>> rose: welcome to the program, on this new year's eve, we look back at one of our favorite programs. my conversation with astrophysicist neil degrasse tyson. >> a scientist working for a decade to get this result. they realized that the elements on the periodic table that we might remember from chemistry class, owe their origin to thermal new clear fusion in the cores of stars. fusion, light elements under ehigh temperatus, coming together to make heavy elements. if they only stayed in stars, that would not be interesting. but these particular stars also happen to explode and scatter this enrichment across the galaxy. and this enrichment, carbon, night ro again, oxygen, silicon, all of these elements scatter into gas clouds that then collapse and form next generation star systems.

one of which was ours. so the very ingredients that exries life are traceable to stars. they gave their lives billions of years before we arrived. >> rose: so we are stars? >> so we are not only figuratively but quite literally star disus. >> rose: an encor prengsz of neil degrases tyson next. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. from our studios in new york city, this is charlie captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: neil degrasse tyson is here, many know him as the most powerful nerd in the university, he calls himself a servant of science. he is the host of a new talk show in the national geographic channel called "star talk" it combines sciencek culture and comedy to help bring the universe down to earth. i'm pleased to have neil degrasse tyson back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. we go way back. my first time was in the '90s. >> rose: we did a show in 1991. >> i am in the family, thank you. uh-huh. >> rose: so congratulations on "star talk" on television. >> yeah, jump species, we were all very happy about that. we're pretty sure, we think it's the first time ever there being a science talk show on television. we think it is without press dense. we didn't do it for that purpose, but just turned out that way. >> rose: what i like about it in reading about it, they came to you and wanted you to do a television show. you said why don't you just bring the little cameras into my radio show and that will be just fine. >> i, when i say keep it simple,

i don't want to do anything more. but there was some budget to do some set dressing. and part of that is we film in the hall of the universe of the american museum of national science. >> rose: can't do better than that. >> i get to announce that, from the hall of the universe, who knows where this is, from the room of dark curtains. >> rose: that's right. this is the deep hole right here. you have come to the deep hole and i'm here in the deep hole. >> you are down, you are-- so but it's still structured the same. and we have a comedian. i have a guest. >> rose: that would be you. >> i happen to think the universe is completely hilarious. but i have someone who thinks that way professionally. and the-- there is a main guest who is typically humanned from pop culture. that is the real difference here from what you might otherwise expect from a science talk show. my guests are many of the same guests you would see tuning into late night talk show circuits. but i'm asking them different questions.

i'm asking them about their nerdhood. asking them their science teachers in their life, that they liked and hatedded. find out how science an technology has impacted their livelihood. >> rose: you're not looking for people, pop culture who happen to like science. just simply for people who are interesting to have on the program. >> well, it matters that you have heard of them. because then you will take an interest in them from the beginning. and then you learn these extra things about them. do they have a nerd underbelly that wouldn't reveal itself in anybody else's interview. >> rose: how do we define a nerd underbelly. >> oh, it's-- if they want to break into a fight about which captain they preferred in star trek. or did, you know, hans solo shoot first. or did, you know, there are these nerd questions drawn from the nerdivers, from the geekivers. and so i think there are many people who have hidden interests. or maybe there is an ember that

just needs to be fanned and then it will ignite and then you will see and feel and hear all of their interests that they express about scientists. >> rose: is it the fact that people are curious about things they don't know about and curious about the future? >> we were once-- every one of us to a person was deeply curious about our environment as children. scientists tend to not ever lose that, and they stay curious their whole lives. i think other people get it d so i'm in search of that. soul of curiosity that i think continues to lurk in all adults. >> rose: so what happens? do we tamp it down? do we, in a sense. >> what happens, if you are in a class and you say what is that, let me go to the window. no, sit down, it's not time. do your lesson. >> rose: and listen to me talk rather than engage. >> exactly. and our school system tends to be-- reward people who obey. people who do exactly what they're told.

people who hand things in on time. those are the honors, the best students as we have come to define them. yet the student who is distracted by the butterfly could be the next great naturalist. but that doesn't get rewarded in school. because you should be studying for this curriculum that we have established for you. so i think we should do it all but don't suppress. yes, you need a curriculum. yes, you need exams. but if you see nrlg in a student being expressed by-- energy in a institute being expressed by questioning their environment, that should be nurtured rather than declaring it ws out of line. >> rose: was that you as a kid? >> it was so me as a kid. i think teachers-- i had energy in the classroom that, there was a sixth grade teacher who noticed that i had all this energy, social energy, bordering on disruptive. and i had an interest in the universe. all my book reports were on what the moon was like and mars and the space program.

