biographies and memoirs. first edward ball looks at white supremacy through the lens of his great-great-grandfather. a member of the ku klux klan in louisiana during the years after the civil war. biographer larry tie recounts a life of the late republican senator joe mccarthy of wisconsin. and later, cerebrum discusses her national book award memoir, the yellow house. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern. enjoy book tv, this weekend every weekend on cspan2. ♪ ♪ you are watching book tv on cspan2. every week and with the latest non- fiction books and author. as a public service and brought you today by your television provider. student welcome us 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, hades, jamaica ♪ ♪ guatemala bolivia and brazil. ♪ ♪ and probably even pasadena. [laughter] thank you rob. my pleasure. select thank you everyone for joining us for this evening's event. my name is kim sutton. i'm the host at tonight's event. before we begin i want to encourage you all to encourage you to check out our lineup of upcoming virtual events. one of our many upcoming events very looking forward to is tiffani d croft in conversation about cross us to book, say it louder.

black voters, white narratives and saving our democracy. that's next friday the 18th. as well, please determine to follow us on twitter, facebook an instagram. tonight, we are honored to welcome leonard saari, and rob paulson. leonard received his phd and theoretical civics of the university of california at berkeley. was an alexander fellow at the max planck institute. it was on the faculty of california institute of technology. his previous books include the bestsellers the grand design, and a brief history of time. both with steven hawking. subliminal which was the winner of the literary science award. and war of the world. as well as elastic, same and serena on the upright thinkers.

he joins us this evening for conversation about his new book, steven hawking, and memoir of friends in physics. steven hawking touched the lives of millions. recalling his nearly two decades of hawking's collaborator and son brings us complex men into focus in a unique and deeply personal portrayal. he puts us in the room as hocking indulges his passion, shares his feeling on love, death and disability in grapples with the deep questions of fill philosophy of billick and have physics. it's deeply affecting accounts of friendship teaches us not just about the nature and practice of physics but also about life in the human capacity to overcome daunting obstacles. he is joined in conversation today by voice actor rob paulson. paulson's many voice actor for nearly three decades and is the voice of pinky from pinky and the ring, raffaella and

donatella from teenage mutant ninja turtles and karl please joe weser from jimmy neutron. his one and i may peabody award and three emmys first activities memoir voice ironically a man who uses his voice for work found himself with throat cance cancer. but he has thankfully recovered and is now the spokesperson for the h and ca head neck cancer program this evening's event will have a q&a, please use the q&a button at the bottom of your screen if you like to ask a question. if someone has typed a question you'd like to know the answer to, please click the thumbs up but most importantly, is considered supporting leonard by purchasing his bookplate and link will be shared in the chat in a couple of minutes. leonard, rob, such a pleasure

to welcome you both, thank you for joining us. >> great pleasure. thank you. well said. and as an arm chair physicist who somehow makes his living doing essentially what got me in trouble in high school, i can tell you that this is a marvelous book. and so, thank you very much leonard for lowering your standards in respect to speakers, thank you for having me on board. >> thank you for doing this rob. >> not all my pleasure. >> is not the usual dry physics. [laughter] ufo disclosure, your fabulous comment really handsome genius child, nikolai helps me with my own social media marketing. in the apple did not fall far from the tree my friend, he is a delightful, smart, bright young man. i'm very grateful to have my life thank you. well done. and just in case there are folks watching are transfixed

by all of the stuff surrounding us, but may not be aware of steven hawking as others could you quickly explain to us what steven hawking's place is in physics in the history of physics? >> steven went to school in the 60s he went to oxford first and went back to school at cambridge. at the beginning of his graduate school. he had a revelation after that. before that it was kind, due to his illness he said if you want to dedicate his last years which was basically how did we get here, head of the

universe get here? why is life the way does? those are not questions to borowski in the 1960s. in the systems,. [inaudible] >> the areas he chose to study, to address those questions the first one is very obvious. it's the beginning of the universe. and the other was black hull, less obvious. but not very people interested in those areas either. people thought you could not ever observe them. can't look back to the beginning of the universe are never going to find the black hole. so i study them theoretically? turned out as a footnote as technology advanced we can study those things.

