freedom that comes with that. and so it's a bravery. it took courage for these women to step outside of the mainstream. but i think it was so much better for them to do that they had to conform to something that didn't fit today were any more. my sense from reading these essays is that it was worth it. [inaudible conversations]

>> that afternoon, everyone. good afternoon. did i have the attention. good afternoon. i like to welcome the launch of the session of the virginia session of the book on behalf of humanities. our session is called mysteries of the cosmos could we have writers who publish recent books and most of you know the really exciting news in astronomy and physics. can you hear me now? i think i'm about as close as i can get without swallowing it. can you hear me now? i won't bother to start from the

top again. you know what session we are in. we have two exciting science writers for you. before we get started a couple of questions. i am a novelist and a recovering science journalists and i will be your host for the session today. before we get started i would like to thank the city of charlottesville for sponsoring the fast close quote and provided the venue for today's session. this is being recorded for broadcast on charlottesville tv time. it will be on tv 10 on the website within the next few days. and may also be a c-span at a later day out though i don't exactly what data will be. we thank them for recording and broadcasting it. the fact it is being recorded for broadcast means when they come to the q&a portion of the session i would like everybody to get a microphone before you ask your question.

he would give you a microphone before you ask your question. that way he'll be audible to those who see it who see a bigger online or on the air. thank you all very much. a couple housekeeping points before introduced are just. one is please silence or cell phones to make and hear from our guests and really focus on them. second as although this festival is free to blast it isn't reader produced and i would encourage you all if you are enjoying what you are hearing to contribute to the festival either online or through the envelopes available at the omni hotel. there are so valuation funds available online that will help the organizers of the festival tweet it so it's even better next year to help them meet your needs. at the end of this program for her book says you can see on the front table available for sale and authors will be on hand to sign them for you.

if you would like to buy one and also answer your questions individually. having said all that, but we introduce our authors until you buy her books. immediately to our investors marcia bartusiak who is author of the professor of science writing. marsh has written a lovely book called "black hole: how an idea abandoned by newtonians, hated by einstein, and gambled on by hawking became loved" brescia, while cohen. sitting to marsh's leftist, but then the very same m.i.t. program and also director of the program. he's written a lovely book is well called the hunt for a ballgame and how albert einstein destroyed a planet, does every relativity and deciphered the universe. both books at punchy title since somewhat more discourage subtitles.

in addition to the excitement of the books themselves as most of you know there has been a thought of trauma and excitement of astronomy and physics at dovetail is nicely with the two books in the two authors figure from today. that will ensure, peter and my question to them are in your questions later in the session. what i would like to do is be able to get a little bit of the sound of the author's voice into art years as he began the session. i asked the marcia and tom before they come down to pick assured excerpts, maybe five minutes and read it to us so we have sound as we proceed with the session. >> or should they go the other way. he comes first in my come afterward. >> why don't you start good go ahead, marcia. >> i can't get out.

my book is on the history of the idea of a black hole, how it took 50 years to get except that within the physics community. i am going to talk a little from the opening of ibook which sets the scene. the very notion of a black hole is so alluring. it combines the thrill of the unknown with a sense of the lurking danger independent. to imagine a journey to an outer boundary is like approaching the precipice of niagara falls contemplating the vertical plunge to the churning waters below yet remaining secure in the knowledge we are positioned behind a sturdy fence to keep us from cairo. in the real world we know we are safe as the closest black hole two )-right-paren thankfully hundreds of fighters instead. so we ask here is the dark celeste teal adventure vicariously.

for an astrophysicist at a cocktail party, it's a cosmic object they are most likely to be asked about and for good reason. a black hole is wackily weird. as noted by paul expert caltech theorist kip thorne has written, like uniforms and gargoyles, black holes seem more at home in the bounds of science fiction and should benefit in the real universe. and it was an alien weirdness now celebrated because his assists from accepting black holes for decades on end. according to a famous saying often quoted, altered passes through three stages at first it is ridiculed. second it is violently opposed and third it is accepted as being self-evident. the concept of the black hole full lyrics danced each and every phase. it's the black hole that forced both astronomers and physicists to take the most notable

achievement, general relativity series lead. for a time they had entered a valley of despair. einstein was under at the 20th century by time and such an honor but it had a huge surprise to the scientific community in the mid-20th century. in that era, few universities in the world even taught general relativity, with no practical applications for physicists. other rounds of the six. after the flurry is the excitement when a famous solar spearmint triumphantly provided to prefer einstein's general theory of relativity, the noted physicist new outlook on gravity came to be largely ignored. isaac newton take root just fine of low velocities than normal stars.

so why be concerned with the minuscule adjustments that general relativity offered? what was its use? einstein's predictions refer to such minute departures from the newtonian theory noted one critic that i did not see what all the fuss was about. after a while, einstein's vision of gravity appeared to have no particular relevance at all. by the time einstein died in 1955, general relativity was in the doldrums. only a handful of physicists were specializing in the field as nobel laureate max born a long-standing and intimate kind of einstein's confessed in a conference to hear his dad, general relativity appealed to me like a work of art to be enjoyed and admired from a distance. but in reality, what einstein had done was divisive. i was decades ahead of its time.