>> rose: even then. >> yeah. starting at age nine. but it didn't really gel until age 11, fifth or sixth grade. and then the teacher noted for me that the hayden planetarium, the local plan tair yum in new york had classes on the universe. and i started taking these classes after hours, that can get you tired, right. after school you go to do another thing. and that kind of tamped me down in the class but now i had a whole new universe, literal and figurative universe to devote my energies to. >> rose: when did you know that what you wanted to do was be an astrophysicist. >> at age nine a first visit to the hayden planetarium. >> rose: did it for you? >> that put something in my veins. i don't know, to this day i still think it was the universe who called me and not i who called it. >> rose: really? >> and so i said wow, this is-- and of course growing up in the bronx, there aren't many stars visible anywhere in new york, especially not the bronx at the time. and so the sky in the plan tair

yum was magical to me. i didn't even think it was real. i thought it was a hoax. i've seen the sky from the bronx. and this is not it. therefore it must be a hoax, not knowing that, of course, it is portraying the real sky. by age eleven, then i had the answer that, i had the answer to that annoying question that adults ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up. >> rose: and your answer was. >> astrophysicist and that kind of ended the conversations pretty quickly. you about i have been on a mission ever since. >> rose: you have said before that when you go outside, you always look up. >> oh yeah, yeah. >> rose: and too many of us don't do that. >> i have been doing that. i did that even back when it was kind of dangerous to do that. because prepooper scooper law, you have to really look down every five seconds. so i would risk, i would risk the incident just for looking up. and any time, especially at

night but also in the daytime, i will look up to know what the moon is doing. moon is up in the daytime as much as it is at night contrary to many people-- . >> rose: can we see it. >> yeah, it is just harder to see it, the sun is so dominant that the moon does not call attention to itself as well in the daytime as it does at night. but look for the moon, what phase is it. at night i check for what planets are coming out. and the most beautiful time of night, you know, photographically speaking is twilight. there is the twilight, the curtain of twilight colors. the sun just set. the moon becomes more apparent. the first stars you see generally aren't stars, they're planets because they're brighter. and i always joke with people, if you ever do star light star bright, make a wish on the star, and your wishes don't come true because you have been wishing on planets. >> rose: you were off course from the beginning. >> so right now in the season, venus is quite striking over in

the western skies after sunset. and when viewed from new york city, it's kind of over new jersey, and you would confuse it with planes coming in and out of newark airport. so if your western horizon is near an airport you have surely seen venus and thought it was an airplane. that is how bright its light is reflected. >> rose: have you ever wanted to write a science fiction novel. >> yes. however i don't have talent at writing. i wish i did. >> rose: would you have a story. >> i've got a story. it's ready to go. >> rose: it just needs a good writer. >> i've got a good story and i could advise on such a story. but in terms of character development and emotions and-- i don't have the experience writing, certainly not writing it. and probably also not-- . >> rose: but you would know a story that would be compelling. >> i have one in mind right now. i am happy to tell it. >> rose: okay, tell me. >> okay, so the world is at war. okay. >> rose: you mean the world that we know is at war.

>> the world that we know is at war. and in some very disruptive way. not with large weapons but regional battles everywhere. and people are choosing sides. and then an asteroid is discovered. >> rose: tell us what be an asteroid is. >> an asteroid, craggy chunk of rock in var yant sizes. there are countless tens of thousands of them, probably hundreds of thousands of them. and they orbit between mars and jeup ter, most of them. some of them have wayward orbit that cross the orbit of the earth. some like in thousands of them. you do the math, you learn that earth and these asteroids will collide with one another guaranteed eventually. so what we want to do is keep track of all the earth-crossing objects and moniter them. ideally you want to put lojack on them or something. where are you now at this time. it's 10 p.m., do you know where your killer asteroid is. so once you do that, we learn that there is an asteroid that

could render us all extinct. so at that moment anyone who sees other humans as their enemy then come together and see their asteroid as their common enemy. and the technology bits that have been developed all around these countries in the world. there is a bit in the future that formerly developing countries are now technologically able, and they have been developing their technology to fight wars. we find that we have to assemble pieces of all of these technologies. >> rose: we develop a common front against the asteroid. >> not only common front but we need different pieces of technology for the defleks device that we put together. and so then we all sing ku mba wa. >> rose: but you could make this so real that. >> then the heads of state come into play. the conflicts not only within countries but between countries, run with that. >> rose: but wait a minute, go back to the science. you could make the science, so this is real. you could make this as a real possibility. >> yeah, so the science would be

not only in the threat of the asteroid and finding it and searching it. the space mission to deflect it the tools you would use to engage that defleks. if something doesn't exist you can go into the laboratories. you can see the pressure to invent something that will work. you find out that i have a piece of it. but now i have to go to my enemy that enventded some other piece that comes together to make the whole thing work. it can be quite dramatic. maybe we can have a little piece of the asteroid still hit earth. because you have to flood a city or something otherwise hollywood doesn't buy it. i remember in the movie armageddon. the asteroid managed to save earth, but pieces hit earth. and those bits had good aim. one decap taited the chrysler building. they were like aiming for major human monuments around the world. most of our surface is ocean. they will probably hit the ocean. and you can still get to destroy a city with a tsunami. >> rose: when was the last big one that came to earth. >> two years ago, in russia. two years ago, one the size of