they're very famous picture some a few years ago of a black hole. but back then it seemed like we better get there. there's some people who were working on it. in the iconic is assists description he said. [laughter] made his blood boil because he was so frustrated with the quality of the research. goes into that area that steven walked in. steven with his yearnings started studying in the 1960s made great progress but the early universe through einstein's general relativity and knowing here he did not apply quantum theory to that. so he made great progress in understanding early universe and black hull. then later in the 1970s he started to apply wanton physics it was very exciting.

he realized that you can't ignore quantum theory in those areas that people have been doing. annie found good results. the sum total of all of this and his work after that as he took this field of cosmology, the study of the early universe and blackhole as it's related to that. he took a hermit backwater nothing field to the one of the hottest fields in physics. and his combining of general quantum theory as a pioneer was really probably looking for what is the holy grail of physics which is united the theory made great steps and how we could think about that and he lifted the study of black hull in cosmetology to make it not only respectful but popular. >> no, no effect or right.

obvious and we now know that steven had a terrific movie made about him and which i think eddie redman run an oscar for that performance. my suspicion, having grown up the physicists, when i grew up was like most albert einstein. you have a feeling that steven essentially thought of as the next rock is assists rockstar? was he another einstein? >> he was another einstein. he'd roll his eyes and smiled people said that. he knew who was to have that bar to live up to. it's a pretty high-power bar. had most of his major discoveries the first ten, 15 years of his career.

he was a leader, one of the best in his generation. one of the leaders of his generation. i don't think we should try to quantify that. they got a good solid description of him and when you would agree with. >> if i'm not mistaken einstein came up with his energy equals mass times the speed of light squared theory at 25. back yes 1905. people misunderstand how physics work. you get a brilliant idea and it squared. and tells the people in its aoe apparatus or the theory of relative, it was based on certain principles that is particular the speed of light is constant. that is something that was

implied by maxwell's work in the 1860s. in investigating that and building a theory on adjusting newton's laws to take that into account to develop a theory of relativity. and where the consequences of one of the things he discovered after writing out that theory. speck and it became its own, sort of a metaphor for all the cool stuff. i still remember we are the same age. and the opening of the twilight zone has that. it became. >> people don't know this. i was entertainment at the last supper. [laughter] and jesus would've parted. [laughter] he knew a thing or two. >> that's right. we have to get off the space-time continuum lady and gentlemen. i know this because i read the

book. has you first meet steven? >> guest: read my first two books. and one is called you and trent and what it really means and how over the centuries the ideas developed, how it's used. that was a very important topic. and then he read my second book which was simon's rainbow, search for beauty of physics and that was a memoir about my relationship. was it caltech in my 20s. he liked to those books. and he was looking for someone to write with. i think he wanted someone with a sense of humor. and someone who is writing he likes. i think most of all he wanted somebody that understood physic physics. so one day i get a call from my agents and, it's a bizarre

question but would you like to write a book about them? and i was like yes. speck are you kidding me? i can say again folks, having read the book, i make my living in the funny business. you do have an excellent sense of humor. it comes across beautifully it truly does. you mentioned the dryness of physics. you have found a way, clearly mr. hawking had a wicked sense of humor too. and you were able to translate that for the reader. in fact i know you began working with steven when he was sort of in his full-blown lou gehrig's disease. what surprised you witnessing firsthand as steven worked? was anything that made you go wow this is pretty remarkable? in addition to the fact he was doing what he was doing in his

physical state. >> guest: it's really fascinating. again it's too long to discuss at this answer. sue edit your book man. most physics can be looked at in two different ways. one is algebraically with equations or analysis. and the others geometrically. you have to ask understand both. most of the work most people do is using equations. steven obviously can't do that , could not write equations, could not move. he would have an amazing memory where he could do some equations just like a grand master replay 20 people blindfolded. he remember each game and what to do. i was always in all of that.

