romney girl. no, i really am. i think it is going to be mitt romney. i'm going to write about that in my column. i've had it with these upstarts. look, he is no ronald reagan. we know that he is the best author and has been fantastic in the debate in the best of all, he has a demonstrated ability to track liberals into voting for him. [laughter] ..

"lake views: world and the universe" first of all, talk or weinberg, what is this picture on the front of your boat? >> that is a picture of lake austin as seen from our boat dock. i do most of my work at home in an office overlooking the lake. and so, i have a certain feeling of connection with lake austin. >> so where do nobel prize-winning physicist finance guy put a lake on the front of this book? >> well, it is but a look at while you're working, but also being a scientist, especially a theoretical physicist is a little out of order with the period and the sons of the late, especially in summer at the boats going up and down the lake, playing music brings me back a little bit to the real

world, the world of human affairs, which is i am healthy. and that's what i was trying to do in this book, and many of the essays to peep out of the ivory tower of it and that's something to say. >> lets peep into the ivory tower above it. what is the purpose of studying physics? >> well, there're many reasons for doing it. it has enormous practical value of course. not the kind of physics i do. that may future date bring some technological advances, but that is not why i do it and i can't imagine now what they might be. there is also, in addition to the kind of practical reason, there is a grand historical program of trying to uncover the laws of nature. it is, we think that there are

fundamental principles that govern everything, which are at the root of all explanation, so that if you ask, why is grass green? you can trace the answer back through a chain of explanation to some fundamental mathematical principles. we don't have them yet. we've gone pretty far to attend. we have a very satisfying theory of all the particles that make up ordinary matter and all the forces that are most particles called the standard model. and it's amazingly comprehensive. it covers almost everything we know aside from gravitation. but it's not the final answer. and so, we try to take nx data.

>> is important to know the final answer? >> it is to me. to some of us as a transcendental importance. i mean, you can ask him it is important to write symphonies or to preserve our environment? these things are important in themselves. the importance of learning the laws of nature is a little vitiated by the fact that they are probably going to be expressed in mathematical terms that most people won't have the language to understand. but that changes with time also. you know, when newton's theory of gravity and motion was first developed, there were only a handful of people in the world who are able to understand it. now it is commonplace, something that everyone who goes into engineering or science learns quite early in their education. so these things to spread out

into society in general. and i think also apart from knowing the details, there is a great value to knowing what kind of world that says, that it is a world governed by impersonal laws in which human beings play a photo in fact, no essential role. i think that gives us a better understanding of our place in the scheme of things and it helps to free us of some of the superstition that have decoupled the human race. >> such as? >> well, i don't want to insult anyone, but the historian trevor rocher has said that it was the scientific resolution of the 17th century that led to a sharp decline of burning witches in the 18th century.

i think today large parts of the world are accessed with religious fanaticism. and i think the example of scientific knowledge is so difficult to win about which we are always sent to is a good counterexample to the certainty that people feel about their religious beliefs. >> but you also use the word transcendental in describing your research or your work. something transcendental doesn't have religious implication? >> i don't think so. i transcendental i just mean something that -- i think having something similar to what number segment. that is something that affects us deeply that goes to the roots of our feelings that is not

direct at getting and spending. >> professor weinberg, one of the essays you have an "lake views" is what einstein was wrong about. what was einstein wrong about? >> a number of things. one of the reasons i wrote that essay was to show the spirit of science that we recognize that even the greatest of us and einstein was certainly the greatest scientist of the 20th century, one of the greatest of all times could be wrong about things and that we are capable of pointing that out. it is not einstein's work is not a sacred text, which we are hidden to depart from. he was wrong and think and reject one of his own ideas. that is, he had introduced a modification in enhance

equations that govern gravitation and the general theory of relativity. it is a modification that is equivalent to saying that spaces fill up with an energy that affects the gravitational field everywhere in the universe and affects the way the universe is expanding are not expanding. and he introduced that actually has the means of preventing the collapse of matter under its own gravitation. he wanted to have a static universe because that's what astronomers that we had at that time. this is 1917. he'd been learned from astronomers that the universe and back is expanding. there's no need for the modification of general relativity. and then he decided it was the biggest mistake of his life. well, his mistake was to think

it was a mistake because in fact there is such an energy and space. it's a so called dark energy, one of the articles in the book is about the dark energy. and it was discovered in 1998. and einstein would have been better to make his modification to general relativity and then sit back and wait for offense. >> what is dark energy? >> i wish we knew. dark energy we know about because it is something that produces a gravitational field that's unusual because it causes distant objects to russia part from each other. rather than the usual attractive force of gravitation. it's an energy inherent space itself that there's so much energy per quarter space, whether there's anything in that case or not. it is very tiny if you count by the court the amount of dark

