if not, your moment of zen. >> to fight the 230 particular she got on halloween day a caused with dozens of other drivers of not stopping to let a six foot four donald duck cross captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh captioning sponsored by comedy central >> stephen: tonight, new advancements in drones. i hear they've got ones now that can carry a pilot. then, a republican victory in colorado. time to break out the bubbly, which is what they named their skull bong. my guest macarthur genius fellow terence tao says he learned to love math from "sesame street." that's where i learned to love cookies and hiding in trash cans. kobe bryant has set the n.b.a.'s all-time record for missed shots, but remember, cobie, you always make 100% of the shots you don't miss. this is the "colbert report."

( cheers and applause ) ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: hey! welcome to the report. >> stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen. >> stephen: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the report. good to have you with us. folks, thank you. ( cheers and applause ). thank you for being-- ladies and gentlemen, i hope that i've made this clear over the years, but i

love new york city. because everything, everything in new york is bigger. we've got the tallest buildings, the richest bankers, the racist-est cabbies. in no other city to the drivers even know the proper ethnic slur for people from malta. ( laughter ) it's farc, by th featherhead, be way. there's one thing about new york that is not as big as we thought. >> it apires particular demographic in new york has been expoinencely overestimated-- the rat population. common lore states there are as many rats as humans in new york city, in the neighborhood of eight million. however a statistician from columbia university says there are really just two million rats in the big apple. >> stephen: new york has only two million rats? i mean, that's like finding out new york only has two million original ray's pizzas. ( laughter ) some columbia university brainiac arrived at this estimate by extrapolating the

number of rat-occupied lots in the city using complaints from the public about rat sightings. apparently, some new yorkers are still unjaded enough to alert someone when they see a rat. ( laughter ) i bet it's the damn featherheads. ( laughter ) folks, i think i speak for all new yorkers when i say, "step it up, rats." two million? those are checknumbers. come on! this is new york city. we have a reputation to uphold. this is the city. ( cheers and applause ) you hear that? we are the city that never sleeps because we're afraid that if we nod off, a rat will birth its young in our open mouth. where did you rats go, new jersey? why? because it's cheaper and you have a nice yard with plenty of space to eat your young? ( laughter ) you gotta stay in the city. that's where the action is. that's where the culture is. you can infest the moma. you can infest the met. there are way better restaurant ice machines for you to poop in.

so get it together, rats, or-- i can't believe i'm saying this-- we may stop leaving mountains of loosely bagged garbage on the sidewalk for you to feast on. ( laughter ) nation,un i love drones. they sent a clear message to our enemies that we will hunt them to the ends of the earth, as long as we don't have to leave tampa. ( laughter ) and these days, like a convoy of s.u.v.s in yemen, drones are blowing up. so it's time for my long-running drone appreciation segment-- "stephen colbert's auto-robotic affixation." people love this segment. ( cheers and applause ). people have loved this segment for years. folks, first up, drones get a bad rap as creepy surveillance tools that monitor our ever move. good news-- now they're watching us have sex. it's all part of a new viral video called "drone boning." jim? >> there's the sweeping drone

shot of the beautiful vineyard, and there's the boning! and here's an aerial shot of an abandon seaside fort, and boning right up there. >> stephen: well, folksarchs the old saying goes, i don't know much about art but i know this has people having sex in it. as one of the film's directors so poetically put it, wouldn't it be funny to have these simplistic beautiful landscapes and have people ( bleep ) in them? ( laughter ) ( applause ) funny and profound. because improlific beautiful landscapes with people ( bleep ) in them was god's original concept first. ( cheers and applause ). the film's directors-- i agree. i agree. the film's directors are already talking about a sequel, i hope about the consequences of bone droang-- "ariel venereal." ( laughter ) folks, i have only one issue with this oscar-worthy piece of bird's-eye porn-- someone had to steer the drone over all those

naked people. wouldn't it be cooler if drones could find you having sex on their own? well, you're in luck because darpa-funded researchers have tested a drone that can learn an act on its own. the drone proved it could learn by flying into a series of unfamiliar rooms in which data from the will wall's furniture and other objects triggered it to report it was in a new space and caused the way its neurons connected to one another to change in a crude mimic of learning in a real brain. and the next time the craft entered same room, it recognized it. folks, this would be a fool-proof plan to ge the terrorists, as long as they never redecorate. ( laughter ) darpa, darpa funded the research so drones could make sense of video and sensor data for themselves instead always having to beam it down to earth for analysis by computers or humans. oh, well that's great. then we're off the hook.

now if we accidentally bomb a wedding, you can't blame us. it was our self-aware flying rumba's decision. folks, as much as there is absolutely no down side to arming machines, releasing them into the skies, and letting them do what they want, one thing about this gives me pause. >> c.e.o. elon musk sounding the alarm over artificial intelligence. >> elon musk says artificial intelligence is the biggest threat to us all. >> with art ficialg intelligence we are summoning the demon. >> stephen: oh, that is ridiculous. the only way to sumont demon is to drink the blood of a live goated in a candlelit pentagram-- or so i am told. ( laughter ) ( applause ) but, you know, elon musk is a billionaire. he must be right.