this studio, traveling 40,000 miles an hour, collided with earth's atmosphere above a town in the euro mountains of-- . >> rose: what would have happened if it hit the center of manhattan island. >> well, so that-- that happened to explode about 20 miles up, 20, 25 miles up. and that's high enough so that that energy gets deposited into the atmosphere and die lawsuits before it reaches earth's surface, but even sew that was enough of a shock wave to slatter essentially every window in the city, while people were looking out their window to bonder what the light was that they had just seen. light travels faster than sound. so they see this bright light, the light of the explosion. they look out the window, the shock wave comes. lacerated faces, hands and skin. 1600 people were injured. that was a shot across our bow. the universe telling us, asking us, how is your space program coming. so if that happened over

manhattan, it would have shattered-- in manhattan you have a different problem when you shatter windows, because then the windows fall and they become these saibers, sharp saibers descending to the street. possibly hurting or killing people, pedestrians. >> rose: so has the united states or any other country done a lot because they learned the lisson-- lessons that happened with that asteroid two years ago. >> more people are talking about it, but that asteroid we didn't know was coming until it was two late. you might have three minutes of evacuation time of your city. that was not large enough to catch it far enough away. plus it's not large enough to render anyone extinct. >> rose: if we catch it far enough away, we shoot it down? >> no, that is the macho. are you a macho man. shoot, blow the sucker out of the sky. >> rose: i think there was a movie like that. >> the kinder, gentler way is to deflect it. >> rose: how do you deflect it? >> so there are some interesting plans that are out there. they are all on paper. nothing has been built. nothing has been funded to make this happen. so one way to do it is you take

your spaceship. let me borrow your outliner. if that is the asteroid, you can bring your spaceship nearby and park it there. and they will feel one another and they will want to draft towards one another because of their mutual graift but you don't let that happen. you fire little retro rockets to preventd that and the act of doing so slowly tugs the asteroid out of harm away. you are don't have to destroy it, just make sure on its route it doesn't hit earth any more. and it is there to hurt you another day, but if you get good at this, it's just like shooting pool cues, you just knock them out of your way so that it doesn't-- . >> rose: so that's one of the theories. >> that's one way to do it and you can moniter your progress. if we just go and blot thing out of the sky, here in america, we're really good at blowing stuff up. and less good at knowing where the pieces will go when you're done. so it's very messy to try to

explode the asteroid. you don't know will it break into two pieces. now you have to evacuate two coasts, it's a challenge. by the way, this works on paper. the engineers have worked this out. but there is no plan in place. there is no international collaboration in place to fund this. suppose it is headed for the indian ocean. do you tell all the indian ocean countries you have to fend for yourself. if we have the most advanced, if we have the most advanced space program at the time, so then should we pay for it. did you tax everyone as part of their gdp the way the membership at the u.n. is taxed? and do you hand that money to the most able country who can deflect it? and here is another one. let's say it is headed for the united states and we defleks it and the defleks fails and now it is going to hit europe. now what do you do? so all of these problems. >> rose: we could put this in the movie, couldn't we? >> exactly. you're still thinking hollywood. >> rose: no. what are the most important questions unanswered for you? >> that's a great question and i have an unorthodox answer for

you, okay. for me the greatest question-- and it will sound like a copout but it's not. i really feel this and think this. for me the greatest unanswered questions are those questions we don't even yet know to ask. because they only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. and so yeah, i want to know what dark matter is. it's 85% of the gravity of the universe. we have no idea what is causing it. we shouldn't even-- we don't even have the right to call it dark matter because that implies its matter. we're working on it. we have top people working on this with top equipment. i get that. but at this moment, we don't know what it is. and it doesn't interact. >> rose: what is the most likely answer? >> i don't-- i have a preferred answer. >> rose: what is the preferred answer. >> that is my preferred answer. but particle physicists want to say it is particle. because they are particle physicists. >> rose. >> the higs boson is very poker withful particle.

if you were going to be a particle, that is the one you want to be. you grant mass to other particles. i grant thee the mass that you will measure for it. so there's dark energy. the universe is accelerating in its expansion against the wishes of graferrity. we don't know what is causing that. we don't know how you went from organic molecules in early earth to animated life. that is a transition that is on the frontier. >> rose: say that again. >> how do you go from lifeless organic molecules. >> rose: which is chemistry. >> chemistry, organic to self-replicating life based on those organic molecules. we are not there yet. >> rose: we don't know that either. >> we don't know that either. we don't know what was around before the big bang. these are great questions. >> rose: are we working on this? >> we have top people working on it and i will put you on my speed dial if you want to know the latest. >> rose: so what is dark matter. >> we don't know. we should call it dark gravity is really. >> rose: that is one of the big questions. >> yes, it is. >> rose: and the other one. >> dark energy, we don't know