i cannot play one good game of chess. he did have that ability. it is too difficult for him and put them at a disadvantage really surprise men did not learn for a while. he worked on his own language and geometry to treat the problems he's treating. they get ideas and analyze the situations of interest to him. there's light beams and particle beams and he's analyzing how they look and how they are interacting using pictures, using geometric relationships in his head. yes this friend and said that

was a superpower. speck wow. by doing that is not only avoiding the handicap ready equations but he actually had a new angle that others did not have that allowed them to make the discovery that had insights others didn't. because they did not have that approach. so they took a disability and turned into an advantage. sue and that's interesting. in the book you cite how people are sightless who find a way to really enhance their sense of hearing or smell or taste or whatever. do you feel ultimately, or maybe steven may have suggested this. do you feel openly that his debilitating illness ended up being something that actually helped him in his discipline? sue mackey told me it did. he told me that first as i mentioned that gave them a

purpose. i was driving him for anybody. it was a very hard subject. you have to put them very long hours all alone, structural with a pad and paper. bernie, california's burning right now. see your family and friends but now you're working 12 hours a day or months every day just to finish her work. onto the first thing it did for him as it gave him that drive to answer these questions. gives him the focus et cetera was a big advantage to him. and apart from his geometric

makeup. it would not of done as well if he had not had that this abilit ability. >> host: that's interesting especially having a celebrated prolific author part i've written one book and had a gentleman help me. do physicists go through what a layperson mccall a writer's block? that is to say when you are working, on a theory or you are working on something you're postulating, you have your own premises you are working on, do you find your connection go through writer's block to? as you mentioned you are alone. are there points at you say i am stuck. >> that's wire at the book not just for physics but stephen's personal life. i don't like the mythology around steven. he is a person. i want the book to really expose how we do physics, but

also what his life was like every day. and yes, just like in the movies you mentioned. i look into the fireplace and the answer comes to me. [laughter] we would all be physicists. back would all come up with great theories. it is very difficult. and yes, richard had very long periods of non- productivity. he had no ideas in here get pressed. in those times he was still teaching his courses. you concentrate on teaching. that would fulfill them and take up his time because he is waiting for some idea to come. so it happens all you do a problem and between problems. so between problems are going okay, i just wrote a paper or maybe ten papers.

maybe i want topic are three topics. i had a lot of ideas. but i run out of ideas. at that all the papers on that topic, which i work on now? sometimes you something in the back of your head that you are curious about. you just move on and sometimes you don't. you could be sitting there like a writer who does not know what to write about. and while your jager problems, he also minor crises like that too. because you're going okay, i need to get from here to there to answer the questions that i'm trying to answer this research. and you go i think this is how you figured out. no, this is i figured out, no. you keep bumping your head against walls. for a day or a month in promising direction. and that does not work. and then you finally get to a point sometimes for you have no more ideas. you've got to a certain point in your research the help with what you want to show or you have an idea we want to go with it because the math is not working out. so yeah, it's very full of

frustrating and difficult times. steven spent coming drove his wife crazy. when he hit that wall, he would turned up super super loud and annoyed everyone in the house. could block out the rest of the world for him. he would spend day, after day, after day, after day just getting past that. so that good gracious. and by the way, the thing it sounds like that as part of your mission was to for a lack of a better term, cumin eyes steven. 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 d hollywood and made him somebody that became your friend. often with the usual

frustrations that people have. with other people. was there a point at which your work with steven, the fact that he was wheelchair-bound and was nonverbal, was like not a big deal. was it basically stevens got a different shirt on today. that it really was not an issue. you got used to it. >> guest: that's a good question, rob. there's so much of that development in the book. the answer is yes. when i first got there to work with him, i felt bad for him. you could see the discomfort he was in. or should have been. things were happening to him like a bead of sweat going down his forehead that he had to wipe away, remer that story. see what i do. and that is one of the seminole moments of the book. because it is the sort of

thing 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, like oh my god that would drive me nuts. or if my nose was itching it would be -- it doesn't matter if you are muhammad ali, steven hawking, or rob paulson guy on the street, the things we all take for granted that all the sudden was a central focus of this world class physicist. the way you described that was really remarkable. and very empathic. >> guest: thank you. i could not understand how he can go thursday without being able to do that. and maybe they'd notice or maybe not. so first i felt sorry for him a lot. again, as i got to know him better i was like no don't feel sorry for him.

he actually was quite inspiring to me by the way he handled those things. he really change the way he thought so is not that he had the sweat dripping down or the itch or bedtime where he's sleeping and he wants to turn but he can't turn has to wait for others to turn him and all these other obstacles and tortures the rest of us would experience in that condition. he learned not to mind that. and he learned not to let them bother him. the greek philosophy, stoic philosophy which is that happiness, true happiness and lasting happiness comes from only within you. it is not from the things you accomplished in the material from any other person. all of that can be taken away and is subject too many things beyond your control.

