Professor Brian Cox: Life After Death & Finding Your Purpose in The Universe!

23:37because we didn't quite understand it until very recently. Yes. Oh, really? Maybe it's made in supernova explosions when they explode. But then a few years ago, we had these experiments and they're called gravitational wave experiments. And they're in their own right are amazing. So we can see things like black holes colliding and sending ripples out in the fabric of the universe, space and time. What happens when a black hole? So they merge into two black holes. So they become massive? A bigger black hole. Oh, God. But it's really violent. And so they make space and time ripple. And these things are called gravitational waves.

24:17And they go out. A friend of mine, Kip Thorne, actually, got the Nobel Prize for this work, called it a storm in time. So this time storm goes. Storm in time. And we can measure it. So we saw one of these time storms in our detector. And it was a collision between these things called neutron stars, which are stars that are the mass of the sun. but they're collapsed to the size of a city. They're about 10 kilometres across these things.

24:42Davina McCall:Wait, wait, say that again. It's a star, actually more massive than the sun. So it's like bigger than the sun, collapses. Till it's about the size of London. And are you talking about that's when it runs out of, so it dies and collapses into London? Gravity just collapses it. So you get these remarkable, they're like a single atomic nucleus, these things, really violent. The last step towards a black hole, right? If they get any bigger, they just go. But so these things are around and we saw two of them collide with these ripples. And we got our telescopes and sent them and looked in the sky and watched.

25:16And we saw gold being made. So we think that a lot of the gold and this is this gold that you're wearing now, that came a lot of it, perhaps most of it from the collision between neutron stars. Isn't that amazing?

25:31Davina McCall:Ended up in Earth. Yeah. And then so it got made in these collisions and then gravity collapses it. And we dig it up and make it into jewellery. It's part of that remarkable story. Brian. So we're connected to everything. It's like too much. So wait, wait, wait. Let's go back to little Brian. Did you read this when you were, what, like 13? Yeah, after the TV show. So the TV show was on, I think it was 1980 on BBC One. And so then, you know, if anyone remembers as far back as that, there aren't many TV channels. There's not a lot to see, right? There's no internet or anything like that. And so, you know, if you're interested in astronomy, as I was, you know, you could watch the sky at night, which was great.

26:14And that was about it. Right. And then this comes on 13 hours of it. And, you know, it's kind of of its time in some ways. I mean, you think back then we didn't know anywhere near as much as we do now. But Sagan, it made a massive impact on me because he doesn't only talk about astronomy in that book and in the CV series. He talks about why we do it and how important science is and how important civilization is and what learning about the universe can teach us about the way that we behave on Earth. The last episode, famously, is really about nuclear war and the idiocy of this, you know, what we just talked about after 13 and a half billion years of evolution, where at least on this planet and probably very few places like this, these atoms have come together into patterns that can think and have conversations and explore the universe.

27:09and we might be using that legacy, right? Using that history to construct things that we may use to wipe ourselves out. And this was very vivid. I mean, you'll remember at the time, I remember it, late 70s, early 80s, this was what kids like us thought about. We were thinking, we were being told about the nuclear war and we were watching these things on television, like threads and those things. and so we were immersed in this like Prince 1999 the music was about this Frank goes to Hollywood, two tribes it was in the culture, right the threat of nuclear war and then Sagan puts it in context and says this is what we came from this was the history the billion year history 13 billion year history of how we came to be here and this is what we are threatening to do to ourselves so this is not astronomy as a documentary anymore it's just this powerful polemic.

28:05Davina McCall:Well it's activism isn't it really? Yeah it's quite mind blowing even when you watch it now in the context of all the documentaries that we've seen you have this Carl Sagan confidently saying I'm going to use my platform to talk about this and it made a huge impression on me Can I say something? I feel like you are now doing the same thing. You are using your platform to do something similar I feel like you are trying to put love out there into the world. It's like explaining to us to love where we live because the alternative is destruction. And this might be all we have in the entire universe.

28:52Well, yeah, to that point. So we don't know of anywhere else beyond Earth where even life exists. And we're looking, and again, I talk about this in this show, that with some, you know, not evidence as such, but increasingly optimistic, we may find life existed on Mars, for example. We see more and more interesting results. We've got loads of spacecraft on Mars and in orbit. And it's getting interesting. So it may well be that there was or still is life on Mars. We're looking for life on the moons of Jupiter. There are oceans below the surface of those moons. So, you know, we're kind of optimistic.

29:29But we haven't found any yet. And we certainly haven't seen any evidence of other civilizations, which is a tremendous mystery. And it goes by loads of names. One is the Fermi paradox. it's paradoxical that we don't see evidence of civilizations far beyond us so but to your point that therefore we might as well act as though this is the only place where complex life and intelligence exists currently in in our galaxy let's say in the Milky Way guys we should act like that and um to back to Sagan's point science has taught us that that it's likely I'd say it's likely that civilizations are rare.

30:09So we could say that. We don't know, but likely. Imagine we are the only civilization currently present in the Milky Way galaxy. One island of meaning, as I sometimes put it, in an ocean of 400 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy. And then we just go, actually, no, it doesn't matter. Yeah. You know, we'll just mess it up. Yeah, when you have a bit of context, just a bit from what we've learned about astronomy, then it seems inconceivable that we would even consider that. And I know that's naive in some sense, because, of course, politics is complicated and so on, and global politics is complicated.

30:53So it is naive. But then is it that I think that knowing a bit about the perspective, like Sagan, you say this, the perspective that astronomy and cosmology gives you, knowing something about that might help you not to do it. So maybe it's not naive, right? Maybe it's because it might well be true.

31:12Davina McCall:It is not. It might be correct. And also I think that what you are doing, because you have a voice and you have a platform and you have the ability. I think I read somewhere that your last show, I don't know what, like half a million tickets or something like that. I mean, like unbelievable numbers of people are coming to listen to you speak. That's incredibly powerful because those people in turn will want to tell other people. You know, I would imagine when we came to see your show, we just banged on at every dinner party we went to about what we'd seen and what we'd heard. This is how you get a message out there.

