>> week nights this month, we're featuring book t vchv and available every weekend on c-span2. edward ball looks at white supremacy through his great-great grandfather and the ku klux klan. and later, sara broom discusses her national award winning memoir, the yellow house. watch tonight beginning at 8 p.m. eastern. enjoy book tv. this week and every weekend on c-span2. c-span2. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. c-span2, created by america's cable television company as a public service, and brought to

you today by your television provider. ♪ >> well, as far as i can tell we probably have, i know, leonard has readers from all over the world. in fact, he has readers from the united states and canada and mexico, panama, haiti, jamaica, peru, dominica, puerto ricoo, colombia, guatemala, bow livia and argentina and nicaragua, san juan, paraguay, uruguay, guam and probably even pasadena. [laughter] >> thank you, rob. >> my pleasure. >> thank you, thank you everyone for joining us for this evening's event. my name is kim sutton and i'm the host of tonight's event. and before we begin, i want to encourage you all to check out our lineup of upcoming virtual

events by visiting powells.com. one of the events we're looking for is tiffany cross in conversation about cross' new book, "say a louder", black voters white narrative and saving our democracy. as well please remember to follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram. today we welcome leonard mlodinow. he received a ph.d. if physics at berkeley. was a fellow at the institute and california institute of technology, his previous books include the best seller, "the grand design" and "briefer history of time", both with stephen hawking.

and war of the world views with deep deepok chopra. as well as rainbows, and upright thinkers. joining us for a conversation about his new book, "stephen hawking", one of the physicists of our time, calling him his collaborator and friend, he brings him deeply into a personal portrayal and he puts us in the room as hawking has his love of wine and curry, and grapples with the deep questions of philosophy and physics. mlodinow's deeply affecting account of friendship teaches us not just about the nature and practice of physics, but life and human capacity to overcome daunting obstacles.

mlodinow is joined in conversation by voice actor rob paulison, he's the voice of pinkie of pinkie and the brain and raphael and dontelo from teen-ager ninja mutant turtles. his memoir, "voice lessons", ironically a man who uses his voice for work, found himself with throat cancer and has now recovered and found him the spokesperson for oral head and neck program. please use the q & a button if you'd like to ask a question. if someone has a question you'd like to know the answer to, please upload the question by a thumbs up button. most important, please consider

supporting leonard mlodinow by purchasing his new book, a link to purchase the book will be shared in chat in a couple of minutes. leb leonard, rob, it's a pleasure to have you join us. >> thank you, well said. as an armchair physicist who somehow makes his living what essentially got me in trouble in high school, i can tell you that this is a marvellous book. thank you very much leonard for rather lowering your standards with respect to speakers. thanks for having me on board. thanks for doing this, rob. >> my great pleasure, usually dry physics. >> full disclosure, your fabulous, really handsome genius child nickolai helps me

with, and he's a delightful, smart young man, thank you. well done. and just in case there are folks watching who are transfixed by all of the stuff surrounding us, but may not be as aware of stephen hawking as others, could you briefly explain what stephen hawking's place it in physics, in the history of physics? >> well, stephen went to school in the '60s, so he went to oxford first and then he went to graduate school at cambridge and that's where he really -- undergraduate and beginning of graduate school and he had after that, he fell ill. before that he was kind of goofoff and due to his illness, he found a purpose in life, a kind of meeting in his life and he decided that he wanted to

dedicate his last years to answering some fundamental questions about our existence, which was basically, you know, why are we here, how did we get here, how did the universe get here and why is it the way it is. and those are not questions had a people are asking much in the 1960's. >> no. >> and the systems-- he may have been asking that at haight ashbury and berkeley and so the areas that he chose to study to address those questions, the first one is obvious the early universe, beginning of the universe and the other is black holes, a little less obvious. not many people were interested in those areas either back then because people felt that you couldn't ever observe them. physics is an experimental or observational science and people said you can't look back to the beginning of the

universe or look at the black hole, and why study them. turned out as a footnote, with technology we can study those. a few years ago we had a picture of a block black hole, but that we would never get them in. richard feinman's description he said they were a bunch of dopes. [laughter] >> and went to a conference that made his blood boil because he was frustrated with the quality of the research. so, it was into that kind of era that stephen walked in. and stephen was his yearning to answer the questions started in the 1960's and made great progress in understanding both the early universe and black holes through einstein's theory of relatively and it's important to note that he did not apply quantum theory to it