experiment site to catch up to his model of gravity which have been fashioned from pure intuitive thought. not until astronomers revealed surprising new phenomenon in the universe brought about with advanced technologies to scientist take a second and more serious look at einstein's theory of gravity. the first quasar, a remote galaxy discouraging the energy of the trillion sounds from the center. for your site are much closer to home that servers stumbled upon the first pulsar, a rapidly spinning beacon emitting staccato radio these did meanwhile, space-bar and sensors spotted powerful x-rays and gamma rays streaming from point around the sky. all of these new whidbey will turn signals and pointed collapsed stellar objects, new trans stars and black holes

whose dizzying spins turned them into extraordinary dynamos. but the detection of these new objects, the ones sedate universe took on a racy edge and metamorphosed into an einsteinian cosmos filled with titanic energies that can be understood only in the lead as relativity. where once there was a cozy backwater, and now first is both in theory and is. the black hole is no longer an oddity but a vital component of the universe. every develops galaxy has a supermassive black hole at center. goodnight e. very existence comes some not. telescopes are closing in on the gargantuan folder resides in the heart of our home galaxy of the milky way. at the same time cutting edge

observatories newly designed are detected the space-time rumbles, gravity waves emitted from black holes and are intergalactic neighborhood. as john archibald wheeler, the dean of american relativity once notice and the dedication of his autobiography, we will first understand how simple the universe is when we've recognized how strange it is. thank you. [applause] >> that we have a little bit of her voice and are yours. tom, why do we hear from you. >> thank you, tom. my book is about in some sense a prehistory of general relativity. i have to say my view is somewhat different marcia is. i don't say that asserted that letter.

as the extraordinary rash to achieve that the resulting accomplishment is the particular were incredibly powerful in their own right. much of my story turns on the attempt to understand something really strange about the planet are very common innermost planet in our solar system which was founded in the mid-19 centuries to have it wobble in its orbit that the gravitational influences of jupiter and venus and so forth couldn't account for her. there's a very simple explanation for how that could be in as the explanation to lead one of the heroes of my tail to predict the distance of the planet that can so incorrectly that when he asked an observational astronomers sure it is found within an hour or two of turning the telescope. a remarkable triumph of newtonian ideas about gravity. on the same reasoning to mercury, it was predicted there

should be a planet inside the orbit of mercury which was quickly dubbed falcon and for about 20 years after the prediction, people try to discover and oftentimes thought they did. there is always some trouble trying to nail it down. in the eclipse of 1878 across from siberia over the barren streets to canada and into an awful way that the united states from idaho and montana down to texas. the u.s. government in 1878 senate aide observing stations to try and serve the eclipse in general and among the things as whether they could detect the planet inside were ordinarily hidden by the clerk assigned to see to see it during an eclipse. the passage i am going to read to you comes right from when the eclipse is happening. i'm actually going to read the site ... which will be obvious when i found out for a page but

i think you'll find it anyway. 3:13:34 p.m. totality. as soon as the shadow king, james watson and the center of this field of view. from there he slowly swept east. as limited as predefinepredefine d search pattern he moved his telescope on the breakdown of the first direction covering eight degrees of sky each way. on his first pass a recognized a familiar star, delta can create in the constellation of cancer. back on the son he repeated the move heading west. another star in the constellation cancer said to his ivs. so girly and has run saw something new. he wrote that between the notes are in the sun come up with full text south i saw a star magnitude estimated to be 4.5. definitely brighter and did not exhibit any elongation such as might be expected if it were,

did not position. the star was not on his chart. a new object, no tales. the stranger was running out of things. watson had come to wyoming with a homemade device, they said that disk space with hard work to mark the location of any objects you might find. he sat down unknown objecta, noted to time in return. he chopped down one degree in swept out a second time. another strange star appeared with at least two minutes gone from to contact when totality starts. watson had a choice to look for known stars to service landmarks are marked the observation on this rough and ready record. watson scribbled the location of the second and outcome at debian it beat.

a few yards of a compass in has been the first minute or so, the wispy details that extends as many as 10 solar diameters across the sky. he saw the shining through the background glow and pasta jot some notes. he then jumped to. the sky was still right it would be easy to overlook directly at it. his first survey found nothing more than two stars each clearly marked on this chart. for their sweeps turned up more spots of life for nothing that was not already on the map. totality approaches and much of random and the goal of picking up some object by chance. he held his telescope to fix this position third contact

totality ends. an utter reality at the right to go through the open doors of the wardrobe for a sudden vision of the train on platform nine and three quarters. then a crescent of some might appear somewhat normal increase in the daylight world returns. the koran is such a soft enemy stars that appeared during totality rapidly faded as some might return to the hype and the separation, watson ran out of time. he had managed to find any of them rock stars don't hail mary bid to get a hint of replication he ran over in hopes that he might be for the summit became too bright to make it a place of a strange story first observed. it's too bright.