31:52Yeah. And part of you talking about my history growing up and you said that I sound a bit like Carl Sagan. I do because he's one of my biggest influences. I was 11 years old.

32:06Davina McCall:Yes. And I see this. it's so powerful that you can't, I couldn't help but you know it's like being influenced by music that you hear when you're 10 or 11 or 12 years old, it's the same thing I got influenced by these ideas What were you listening to when you were 11? So the first, I know because that was when I first started buying 7-inch singles, right? Vinyl and the first singles I bought I know what they were, right? I bought Gary Newman, Cars I bought Hazel O 'Connor 8th Day I know this because I've got a load of them I went to see Hazel O 'Connor when I was 12 did you? yeah it was amazing that was about the time right it was 80 was it?

32:45yeah what other singles was I buying? the albums I was buying I Craftwork the man theme was one of the first albums so good I love it I saw them do it actually at the the Tate Modern what recently? no a few years ago when they did the album at the Tate Modern yeah it was brilliant because they and they just played recently actually I was away Yeah, I missed it. And then OMD, I remember their first album I had, which was the one with electricity on it and messages. So it was like electronic music. Then I got into Duran Duran in a very big way because I'd seen them. You must know those guys, right?

33:19I do, yeah. Yeah.

33:21Davina McCall:Can I just say, 11-year-old you, right, reading this, and now here you are, like me saying you're a bit like Carl Sagan. Like, I mean, it's mega. It is a bit. This is your life. Yeah, I know. Because obviously you don't. It's not planned at all. That's the key thing. It's a mixture. It's certainly luck, which a lot of people say, but it really is. You make your own luck. It's hard work. I think you seize the opportunities, and even that requires luck, to even seize it and it works, right? Because as you said, I grew up in Oldham, and I was lucky because it was actually even really wanting to be in a band was that my younger sister wanted to go see Duran Duran.

34:09I remember this vividly and it was a Seventh and Ragged Tiger tour and I tell the guy because as you said I got to know them and then so I went and I was like okay I'll go but I was into like OMD and Ultrabox and things like that and I saw this gig it was in Leeds and I loved it I was blown away because obviously at the time they were at the peak of their fame and this was real pop music done brilliantly and the insane atmosphere and I just thought right I want to do that so just because I went to this gig really with my sister. That's what I want to do. So I started learning to play. I didn't have music lessons.

34:44I couldn't play. So I started just trying to do something. It's about the age of 15 or so. And then this is the look. So in Oldham, living in Oldham, and a guy called Darren Wharton, who's the keyboard player from Thin Lizzy, moved into Oldham and went to the pub, my local pub, where my dad used to go. And so my dad said, just gave him a demo tape that we'd done. When we were 16 or 17. God bless your dad.

35:16Davina McCall:Yeah. That is good dad. That is good dad work. Yeah. And it was, you know, I don't know if you've even listened to it, Darren, but when he formed a band, because Thin Lizzy split up, and he remembered there was this guy up the road who sort of had something to do with keyboards, and just asked me to go and meet him. And really, I wasn't very good at playing, but I was good at programming stuff. Right. Because I was into Ultravox and OMD and all these bands. And so I joined the band just before I finished my A-levels. And then I thought, I'll take a year out. So that's the luck, pure luck. And that was Dare?

35:58That's Dare. And then so I took a year out from university, and in that year we got a record deal. I mean and so then I didn't go to university so I think when I was supposed to be in university I was in LA recording an album at Joni Mitchell's house by the way so it gets sillier with a great producer called Larry Klein who was married to Joni Mitchell at the time and he's a great he's still a great player he still plays he's a great bass player and producer and so I ended up you know when I was supposed to be at university I was in LA and also with someone

36:31Davina McCall:from Thin Lizzy like Yeah, and that, you know, for the musically, it wasn't actually the music I was into, right? I was into, yeah, I was sort of, yeah, gone from electronic music to Duran Duran and been into Romantic. And then I go into Bar House and Sisters of Mercy and The Cure and also The Smiths and New Order and Joy Division, all that stuff. And then I joined this rock band. And so I'd listen to rock music. I enjoy it. Can I quickly ask you about going back to uni after you'd taken time out? Because it must have been quite a big thing going to uni and everybody else is 18. What was that like and how did you handle that?

37:09I think I was 23 when I went back.

37:15You've done a lot. Well, yeah, I'd been in this band and I was actually, you know, simultaneously, I'd just joined DREAM. so it was even weirder for these my friends at university because i was on top of the pox when i was an undergraduate so they'd be watching telly at night you know what's he doing you know

37:36Davina McCall:so it was bloody cool though brian well done that's so good it was kind of there was one it was one we do you do lab at university we do physics and i never really liked it actually i didn't like doing this lab stuff but there's one i'm so vividly remember because I didn't lab and it was like, you know, it was like five o 'clock or something. I was like, I'm going to have to go. And it went quite finish this. And he goes, why? And he goes, because I'm on stage at Gmex. We take that. We were supporting take that. So literally it was like, just get changed and go on stage. So I had this very strange experience of being at university.

38:14And fortunately for me, by the way, I took a decision. So most of it's love. I did make a decision because D-Ream got, they weren't a big band when I joined the band. It was in the gap between leaving there, when I left there and then went to university. And then D-Ream got big and I decided to make a choice then. It was my second year, I think, at university. And it was like, do I go to, it was an Australian tour. I'd never been to Australia. I was like, do I do that again? Or do I carry on doing this? and so that was a good decision that I'd said no I'm actually going to yeah well done I'm going to do this we're very grateful well I'm I'm I'd done enough physics that I knew that I really liked it yes at university but it was a difficult choice you know because you know when you're a student you know it's like why shall I get on a plane and go to Australia and be a rock star again

39:11Davina McCall:As you know, I have been trying out Monzo, who are sponsoring Begin Again. And I think one of the cleverest things about it is something called salary sorter. Now, I'm going to show you on a prop phone, by the way, because you're not seeing my actual bank balance. Nosy. But what's amazing about it is your pay lands and it splits itself out. Bills, savings, spending, sorted. Set it once and every payday just happens. I know what money feels like. That running list in your head. Can I cover everything? Have I put enough by? What have I actually got left? I carried that for years and what I love is how quietly Monzo takes that weight off you.