then. it was just through einstein's theory of gravity and made great progress in understanding the early universe and black holes. then later in the 1970's, he started to apply quantum theory and made exciting advances. and he realized that you can't ignore quantum theory in those areas as people have been doing and he found new results. so the sum total of all of this in his work after that, he took this field of co cos meteorologist and made it one of the hottest fields, and quantum theory, he was a pioneer and really in what was probably looking for what is the holy grail of physics, which is uniting the theory of gravity with kwquantum theory. he was a pioneer and thinking about that and we still haven't

done it and he lifted the study of black holes and cosmology. story about the long answer, but-- >> no, in fact, you're right. we know that stephen had a terrific movie made about him in which i think eddie redmayne won an oscar for that performance, but my suspicion, having grown up, you know, the physicist, the physicist's physicist when i grew up was like most, albert einstein. do you have a feeling, was stephen essentially thought of as like the next physicist rock star? was he another einstein? >> he was not another einstein, and he was just kind of -- he would roll his eyes and smile when people said that. who wants to have that bar to live up to, that's a pretty high bar. right. even einstein through most of

his career wasn't an einstein. einstein had most of his major discoveries that's the first 10-- first 15, 15 years of his career. >> right. >> stephen was a leader, one of the best of his generation, one of the leaders in the generation and i don't think we should be trying to quantify that, but. >> right. >> i think that's a good solid description of him and one that he would have agreed with. >> right, and if i'm not mistaken, even stein came up with his energy equals mass times the speed of light squared theory at 25. >> yeah, 1905, as a consequence, it's interesting, people misunderstand how physics works. you don't sit there and tell people, oh, yeah, that makes that. he developed the theory called

special relativity and that was based on certain principles that procedurally the speed of light, that was something implied by maxwell's work in the 1860's and investigating that and building a theory of adjusting newton's laws to he developed the special relativity and one of the consequences that he discovered as he is writing out that-- >> and it became a metaphor for all the cool stuff. i still remember we're the same age and the opening of the twilight zone. right. >> ee quality mc squared and-- >> was back in the 1920's, wasn't it, rob? >> yeah, people don't know this, i was entertainment at the last supper. jesus, what a party. anyway. >> that's all i have to say--

. [laughter] >> you were a-- >> a thing or two. >> that's right. we have figured out the space time continuum ladies and gentlemen. i know this because i read the book. how did you first meet stephen? >> welcol, he read my first two books. >> wow. >> one was euclid's window about curved space and what it really means and how over the centuries it was developed and that was a very ully important topic to stephen. and then he read my second book which was feinman's rainbow, search for beauty in physics and life and that was my relationship with the great-- when i was at cal tech in my 20's and he liked read those books and he was looking for someone with a sense of humor

and writing he liked and understood physics and i think he thought i fit that and one day i got a call from my agent, stephen hawking called and this is a bizarre question, would you like to write a book with him. >> are you kidding me? having read the book, i make my living in the funny business you have an excellent sense of humor, leonard and it comes across beautifully in the book, it truly does. you mentioned how the sort of dryness of physics, but you have found a way and clearly mr. hawking had a wicked sense of humor, too, and you're able to translate that to the reader. it really-- in fact, i know that you began working with stephen, now, when he was sort of in his full-blo full-blown miotrophic lou

gehrig's disease. was there anything that made you go, wow, this is remarkable, what he was doing in his physical state? >> it's fascinating. i hope i don't get too long with this answer. >> it's your book, man. >> physics, most of physics can be looked at in two different ways. one is algebraic equations or analysis, mathematical term, and the other way is geometrically. and you have to understand both really, but most of the work that most people do is done using equations. stephen, obviously, can't do that, he can't write-- couldn't write, couldn't move. he could-- he did have an amazing memory where he could do some derivations that way just like