newcomer fails. but watson is convinced in the news goes out. the new society seen something. the question is what is the scene. watson is absolutely sure. as you might guess from the title of my book, there's a little bit of a problem. i finished the section of the book of a story something that happens at the same eclipse of a person that bought been a new come out while they were there. that is something of a warning about what is going to come in the latter third of the book, the last part of the book. july 29th committee 1078, thomas edison did this experiment had failed almost immediately. he was not sensitive enough to pick up radiation. the result could dent his good mood. the western trippi told reporters with his first vacation in 16 years. it is prepared to himself to matter what.

for their part is to assert eager to entertain their famous visitor but thomas edison suffer and it delusions about his status. but they are so after they close at hand companions went up to separation. they passed along the depot, tourists greeted by the station agent, john jackson clark. clark wasn't terribly impressive theater skills of his visitors. the combined knowledge was about parallax is in spectrums. having bag between them a grand total of exactly one sparrowhawk edison returned to the station and asked whether there might be anything in a clear space in the

bushes that there is one now. he close to 100 feet. the beast with job. he aims to trigger. then again. his targets to god. he saw the entire station staff had gathered for the show. the penny dropped. he even sent a play where easier to start a boat like quality or semites. it was exactly where one might expect to spy such an exotic creature and get thomas edison

genius had just murdered a stiff jackrabbit. [applause] >> thank you, marcia as well. i beg to ask a few questions and then i will throw the floor open to all of you because i'm sure you will have questions as well. as i said parallel systems between the two books. i want to ask each of them some of the same questions. one of them is for any book really with a sweep of history which both of these books do, let's begin with a germ or a cebit than flowers into something larger. i wanted to ask the two of the writers what was it that drew them to do stories about what was the germ for the book that later expanded into something much bigger and much more historical. marcia.

>> i had a very simple way of getting into the book. i was advising on a defense in our graduate program. one of the students was talking, devoting her thesis to the current endeavor to try to image the black hole in the center of our milky way. this was around 2010, 2011. as i was advising her, it suddenly hit her as we were discussing the role of general relativity at the hundredth anniversary was just around the corner. i thought i should do some anonymous. trying to take him away into a celebration of general relativity, there have been many books on general relativity, but they played a very important role and its importance in

improving the general relativity has an importance within cosmology cosmetology. hermione looked into it, the more i've realized not then they had talked about the history of this idea and the fact that it took so long. i thought that would be a great way is focusing on this one-story on how it took 50 years to the time general relativity was put into place and presented in 1950 and. the first modern idea of the black hole came weeks later by german astronomer known as carl schwartz have appeared on the earth did not really appear until the 1970s. so it took all that time to really show the importance of general relativity. i thought that was a great way to celebrate the anniversary that we celebrated last year.

>> interesting. it's really a book about the history of an idea, not the geewhiz aspects of black hole. >> there are many books on the current physics of black holes that is changing as we speak. i thought by doing historic approach of historic approach of it have legs and stick around for a while until wonderful tales, great stories of jay robert oppenheim are, carl scheuer sheila, einstein himself and leading up into the modern era where we have the discovery of gravity waves which was the absolute direct proof that black holes exist. finally got it last year the 100th anniversary. i got squeaked back into my paperback, which is coming out at the end of the month. >> i'm sure we'll come back to that is the discussion proceeds.

>> tom, can you tell about the genesis of your book, the germ of it. >> most of my projects take a long time. i work on something and find some straight thing that let's me but in the middle of something also instigated my head pocket. in this case in the 90s i worked on a two-hour nova film biography of einstein and then there shouldn't reference to the books we be sure that none in the past. i read a book called einstein in berlin. i really worked hard to understand general relativity because that was his greatest scientific publishing it during his years. what struck me as i was doing this is i was really going in to very close examination of the month-long period in november -- october, november 1915 when he finally figuring out the theory

has been working on for eight years. he delivers this work and for lectures to the prussian academy of sciences. i am reading and i'm reading the letters he's writing and i come across in the account of the third lecture. he writes to a friend that i worked to the theory. i did the calculation then i found the orbit of mercury came out of the theory. the calculated orbit ethnic theory produced to match the observation and i was so excited that he felt all petitions in his chest. he told another friend he was beside himself with joy. i didn't have time to go into that. but it struck me because einstein is usually very fact that a character. he didn't stop -- or at least he tried to make it appear that nothing surprised him.

and it was extraordinary to me that withstand the key work on mathematics, tested against previous observation, works out great. on the right track. part of the ordinary grinding through an einstein reacted so disproportionally two.and says that's interesting. there must be something behind it. i broadcast and here it is 2015. i'm a slow learner. i returned to this and found the extraordinary back story shooting the jackrabbit. it provides a way to think about what it takes to change her mind to accepting new ideas finance. when i found that there is a richness and you had to write it. >> it's kind of a nice segment into the next subject i want to bring up for all of us.

