, Ryan Gosling,

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contacted us. So, I mean,

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that was awesome. Drew Goddard, I was the

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one who, like, really pushed for Drew. I

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mean, everybody loves Drew. He said, like, guys,

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I just don't have the time to work

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on this. I'm sorry.

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And so I was like, okay. Well, here's

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a copy of the book. I hope you

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enjoy it. Because I like Drew. He's a

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friend of mine. And then he read the

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book and said, like, well, I think I

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would like to work on this. And so

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that was very flattering to me. And, then

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he said, but I you know, guys, I

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I've got, like I wouldn't be able to

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consider starting for at least, like, six to

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eight months while I'm working on this other

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stuff. And I so I pushed I pushed

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for every everybody in the production. I'm like,

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let's wait for Drew. Let's let's just wait.

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We're not gonna be shooting anything during the

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pandemic anyway, so let's just hold on and

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and wait for him. So we did. But

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Drew is just such a fantastic screenwriter. I

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mean, he did such a good job on

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The Martian. He gets me. He gets what

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I'm going after, and so I just feel

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much more comfortable with the with the screenplay

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in his hands and with anyone else. Yeah.

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Fantastic. Much more from Andy Weir later in

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the podcast, But that interview did take place

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before the film came out, so I wanted

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to have a conversation with someone, well, an

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astrophysicist,

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about it since it has. My name is

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doctor Becky Smethurst. I'm an astrophysicist at the

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University of Oxford, and I also share a

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lot of my knowledge online, including on my

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YouTube channel, doctor Beggin. Okay. And you've been,

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quite active

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in,

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videos

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about

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films, I think. Mhmm. And I think,

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well, I don't know about you, but I've

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been particularly excited and looking forward to, Project

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Hail Mary since I read the book when

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they came out. Yes. Yeah. I listened to

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the audiobook last year, which was narrated by

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Ray Porter. And

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I don't usually listen to audiobooks. It was

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weird. Like, I was just like, I'm doing

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a bit of, I'm doing a few jobs.

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I was like, I I need someone to

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listen to. And I thought, I've been meaning

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to read that book for ages. And I

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was doing honestly,

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it was one of those books that you're

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like, I'm a different person on the other

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side of this. Do you know what I

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mean? And the audio book was just so

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well done. So I've been so excited for

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this film. Yes. And there's so much science

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in the book, in the story as well,

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which I think is just so

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nice if you just sort of I don't

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know. If you just love science and you

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have that sort of, like, oh, just do

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a quick back of the envelope calculation. You

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don't want this. It's one of those books

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that really scratches that itch. Yeah. I don't

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I'd so I I've spoken to Andy Weir

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a few times. I know you've spoken to

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him, about this book. And one of the

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times that I called him to to chat

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to him,

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it was a Sunday morning

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where he was. And, and I was like,

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oh, hi, Andy. How are you doing? He

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said, yeah. I'm alright. I'm just working out

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what would actually happen if you were stuck

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between the moon and New York City.

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He's just doing the maths on that, which

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is What a fun job. And that's where

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these kind of Yeah. Ideas come from is

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that that it's just who he is. He

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just thinks about

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problems and then tries to work them out,

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and then there's these these stories come out

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of them. If we do nothing,

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everything on this planet will go extinct.

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You'll find a solution.

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You are my solution.

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When we first spoke many, many years ago

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before the Martian film came out, you said

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you were writing a book called Zeke. Yeah.

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And it had

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things like interstellar travel in it. Did aspects

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of that find their way into this? Yes.

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They did. So Zeke, I worked on it

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for about a year. I got about 70,000

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words in. For reference, the Martian is a

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100,000 words.

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And I was about 70,000 words in when

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I realized one day, oh, dear. This book

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sucks. It's it's no good. The

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the the story isn't interesting. The plot is

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too convoluted. The characters are boring, and

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I'm still in the first act. So this

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is gonna be some 900 page ego tome

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that no one's gonna wanna read.

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So I gave up on it, and I

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I back burnered it. In fact, then put

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the stove that has that back burner in

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a backroom. You know? I just

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figured it was done, but there were a

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few diamonds in the rough. There were a

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few nuggets in there that I thought were

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really cool. And one of them was this

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well, Ingeq, it was an alien technology called

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black matter,

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and it was this fuel that you could

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use for your spaceship. It would mass convert,

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itself into

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basically light and shine that out the back

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of your ship for propulsion.

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So that was in ZEK, and I I

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thought, like, well, I want I want to

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use that. That's really cool. So I said,

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like, that was kind of the nugget that

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started the story with hail Mary. I was

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like, okay. I want this to be a

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story, but let me think here. What what

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would I

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we couldn't possibly have black matter in the

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modern day. There's no way we'd be able

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to invent that. So what if we found

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it? Okay. Well, it's annoying to me that

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it's an alien technology. If we if we

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find this incredible alien technology, that means I

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have

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to explain that there is this

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advanced alien race who for some reason isn't

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around and stuff like that. And I thought

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like, well, what does black matter do? It

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also absorbs all light and turns it into

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more black matter. That's why it's called black

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matter. It's black.

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And,

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I thought, like,

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well, that's interesting because we have a substance

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that takes energy and makes more of itself.

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That sounds like a life form. Right? And

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so I'm like, oh, instead of an alien

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technology, it'll just be a naturally evolved life

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form that does this. And I'm like, okay.

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Why does a naturally evolved life form need

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to do, like, interstellar travel? I'm like, okay.

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It's an interstellar life form.

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Okay. Well, it needs a lot of energy

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to do interstellar travel. I'm like, okay. Well,

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let's have it live on the surface of

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stars,

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and it's like algae, and it spores out

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like mold does to go get other stars

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and stuff like that. And it's all just

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evolution. So it is an alien,

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quote, unquote, but it's not like, take me

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to your leader. It's just like, hey. Don't

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mind me. I'm mold.

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I'm just gonna breed.

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And,

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then I got to thinking like, oh, okay.

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That'd be cool. And then then humans could

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get a hold of some of this stuff,

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and then we'd start breeding it in farms,

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and then we'd be flying around our solar

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system. We could colonize Mars and Venus. Oh,

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we'd have to make real we'd have to

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be real careful to make sure none of

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that crap got into our sun or we'd

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start breeding out of control, and that'd be

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a disaster.

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One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Holy shit. That's a

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book. You know?

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Like, right there, that's that's it. So I'm

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like, forget all that other crap. We're doing

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we're we're starting with that. You know? This

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life form starts affecting the total solar output

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of of our sun, and now

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yeah. That that's the shower epiphany that led

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to the book. The sun is dying.

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You are the only scientist who might know

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what this is. I'm just a teacher at

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Grover Cleveland Middle. We have a doctorate in

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molecular biology.

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I need you to come with us.

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This is Project Hail Mary. I loved the

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film. It is it it is obviously different

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from a book. You know, anybody who's ever

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loved a book and then gone see a

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a film adaptation, it's going to be different

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because it's a completely different medium.

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So a lot of the science that is

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communicated,

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obviously,

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in the book as you're reading this character

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sort of in a monologue

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is is communicated visually in the film, which

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obviously,

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and in a monologue takes a lot of

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pages compared to a few seconds of a

264
00:09:03,294 --> 00:09:05,394
visual, you know, flash up.

265
00:09:05,774 --> 00:09:08,095
So in that sense, it's very different. And

266
00:09:08,095 --> 00:09:09,375
so if you, you know, you love the

267
00:09:09,375 --> 00:09:11,690
science, like, the aspect of it there is

268
00:09:11,690 --> 00:09:13,610
is a very quick, you know, flash and

269
00:09:13,610 --> 00:09:16,250
you'll miss it. But in terms of the

270
00:09:16,250 --> 00:09:19,629
story, the characters, the visuals, the cinematography,

271
00:09:20,009 --> 00:09:21,690
the way it was filmed, just the heart

272
00:09:21,690 --> 00:09:23,769
and soul of this film is just incredible,

273
00:09:23,769 --> 00:09:24,750
and it's so

274
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joyful.

275
00:09:27,125 --> 00:09:29,304
Like, everyone raves about, you know, Interstellar

276
00:09:30,325 --> 00:09:31,764
as as a sci fi film and how

277
00:09:31,764 --> 00:09:33,945
it is very epic. And, you know,

278
00:09:34,884 --> 00:09:36,965
I just Interstellar is missing some joy for

279
00:09:36,965 --> 00:09:38,264
me. Okay. Yeah.

280
00:09:41,090 --> 00:09:42,129
Like, yes, I like to come out of

281
00:09:42,129 --> 00:09:44,210
the cinema and be like, woah, and feel

282
00:09:44,210 --> 00:09:45,649
like I've been run over with a truck,

283
00:09:45,649 --> 00:09:48,149
but at the same time, I also

284
00:09:48,850 --> 00:09:51,490
love coming out of the cinema just with

285
00:09:51,490 --> 00:09:53,330
a huge smile on my face, and that's

286
00:09:53,330 --> 00:09:54,230
what this film

287
00:09:54,565 --> 00:09:56,004
did, and it's what the book did as

288
00:09:56,004 --> 00:09:58,165
well. And so that kind of heart of

289
00:09:58,165 --> 00:10:00,165
the book and why, you know, I fell

290
00:10:00,165 --> 00:10:01,045
in love with it and why I was

291
00:10:01,045 --> 00:10:02,725
like, I'm a different person after reading this,

292
00:10:02,725 --> 00:10:04,245
is so there in the film, and I

293
00:10:04,245 --> 00:10:05,925
loved it so so much. They did such

294
00:10:05,925 --> 00:10:07,445
a good job on it. The directors, Phil

295
00:10:07,445 --> 00:10:09,045
Lord and Christopher Miller, they did they did

296
00:10:09,045 --> 00:10:11,019
great. So you've interviewed Ryan Gosling

297
00:10:11,399 --> 00:10:13,659
Mhmm. Andy Weir and Lord and Miller for,

298
00:10:14,039 --> 00:10:17,399
your YouTube channel. Obviously It's a mom's scream

299
00:10:17,399 --> 00:10:18,440
here when she I told her I was

300
00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:20,299
interviewing Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

301
00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:22,759
Well, that's kind of my question. So, obviously,

302
00:10:22,759 --> 00:10:24,120
we'll post links to all of those on

303
00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:26,815
the Physics World website. Oh, nice. At at

304
00:10:26,815 --> 00:10:29,634
which people can find alongside this episode,

305
00:10:30,254 --> 00:10:32,495
of the Physics World Stories podcast. But,

306
00:10:33,215 --> 00:10:34,115
as a person,

307
00:10:35,535 --> 00:10:37,615
which of those are you most excited slash

308
00:10:37,615 --> 00:10:38,514
nervous about?

309
00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:40,299
Oh my gosh.

310
00:10:41,879 --> 00:10:44,840
I think just, obviously, naturally from maybe everybody

311
00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:46,279
in my life's reaction to telling them I

312
00:10:46,279 --> 00:10:48,040
was scared to be Ryan Gosling, it was

313
00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:49,240
possibly that. I just sat there, and all

314
00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:50,360
I could hear is my mom and my

315
00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:51,740
sister's voices just going,

316
00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:53,340
like,

317
00:10:54,485 --> 00:10:57,205
And he was just absolutely so so lovely

318
00:10:57,205 --> 00:10:59,445
and just exactly as you'd imagine in real

319
00:10:59,445 --> 00:11:01,044
life. So I think the the the sort

320
00:11:01,044 --> 00:11:02,804
of nervous energy was definitely there. But in

321
00:11:02,804 --> 00:11:05,605
terms of, like, the the freak out science

322
00:11:05,605 --> 00:11:08,379
fangirl moment, it was Andy Witt. Like, because

323
00:11:08,379 --> 00:11:09,440
I loved The Martian.

324
00:11:10,700 --> 00:11:13,580
I, you know, obviously loved Project Hail Mary.

325
00:11:13,580 --> 00:11:15,179
I've also listened to his other book after

326
00:11:15,179 --> 00:11:16,620
I finished Project Hail Mary as well, the

327
00:11:16,620 --> 00:11:18,139
one about the moon. Artemis. I'm currently trying

328
00:11:18,139 --> 00:11:20,475
to remember the Artemis. Thank you. Which was

329
00:11:20,475 --> 00:11:21,695
also great. And

330
00:11:22,715 --> 00:11:24,394
chatting to Andy was so fun because it

331
00:11:24,394 --> 00:11:26,575
was just like chatting to just another,

332
00:11:27,195 --> 00:11:29,674
you know, science nerd kinda thing. He showed

333
00:11:29,674 --> 00:11:32,235
me this massive spreadsheet that he produced for

334
00:11:32,235 --> 00:11:33,754
the book that was literally just like, here's

335
00:11:33,754 --> 00:11:35,819
my spreadsheet that tells me, like, this is

336
00:11:35,819 --> 00:11:38,299
how much fuel the hail Mary spacecraft will

337
00:11:38,299 --> 00:11:40,399
need, and, like, you know, this is, like,

338
00:11:40,860 --> 00:11:42,459
you know, the temperature of this thing and,

339
00:11:42,459 --> 00:11:44,940
like, all of these relative relativistic calculations he'd

340
00:11:44,940 --> 00:11:46,459
done and everything like that. And it was

341
00:11:46,459 --> 00:11:47,120
so fun

342
00:11:47,955 --> 00:11:48,934
seeing that because

343
00:11:50,115 --> 00:11:51,555
as a as an I mean, no. I

344
00:11:51,555 --> 00:11:52,995
don't think any of me and my colleagues

345
00:11:52,995 --> 00:11:55,495
use spreadsheets. I'm gonna put that out there.

346
00:11:56,195 --> 00:11:58,835
Maybe for a very quick thing or whatever,

347
00:11:58,835 --> 00:12:00,690
but for our actual astrophysics work,

348
00:12:01,409 --> 00:12:03,429
we are very much entrenched

349
00:12:03,889 --> 00:12:05,029
in Python coding,

350
00:12:05,490 --> 00:12:07,169
you know, is is the main language of

351
00:12:07,169 --> 00:12:08,529
choice. I think there's obviously a lot of

352
00:12:08,529 --> 00:12:10,129
simulations that are done in other things, like

353
00:12:10,129 --> 00:12:11,490
c and all that kind of stuff as

354
00:12:11,490 --> 00:12:14,654
well. But mostly, it's it's all with code.

355
00:12:15,195 --> 00:12:17,434
And so any data tables we have is

356
00:12:17,434 --> 00:12:20,794
all in, you know, CSV if you if

357
00:12:20,794 --> 00:12:22,794
you have to be, but then also probably

358
00:12:22,794 --> 00:12:24,315
more what's called a FITS format,

359
00:12:24,714 --> 00:12:26,575
a flexible image transfer system,

360
00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:29,200
which basically can store images and data tables

361
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:30,799
at the same time. So, like, any data

362
00:12:30,799 --> 00:12:32,960
that's taken at a telescope with all of

363
00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:34,480
the metadata that comes with it, it's like

364
00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:36,399
this telescope, this time pointing, this direction, etcetera,

365
00:12:36,399 --> 00:12:36,899
etcetera.

366
00:12:37,279 --> 00:12:38,799
So most of the time, if you're seeing

367
00:12:38,799 --> 00:12:42,014
relativistic equations realized, it's it's in code.

368
00:12:42,475 --> 00:12:43,215
And so

369
00:12:43,595 --> 00:12:45,615
it was so wonderful to see it

370
00:12:45,995 --> 00:12:48,235
from someone who, you know, is is kind

371
00:12:48,235 --> 00:12:49,835
of like a science enthusiast in that way.

372
00:12:49,835 --> 00:12:50,955
Obviously, he has a bit of a science

373
00:12:50,955 --> 00:12:52,875
background with working at NASA and JPL from

374
00:12:52,875 --> 00:12:54,495
the computer science side of things.

375
00:12:54,875 --> 00:12:57,830
But seeing relativistic equations translated into, like, just

376
00:12:57,830 --> 00:12:59,830
a spreadsheet was so I think it was

377
00:12:59,830 --> 00:13:01,909
like a Google Sheet, you know. It there

378
00:13:01,909 --> 00:13:04,490
was just something so, like, raw and incredible

379
00:13:04,629 --> 00:13:05,370
about that

380
00:13:05,909 --> 00:13:07,589
that just blew me away that, you know,

381
00:13:07,589 --> 00:13:09,865
he'd managed to to do it. So, yeah,

382
00:13:09,865 --> 00:13:11,865
I think during the interview, the most the

383
00:13:11,865 --> 00:13:13,705
most sort of, like, I was, I think,

384
00:13:13,705 --> 00:13:15,065
was actually Andy after you showed me that

385
00:13:15,065 --> 00:13:18,045
spreadsheet. So There are infinite possibilities

386
00:13:18,504 --> 00:13:19,644
for this to go wrong.

387
00:13:21,465 --> 00:13:23,230
This ship wasn't built for this.

388
00:13:23,769 --> 00:13:27,829
You want me to do it now. In

389
00:13:28,059 --> 00:13:32,110
general, my story start with some scientific idea.