but we have control over self-satisfaction and how you feel about yourself. and your whole mind. steven really did that. once i realized that's what was going on, i did not do sorry for him anymore. yes he is a person with a handicap it he had reddish hair, blue eyes and had other traits. we interacted, i interacted with him without even thinking about. >> host: that's what i mentioned earlier. you mentioned his utter humanit humanity. you touch on something quite important in respect to steven. i have experienced in my own life with my throat cancer a few years ago. that is the ability to really focus on living in the moment. too really understand that wow, this is a pretty tenuous little fragile line in which we walk. and it does not have to be lou

gehrig's disease. but often it requires something to jumpstart your humanity. and you think wow, all the sudden i know what is important. and he come according to your description, was the embodiment of that. that he literally made lemonade every damn day. it was remarkable. >> guest: it really was pretty think that one of the great lessons i tried to empower. and i admire him very much for that. what in fact, in that light, how would you describe his personality in general? >> guest: because he could do that and because he could not be beaten down by what for most of us obey physical issues, he was an optimistic person. he had a sense of humor, he had a great energy. we were going and he said hey

leonard do some tourist stuff,. [inaudible] please describe what punting on the cam means. >> that's like a recipe for tipping over. it's a very last summon stanza back on a platform. it's coming up on the platform for hvac and the vote is -- a push of holy to the bottom of the river to propel you along. so we went to do that. so he showed his face he wanted to join us for its researcher come along. packing them up takes ten minutes. getting them into the van because he is especially designed van in the wiltshire has to go up a ramp, be turned in certain way which is difficult. his wiltshire hasid bolted down soft as any rough ride he would not go flying.

and at the reverse on the other end he had be carried down 20, 30 uneven stone steps to the vote. and then on the vote, they had one -- city gets detached detached from his machine he can't communicate from his computer, from his wiltshire because you can't take the wiltshire on the vote. one takes his head one takes his thing carries them down the stairs. and i think of his neck ache, neck ache. they could easily slip if he goes in the river he obviously can't swim. i'm stepping in and i am must fall off. and i think oh my gosh very. >> this is in one vote. and i looked down he's laughing at me. and then when they're moving it is isa going left or right and they would turn his head just what he wanted to look at. with all of those difficulties

he loved it. and he did everyday things like that and he loved it. he did not let his disability stop him. >> host: nu also if i recall you help like everybody else. punting on the cam. they wanted to have strawberries and champagne. so you help them have a little sippy dude off. >> i think i had a glass for every tablespoon he had, but that is okay. [laughter] at the end they could just carry me up after him. so what i don't how relative this theory is mike like $100 million. >> are you pondering recently sitting outside to the plank not bad. for pinky answering foster to break into song again.

it's a great big universe. we are really puny with just tiny specks about the size of mickey rooney. i doubt that exactly is the road you want to go down. you poke me with a stick and you will be sorry. >> i rtm you are both obviously just glorious stories about you being with steven. and as you just described. are there any particular, without giving too much away, is there a particular moment or two you feel are sort of encapsulated if that's even possible. >> guest: there so many stories in different directions. i guess i would talk about one time where i had a near-death experience. sue and yes you did. which i had internal bleeding in my intestines they cannot

find the source of. and anyway, when i get back to cambridge the next time i got over that. and he and i were having dinner. after dinner one night we were talking, he knew it started happening to me and we started talking about it. we talked about all of his near death experiences. were at least one a year. sue and i would say numerous, numerous. switch it one of the problems of the diseases had difficulty breathing eventually it freezes up his body. and so because of that week long he was subject too a lot of lung infections. and i think that may have also exacerbated it. so every year or more he would end up not with a lung infectio infection. he ended up several times with his family or his carers would

think he would not pull through. so we were commiserating a little bit. said once at the end of one of those he talked about yeah that's tough. but then back to physics. and my son who i mentioned earlier, he is to say and high school that basketball is life. so i said steven told him that. it's up to you, physics is life isn't it? and he gives me his knowing starts typing. and what comes out is he says love this life. but that was really fitting for the person who's the most famous physicist in the world that i work with all this time in getting to know. that is a humanity coming out. is not a physicist, he is a person who loves other people i think when i was reading your book we discussed i told