a grand master chess can play 20 people blind folded and not trip over his feet, but remember each game and what to do and i was in awe of that, i can't play one good game of chess without a blind fold. these guys have something. so he did have that ability, but it was difficult for him and put him at a disadvantage as opposed to other physicists who could write and write down equations. so what he did, which really surprised me, i didn't learn for a while, but he learned a new way of doing physics and he did it the geometric approach rather than equations approach and he worked out his own language of geometry to treat the problems that he was treating and so that he could solve problems and get ideas and analyze situations of interest to him in his head using pictures. well, theres a beams and light beams and particle beams and

black holes and he's analyzing how they work using pictures or geometric relationships in his head. and his friend, a nobel prize winner said that that was stephen's super power, he could, by doing that, not only avoiding his handicap of not writing equations, but he actually had a new angle to look the a things that other physicists didn't have that allowed him to make discoveries that physicists didn't. >> that's interesting, because in the book you cite how we hear of people who are sightless who find a way to really, you know, enhance their sense of hearing or smell or taste or whatever. do you feel ultimately that-- well, maybe even stephen may have suggested this. do you feel ultimately that his debilitating illness ended up

being something that actually helped him in his discipline? he told me that it did. he told me, well, first, as i mentioned, it gave him meaning and purpose. >> driving him. >> or anybody. >> it's a very hard subject, you have to put in very hard hours alone, and the paper, california is burning right now, but so is oregon, i think, but in a normal time when it's not, you want to go outside and take a walk, instead you stay home, you want to see your family or friends, but, no, you're working 12 hours a day for months every day, you know, just to finish your work. and so the first thing it did for him, it gave him that drive to answer these questions. but so that was like very--

giving him the meaning and giving him the focus and eliminating distractions from him and allowing him to focus so long and so hard and it was a big advantage to him. even apart from the geometric thinking. >> and you being-- ments he wouldn't have done as well if he hadn't had that disability. >> that's interesting, especially you being a celebrated and prolific author. i've written one book and i've had a gentleman help me. do physicists go through what a lay person would call writers block, that is to say when you're working, on a theory or you're working on something, you're postulating, you have your own premises that you're working on, do you find that you actually can go through writers block? you mentioned you're alone. is there a point where you say i'm stuck? >> that's why i wrote the book

not just for physicist, i don't like the mythology around science or around stephen the idea and as a person. and i wrote the book to expose how we do physicists, and how he lived his life every day. and yes, physicists don't just like in the movies you mentioned, look into a fireplace and the answer comes. >> boom, yeah. >> if it was-- we'd all be physicists. >> we'd all have the low paying physics job theory dime a does. and richard simon, for example, had long periods of time of nonproductivities that he had no idea. because in those times he would be touching the courses and it would fulfill him and take up his time because he's waiting for ideas to come. so he has both doing a problem

and in between problems. in between problems he's sitting there going, okay, i just wrote a paper or maybe ten papers and maybe on one topic or three topics, a lot of ideas, but i've run out of idea or i've done all the papers on that topic, what should i work on now? sometimes you have something in the back of your head you're curious about and you move on and times you don't. and you're sitting there like a writer that doesn't know what book to write next. and while you're doing your problem you have minor crises like that, too, okay, i need to get from here to there to answer the questions that i'm trying to answer in the research and this is how you figure it out. no, this is how you figure it out. no, and keep butting your head against walls. and for a day or a month and in some promising direction and it doesn't work, and then you finally get to a point sometimes where you have no more ideas. so you've gotten to a certain

point in your research. you know what you want to show or you have an idea where you want to go with it, but the math isn't working out. so, yeah, it's full of frustrating and difficult times. stephen spent, you know, he drove his wives crazy because he was-- when he hit that wall, he would turn wagner up. he liked the wagner album, really, really super loud so everybody in the house, and block out the rest of the world for him and he spent day after day after day after day just focused getting past that. >> good gracious. well, and by the way, the thing that-- it sounds like that was part of your mission, was to, for lack of a better term, humanize stephen or make him relatable. and you absolutely nailed that. there were certainly things no one would know having not been close to him, but you utterly