in both of these folks have found a fascinating kind of thread which is attention trained observation in both books that comes through really episode after episode. sometis nicely and think an attention hog talk a little bit about that. first to you, tom. some very smart, highly qualified people cap seeking a planet inside the orbit of mercury where we now know. tell us how did that happen. >> book, the case in a worldview is absolute. there is a next blamed -- there is a motion that was unexplained, excess motion in mercury's orbit referred to as the pre-session in the movement at the closest point of mercury

reaches to the sun and the closest point is going around the sun over centuries and was doing so just slightly faster than all a gravitational influences should suggest. the logic was inescapable. neptune was discovered by the same kind of analysis on the orbiter of uranus. we just had a powerful prediction away outside on exactly the same reasoning and because that region are relativity doesn't actually have a significant tug on the world. there is strong reason to believe it's a very plausible prediction in that context. we haven't discovered yet it's not yet real. people are looking for it. there's lots of reasons for people to think it is fair. it's really hard to do observations at the edge of incremental capacity, the edge of your knowledge. so if you see anything with such

powerful reason to expect it, and i'm no difficulty in finding that, it is really easy to persuade yourself that what you want to see, what you know you should see if actually there. you can see circles going across the face of the sun. in sun. you know there's lots of sun spots, but the right kind of circle would be a planet, so people saw those. observing near the sun during an eclipse is a very tricky thing. it's very faster for the exits give you a sense. it easy to get caught up in the campaign. i think -- the moral of my story i think is the usual justification for the authority of science that it's self-correcting because a single brute fact is enough to

undermine the most beautiful theory be be true in the long run, but it's not as human beings actually live in think it works. the book is an extended meditation on that fact. >> very nice. that does come through in reading the book. marcia, and a similar vein i would like to ask you. quite a lot of the same tension between theory and observation and the question i have is why did it take so long for scientists to accept the idea of a black hole? >> is also sent to tom, i was realized in my story as a counterpoint to his story because they had found neptune. they were in the cosmos, the universe, the solar system to work just the way it always had with the black hole it was the opposite. here was an idea that you could take a star and collapse it to a

point. most astronomers in the very quiet, serene universe of the 1920s, 1930s, this is nonsense good universe of not work like this. no one could imagine any physical way that a star could get it off into the situation. so most astronomers just pooh-poohed the idea. dearest worked it out on paper and even they have their doubts. einstein as i said in the subtitle of my book hated the idea. the idea that you could have matter collapsed to a point, talking enough intensity and volume sounds absolutely ridiculous. there must be a way. nature must have a way to stop this. ever so slowly, the evidence started sneaking them. karl schwarz field i mentioned a few weeks after einstein came

out with his theory of general relativity came up with the first full solution to the equation, something einstein did think it be possible. all of his calculations were done with approximation. sure shield actually solve the equation under one condition. he was trying to show -- determined mathematically that gravitational field like a star and they made easier if you put out the mass into a point and that is when things went crazy. he realized us a shout particles towards this point, there was this boundary in which space out, times staff, it was like nothing ever seen before. it was this boundary. they called it a sure shield. the law of physics just stopped in me then in his papers said this is obviously physically --

does not mean anything physically. he figured it had to do with mathematics. most people assumed it was a part of the mathematics. but in the 1930s there was a god astrophysicist from india. the chandra space telescope, extra space telescope named after him. he realized maybe indeed a star could collapse. the smallest are they knew in the 1930s as a white or star about the size of the earth. and realized if he put enough mass onto the start beyond a certain point about one and a half solar mass is, it would start collapsing. he saw in the mathematics, but very few people believed him. he was even laughed at the royal astronomical society in london when he gave a talk about it.

but there were some people who thought even beyond that in 1932 they discovered the new charm particle. before that you only knew that there a proton and electron. they discovered the new tron and a crazy theorist a year later said he was thinking about stars exploding and in that he very pricey outlays came out but the idea that when a star exploded, the core of it would crash down to just about 10 miles wide into a pure ball of new jobs of new charms. i was beginning if the idea of the neutron star. this was in 1930. again, people thought this was ridiculous. they said in a church work like this. on top of that, how would you prove it. if you have an neutron star, how

would you even use a telescope to see it. this was before the era when they had radio telescopes and x-ray tell us out. maybe it was the idea of that they worked on how the universe luck to them in the past. it's going to look like that in the future to them. jay robert oppenheim or 1939 with his graduate students finally worked out the first modern calculation of a black hole. it is accurate to this day court and get sore and period 1939. unfortunately it came out on september 1st 1939. that was the day that hitler marched into germany. -- poland. thank you.