you how much that really impacted me. the fact that he wrote it is love. that meaning of life. and it was profound. there many instances in that book folks we kind of stop and. reporter: it and. reporter: it. and in the context of who leonard is talking about, it really is impactful. in that light, was steven an atheist? was he an agnostic? was he sort of a semi- deist? >> he did not like to talk but that of public, he very much did not want to insult anybody or argue against god. sometimes people interpret these books, our book is an argument against god. we say in that book is god is not necessary to create things

to be some supernatural thing this darted off in the universe. stephen's theory and the grand design. or just saying this could have happened didn't need to have a god we were not arguing against god. we were not pertaining without evidence against god. in fact i think he was very spiritual person i think there is part the book to illustrate that. i think also that he went to church pretty went to church with elaine i know. >> host: was by the way pretty religious woman. >> guest: both of his wives and his girlfriend were all religious people, religious women who would go to church with. and. [inaudible]

[inaudible] and so yeah, he, religion and science don't have to be like that. sue and in fact you cite in the bucket touch briefly on the kind of heat you took when the grand design was released but i believe you got a phone call from his secretary. who said oh my god, you've got to help us. folks are freaking out for you have written a book and you disparage god and you kind of had to do a little housekeeping. >> guest: yeah, the book coming to the book was coming out that day or it was in england. i was that my daughter's school it was eight in the morning or something. she calls me says leonard, leonard have you read the times? yeah i read it a read it every

day. the london times. how many people, there are three of us on the west side i don't read the london times. you must google it. there is an explosion i don't know. it's an emergency we cannot handle, reporters are calling us we can't handle it there interviews go read it let's tal talk. and of doing 97 interviews by the way based on that. the london times headline was talking, first at the rookie mistake. i picked the shorter of the two names to put out there. talking : god did not create the universe. it doesn't matter what we said in this is what they say we sai said. there a lot of people were upset.

we were condemned by the bishop of england. i don't know, all different quarters in different countries. on the other hand got people to know about the book. it was very provocative. you actually read the book you'd see we weren't saying that. but it was a very compelling, interesting book. so yeah. that was actually a very stressful time. they would call me and say can you drive out to burbank for ten minutes on cnn. and i was on fox, fox news once interview. and some of them are delighted some are attacking you. and i think this is a physics book. this is a physics book. nobody gets a subset about

physics. as my mother would say what could be so upsetting and a physics book. >> is not great. i look up in the morning and say i pissed off god, right? back were talking about espn talking about the book. some sent me a copy of men's health magazine. i don't know. i don't know what that was abou about. there are titles talked about everywhere. when you expanded your readership, why not? >> guest: we did. people at least heard about the book. it was all based on a misconstrued rule. >> host: before we move on to the questions of the folks kind enough to watch us, what did the work with steven teach about yourself? that's pretty much the question. what did you learn about

yourself? >> it gave me perspective. so many times since then, look what he had to go through. you are whining about a headache. or you smashed your car or whatever it is. on a scale from 12, i can't even move, this is not even one. so don't get upset about it mike this is a nine a kidding me? and anybody, right? i can still walk away from it right. that was when i learned about myself i take things too seriously. i also learned to think some of it rubbed off the ability to market make it matter to you. the perspective is one thing and taking charge of your own thoughts and having it not matter to you is i think even more important. spit you i think so too. it truly is a marvelous book but you don't have to be -- i

make my living during cartoon voices. and it was utterly relatable, utterly readable. and really, a total joy. and there are aspects in the book we can all apply to ourselves. yeah, you've done good, kid. it really is a hell of a book. are we ready to -- it is artie's 20 minutes to six in the pacific. i want to make sure we have everybody. can we going to do that now? is out of his the? >> that's good with me. great let's try it. what started q&a and make sure i don't push the wrong button and set off an international event. let's see, here's a good one anonymous attendee, one of my favorite people who says were you ever intimidated by mr. hawking? i guess right off the bat.