dehollywooded and made him, you know, somebody that you became your friend, often with the usual frustrations that people have with other people. was there a point at which your work with stephen, the fact that he was wheelchair bound and was nonverbal, that was like not a big deal, it was basically, you know, oh, stephen's got a different shirt on today, that it really was not an issue, you got used to it? >> that's a good question, rob and there's so much in that development of the book, but, yeah, the answer is, yes. when i first got there, to work with him. to cambridge to his office. i wasi felt bad for him because you could see what discomfort he was in. >> oh, man. >> not necessarily he was in discomfort, but that he should have been. >> yeah. >> that things happening to him like a bead of sweat going down

his forehead that had to wipe away. you remember that story. >> i do. let me interrupt that, that's one of the seminal moments of the book. it's something that we can all relate to immediately and you just take your hand and you go like this. but the way in which you describe your empathy, your-- like, oh, my god. that would drive me nuts or if my nose was itching. it doesn't matter if you're muhammad ali, stephen hawking, rob paulsen or a guy on the street, leonard mlodinow, things we take for granted, all of a sudden central focus for this worldclass physicist, the way you described that was really remarkable and very, very em pathic. >> thank you. and i couldn't understand how he could go through his day without being able to do that

and maybe would notice or maybe not, but so at first, i felt sorry for him a lot, but then as i got to know him better i realized no, don't feel sorry for him. he actually was quite inspiring to me by the way he handled those things. he really changed the way he thought so that it's not that he sees -- that he had sweat dripping down or the itch or bedtime or where he's sleeping and he wants to turn, but he can't turn, he has to wake someone to turn him and these other obstacles and tortures that the rest of us would experience in that condition. he learned not to remedy that, but not to mind them. he took off his mind and his feelings and learned not to let them bother him. and that's like the greek had the philosophy, stoic philosophy, which is that

happiness, true happiness and lasting happiness comes only within you, it's not from the things you accomplish or goods or any other person, all of that can be taken away and subject to many things beyond your control. what we have control over is self-satisfaction and how you feel about yourself and in your own mind. the and stephen really did that and once i realized that that was what's going on, i didn't feel sorry for him anymore, he was a person with a handicap, but a person with reddish hair and blue eyes and another trait of his and i interacted with him without thinking about. >> that's what i was mentioning earlier, you really describe his utter humanity and i-- you touch on something quite important with respect to stephen, and i've experienced it in my own life with my throat cancer a few years ago and that is the ability to really focus on living in the

moment. to really understand that, wow, this is a pretty ten use little fragile line which we walk. and it doesn't have to be lou gehrig's disease, but often, it requires something to kind much jump start your humanity and you think, wow, all of a sudden i know what's important and he, according to you, and your description, was the embodiment of that, that he literally made lemonade every damn day. it was remarkable. >> it really was, and that, i think, was one of the great lessons that i tried to impart and i admire him very much for that. >> in fact, in that light, how would you describe his personality in general? >> the amazing thing. because he could do that, because he would not be beaten down by all of these what would for most of us be physical issues, he was able-- he was an optimistic person.

he had a great sense of humor, he had a great energy, and we were going to go to-- one said, hey, leonard, there's tourists stuff and for those who don't have the cam in your own-- >> please describe what punting on the cam means. >> to me it's a recipe for tipping over, it's a flat, shallow boat and someone stands on the back like in venice, i guess, but standing up on the platform. >> and when we went to do that, first, he showed that he wanted to join us, so we said, sure, come along and after packing him up takes 10 minutes and getting him in the van, a special specially designed van with a

ramp and he had to be turned, his wheelchair has to be bolted down if there was a rough ride he wouldn't go flying and reverse at the other end and carried down, i don't know, 20, 30, uneven stone steps to the boat. and then on the boat, just getting him, had one-- he gets detached from his machine, he can't communicate from his computer and wheelchair, not taking the wheelchair on his boat and one takes his head and one his feet and a carry him down the stairs and all i'm thinking of it neck ache, neck ache. and then they climb in and that's precarious and if they slip he goes into the river he can't swim he's going to drown. and i'm stepping in and lose my balance and almost fall off. >> all in one boat. >> i must be scaring him. he's laughing at me.