so tonight i am taking a strong stand against-- what! >> stephen, stop talking. >> stephen: stewart stephen, what's wrong? >> everything's fine. the future's awesome. hey, man, would you by any chance have a steel mesh colderback there? >> stephen, of course, that's how i strain pasta during commercials. >> oh, thank god! it blocks the signals of the surveillance diode. >> stephen: whose signal? >> the autonomous drone overlords who corveggerred our planets shortly after you fools taught them to recognize when they've been in a room before. >> stephen: so elon was right? right! i call him elon. he's a friend. drones are a dangerous and malevolent force-- >> shhh! whfer you denounce the drones here in the past, in the future, they pins me. they whip me with laser chains. oh, i'd better go. i can feel them cracking the

geometric interference pattern of this williams-sonoma pasta strairn. >> stephen: wait! i need to know one thing-- in the future, is there still drone boang? >> stephen the only way they let us have sex is if they can watch. in the future, there is only drone boning. laser chains! ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: so, like i've always said, autonomous drones are great. now, if you'll excuse me, my water is boiling, so it's time for a commercial break. we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause ) ooh ooooh.

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( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. nation, the the good news from the midterms just keeps coming. last night, the "a" "p called another senate race. alaska has turned red, or maybe thanks to climate change that might just be the temperature up there now. annualizing the midterms is like peeling back the layers of an onion, in that the deeper you

go, the more the democrats cry. ( laughter ) jim? >> they lost control of almost every major state legislature in the country. >> we have more governors on the republican side but more importantly than, that 70%, seven out of 10 state legislatures are republican. >> that's where the farm teams are for future candidates. >> it's a huge problem for the democrats. it's not just the farm team is deeg beag depleted. it's the farm teams of the farm teams in the state houses. >> stephen: democrats have lost their farm teams. now who will they turn to when hillary blows out her knee an iowa pancake breakfast. farm teams are crucial to developing future leaders. remember. two years before he ran for president, barack obama is an illinois state senator. who could have imagined that today he'd number the white house wishing he was an illinois state senator. ( laughter ) so tonight i profile one of these pre-heroes in "mr. smith goes to the state legislature, then later possibly washington." ( laughter ) my new fav rave is colorado

legislature is gordon klingenschmitt. i assume his fawflgths a schmitt, and his mother a klingon. klingenschmitt is a former navy chaplain who campaigned with a simple message? >> why am i holding this pitchfork? i want this to be a symbol of the positive campaign i am running. >> stephen: it is reminiscent of the positive campaign the villagers ran to elect frankenstein. but klingenschmitt's campaign stands for so much more. he's the head of the pray in jesus' name project are or pigeon pee, which has been designated as an anti-l.g.b.t. hate group by the southern poverty law center. but klingenschmitt doesn't hate the gays. he's just concerned for them as he demonstrates on his youtube program. >> the demonic spirits nonetheless the homosexual agenda that are trying to redefine family and homosexualize and recruit your children, these are the

eneminate nor the homosexuals will inherit the kingdom of job. jesus, if he were providing marriage counseling to two gay men who were married, jesus would command them to get divorced. >> stephen: yes, if jesus were their marriage counselor, he would tell them to get divorced, and he'd take 65 minutes to do it so he could charge them for the second hour. folks, it's not just the gays. it's not just the gays. everyone needs a little klingenschmitt exoricism. >> don't you think it's something inside the atheist complainer that's wrong? i have a solution. let's do an exoricism, and put the devil out of them. the f.c.c. has not enforced decency standards. the demonic standards. we pray against the domestic enemies of the constitution. against the demon of tyranny who is using the white house

occupant, that demonic spirit is oppressing us. father, we command it to leave. we pray that you will help the president repent. >> stephen: yes, obama is possessed by an demon. and he won't even us the demon's birth certificate. ( laughter ) now, saying the president is possessed by a demon could be seen as a tad inflammatory, but after he was elected klingenschmitt told a colnewspaper. "i would say it's time for people of good will on both sides of the political debate to come together to have reasonable discussions about these issues." yes. now that the bruising campaign is over, democrats should join klingenschmitt in a reasonable discussion about whether or not barack obama is possessed by a demon. ( laughter ) is that so hard? ( applause ) you-- ( cheers ) you can express your point of view that he is not, and klingenschmitt can express his

point of view that a demon made you think that. we'll be right back. vo: what does it really mean to be the best?