>> he found it troubling third my buddy is one who proposed it to the prussian academy to >> he was happy with the full solution and he was not concerned about the little mathematical thing. but other people started talking about it and he felt he had to step in an answer. after jay robert oppenheim about his paper along with its graduates didn't come in the first modern description of a black hole a week later einstein had a paper in the annals of mathematics in which he proved such a singularity as it was called could not possibly exist. historians of science have called this einstein's worst scientific paper. he used a lot of handwaving and

bad physics to try to talk away the fact that gravity at a certain point gravity becomes the strongest force in the universe when you have very dense masses. gravity takes over. it is stronger than a lecture of magnetic forces of the nuclear forces, all the forces of the universe. gravity takes over the black oval form. >> in one case where people seen something that wasn't there because theory predicts it. we have people rejecting an idea that seems absurd. >> they had to wait dinner technology, radio telescopes, citing this energetic objects in the universe that cannot be explained without general relativity. it came to the rescue to explain pulsars and quasars and all these exotic creatures.

>> the other thing that's important to mention. this is marsh's story, not mine. what is striking is how many different things you need to know. one of the important elements in the story was the century long attempt to understand how stars actually work in that really wasn't worth going in detail until after the second world war. and tell them this doesn't apply to supermassive black holes, but understanding and detailed the process of stellar life and death helps give a narrative component to the story of four buckles come from. when you have a story to tell that ends up at a black hole, one of the things i most turned with is not what science finds out, but what scientists do, what they are doing day by day. you know, even though

mathematics is determinative, narrative is persuasive and scientists may persuasive narrative as well as the rest of us in order to be able to see what is in fact in front of them. that was part of the buckles story. >> euros trying to take the latest information you have and try to stretch your explanation a little more. in the 1930s they were finding very vigorous stars that throw off a lot of mass. much more than our sun never does and its eruptions. the astronomers came to think that at the end of the star's life in this he said they were still trying to figure out the life of star, that it throws off enough mass to do it never reached the new tron star. it was all just mathematics. you have to also understand when you say that something collapses

to a singularity of the zero volume, the physics no longer work. they have no way of actually ask landing mathematically what is happening in that situation. general relativity can explain what is happening outside the event horizon. no one knows what is going on inside. that frightens physicists a lot when the physics breaks down. it's still broken down and will not eat answered until they conjoined quantum mechanics is general relativity come up with a theory of quantum gravity. there's a lot of speculation what's going on. they don't know yet. >> there's been a lot of talk in the conversations about general relativity and that brings us to the last question because i'm sure you have questions of your own. she's perhaps not the central figure but a central figure in

both of these books. i learned a lot about einstein before he was the kind of icon of genius unassertive towering figure of the 20th century. he was somebody with a phd he was working at the patent office. no one would've known who will prevent than once if you asked them on the street. >> he was fairly good-looking. if you see the wavy dark hair. >> physicists, you know. [laughter] so what i was going to ask both of you is one of the interesting things about both books as we see at albert einstein before the floppy haired icon and the terrible violin player. a very different kind of person. what i want to ask both of you if you can get an answer is what

you think it was that enabled him. don't say genius because i don't think i'll accept that answer. to the incredible burst of creativity, basically turned their understanding of the physical universe inside out. over three paradigm that had a 17th century and kind of command in a pretty decisive way. working on a sound outside an academic institution. of course the simple answer is genius. i'd like genius. i'd like to know a little more from both of you. what he think and it was a person essentially on a sound to undergo that kind -- to work on its own and to reach those conclusions in that kind of worst of creativity. the first thing as the old joke, you know, john milton shows how you can be an overnight success at 50. einstein didn't produce this sort in a month. he produced it -- he started

working on general relativity in 1907 and he completed in may 15. he thought he completed in 1913 that he made a couple crucial errors. you know, he wanted to know what einstein himself thought was the secret. he said two things. it's got a good nose and rocket as serving him extremely well for the first half of his professional career. it was the last the ability to pick a problem that could be solved that's big enough and important enough and difficult enough that it's worth doing. he didn't want to nibble at the edges. he was an ambitious man. but a problem that was solvable just do not matter. as he set himself at one point she was stubborn as you can imagine. i spoke to einstein's friend and biographer a few years and he

said that to hand the single defining uniqueness of the einstein was that it was his stamina. .. he didn't get to the mathematics

of general relativity right away. you often hear the way theoretical physicist work. they go to the note work and they arriving every questions. he didn't do that. he thought through, i know this law is nature. how we get the block in the other realm? he thought through meticulously how each process should work under those conditions. he imagined a clock being drawn up in an elevator, you know, away from the earth into space at an accelerating rate, and he realized that time would slow down in a gravitational field and go faster and faster as you're giving away from the strength of a gravitational field. he didn't work that out with mathematics, not fully.