what that is. what was around before the big bang. how did life get here from nonlife. >> rose: what was the big bang. >> the beginning of the universe. >> rose: i know that but what. >> du h if you turn the clock back, what you will notice about the universe is that it was smaller and hotter. for every day you turn the clock back. >> rose: smaller and hotter. >> so you run the clock all the way back and you learn that the entire universe was in the same place at the same time. and at extremely high temperatures in the trillions. trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with. but temperatures much hotter than that. so when you have these temperatures, you, the thing is unstable and it explodes. so you have the birth of our universe. we don't know what was around before that. >> rose: so the universe birth and then life sustaining. >> i would order them that way because i'm an astrophysicist. i care about the dna more than-- i know we have life and i got that. but all of those are very real

questions that exist with us today. and answers to those, you just start dishing out the nobel prizes. >> rose: if you can answer those. >> but i want to know-- . >> rose: you are on the stage if you can answer those. >> i want to know what questions, we're not even intellectually mature enough to ask yet. because they will reveal themselves after we answer these questions we just put on the table. >> rose: but has a new question revealed it self in the last 15 years. >> oh yeah, yeah. dark energy was discovered in 1998, so 17 years ago. but it is still a big mystery. >> rose: who discovered it? >> two teams, measuring supernova, those exploding stars out to the fartherrest reaches of the galaxy. and supernova, what is interesting a particular species of supernova are like a standard candle like a yard stick in mesh turing-- measuring time and distance in the yeuforts. they are potent in your ability to measure the expansion rate of the universe and the size of the universe. and two teams, one in california and one in-- on both coasts were

working on the same problem and arrived at the same answer and shared the nobel prize for that just recently. >> rose: do you-- everybody, this is a simple question. i assume it's the most frequently asked question, are we alone. >> i would say, the people i sit next to in an airplane. >> rose: that is what they want to know. >> once they learn i do astra fis sises, they kind of recognize me now. but in the prerecognition days. >> rose: how do they get to the questions? >> i think some people still look up. and you can't help but wonder, all these stars. we know enough to know that they are stars just like the sun. and they have seen the newspaper headlines there are planets orbiting the stars. and if there are planets how can you not wonder if there was life, and if there is life is it intelligent, if it is intelligent, are they smarter than them, should we be scared of them. >> rose: what is your best guess? >> my best guess is that the universe of teaming with life. >> rose: the universe. >> and our galaxy in particular. our galaxy is sort of proxy for

other galaxies, is teaming with life but that complex life might be much rarer. >> rose: why is that? >> well, i, if you-- i have-- here is the argument. you have the time line of the earth, earth is born, and this is today. that is four and a half billion years. now put this planet out there, and some planets are born yesterday, some were born at the beginning of the universe. you don't know when in the time line of a planet you are going to land there. so here is earth, throw a dart at the time line. most of the time the dark hits earth there's only single celled life. >> rose: wow. >> and so if we are randomly coming upon planets and earth is any measure of thing. >> rose: single cell like an amoeba. >> yeah. we spent three and a half billion years as single celled life on earth. and then we have something called the cambrian explosion of life, the chemistry of the atmosphere changes, the

atmosphere, like rocket fuel for complex life. and life now has the cart blanche to become complex because the system can support it. and now you get limbs and detectors like eyes and sensors. and it is a stunning development in the fossil record of life on earth. and so then you will have complex life. now ask, so that is a smaller piece of the total time line. now you ask how often do you throw the dart will you find intelligent life. well, that's the last, that is this little bit. that we define as intelligent. and so if earth is any measure of anything, throwing darts at planets that we might land on, who is to say that we're going to land right at that moment where what we call intelligence has arisen. maybe that planet has conditions that are especially ripe for complex life and they start complex life early. if they did, then they would

have billions of years to develop intelligent life. and if that's the case, it is quite clear to me that if they observed us, lands here, and looked around, it would be clear them that there is no scien of intel genlt life on earth-- intelligent life on earth. >> rose: you mean if they land and look around. >> no. >> rose: it's just not what we would describe intelligent life. >> not what we were looking for. we don't want to mate with these people. >> rose: they may be people but they're not intelligent. >> exactly. yup, yup. >> rose: what is on mars? >> rover is on mars. i'm happy to report, a working-- the curiosity rover is the size of an suv. >> rose: still projecting. >> yeah, yeah. >> rose: so what is up there? >> well, mars is-- . >> rose: water. >> mars, the martial surface has rampant evidence of there once having had running water. >> rose: so that says something. >> yes. what i mean by evidence, i mean really awesome evidence. like there are river beds that meet dried me anderring river

beds. the things if you fly over the midwest and look at things that flood waters have done and long time rivers have done, cut into the landscape, the grand canyon kind of things, you see all of these telltale features on mars. >> rose: when do we see them. >> any time we take a photograph of its surface. >> rose: so we could have known that without going there? >> no, the resolution is very hard to pick up, that's hard. you want to get close. and then you can see ridges and valleys and mountains. >> rose: that tells you water was there. >> or a liquid. we're pretty sure it was water. but certainly a liquid. and by the way, to me ander a river means the river was there for some time, right. you don't me ander overnight. >> rose: okay. >> it's a slow thing rivers do. not only that, there are dried lake beds where you see salt deposits at the bottom. and how do you get salt deposits. you get that from standing water that had minerals deposited in