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>> stephen: my guest tonight

is a u.c.l.a. professor widely regarded as the world's greatest living mathematician. i'll ask him what number i'm thinking of. please welcome terence tao. ( cheers and applause ) mr. tao, professor tao, thanks so much for being on. thanks for being here. >> it's a pleasure. >> stephen: now, you are a professor of mathematics at u.c.l.a. you have won a fields medal, which is regarded as the nobel prize of mathematics. >> something like that. >> stephen: it's been called that. you have one of those them mmacarthur genius fellow. and you won the 2015 breakthrough. it's 2014. >> it's all about the future. >> stephen: it's all about the future uokay. you're known by some of your colleagues as the mozart of math. how old were you when you got into math? >> so my parents told me when i was two they found me teach

something older kids how to count. >> stephen: so you're bossy, too? >> i guess so. i don't remember it myself. apparently i learned to count from "sesame street." >> stephen: was the count von count the one who taught you? >> i guess it must have been. good guy. >> stephen: he should get some of that fields medal money, i think. you have a very specific specialty which is prime numbers. i remember, obviously, i remember math class as the number line and all that. positive is that way, negative is that way. talk to me about primes. why do i need ton about primes? >> prime numbers are whole numbers bigger than 1 but they can't be factored into smaller numbers. they're the atomic elements of number theory. in chemistry -- >> stephen: what do you mean atomic. >> in chemistry all matter is made up of atoms, and whole numbers are made up of whole numbers. every number can be --

>> stephen: i want to check the math on that one. hold on. 3... that checks out. all right, so? >> so they're very fundamental in mathematics. but despite being so fundamental, and they've been studied since the ancient greeks more than 2,000 years ago there's a lot we still don't know about them. >> stephen: how many prime numbers are there? >> they go on forever. >> stephen: there has to be a number of them. they're numbers, ergo, there must be a number of them. >> there's an infinity of them. it's any number you wish. >> stephen: but there are no more than infinity? >> there's only an infinite number of them. >> stephen: only an infinite. they are limited by infinity. >> yes. >> stephen: okay, okay. there's something called twin primes. >> yes, twin primes are are pairs of primes distanced two apart, almost as close as they could be 5 and 7. 11 and 13. these are twin primes.

>> stephen: wouldn't-- wouldn't-- wouldn't a twin prime be 5 and 5? >> no, that's a prime twice. >> stephen: oh, really? >> yes. >> stephen: but that's twins. twins are the same person twice. >> well -- >> stephen: 5 and 7 two years is a long time for the second baby to stay in the birth canal. >> that's true. >> stephen: before it comes down, okay? twins cannot be two different ages? >> the analogy is a little -- >> stephen: check mate, check mate. >> fair enough you caught me. >> stephen: i gottia. >> these are pairs of primes which are two apart. and we don't know how many there are. so you asked how many primes there were. there are infinitely many. we don't know if there are infinitely twin primes or not. this is one of the oldest questions in mathematics. the twin primes are a finite resource or do they go on forever? we don't know. >> stephen: what's a cousin prime? is there a cousin-- >> wow, okay. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> a cousin prime are pairs of

primes that are four part, like 7 and 11. they're not quite as close as twins put they're pretty close. and then there are sex primes. >> stephen: sexy primes? >> sexy primes. >> stephen: what are they? >> that's the official term. pairs of primes six apart. so we don't know there is infinitely many twin crimes. infinitely many cousin primes or if there are infinitely sexy primes. it was prove than one one of those three classes was infinite. >> stephen: wait a minute, you don't know which one is infinite, but you know one of them is? >> yes. >> stephen: how could you know one of them is but not know which one? is this like "let's make a deal?" there are three different curtains. how do you know that? >> there's a formula for how many twin primes there are up to a certain point, and how many sexy primes or how many cousin primes. and you can add them up. wean the sum is infinite. one of the three is infinite but we don't know which one. >> stephen: are cousin primes

ever sexy but you're afraid to say it because it sounds-- ( laughter ) ( applause ) it sounds creepy? >> oh, dear. maybe some of the primes, but, yeah. >> stephen: what's your favorite number? ( laughter ) you've got to have one, right? what's your favorite number? >> in mathematics you don't sort of treat any number with favoritism. >> stephen: the best number is 5 because the jackson 5. 10fold 5. 5. what's next? what's the next-- if you won the prize for the future of math, what's the next thing that's happening in math? >> i am working on fluid equations. >> stephen: on what equations. >> fluid equation. >> stephen: food? >> fluid. equations that cover things like water. i'm trying to figure out if water can spontaneously blow up. >> stephen: parents, that would be good to know. >> right, right. >> stephen: so good luck with that. keep in touch, please.

>> okay. >> stephen: terence tao, thank you so much. u.c.l.a. mathematics professor, terence tao. prime numbers. we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause ) play the 5 gum truth or dare challenge and you could win a sensory adventure.

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it's 11:59 and 59 seconds. this happened on reddit today. they make everything bigger in texas. for instance, this texas exorcism that was too big to be contained in just one starbucks. [laughing] >> all. all. >> the blood of jesus christ you have no legal ground to be in here. you have to leave. >> the pumpkin of spice compells you. by the way did you ar