390
00:13:32,569 --> 00:13:34,169
For hail Mary, it's like, what if we

391
00:13:34,169 --> 00:13:36,089
had a a a fuel that could mass

392
00:13:36,089 --> 00:13:38,115
convert, you know, spacecraft fuel that could do

393
00:13:38,115 --> 00:13:41,075
mass conversion for thrust? Great. For the Martian,

394
00:13:41,075 --> 00:13:42,434
it was like, how could we put a

395
00:13:42,434 --> 00:13:44,995
humans to Mars and, you know, what are

396
00:13:44,995 --> 00:13:46,674
the fail safes on that mission? And that

397
00:13:46,674 --> 00:13:47,955
led me to thinking of all the things

398
00:13:47,955 --> 00:13:49,495
that could go wrong, etcetera.

399
00:13:49,820 --> 00:13:51,500
And for Artemis, it was,

400
00:13:52,059 --> 00:13:54,860
what is humanity's first city that's not on

401
00:13:54,860 --> 00:13:56,940
Earth gonna look like? What's it gonna be

402
00:13:56,940 --> 00:13:58,940
like? So all I I mean, I always

403
00:13:58,940 --> 00:14:00,860
start off with just some I mean, this

404
00:14:00,860 --> 00:14:02,459
is not on purpose. It's just this is

405
00:14:02,459 --> 00:14:03,980
where my story is tend to come come

406
00:14:03,980 --> 00:14:06,465
from. I'm speculating on cool science stuff, and

407
00:14:06,465 --> 00:14:08,865
then I I speculate about that stuff all

408
00:14:08,865 --> 00:14:10,565
the time. Once in a while,

409
00:14:11,184 --> 00:14:13,024
I'll get far enough along that I think,

410
00:14:13,024 --> 00:14:14,644
oh, okay. This might be a good story.

411
00:14:14,865 --> 00:14:16,625
So it wasn't like I I sat down

412
00:14:16,625 --> 00:14:17,985
and said, like, alright. I'm gonna write a

413
00:14:17,985 --> 00:14:19,919
completely different thing from The Martian. It was

414
00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:21,759
when I'm gonna write a book, I try

415
00:14:21,759 --> 00:14:23,039
to go with whatever I think is the

416
00:14:23,039 --> 00:14:25,200
best idea I have at the time, and

417
00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:27,620
Artemis was what I thought was coolest.

418
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,120
And, honestly, I'd hoped that I I I

419
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:32,720
had really hoped that it was gonna take

420
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:34,000
off and it was gonna be a setting

421
00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:36,105
that I could write book after book in.

422
00:14:36,105 --> 00:14:37,544
I wanted it to be my own disc

423
00:14:37,544 --> 00:14:38,445
world. Right?

424
00:14:38,824 --> 00:14:39,225
But,

425
00:14:39,704 --> 00:14:41,544
it just wasn't as popular as a Martian.

426
00:14:41,544 --> 00:14:43,144
It did well. People liked it, but they

427
00:14:43,144 --> 00:14:45,464
didn't love it. It didn't, like you know,

428
00:14:45,464 --> 00:14:47,850
people weren't people aren't clamoring at the gates

429
00:14:47,929 --> 00:14:49,850
for more Artemis. There are I I get

430
00:14:49,850 --> 00:14:52,089
emails, like, every day saying, oh, make more

431
00:14:52,089 --> 00:14:54,409
Artemis. But, I mean, there's not enough of

432
00:14:54,409 --> 00:14:56,649
a demand, and my my publisher's like,

433
00:14:57,370 --> 00:14:59,610
don't make a sequel to Artemis. Make something

434
00:14:59,610 --> 00:15:02,329
new. Art Artemis is a a crime novel

435
00:15:02,329 --> 00:15:03,149
slash heist

436
00:15:03,544 --> 00:15:05,625
kind of thing. Yeah. And this is sort

437
00:15:05,625 --> 00:15:07,944
of a return to my hard sci fi

438
00:15:07,944 --> 00:15:10,605
isolated scientist roots. I was

439
00:15:10,985 --> 00:15:13,384
acutely aware that it's very similar to The

440
00:15:13,384 --> 00:15:15,404
Martian in that respect, so I tried to

441
00:15:15,799 --> 00:15:18,600
I I tried to not duplicate any plot

442
00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:20,839
beats from The Martian at all. Like, for

443
00:15:20,839 --> 00:15:22,860
instance, Ryland's ship works.

444
00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:26,199
Like, nothing breaks down. Everything functions the way

445
00:15:26,199 --> 00:15:27,899
it's supposed to. He has other problems,

446
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:28,919
but,

447
00:15:29,865 --> 00:15:32,825
but the ship works. If Grace, Rocky, save

448
00:15:32,825 --> 00:15:33,325
stars,

449
00:15:34,985 --> 00:15:36,125
we can go home.

450
00:15:38,585 --> 00:15:40,105
I think this is a one way trip

451
00:15:40,105 --> 00:15:40,764
for me.

452
00:15:46,570 --> 00:15:48,570
Let's get into some of the science of,

453
00:15:48,970 --> 00:15:51,529
project hail Mary. Now Andy Weir has a

454
00:15:51,529 --> 00:15:53,769
thing in every book Mhmm. Which he calls

455
00:15:53,769 --> 00:15:55,929
a MacGuffin, which is he likes it to

456
00:15:55,929 --> 00:15:56,830
be really scientific

457
00:15:57,164 --> 00:15:57,664
scientifically

458
00:15:58,044 --> 00:15:59,964
accurate, but there's one thing in each thing

459
00:15:59,964 --> 00:16:01,264
that he allows himself,

460
00:16:02,605 --> 00:16:04,764
that's not scientifically accurate. He makes up a

461
00:16:04,764 --> 00:16:06,845
little bit of science for the fiction side

462
00:16:06,845 --> 00:16:08,924
of it, but everything else has to be

463
00:16:08,924 --> 00:16:09,424
consistent.

464
00:16:10,204 --> 00:16:10,684
Yeah.

465
00:16:11,324 --> 00:16:12,304
In this particular

466
00:16:13,110 --> 00:16:14,089
book and film,

467
00:16:14,549 --> 00:16:17,529
it is the astrophyte. Like a space algae,

468
00:16:17,990 --> 00:16:19,529
which also stores energy

469
00:16:20,230 --> 00:16:21,690
that can be used as fuel.

470
00:16:22,070 --> 00:16:22,570
Yes.

471
00:16:23,589 --> 00:16:25,049
How do you feel about it?

472
00:16:26,644 --> 00:16:28,345
I really like the idea that,

473
00:16:29,445 --> 00:16:31,125
like, if we ever found life in the

474
00:16:31,125 --> 00:16:31,625
universe,

475
00:16:32,404 --> 00:16:34,404
the the likelihood is it's not going to

476
00:16:34,404 --> 00:16:34,904
be,

477
00:16:35,284 --> 00:16:37,845
you know, intelligent life or have or even

478
00:16:37,845 --> 00:16:39,445
evolved life. Like, the fact that it could

479
00:16:39,445 --> 00:16:41,445
be, like, single cell organisms that we end

480
00:16:41,445 --> 00:16:43,660
up finding, and that first contact would be

481
00:16:43,660 --> 00:16:45,500
with something like that, I think is a

482
00:16:45,500 --> 00:16:48,700
very I don't wanna say realistic, but more

483
00:16:48,700 --> 00:16:49,200
probable,

484
00:16:50,540 --> 00:16:52,220
side of things. You know, for example, if

485
00:16:52,220 --> 00:16:55,279
we were sending missions to Titan, for example,

486
00:16:55,535 --> 00:16:57,535
Saturn's moon, with the Dragonfly mission, a little

487
00:16:57,535 --> 00:16:58,995
drone that's gonna fly around.

488
00:16:59,295 --> 00:17:00,115
You know, we're

489
00:17:00,735 --> 00:17:02,754
sending things to things like, you know, Enceladus,

490
00:17:03,054 --> 00:17:04,035
Saturn's moon,

491
00:17:04,575 --> 00:17:06,115
plans possibly with Europa,

492
00:17:06,654 --> 00:17:08,654
things like that. All these kind of moons

493
00:17:08,654 --> 00:17:10,319
of the solar system that life,

494
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:12,319
if we found it in the solar system

495
00:17:12,319 --> 00:17:14,240
could possibly be there. And also, obviously, with

496
00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:16,559
this ongoing searches with perseverance as well for

497
00:17:16,559 --> 00:17:18,639
life on Mars or past life on Mars,

498
00:17:18,639 --> 00:17:20,480
the likelihood is if we find anything there,

499
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:21,700
it's going to be

500
00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:24,500
tiny, right? It's going to be tiny microbial

501
00:17:24,559 --> 00:17:24,855
life.

502
00:17:25,414 --> 00:17:27,275
So I think in that sense, like,

503
00:17:27,734 --> 00:17:30,054
I don't think that's a story that's as

504
00:17:30,054 --> 00:17:31,674
explored as much as

505
00:17:31,974 --> 00:17:34,474
first contact with little green men, you know,

506
00:17:34,535 --> 00:17:36,934
classic aliens, that kind of thing. So I

507
00:17:36,934 --> 00:17:38,535
really liked the aspects of the story, and

508
00:17:38,535 --> 00:17:40,980
I think it really surprised me. In terms

509
00:17:40,980 --> 00:17:42,039
of energy storage,

510
00:17:42,340 --> 00:17:44,740
you know, it's just mass energy equivalence is

511
00:17:44,740 --> 00:17:46,259
sort of the the crux of the story

512
00:17:46,259 --> 00:17:47,619
there is if they can take in the

513
00:17:47,619 --> 00:17:49,700
sun's energy and store it and then release

514
00:17:49,700 --> 00:17:52,180
it later. It's just e equals mc squared,

515
00:17:52,180 --> 00:17:54,615
and you can get an a stupid amount

516
00:17:54,615 --> 00:17:56,934
of energy to to accelerate a spacecraft up

517
00:17:56,934 --> 00:17:58,475
to close the speed of light. Great.

518
00:17:59,654 --> 00:18:00,955
In terms of whether

519
00:18:01,414 --> 00:18:03,195
a single cell can store

520
00:18:04,455 --> 00:18:06,875
that much energy with that much energy efficiency

521
00:18:07,309 --> 00:18:09,390
is ridiculous because it's like a billion times

522
00:18:09,390 --> 00:18:11,549
more efficient than, say, energy storage that, you

523
00:18:11,549 --> 00:18:14,210
know, like, in terms of life met metabolising

524
00:18:14,269 --> 00:18:16,049
on Earth can do in terms of

525
00:18:16,429 --> 00:18:18,829
energy from sugars. You break apart a sugar

526
00:18:18,829 --> 00:18:21,069
molecule and you release the energy from the

527
00:18:21,069 --> 00:18:23,424
chemical bonds, and that's the energy that we

528
00:18:23,424 --> 00:18:26,065
then use to power life. It it's like

529
00:18:26,065 --> 00:18:27,664
a billion times more efficient than that. So

530
00:18:27,664 --> 00:18:28,644
we don't have anything

531
00:18:29,105 --> 00:18:31,105
in terms of the the sort of the

532
00:18:31,105 --> 00:18:31,605
biophysics,

533
00:18:32,865 --> 00:18:33,605
to actually

534
00:18:34,559 --> 00:18:36,159
come anywhere close to that. But I think

535
00:18:36,159 --> 00:18:38,319
that's what's that's what's fun about Andy's work,

536
00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:39,679
and he says, you know, that kind of

537
00:18:39,679 --> 00:18:41,059
energy storage aspect.

538
00:18:41,599 --> 00:18:43,119
He sort of did a bit of a

539
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:44,980
hand wave. He like, oh, it's neutrinos.

540
00:18:45,919 --> 00:18:47,779
The cell that's storing the energy,

541
00:18:48,485 --> 00:18:49,684
which he likes to joke, you know, you

542
00:18:49,684 --> 00:18:51,545
get down to the quantum level, and

543
00:18:52,485 --> 00:18:54,424
that's when things start to break apart.

544
00:18:55,365 --> 00:18:57,684
And he invented this whole term in the

545
00:18:57,684 --> 00:19:00,565
book called, like, super cross sectionality or something

546
00:19:00,565 --> 00:19:01,140
like that,

547
00:19:01,619 --> 00:19:02,820
which is fun because it's sort of a

548
00:19:02,820 --> 00:19:04,820
borrowed word from particle physics when we talk

549
00:19:04,820 --> 00:19:06,740
about cross sectionality of particles and whether they're

550
00:19:06,740 --> 00:19:09,059
likely to intersect and things like that. So

551
00:19:09,059 --> 00:19:11,700
I like that you know, the idea is

552
00:19:11,700 --> 00:19:13,700
is is obviously a sci fi, but the

553
00:19:13,700 --> 00:19:16,414
fact that it's rooted in some elements of

554
00:19:16,414 --> 00:19:18,894
of physics and made that effort to do

555
00:19:18,894 --> 00:19:19,394
that,

556
00:19:20,095 --> 00:19:21,695
I think was incredible. Because there's a lot

557
00:19:21,695 --> 00:19:23,295
of sci fi that's just like, oh, yeah.

558
00:19:23,295 --> 00:19:25,695
We can go warp speed, you know, close

559
00:19:25,695 --> 00:19:28,025
to light speed. Don't don't question it. There's

560
00:19:28,025 --> 00:19:29,759
a a fuel. Don't question it, you know,

561
00:19:29,759 --> 00:19:31,360
and stuff like that. And and this, I

562
00:19:31,360 --> 00:19:32,640
think, is is like, well, how do we

563
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:34,240
solve that problem with the plot point in

564
00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:34,900
the story,

565
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:37,759
is is really cool. There is a a

566
00:19:37,759 --> 00:19:38,900
centrifugal force

567
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:40,180
that causes,

568
00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:41,140
gravity.

569
00:19:41,794 --> 00:19:42,294
Yeah.

570
00:19:42,674 --> 00:19:45,015
On the ship. I mean, from a filmmaking

571
00:19:45,075 --> 00:19:47,255
point of view, it means that Ryan doesn't

572
00:19:47,315 --> 00:19:47,954
have to,

573
00:19:48,355 --> 00:19:50,195
be on Walk around. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you

574
00:19:50,355 --> 00:19:51,714
have to float all the time. You can

575
00:19:51,714 --> 00:19:52,934
walk around. Yeah. Exactly.

576
00:19:53,394 --> 00:19:55,575
But from a science point of view,

577
00:19:56,669 --> 00:19:58,669
why would you do that if you were

578
00:19:58,669 --> 00:20:00,589
in space, and how would you how do

579
00:20:00,589 --> 00:20:02,429
you do that? Yeah. There was actually two

580
00:20:02,429 --> 00:20:04,450
types of artificial gravity in the film,

581
00:20:04,990 --> 00:20:06,049
which are realistic.

582
00:20:06,349 --> 00:20:07,950
So one of them is, you know, he

583
00:20:07,950 --> 00:20:10,424
wakes up, first of all, in space, and,

584
00:20:11,225 --> 00:20:12,525
the ship is accelerating

585
00:20:12,904 --> 00:20:14,045
just in a straight line.

586
00:20:14,585 --> 00:20:17,865
So his spacecraft is oriented so that, you

587
00:20:17,865 --> 00:20:20,105
know, the the floor is like a one

588
00:20:20,105 --> 00:20:22,505
big long column, basically. So he's he's kind

589
00:20:22,505 --> 00:20:24,265
of, like, climbing up ladders and stuff to

590
00:20:24,265 --> 00:20:25,725
go all the way up this column.

591
00:20:26,650 --> 00:20:28,410
And so because the chip is accelerating in

592
00:20:28,410 --> 00:20:30,170
a straight line, you feel the acceleration. So

593
00:20:30,170 --> 00:20:32,330
that's like when you're in a car and

594
00:20:32,330 --> 00:20:34,410
you put your foot down and you really

595
00:20:34,410 --> 00:20:36,410
do get thrown back in your seat. Right?

596
00:20:36,410 --> 00:20:38,184
That's the first type. So it's it's an

597
00:20:38,184 --> 00:20:39,945
artificial gravity in that way because he's just

598
00:20:39,945 --> 00:20:42,184
getting permanently thrown back into his seat door

599
00:20:42,184 --> 00:20:44,365
into the floor of this big, long column.

600
00:20:46,345 --> 00:20:48,345
But then the other aspect of the artificial

601
00:20:48,345 --> 00:20:50,025
gravity is the centrifuge you were talking about.

602
00:20:50,025 --> 00:20:52,045
So it's really cool what the ship does

603
00:20:52,250 --> 00:20:54,809
is it basically rotates that long column 90

604
00:20:54,809 --> 00:20:55,309
degrees.

605
00:20:55,769 --> 00:20:57,690
So then you've got, like, one big long

606
00:20:57,690 --> 00:21:00,410
cylindrical room, kind of like the International Space

607
00:21:00,410 --> 00:21:00,910
Station.

608
00:21:01,529 --> 00:21:03,789
And then what the ship does is it

609
00:21:04,009 --> 00:21:04,509
rotates

610
00:21:05,234 --> 00:21:05,894
so that

611
00:21:06,275 --> 00:21:07,894
that, long groom

612
00:21:08,355 --> 00:21:10,535
is always sort of being thrown backwards

613
00:21:10,914 --> 00:21:11,654
in a way.

