>> rose: welcome to the >> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with syria and a conversation with steffan de mistura from munichy he is u.n. special envoy for syria. we talk about the secession in hostilities and the providing of aid to the victims of aleppo. >> we are in an incredibly fragile environment. we're talking about hundreds of different groups of rebels, of people who are fighting the government. we are talking about militias fighting with the government plus warlords, so it's going to be quite a challenge, but the fact that the countries who do have an influence and should be using their influence in stopping the conflict have committed themselves gives me the feeling that they are serious. >> rose: and then a major scientific discovery, the detection of gravitational waves. we talked to brian greene,

dennis overbye, janna levin and walter isaacson. >> everything we do gets us a tiny step closer to the origin, the big bang. i don't know if we'll ever figure it out, i don't know if we'll ever have a unified theory, the way einstein was hoping that would tie together all the forces of the universe, but everything we do gets us a little step closer to that holy grail. >> rose: we conclude with the move valuable player of the super bowl, von miller, of the denver broncos. >> if i'm getting sacks, malik and derek may as well have two as well. i was predict ago great defense, we were able to get that. >> rose: war and peace, gravitational waves, and a super bowl hero when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provide bid following.

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with syria, world powers agreed this morning to implement a nationwide secession of hostilities within a week. the parties also pled to cooperate on delivering aid to cities under siege. the announcement came after amajor assad regime offensive had put the peace process in jeopardy. secretary of state john kerry spoke after the meeting in munich. >> i'm pleased to say that, as a result, today in munich we believe we have made progress on both the humanitarian front and the cessation of hostilities front, and these two fronts,

this progress, has the potential, fully implemented, fully followed through on, to be able to change the daily lives of the syrian people. >> rose: joining me from munich, steffan de mistura. he is the u.n. special envoy for syria. he participated in yesterday's meetings. welcome, sir. it's a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you very much. i'm glad to be with you. >> rose: tell me you believe we have achieved at these meetings, because you have seen the ups and the downs and you have experienced first hand the misery of the syrian people and the great desire and feed for peace. >> well, first of all, let's look at what happened yesterday. it was not a declaration. it was not a statement. it was a commitment. secondly, it was not a commitment about something generic. it was about concrete things --

humanitarian aid to reach those besieged areas, stopping the bombing, in other words stopping the conflict, basically a cessation of hostilities. three, a deadline, seven days, and all that taking place based on a clear commitment. now, that is something that we can call an achievement. but as you know very well, you need to test it. even if it was a clear commitment, it's still on words and it's made by countries who actually can deliver -- russia, america, saudi arabia, iran, turkey, qatar -- they were all there, six hours' discussion, but now we have to test it. >> rose: you were there, too. give us a sense of the atmosphere, of the developments, the give and take, and what finally led them all to come to this agreement, this declaration. >> well, yeah, and you will understand, and i know you

understand i cannot reveal too much at all about what happened inside a very closed and delicate meeting where countries were actually debating intensely about something which is a very -- well, a very controversial issue. but what i can tell you is that all of them were seriously engaged in talking about what can be done. secondly, there was a clear indication that there was no time to be lost. and three, that the syrian people were watching them. more than once, we were all telling ourselves, look, we have been working now talking for five hours, six hours, but who is outside this room, who are they? millions of people who have been waiting for this in syria and outside syria to see us who have an impact to do something about stopping this conflict. that type of spirit was there. secondly, i must say, with all

fairness, i have a lot of admiration for the energy of john kerry. secretary kerry was a driving force, together with a certain spatial or psychological understanding of foreign minister lavrov and that helped a lot, a certain emotional involvement to not waste this. even in diplomacy, emotion makes a difference. >> rose: what comes first? humanitarian aid. you know why? a few days ago i was asked and i started a conference in geneva about further future peace talks. well, i was gooded with messages from -- flooded with messages from the syrian people from inside and outside. they were telling me, please, mr. de mistura, don't give us another conference or talk about talks, we need facts.

you know what are the facts? they were telling me food, medicines, what every human wants especially in a war zone and, secondly, no more bombs, no more shelling. so what comes first is what they asked, and what did they ask? immediate access to the besieged areas. so we will test it. that means tracks of food. the other good thing about what has been happening yesterday, that all this is not about documents or concepts, it is about getting there or not getting there, and we can test there. and a bomber getting there or not and we can test that, too. in other words, if there is a cessation of hostility, we will see it immediately. if the food will be given a chance tuesday and monday to actually get there, we'll be able to say it got there and if it didn't we'll go back to the same group of countries who do have access to make a difference to say, come on, you committed,

you promised, why is it being stopped again? that type of mechanism, i think, is giving me hope that we can have a chance to pushing both commitments at least up to the point of a real test. always a test because we have become skeptical after five years, but a good test. >> rose: how will the food be delivered? who will deliver it? >> well, us, the u.n. we have a whole team, a whole team which is actually prepared in damascus, which we have food, by the way, in warehouses. we have tracks waiting and ready and we have already been able to do some deliveries in the past. but like water tube, opening for one day and stopping for one man, two men, sometimes. that's why we ended up seeing a place actually facing hunger. so the food will be delivered the same way but through a convoy of tracks drive i by our own people, led by our own