and he's the one that got in. when they're moving, he has to go with his eyes left or right and turn his head to look at what he wanted to look at. with all of those difficulties and you know, he loved it. and he did everyday things like that, he didn't let his disability stop him. >> and you also, as i recall, you helped like everybody else, punting on the cam and they want to have strawberries and champagne and so you help him having a little bit of zip dedoo da in his cam punting. >> and i think what he had, that's okay, they could carry me up after him. >> that's right, i don't know how relative this theory is, but i feel like a hundred million dollars. are you pondering what i'm pondering. >> i think so i am. but recently i was sitting outside on my plank which i made max, and i thought to

myself, leonard, why does neil bore you? >> not bad, pinky answering a spot. >> i thought you were going to break into song again. >> i could, i could say it's a great big universe and we're all really puny tiny specks about the size of mickey rooney, but i don't know if that's the road you want to go down. you poke me with a stick and you'll be sorry. >> i already am, rob. >> i don't blame, you i don't blame you. your book, obviously is full of just glorious stories about you being with stephen and as you just described, his love of life. and is there a particular moment that you encapsulate the whole experience if that's possible? >> there's so many stories and different directions, but i

talked about one time i had a near death experience. >> yes, you did. >> i had a bleeding, internal bleeding in my intestines that they couldn't find the source of and anyway, when i get back to cambridge the next time and i was over that and we were having dinner and after dinner started talking and he knew that had happened and he started talking about it. and talking about his near death experiences, which were at least, i would say at least one a year. >> i was going to say numerous, numerous. >> numerous. one of the problems with his disease is he had difficulty breathing eventually and creeps up your body and so he was-- because of that, weak lung, he was subject to a lot of lung infections and he had an stoma.

>> stoma. >> every year it seemed he ended up in the hospital with a lung infection and several times his family or his caree ers -- care givers didn't know if he would pull through. he said at the end of one of those he was talking about, he said, yeah, that's tough, but back to physics. and my son nickolai you mentioned earlier used to say in high school that basketball was life and he so i said to stephen, told him that, i said, but to you physics is life, isn't it. he gives me his no and started typing, love is life. and i thought that was fitting for the person who is the most famous physicist in the world who i'm working with all of this time and getting to know, you know, that's his humanity coming out and he's not a -- in

his essence, he's not a physicist, he's a person who loves other people and-- >> yeah, and i think we even, when i was reading your book, we discussed, i told you how much that really impacted me, the fact that he wrote, it's love, the meaning of life or the-- and it really was, it was profound and there are many instances like that in the book, folks, where you kind of stop and reread it and reread it and in the context of who leonard is talking about, it really is impactful. in that light, was stephen an eight thee -- atheist, an agnostic. >> he was an atheist, he did not want to talk about it didn't want to insult anybody

or argue against god. people sometimes interpret his books, our book, as an argument against god. what it said god was a supernatural being that started off universe. stephen's theory showed that the universe could start from nothing and the book the grand design. we're saying didn't need to have god we're not arguing against god or pretending that we found evidence against god. i think he was a spiritual person, a lot of episodes in the book that illustrate that and also he went to church that he went to church with elaine, i know. >> yeah, who, by the way, who was a pretty religious women. >> all three-- both of his wives and girlfriend at the end were all religious women and he would go

to church and [inaudible] -- and so yeah, he was not-- he was not -- you know, i think that religion and science don't have to be like that with each other. >> no, in fact, you cite in the book, you kind of just touched on it briefly about the kind of heat you took when the grand design was released and i believe you got a phone call from his secretary, who said, oh, my god. you've got to help us, the folks are freaking out. you've written a book and you disparage god and you kind of had to do a little bit of housekeeping. >> well, yeah, you know, the book was-- i knew the book was coming out that day or, it was in england. i was here at my daughter's

school and it was 8:00 in the morning here or something and judith, his assistance called me, very frantic, leonard, leonard, have you read the time? >> yeah, the new york times i read is every day, i'm in california i read is every day. >> know the new york time, the london times. how many people three of them on the with he is-- west side read london times. >> it's an explosion, i don't know, it's an emergency, we can't handle, the reporters are calling us, we can't handle it, you have to do the interviews, go read it and let's talk. i ended up doing 97 interviews, by the way based on that. >> what? >> the london times headline was, hawking colon, and that's a mistake already, and i guess what they do they talk the shorter of the two name, hawking colon, god did not