it the water evaporates concentrating the mineral deposits. and when there is no water left you get a salt lake. fly over utah, that is what salt lake sphi is sitting next to. >> rose: should we go to mars. >> yeah, why not. >> rose: it's feesable and doable? >> yeah, the only challenge. people say oh, the radiation. we have clever engineers. gure out all the technological problems. it's money, just money. >> rose: is it really? >> oh, yeah, it's only ever money at all times. >> rose: are you su preemly disappointed that we don't do more in space? >> the curiosity part of me is disappointed but the politically astute side of me fully understands why that is the case. we went to the moon-- . >> rose: we are have other priorities. >> no, we have always had other priorities. so that is a false excuse. when we went to the moon, we had plenty of other priorities. there was a civil rights

movement. there was the hot war in southeast asia. the cold war with the soviet union. campus unrest. >> rose: so pr. >> we did it because we were at war. that was an act of war, essentially, without the weapons. and if we were not at war, the motivation to go to the moon, we tell ourselves, we went to the moon because we're americans. we are explorers and it's in our dna. okay, that might all be true but the people who write the checks don't give a rat's-- about any of this, the lofty speak. it's is your security at risk? we will spend any amount of money to protect that. and that's when money flows like rivers. and we went to the moon in that climate, in that climate. >> rose: but should we create that kind of urgency again for something like going to the moon? >> you know what i joke about? >> rose: no. >> i say let me go visit china. and whisper to the head of china, psst, can you leak a memo that says you want to put

military bases on mars. don't tell anybody. then that memo shows up in the pentagon, we will be on mars in ten months. i'm sure. one month to design, build and fund a space craft and nine months to get there. we will have astronauts. that is how motivated i think we would be. because that is how motivated we were back in the 1960s. now i don't want to go to mars for military reasons. i think there is a strong economic reason one can make for it it is a little more subtle and i think it takes slightly longer than the proverbial elevator ride that you have to save up for your member of congress. this takes maybe twice as long as an elevator ride. and i'm thinking i voted for my representation in congress. i want them to listen to me for longer than an elevator ride. so it's simple. you have, if you are going into space in a big way visiting asteroids, mining asteroids, jawntds to the moon, science on mars, you are doing all of these

activities. there might be military activities, all of this, to accomplish this will require advancing a space frontier. you will be inventing, innovating, patents will be granted and you will have these discovers weekly if not daily in your newspapers. and that infuses a culture of inquirery, a culture of exploration. a culture of innovation. when you come from a culture of innovation, stuff gets solved when you ent counter problems. your whole mindset is different. >> rose: do you believe we lost the culture of innovation. >> yes, it has been gone since we went to the moon. >> rose: what about silicon valley, that is a culture of innovation. >> yes, it is, a great culture of innovation. i was misrepresented in some headlines when i said-- i gave a talk and at the end of the talk in response to a question, intun says what do i think. i said well, the world has problems that are bigger than can be solved just waiting four your next app. we have problems in

transportation. housing, poverty, disease, energy, climate. and so these are huge problems. and if we all silt down and play with our apps, they're not going to get solved. that is what i said. the headline was tyson attacks entrepreneurs saying that they are like cavemen. >> rose: so what did you mean? >> what i mean is to bask in the pleasures of your next app will hide from you the fact that there are larger problems that need to be solve. >> rose: but are you simply saying-- attention on the next app ought to be something that could influence climate change and not something that could get you a car faster? >> yeah, i don't know how an app can help fix the climate just yet. i mean if there is one, i want to know about it. i don't know how an app can get rid of poverty. >> rose: in terms of conservation. >> some things. >> rose: poverty could develop an economic model. >> sure. sure.

but, okay but an app doesn't build bridges and tunnels and transportation systems. >> which raises the questions of all these people like jeff bezos and elan musq and sir richard branson who want to create some kind of vehicles in space, okay, don't laugh at me. >> no, i'm with you. somebody has got to do that. whether or not they will suk side, you want somebody there thinking that way. and they affect how other people think. i have had students in classes i've spoken to say one day i want to work for space x. they're not saying i want to work on wall street and get rich. they're the smartest kids in the class. i want to be explorers. i want to invent a new car, a new transportation system, i want to invent the next rocket. that is the influence that i'm telling you infuses into a culture when you go into space in a big way. the space sets the carrot and everything else comes in after that. >> rose: is that part of your commission? >> i don't have a mission. i would rather just stay home. i-- . >> rose: when you get up in the morning. >> when i get up in the morning,