614
00:21:12,674 --> 00:21:15,075
So if you think about it like you

615
00:21:15,075 --> 00:21:16,375
hold hands with a friend

616
00:21:16,674 --> 00:21:17,654
and spin around

617
00:21:18,029 --> 00:21:19,950
or you get on a roundabout and spin

618
00:21:19,950 --> 00:21:22,350
around. You feel that force pushing you backwards,

619
00:21:22,350 --> 00:21:25,150
rather, it's it's such a centrifugal force. So,

620
00:21:25,150 --> 00:21:27,230
basically, once this ship of his is spun

621
00:21:27,230 --> 00:21:29,230
around into one long room, he's always being

622
00:21:29,230 --> 00:21:32,049
pushed down into what now becomes the floor.

623
00:21:32,625 --> 00:21:34,065
And so the long column that he was

624
00:21:34,065 --> 00:21:35,744
climbing up with the ladders now becomes his

625
00:21:35,744 --> 00:21:36,244
floor.

626
00:21:37,184 --> 00:21:37,684
And

627
00:21:38,144 --> 00:21:40,464
it and it's it's a an idea that's

628
00:21:40,464 --> 00:21:42,625
been explored so many times, not just in

629
00:21:42,625 --> 00:21:44,464
sci fi, but also, you know, as as

630
00:21:44,464 --> 00:21:45,684
sort of people consider,

631
00:21:46,450 --> 00:21:48,850
you know, long journeys to Mars and things

632
00:21:48,850 --> 00:21:50,130
like this. If you're gonna send humans to

633
00:21:50,130 --> 00:21:52,070
Mars, you know, living in,

634
00:21:52,850 --> 00:21:55,330
zero g for longer than a year, which

635
00:21:55,330 --> 00:21:57,350
is always really been tested so far,

636
00:21:57,809 --> 00:21:59,890
with humans, you know, is is is is

637
00:21:59,890 --> 00:22:00,549
an issue.

638
00:22:01,075 --> 00:22:03,634
So can you create, an artificial gravity in

639
00:22:03,634 --> 00:22:04,295
that way?

640
00:22:04,994 --> 00:22:07,315
And depending on how fast you spin gives

641
00:22:07,315 --> 00:22:08,914
you how much gravity you feel. The faster

642
00:22:08,914 --> 00:22:10,775
you spin, the more gravity. But also,

643
00:22:11,234 --> 00:22:13,555
the further away you are from the center

644
00:22:13,555 --> 00:22:15,394
of the centrifuge, so how with, you know,

645
00:22:15,394 --> 00:22:17,659
the distance from the thing that's spinning, basically,

646
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:19,799
or the distance from the I guess, how

647
00:22:19,799 --> 00:22:21,399
long your arms are if you hold hands

648
00:22:21,399 --> 00:22:23,079
with your friend. Right? The longer your arms

649
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:25,079
get, the the the higher the force gets.

650
00:22:25,079 --> 00:22:26,679
It's a it's a really interesting idea to

651
00:22:26,679 --> 00:22:28,664
see realized on film, because I think

652
00:22:29,605 --> 00:22:31,285
just thinking back on, like, okay. Who's done

653
00:22:31,285 --> 00:22:32,884
this before in terms of artificial gravity? You've

654
00:22:32,884 --> 00:22:34,325
seen it in the Martian, actually. Like, the

655
00:22:34,325 --> 00:22:36,244
Martian ship that they they took to Mars

656
00:22:36,244 --> 00:22:38,085
and back, like, had a big centrifuge where

657
00:22:38,085 --> 00:22:40,244
the the crew compartment was, like, a big

658
00:22:40,244 --> 00:22:40,744
circle,

659
00:22:41,125 --> 00:22:42,984
and the whole circle was rotating.

660
00:22:44,069 --> 00:22:45,669
But, again, in terms of getting the right

661
00:22:45,669 --> 00:22:47,669
artificial gravity, you end up with, like, quite

662
00:22:47,669 --> 00:22:49,669
large things that you need to to make

663
00:22:49,669 --> 00:22:51,509
this happen. So the fact that you can

664
00:22:51,509 --> 00:22:53,269
have a sort of ship that spins out

665
00:22:53,269 --> 00:22:55,190
on cables the way this does to make

666
00:22:55,190 --> 00:22:57,509
it so that it rotates around and then

667
00:22:57,509 --> 00:23:00,414
can then get your centrifuge, I think is

668
00:23:00,414 --> 00:23:02,095
a nice way of sort of getting around

669
00:23:02,095 --> 00:23:03,394
that that problem.

670
00:23:04,734 --> 00:23:06,414
But it's like, would we need to do

671
00:23:06,414 --> 00:23:08,255
that if we were doing this kind of

672
00:23:08,255 --> 00:23:10,095
long distance space? That's the big question, isn't

673
00:23:10,095 --> 00:23:11,215
it? So that's what I was sort of

674
00:23:11,215 --> 00:23:13,420
alluding to was, like, we've only tested it

675
00:23:13,420 --> 00:23:16,380
with astronauts for usually spans of six months

676
00:23:16,380 --> 00:23:17,740
is is tends to be the longest that

677
00:23:17,740 --> 00:23:19,019
people do in space, but I think it

678
00:23:19,019 --> 00:23:20,779
was was it Mark Kelly that did a

679
00:23:20,779 --> 00:23:21,759
year in space?

680
00:23:22,380 --> 00:23:22,880
So

681
00:23:24,299 --> 00:23:26,700
in theory, you know, people can spend an

682
00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:28,984
extended amount of time in in very low

683
00:23:29,125 --> 00:23:29,625
gravity.

684
00:23:30,325 --> 00:23:30,825
And,

685
00:23:31,684 --> 00:23:33,125
I mean, I would say with with, you

686
00:23:33,125 --> 00:23:35,605
know, little to to minor effects from it.

687
00:23:35,605 --> 00:23:38,005
Obviously, there's muscle mass loss, there's bone density

688
00:23:38,005 --> 00:23:40,470
loss, things like that from not having that

689
00:23:40,950 --> 00:23:42,250
force pulling you down.

690
00:23:42,869 --> 00:23:44,789
But I think in terms of, like, long

691
00:23:44,789 --> 00:23:47,509
term studies, they're still ongoing. Thankfully, Mark Kelly

692
00:23:47,509 --> 00:23:49,669
had a twin, so we've quite literally got

693
00:23:49,669 --> 00:23:50,329
a control

694
00:23:51,109 --> 00:23:52,789
for who stayed on Earth and who went

695
00:23:52,789 --> 00:23:54,329
to space for a year and experienced,

696
00:23:54,630 --> 00:23:56,089
zero g for that, like,

697
00:23:56,524 --> 00:23:58,444
extended period of time. So those kind of

698
00:23:58,444 --> 00:24:00,764
studies are still going on. So I don't

699
00:24:00,764 --> 00:24:03,325
think we'll we'll fully know from a scientific

700
00:24:03,325 --> 00:24:06,144
perspective and a medical perspective to say,

701
00:24:06,684 --> 00:24:08,764
you know, is it an issue to to

702
00:24:08,764 --> 00:24:09,744
spend that long,

703
00:24:10,204 --> 00:24:11,105
without gravity?

704
00:24:11,899 --> 00:24:14,380
So there's another thing which happens, which is

705
00:24:14,380 --> 00:24:16,619
about relativity and time. And how do you

706
00:24:16,619 --> 00:24:17,619
think they dealt with that in the film?

707
00:24:17,619 --> 00:24:18,700
I thought they dealt with it well. It

708
00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:19,899
was very much sort of one of those

709
00:24:19,899 --> 00:24:21,500
things that if you knew it was happening,

710
00:24:21,500 --> 00:24:22,399
it was there.

711
00:24:22,700 --> 00:24:24,619
But if you weren't aware with it, it

712
00:24:24,619 --> 00:24:26,894
wasn't gonna trip you up in the film,

713
00:24:27,054 --> 00:24:28,654
which I think is is is sort of

714
00:24:28,654 --> 00:24:30,174
a a good way of doing it. So

715
00:24:30,174 --> 00:24:30,575
you're very

716
00:24:31,294 --> 00:24:32,914
you'll hear the ship's computer

717
00:24:33,454 --> 00:24:35,214
say at one point that the the journey

718
00:24:35,214 --> 00:24:35,714
time

719
00:24:36,335 --> 00:24:36,835
is

720
00:24:37,214 --> 00:24:38,355
about four years.

721
00:24:38,670 --> 00:24:40,110
And I won't say what journey time that

722
00:24:40,110 --> 00:24:40,610
is,

723
00:24:41,549 --> 00:24:42,610
but, the technically,

724
00:24:43,070 --> 00:24:45,710
the light travel time for that journey would

725
00:24:45,710 --> 00:24:46,769
have been twelve years.

726
00:24:47,309 --> 00:24:49,390
So if you're, you know, if you're if

727
00:24:49,390 --> 00:24:51,684
you're in the know, you'd go, oh, hang

728
00:24:51,684 --> 00:24:53,365
on a minute. What's going on there? You

729
00:24:53,365 --> 00:24:54,964
know? And you'd think, well, are they somehow

730
00:24:54,964 --> 00:24:57,605
going faster than light? Because as Einstein told

731
00:24:57,605 --> 00:24:59,464
us, nothing can go faster than light.

732
00:24:59,845 --> 00:25:01,205
Traveling at the fastest speed there is in

733
00:25:01,205 --> 00:25:03,845
the universe, about 300,000 kilometers a second or

734
00:25:03,845 --> 00:25:04,964
a 186,000

735
00:25:04,964 --> 00:25:06,744
miles a second for those in imperial.

736
00:25:08,539 --> 00:25:08,700
And,

737
00:25:09,660 --> 00:25:10,779
so you think, okay. Well, how is he

738
00:25:10,779 --> 00:25:11,820
doing it? Well, he's doing it at three

739
00:25:11,820 --> 00:25:13,660
times faster speed than light. But, actually, what's

740
00:25:13,660 --> 00:25:15,259
happening is that you've got what's known as

741
00:25:15,259 --> 00:25:16,000
time dilation.

742
00:25:16,460 --> 00:25:18,460
So the four years is the time that

743
00:25:18,460 --> 00:25:19,759
the ship will experience

744
00:25:20,644 --> 00:25:22,724
traveling at close to the speed of light.

745
00:25:22,724 --> 00:25:23,224
So

746
00:25:23,845 --> 00:25:25,444
time dilation is a is a prediction of

747
00:25:25,444 --> 00:25:27,845
Einstein's theory of special relativity. It's one that

748
00:25:27,845 --> 00:25:29,944
we have proven using

749
00:25:30,565 --> 00:25:33,304
very precise clocks, atomic clocks that have been

750
00:25:33,700 --> 00:25:35,859
flown around the world while one's been left

751
00:25:35,859 --> 00:25:38,100
on Earth and the times compared afterwards and

752
00:25:38,100 --> 00:25:38,920
that they're different.

753
00:25:39,299 --> 00:25:40,900
So you can get time dilation in two

754
00:25:40,900 --> 00:25:43,460
ways. Basically, the the faster you travel, the

755
00:25:43,460 --> 00:25:46,119
less time you experience compared to someone stationary.

756
00:25:46,724 --> 00:25:49,065
And, also, if you're in a heavier gravity,

757
00:25:49,605 --> 00:25:52,244
the less time you experience compared to someone

758
00:25:52,244 --> 00:25:54,565
who is in less gravity. That was a

759
00:25:54,565 --> 00:25:56,424
a plot point that was explored in Interstellar,

760
00:25:58,085 --> 00:25:59,789
in the bit that annoyed me the most.

761
00:26:00,430 --> 00:26:02,350
Just screaming at the screen going, he's like

762
00:26:02,350 --> 00:26:04,210
70. Get back on this shit.

763
00:26:07,470 --> 00:26:08,529
But yeah. So,

764
00:26:09,710 --> 00:26:11,230
where was I? I get so distracted by

765
00:26:11,230 --> 00:26:12,369
Interstellar every day.

766
00:26:14,434 --> 00:26:16,595
Yes. So in in in Project Hail Mary,

767
00:26:16,595 --> 00:26:17,875
it was it was sort of nice to

768
00:26:17,875 --> 00:26:19,894
hear that that was happening.

769
00:26:21,075 --> 00:26:22,755
And in the book as well, there's a

770
00:26:22,755 --> 00:26:24,835
plot point where someone else doesn't know about

771
00:26:24,835 --> 00:26:27,154
relativity, and they were confused and this kind

772
00:26:27,154 --> 00:26:28,674
of stuff, you know, about how long it

773
00:26:28,674 --> 00:26:30,809
would take and how much fuel was needed

774
00:26:30,809 --> 00:26:31,869
and things like that.

775
00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:34,089
So it was really cool to to see

776
00:26:34,089 --> 00:26:35,929
that that was sort of realized in the

777
00:26:35,929 --> 00:26:38,269
film as well, that time dilation was

778
00:26:38,809 --> 00:26:41,309
was sort of not necessarily explicitly said,

779
00:26:41,769 --> 00:26:44,089
but was recognized. There's a character in the

780
00:26:44,089 --> 00:26:46,744
film called Strat. If we do nothing,

781
00:26:51,125 --> 00:26:53,605
everything on this planet will go extinct, including

782
00:26:53,605 --> 00:26:54,105
us.

783
00:26:55,764 --> 00:26:56,744
Doctor Grace,

784
00:26:58,484 --> 00:27:00,179
the world is counting on you. I mean,

785
00:27:00,179 --> 00:27:02,259
she's my favorite character in the book. How

786
00:27:02,259 --> 00:27:04,039
about you? She's one of mine too.

787
00:27:04,419 --> 00:27:04,919
I

788
00:27:05,299 --> 00:27:07,539
I it's funny because I've seen some people

789
00:27:07,539 --> 00:27:09,460
criticize her as just kind of very one

790
00:27:09,619 --> 00:27:11,139
not one dimensional, but that is sort of

791
00:27:11,139 --> 00:27:12,659
like the bossy female role. But I'm like,

792
00:27:12,659 --> 00:27:14,099
yeah. But if you'd had a man playing

793
00:27:14,099 --> 00:27:15,704
that role, you wouldn't have even questioned it

794
00:27:15,784 --> 00:27:16,524
in a way.

795
00:27:17,625 --> 00:27:20,524
So I love her. I think she's great.

796
00:27:21,224 --> 00:27:23,224
And I just think she's no nonsense, and

797
00:27:23,224 --> 00:27:24,284
she's just absolutely

798
00:27:25,144 --> 00:27:27,065
just, yeah, cracks on and and it is

799
00:27:27,065 --> 00:27:29,144
wonderful. And I love how she was played

800
00:27:29,144 --> 00:27:31,190
by Sandra Huler as well in that no

801
00:27:31,190 --> 00:27:33,269
nonsense way, but with sort of this deadpan

802
00:27:33,269 --> 00:27:34,329
humor as well,

803
00:27:34,630 --> 00:27:36,250
was very, very well done.

804
00:27:36,549 --> 00:27:38,390
So I really enjoyed how she brought that

805
00:27:38,390 --> 00:27:40,309
character to to life in the film as

806
00:27:40,309 --> 00:27:40,809
well.

807
00:27:42,069 --> 00:27:43,430
I always probably see bits that I still

808
00:27:43,430 --> 00:27:44,869
wish it ended up in from the book

809
00:27:44,869 --> 00:27:46,150
that weren't in the film and things like

810
00:27:46,150 --> 00:27:47,884
that, But that's that's, you know, even unless

811
00:27:47,884 --> 00:27:49,184
you made a five hour film,

812
00:27:49,724 --> 00:27:50,384
you know?

813
00:27:52,444 --> 00:27:55,424
If we did have something like this happen,

814
00:27:55,484 --> 00:27:57,804
if we had a a situation where the

815
00:27:57,804 --> 00:27:58,785
Earth was in

816
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:00,380
dire peril,

817
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,240
what Andy Weir does in his story is

818
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,420
is give all the power to one person.

819
00:28:05,799 --> 00:28:07,480
Which I think is a terrible idea, but

820
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,100
great for a story. Yeah. Okay.

821
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:09,980
Okay.

822
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:11,559
It's 11.9

823
00:28:11,559 --> 00:28:13,100
light years away. The astronauts

824
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,184
die in space. It's what you Americans would

825
00:28:16,184 --> 00:28:19,065
call a lung shot. Hail Mary. I get

826
00:28:19,065 --> 00:28:20,825
it. What Earth is gonna sign up for

827
00:28:20,825 --> 00:28:22,505
this? I mean, I would not wanna live

828
00:28:22,505 --> 00:28:23,785
in a world that has a Strat at

829
00:28:23,785 --> 00:28:24,525
all times.

830
00:28:25,224 --> 00:28:27,785
Strat had unrivaled authority. She's probably the most

831
00:28:27,785 --> 00:28:29,805
powerful human being of all time,

832
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:32,009
And, like, she could tell countries what to

833
00:28:32,009 --> 00:28:32,829
do, and

834
00:28:33,130 --> 00:28:34,809
it's kinda like an ancient Rome. They had

835
00:28:34,890 --> 00:28:35,609
what was it? They,

836
00:28:36,730 --> 00:28:38,329
they could, declare someone

837
00:28:38,809 --> 00:28:40,650
I forget what it was. It was I

838
00:28:40,650 --> 00:28:42,589
forget the name of the act, but basically,

839
00:28:42,650 --> 00:28:44,569
the senate could vote for that person to

840
00:28:44,569 --> 00:28:45,255
have, like,

841
00:28:45,654 --> 00:28:47,734
complete dictatorial power for a certain length of

842
00:28:47,734 --> 00:28:49,835
time and then and then go back.