create the universe. i said, judith, that's not what we said. this is what they say we said. we were condemned by the bishop of england, from all different corners, from different countries. but, you know, very other hand get other people to know about the book. >> or books. >> and it was very provocative and if you actually read the book you could see we weren't saying it, but it was an interesting and compelling book. so, yeah, that's -- that was actually a very stressful time. i mean, they would call me and can you drop off burbank for 10 minutes and cnn and then fox, i was on fox, fox news wants to interview you. >> yeah. >> and some of them are

attacking you for-- >> yeah. >> and saying, this is a physics book, it's a physics book. no one cares about-- as my mother would say, what could be so upsetting in a physics book. >> isn't that great? like i wake up in the morning and find out i pissed off god, right? >> yeah, i don't know. and we were talking about it and on espn we were talking about the book. and someone sent me a copy of men's health magazine, maybe push-ups in the book, i don't know what that was about, but it was talked about everywhere. >> you expanded your readership, why not? >> yeah, but -- yeah, we did, and people got to know, at least they heard about the book. >> sure. >> but it was based on a misconstruele. >> before we move on and folks

to watch us, what did your work with stephen teach you about yourself? that's pretty much the question. what did you learn about yourself vis-a-vis stephen? >> well, i gained perspective. i so many times since then, look what he had to go through and you're whining about a headache or you smashed your car or whatever it is, i go, now, on a scale from one to-- i can't even move, this is more like one. so don't get upset about it where i used to go, this is a nine, are you kidding me my brand new car got smashed up, right? and now i go, now, i can still walk away from it, right. and that, plus, that's what i learned about myself, that take things too serious and i also learned, some of it rubbed off the disability to make it not matter to you. so the perspective is one thing, but taking charge of your own thoughts and having it

not matter to you. i think is even more important. >> yeah. i think so, too. it really truly is a marvellous book that you don't have to be, dude, i make my living doing cartoon voices and it was utterly relatable, utterly readable and really a total joy and there are aspects in the book that we can all apply to ourselves. yeah, it's-- you done good, kid. it really is a hell of a book. are we ready-- i mean, it's already 20 minutes to 6:00 in the pacific and i want to make sure that we have everybody-- can we go ahead and do that now? >> questions? >> yes. is that okay with you? >> it's good with me. >> great. let's-- let me go to the q & a thing here and make sure i don't push the wrong button and set off an international event. let's see. oh, here is a good one,

anonymous atetendee, one of my favorite people. says were you ever intimidated by mr. hawking. i guess right off the book when you got the phone call and initial settle down and go holy -- did you then go, oh, my god and then oh, my god, now? >> when i first met him, why, you know, and even in the early meetings, not just the first time of course, because you walk in and he's icon and he's so brilliant and i'm not. but-- >> we'll be the judge of that. >> yes. describe what he does. >> fair enough. >> so i must be brilliant, too for-- >> that goes without saying. >> he did not suffer fools well. he -- yeah. >> were you concerned in that

vein, were you concerned that when you started working with him that you were going to say something that he would perceive as stupid or silly or-- he called you and i get that, but were you going oh, geez, don't screw this up, leonard? >> now, i can it's-- not that i had that worry before i asked anything, but at times after i asked something. >> yeah. >> i was kicking myself for saying something that he might find stupid, yeah. >> and-- >> and most the time we were looking at his current work and it was pretty complicated and i'm reading his papers. you know, i would ask him a question and i would think, oh, maybe i should have asked the extra question, but, okay, i was right -- i wrote -- so we would work together and there

and then split up, at the end of our working together at cambridge we would assign each other things to do so he would write this section, this section, i would write this section and e-mail them to each other and read them before we next meet. almost always in cambridge and once a month at cal tech where i was on the cack tult faculty and i could see him there, too. one time i was writing the passage and i don't get his research, i don't get this particular point. so he was doing that work with a guy named jim at uc santa barbara and i spent the whole day and jim explained what they were doing this element of it. i go back and write it all up and i go to back to cambridge the next time to see him and he's reviewing that part that i had written. and he's going, no, this is wrong, no, this is wrong. it's in way and i'm going, what? what? i-- i'm sure i understood it and i don't know what to say and actually at one point i'm