39:49Davina McCall:You see it all, you sort it all and the worry goes with it. I wish I'd had this at 19. It makes money feel clearer, calmer, far less scary and that is brilliant. We should all be doing less counting and more living. So go and download Monzo. Monzo current accounts are for 16 plus in UK residents. T's and C's apply. And one of the things that I loved reading you talk about is the graft. You know, that you've said before that you don't, you're not sure that anyone is born brilliant at anything. It's about the graft. I think so. Certainly for the overwhelming majority of people. and it might be the odd person who's some kind of genius at something but most people who are successful in music or physics or whatever are not right they they it's it's that combination it's it's part luck that gives you paths open up and that's luck i think and then as you said then it's finding something that you like and really um thinking hard i often because i still teach students at the University of Manchester, right?

40:56And one of the things I say to them is that you have to, you know, when you understand something, that's actually the only skill. If you get that skill where you're not trying to, you know, just know enough to pass an exam or whatever it is, I'm not trying to, even, you know, these days, you know, trying to cheat a bit, maybe with AI or something, whatever it is. The idea is that you know when you understand it. And it's a great delight it's the most remarkable feeling when you go no i get that but you've got to work as hard as you have to work right there's no shortcut yes that sometimes you'll get it quickly sometimes you'll get it slowly but you've just got to do it and you'll know when you've done it you don't need to do an exam you don't need me to tell you you understand it you know and that's so that i think for some reason i figured that out i like the fact that you keep talking about luck.

41:50It's worth thinking about it, isn't it? To look back at your history and think, where were those turning points? And I'm pretty sure most of them will have just been luck.

42:03Davina McCall:I like to for my own kind of heart and happiness. I mean, I know that you've talked a lot before about death and what happens to us after death. And it's like nothing. I don't talk much about it because I've only got one word, one word answer. nothing um but what i really liked was i i listened to something um talking about atoms and atoms never die they just go somewhere else and that i've chosen to believe that i live on through that can you just explain the concept of an atom yeah so um so these are the the building blocks of us and they're very tiny by the way so um well like how tiny well so in and i do this in the show actually so we show a snowflake on the screen from kepler and they're about what a centimeter across so in so then it's made of water molecules these little things and you can line up brian i love it when you talk about like things and you go that's my illustration of a water molecule i know you know that's like what is that tiny little thing and you can line up about um what um something like a hundred million of them across a snowflake so that's how small they are and which is why it took us until about in the 20th century to discover these things so um so they're about a hundred million times smaller than a snowflake and so those are the building blocks and those as you say they're eternal essentially for all intents and purposes they're eternal so when we die the building blocks of us are still there, they're not destroyed and they will ultimately as we said, they'll go back into the earth and then the earth will die, well the earth may get incinerated by the sun at some point in the future we're not quite sure actually whether it will get swallowed or not when the sun expands at the end of its life so but anyway some of them will go out into space and some of them may re-collapse into new star systems and new planets and so they're just recycled basically and they live for pretty much eternity if we're made up the building blocks we will carry on in something else yeah some different form the building blocks But that leads to very deep questions about what we are, because actually the atoms out of which we're made are changing all the time.

44:40So we're not the same atoms that we were yesterday and we won't be the same atoms that we were completely the same atoms that we were tomorrow, that they're being recycled all the time. So you're really a pattern. So you're a pattern of information in a sense. and so it's that really it's the information processing that's you the analogy I often use is a computer so you've got a computer program, it's running in the computer, it's not really anything to do with the computer, the program when you turn it off, it's not running anymore so we're like that which sounds less romantic than the other things we've been talking about but that's, you know, as far as we understand it, that's what we are it's no less remarkable though because that's often i think the the one of the problems that people can have with science is if you put it like that then it sounds dry right it just sounds like un unromantic and not beautiful right it just yeah you're just this processing and it's just a pattern and it's processing and then you die and it's gone which is true but the other way of thinking about it is that how remarkable is it that from over 13.8 billion years, from just some hydrogen and helium, you end up with those patterns.

46:00You end up with these processes that allow us to experience the world. So it is, Carl Sagan said it first, it's allowing the universe to understand itself. That's beautiful. So in a way, it's just the language that you use. So it can sound horrible and dry and emotionless or the same story can sound profoundly magical and beautiful. And that's really the challenge. I think it's magical and beautiful. I don't need any more because some people say, well, it's terrible then, isn't it? You're gone. You're just this temporary thing. My perspective is it's so astonishing that these temporary patterns exist at all And I do talk about this in the show The more we think about it But we try to understand why So why do the laws of nature allow temporary patterns like us to exist Which can bring meaning Yes Genuinely bring meaning to the universe What are we supposed to do with it?

47:03Yeah, so that to me is the most wonderful question of all in many ways so why is the universe such that collections of atoms can have conversations so to me that's beautiful and powerful and the temporary nature of it makes it even more beautiful and valuable in a sense

47:26Davina McCall:Do you ever think about death? Does it worry you? To be absolutely honest not yet maybe give me another five years but But I don't really, I don't focus on that at all. Okay, I'm going to actually go back. I'm going to tell you something that is going to horrify you, but please don't hate me because I have changed. But maybe 15, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, I put, I'm so ashamed to tell you this, but I put space travel in room 101. one did you it's not a please don't hate me it's not a bad idea in some way i i just thought it's so expensive and and we could spend that on somebody but then i got together with michael my husband so excited about that i've got together with michael and he was like he turned me on to you and changed my whole life.

48:30I mean, if you think, I just said there, it's not necessarily a bad thing to do, right? So it depends what you, what, so how do we value space travel?