843
00:28:50,134 --> 00:28:52,454
And that's kind of what happened for Earth

844
00:28:52,454 --> 00:28:54,535
is that everybody said, like, okay. We don't

845
00:28:54,535 --> 00:28:55,515
have time for

846
00:28:55,894 --> 00:28:58,615
slow ass UN committees to try to figure

847
00:28:58,615 --> 00:28:59,595
out the best,

848
00:28:59,929 --> 00:29:02,089
you know, color for the flight manual cover.

849
00:29:02,089 --> 00:29:03,690
I mean, we we don't have time for

850
00:29:03,690 --> 00:29:04,509
that. We need

851
00:29:04,890 --> 00:29:07,210
this to go very rapidly. So they put

852
00:29:07,210 --> 00:29:09,130
all their eggs in the strat basket and

853
00:29:09,130 --> 00:29:10,029
had her just

854
00:29:10,730 --> 00:29:13,414
run everything. And they picked the right person.

855
00:29:13,414 --> 00:29:13,815
I mean

856
00:29:14,695 --> 00:29:16,775
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Didn't they? K. The the

857
00:29:16,775 --> 00:29:18,295
thing in the book is that we don't

858
00:29:18,295 --> 00:29:19,654
have time to do it by committee, so

859
00:29:19,654 --> 00:29:21,494
we give it to one single person. The

860
00:29:21,494 --> 00:29:23,174
thing is the committee would decide the person.

861
00:29:23,174 --> 00:29:25,170
Right? And, it still take ages.

862
00:29:25,970 --> 00:29:27,250
But I think the fact that we have

863
00:29:27,250 --> 00:29:29,490
those kind of committees in due process in

864
00:29:29,490 --> 00:29:31,990
all aspects of whether it is space agency,

865
00:29:32,049 --> 00:29:32,549
government,

866
00:29:32,930 --> 00:29:35,109
you know, United Nations, whatever it might be,

867
00:29:35,650 --> 00:29:36,950
I think is is good.

868
00:29:38,529 --> 00:29:40,390
Yes, it will slow things down, but

869
00:29:41,184 --> 00:29:42,785
the kind of power that Strat has in

870
00:29:42,785 --> 00:29:44,224
the book. And I think perhaps that is

871
00:29:44,224 --> 00:29:45,664
the thing that doesn't come across in the

872
00:29:45,664 --> 00:29:47,045
film is the just

873
00:29:47,664 --> 00:29:50,945
just how much power she singularly has. Like,

874
00:29:50,945 --> 00:29:52,305
the scene in the book where she's in

875
00:29:52,305 --> 00:29:53,605
a courtroom, and

876
00:29:54,259 --> 00:29:57,460
they are, you know, suing her because she's

877
00:29:57,460 --> 00:29:59,799
put every single, you know, book

878
00:30:00,500 --> 00:30:01,000
and,

879
00:30:01,460 --> 00:30:04,119
piece of software ever, you know, that's been,

880
00:30:04,819 --> 00:30:06,899
ever, you know, ever produced by humans onto

881
00:30:06,899 --> 00:30:08,659
the onto the Hail Mary ship because we

882
00:30:08,659 --> 00:30:10,315
don't know what would be needed. And they're

883
00:30:10,315 --> 00:30:12,795
suing her for, like, IP. You know? And

884
00:30:12,795 --> 00:30:14,075
she's like, I just don't have time for

885
00:30:14,075 --> 00:30:16,555
this. You know? Like, I every government in

886
00:30:16,555 --> 00:30:17,914
the world has said I can do this.

887
00:30:17,914 --> 00:30:18,975
Why are we here?

888
00:30:19,515 --> 00:30:21,755
And just walks out. You know? And I

889
00:30:21,755 --> 00:30:23,819
just I I wish I had that,

890
00:30:24,359 --> 00:30:26,200
a bit more Strath in me sometimes, you

891
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:27,099
know, to just

892
00:30:27,799 --> 00:30:29,659
just no nonsense and just go

893
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:31,639
no, and and shut that kind of side

894
00:30:31,639 --> 00:30:33,179
of things down in in a way.

895
00:30:34,279 --> 00:30:35,659
If we did have to,

896
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:37,819
give all that power to one person,

897
00:30:38,545 --> 00:30:40,065
is Straub the right person to give it

898
00:30:40,065 --> 00:30:41,984
to? Is there anybody that you can think

899
00:30:41,984 --> 00:30:44,945
of on earth who we would say, like,

900
00:30:44,945 --> 00:30:46,945
you're the right person to give this money?

901
00:30:46,945 --> 00:30:48,945
Absolutely not. No. I don't think it was

902
00:30:49,904 --> 00:30:51,744
and and if anybody said they were the

903
00:30:51,744 --> 00:30:53,460
right person, that would make them less of

904
00:30:53,460 --> 00:30:56,019
the right person Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Is the

905
00:30:56,019 --> 00:30:58,339
problem. So I have a tremendous amount of

906
00:30:58,339 --> 00:31:00,500
faith in humanity. You can probably tell from

907
00:31:00,500 --> 00:31:02,839
my writing that I'm a pretty optimistic guy,

908
00:31:02,980 --> 00:31:05,220
especially when it comes to humanity and human

909
00:31:05,220 --> 00:31:07,299
nature and our ability to cooperate and work

910
00:31:07,299 --> 00:31:07,799
together.

911
00:31:08,105 --> 00:31:10,105
And if anything, I think the pandemic has

912
00:31:10,105 --> 00:31:12,025
shown that we do that. So I do

913
00:31:12,025 --> 00:31:13,865
think that the world works together when there's

914
00:31:13,865 --> 00:31:16,345
a common problem. If it's a direct and

915
00:31:16,345 --> 00:31:16,845
immediate,

916
00:31:18,105 --> 00:31:19,325
problem like COVID,

917
00:31:20,149 --> 00:31:21,589
We're not so great at it when it's

918
00:31:21,589 --> 00:31:24,809
a slow burn like environmental damage, but

919
00:31:25,909 --> 00:31:28,329
you you can't expect us to all be

920
00:31:28,389 --> 00:31:31,109
completely perfectly efficient at all times in every

921
00:31:31,109 --> 00:31:33,769
way. But I do think that that humanity

922
00:31:33,829 --> 00:31:34,730
is pretty awesome.

923
00:31:35,134 --> 00:31:36,975
And the one example I like to give

924
00:31:36,975 --> 00:31:39,394
is if you, you know, if a guy

925
00:31:39,455 --> 00:31:41,535
falls on the street and breaks his leg

926
00:31:41,535 --> 00:31:44,494
and a total stranger helps him, calls the

927
00:31:44,575 --> 00:31:46,575
calls an ambulance, helps get him to a

928
00:31:46,575 --> 00:31:48,750
hospital, Do you see that on the news?

929
00:31:49,210 --> 00:31:49,710
No.

930
00:31:50,089 --> 00:31:52,410
It doesn't make the news because it's so

931
00:31:52,410 --> 00:31:55,690
normal. It is so presumed in human behavior

932
00:31:55,690 --> 00:31:57,529
to help each other out like that that

933
00:31:57,529 --> 00:32:00,170
it's not even newsworthy. What's newsworthy is when

934
00:32:00,170 --> 00:32:00,990
someone doesn't.

935
00:32:01,644 --> 00:32:03,244
And so the fact that you see all

936
00:32:03,244 --> 00:32:05,244
this negative stuff on the news, look at

937
00:32:05,244 --> 00:32:06,684
the negative stuff you see on the news

938
00:32:06,684 --> 00:32:08,605
and remind yourself, the only reason it's on

939
00:32:08,605 --> 00:32:10,625
the news is because it's abnormal.

940
00:32:11,404 --> 00:32:13,565
It's very abnormal. So when you see people

941
00:32:13,565 --> 00:32:16,359
being callous or being horrible to each other,

942
00:32:16,359 --> 00:32:19,160
that is abnormal by definition because it's on

943
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:19,819
the news.

944
00:32:20,519 --> 00:32:22,680
What you don't see is the billions of

945
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:23,180
little

946
00:32:23,559 --> 00:32:24,380
acts of

947
00:32:24,839 --> 00:32:27,720
acts of, selflessness by humanity every day. This

948
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:29,579
might be very hard for you to understand,

949
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,154
but some people are not good at things.

950
00:32:34,575 --> 00:32:36,015
You know who you are. You're gonna do

951
00:32:36,015 --> 00:32:38,275
great. I conquered zero g in five hours.

952
00:32:38,894 --> 00:32:39,394
Yeah.

953
00:32:42,414 --> 00:32:43,554
Object approaching.

954
00:32:45,539 --> 00:32:46,599
Oh my god.

955
00:32:48,339 --> 00:32:49,799
You know a lot about space.

956
00:32:50,500 --> 00:32:51,880
You know a lot about communicating.

957
00:32:52,819 --> 00:32:54,819
Maybe you might be in the room in

958
00:32:54,980 --> 00:32:56,419
you maybe you might be in one of

959
00:32:56,419 --> 00:32:57,159
those discussions.

960
00:32:57,460 --> 00:32:59,960
But what you might not find yourself doing

961
00:33:00,259 --> 00:33:00,759
is

962
00:33:01,275 --> 00:33:03,295
in a bar with karaoke.

963
00:33:04,394 --> 00:33:05,914
It No. You would find me that's where

964
00:33:05,914 --> 00:33:07,835
you'd find me. Oh. That's the more likely

965
00:33:07,835 --> 00:33:09,195
scene in the film that you'd wanna be

966
00:33:09,195 --> 00:33:10,494
doing karaoke.

967
00:33:10,955 --> 00:33:12,875
I do a great Bonnie Tyler. I've just

968
00:33:12,875 --> 00:33:14,799
put that. Is that right? Because that was

969
00:33:14,799 --> 00:33:16,720
what was that's actually gonna be my question,

970
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:18,720
which is, you know, if you were kind

971
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:19,220
of

972
00:33:19,759 --> 00:33:22,640
in that situation, maybe you're falling for someone,

973
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,019
maybe you're not, who knows.

974
00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:26,640
May Oh, I didn't like that aspect of

975
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:28,000
it, actually. I was like, no. There was

976
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,085
no relationship there. Don't they really did do.

977
00:33:30,085 --> 00:33:32,244
But anyway Yeah. There's a Maybe some people

978
00:33:32,244 --> 00:33:33,644
read into it that I didn't, but yeah.

979
00:33:33,644 --> 00:33:35,065
I don't know. But,

980
00:33:36,404 --> 00:33:38,025
the the world's kinda failing.

981
00:33:39,365 --> 00:33:40,184
You've got

982
00:33:40,884 --> 00:33:42,424
a a choice of a song.

983
00:33:43,045 --> 00:33:44,025
What do you pick?

984
00:33:44,700 --> 00:33:46,619
Yeah. Well, my usual karaoke song is Total

985
00:33:46,619 --> 00:33:48,380
Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler, but

986
00:33:48,380 --> 00:33:50,619
that feels not appropriate for The World is

987
00:33:50,619 --> 00:33:51,119
Ending.

988
00:33:51,659 --> 00:33:53,179
So what would I Total Eclipse is a

989
00:33:53,179 --> 00:33:54,700
bit on the nose as well, wouldn't it?

990
00:33:54,700 --> 00:33:55,899
The end of the world as we know

991
00:33:55,899 --> 00:33:56,720
it, I guess.

992
00:33:59,845 --> 00:34:00,345
Amazing.

993
00:34:01,204 --> 00:34:02,884
Yeah. I think Sign of the Times was

994
00:34:02,884 --> 00:34:04,505
a great track to pick.

995
00:34:05,684 --> 00:34:06,424
But yeah.

996
00:34:08,644 --> 00:34:10,565
The National has a song called Light Years.

997
00:34:10,565 --> 00:34:12,984
It's like you're only light years away. Yeah.

998
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:14,059
That would be appropriate

999
00:34:14,519 --> 00:34:16,380
for this. That's that would be amazing.

1000
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,360
For this story. Do do you do a

1001
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,519
good night when you're in the, it No.

1002
00:34:20,519 --> 00:34:21,019
I've

1003
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:23,640
not got enough sad dad in me. Well,

1004
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:25,079
I've got loads of sad dad in me.

1005
00:34:25,079 --> 00:34:26,219
Maybe I'll try it.

1006
00:34:27,454 --> 00:34:28,815
I just have a big grin on my

1007
00:34:28,815 --> 00:34:30,735
face throughout the whole thing. But can anyone

1008
00:34:30,735 --> 00:34:32,755
do my good Matt Biddens channeling again?

1009
00:34:34,094 --> 00:34:36,094
Okay. There's another right. So,

1010
00:34:36,735 --> 00:34:38,015
I don't know how to do this without

1011
00:34:38,015 --> 00:34:40,650
spoilers. Well, the trailer shows you Rocky. Right?

1012
00:34:40,650 --> 00:34:42,569
So This is and I know that so

1013
00:34:42,569 --> 00:34:44,329
I I particularly as a book fan as

1014
00:34:44,329 --> 00:34:46,089
well. So I went into Project Hail Mary

1015
00:34:46,089 --> 00:34:46,989
completely blind.

1016
00:34:47,609 --> 00:34:49,130
I did not even read the blurb. I

1017
00:34:49,130 --> 00:34:50,409
just was like, it's a sci fi thing.

1018
00:34:50,409 --> 00:34:52,730
Cool. Just tell me more. So I had

1019
00:34:52,730 --> 00:34:54,569
all the reveals that the character had as

1020
00:34:54,569 --> 00:34:56,244
well. And so I understand

1021
00:34:57,025 --> 00:34:59,125
why people were so annoyed that they

1022
00:34:59,505 --> 00:35:01,425
put something in the trailer that I think

1023
00:35:01,425 --> 00:35:02,945
you're about to say, but, like, they put

1024
00:35:02,945 --> 00:35:04,465
something in the trailer that was a big,

1025
00:35:04,465 --> 00:35:05,285
big reveal.

1026
00:35:05,664 --> 00:35:08,144
So I met an alien. He's kinda growing

1027
00:35:08,144 --> 00:35:09,344
on me. At least he's not growing in

1028
00:35:09,344 --> 00:35:10,960
me, you know, which was a concern for

1029
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:11,780
a little while.

1030
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,304
I'm Grace. I'm gonna call you Rocky. Thumbs

1031
00:35:24,304 --> 00:35:24,804
up.

1032
00:35:25,824 --> 00:35:28,144
No. That's thumbs down. If we do the

1033
00:35:28,144 --> 00:35:29,364
thumbs up,

1034
00:35:31,424 --> 00:35:32,484
it's close enough.

1035
00:35:34,625 --> 00:35:36,385
Yeah. No. It's it it is a shame,

1036
00:35:36,385 --> 00:35:37,904
isn't it? But they are two different things,

1037
00:35:37,904 --> 00:35:38,760
aren't they? And that's

1038
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,320
that's just one of those. What what I

1039
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,239
love about the book when I was watching

1040
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:44,840
the film, I was like, I remember this,

1041
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,360
the start of the film. You have that,

1042
00:35:47,159 --> 00:35:47,980
Ryan Gosling,

1043
00:35:48,519 --> 00:35:49,500
Brian and Grace

1044
00:35:50,119 --> 00:35:50,619
character

1045
00:35:51,305 --> 00:35:52,825
going around the ship. I mean, that just

1046
00:35:52,825 --> 00:35:55,065
lasts for ages in the boat. Right? It's

1047
00:35:55,065 --> 00:35:56,825
just pissing. And and I like the bit

1048
00:35:56,825 --> 00:35:58,765
where he drops something, and he realizes,

1049
00:35:59,065 --> 00:36:01,545
that fell weird. Mhmm. Mhmm. And that's how

1050
00:36:01,545 --> 00:36:03,704
he realized he's he's in space or at

1051
00:36:03,704 --> 00:36:05,164
least in a centrifuge because

1052
00:36:05,489 --> 00:36:07,969
it was falling at a different gravity. It

1053
00:36:07,969 --> 00:36:10,309
was at 1.5 g rather than one g.

1054
00:36:10,610 --> 00:36:12,449
The sun is not the only star dying.

1055
00:36:12,449 --> 00:36:14,929
Every star was infected by its neighbor except

1056
00:36:14,929 --> 00:36:16,070
one. Why?

1057
00:36:16,369 --> 00:36:18,775
We don't know. Which is why we build

1058
00:36:18,775 --> 00:36:19,514
a ship

1059
00:36:19,974 --> 00:36:21,655
to go there and find out. Now Andy

1060
00:36:21,655 --> 00:36:23,655
Weir does famously do an awful lot of

1061
00:36:23,655 --> 00:36:26,614
work into the background and the science that

1062
00:36:26,614 --> 00:36:27,434
goes into

1063
00:36:27,735 --> 00:36:29,335
his books. One time when I spoke to

1064
00:36:29,335 --> 00:36:32,394
him, he said that he would go away

1065
00:36:32,710 --> 00:36:35,750
and spend a day, maybe half a day,

1066
00:36:35,750 --> 00:36:37,989
maybe two days on the maths of a

1067
00:36:37,989 --> 00:36:40,150
particular problem for The Martian, and then it

1068
00:36:40,150 --> 00:36:42,150
would end up as being one sentence in

1069
00:36:42,150 --> 00:36:44,710
the book. So I asked him about how

1070
00:36:44,710 --> 00:36:46,809
he went about creating the world,

1071
00:36:47,110 --> 00:36:47,474
which

1072
00:36:48,035 --> 00:36:50,035
admittedly, at the time that he was writing

1073
00:36:50,035 --> 00:36:52,675
this, the science was suggesting there was actually

1074
00:36:52,675 --> 00:36:54,614
a real planet, a real exoplanet

1075
00:36:55,235 --> 00:36:56,375
orbiting the star.