he was thinking these through. he really understood the laws of nature and the way i think know whether physicist of his era d did. and he could see the holes ethicacy the way it had to be altered. >> i would modify that a little bit. it's not that he knew the laws of physics better than other people. and if he had a particular quality of mind, i'm delivered avoiding the word changes. i think that are works of genius. i think there are very few people of genius that's a distinction unlike to talk apart. the thing here is that he was very interested in velocity the philosophy of science, and yet a mine that was held in reading and thinking about that kind of material. that made his thought experiment not just kind of handy models to jumpstart his thinking about some problem, but he really was

very careful to set up a simplified abstract mental space in which very particular properties could be isolated. his thought experiment were not doodles. they were actually very, very rigorous. he was, frankly, it was somebody who thought in physical terms, and at the very end when he was producing general relativity in the last burst in 1950 he'd spoken with the greatest mathematician in germany, give it a bunch of seminars the june before it came up with the theory, and inspiring hilbert to get to the end. it was a little tension. gilbert said the schoolboy in the street knows more mathematics and einstein. einstein those of the physics. >> i think the word genius distances us from some who is

their human being, and i wanted to see what were the human qualities that led him to make these discoveries. so thank you both very much. this has been fascinating. i think probably you guys would like to get into the conversation and i would encourage you to do so now. as i mentioned our microphones at the back. if you would like to ask a question please stand up, go to the back and get a microphone -- no? how will we get the microphone? the microphone will come to you. as in general productivity, the microphone will come to you. >> who is the mountain and who is mohammed? >> this lady in the white. >> can you hear me? is it possible that the infinite mass you describe in a single their the of a black hole, could those, if you add this all up for the universe, could not account for dark matter and dark energy?

>> no, actually not, because people have worked that out. distortion start with matter and they know from meticulous calculations and examination of the cosmic microwave background, they can calculate exactly how many ordinary particles of matter came out of the big bang. they can account for it. anytime a star collapses to form a black hole, that matter is already accounted for in that calculation. so the black hole's are not the dark matter. >> good question though. interesting. in the back. >> i'm curious as to how you came to science writing, per se. it's not going to be a blockbuster movie. >> we both have very origin stories.

i will try to convince mine. i actually, my undergraduate degree was in journalism. i worked for years as a kid reporter and anchorwoman. i don't know if anybody was in norfolk, virginia, in 1971-1975. i anchored at channel 13 news way back, but i always is captivated one whit to the nasa langley research center in hampton, and i said if i could do this 24/7 i would be happy, happy. i just left the tv station, went back to school and got a graduate degree in physics, a masters degree in physics, because when you specialize on friday on physics and astronomy. once i got the degree i had an internship at science news magazine, on the charter writing staff when discover magazine start in new york city in 1980. i was there for a couple of years and then i was on my way

and went from there writing for a lot of other science magazines and started writing books. >> thank you. >> we were ships passing it the night a i discovered. >> i am right at discover in 1983 just after she left her i'm not sure if there's a cause and effect matter. i was tested by "popular science" from the works of "popular science" from very early on but went away to college i get my degree in east asian studies. you know, early modern and modern japanese and chinese history. but while i was there i got interested in the question what happened, what was it like to face the scientific revolution down the barrel of a gun, as it were, which describes a lot, is one way of getting into a lot of what happened in east asia from the 17th to the 19th centuries. i started taking history science classes.

but that doesn't tell you why you would write about such. after i graduated from college i went overseas. i just did a sort of postcollege and ended up in manila in the philippines and i stumbled into a job writing features for the local reuters bureau. they just fired a couple of people. you've got to feed the wire, so even a just out of college, completely clueless -- basically by job interview was can you type the? yes. okay, over there. but i didn't want to be the guy who quoted taxi drivers and talked about the traffic. i had the good fortune almost a sense of started working to the ethical cover and international coral reef biology conference. i met a bunch of researchers from the university of the philippines under realized they were doing interesting work and get actual data.

and that meant that i get asked a question about the politics or the culture or social issues or business even that started from something like, how do you get coral reef tiles in an airport in the philippines when it's illegal to my coral? or who got the mining companies, we know the pool is full of toxins, how come it is a there? anyplace from someone who could decide someone had found a. i started doing that and it was great. every story start with something real. that got me hooked and i just went from there. >> many roads to science journalism. next. gentlemen in the orange. >> i was intrigued by marcia's comment with that one come every galaxy has a black hole ended but also what's incredibly amazing is that this sounds like

something i was, hindu philosophy but without a measurable negatives, galaxies would not exist. could you explain that? >> may be. this is something which really just come out in the last 10 years. statistically they have not come to see that every major galaxy, spiral galaxy, elliptical galaxy has the supermassive black holes, and the size of them seem to be in proportion to the size of the galaxy. the smaller galaxies have smaller supermassive black holes. the bigger ones have bigger ones. they are just now trying to figure out how do they even form? did the black hole form first and the galaxy afterward? did they form in unison? this is still a big, big ministry. it's one of the top questions in cosmology from the early universe on how that all

happened. >> bring it on. >> i know this is different from black hole's but is an emissary a leading candidate for quantum gravity. >> it's having problems. i like your word leading candidate. is the closest they have come so far, but it is not the definitive answer and they still have a lot of roadblocks to try to find this answer. though by studying, gifford may be the announcement that they're giving these gravity waves that come from these colliding black holes. i studying these ways and studying the black hole's, it may give them some insights on ways to find a way to merge general relativity with quantum