i hope the phone doesn't ring. >> rose: why are you going to work. >> play with my kids, have a play date with my wife. that's all i want to do and then i go to my lab. >> rose: are you serious? >> but what happens in there. >> rose: that's glib. >> what happens in there is i get a phone call because something flinched in the universe. and they want a sound bite on the evening news or a documentarian has an idea that they want to explore in a story telling and i get a phone call. and i serve those interests. i'm a servant of the public appetite for the universe. that's what i do. i don't go door to door. i don't-- you won't see me marching with plaque ards, i will never tell someone who to vote for. it's not what i do. i'm an educator. >> rose: so when they came to you to dos could moss 2, whatever we-- cosm os/2, whatever we call it. >> yes. >> rose: first was carl sagan a mentor of yours. >> that is the easy way out for people to mention the relationship. we met a few times but my first time meeting him was quite

influential on me. note, i was in high school. he was a professor at colonel. >> rose: a television star. >> yes. he hadn't done cosmos but he was already multfully guested on johnny carson's tonight show and published best selling books. so i already knew he was famous. there he was making time for me, a 17 year old kid. he was showing me his lab in cornell, trying to attract me to attend there for college. i was a senior in high school, attending the bronx high school of science at the time. he reached back, didn't even look. grabbed a book and signed it. i said wow, that's really cool. he didn't even look and that was a book that he wrote. he didn't even look. whatever he put back there, was a book that he wrote. so i still have that book. and it's signed to future astronomer. >> rose: that was the extent of it. >> i met him a few more times after that. but that was indelible. you know, some-- people sometimes think that big things

are what is big. but almost, i think more often in life, there are little things that are big. i was a little part of his day. but he was a big part of my the little thing was big. >> rose: roll tape, here it is. >> there are two kiendzs of things. one is what i just talked about, that we've arranged the society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. and this imussable mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later is going to blow up in our faces. i mean who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it. and the second reason that i'm worried about this, is that science is more than a body of knowledge. it's a way of thinking. a way of sceptically intergailting the universe with a fine understanding of human fall ability.

if we are not able to ask sceptical questions to intergate those who tell us that something is true, to be sceptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charl tan political-- who comes amabling along. it is a thing that jeferson lay great stress on. it wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a constitution or bill of rights. the people had to be educated and they had to practice thrair scept kism and their education otherwise we don't run the government. the government runs us. >> charlie, was that the same table? same glasses. >> rose: same me. >> that's kind of spooky seeing him, he is as alive now as he was back then. >> rose: but that was a famous interview i did which he talked about dying. >> yes, that would have been '95. he didn't live much longer than that. >> rose: that was 1996.

>> he died that year. >> rose: the year he died. >> he said it better than any of us, connecting science literacy with what it is to have an informed democracy. if you want to take control of your fate, you can't do it if you are misinformed or underinformed about what actually matters. and in this, the 21s sentd ree, it's going to matter. >> i'm concerned about this. i'm concerned about the things you talked about. you just got another award for your service to science in terms of raising the necessity of paying attention to science and popularizing science and making us understand the importance of training new scientists. >> public welfare-- from the national academy. >> rose: so i worry that we-- are we losing not our sort of competitive edge but are we losing the race to develop the vice minds in sufficient quantities that we serve science

as well as other people may come to serve science? >> yeah, i think a lot of focus tends to be on who the brightest students, can we get them interested in science and can they invent something to save the world. i think that we'll always be the smartest kids in the class. there will always be that. i'm not really worried about them. i'm worried about the rest of everyone else who is given the freedom to say to themselves and to others, i was never good at math. ha, ha, ha. science, that's not for me, i'm into this other stuff. and show be okay with that. suppose i said to any other person, you know, i don't read cuz i was never good at nouns and verbs. i stick with science. you would laugh me out of the room. these are fundamental parts of civilization. the arts and the sciences, have defined civilization ever since there's been civilization. to separate yourself from one or the other and claim to be

informed, as the good doctor sagan said, that is a imussable mixture especially if that kind of ignorance is in-- is wielded by people in power. so for me, it's sufficient to say let us spread an appreciation of science to everyone. they don't have to be scientists but understand what it is. >> rose: if they understand it, they are more likely to support it. >> sure. but it's not support it like it's a thing. >> rose: but it is, it's clear what you are supporting. you are supporting the idea that science is important and you're creating a culture that respects it and therefore wants to enhance it. >> couldn't have said it better myself. so if the people understand what science is and how it works and nvolve scientific principles.te >> rose: and things like climate change. >> and issues. and you can know who is not

tells the truth and who is. you can analyze it. >> rose: do we have too many scientific deniers in our country or do we give too much prom nens to those who want to look the other way in science? >> there is some of those. and dare i implicate some elements of journalism in this because there is your journalistic ethos not to tell you what your ethos but as i understand it and as it has been told to me, the journalist obligation when writing a story is to give equal colume space to all sides. or half to one of each side. and if someone says the earth is round and someone says the earth is flat, at some point you're going to make a judgement, the earth is flat people, is flat out wrong. i will not give the attention. you are wasting a time. and i'm not doing a service in my role of informing the public. and so i think journalists are really smart people and they're highly educated and curious. they have the curiosity that kids have, that they still have