48:46Davina McCall:Well, that was it, because I felt like it was territorial pissing. Well, and it may well have been, right, at some level, right? I mean, I'd say probably was, you know, it was obviously the Cold War. It's the space race. But now, and this is often the case, what's come out of that is this economy in space that we use. We all use it every day. I'll give you one figure which was astonishing to me. So there was a House of Lords report here in the UK last year. And it was about space, the economy of space. And there's a figure in there which says that 18 % of our GDP is reliant on space-based infrastructure.

49:3118. So it's like a fifth of the economy of the UK. Oh, my God. Because it's things we take for granted. It's not only satellite navigation, obviously. Yes. But all the timing stuff for our financial transactions comes from that. So when you do things with your bank, it's all the timing of all the computers is coming from that. Someone told me the other week that, so how important is space now? So it's telling us about deforestation, for example. So it's allowing us to map how the environment's changing, what we're doing to the environment. that someone told me there was a in peru they were having problems with fishing which was depleting their fishing stocks and so they enacted a law that the boats in their waters have to have satellite trackers and it reduced the hit it was something like 80 or 90 percent of illegal fishing they got so that they were able to control their fishing and all those things so it's integrated into almost everything we do on a day-to-day basis.

50:36So that's kind of the practical idea. But the other point is that we are also doing these things, the curiosity-led exploration of the planets in order to ask questions, as we mentioned before, like are we alone in the universe? These are questions we're trying to answer. They're profound questions. I mean, I would say for those people listening, I'm sure we're not alone in the universe, but it's how far do you have to go to find something else that's alive? That's a really good question. Might be outside our solar system, might be, who knows, thousands of light years. So there's those questions as well.

51:15And the curiosity-led exploration of nature. Go back to Kepler. As I mentioned, these are the foundations of the modern world. Right. So we hadn't really made much progress for thousands of years, for almost arguably from ancient Egypt, for 5000 years, basically, of civilization. We'd really not done much. And then when people start asking these questions, the beginning of science in just a few hundred years, we have not only this knowledge, but we have medical technology, as you mentioned. Can you imagine if you'd been ill 100 years ago? Yeah. No antibiotics even. No. You know, if you go back.

52:06And so I think that the most valuable thing about science and space exploration and asking questions about the motion of the planets, which is where it all started, is that it led to this way of thinking about the world, which has led to everything we take for granted, without exception. This is one of the foundations of everything that we enjoy today, our quality of life, longevity of life. By any measure, we use science every day and it benefits us. But it comes from this. So I would say it's not really about the GDP numbers and all these things like that. It's just about this is one of the manifestation of our curiosity.

52:55Davina McCall:Yes. I mean, honestly, like Michael opening my eyes and him having been such a fan of yours for so long, it's like it's changed everything. But I think me valuing this planet in a way, I've always valued it and I've loved living and I've loved nature. But there's an urgency now, I feel, where I think politically recently there's been so much hatred and anger and destruction that it feels a bit like we're going back to the 70s again where children are growing up full of fear. Yeah. So your son's 17 and he's growing up in an unstable world. And I feel like us actually in our late teens and summer of love, 88, 90, it was a great time of peace really for quite a long time.

53:46Davina McCall:We haven't had that for ages. Yeah. And so we're in the world, as you said, maybe Carl Sagan's world. And he wrote a book actually, another book called The Demon Haunted World. Science as a Candle in the Dark. He wrote it after Cosmos. And it's a wonderful book. And he sees this. He sees this world coming. Does he? Yeah. He's talking about the rise of, the return to superstition and darkness. And that's what he means, the demon haunted world. Science as a candle that drives away the demons. Yes. It's just this way of thinking about, which is just, as I said, back to Kepler, It's just asking questions about the shape of snowflakes and the motion of the planets.

54:32But you're grounded in reality there. This is the way that you drive out superstition and all the problems that arise from the fear of the unknown. It's part of the show, actually. There's always a philosophical arc in the show somewhere, an element of polemic, probably coming from Sagan. And at the end of the show, I say that you said it, Kepler, I don't know. I say at the end, I'm worried that the world today is full of too many people who think they know everything. Yes. And the thing is, if you think about it for one moment, if you think you know everything, you can't make any progress. Because there's no progress.

55:17Because progress requires the unknown, obviously. And when you put it like that, so anybody that is certain is not going to develop as a person, but they're not going to develop any new knowledge. They're not going to contribute anything, actually. I would say certainty prevents you from contributing anything new because you think you know it. And so I think that it's the rise of certainty. And really, the beginning of science only 400 years ago was the discovery of the joy of uncertainty. That's what it actually is. So that's why Kepler and Galileo are so important, because they go, hang on a minute, I'm not sure.

56:02I'm not sure the Earth is motionless at the centre of a finite universe.

56:06Davina McCall:And they would have been ridiculed for thinking that or questioning something. You know, well, it's been like this forever. Of course it's like this. It doesn't move. Yeah, the authority is the authority of the ancient Greeks, really. Yes. But, you know, and Galileo famously had his, you know, tangled with the church and so on. And that's a complicated story. And part of it was his character as well. So it's not really, it's not really simple. You know, a lot of it was, I think he was friends with the Pope, I think. And it was all a bit, you know, it was all human. It was all very human, right?

56:36But ultimately they were. If you think about it, it's also allowing yourself to go somewhere that isn't obvious. Because what these people are arguing about partly was, is the earth moving? Well, that self evidently doesn't feel as if it's moving. So it's not obvious that the earth is tearing around this star. and it's not obvious, as you said, that the star is the sun and it's nuclear fusion and you can fit a million Earths inside it. None of that is obvious. It's remarkable that we discovered it at all. You know, we discovered how to weigh the Earth and weigh the sun and figure out how big things are and how far away.