energy in the volume of the earth is about enough to fill the gas tank. it is the energy in the gasoline that would fill its gas tank. but there's a lot of space in the universe and it adds up and it was discovered in 1998, which is the discovery honored this year with the nobel prize to three astronomers that was discovered to be driving and accelerating the universe. that is the expansion -- the universe is not only expanding, which we've known for a long time. the expansion is not slowing down as you think because gravity is pulling together, that is speeding up. and this we think can only be because of this energy. >> steven weinberg coming when the nobel prize in physics in 1979 for what? >> a theory that unified to have

the basic forces of nature. we know and brad turns the four basic forces as electromagnetism, which is recently familiar to people. gravitation. we've done about that for a long time. and to forces that only act inside the nucleus of the atom. the strong nuclear force that holds the particles together and the weak nuclear force that causes them to change their nature. the theory that was honored and they share the prize with two other people with the theory that unified to have these horses. electro- mech bandit force and the weak nuclear force. and the price would not have been awarded at all except that it makes any predictions, which are then verified by experiment.

>> you save most of your work from their home on lake austin. do you teach? >> yes, this term i am teaching freshman. of course on the history of science, which i think will turn into another book. and in the next or i will be teaching an advanced graduate course on advanced topics in quantum field theory. so i go back and forth. >> is a longtime professor, what is it like to be with the freshman? has as a general science course sources for science majors? >> we have an elite program here called plan to get students to think largely self-select into it. but it's more demanding. this is one of the courses and plan to that is suppose to get students who are not usually science students some feeling for the way scientists gone in the kind of reasoning that goes

into science. and so, i doolittle elementary algebraic calculations on the board, but it's mostly history, the history of the development of science from the early greeks, for instance, to the scientific revolution of the 17th century and then a little bit about what happened after that. >> what is one of your biggest frustrations at teaching freshman? and biggest chores. >> you know, i don't feel too much frustration. every morning a teacher 9:30 to 10:45. and every morning on tuesdays and thursdays. and every tuesday and thursday morning i have been a drill and then rushed but i'm going to be on stage talking to these bright kids. i think it's all pleasure. that's the thing i don't like.

i wish that education could somehow be divorced from having greeted -- giving exams that are created. i remember myself as an undergraduate. i don't know how much work i would've done if i wasn't going to work for a great. so i think that's probably impossible. >> what is one of the most common questions that your students ask you in the history science? >> well, it varies so much. i can't think of any thing -- well, they are very good at trying to put themselves in the frame of mind of the scientists of the past, which is difficult because the scientists at the past didn't know what we know. and even worse than not, they didn't think about what science is the way we think about it. for example, the role of mathematics in exploring the world was not understood.

mathematics was regarded as something separate from physics, for example. very often i find discussions on whether you should look at questions from the point of view of physics are not addicts. so the students asked me, what were they thinking of? how could they think that way? and it's hard to answer. it's very hard to put yourself in the frame of mind of an aristotle, for example, his thought is so different from ours. >> what are your earlier books talking with steven weinberg about his book "lake views: world and the universe," published by harvard. one of your earlier books is the first three minutes. what was that about? >> first three minutes is about the first three minutes. that is the first three minutes of the universe. now of course when you say that, and implies that the universe had a beginning. and at that time of the book was written, we thought that there

probably was a moment when the universe had infinite density and infinite temperature, something that marked the very beginning of time. that is what we found when we traced the history of the universe backward in time, using our equations to work like a movie running backward to work out what happened at earlier and earlier times. these days, we think that there was a time very, very early when the temperature of the universe was enormously high, the density was enormously high and my book was written about the three minutes that followed that moment. but that moment may not offend the beginning. it made for earlier period earlier period. in fact now, we have evidence that there was an earlier. how many. when the universe was expanding

extraordinarily rapidly and with jets and produced the big bang with which i started my book, the first 30 minutes. >> so somebody says to you -- purdue university in the beginning as when the universe began now? >> i try to avoid the question because we really have pretty good complement in our theories, good enough confidence to trace the history of the universe backs to a time when the temperature was so high that even atomic nuclei could hold together. then we can work out what happen if the universe cooled. what we find is what we see in the universe today. so we know our theories are working. if we go back earlier, much earlier than our theories are no

longer applicable. in particular, you get to a time in the temperature was so high that einstein's theory of general relativity breaks down. it just can't make sense. and then, we just don't know. we don't know if there was a beginning. i have no confidence in talking about a beginning of the universe. but i have a lot of confidence and not just me, the astrophysicist in general have a lot of confidence in talking about a peer that embattled book i called the first three minutes. even if it wasn't really the first three minutes. >> professor weinberg, if the student were to ask if god exists, what to answer? and have you been asked that question before? >> i've been asked that question before by other people, not by students. i think students regarded as it will not be on the exam. but people have asked me. i've had interviews about it.