1076
00:36:56,835 --> 00:36:58,914
So he was basing this on real science

1077
00:36:58,914 --> 00:37:00,135
at the time. As it happens,

1078
00:37:00,500 --> 00:37:03,219
the latest data suggests that actually there isn't

1079
00:37:03,219 --> 00:37:04,599
a planet there, and it's

1080
00:37:05,059 --> 00:37:07,380
aspects of the star that are creating the

1081
00:37:07,380 --> 00:37:08,599
dimming that we're seeing.

1082
00:37:08,900 --> 00:37:11,719
Here's Andy Weir. There are actually three biospheres

1083
00:37:11,859 --> 00:37:14,295
involved in this story. There's ours, Earth.

1084
00:37:14,934 --> 00:37:15,755
There is,

1085
00:37:16,454 --> 00:37:18,614
planet Adrian is what they ultimately name it,

1086
00:37:18,614 --> 00:37:20,214
which is a planet in orbit around Tau

1087
00:37:20,214 --> 00:37:22,694
Ceti, and that is basically the homeworld of

1088
00:37:22,694 --> 00:37:23,194
astrophage.

1089
00:37:23,974 --> 00:37:24,474
And,

1090
00:37:24,934 --> 00:37:25,674
then there's,

1091
00:37:26,214 --> 00:37:27,994
the planet Arid around

1092
00:37:28,295 --> 00:37:29,835
the star 40 Eridani,

1093
00:37:30,389 --> 00:37:31,989
and that is the home world of the

1094
00:37:31,989 --> 00:37:34,150
Eridians, which is an intelligent alien race who

1095
00:37:34,150 --> 00:37:36,789
has the exact same problem that, that the

1096
00:37:36,789 --> 00:37:38,789
humans are having. And so they did the

1097
00:37:38,789 --> 00:37:41,349
exact same thing. The reason everybody went the

1098
00:37:41,349 --> 00:37:43,589
reason these two ships both went to Tau

1099
00:37:43,589 --> 00:37:45,929
Ceti is because for whatever reason, Tau Ceti

1100
00:37:46,025 --> 00:37:48,585
is proven to be immune to astrophage. It's

1101
00:37:48,585 --> 00:37:50,344
the only star in the neighborhood that's not

1102
00:37:50,344 --> 00:37:52,364
dimming. Okay. So that's the setup.

1103
00:37:52,985 --> 00:37:54,985
As for designing Rocky, and Rocky is the

1104
00:37:54,985 --> 00:37:57,485
nickname that our protagonist gives to the alien

1105
00:37:57,704 --> 00:37:58,265
that he meets.

1106
00:37:59,579 --> 00:38:01,599
For the design of Rocky, I had decided

1107
00:38:01,660 --> 00:38:02,160
early

1108
00:38:02,460 --> 00:38:04,000
on that of these three biospheres,

1109
00:38:04,300 --> 00:38:06,059
they're way too close together for it to

1110
00:38:06,059 --> 00:38:08,059
make sense for them to each be a

1111
00:38:08,059 --> 00:38:10,300
separate genesis. Because, I mean, in the grand

1112
00:38:10,300 --> 00:38:12,619
scheme of things, Forti Aridani, Sol, that's the

1113
00:38:12,619 --> 00:38:13,519
name of our star,

1114
00:38:13,894 --> 00:38:16,135
and Tau Ceti are all really close to

1115
00:38:16,135 --> 00:38:18,135
each other. Tau Ceti is 12 light years

1116
00:38:18,135 --> 00:38:20,375
from here. Forti Aradani is 16 light years

1117
00:38:20,375 --> 00:38:22,454
from here, and the Milky Way galaxy is

1118
00:38:22,454 --> 00:38:24,315
a 100,000 light years across.

1119
00:38:24,775 --> 00:38:27,494
So it's just, like, absurdly close together. So

1120
00:38:27,494 --> 00:38:28,074
I decided

1121
00:38:28,929 --> 00:38:31,170
these are not separate genesis events. There was

1122
00:38:31,170 --> 00:38:33,489
a single genesis event. I'm not talking about

1123
00:38:33,489 --> 00:38:36,130
the religious type of genesis. I mean, life

1124
00:38:36,130 --> 00:38:39,110
evolved actually on the planet Adrian

1125
00:38:39,730 --> 00:38:40,130
on

1126
00:38:40,610 --> 00:38:43,474
in orbit around Tau Ceti. And then a,

1127
00:38:43,875 --> 00:38:47,235
an ancestor of astrophy, a like a 4,000,000,000

1128
00:38:47,235 --> 00:38:50,215
years ago ancestor of astrophy, which was another

1129
00:38:50,515 --> 00:38:51,015
interstellar

1130
00:38:51,315 --> 00:38:53,335
traveling life form monosyllular

1131
00:38:53,715 --> 00:38:57,094
thing, seeded Earth and arid with life.

1132
00:38:57,489 --> 00:39:00,070
And so we are actually all very distinctly

1133
00:39:00,130 --> 00:39:00,630
related.

1134
00:39:01,010 --> 00:39:02,690
So this made things a lot easier for

1135
00:39:02,690 --> 00:39:04,210
me. I mean, I did that on purpose

1136
00:39:04,210 --> 00:39:06,130
to explain why we're all so close together,

1137
00:39:06,130 --> 00:39:06,789
but also,

1138
00:39:07,170 --> 00:39:09,110
I don't have to invent all the chemistry

1139
00:39:09,250 --> 00:39:11,010
and stuff for new life. I just say,

1140
00:39:11,010 --> 00:39:13,625
like, okay. If you look at the cells

1141
00:39:13,925 --> 00:39:16,005
in Rocky's body and if you look at

1142
00:39:16,005 --> 00:39:18,425
an astrophage itself, you'll see there's mitochondria,

1143
00:39:18,805 --> 00:39:19,945
ribosomes, DNA,

1144
00:39:20,324 --> 00:39:22,485
all the cellular machinery that is present in

1145
00:39:22,485 --> 00:39:23,844
our own cells. And that made it so

1146
00:39:23,844 --> 00:39:25,364
much easier. I didn't have to invent all

1147
00:39:25,364 --> 00:39:27,300
that crap. Right? And then,

1148
00:39:28,099 --> 00:39:29,860
so that having been said, I'm like, okay.

1149
00:39:29,860 --> 00:39:31,480
It's the same cellular machinery

1150
00:39:31,860 --> 00:39:33,079
as we have on Earth.

1151
00:39:33,780 --> 00:39:36,420
What would this alien species be like? And

1152
00:39:36,420 --> 00:39:38,360
so I'd selected as the planet,

1153
00:39:39,014 --> 00:39:41,815
40 Eridani b. 40 Eridani is a real

1154
00:39:41,815 --> 00:39:44,295
star. It's a solar analog. It's very similar

1155
00:39:44,295 --> 00:39:45,894
to the sun. So I said, well, what

1156
00:39:45,894 --> 00:39:47,275
do we know about that planet?

1157
00:39:47,734 --> 00:39:48,234
And

1158
00:39:48,775 --> 00:39:51,014
it's very close to its star. It orbits

1159
00:39:51,014 --> 00:39:53,269
it orbits in forty six days. It's I

1160
00:39:53,269 --> 00:39:55,589
think it's even closer to 40 Aradani than

1161
00:39:55,589 --> 00:39:57,670
Mercury is to the sun. Right? It's very

1162
00:39:57,670 --> 00:39:58,170
close.

1163
00:39:59,829 --> 00:40:02,469
And it's about eight times the mass of

1164
00:40:02,469 --> 00:40:02,969
Earth.

1165
00:40:03,429 --> 00:40:05,670
We know that. And so I decided, alright,

1166
00:40:05,670 --> 00:40:07,190
there's gonna be life on this planet so

1167
00:40:07,190 --> 00:40:08,329
it has to have an atmosphere.

1168
00:40:08,724 --> 00:40:10,984
Okay. It needs an atmosphere. And also,

1169
00:40:12,005 --> 00:40:13,844
if if a planet's that close to its

1170
00:40:13,844 --> 00:40:16,164
star, the the solar wind from the star

1171
00:40:16,164 --> 00:40:19,065
tends to basically sandblast the atmosphere off,

1172
00:40:19,525 --> 00:40:22,025
unless you have a good magnetic field. So

1173
00:40:22,190 --> 00:40:24,349
I decided Arid would have a good magnetic

1174
00:40:24,349 --> 00:40:26,190
field. The way a planet gets a good

1175
00:40:26,190 --> 00:40:28,190
strong magnetic field is by having a liquid

1176
00:40:28,190 --> 00:40:31,630
iron a liquid ferromagnetic core and spinning really

1177
00:40:31,630 --> 00:40:33,250
fast. Earth spins,

1178
00:40:33,550 --> 00:40:34,849
you know, once a day.

1179
00:40:35,235 --> 00:40:35,954
That's why,

1180
00:40:36,515 --> 00:40:38,515
we have a a much stronger magnetic field

1181
00:40:38,515 --> 00:40:41,815
than, for instance, Venus, which very slowly spins.

1182
00:40:41,875 --> 00:40:43,875
Okay. So I'm like, okay. So they spin

1183
00:40:43,875 --> 00:40:46,434
fast. Now I'm learning things. Their planet, their

1184
00:40:46,434 --> 00:40:46,934
day

1185
00:40:47,309 --> 00:40:49,630
is very short. It's like six hours. And

1186
00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:51,550
their year is very short. It's like forty

1187
00:40:51,550 --> 00:40:52,849
six days. Okay. Great.

1188
00:40:53,150 --> 00:40:54,989
And I'm like, okay. But they're very, very

1189
00:40:54,989 --> 00:40:56,510
close to the star, so it's gonna be

1190
00:40:56,510 --> 00:40:58,050
really, really hot on the planet.

1191
00:40:58,349 --> 00:40:59,949
And there are a lot of different planets

1192
00:40:59,949 --> 00:41:01,514
can be all sorts of different temperature based

1193
00:41:01,514 --> 00:41:03,194
on what their atmosphere is and how thick

1194
00:41:03,194 --> 00:41:05,034
it is and what it's composed of. Like,

1195
00:41:05,034 --> 00:41:07,434
Venus is actually hotter than Mercury despite being

1196
00:41:07,434 --> 00:41:09,135
further away because of its atmosphere.

1197
00:41:10,394 --> 00:41:11,914
So I decided it's gonna be really hot.

1198
00:41:11,914 --> 00:41:13,355
It's gonna be way more than the boiling

1199
00:41:13,355 --> 00:41:14,875
point of water, and we need water to

1200
00:41:14,875 --> 00:41:16,889
survive. And I was like, well, hold on.

1201
00:41:17,130 --> 00:41:19,609
I arbitrarily decided it would be 210 degrees

1202
00:41:19,609 --> 00:41:21,710
Celsius on the surface of their home world.

1203
00:41:22,010 --> 00:41:22,510
And,

1204
00:41:23,130 --> 00:41:26,010
I said, well, if you have, like, 29

1205
00:41:26,010 --> 00:41:29,130
atmospheres of pressure, 210 degrees Celsius water is

1206
00:41:29,130 --> 00:41:29,630
liquid.

1207
00:41:29,994 --> 00:41:31,114
So I'm like, there you go. You got

1208
00:41:31,114 --> 00:41:33,855
liquid water. So all these things came from,

1209
00:41:34,315 --> 00:41:35,914
you know, the environment that they live in

1210
00:41:35,914 --> 00:41:37,934
came from starting off with the real data.

1211
00:41:38,234 --> 00:41:40,875
And then just kind of extrapolating and making

1212
00:41:40,875 --> 00:41:42,489
stuff up as needed. So now I'm like,

1213
00:41:42,489 --> 00:41:44,250
okay. We got a life form that lives

1214
00:41:44,250 --> 00:41:46,329
on the surface of a planet with 29

1215
00:41:46,329 --> 00:41:48,970
atmospheres of pressure. And that atmosphere I'd I

1216
00:41:48,970 --> 00:41:50,890
had decided as pure ammonia because it has

1217
00:41:50,890 --> 00:41:52,510
to be a pretty heavy molecule

1218
00:41:52,890 --> 00:41:55,150
to not get sandblasted by the sun anyway.

1219
00:41:55,974 --> 00:41:57,974
That's why Venus still has its atmosphere because

1220
00:41:57,974 --> 00:42:00,135
it's it's a bunch of carbon dioxide, and

1221
00:42:00,135 --> 00:42:02,394
that's heavy. So I'm like, alright.

1222
00:42:03,175 --> 00:42:04,214
Ammonia. Well,

1223
00:42:04,934 --> 00:42:06,635
that much ammonia in the atmosphere,

1224
00:42:07,094 --> 00:42:09,414
it would have, like, I figured that atmosphere

1225
00:42:09,414 --> 00:42:11,900
is almost like an ocean. It's basically, like,

1226
00:42:11,900 --> 00:42:13,039
there's there's,

1227
00:42:13,579 --> 00:42:15,420
life kind of in the upper atmosphere that

1228
00:42:15,420 --> 00:42:18,140
absorbs light and, like, and grows that way,

1229
00:42:18,140 --> 00:42:19,900
and then there's life below that that eats

1230
00:42:19,900 --> 00:42:21,579
that, and and then there's life below that

1231
00:42:21,579 --> 00:42:23,260
that eats that life and so on. At

1232
00:42:23,260 --> 00:42:25,660
the surface, there'd be no sunlight reaching the

1233
00:42:25,660 --> 00:42:27,644
surface, just like there's no sunlight reaching the

1234
00:42:27,644 --> 00:42:29,825
sir the the bottom of our ocean.

1235
00:42:30,285 --> 00:42:32,864
And so I'm like, oh, okay. Then iridians

1236
00:42:33,005 --> 00:42:35,164
don't have eyes. They don't have vision. There's

1237
00:42:35,164 --> 00:42:36,925
no such thing as vision. But they do

1238
00:42:36,925 --> 00:42:39,184
need some sort of three-dimensional spatial knowledge.

1239
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:41,980
So sound. They have, like, echolocation.

1240
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:43,179
Like, they can

1241
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:45,719
hear with sound really well. And then everything

1242
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,820
else kinda came from that. It's really hot.

1243
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:49,559
And I had a lot of fun putting

1244
00:42:49,559 --> 00:42:51,960
them together. And and the big epiphany I

1245
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,375
had on that was, okay. I decided that,

1246
00:42:55,075 --> 00:42:57,394
an iridian's body is almost like if a

1247
00:42:57,394 --> 00:42:59,815
beehive had arms and legs and could move.

1248
00:43:00,195 --> 00:43:01,494
Like, there's actually

1249
00:43:02,195 --> 00:43:04,835
only a an iridian weighs, like, 300 plus

1250
00:43:04,835 --> 00:43:05,335
kilograms,

1251
00:43:05,820 --> 00:43:08,539
But there's only eight there's, like, less than

1252
00:43:08,539 --> 00:43:12,460
five kilograms of actually living biological material in

1253
00:43:12,460 --> 00:43:14,700
it. So just as you have hair and

1254
00:43:14,700 --> 00:43:16,480
the lenses of your eyes and your fingernails

1255
00:43:16,940 --> 00:43:18,300
well, not you, Andrew. But

1256
00:43:20,105 --> 00:43:21,864
just wanna be absolutely clear. I could have

1257
00:43:21,864 --> 00:43:23,625
edited that bit out, but there's something quite

1258
00:43:23,625 --> 00:43:26,264
lovely about one of your favorite authors making

1259
00:43:26,264 --> 00:43:28,204
fun of you being follically challenged.

1260
00:43:28,744 --> 00:43:30,824
He's not referring to my fingernails with that

1261
00:43:30,824 --> 00:43:32,984
joke. It is very much to do with

1262
00:43:32,984 --> 00:43:36,119
the hair or, well, the disappearing of the

1263
00:43:36,119 --> 00:43:38,679
hair on my head. Anyway, back to Andy

1264
00:43:38,679 --> 00:43:39,239
Wing. And,

1265
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:42,519
just as you have all those things and

1266
00:43:42,519 --> 00:43:45,239
that's dead tissue that your body created and

1267
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:46,519
is now part of your body, but it's

1268
00:43:46,519 --> 00:43:49,635
not living anymore, An Iridion's body is almost

1269
00:43:49,635 --> 00:43:52,994
entirely that tissue. Even their blood vessels, everything

1270
00:43:52,994 --> 00:43:54,355
like that are all made out of this

1271
00:43:54,355 --> 00:43:56,595
dead tissue, and they have little worker cells

1272
00:43:56,595 --> 00:43:57,894
that swim through their bloodstream

1273
00:43:58,355 --> 00:44:00,539
to do things to maintain the body. And

1274
00:44:00,539 --> 00:44:02,460
I thought that's a really cool concept, so

1275
00:44:02,460 --> 00:44:03,980
I got to do that. He was supposed

1276
00:44:03,980 --> 00:44:05,660
to be a likable character. Right? I mean,

1277
00:44:05,660 --> 00:44:07,179
I did that on purpose. I wanted him

1278
00:44:07,179 --> 00:44:09,099
to be, like, oh, you like him. He's

1279
00:44:09,099 --> 00:44:10,619
cool. And this is really a story of

1280
00:44:10,619 --> 00:44:12,239
friendship. Yeah. This book.