57:23One of the things, a story I tell in the show is about how do we know, which is related to this thing about being certain, how do we know the distance to a galaxy? It's all right me saying the Andromeda galaxy, you can see it with your naked eye almost here from the UK, or with binoculars, you see this thing. It took the light over two million years to reach us from that thing, which means it began its journey. You're looking at it live through your binoculars. It began its journey before we had evolved on the Earth. And it's coming along.

57:54Davina McCall:Oh, my God. How do you know? It's so mind-blowing. How do you know? And the story is wonderful. And it involves an astronomer called Henrietta Leavitt, who was working at the turn of the 20th century. And she was looking at patterns in data, so like Kepler, patterns in the snowflakes. And she happened to notice a pattern in the way these particular stars behave, called Seafield variable stars. But she noticed a pattern. And that allowed her to figure out, by just seeing how they vary in brightness, how bright they actually are. And this is the key idea. it's called a standard candle because if you imagine if you've got this light and you know how bright it actually is and you and then you can see how dim it is and say well i know how far away it is then the further away is the dimmer it is right yeah that's it that that's it but so it took it took this 20th century discovery by this genius henrietta levitt who was just working and her job was just to catalogue things because that's what women did at the time right they were But they would be the ones that would see everything.

59:00But she saw the pattern.

59:00Davina McCall:Yeah. And so she became an extremely famous astronomer. That's one of the basic ways. But it just shows you that someone's got to do that. Someone's got to figure out a way of measuring the distance to the stars and the distance to the galaxies. And it's really 20th century discoveries, actually. So we didn't know. Until the 1920s, we didn't know whether these little patches of light in the sky were other galaxies or structures in our own galaxy. So we didn't know that. It's almost living memory. It's 1920s that we discovered that. I mean, obviously one of the big questions, or possibly the biggest question, is how did it all begin?

59:45Davina McCall:You know, like, how did it start? And obviously CERN is a huge part of that. You worked there. Yeah. Can you just tell us a bit about when that was and what was that like? What were you doing? CERN is called a particle accelerator so the Large Hadron Collider it's 27 kilometres in circumference this thing so if you ever go to Geneva Is it underground? Yeah, so if you land at Geneva Airport ever then it's close to that it's underground it goes into France mainly but it goes into Switzerland as well and it goes right past the runway of the airport so when you land there you're almost sitting on top of this thing beneath Geneva Wow so that's where it is And its job is just to send particles around very fast and collide them together.

1:00:29And that's what it does. And they go very, very fast, 27 kilometres, just beams of particles. It makes millions of these collisions every second, just collides particles. But the reason it's doing that is because in those collisions, a way to think about it is you recreate the conditions that were present less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. So one way to think about what's happening there is you can take pictures of what was happening, what the universe was like very close to the Big Bang. So that's one of the reasons we know about what was happening back then, because we can recreate those conditions in a tiny bit of space for a tiny amount of time.

1:01:08And we can take pictures of it. And these giant cameras, the one I worked on was called Atlas. It's 40 metres in size, right? There's a huge digital camera underneath the ground in a cavern the size of St Paul's Cathedral taking pictures of these little collisions. So it's one of the reasons we know a lot.

1:01:26Davina McCall:And what were you doing there then? What was your job? So there I was running a little upgrade project thing, which is kind of an international little group, to put these little detectors close to these beams of particles. These beams, by the way, they're smaller than the diameter of a hair, of human hair, these little beams like that. But they carry the energy of an aircraft carrier travelling at 30 miles an hour. Oh, my God. So it's really quite cool. Powerful. And I was putting these little things about a millimetre away from it. So we were trying to put these little detectors in really close.

1:02:02So I was just running this upgrade project. And the BBC, it was before the machine was turned on. And they started sending people there, you know, because it was kind of interesting. And people were interested in this experiment. And so I just got interviewed by Radio 4 or someone like that. And they liked the way that I talked. And by the way, this is the luck again, right? So I'd avoided even teaching, right? All I wanted to do was research. So I got these things called research fellowships, and I was just doing research into particle physics and nothing else. I wasn't interested in anything.

1:02:42I wasn't interested in talking about it. I wasn't interested in teaching about it. Nothing. thing but then I just started talking about this machine because I was interested in it and involved in it and that's the and then I think that someone said oh maybe we'll make a BBC it was called BBC Knowledge BBC4 whatever a little program do you want to make a little program so I made a little program and then said oh maybe we'll make a Horizon then you know which was this wonderful documentary series and so I did that and then and ultimately got offered this thing Wonders of the solar system which was the big series that i made which i first became well known it's complete luck i wasn't interested i wouldn't have pushed that can i say something though it's not luck

1:03:22Davina McCall:it's because you are brilliant like that's not luck maybe see we're lucky you learn though don't you i mean it's not as you'll know you know it's not that if you want to be on telly it's it's a skill like anything else or make radio programs it's something that you learn through practice and so also passion i mean your passion is so tangible to to listen to you talk about something you love is electric it's it's absolutely no honestly brian it is such a joy to to listen to you talk about it because like we me and me and michael but i was i sat in an oh i could feel a bit emotional i don't know why i sat in an audience and i listened to you speak you blew all of our minds but it's your enthusiasm and your knowledge and everything else but the idea that you almost didn't didn't want to share that with us yeah it's like well it would be criminal um we all have different aspects to our characters don't we and i said before one of the things i like doing is finding things out and and figuring out how to understand things and obviously you know research maybe a PhD and those things that's all, it's all about that it's all about this, I want to understand this thing and ultimately find something out that nobody knew that's actually a remarkable thing and everyone who's done a PhD has done that in some way can I ask you about you did a PhD in particle physics, what's that what is particle what is particle physics?

1:05:02so that is this, the understanding of the building blocks of nature? What are the smallest building blocks? The smallest, smallest. And how do they talk to each other? How do they stick together? So the things we've been talking about, about these little building blocks.