looking at my old notes, exactly what he said and jim said and finally i said, look, this is my notes from talking to jim. and i show him. look, look, this is his words not what you're saying, it's this and he goes to me, oh, no, that's what we use today think, but we changed our mind. >> wow! >> no one told me, about this. >> we changed our mind. >> we changed our mind, yeah. and the research he was doing was the work in progress. >> but he didn't tell you. >> an e-mail would have been nice, by the way i know you're working on explaining this, but-- >> well, in fact, in the book what i love about your relationship with stephen is you are unafraid to discuss in the book your frustration with, you know, essential the most famous physicist of my time as

a layperson. you talked about your frustration, hey, man, if you're going to do this, let's do it, i'm paraphrasing. but you were writing together and he essentially dropped the ball and you called him on it, that's pretty ballsy, man and. >> i was frustrated -- i'm not going to tell the whole story, but i was frustrated at that point and then little things, frustrations working with him. how someone would walk in his office and suddenly this guy is talking to him for an hour. and this will just take a minute and a minute is a euphemism in came cambridge for a while. what he meant this won't take a minute. at first i was naive, come in for a minute. do you mind? i didn't mind. they would just ignore that and

come in. stephen was fine with-- i don't know how he got anything done because he was so interrupted. not that you can say go away. what he would do and he didn't want to talk to them he'd ignore them. when we were working together, they would come in, hey, leonard. i don't know, we're kind of busy, stephen, whatever i would say. they would keep coming and stand in front of him and ask their questions and he would just-- he would not answer and ignore them and keep talking to me. and face be pointed at me and look at me like his eyes would not go to the person. he would look at me and i'd say something and he'd answer me, the guy would just be standing there, sentences floating in the air and eventually get tired and walk away. >> wow. >> well, that-- >> if it works for that guy, and actually, this is a great question. my friend cecelia white, i

believe a chemistry student, i'm not sure, forgive me, but she said did you ever collaborate on any physics problems together? did he inspire you to want to learn about eastern areas of physics. >> there was one, there was one that i had -- i was interested in why we remember-- okay, well, i'll give you a little preamble, sorry. >> go ahead. >> the equations of physics are reversible so you could take, study, take data on the current state of a system, you know, where everything is and the house moving, and a snapshot, and then the laws of physics tell you how that developed making it either forward or backward. there's no difference, okay? >> right. >> and so now obviously, if you

see a film, you could tell the difference. not just-- i'm not talking about someone walking backwards and then going out the door instead of walking forward and going in the door. things like smoke dissipates. but like that, someone walking backwards, and someone could do that, it's not inherently in time. but if you see a burning thing and the smoke spreads, you'll never see the cloud of smoke that concentrates into something. okay? that is a statistical-- that's a statistical explanation for that. okay, so that's what the arrow of time comes from. it comes from a statistical they think where even though the laws are reversible, if the state that something is in is special, let's just say a very ordered state, you have a bunch of dominoes and they're standing on the table just right, right?

so, okay, and then someone moves the table, they might fall. >> right. >> and they might fall this way, that way, a million ways they could fall, but there's only one way they could stand up just right or a lot fewer ways. you could jiggle the table and they're not going to pop up to the exact configuration because that was special, so move into another of a zillion configurations and that's what the arrow of time is. i was wondering psychologically, how does that work? why is it that we remember, given that the laws are reversible, why is it that we remember the past and we don't remember the future? okay? >> yeah. >> and somehow you would think that that might be connected to smoke spreading, but how does that work? so i asked stephen about that and he told me, as soon as-- one of the, we had a couple of interactions about physics questions and he said i wrote a paper on that in 1985 or

something. >> oh, geez. >> so i pick up that paper, but in typical stephen fashion he was confusing having said something with having proved it. >> oh, my god. >> so i go back to look at that paper and he indeed says, you know, he says something about that, but he doesn't really give any details and show how it works so i'm really left at square one and eventually, todd, a friend of mine i do a lot of physics with wrote a paper on that and published a paper on that i think it's called-- i think the paper is called "why we remember the past and not the future", but anyway that was a time i at least talked to stephen about that problem, but i didn't work on it directly with him. >> yeah, well-- >> remember the future, it sounds like a, you know, a led zeppelin album cover title.