mechanics. but m theory as a leading candidate but it's not the only one. there's another one called loop quantum gravity that is a competing theory. so they are battling it out in the physics world between each other. >> just to build on what marcia said. the ability to decide between theories is very dependent on data. as you get more and more into these incredibly energetic circumstances, incredibly short timescales and all these things involved in the early history of the universe, david of course gets harder and harder to find. one thing that'll be interesting is how much more quantitative

work people are going to be able to get onto cosmic wave background. you've probably heard about the failed detection of a certain kind of polarization in the cmb.com had it been true, would have been very, very strong support for multiple universe scenario. but refining those kinds of observations and trying to get more data off and his potential successors decades from the in space and so on. the next measurement, measurements are already really, really hard. the next measurement are going to be even harder. it's likely we will not be able to answer your question until those measurements are made. >> you will have to make them. >> if you become an astrophysicist, and a for your dissertation, maybe you will be figuring that out. >> i think imagine we could calculate the number of bits of matter, since the big bang to

what happens at the thing delivery of a black hole? does that matter blink out of the known universe? >> there are many come some people do. there is a theorist who is part of the loop quantum gravity and he is the idea with every birth of the black hole in our universe, it leads to the birth of another universe in another set of dimensions that are a part from ours. so that what every universe wants to do is work out as many black holes as possible, almost like dna, you know the dna wants to spread, it wants to have its genetic material spread over the world, that the best universe and the most prolific one would be one that has lots of black holes that are building up other universes elsewhere. but it's totally speculation. >> i have this vision of leonard

nimoy with a goatee -- [laughter] >> they really do need to understand what is happening as the event horizon, and that needs a full third of quantum gravity. right now there's differences. when you look at it classically, yes, all the matter is, you know, almost instantly taken to the center and crushed. but there are people on the edges of this, these theories of quantum gravity which suggest that you capacity event horizon and juicy space and time breaking up. you are hitting a firewall of great energy, and a space of time itself disintegrate. but again they are doing this off approximations. it's all speculation, and for every paper that comes out there's a counter paper. spent watched the last few

minutes of 2001 and it all becomes clear last night. >> i think we will have time for about two more because want to give both tom and marcia time to meet all you guys inside the books if you would like to buy them. so let's have to more. this gentleman down here has been waiting a little while. >> i think i heard you say that black holes were infinite density and zero volume, if you talk about large and small black holes. >> a document event horizon, the boundary, the point of no return. when usually to talk about sizes a black holes you are talking of the size of the event horizon. the matter is -- >> that depends on how much mess has gotten compressed? >> yes, exactly. and more mass that's compressed, the farther out the event horizon goes. >> i think this will be the last one. the microphone is coming to you.

>> i'd like to take us away from black hole for just a moment and may be more to your day job and your history with discover magazines and the like. obviously, with all the people in this room there is a huge interest in this topic and science in general within this reticular population. but we are also in a country right now where scientific letter c. seems to be at an all time low, actually under attack. i was hoping the two of you because we talk about maybe a love it about the program at mit or your general view of how do we work in solve the problem, writ large? >> tough question to probably tougher than black holes. >> it is tougher than black holes. >> number one, it's not

altogether clear that science literacy is getting worse. scientifical discourse is clearly getting worse but that's not the same thing. there are days, monday, wednesday and friday i get up and think the last 30 years i tried to committee signed to the public has made the situation worse. tuesday, thursday, saturday i think maybe not, and sunday i go fishing. but what we do at mit is we trained a small group of advanced students have just come out of university or people who have done different things, maybe going to graduate schools, finish their ph.d's and commodores. and we try and do two things. i think most importantly. teach them the fundamental skills of journalism and reporting accurately on size and all those kinds of things. but at least as importantly, give them a sense of, i mean, i

don't want to sound too fanciful or two i don't know, but the art, the literary power of stories in which science is the core. so we want them to be great journalist. that's the starting point but we want them to have the capacity, the rhetorical sensibilities on the artfulness to persuade people by the structure and quality of what they write or broad, you know, potential or whatever medium they end up working in. i think that's important. just creating a strong public culture around any kind of body of ideas and work and sensibility. i want really important, good writing about technology. i want great nonfiction about our recent history of our current circumstances and social circumstances, and i think it's

essential sites be communicated with the same literary content, the same attempt knowing, again, persuasion and the ability to get in somebody's head and make them hold on to whatever we talk to them about. that's what we are after. the reason that's important is because political discourse now really is terrible. you can't persuade somebody of something windows their living depends on not knowing -- when their living depends, much of the current republican leadership knows oh, well, climate changes have become is man-made and all that sort of stuff but there's a set of other impaired is that makes it difficult to acknowledge and for the political system to respond to it. you can't change that with science journalism or science writing but you can change the civic life around that politics in hopes the politics catches