1:05:15Davina McCall:And that's what got you to CERN? Yeah. If you're interested in that. Yeah. So I went to university to do astrophysics, because I was into astronomy. And then I sort of converted at university. I didn't know there was such a thing called particle physics, really. I didn't know anything about it. But I got interested in it when I was at university and so then did the research I did my PhD in Germany actually at a lab which was a particle collider wow and then I went to Fermilab in Chicago which is another one and then CERN so I want to talk to you about um teaching and you were saying that like you very nearly didn't teach yeah I just have a time avoiding us now right how are you enjoying that What's that like?

1:05:58I love it. So I teach the first year in September, so in October, because it's the first year, first term. And it is true, I suppose, that some people go to Manchester because they've seen me on telly. And so I wanted them, I feel I have a responsibility if they do that to meet those students, right? Because some of them are doing physics because they've seen my stuff and many of them aren't, by the way, but some of them are. I would say probably most of them there's lots of reasons you go to Manchester it's right you know we've got Nobel Prize winners there and all sorts of things it's a big department Jodrell Bank the telescope famously which you pass on the train to Manchester from London so all those things and so I teach first year first term and I teach relativity and quantum mechanics the introduction because those are the things that every So everyone who's 18 who goes to do physics wants to do that.

1:06:59They want to do Einstein. And quantum mechanics is the theory of the particles and the building blocks of nature. So I really enjoy it. And one of the reasons, I like doing it, but also every year someone asks a question or I'm saying something and I realise I don't properly understand it. even though it's the first year introductory course, there's always something. You don't properly understand it. There's always something. You go, actually, I think I'm just saying that. It's what we said earlier about the skill you have to develop is really making sure you understand something. And there's always something where I go, actually, why is that?

1:07:44There must be a better way of saying that. Or usually I don't understand that, actually. so I'm saying something which is right you know I'll just say something

1:07:53Davina McCall:and would you tell your students yeah sometimes when someone asks a question sometimes you go that's a good question so you can give them the answer which would be in a textbook you go that's the answer but you go why is that quantum mechanics is really weird as a theory it is can I tell you something quite funny I met this guy called Hartmut who built the Google quantum computer and Hartmut was doing a talk and I went to his talk and I didn't really get it. So I went and bought quantum computing for dummies. It's really hard. I still don't get it. Like I just can't, and I'm going to keep going.

1:08:33Davina McCall:But it is really mind-blowingly complex. The picture of the world it gives you is, as you know, it's just so alien. It's so different to the world that we experience. And it's still, you know, like you said, quantum computing is really forcing us to think about what it actually means because it actually does use that weird behaviour. Yes, and it works. It works. Yeah, sort of. I mean, we still do it again. What is quantum going to, how is it going to change our world? I mean, just one very simple answer is it has because you don't know how a transistor works if you don't understand quantum mechanics.

1:09:17So, you know, everything, your phone is full of these things and they're quantum devices, really. So you need it to understand that. But quantum computing is different because it's using the real behaviour of these particles to do things that you couldn't otherwise do. And so, but the kind of unfortunate thing, and it's just luck, actually. The unfortunate thing is the first thing we've learned how to do with quantum computers is break the encryption that keeps all our data safe. So that's a real, it's not the most positive thing in the world. And it's just, I think it's just that it happened that one of the easiest things to do with these quantum computers is actually to say, if you've got a really big number, what are the numbers that you multiply together to make the big number?

1:10:10Now, that's a really hard thing. So all our banking apps and everything are based on having a very, very big number. And it's about knowing what the little things are you have to multiply. I'm doing that again. The numbers you have to multiply together.

1:10:23Davina McCall:Brian, don't change. Please don't change. I love it when you do that. I didn't mean to make yourself conscious. But it's what are the numbers you have to multiply together to make the big number. And it was thought with a normal computer, any conceivable normal computer, it takes longer than the age of the universe, right, to figure out what these numbers are. So you can't do it. No. So it's great for code, making a code. It's brilliant. And that's how the encryption basically works. Everything that we take for granted, keeping our data safe. Yes. Unfortunately, the first algorithm, the first thing anyone figured out how to do with the quantum computer is to do that.

1:11:00And the power of quantum computers is they, in principle, not yet actually in practice, but in principle can do it really quickly. So they just destroy the whole fabric of encryption. And it's not just because you can fix that. So that's what people are doing. So we fix it. So we do something different and everybody's transitioning over to the different thing. But one thing is that all the data that's ever been stored up till now is all on computers somewhere.

1:11:30Davina McCall:Yes. Everyone's got it all. And it's all encrypted with this code. the moment anyone actually builds a quantum computer that can do this you can read everything so it is actually a problem because any data that's stored anywhere in the world now that can't be read will be able to be read when these things work if the world was full of love and people just wanting to look after the planet and look after each other and care for each other this would be the most amazing discovery but because of power and greed and hatred it's not and we need to get rid of these things over here and i do feel like we can create a more loving and accepting society in the name of continuing our species yeah you must be able to do that yeah just before i answer that i just wanted to say about quantum computers they can also potentially do amazing things.

1:12:30Yes. So it looks like, well, because nature is this. Nature works like this. Really what these things are doing is harnessing the power of nature to do things that are useful to us. So the other things that we think they're going to be really good at are things like understanding biology, making advances in medicine, understanding how life works, material signs for building new materials and new aircraft and things. So there's all that wonderful stuff as well. Space travel. Well, it feeds into that, right? So then new materials for building engines and things. So there's a whole tremendous sort of area as well.

1:13:13It's just that the easiest thing to do is mess our encryption up. But they're really potentially wonderful things. But to your point, I agree. It goes back to, I think, the perspective. Sagan said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. And I sometimes say in the live show, I realise what that meant a few years ago, because humbling is easy. The size of the Earth is just nothing compared to the size of the universe. The character building bit is this understanding of our place and our history in the universe. So the idea that this might be one of the few islands of meaning in a galaxy of 400 billion suns in itself in one galaxy amongst two trillion galaxies in this observable universe.