as adultses. as the other branch of curiosity manifested in society. scientists and journalists, that is a great thing to have. but at some point invest yr brain injury to recognize when something is fringe. and report it that way. and so when you do that, people then are properly informed about what is and is not true, what is an emergent truth, what is a truth that is in doubt. what is a truth, something that has been refuted. be responsible on that frontier. and i think that will help. that will help my job, certainly. >> rose: i'm sorry to have to tell you this. but you are a journalist. you are a journalist. >> you don't have to apologize. >> rose: i'm not apologizing. >> i host a talk show so i can't say i'm not a journalist. >> rose: well, not only that. you are in pursuit of questions. >> yes. >> rose: which is what journalism is about too. >> in the universe-- . >> rose: i thought you might have a dispar aging sense of journalism so therefore as i was characterizing you as a

journalist, you might be offended. >> not in the least. we need all the journalists i think we can get. i attended for my very first time the white house correspondents dinner where it is teaming with journalists, you know. that is fun. >> rose: and lots of other creatures. >> it's a zoo for sure. so yeah, so i agree that i'm a journalist as are scientists who ask questions. the only part of the question we don't ask is the who. the who what when where why. we are good at the who what when where why how. but the who, the who moved the black hole, there is not an answer to that who? >> rose: do we know what is at the bottom of the black local? >> no, if you take einsteins equation. >> rose: do a primer. everybody has heard this and have no idea what the black hole is. >> sure, sure, it's a region of space where matter has collapsed to such denszity that the gravity-- because as matter collapses and gets denser and denser, the surface graferrity gets higher and higher. if you are standing there, will

you weigh more and more. it will be harder to escape. at some point this collection of-- this blob of matter has condensed so significantly that for you to escape you have to travel faster than the speed of light. and so which means light can't escape. if light can't escape, you're not getting out of this place. so it's not only dark, it's a hole. it's a hole in every direction you fall in. a three dimensional hole. a black hole. in my field we are into one syllable descriptions, black hole. >> rose: how long have we known about the black hole. >> einstein could have prediked their existence with his own he kaition -- equations, but he didn't interestingly enough. >> rose: why, cuz he wasn't interested in them? >> no, no, to scwoat stephen hawking, because i asked him directly over dinner, you knee, i asked why didn't isaac newton make certain discoveries with his own mathematics and equations that he invented.

and his response was, you know, einstein didn't come up with black holes. you can't think of everything. his simple reply. that was-- . >> rose: what else did you talk about at din we are stephen hawking? >> the conversation was slow, of course. >> rose: i have talked to him as well. and you have to submit questions. >> that is if you are scheduling an interview. this is just banter. >> rose: just with banter, how does he do it. >> i'm going to tell you. so the conversation is going. and you might even send something his way but then you just keep your own conversation with others. and then later on, that answer comes out. and then you rejoin the conversation where he kicked in, that is how that unfolded. >> rose: what dazzles you about him? the sheer triumph of his life or the quality of his mind? >> i would say all of the above. and i'm delighted that the public got a glimpse into his life. >> rose: theory of everything. >> in the theory of everything. i got to see a prescreening of

it. and it was clear to me that if there were going to be an academy award for best actor it is going to go to that fellow, his name-- . >> rose: eddie red main. >> yeah, it was clear to me, even though that was kind of an indy-- . >> rose: he captured him. >> he became stephen hawking. he became stephen hawking. and at that point the actor has transcended acting. there is something else going on. and so i am dlielted that the public got a glimpse of this. and i think what it says is, and i can't speak for disabled people. cuz i've never been disabled in anyway that matters in this world. but when you see someone with that level of disability, meaningfully contribute to the world and be held up of one of the greatest minds there ever was, if i needed hope, that is a plague, i would mine that for hope of what i could do and what i could be if i were disabled,

at least physically dig abled. the mind is still there. as an academic, i value what you can do with your mind. so yeah, i mean it's-- if anything, it gives you hope for what our species is capable of. >> rose: explain to me time travel. >> well, it's been suggested that there might be some law of fis you cans we have yet to discover that will prevent you from going backwards in time. bawz think about it. >> rose: it's been said. >> maybe there is a law of physics we have yet to discover that will declare without hesitation that thou shall not go backwards in time. because if you do, and you prevent your parents from meeting one another, unlike the term naturer series where you have to kill people so that they don't mate, all you have to do is prevent them from meeting or prevent them from having sex, that's really all you have to do. >> rose: and then you aren't there. >> then whoever started the revolution is not there. had the people have sex ten

minutes later than they otherwise would have, you give birth to a different person than who would have lead the revolution. but then it wouldn't have been the gorefest that it turned out to be. if you prevent your parents who would have meet shall go meeting each other, you never would have been born, to have then lived to go back this time to prevent your parents from meeting one another. so you have this par a doks. it's a causality par a doks-- paradox. and that being said, we have no shortage of interesting ways to go forward in time. and we can speed you up, send you on a spaceship, you go very fast. your time ticks more slowly, not just your clock. and then the electronics in your digital watch, i see you have, but your physiology, everything about you will tick more slowly. you will age more slowly than your twin here on earth. you come back, you will be younger than your twin, so you have effectively gone into the future. that is one way to do it. you can also do it by-- in graph