when you get the phone call after you initially settle down and say holy -- did you then go my god? and then all my god fishing when i first met him even in the early meeting not just the% of course. he walked in and he's an icon and he is so brilliant. and i am not. [laughter] switch it we be the judge of that. [laughter] don't judge me just me by what he does. subject that's right fair enoug enough. that goes without saying. >> host: for you concerned that when you started working with him that you were going to say something that he would perceive as stupid or silly? he called you. i get that.

but you're going jesus don't screw this up, leonard. >> guest: not that i have that worry before i asked anything but times after i asked something. i was kicking myself for forgetting something that he might find stupid. we were looking at his current work that was pretty complicated. and i'm reading his papers and i am asking a question i think maybe i should not ask that question. [laughter] okay, i wrote we would work together there and then we would split up and literally be at the end of our working together at cambridge. huda signage of the things to do so he would write this section, this section and we e-mail them to each other to read them for you next meet

and is almost always in cambridge. once a month he said a month at caltech where i was on the faculty thereto. so go back and forth with each other. for a long time writing this passage i just don't get it. i look at this particular point. so he's doing that work in santa barbara i spent the whole day and explained to me what they were doing in this element of it. i go back and write it all up. i go back to cambridge next time and we are reviewing that part i had written. and he's like note this is wrong, know this is wrong. it's this way. my mike what what? i am sure i understood it. i don't know what to say. actually one point i'm looking at my old notes to see exactly he said, what jim said, i might find look, these are my notes from talking to jim. look, look.

and he goes to me oh no that so used to them but we changed our mind. [laughter] >> wow we changed our mind. >> we changed our mind about the research she was doing was a work in progress. i know you're working on explaining this, in the book what i love about your relationship with steven is you are unafraid to discuss the book your frustration with certainly the most famous physicist of my time as a layperson. you talk about your frustration if you are going to do this, let's do it, i'm paraphrasing. you are writing together. and essentially dropped the ball and called him on it. that's pretty vols he man.

[laughter] >> guest: i was pretty frustrated. i won't give anything away. i won't tell the whole story. i got pretty frustrated at that point. even little things where there are many frustrations with how people just walk into his office pretty been the middle of something and subtly disguised talking to him for an hour. this will just take a minute. and that would be for an hour. actually what he meant was this won't take just a minute. first i was naïve come on in for a minute. and it's a mind if i said i didn't mind they would just ignore that. steven was fine forever how we got anything done. he was always getting interrupted.

he sometimes and mike talked them he would ignore them. we are working together didn't want to be interrupted they committed say hey g mind if we know it's a i don't know were kinda busy but yeah i don't know whatever and they just keep coming. and start asking their question questions. he would not answer, have just ignore them in talking to me. he'd look at me in his eyes when i go to the person for he would look at me, i would say something he would answer me. the guy would just be standing there and eventually he would get tired and walk away. >> host: wow. [laughter] if it works for that guy. actually this is a great question. my friend, i believe a chemistry student. i'm not sure sicilian but she said did you ever collaborate on and the physics problems

together? did he inspire you to want to learn about certain areas of physics? >> guest: there was one. there was one. i was interested in why -- accountability preamble sorry. sue and go-ahead. bq physics is reversible. see you can take the current state of a system, you know everything is how it's moving, a snapshot. and then the laws of physics tells you how that develops and make you go forward and backward in time for there's no difference. okay? >> host: right. >> guest: now obviously pca film you can tell the difference. i'm not talk about someone walking backwards and then going out the door instead of going forward and in the door. dings like smoke dissipates.

but like that, someone walking backward someone could do that if they wanted to. is not inherently backward in time. there's a burning thing and the smoke spreads you will never see smoke concentrate into somethin something. that is a statistical explanation for that. okay? so that's where it comes from. it comes from a statistical thing where, even though the laws are reversible at the state get something in its very special. let's say a very ordered state preamble bench of dominoes their each standing on the table just right. and then someone moves the table they might fall. they might fall, this way, that way, there's a million ways they could fall. but there is only way they can stand up just right for a lot

fewer ways. so they're not going to pop up into your exact initial configuration. that was special. so they can move into his billion other configurations. that is what the arrow of time is. i was wondering psychologically, how does that work? why is it that you remember differences that laws are reversible? why is it that we remember the past and we don't remember the future? okay? somehow you would think that might be connected to the smoke spreading, how does that work? so i asked steven about that. we had a couple interactions about physics. and he says i wrote a paper on that in 1985 or something. [laughter] so i dig up that paper but in typical steven fashion he was confusing having said