1:14:06So there's something about the potential value and rarity of places like Earth. but also the history as we spoke about earlier it's all perspective so the character building bit i think is sagan saying we need to take responsibility because it goes back to your question about the unlikeliness of existence the tremendous this the value of existing once you know how unlikely it is yes you exist the more you seize your life and value your life it's that It's that perspective, but made global. So it's like the whole civilization is this temporary thing, which is like a single human life. And so you should treat the planet and the civilization as you treat your own life.

1:14:54Davina McCall:Yes. It is a thing. It's a thing, an ecosystem that has a finite, fragile existence. Yes. And so I think that that perspective, that's what Sagan meant. But you wouldn't know that if you didn't, it wouldn't occur to you if you didn't know about the context, which is the arena, as we started with, plus the history of life on Earth, plus the history of the universe. The more you know about it, the more fragile, unlikely and beautiful and precious this world becomes. That's what I'm sure he meant. I always said that I thought every world leader should go into space. I totally agree. Yeah. And most of them should come back.

1:15:37Davina McCall:I think, yes. But what about when that perspective? Yes. Because the chap recently who just had his moment to just say how he was feeling. Did you see that? And he was just talking about how he felt seeing Earth from space. It was the most beautiful thing. It was very Carl Sagan. Yeah. Everyone seems to. I've been lucky to meet astronauts. And even the older ones, the test pilots from the 60s, you know, these real sort of Air Force test pilots, all of them still speak powerfully about the experience of seeing the Earth from space. I think we should do that. I think world leaders, before they, you know, come into office, they should go up into space.

1:16:25Davina McCall:I think you should have to. I think that should be the law. And it's quite, you know, the little suborbital flight, you still see it's quite, it's not expensive, actually. You know, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic and people. You know, it's not expensive. It's a few hundred thousand pounds, so it's expensive. But for a country. For the perspective, I think you should be, you should have to do that. For the world. Go and have a look at the thing you're responsible for. Yes. And then come back and, you know, behave yourself, is what I would say to them. So, Brian, I've got little presents for you.

1:17:01Davina McCall:The first one is from one of your students. Let me put my glasses on. I'm of an age. Dear Brian, 15 years ago, I watched you on my TV screen as you explained entropy using a sandcastle in the Namib Desert and a glacier in Patagonia. The accessibility and enthusiasm, yes, Brian, of your explanations inspired my career in science, although you may have slightly oversold the glamour of travel. I'm not unique in this. Across the world, you have ignited curiosity in people of every age, gender and background, ensuring our eyes occasionally look up instead of down. The importance of the diversity of your audience should not be understated.

1:17:51Davina McCall:After all, we all look up at the same stars and gaze with the same wonder. I've now worked with you for five years and yes, he really is that smart. And yes, he really does love physics that much. Having known you beyond the camera, I've been privileged to see the curiosity that you've inspired in me all those years ago is the same curiosity that still drives you today. You're always asking questions, always reading, always learning. Everyone knows what an outstanding ambassador for science you are to the public. But I would like to personally thank you for being an advocate for me. You've challenged me with interesting physics questions, given me advice on a career in research and engagement, and created opportunities for me to travel and grow as a communicator.

1:18:43Davina McCall:Thanks to you, I'm beginning to fold public engagement into my own career. You've shown me that being a great scientist isn't just about asking good questions. It's about giving others the confidence to ask their own. My PhD in postdoctoral projects only exist because of you. Professor Geoff Foreshaw went above and beyond to make them happen as well. And it's no exaggeration to say that I would not have a career in research without you. Thank you. And I hope you didn't literally blow Davina's mind. Dr. Ross Jenkins. Yes, Ross. Ross, he did. He completely has blown my mind. It's brilliant, isn't it?

1:19:31Davina McCall:I'm so grateful. And I've got another one. Wait, wait, go on. Tell me about Ross. Brilliant physicist and is a great example of someone who is working on the black holes, right, which is the strangest, most esoteric things you could imagine. And how they work. And it goes all the way back to questions Stephen Hawking was asking in the 1970s. So he's been working on that. But also, it turns out the skills that you acquire in learning about black holes. are very useful, necessary for quantum computing, which is all these things that we talked about, all the promise of quantum computers. And he's working in both areas.

1:20:18So he's able to make that, to do this really esoteric stuff, which is about this really blue skies, wonder, curiosity, knowledge for its own sake. And also he has this skill to be able to talk to people in industry and the wider world. So they're quite unique skills, actually. So, yeah, he's quite a unique individual because he's got those two abilities.

1:20:48Davina McCall:So would it be fair to say that he noticed a connection or something that was helpful between black holes and quantum? Yeah, and has seized that and really has worked. And has made it a skill. It's really important because we're always in this debate in our society. And it's right to say, well, what should we spend our money on? We haven't got a lot of money at the moment. We're all under pressure. What should society do? But it's a beautiful example, the work that Ross does, where it's always the case that finding more out about nature at the deepest level, it turns out to be useful. It's not surprising when you put it like that because we're talking about reality and understanding what reality is.

1:21:34And that knowledge always comes in useful and can sometimes completely transform the world. And the history of science tells you that. And so, but what Ross is able to do, fortunately, there are people, you know, younger people coming through who can make that case. And so because he experiences it, it's like this is weird little physics. This is really useful and connect the two.

1:21:59Davina McCall:Is it nice as now, and I hope you don't take this as an insult, but an elder states person, you know, I love seeing people coming up through the ranks and I think, oh, you're good, you're good. Is it nice for you to teach somebody or be part of someone's career and then go, oh, I see you going somewhere? Absolutely, because that's the generation that will change the world. It's less and less. As you say, it's our generation, my generation, that people did that for me. So the people who allowed me to go in the direction I wanted to go in, if you go back 20 years or so, there were people that did not close the door, particularly actually at the University of Manchester.

1:22:51They could have easily said, you're not doing this stuff, this television stuff. You've got a job here. You've got to do this. You've got to do your research and your teaching and those things. And you're not going to do that. But so someone and it was it was people at the university said, no, you know, this is the path you are going on. We value that you can do it. So it's obvious we must be obliged, as you said, elder states people, to open those doors and keep them open and allow the next generation to go through.