up. >> marcia? >> i was just going to add just emphasizing something you briefly noted. i think science writing has vastly improved over the last few decades because the focus now is on storytelling. the narrative. that's how you get the attention of the populace who are interested in it. i know when i was going up, yes, we had science books but they were sort of textbook he and all the nerves would be reading them. but now we have wonderful stories of science and we are broadening the audience, and i think that is helping. i think that will help. it's entering into our educational system. i know i did more talks now where my narrative books are being used in the school room. and i think that can help as well come is making sure that we see that science writing isn't

off to the side. it's part of the literary experience in storytelling and narrative. >> thank you. at what to thank both of our guests who are clearly excellent storytellers in science for bringing us this experience and telling us about their books. thank them both for the books and for the participation, and their books will be available on. if you would like to buy them. [applause] and [inaudibl[inaudible convers]

>> stanley greenberg of the vote advisor to presidents and prime ministers and also the author of a new book. what is america's biggest problem right now? >> the biggest problem is that the main problems are not being addressed. you have a huge revolution that are remaking the country from takagi to breakdown of the family, gender roles, influx of immigration. really a changing country. this new majority that is going in the country has whole range of issues they want to dress a politics isn't addressing this new majority. they think we have a corrupt american politics that politicians are just owned by billionaires and the corporations and the really addressing the needs of the middle class. they are reacting to the short term but they are part of these

huge changes which are making changing america in a way that is very positive. there are few countries that are economically vibrant, coulter also exceptional. with everything happening in the world with migration and reactions to the we are a country that deals with diversity. we will see what it's like in a few months from now but this is a kind were diverted as part of our dna and just there are not very many countries where that's the case. they are waiting for politics address their main problem. >> we are taping this at the moment when the country is debating syrian immigrants coming into the united states and many, many states have decided they don't want immigrants in their state. how does that jive with our current understanding of immigration policies throughout history? >> i think you just have to perspective on how powerful immigration is and how much it reshapes america big one of the reasons why we are economically

dynamic as we have it never could revolution. if you look at cities like new york city, 37% are foreign-born. you look at states like california, 30% foreign-born. half of our nobel prize laureates our silicon valley engineers are foreign-born. we are a country that is being reshaped can make dynamic by this influx of immigration. it's probably the biggest change that is changing the nature of the electorate and that's why you're getting a reaction amongst the republicans to try to stop that from happening. it's a fool's errand. i think we'll soon see the country will be shaped by its growing diversity in immigration. i bet when the election is over, when we look back on it you'll find major parts of the republican party was in love, we like this country that is so diverse and we'll see a different store looking over the long-term.

>> talked about technology being a major driver for change in this country but people still look at the north american free trade agreement and ask about jobs, jobs, jobs. what the dichotomy between our embracement of technology out of want of physical worth? >> when you look at high-tech and big data in those kind of changes, they are huge. growth and productivity and growth in our economy, it is so central to it and our -- a whole range of things including immigration but very much like industrial revolution. it changed the country massively. abroad great influx of population into the cities but also brought great poverty and concentration in the cities. that add up to revolution produced the progressive era, movement union, mitigate the changes. that's what i think why what i'm optimistic about america. i know the web declining wages.

i know we have increased inequality. but also know it also creates a politics, reform politics to bring change that makes it possible to the country they can be successful. >> are we in a second gilded age because we are in a second gilded age for sure but we are also in an incipient reform era. just look at the cities. minimum wage, sick days, a whole variety of reforms. look at the states, california, connecticut that are passing these afford. look at what's happening in business, a whole variety of changes. look what's happening in the church, the catholic church and how much fa that is influenced. addressing problems with poverty. as look at the problems let's also recognize there's a process of reform, a momentum that is already taking place. >> are we seeing and assuage been in the baby boom

generations because they are being supplanted by the millennials. that's one of the biggest changes i talk about in this book. you have these to revolution for all this comes together. one is the growth of the millennials at the expense of the baby boomers and the others the growth of the metropolitan areas at the expense of the rural areas and even the suburbs. they are all coming together, like a cauldron in the cities and amongst the millennials were all this diversity, change in attitude, changing so of life and that's going to drive what's happening in the country opposite baby boom, enormous force. that is retiring and will be affected. >> what's the difference between the two generations because everything. the baby boom lives in some way for middle-class dream.

the idea that you work for a single important work to way up the ladder, move to homeownership, having a pension, a whole story that led america to think of its of a similar class can with middle-class dreams. the millennials know that's not the story. as part of why they have higher focus on quality of life. they identify with the cities that they live in. they believe in urban density. half of the millennials don't have drivers licenses. two-thirds of millennials with college degrees have already moved to the 50 largest cities. so they are moving. there is a whole change in common values, where they live, what their life trajectory is the millennials are not miserable. in fact some of the most optimistic or even though the baby boomer has the best shot, millennials are pretty optimistic about the future of the country. >> stanley greenberg is the