here is one from -- a really interesting question, who says what you just said, the quote we changed our mind closed quotes, is why physics seems out out of reach. and quote translate it" closed quote for nonexperts? >> i think, first of all, there's a lot of physics that's pretty settled that people can read about and very exciting. i mean, you don't always have to be reading about what people are working on at the time. so i guess i would say first step, i would say that most popular science books, relatively, quantum theory, evolution of the universe, they're pretty well-agreed upon

not necessarily cutting edge. there are books on the cutting edge, and that's like a different genre. to explain those to the general audience, it isn't really that much different than explaining something that's already settled as long as that state that you're running about isn't changing while you're writing. >> while you're writing, yeah. >> when that happens, as in this case, it does -- it gets difficult and you have to just, you know, do your best to keep up with how it's changing and make it clear in the book, which most books don't do, we at the end of the book talk about what, how this must be confirmed or verify ared -- verified. and what part is stephen's latest theory versus settled theory. >> and i must say, folks, that was also one of the things that was helpful as a layperson,

apart from being eminently readable and human, you have very appropriate and nicely placed footnotes that explain just what you read in a way that is-- was very understandable for someone like myself and very helpful, which is actually-- i tell you what, you guys have some questions, are you sure you didn't queue this up in advance this is picture. katherine lloyd with a follow-up questions, i just finished the book and enjoyed the physics as well as the human story. i rest my case. >> i graduated in physics in 1965 and had my career at jpl. and you wrote that not everything is verified. any major changes since it was published in 2010. i'm thinking you're talking about, would that be the grand

design? >> yes, some people are carrying out the theory further, but the technology, the difficult with some-- finding some support for that theory or some other ideas we need better technology in particular the cosmic microwave background radiation. ... that you didn't get there until the early '90s, just a few years ago, so sometimes these things take a long time. >> in fact, if i'm not mistaken i don't know exactly the

specifics but i'm steins theory of general relativity was essentially proven only a few years ago, is that correct? >> we can't prove that, you know that. since we using, talking about the specific context i won't say -- the first evidence for that three was correct by the first observation that confirmed a prediction that was different. it was just about four years after the theory was completed. the theory was completed in 1915 and it was 1919 observation that showed that confirmed his prediction. although there are those who -- that's what happened. there have been other tests. the gps system that everybody

uses, it's there interesting if you think of general relativity which is a theory that applies generally to very, a theory that you need to use as opposed to the old theory. you need to use gentle and more extreme situation, , large masss or very concentrated mass or something like that. but actually there is, it affects our lives because you actually need gps systems would be widely inaccurate, they would just be wrong if we did know general relativity. general relativity is very important and it's the gps systems to get around us all our maps, navigation. just a fact when you type in i want to go to starbucks, if you're driving, the fact that you get there is thanks to einstein. >> i have to tell you that's the sort of stuff i love about what

you guys and girls do in your discipline. my grandfather was a physicist and an electrical engineer. i remember in this very house standing with my first generation ipad the fuse ago watching as the mars rover landed because they dropped i a camera to watch the landing, and if my genius grandfather came back and saw me standing there with a devise this sick that didn't keep up with no cords, no ray tube, no plug and and i sam watching the surface of mars, this is a really authentically larded men to its a that's witchcraft, dude. so i love being aware of i'm holding this device my head, i can find a starbucks in mongolia. i love that you pointed that

out. by the way, i know we're almost done, and again thank you very much for this opportunity but it was something you wrote in the book that i loved so much. obviously, it is i presume based on other writings but you said it turns out isaac newton was an ass come at a a love that. i thought oh, my god, how do we know that? >> we know a lot about newton. a lot of people in britain even in the time about his papers come his book. he was actually a hoarder. he could've been on one of these reality shows. he kept grocery lists, every grocery list he ever wrote. the boxes and boxes and boxes of his work, his writing, letters. we know a lot about newton. >> that was one of the things that maybe laugh out loud because you wrote newton is an

ass. i just love that. people go, whatever. shut your mouth. equal and often reaction, loblaw law but anyway, i know that i think we're pretty much speech thanks. i think you should take us out with a song. >> here we go. these of the countries that of come up since the first song was written. and we go dash ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> goodbye. >> goodbye, everyone. >> thank you all for joining us tonight. please be sure to pick up copy

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