1:23:25Davina McCall:This letter is from Darren. I'm going to read this for you from Dare. Okay. Dear Brian, when Davina asked if I'd write a few words, I couldn't say no. I remember your dad, David, knocking on my door back in 1989. Yeah. God, how brilliant is your dad? Yeah. Well done, David. You were sat in your dad's car. Well, he asked if he could bring you in to meet me. I love your dad. What a ledge. I'd only just left Thin Lizzy and was looking for musicians to form Dare. At the time, A &M Records wanted me to front the band without playing keyboards. So when I met you, I thought, here's a young, good-looking lad who'd be perfect as our keyboard player.

1:24:10Davina McCall:can I tell you something quite funny A &M Records used to be on Fulham Road and I was a waitress in a restaurant on Fulham Road and all the A &R people from A &M Records used to have lunch in my restaurant I used to serve them lunch when I was a waitress yeah I remember that I used to go in there and just basically they had CDs lying around and all their artists you know it was people like Brian Adams and who else was around I can't remember so I used to go in and just take CDs It was great in those days, wasn't it? You could go and pilfer the stocks. Yeah, pilfer the stocks. Yeah. God, I could have served you lunch, Brian.

1:24:45Davina McCall:You might well have done, because I would have been there at that time. Yeah. What struck me straight away wasn't just your talent, but your curiosity. On the tour bus, while most of the band were talking about music, you and I would be deep in conversation about whether there was alien life out there, whether there was water on the moon. You know, usual tour bus chat. Looking back now, I suppose the signs were already there that you were destined for something rather special. I also remember you ringing me after you joined the BBC to tell me that Terry Wogan was a big fan. Shut up, was he? Yeah, of Dare, yeah, he used to play Dare.

1:25:20Davina McCall:Oh my God, that's so good. Terry's gone up in my estimation. Before long, Terry was playing Dare on his show. Mega. And I never forgot that. You always championed the band and I really appreciated it. I'm incredibly proud. not just of everything you've achieved as one of the world's best-known professors and science communicators, but of the person you've always remained. Thank you for your friendship over all these years. It's been a privilege to watch your journey with love and best wishes. Oh, that's lovely from Darren. Isn't that lovely? You talk about, you know, meeting famous people. We talked about it at the start.

1:26:00I mean, he was, you know, this guy, can you imagine? You were in Oldham at the time. And just in the 70s, well, the 80s.

1:26:08Davina McCall:Like a mega rock star. You know, it was just like the unachievable thing that he'd done. And that's to Darren's great credit. You know, if you think about what he did when he left Lizzy, is he formed a local band. Everyone was from within about a three mile radius of Chadderton in Oldham. so there's great guitarist Vinnie and they play Shelly and Jim the drummer and that was so he forms a band of young local musicians and ends up taking us those kids who would have never got anywhere in the music business really you know taking us to A &M Records and Los Angeles and we toured with Jimmy Page I mean Jimmy Page for the love of God Europe, we toured with Europe Europe?

1:27:03Well, Europe was a massive tour, I'd only been out I'd only been out of the country once I think, so you know, so I'd been on a school trip to, I think, it was Austria I'd been to Austria on a school trip when I was 17 that's the first time I ever went out of the country when I was 17, then I joined Dare, and then we did some shows in Hong Kong, and then we were in LA and then we did tour Europe with Europe so by the age of about 22 I'd been to all these places. But it's because Darren didn't, you know, you would have thought when he left Lizzy, he's a brilliant musician, brilliant keyboard player, couldn't have done anything.

1:27:38You would have thought he'd come down to London or whatever and join a big band or something. But he didn't. He just got a load of local musicians together. We used to play in a place called the Maple Squash Club in Oldham. So we're doing gigs. Darren's gone from being in Thin Lizzy to playing gigs in a squash club. and it's just with about an audience of 100.

1:27:59Davina McCall:Amazing. And he did that and built that band. And helped you. So, yeah. I mean, I look at you, Brian, and I see a man who's achieved a lot. You're very happily married. You've got a lovely son. He's a musician, actually. Is he? Yeah, he's gone into music. Has he really? He played on the PJ Harvey track. What's he play? Well, he played bass on it. He's a guitarist. But he played some bass Wow Which is kind of You know Yeah So that's his first credit What was that like for you To see It was great Because he didn't You know He was just Playing around In the studio And Polly said That's I like that Maybe we'll have that So it wasn't like You know I was saying He's got to be on this thing He did something That she liked So that's cool He earned it Yeah Yeah Wow So he's got this music So I mean You're happy At home you've been a rock star you're still so involved in music which is one of your passions you are doing the thing you love telling the world about the world and the galaxy and the universe what is there left is there anything is there any burning urge that you have left in your life yeah I mean always because you said some of them are big things that I'm so lucky to be able to go wouldn't it be great if we did this one of the things I love doing is we do versions of the shows with orchestras I did one at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra did it a few years ago it was brilliant and so I want to do another one of those so there's those things but I also like understanding things and so you mentioned Jeff Forshaw actually, Ross mentioned him.

1:29:57So I've worked with Jeff, he's my age but he taught me actually because when I took this break to do music and went back to do physics later. So we're very good friends and we work on a lot of physics and do some research with Ross and I love doing that. So I equally like just going, trying to think about some esoteric little problem in physics I could easily go back to that yeah and I'd be delighted with that as well but what's

1:30:28Davina McCall:lovely is you've got lots of different fingers in lots of different pies and you're equally at home everywhere it's absolutely brilliant that I'm going to wrap it up there and I just want to say you have blown my mind and I and please keep doing it I I love what you do I love the energy that you bring to everything. I love your heart and your mind. And I really have just such a profound amount of respect for you and everything that you do. Thank you for everything. I'm going to give you these. You can have these as keepsies. Oh, thank you. And read them again. Those are beautiful. Please may I hug you for an uncomfortably long time again.

1:31:06Davina McCall:I'm coming in. I'm coming in. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love this episode I know you're going to love that