something and having proved it. see what oh my god. >> guest: i have back a look at the paper and he indeed said something about that. but he does not give any details or show how works. i'm really back to square one. eventually a friend of mine that i do a lot of physics with an eye wrote a paper on that and published it explaining it. i think the papers called why we remember the passage not the future? anyway, that was a time that i talked to steven about that problem. but i did not work on it directly with him. sue hunter member the future. that sounds like a lead album title cover. we changed our mind, feels out

of reaches so many were developing finding some scientific research and translate it into something interested nonexperts? >> guest: i think first of all there's a lot of physics it is subtle very exciting. : : not necessarily cutting-edge into explain those to the audience isn't really that much different than explaining

something that is already settled as long as what you running about isn't changing what you're writing. >> when that happens, in this case, it gets difficult and you have to do your best to keep up on how it's changing make it clear in the book of the speculation versus, what we do at the end of the book we talk about how this might be confirmed or verified and what part of it is versus settle. >> i must say, that was one of the things it was really 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 was very understandable for someone like myself and very helpful, you guys have some questions, are you sure you didn't keep this up in advance, these guys are perfect, kathryn comes up with a follow-up question, i just finished the book and enjoyed it as well as the human story, i rest my case, i graduated from cornell in 1965 and spent my working career at jpl, you indicated that not everything you wrote was complete the verified. have there been any major changes since it was published in 2010, i presume you're talking about without be the grand design for 2010. >> some people have been carrying it further but the technology and the difficulty with support of the theory and

other ideas, we need better technology with the radiation, the big bang, the idea is minute details about and supporting evidence for these ideas, it just hasn't gotten there yet, sometimes you have to wait a long time, for example in the 60s people thought i'm never going to see when then there was a candidate they were studying, and it was early '90s, they didn't have an image of a blackpool until a few years ago, sometimes these things take a long time. >> in fact if i'm not mistaken, i don't know exactly the specifics but einstein was only proven a few years ago.

>> since were using and talking about specific context, the first evidence for that. was the first observation that confirmed a prediction in the theory that was different to use, there was about four years after the period was completed in 1915 and 1919 that showed and confirming that those who crush the statistics, that is what happened there. there had been other, the gps system that everybody uses, it's very interesting because you think of general which is the theory that applies generally --

a theory that you need to use as a pers intern opposed to the old theory, and for more extreme situations and with the early universe and something like that. but actually we infect our lives because you actually need the gps that would be wildly inaccurate and broad it can be general or very important of the gps system that gets us all around. when you type in one of those starbucks, but if you are driving, the fact that you get there is by einstein. >> i have to tell you that is the stuff that i love about what you guys and girls do in your discipline, my grandfather was an electrical engineer and

speaking of jpl, i remember standing with my first generation ipad a few years ago watching the mars rover landing because they dropped a camera to wash the landing in my genius grandfather came back and saw me standing there with the device this thick that did not heat up with no cords, no way, no plug and said i'm watching the circus of mars, this is a man that would say this is witchcraft so i loved being aware of i'm holding this device in my hand, i can find a starbucks in mongolia and i love that you pointed that out, i know were almost done and thank you very much for this opportunity but there was something that you wrote in the book that i love so

much and obviously presumed based on other writings but you said it turns out that it was a [bleep], how do we know that. >> we know a lot about newton, a lot of people written from the entire and he was actually a hoarder, he could've been on a reality show. >> he kept grocery list that he ever wrote and boxes and boxes of his work, his writing, we know a lot about newton. >> that was one thing that made me laugh out loud, you wrote newton is an, i just love that, people are like whatever and i might shut your mouth, he would have opposite reactions but anyway i know, i think were

pretty much -- >> i'll tell you what, here we go, these are the countries that have come up since the first song was written. here we go. >> sing♪ ♪ ♪ goodbye. >> by everybody, thank you so much, thank you for joining us tonight, please be sure to pick up a copy and we hope to see you again very soon. >> representative rick larson, democrat from washington recently joined book tv to discuss the books hes