i think the idea -- well, depends what you mean by god of course. einstein that something like the laws of nature, which i do think exists. but if i guide you mean the god of traditional religion, that is a god that cares about that some type of personality, some type of intelligent, a god that cares about what human beings do. to me the idea is silly. >> and personal. the world is impersonal. >> yes, i think the world is governed by and personalized and we are just in that rare part of the world where life is possible. and of course will also repeat? where would we have evolved? it's a beautiful day outside today here in austin.

you can easily convince yourself that must be some kind of benevolent that work produced in this lovely world we live in. but you know, most of the universe is pretty awful and there aren't any people there for the good reason that they could not have evolved fair. so i see no signs of benevolence in the world. i think we're the creatures of chance evolution. it's probably a good thing for the human race to grow up and realize that. >> professor weinberg, you have written this book of essays for the non-science person. it's not fair to say? >> as come it was written over the course of decades and published in articles coming in the new york review books. they are for non-science -- nonscientists. they all are. and i hope that i succeeded in making them clear in us.

i certainly try. >> and for another not transkei question to you, is there life similar to what we have here on earth in your views similar summerall sonorous? >> i think the chances are very strong. but it is a bit unknown question of how likely is that that if you have a planet that is about the right instrument stars that can be liquid on the service and have the solitude surface, how likely is it that life will get started there. no one has been certified yet. since the universe has so many planet, so many galaxies, each galaxy having so many stars, no stars having planet, i think the chances overwhelming that there

is life elsewhere in the universe. elsewhere in our galaxy is entirely different question. i can't make an educated guess. >> is the speed of light the ultimate speed still? >> yes and no. much of our thinking of physics is based on the theory of relativity, which requires a maximum speed college is also the speed of light. it's not just a speed of light. it's the speed of gravitational waves and anything else that as any other particle wave that has no mass. there is an experiment performed recently and announced in the press suggest that perhaps a kind of particle can go a little

faster than light and a lot of us are very skeptical. in fact, it's even skeptical that the result is going to hold up. if it does hold up, it is a tiny access over the speed of light. the latrine is prepared to travel from one place to another place hundreds of miles away, faster than the speed of light would it have i found it like 60 billion seconds. it's a very tiny effect. my guess is it's going to go away and we will find the speed of light really is the maximum. go be quite a revolution in science. >> dr. weinberg, how do you get interested in these topics?

>> isaac has said, enrolled her cousin who went i was 10 or 12, i got tired of his chemistry set. it was the number five chemistry set. and i got it as a hand-me-down. i got fascinated by chemistry and started to read about chemistry. i learned that chemicals behave the way they do because the items they are made of. and then i then i learned there is something called physics that you needed to study in order to understand adams. and it was a slippery slope. i got into it. i ties in high school i went to be a theoretical physicists. they're wonderful books written in the 30s and 40s on science for nonscientists by

good working scientists like george cano and james jeans. i think i was excited because i didn't understand a lot of what i said if only i could learn the staffing understand it. so my fate was sealed from high school on. >> when it comes from private policy when you touch on, how is the u.s. done in your view when it comes to public policy, science funding, et cetera? >> well, it did do very well for a long time. we were the world leaders in many areas and elementary particles six and astronomy. that installed slipping away at the first time as a cancellation

of an elementary particle accelerator was canceled in 1993 by a pennypinching congress after billions of dollars. >> is this vocation in illinois they were building? >> no, no, there is one in illinois. this is going to be built in texas. but my enthusiasm for it did not depend on that. i would've been enthusiastic where the cells. neither less powerful accelerator is coming into online in europe. called the large hydronic later. and i'll read some of the discoveries and i'll read some of the discoveries and i'll read some of the discoveries. but that is just one instance. now we find nasa is coming back on programs.

and congress is making it very difficult for things to continue at all. the committee of the house of representatives cut out all spending for the next six days telescope. the james webb space. this night and the great american achievement. it's a small government anti-tax mania that has afflicted with a large part of the american people. and i think it's a tragedy. but of course it's not a tragedy that's limited to science. it affects things that many people are more important education and how an

infrastructure. i think our country is in the grip of the session with cutting taxes and limiting the size of government, which i hope we have growth. >> what about the end of the space shuttle program and president bush call to return to manned space exploration? >> well, one of the happy things i see in recent years is cutting back on manned spaceflight because manned spaceflight masquerades as science and has nothing to do with science. but it's enormously expensive and draws funds away from real science. one of the reasons that the superconducting super collider was canceled in 1993 was because it was competing with the international space station. a manned spaceflight program, which has cost about 10 times what the accelerator would have

cost and has produced nothing of scientific value. i think the obama administration administration -- and i keep my interactions such as they are members of congress suggest to me that they simply don't understand that putting people into space has nothing to do with explaining the universe wasn't major. >> steven weinberg, nobel prize winner community professor, author of several books including this one, "lake views: this world and the universe" this picture on the front of the book is his view of lake austin from his boat back. he joins us here at the university of texas. >> thank you.