1281
00:44:12,940 --> 00:44:15,340
Friendship is magic. Right? But,

1282
00:44:16,074 --> 00:44:17,835
I had no idea the response to Rocky.

1283
00:44:17,835 --> 00:44:19,594
People are, like, saying, I would die for

1284
00:44:19,594 --> 00:44:20,735
a project.

1285
00:44:24,235 --> 00:44:24,974
I'm Grace.

1286
00:44:25,515 --> 00:44:26,815
I'm gonna call you Rocky.

1287
00:44:27,195 --> 00:44:29,130
We're here for the same same reason. His

1288
00:44:29,130 --> 00:44:30,349
son is dying too.

1289
00:44:30,969 --> 00:44:32,489
If we're gonna save our planets, we have

1290
00:44:32,489 --> 00:44:33,710
to learn how to communicate.

1291
00:44:34,329 --> 00:44:36,349
I also got to meet Rocky as well.

1292
00:44:37,210 --> 00:44:38,809
In all the press junkets, I got to

1293
00:44:38,809 --> 00:44:40,784
meet Rocky. Did you? When you asked me

1294
00:44:40,784 --> 00:44:42,324
before who did I find Philip?

1295
00:44:42,625 --> 00:44:44,224
They didn't give me any warning. I didn't

1296
00:44:44,224 --> 00:44:45,585
know ahead of time, and they were taking

1297
00:44:45,585 --> 00:44:46,704
me down, and I thought I was gonna

1298
00:44:46,704 --> 00:44:47,505
go in to be Ryan, and I was

1299
00:44:47,505 --> 00:44:49,025
like, okay, cool. It's the Ryan moment, and

1300
00:44:49,025 --> 00:44:50,545
then they were like, okay, so here's Rocky,

1301
00:44:50,545 --> 00:44:52,644
and I was like, oh. Amazing.

1302
00:44:53,585 --> 00:44:54,085
Amazing.

1303
00:44:55,219 --> 00:44:57,059
What a lovely I've I've been loving all

1304
00:44:57,059 --> 00:44:58,739
this stuff that they've been doing with Rocky

1305
00:44:58,739 --> 00:45:01,059
and the promotional stuff. It's been great. But

1306
00:45:01,059 --> 00:45:02,440
there's one thing about Rocky.

1307
00:45:03,299 --> 00:45:04,599
Because his planet

1308
00:45:05,139 --> 00:45:05,639
is

1309
00:45:06,260 --> 00:45:06,760
so,

1310
00:45:07,859 --> 00:45:09,539
the cloud is so dense as far as

1311
00:45:09,539 --> 00:45:10,724
far as I understand it.

1312
00:45:11,684 --> 00:45:12,184
This

1313
00:45:12,644 --> 00:45:13,465
the the Iridians,

1314
00:45:13,765 --> 00:45:14,664
as they know,

1315
00:45:15,525 --> 00:45:18,184
have managed to do space travel without knowing

1316
00:45:18,325 --> 00:45:20,184
about time dilation and radiation.

1317
00:45:20,885 --> 00:45:22,724
Is that possible? I think radiation, yes. If

1318
00:45:22,724 --> 00:45:25,224
you've got such a massively thick atmosphere, then

1319
00:45:25,684 --> 00:45:27,960
perhaps, yeah, there's some filtering that doesn't make

1320
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:29,640
it down to the surface of the planet.

1321
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:30,840
You know? The Earth's,

1322
00:45:32,199 --> 00:45:33,880
magnetic field protects us from a lot of

1323
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:35,559
it, but also the atmosphere does a lot

1324
00:45:35,559 --> 00:45:37,820
of hard work as well. So cosmic rays,

1325
00:45:38,534 --> 00:45:40,454
radiation comes into the very top of the

1326
00:45:40,454 --> 00:45:43,094
atmosphere and creates, like, a a big shower

1327
00:45:43,094 --> 00:45:45,014
of other particles when it hits into a

1328
00:45:45,094 --> 00:45:45,914
an air molecule.

1329
00:45:46,534 --> 00:45:47,914
And we detect those,

1330
00:45:48,295 --> 00:45:49,815
you know, on the ground with all sorts

1331
00:45:49,815 --> 00:45:51,335
of things like chair and cover rays and

1332
00:45:51,335 --> 00:45:53,440
stuff like that. And sometimes in particle accelerators,

1333
00:45:53,500 --> 00:45:55,420
I think they can have an impact on.

1334
00:45:55,420 --> 00:45:57,119
Correct me if I'm wrong, particle physicist.

1335
00:45:59,420 --> 00:46:01,440
So, yes, I think that is a

1336
00:46:01,819 --> 00:46:04,059
a possibility in that respect. What what I

1337
00:46:04,059 --> 00:46:06,319
had to suspend disbelief about is

1338
00:46:07,224 --> 00:46:08,844
whether they would even know spaces

1339
00:46:09,545 --> 00:46:11,864
there because they've also evolved that they they

1340
00:46:11,864 --> 00:46:14,505
don't use light to communicate, to see, or

1341
00:46:14,505 --> 00:46:16,045
anything like that. They just use sound.

1342
00:46:16,905 --> 00:46:19,385
So if you don't know to to look

1343
00:46:19,385 --> 00:46:21,545
up but they do know about light, I

1344
00:46:21,545 --> 00:46:22,045
guess.

1345
00:46:22,409 --> 00:46:24,569
So how how did they figure out light?

1346
00:46:24,569 --> 00:46:25,849
But I guess that's like saying how did

1347
00:46:25,849 --> 00:46:27,769
we figure out magnetic fields, I guess, because

1348
00:46:27,769 --> 00:46:28,969
you you know, you can't see it. You

1349
00:46:28,969 --> 00:46:30,250
don't interact with it. How do you know

1350
00:46:30,250 --> 00:46:32,010
it's there? So there is some sort of

1351
00:46:32,010 --> 00:46:33,369
that suspension of disbelief,

1352
00:46:34,674 --> 00:46:36,135
a little bit to sort of believe

1353
00:46:36,755 --> 00:46:37,974
that side of the story.

1354
00:46:39,074 --> 00:46:40,594
I guess that's the question for the the

1355
00:46:40,594 --> 00:46:42,914
sort of the astrophysicist and the astrochemists out

1356
00:46:42,914 --> 00:46:45,014
there and things is, like, how life

1357
00:46:45,474 --> 00:46:47,474
like that would would evolve and whether that

1358
00:46:47,474 --> 00:46:48,375
would be realistic.

1359
00:46:49,460 --> 00:46:51,219
So I can understand the not knowing about

1360
00:46:51,219 --> 00:46:53,139
time dilation and relativity, because if you think

1361
00:46:53,139 --> 00:46:54,900
about it, we went to the into the

1362
00:46:54,900 --> 00:46:55,400
moon

1363
00:46:55,859 --> 00:46:58,179
without knowing a lot of more modern day

1364
00:46:58,179 --> 00:46:59,699
science in the past fifty years. Right? It

1365
00:46:59,699 --> 00:47:01,460
was just thrust in that direction in a

1366
00:47:01,460 --> 00:47:03,480
tin can and off you go kinda thing.

1367
00:47:04,019 --> 00:47:04,839
So I can

1368
00:47:05,175 --> 00:47:07,735
understand that it that whole they have if

1369
00:47:07,735 --> 00:47:09,335
I can just this if I can suspend

1370
00:47:09,335 --> 00:47:11,494
disbelief that, okay, they knew about space despite

1371
00:47:11,494 --> 00:47:14,375
not having anything to detect light with, and

1372
00:47:14,375 --> 00:47:16,454
they'll know about it, I can suspend disbelief

1373
00:47:16,454 --> 00:47:18,315
that they managed to build a spacecraft and

1374
00:47:18,375 --> 00:47:20,880
and hop on over there. Would you do

1375
00:47:21,579 --> 00:47:23,500
the trip? Would they have to kind of

1376
00:47:23,500 --> 00:47:25,260
induce a coma in you to to get

1377
00:47:25,260 --> 00:47:26,960
you to go to space?

1378
00:47:28,940 --> 00:47:31,599
There's two very warring sides of me because

1379
00:47:32,295 --> 00:47:33,894
one side of me is very happy with

1380
00:47:33,894 --> 00:47:35,175
my feet on the ground looking through a

1381
00:47:35,175 --> 00:47:37,434
telescope and not going anywhere near space.

1382
00:47:38,054 --> 00:47:39,494
The other side of me is the one

1383
00:47:39,494 --> 00:47:42,135
that is, like, I always get a window

1384
00:47:42,135 --> 00:47:43,974
seat on an airplane. Like, I'm the person

1385
00:47:43,974 --> 00:47:45,734
that's, like, yeah, just two hour flight when

1386
00:47:45,734 --> 00:47:47,190
it flew by, because I was just looking

1387
00:47:47,190 --> 00:47:49,030
out the window the entire time. That was

1388
00:47:49,030 --> 00:47:50,170
my TV. Right?

1389
00:47:50,469 --> 00:47:52,309
I literally just took a flight from Palm

1390
00:47:52,309 --> 00:47:53,369
Springs to Seattle,

1391
00:47:53,829 --> 00:47:55,989
and I must have gone over eight national

1392
00:47:55,989 --> 00:47:57,750
parks. And I was I was literally just

1393
00:47:57,750 --> 00:47:59,829
like I saw Yosemite from a plane, and

1394
00:47:59,829 --> 00:48:01,855
I looked down the whole of Yosemite Valley

1395
00:48:01,855 --> 00:48:03,954
and was like, this is the coolest experience.

1396
00:48:04,414 --> 00:48:06,914
And, like, everyone else is just watching film.

1397
00:48:08,335 --> 00:48:09,694
So that part of me, I just I

1398
00:48:09,694 --> 00:48:10,734
would love to go to space because I

1399
00:48:10,734 --> 00:48:11,934
would just stare out the window the entire

1400
00:48:11,934 --> 00:48:13,614
time at the view of Earth, at least,

1401
00:48:13,614 --> 00:48:15,234
if I was in orbit around Earth.

1402
00:48:16,650 --> 00:48:17,150
I

1403
00:48:17,530 --> 00:48:18,030
I

1404
00:48:18,489 --> 00:48:19,929
I guess if I was to go on

1405
00:48:19,929 --> 00:48:21,289
a long journey, the view would be a

1406
00:48:21,289 --> 00:48:22,969
little bit it would be the same. Well,

1407
00:48:22,969 --> 00:48:24,170
I guess it wouldn't be the same starry

1408
00:48:24,170 --> 00:48:25,210
night. It would be fun to see how

1409
00:48:25,210 --> 00:48:27,050
constellations change and things like this, and you

1410
00:48:27,050 --> 00:48:29,289
would have a perfect dark sky. Right? You

1411
00:48:29,289 --> 00:48:31,514
would have the darkest of dark skies, so

1412
00:48:31,514 --> 00:48:32,494
that would be great.

1413
00:48:34,635 --> 00:48:37,034
I think I've always said if space travel

1414
00:48:37,034 --> 00:48:37,534
becomes

1415
00:48:37,994 --> 00:48:39,855
as blase as air travel

1416
00:48:40,155 --> 00:48:41,855
currently is for us,

1417
00:48:42,474 --> 00:48:42,974
then

1418
00:48:43,275 --> 00:48:45,195
you may find me one day going to

1419
00:48:45,195 --> 00:48:45,599
space,

1420
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:48,019
from the sort of commercialization

1421
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,579
of space travel and things like that.

1422
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:52,640
But if I could have ever remote it,

1423
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:53,140
probably

1424
00:48:53,599 --> 00:48:54,099
not.

1425
00:48:55,119 --> 00:48:57,300
I say probably most likely not.

1426
00:48:58,635 --> 00:49:00,315
In terms of a long mission like this,

1427
00:49:00,315 --> 00:49:01,835
though, I wouldn't be the person that would

1428
00:49:01,835 --> 00:49:03,934
be volunteering to be the science specialist.

1429
00:49:05,195 --> 00:49:07,594
Unfortunately, I don't have the, the brave gene

1430
00:49:07,594 --> 00:49:08,094
as

1431
00:49:08,394 --> 00:49:10,349
Ryan yeah. Rylan Grace puts it in the

1432
00:49:10,349 --> 00:49:11,670
film. Yeah. You don't need that. You just

1433
00:49:11,670 --> 00:49:13,429
need to find someone to be brave for.

1434
00:49:13,429 --> 00:49:15,190
That's what I'm I knew you were gonna

1435
00:49:15,190 --> 00:49:15,929
say that.

1436
00:49:17,109 --> 00:49:19,190
I do I need I'd I'd I'd alright.

1437
00:49:19,190 --> 00:49:20,550
Fine. I'd I'd get on it for my

1438
00:49:20,550 --> 00:49:21,050
cat.

1439
00:49:22,309 --> 00:49:23,929
Amazing. What's your cat's name?

1440
00:49:24,505 --> 00:49:27,244
Pippin. Pippin. Guess guess what? That's a reference

1441
00:49:27,385 --> 00:49:27,885
to

1442
00:49:28,184 --> 00:49:30,824
full name, Peregrin Took. It means when she's

1443
00:49:30,824 --> 00:49:32,425
being crazy cat, I can call her full

1444
00:49:32,425 --> 00:49:33,244
of a took.

1445
00:49:34,905 --> 00:49:37,224
Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. So there's there is a

1446
00:49:37,224 --> 00:49:38,905
a beautiful moment in the film, for me

1447
00:49:38,905 --> 00:49:39,329
at least,

1448
00:49:39,890 --> 00:49:40,390
where,

1449
00:49:41,250 --> 00:49:42,550
Grace has to use

1450
00:49:42,849 --> 00:49:45,110
basic geometry, a sextant to,

1451
00:49:46,050 --> 00:49:48,230
work out how to move. And,

1452
00:49:49,010 --> 00:49:50,690
what I really love about that, and it's

1453
00:49:50,690 --> 00:49:53,170
what I really love about Andy Weir's work

1454
00:49:53,170 --> 00:49:56,295
generally, is that he he's found a way

1455
00:49:56,675 --> 00:49:57,655
in that story

1456
00:49:58,355 --> 00:50:00,275
to make it so that you can't just

1457
00:50:00,275 --> 00:50:01,954
use a computer to do it. Right? You

1458
00:50:01,954 --> 00:50:04,835
have to do the the foundational math so

1459
00:50:04,835 --> 00:50:06,835
that you have to do the foundational geometry

1460
00:50:06,835 --> 00:50:08,215
of it to make it work.

1461
00:50:09,235 --> 00:50:10,054
My concern,

1462
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,380
and I don't think I'm alone in this,

1463
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:14,900
is that what we're doing

1464
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:16,500
currently in society

1465
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:18,180
with AI

1466
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:21,680
Mhmm. Is to remove all of the need

1467
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:23,840
for that. So if we do find ourselves

1468
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:25,840
not necessarily in a situation where we have

1469
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:27,275
to, you know, navigate

1470
00:50:27,655 --> 00:50:30,454
stars, but maybe where we have to solve

1471
00:50:30,454 --> 00:50:33,414
complex issues. If the tech fails us, we're

1472
00:50:33,414 --> 00:50:34,954
in difficulties, aren't we?

1473
00:50:35,335 --> 00:50:36,614
Do you share that? Do you think it's

1474
00:50:36,614 --> 00:50:38,155
important for people to understand

1475
00:50:38,829 --> 00:50:40,369
and learn about the foundational

1476
00:50:41,069 --> 00:50:41,969
aspects of

1477
00:50:42,349 --> 00:50:43,089
our universe?

1478
00:50:43,789 --> 00:50:46,429
Yeah. Definitely. I think the oh, I mean,

1479
00:50:46,429 --> 00:50:48,030
you could have made this argument twenty years

1480
00:50:48,030 --> 00:50:49,789
ago about the overreliance on tech. Right? It's

1481
00:50:49,789 --> 00:50:51,309
just new tech with AI. You know? You

1482
00:50:51,309 --> 00:50:52,829
see the story crop up over and over

1483
00:50:52,829 --> 00:50:53,329
again.

1484
00:50:55,704 --> 00:50:57,005
And I think, you know,

1485
00:50:57,385 --> 00:50:59,025
the argument then was, oh, if we've got

1486
00:50:59,144 --> 00:51:01,324
you know, if we can just code up,

1487
00:51:01,385 --> 00:51:02,045
you know,

1488
00:51:02,585 --> 00:51:04,984
all of this stuff, then then we'd never

1489
00:51:04,984 --> 00:51:06,585
do the maths and we'll lose our basic

1490
00:51:06,585 --> 00:51:08,680
math skills. But then you learn by the

1491
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:10,360
doing the coding and things like that. I

1492
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:11,019
guess then

1493
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:13,559
the new argument is if you can just

1494
00:51:13,559 --> 00:51:15,160
ask AI to write you the code to

1495
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,180
do this specific thing, then you don't understand

1496
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:19,480
the the black box of what's going on

1497
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:21,800
inside it and and understand the the science

1498
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:23,434
behind it. So, yes,

1499
00:51:24,135 --> 00:51:24,875
I just

1500
00:51:25,655 --> 00:51:27,335
I wonder whether it's sort of a hypothetical

1501
00:51:27,335 --> 00:51:28,775
question of whether you'd ever need to do

1502
00:51:28,775 --> 00:51:30,235
a back of the envelope calculation

1503
00:51:30,695 --> 00:51:32,535
with using a sextant of which direction to

1504
00:51:32,535 --> 00:51:34,215
go in rather than having a computer to

1505
00:51:34,215 --> 00:51:35,755
necessarily have to do it.