people and reaching the actual villages, getting through road blocks, and that will be the test. will they stop us again? will the document that will be gotten from the government not be double-guessed or say that's not enough as we had in the past? will we finally be able to distribute directly to the people? that will be the test but that's how we're planning to do it. that's the one area. the other area, there are 14 locations in syria besieged and frankly by everyone. one is besieged by i.s.i.s. and that can only be reached by air drops and that is also something that we should be in a position of facilitating. >> rose: who has agreed to the cessation? russia, the united states? who else? >> well, they were 18 countries yesterday. they all signed up to the commitment. some of them are not really

helve riinvolved in the -- heavily involved in the conflict but others are crucially involved in the conflict. so let me tell you who definitely make a difference. russia, united states, turkey, saudi arabia, iran, qatar, just to mention those who have most influence inside the conflict because they do have support -- or do support or sponsor one or another group or the country. iran, of course, was there as well. >> rose: but it does not include i.s.i.l, i.s.i.s. or al-nusra or other terrorist groups. >> the answer is no. you see, the cessation of hostilities, when it will take place -- and let's be frank, if it takes place, because we will have to test it -- but let's say when it will take place, it will definitely not include either i.s.i.l, daesh we call it, or

al-nusra. they are considered by the u.n. as terrorist organizations. >> rose: ash carter, secretary of defense, announced today that the united states will continue its attacks against i.s.i.s. in syria. >> that is exactly what has been foreseen, you see. the cessation of hostilities is expected to be between the government and those who support it -- russian federation, for instance, iran and other groups who have been supporting the government -- and on the other side, all the many opposition groups except al-nusra and i.s.i.l which have been fighting each other, which have been sponsored by the countries i just mentioned and are being supported. i.s.i.l and al-nusra are separate. by the way, especially i.s.i.l is very clearly delineated in terms of territory. you can see it on the map.

it is very clear, and that will unavoidably continue. they have no intention of a cease-fire, they will never offer one, they don't offer it, and on the other side there is no intention of doing the same thing. >> rose: it is said that russia wanted to delay a cease fire until march 1, it is said. so the question is why did they agree now? one answer seems to be that they believe that assad -- bashar al-assad, the president of syria and his forces have made such significant gains on the battl battlefield especially surrounding aleppo that they're prepared now to allow this to happen. >> well, those are speculations and whatever speculation will be confirmed by history, frankly. what i can tell you, is yes, i read also on the papers that there was by the russian

federation to propose a cease fire or cessation of hostilities on the first of march. but yesterday the date of first of march did not come up. what came up was a commitment within a week. now, i know and you know that it won't be easy. it will take perhaps a little bit longer because this is not a normal environment. but one week is quite an ambitious one and, frankly, with what has happened in aleppo, even a week is a long time. >> rose: what's the difference between a cessation and a cease fire? >> it is quite a difference. you see, cease fire is a very complicated agreement which needs to be signed, needs to be monitored by thousands of monitors, it is basically what countries do when they end a war, and it's certainly what we will all aim at the end of the day even in syria. but it requires a lot of work. and since at this moment just a

cessation of hostilities can be done much easier and is actually simpler. what does it mean? one side says i stop aerial bombing from midnight tomorrow. i stop rocket shelling from midnight tomorrow. the other side says, i am also going to stop all mortar shelling and all rockets on my side, and then we will have some type of observation that will be monitoring whether one side or the other are actually infringing on that. that can be done much quicker and is actually much more straightforward but is not an international agreement. do we really need it? what we need is stopping the killing, stopping the use of heavy weapons, that's what will make a difference. then we have the time to get to all the rest, including a formal agreement of end of the conflict or whatever. >> rose: i should point out and you can correct me if i'm wrong, this is the first time we have had this happen, the commitment to this, the declaration of this since the

civil war in syria started in 2011. >> i am not going to correct you. you are totally right, charlie. but one reason more to protect it and to be not expecting miracles because we are in an incredibly fragile environment. we're talking about hundreds of different groups of rebels, of people who are fighting the government. we are talking about militias fighting with the government plus warlords. so it's going to be quite a challenge, but the fact that the countries who do have an influence and should be using this influence in stopping the conflict have committed themselves gives me the feeling that they are serious, but i repeat, i have to say we need to test it. and the test will be when the countries which you mentioned will meet in looking at the details on how to stop the conflict. >> rose: and if they pass the test, are you therefore hopeful that the peace negotiations that

have failed so far have been postponed now i think till february 25 or 17th or somewhere right in there, will be able to resume with more impetus? >> the answer is yes, you're right, i did stop for a poll of reflection, that's a diplomatic term, as you know -- >> rose: yes. -- in geneva because i had the feeling that, one, there were too many procedural issues not leading to a serious discussion and, secondly, because people were telling us and our conscious, i'm sure you will say the same, this time it must not just be a conference about a conference. the people in syria while we are having the talks need to see some food and reduction in violence. instead we saw no food and increase the fighting. that's why we said we wait.