taitional fields, you can, they portrayed this in the film interstellar. very strong graph taitional fields also have an effect on what late your time ticks. we can measure this. the gps satellites that are farther away from earth's center than we are, their time ticks at a different rate than ours does. their time ticks more-- their time-- clocks on gps satellite tick faster than clocks on erts. but they send you the correct time. how do they do that? we knew in advance about einstein's relativity. >> rose: we sneu. >> so the gps satellites are precorrected for this time change by the formlation of einstein's general theory of relativity. and now it can send the correct time down to us. otherwise the tiesms would separate from one another and you couldn't use gps satellites to tell you anything about where you are on earth's surface, so this is real. it's physics.

it works. it's not something that we cherry pick by people who have political philosophies that differ from the truth. >> rose: exactly. >> rose: and tell me fienltly about this thing, about dust. you know, remember you told me on the "60 minutes" profile about dust and the chemistry of. >> by the way, not everyone comes out of "60 minutes" profiles better than when they went in. one never knows about those. but thanks for your interest. >> rose: depends whose handles are you in. >> thanks for your interest in my life and work in that piece. >> rose: dust to dust. it is a exotion of the earth and the dust and what is within the human body. >> oh, oh, okay, okay. >> rose: i just need to understand. >> you want to get a piece of that. >> rose: i do. i'm trying to leave america with a real sense of the kinds of basic fundamental things that are the essence of science and your work and others. >> i think the single greatest gift that astrophysicist-- that astrophysics has brought civilization is the discovery back in 1957 by four authors, no

movies are made about them because it is four of them, not just one. and our-- we romant advertise the lone researcher burning the midnight oil. this is four scientists working for a decade to get this result. they realized that the elements on the periodic table that we might remember from chemistry class, owe their origin to thermal new clear fusion in the cores of stars. fusion, light elements under high temperatures coming together to make heavy elements. if they only stayed in stars, that would not be interesting. but these particular stars also happen to explode and scatter this enrichment across the galaxy. and this enrimpment, carbon, nie ro again, oxygen, sil i con, all of these elements scatter into gas clouds, that then collapse and form next generation star systems. one of which was ours.

so the very ingredients that compromise life are traceable to stars. they gave their lives billions of years before we arrived. >> rose: so we are stars. >> so we are not only figuratively but quite literally star dust. >> rose: well, i like that. finally this, the notion of you, you don't have a mission. >> not really, no. >> rose: you. >> i'm a servant, like i said, that is how i think of myself. >> rose: but do you have things you want to accomplish beyond being at the end of a phone where somebody has to ask ed ability to whatever their project is by giving them a direction. >> just a quick bit, people have seen me in tv in so many ways and shapes and sigh. somebody once came up and said who is your agent that gets you on tv. i said my agent must be the universe because there is no human being there that is doing

this. i would say my-- one of my favorite quotes, i don't remember if i told this to you in the "60 minutes" piece. one of my favorite quotes was uttered by horas mann, the educator who said be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity. and i want that on my epitaph. i want to be buried and i want that on my tombstone. >> rose: be ashamed to die unless. >> until scored some victory for humanities. and by the way that could be at any level, that could be raisek kids that are responsible. you know, that is a very broadly defined victory. and so i think, i'm not the first to say this. at least leave the world a little better off for you having lived in it.

just why not. just, it's like clean up your mess and as you've cleaned up the room that you just lived in, maybe leave a flower behind. something about people can come in and say. >> rose: a better place. >> this is a slightly better place. and then we could all celebrate each of our existence in this world. and not lamentd it or regret it or there is so much in the world that regresses civilization. its' sad. i wonder how far we would be were it not for such forces that operate in this world. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me. >> rose: pleasure to have you. neil degrasse tyson for the hour. thank you for joining us you. see you next time. >> jean rodenberry really deserves and should be up there. because star trek was more than

just-- he felt the television, certainly it needs to entertain. but it also needs to inform and inspire. >> did you know this at the time? >> at the time, are you just doing television or are you saying to yourself, this is some good [bleep] going down here. this is-- whoa. bawz the show did-- because the show did get cancelled. >> right, i knew. >> the kardashians went longer than the original star trek. >> yes, on star trek we it the car-dashians. >> rose: for more on this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

on the next charl ree rose bringing in the new year with music.

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

♪ this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. good riddance. that's what some investors are saying after the dow and the s&p have their worst year since the financial crisis. so what can we expect as the calendar flips to 2016? standing tall, amazon has created a juggernaut both online and on wall street. but can it continue? and the times they are a-changing. the new year ushers in sweeping changes from taxes to wages. we'll tell you the impact. all that and more for this new year's eve 2015. good evening, everyone, and welcome. tyler has the evening off. stocks ended the year pretty much with a whimper. a 1% across the board loss today cemented the worst year for the dow and the s&p since the 2008 financial cr.