1506
00:51:36,860 --> 00:51:38,300
But I do worry about the over reliance

1507
00:51:38,300 --> 00:51:39,920
on tech, especially if someone in

1508
00:51:40,300 --> 00:51:40,800
academia,

1509
00:51:41,260 --> 00:51:43,980
you know, supervising students and things like that.

1510
00:51:43,980 --> 00:51:45,679
And you you think, okay. Well,

1511
00:51:46,539 --> 00:51:48,159
how much are they actually,

1512
00:51:49,184 --> 00:51:50,785
you know, just very gung hoing with the

1513
00:51:50,785 --> 00:51:52,864
date? Because I'm an observational astrophysicist, so it's

1514
00:51:52,864 --> 00:51:54,385
very much, like, data driven, and it's like,

1515
00:51:54,385 --> 00:51:55,985
we want to understand this data specifically, you

1516
00:51:55,985 --> 00:51:57,425
know, can you grab this and grab that?

1517
00:51:57,425 --> 00:51:57,925
And,

1518
00:51:58,465 --> 00:52:00,405
you know, if we're saying, okay. Can we

1519
00:52:01,425 --> 00:52:03,105
do something with this data or have to

1520
00:52:03,105 --> 00:52:04,724
code up, you know,

1521
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:07,319
say it's a statistical test or whatever it

1522
00:52:07,319 --> 00:52:07,980
might be.

1523
00:52:08,359 --> 00:52:09,480
You want the student to be able to

1524
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:11,000
understand the statistical test because they need to

1525
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:12,519
understand the ins and outs of it to

1526
00:52:12,519 --> 00:52:13,339
actually understand

1527
00:52:14,199 --> 00:52:16,219
how to interpret the data afterwards.

1528
00:52:16,519 --> 00:52:17,739
Right? So you need

1529
00:52:18,119 --> 00:52:20,059
a a a pretty good foundational stats knowledge.

1530
00:52:20,364 --> 00:52:21,644
And even twenty years ago, it's like, okay.

1531
00:52:21,644 --> 00:52:23,005
Well, we've coded it up in a Python

1532
00:52:23,005 --> 00:52:25,005
package. Just grab that and and run that

1533
00:52:25,005 --> 00:52:26,204
on your data kind of thing. Are you

1534
00:52:26,204 --> 00:52:28,144
actually understanding what it's doing?

1535
00:52:28,565 --> 00:52:29,065
The

1536
00:52:29,644 --> 00:52:30,765
you know, if you take it a step

1537
00:52:30,765 --> 00:52:33,325
further with AI generating that code for you,

1538
00:52:33,325 --> 00:52:36,179
then there there's an extra layer of, like,

1539
00:52:36,739 --> 00:52:38,420
has the AI actually done what you want

1540
00:52:38,420 --> 00:52:39,940
it to do, first of all? But then

1541
00:52:39,940 --> 00:52:42,260
also, yeah, again, are you understanding what's going

1542
00:52:42,260 --> 00:52:43,859
on under the hood to be able to

1543
00:52:43,859 --> 00:52:45,800
actually make that scientific interpretation?

1544
00:52:47,539 --> 00:52:49,460
So, yeah, it is something I worry about,

1545
00:52:49,460 --> 00:52:51,319
but at the same time, I think, well,

1546
00:52:51,375 --> 00:52:53,795
we've been here before, and we've adapted.

1547
00:52:54,175 --> 00:52:55,934
So Yeah. No. That's fair. I was just

1548
00:52:55,934 --> 00:52:57,695
thinking then, but I because I do a

1549
00:52:57,695 --> 00:52:58,594
lecture on,

1550
00:52:59,695 --> 00:53:02,414
practical uses of AI for science journalists. One

1551
00:53:02,414 --> 00:53:03,855
of the things I get the students to

1552
00:53:03,855 --> 00:53:04,494
do is to get

1553
00:53:06,079 --> 00:53:08,159
I give them each a paper and then

1554
00:53:08,159 --> 00:53:10,320
they choose an AI of their choice, generative

1555
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:11,460
AI of their choice,

1556
00:53:12,159 --> 00:53:12,659
to

1557
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:14,980
ask it to explain

1558
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,480
that paper as if to a 15 year

1559
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:18,980
old.

1560
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:20,960
So they get that and then they have

1561
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:21,460
to

1562
00:53:22,295 --> 00:53:24,235
make a note of everything that it says,

1563
00:53:24,454 --> 00:53:26,695
and go back to the original paper, and

1564
00:53:26,695 --> 00:53:27,195
find

1565
00:53:27,894 --> 00:53:30,135
where what that AI says is in the

1566
00:53:30,135 --> 00:53:33,835
paper. And almost every single time, it's hallucinated

1567
00:53:34,055 --> 00:53:36,400
something that isn't in the paper. Is Well

1568
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:38,800
yeah. Because it's just based on something that's

1569
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,719
been written before. Right? So it's not just

1570
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:42,480
pulling on the paper itself when you ask

1571
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:44,000
a Jedi to do that. It's being pulled

1572
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:46,159
on everything that's ever been written for a

1573
00:53:46,159 --> 00:53:47,460
15 year old on

1574
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:49,539
that topic or physics. So

1575
00:53:50,175 --> 00:53:52,175
that's the thing with AI is that it

1576
00:53:52,175 --> 00:53:54,094
doesn't always do the things that you ask

1577
00:53:54,094 --> 00:53:54,594
it

1578
00:53:54,974 --> 00:53:56,894
to do. And that's the point of it,

1579
00:53:56,894 --> 00:53:58,894
right, is because it is just the computer

1580
00:53:58,894 --> 00:54:01,055
deciding what's what's relevant and things like that.

1581
00:54:01,055 --> 00:54:01,555
So

1582
00:54:02,059 --> 00:54:03,900
it's funny how I think far the conversation

1583
00:54:03,900 --> 00:54:05,739
has come with AI since I started my

1584
00:54:05,739 --> 00:54:08,559
PhD even just over 10 ago now.

1585
00:54:09,420 --> 00:54:11,760
So I was very involved in, the Zooniverse

1586
00:54:11,820 --> 00:54:12,300
project,

1587
00:54:12,699 --> 00:54:15,644
which is a project where you get citizen

1588
00:54:15,644 --> 00:54:18,385
scientists, so members of the public, to classify

1589
00:54:18,684 --> 00:54:19,664
scientific data,

1590
00:54:20,045 --> 00:54:22,125
huge datasets that we had no chance of

1591
00:54:22,125 --> 00:54:24,045
just going through ourselves. So it started with

1592
00:54:24,045 --> 00:54:26,125
Galaxy Zoo with a million images of galaxies

1593
00:54:26,125 --> 00:54:27,105
that needed classifying.

1594
00:54:27,900 --> 00:54:31,339
Project's still going because you need human classified

1595
00:54:31,339 --> 00:54:33,420
datasets to train AI. Now people are like,

1596
00:54:33,420 --> 00:54:34,639
isn't this a solved problem?

1597
00:54:35,019 --> 00:54:36,699
And, also, there's still some that AI can't

1598
00:54:36,699 --> 00:54:37,760
do and things like that.

1599
00:54:38,299 --> 00:54:40,400
But I remember sitting in a meeting

1600
00:54:40,859 --> 00:54:43,345
where, you know, we were pulling in all

1601
00:54:43,345 --> 00:54:44,244
the fields

1602
00:54:44,625 --> 00:54:47,345
of research. So all the scientists that you

1603
00:54:47,345 --> 00:54:49,105
know, not just the galaxies people where I

1604
00:54:49,105 --> 00:54:49,605
started,

1605
00:54:50,144 --> 00:54:52,305
but they also had this problem, like, people

1606
00:54:52,305 --> 00:54:54,144
who'd set up camera traps in Antarctica to

1607
00:54:54,144 --> 00:54:55,901
take pictures of penguins, and they wanted to

1608
00:54:55,901 --> 00:54:58,153
know how many penguins there were in an

1609
00:54:58,153 --> 00:55:00,406
image where I have never seen so many

1610
00:55:00,406 --> 00:55:03,222
penguins in my life. You know? To, people

1611
00:55:03,222 --> 00:55:05,756
in, zoology, for example, as well, where they'd

1612
00:55:05,756 --> 00:55:08,008
set up camera traps in the Serengeti, and

1613
00:55:08,008 --> 00:55:10,034
every time something moved, it took a picture.

1614
00:55:10,974 --> 00:55:12,255
So they ended up with a lot of

1615
00:55:12,255 --> 00:55:13,934
grass waving in the wind, but they also

1616
00:55:13,934 --> 00:55:16,574
ended up with antelopes and zebras and lions

1617
00:55:16,574 --> 00:55:17,715
and everything like that.

1618
00:55:19,375 --> 00:55:21,135
And there was someone from the computer science

1619
00:55:21,135 --> 00:55:22,494
department came in who was like, well, we

1620
00:55:22,494 --> 00:55:24,175
think we can help solve this problem of

1621
00:55:24,175 --> 00:55:24,914
of classification.

1622
00:55:26,630 --> 00:55:28,150
And they were like, but it you know,

1623
00:55:28,150 --> 00:55:28,730
we need

1624
00:55:29,349 --> 00:55:30,010
the human

1625
00:55:30,630 --> 00:55:32,630
classifications first because it was like, this is

1626
00:55:32,630 --> 00:55:34,630
where our AI model is, and it they

1627
00:55:34,630 --> 00:55:36,809
showed an image of a zebra walking through

1628
00:55:37,030 --> 00:55:38,250
a grassy field.

1629
00:55:38,655 --> 00:55:40,175
And it was like the AI thought there

1630
00:55:40,175 --> 00:55:41,954
was about 50 different antelopes

1631
00:55:42,255 --> 00:55:44,275
in the field as well as the sky.

1632
00:55:44,414 --> 00:55:46,894
You know? So it's just a clear blue

1633
00:55:46,894 --> 00:55:49,135
sky. So it's it's funny thinking back to

1634
00:55:49,135 --> 00:55:51,215
that meeting and thinking about where we are

1635
00:55:51,215 --> 00:55:53,659
now in terms of how fast the technology

1636
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:54,699
has moved on.

1637
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:57,719
Because in terms of, like, for example, galaxy

1638
00:55:57,719 --> 00:55:58,219
classifications,

1639
00:55:59,319 --> 00:56:01,239
you know, we were at sort of, like,

1640
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:02,839
the 70%

1641
00:56:02,839 --> 00:56:03,339
level

1642
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:05,574
back ten ten years ago where it was

1643
00:56:05,574 --> 00:56:07,655
like, yeah. AI can do maybe, like, 70%

1644
00:56:07,655 --> 00:56:09,894
of them, but that's only if we take

1645
00:56:09,894 --> 00:56:12,795
the human classifications we already have and

1646
00:56:13,335 --> 00:56:15,655
make the images so that, actually, the same

1647
00:56:15,655 --> 00:56:17,815
classification can be used on four different images

1648
00:56:17,815 --> 00:56:19,114
because we've just rotationally

1649
00:56:19,710 --> 00:56:22,109
flipped the image, so it's technically different four

1650
00:56:22,109 --> 00:56:22,609
different

1651
00:56:23,150 --> 00:56:25,070
ways. Whereas now, the AI is at the

1652
00:56:25,070 --> 00:56:26,349
sort of 99%

1653
00:56:26,349 --> 00:56:28,269
level, and it's only the 1% level we're

1654
00:56:28,269 --> 00:56:29,730
still asking people about.

1655
00:56:30,349 --> 00:56:31,789
And we also have sort of, like, from

1656
00:56:31,789 --> 00:56:33,710
the AI, we have, like, a confidence score.

1657
00:56:33,710 --> 00:56:35,054
So So it can be like, I am

1658
00:56:35,054 --> 00:56:37,695
confident in this classification to this amount. And

1659
00:56:37,695 --> 00:56:39,534
if it's not passing a certain threshold, we

1660
00:56:39,534 --> 00:56:40,974
can still show it to people as well

1661
00:56:40,974 --> 00:56:42,195
just to double check it.

1662
00:56:42,574 --> 00:56:44,894
So it's just yeah. In ten years, the

1663
00:56:44,894 --> 00:56:46,655
the technology in terms of how it can

1664
00:56:46,655 --> 00:56:48,574
be applied to the research side of things

1665
00:56:48,574 --> 00:56:49,869
is just absolutely

1666
00:56:50,329 --> 00:56:52,090
shot up. But there are a lot of

1667
00:56:52,090 --> 00:56:54,010
black boxes as well. And it's fun to

1668
00:56:54,010 --> 00:56:55,530
see how people are going, oh, okay. You

1669
00:56:55,530 --> 00:56:57,769
know, Google have developed this tool, and it's

1670
00:56:57,769 --> 00:57:00,489
a black box. But can I then apply

1671
00:57:00,489 --> 00:57:02,250
it over here? And how does that compare

1672
00:57:02,250 --> 00:57:04,784
with something that's been specifically written as an

1673
00:57:04,784 --> 00:57:06,804
AI tool by an astronomer, by an astrophysicist

1674
00:57:06,944 --> 00:57:07,684
who knows

1675
00:57:08,065 --> 00:57:10,144
what it specific science case it will be

1676
00:57:10,144 --> 00:57:10,885
used for.

1677
00:57:11,344 --> 00:57:12,724
And it's interesting to compare

1678
00:57:13,344 --> 00:57:15,425
the different answers that you get. So that's

1679
00:57:15,425 --> 00:57:18,224
a slight detail from the main topic of

1680
00:57:18,224 --> 00:57:20,119
this podcast, which is, of course, Project Hail

1681
00:57:20,119 --> 00:57:22,039
Mary. We'll get back to that very shortly

1682
00:57:22,039 --> 00:57:24,119
with Andy Weir. But if you get two

1683
00:57:24,119 --> 00:57:26,840
academics talking to each other, then these things

1684
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:28,680
do tend to happen. And in case you're

1685
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:31,160
interested, I teach on the master's in science

1686
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:31,660
communication

1687
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:34,505
at UE Bristol. It's been going for about

1688
00:57:34,505 --> 00:57:36,184
fifteen years, and we do all sorts of

1689
00:57:36,184 --> 00:57:37,885
things, including writing,

1690
00:57:38,505 --> 00:57:39,005
podcasting,

1691
00:57:39,305 --> 00:57:41,085
of course, radio, TV,

1692
00:57:41,625 --> 00:57:44,505
and, filmmaking, wildlife filmmaking, all that sort of

1693
00:57:44,505 --> 00:57:47,545
thing on the course. But let's return to

1694
00:57:47,545 --> 00:57:50,320
Andy Weir, and I asked him about the

1695
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:51,940
character of Rylan Grace.

1696
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,359
Is it somebody who is based on him?

1697
00:57:55,359 --> 00:57:56,799
So I'm always trying to get better as

1698
00:57:56,799 --> 00:57:58,800
a writer. And my biggest weakness in my

1699
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:02,000
opinion is characters. Character depth, growth, story arcs,

1700
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:04,704
character arcs, and so on. Like, in The

1701
00:58:04,704 --> 00:58:07,425
Martian, there is no character depth or growth

1702
00:58:07,425 --> 00:58:09,184
at all. Like, no one would accuse The

1703
00:58:09,184 --> 00:58:10,324
Martian of being literature.

1704
00:58:11,425 --> 00:58:13,824
Mark Watney has the exact same personality at

1705
00:58:13,824 --> 00:58:14,944
the end of the book as he did

1706
00:58:14,944 --> 00:58:15,684
at the beginning.

1707
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:17,539
He undergoes no change

1708
00:58:18,079 --> 00:58:18,820
at all.

1709
00:58:19,119 --> 00:58:21,119
And you don't really know anything about Mark

1710
00:58:21,119 --> 00:58:22,559
by the time you finish the book other

1711
00:58:22,559 --> 00:58:24,500
than he's a guy who didn't wanna die.

1712
00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:25,300
Okay.

1713
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:27,119
And, you know, he's got sort of a

1714
00:58:27,119 --> 00:58:30,255
quirky personality, but that's that's it. Okay. So

1715
00:58:30,255 --> 00:58:32,174
for Artemis, I said, like, alright. I'm gonna

1716
00:58:32,174 --> 00:58:33,694
make a care and Mark is, of course,

1717
00:58:33,694 --> 00:58:35,295
based on my own personality. As you can

1718
00:58:35,295 --> 00:58:36,434
tell, I'm a smart ass.

1719
00:58:36,734 --> 00:58:38,894
And but he's he's all the aspects that

1720
00:58:38,894 --> 00:58:40,734
I have in my own personality that I

1721
00:58:40,734 --> 00:58:42,755
like and none of my many, many flaws.

1722
00:58:42,969 --> 00:58:43,789
So he's just

1723
00:58:44,329 --> 00:58:46,010
the the idealized version of me, what I

1724
00:58:46,010 --> 00:58:47,070
wish I could be.

1725
00:58:47,369 --> 00:58:49,690
Jazz in Artemis was also based on me,

1726
00:58:49,690 --> 00:58:52,010
but she's got all my flaws. I said,

1727
00:58:52,010 --> 00:58:53,690
like, I'm gonna make a deeper, more nuanced,

1728
00:58:53,690 --> 00:58:56,170
and interesting character. Jazz is young. She's, like,

1729
00:58:56,170 --> 00:58:56,989
26.

1730
00:58:57,094 --> 00:58:58,534
And so I said, like, I'm gonna give

1731
00:58:58,534 --> 00:58:59,974
her all the flaws I had when I

1732
00:58:59,974 --> 00:59:02,135
was her age. Like, I was a screw

1733
00:59:02,135 --> 00:59:04,775
up. I was ostensibly intelligent, but kept making

1734
00:59:04,775 --> 00:59:06,875
bad life decisions and that sort of thing.

1735
00:59:06,934 --> 00:59:08,934
And people were always disappointed in me because

1736
00:59:08,934 --> 00:59:10,375
they're like, you could be doing so much

1737
00:59:10,375 --> 00:59:12,730
better, you dipshit. Anyway, so,

1738
00:59:13,529 --> 00:59:15,449
It's alright now. What's that? Yeah. I'm doing

1739
00:59:15,449 --> 00:59:16,589
okay now. But

1740
00:59:16,969 --> 00:59:18,569
if you met me when I was 26,

1741
00:59:18,569 --> 00:59:19,309
you'd be like,

1742
00:59:19,690 --> 00:59:20,190
dude,

1743
00:59:21,609 --> 00:59:24,250
please Are you not? Like, get better at

1744
00:59:24,250 --> 00:59:25,389
life. But,

1745
00:59:27,125 --> 00:59:29,525
so I gave her my flaws. And,

1746
00:59:29,844 --> 00:59:30,885
what I found out is that,

1747
00:59:31,525 --> 00:59:34,244
my the the flawed and more realistic version

1748
00:59:34,244 --> 00:59:36,484
of me is not a character people have

1749
00:59:36,484 --> 00:59:38,900
a easy time rooting for because she was

1750
00:59:38,900 --> 00:59:41,460
such the architect of her own problems. People

1751
00:59:41,460 --> 00:59:42,599
had a tough time,

1752
00:59:43,059 --> 00:59:45,220
like, rooting for her. And so, you know,

1753
00:59:45,220 --> 00:59:46,579
I I said, like, okay. I went too

1754
00:59:46,579 --> 00:59:48,599
far. I made her too flawed. Okay.

1755
00:59:48,980 --> 00:59:51,059
Alright. Now for Ryland, I decided I wanna

1756
00:59:51,059 --> 00:59:51,764
grow more.

1757
00:59:52,244 --> 00:59:53,924
So for Ryland, I said, I'm not gonna

1758
00:59:53,924 --> 00:59:56,885
base him on me. I'm gonna just make

1759
00:59:56,885 --> 00:59:58,964
a character that is not me, not based

1760
00:59:58,964 --> 01:00:00,424
on any part of my personality.

1761
01:00:00,724 --> 01:00:02,484
He's still humor. I mean, there's no way

1762
01:00:02,484 --> 01:00:04,244
to keep your own personality out of your

1763
01:00:04,244 --> 01:00:06,380
characters at least a little bit, but he's

1764
01:00:06,380 --> 01:00:08,400
still kind of funny. But

1765
01:00:09,019 --> 01:00:10,860
I started him off kinda blank without having

1766
01:00:10,860 --> 01:00:12,860
much personality at all and just started writing.

1767
01:00:12,860 --> 01:00:15,500
And as the story progressed, his personality started

1768
01:00:15,500 --> 01:00:16,559
to develop naturally.

1769
01:00:16,860 --> 01:00:19,180
And then I went back and rewrote the

1770
01:00:19,180 --> 01:00:21,260
early chapters to match the personality that had

1771
01:00:21,260 --> 01:00:23,614
developed. So for the reader, it's a consistent,

1772
01:00:24,074 --> 01:00:25,595
you know, personality. But for me, it was

1773
01:00:25,595 --> 01:00:27,275
a lot of work to just slowly kinda

1774
01:00:27,275 --> 01:00:29,755
see how that developed and kinda scary too.

1775
01:00:29,755 --> 01:00:31,114
Because I'm the sort of guy who likes

1776
01:00:31,114 --> 01:00:32,554
to sit down and have everything set up

1777
01:00:32,554 --> 01:00:34,074
on a spreadsheet, and I kinda know what's

1778
01:00:34,074 --> 01:00:36,269
going on. So to just jump into the

1779
01:00:36,269 --> 01:00:37,869
void and start writing and hope that the

1780
01:00:37,869 --> 01:00:40,030
character comes out well. If you have seen

1781
01:00:40,030 --> 01:00:41,710
the film, if you haven't seen the film,

1782
01:00:41,710 --> 01:00:44,349
either way, I highly recommend you go and

1783
01:00:44,349 --> 01:00:46,110
find a copy of the book and read

1784
01:00:46,110 --> 01:00:48,135
it in whatever format you prefer. But

1785
01:00:49,155 --> 01:00:51,555
if you have read the book and you've

1786
01:00:51,555 --> 01:00:53,315
seen the film, of course, you can go

1787
01:00:53,315 --> 01:00:53,974
back and

1788
01:00:54,675 --> 01:00:57,075
experience them both again. But I wondered if

1789
01:00:57,075 --> 01:01:00,215
doctor Becky had some suggestions for space related

1790
01:01:00,434 --> 01:01:02,055
science fiction for us.

1791
01:01:02,570 --> 01:01:04,889
I love Becky Chambers' books. So I I

1792
01:01:04,889 --> 01:01:06,250
particularly loved A Long Way to a Small

1793
01:01:06,250 --> 01:01:07,769
Angry Planet. I thought that was great. And

1794
01:01:07,769 --> 01:01:09,929
there is also a very short novel that

1795
01:01:09,929 --> 01:01:11,949
she wrote called To Be Taught If Fortunate,

1796
01:01:12,489 --> 01:01:13,789
which is, again, about

1797
01:01:14,534 --> 01:01:15,514
sort of, like, astronauts

1798
01:01:15,894 --> 01:01:17,815
in space that have been sent very far

1799
01:01:17,815 --> 01:01:19,734
away from Earth. But it's more about the

1800
01:01:19,734 --> 01:01:22,155
psychology of what that does to a human.

1801
01:01:22,295 --> 01:01:24,155
So I found that a really interesting read.

1802
01:01:26,054 --> 01:01:28,054
In terms of the the more fantasy side

1803
01:01:28,054 --> 01:01:28,980
of sci fi,

1804
01:01:29,780 --> 01:01:31,619
I love the Red Rising novels by Pierce

1805
01:01:31,619 --> 01:01:34,260
Brown. I thought that was very interesting sort

1806
01:01:34,260 --> 01:01:36,119
of in terms of a it's like,

1807
01:01:37,059 --> 01:01:39,159
humanity spread across the solar system.

1808
01:01:39,940 --> 01:01:41,859
What does that do in terms of the

1809
01:01:41,859 --> 01:01:44,885
politics and economics and everything of of that

1810
01:01:45,265 --> 01:01:45,844
whole world?

1811
01:01:46,945 --> 01:01:49,265
Complete disbelief on the science because there's people

1812
01:01:49,265 --> 01:01:50,945
living on, like, moons of Jupiter and things

1813
01:01:50,945 --> 01:01:52,304
like that. And you're like, okay. Well, they

1814
01:01:52,304 --> 01:01:54,144
figured that out, I guess, like habitability, but

1815
01:01:54,144 --> 01:01:54,644
whatever.

1816
01:01:57,260 --> 01:01:58,699
That's just all glossed over. You know, it's

1817
01:01:58,699 --> 01:02:00,380
not very science heavy because it's sci it's

1818
01:02:00,380 --> 01:02:02,239
more of the fantasy side of sci fi.

1819
01:02:03,739 --> 01:02:04,800
In terms of films,

1820
01:02:06,059 --> 01:02:07,900
I always have to just turn off my

1821
01:02:07,900 --> 01:02:08,960
brain when I watch

1822
01:02:09,420 --> 01:02:11,019
a a film most of the time, unless

1823
01:02:11,019 --> 01:02:12,000
I'm doing a

1824
01:02:12,385 --> 01:02:13,985
let's react to this so that we can

1825
01:02:13,985 --> 01:02:15,905
use this as my Trojan horse of science

1826
01:02:15,905 --> 01:02:16,405
education.

1827
01:02:16,864 --> 01:02:18,545
You think you're you think you're watching a

1828
01:02:18,545 --> 01:02:19,985
a fun react video on a film, but

1829
01:02:19,985 --> 01:02:21,765
you're actually gonna get hit with science.

1830
01:02:23,184 --> 01:02:24,005
So weirdly

1831
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:26,260
weirdly,

1832
01:02:27,199 --> 01:02:28,340
some of my favorite

1833
01:02:29,039 --> 01:02:30,320
sci fi films are the ones you have

1834
01:02:30,320 --> 01:02:32,820
to dis like, suspend your disbelief the most

1835
01:02:33,199 --> 01:02:35,039
because I think I I can do it

1836
01:02:35,039 --> 01:02:36,480
more. I think that's why I didn't like

1837
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:37,920
Interstellar was because they were like, it's the

1838
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:40,765
most scientifically accurate film. And I went in

1839
01:02:41,025 --> 01:02:44,105
like, right. Well, you know, every time there

1840
01:02:44,105 --> 01:02:46,285
wasn't something scientifically accurate, I was like,

1841
01:02:47,704 --> 01:02:49,224
you know, like they needed a Saturn five

1842
01:02:49,224 --> 01:02:50,505
rocket to get off Earth, but all the

1843
01:02:50,505 --> 01:02:51,864
other planets, they just went off in their

1844
01:02:51,864 --> 01:02:53,005
little spacecraft like,

1845
01:02:55,489 --> 01:02:56,630
what point? You know?

1846
01:02:58,369 --> 01:03:00,210
So I think, weirdly, some of my favorites

1847
01:03:00,210 --> 01:03:01,969
are, like, the classics of, like, Deep Impact

1848
01:03:01,969 --> 01:03:03,889
and Armageddon that came out within, like, a

1849
01:03:03,889 --> 01:03:05,409
year of each other, and I watched when

1850
01:03:05,409 --> 01:03:06,849
I was, like, 10, and I was just,

1851
01:03:06,849 --> 01:03:07,155
like,

1852
01:03:07,715 --> 01:03:09,655
these are the best films ever.

1853
01:03:10,434 --> 01:03:11,094
You know?

1854
01:03:12,755 --> 01:03:15,074
I also really enjoyed, weirdly, Don't Look Up

1855
01:03:15,074 --> 01:03:16,135
that came out recently,

1856
01:03:16,914 --> 01:03:18,434
which is a film about yeah. Again, like,

1857
01:03:18,434 --> 01:03:20,114
an apparently, I like asteroid films,

1858
01:03:20,515 --> 01:03:21,875
which is a film about, like, a comet

1859
01:03:21,875 --> 01:03:24,089
that's gonna impact with Earth that's discovered, but

1860
01:03:24,089 --> 01:03:26,409
instead of the classic sort of scientists and

1861
01:03:26,409 --> 01:03:29,529
the world bands together, and America saves us,

1862
01:03:29,529 --> 01:03:31,369
usually, it's how it goes in the Hollywood

1863
01:03:31,369 --> 01:03:32,109
films. Right?

1864
01:03:32,730 --> 01:03:34,969
It's very much like a they just sort

1865
01:03:34,969 --> 01:03:36,109
of ignore the problem,

1866
01:03:36,614 --> 01:03:38,295
and they think, oh, actually, how can we

1867
01:03:38,295 --> 01:03:40,135
make money from this problem and things like

1868
01:03:40,135 --> 01:03:41,414
that. And you think it it's a very,

1869
01:03:41,414 --> 01:03:43,655
like it's probably the exact opposite sort of

1870
01:03:43,655 --> 01:03:45,414
message of Project Hail Mary. Right? It's that

1871
01:03:45,414 --> 01:03:47,434
humanity wouldn't band together and

1872
01:03:47,815 --> 01:03:49,094
it wouldn't save it. And it's a very

1873
01:03:49,094 --> 01:03:50,074
interesting commentary.

1874
01:03:50,420 --> 01:03:51,539
It's less of a sci fi film, I

1875
01:03:51,539 --> 01:03:52,820
guess, and more of a commentary on the

1876
01:03:52,820 --> 01:03:54,820
world as it is today, but it's also

1877
01:03:54,820 --> 01:03:55,400
very funny

1878
01:03:55,700 --> 01:03:56,680
at the same time.

1879
01:03:57,380 --> 01:03:58,760
The dark humor, I guess.

1880
01:03:59,300 --> 01:04:00,820
More of a Star Wars than a Star

1881
01:04:00,820 --> 01:04:02,260
Trek person, which I know makes a lot

1882
01:04:02,260 --> 01:04:03,559
of my colleagues very disappointed.

1883
01:04:03,860 --> 01:04:05,559
That's interesting. Why is that?

1884
01:04:06,065 --> 01:04:07,825
Like, I just I love fantasy, though. And

1885
01:04:07,825 --> 01:04:09,425
I think because I can I like, if

1886
01:04:09,425 --> 01:04:11,345
I if I'm reading, I'm probably more more

1887
01:04:11,345 --> 01:04:13,105
likely reading fantasy than I am sci fi?

1888
01:04:13,105 --> 01:04:15,285
Again, just because of the suspension of disbelief,

1889
01:04:15,425 --> 01:04:16,885
it's just easier.

1890
01:04:17,985 --> 01:04:19,420
It's more of an escape. I think. You

1891
01:04:19,420 --> 01:04:21,820
know? Like, as much as I absolutely love

1892
01:04:21,820 --> 01:04:24,000
my job, like, sci fi is still

1893
01:04:25,019 --> 01:04:25,519
adjacent

1894
01:04:26,059 --> 01:04:28,380
to it. And so it doesn't always feel

1895
01:04:28,380 --> 01:04:29,760
like a full switch off

1896
01:04:30,140 --> 01:04:32,574
in comparison to fantasy. No. That's fair.

1897
01:04:32,875 --> 01:04:35,534
But you're very excited about Project Hail Mary.

1898
01:04:35,835 --> 01:04:37,855
Why why then? Yeah. And I think

1899
01:04:39,275 --> 01:04:40,574
I think it just it

1900
01:04:41,594 --> 01:04:43,275
when I listened to it, I was in

1901
01:04:43,275 --> 01:04:45,295
a a really nice frame of mind

1902
01:04:47,170 --> 01:04:48,390
that I could

1903
01:04:49,010 --> 01:04:51,110
sort of enjoy it for what it was.

1904
01:04:51,730 --> 01:04:53,329
And I went in knowing that it was

1905
01:04:53,329 --> 01:04:55,170
going to be work adjacent, and it's become

1906
01:04:55,170 --> 01:04:56,849
very work adjacent in the fact that, yeah,

1907
01:04:56,849 --> 01:04:59,090
I've, you know, made science communication about it

1908
01:04:59,090 --> 01:05:00,914
and stuff. So in the same way that

1909
01:05:00,914 --> 01:05:01,974
I can be very joyful

1910
01:05:02,434 --> 01:05:02,934
about

1911
01:05:03,474 --> 01:05:05,474
work and everything like that, you you still

1912
01:05:05,474 --> 01:05:07,555
have joy for it. But if I'm if

1913
01:05:07,555 --> 01:05:09,954
I'm fully wanting to to switch off and

1914
01:05:09,954 --> 01:05:11,075
relax like I said, I put it on

1915
01:05:11,075 --> 01:05:12,434
because I was doing jobs. Right? I was

1916
01:05:12,434 --> 01:05:15,009
literally around the house, like, you know, cleaning

1917
01:05:15,009 --> 01:05:16,609
or something, and I thought I'll put this

1918
01:05:16,609 --> 01:05:19,089
audiobook on. So I wasn't, like, putting something

1919
01:05:19,089 --> 01:05:21,730
on to fully switch off from, you know,

1920
01:05:21,730 --> 01:05:23,989
everything. Like, you know, I wasn't, like,

1921
01:05:24,529 --> 01:05:26,289
being, like, oh, I need something that I

1922
01:05:26,289 --> 01:05:27,569
can just kill up and read by the

1923
01:05:27,569 --> 01:05:29,109
fire on holiday. You know?

1924
01:05:29,765 --> 01:05:32,025
That would be a fantasy novel I'd like

1925
01:05:36,565 --> 01:05:38,644
to thank doctor Becky and Andy Weir for

1926
01:05:38,644 --> 01:05:40,405
joining me for this episode of the Physics

1927
01:05:40,405 --> 01:05:42,885
World Stories podcast. Of course, you will find

1928
01:05:42,885 --> 01:05:45,659
links to everything we've talked about on the

1929
01:05:45,739 --> 01:05:48,000
Physics World website physicsworld.com.

1930
01:05:48,139 --> 01:05:50,380
We'll be back next month with something else

1931
01:05:50,380 --> 01:05:52,780
from this wonderful world of physics. I think

1932
01:05:52,780 --> 01:05:55,440
I'll leave the last word to Rocky.

1933
01:05:57,019 --> 01:05:59,039
It is time go.