let's convene again in munich and if that takes place, i will feel much more comfortable in being able to convince the syrians that the new talks, the new conferences will be serious. complicated, uphill, but serious. >> rose: i know, as you know, often the events on the ground determine whether the political process can work. this is a human catastrophe. are you surprised that it's taken so long for the world to deal with it? >> well, you know my background. >> rose: i do. 46 years, 19 and with this one 20 conflicts, from the vietnam war, afghanistan, iraq car to the balkans, and i have been surprised how long it took for the international community to deal with disease that could have been prevented, like in medical times. this time i am particularly

surprised and disappointed because if we had dealt with this four years ago, that would have been much easier. now look how many various groups and countries are involved. it's regional, proxy, internal and potentially international and, on top of it, what we never had before, and i never had before, if you think about the conflicts, at this time, we have a new disease which enters into the body which is fragile which is called i.s.i.s., and that is a new factor which has made this conflict even more complicated but also more urgent to be solved. >> rose: let's assume the cease fire works and, certainly, the aid brings immediate relief on the ground which is a demonstratable act of success, what are the challenges for you to make the peace conference work and what are the difficulties? what is it that stands in the way most of all? is it, for example, how long

president bashar al-assad stays in office or when he agrees to come political process of transition? >> well, charlie, let's have first things first. the first challenge will be to ensure that actually the cease fire or what we call the cessation of hostilities and the unimpeded food aid will not be just a show for a day or a week but will be unimpeded and continued. that's the first challenge because we need to feel and they need to feel that. secondly, it would be -- the next challenge will be whether the actual cessation of hostilities holds because i can guarantee you there will be people who will be spoiling it and there will be crisis and we will have to face that. those are the first two

challenges. but if we have it and we start the talks, the first challenge will be to make sure the two sides talk to each other. we don't want to, but we have a solution where diplomacy becomes created. they have proxy wars, we have proxy talks. we'll be meeting one side separately, one side separately, in the same building as the u.n. in geneva and see what are the areas we can actually have common ground, and there are potentially quite a lot if you don't touch the ultimate one which will come with it. i'll give you an example. there has been an agenda which has been agreed upon and there is a need for new governance that is asking what type of new government you would like to see on one side and the other, and that is already a change. secondly, a new constitution with powers with the president like more or less, and you are already changing a lot the whole

scenario. then the elections, and elections supervised by the u.n. you can see all this is leading to a different -- completely different, hopefully extremely stable one day scenario in syria. all that in 18 months. >> rose: what brings you optimism now that, if in fact, the cease fire works, that you can get the parties? do you sense some sense of people being tired of this war everywhere because of the human catastrophe, because of the fatigue of war, because they may not see all the opportunities that they once saw to achieve? >> what makes me optimistic is, first of all, my nature, if i may say so, because i would have not chosen this mission and my job. i am affected by that disease, which we have to have for doing this. secondly is that i would say,

also, the real politic is based on the assumption, one, the russian military engagement is not meant to be for long because russia should not be looking forward to any type of ongoing presence in syria because, you know, the souvenir of afghanistan is still there. the other assumption is that both iran and saudi arabia, at the end of the day, do realize you cannot have a proxy war in which they can win in syria because this has been proven so far. then you assume the fact that the american engagement, political engagement, not literally military but political engagement through the sheer energy and good will of john kerry is going to maintain together this momentum, and plus the feeling that bashar al-assad can know, should know that there

is no way that, after 250,000 people dead and 1 million people wounded, you can go back to simply pretend nothing has happened. so all that should be leading plus the pressure of the refugees which has been putting pressure on the regional country but now also in europe to everyone starting to feel it's time to end this chaos, this horror. >> rose: john kerry said in munich, "the real test is whether all parties honor those commitments. given the brutality and dictatorial ambitions of syria's president bashar al-assad and the duplicitous behavior of his chief ally president vladimir putin of russia, that is a huge if, but for the moment it is worth celebrating a step towards what could be the first sustained halt in the fighting in syria since the civil war began in 2011 which we talked about. this question also is raised by

john kerry, what about the territory that has been gained by bashar al-assad and the syrian government's forces in the last month or so? do they get to keep that? is that negotiable? where does that come into play? >> well, i must tell you, i think we are not getting into this other stage. think about it, what we are getting, if we do have a cessation of hostilities, in theory, what you have is you stay where you are, you don't move. you actually stop shooting and shelling each other. you're not talking about terrorist, about conquest or relinquishing. that will be part of what we would call the political discussion of the future of syria, and what type of government? will it be a government in which others will be a part of, which should be the case? will it be a government to which you will have the capacity to maintain unity of the country rather than creating a partition which de facto is at the moment

taking place. >> rose: those are difficult challenges but, as you know, diplomacy has to be creative, sustained and constant in order to achieve these kind of political objectives and many people admire the work you are doing to try to achieve that because there is disapowment and disappointment and disappointment and, finally, in many cases, there is success which is in the best interest of all those people who are suffering so much from the war. i thank you for taking time in munich to talk to us here in the united states. >> thank you. thank you very much for having me on board. you know, there is an old saying, i tried, i failed, i try again and fail much better. when there are lives at stake, that's what you have to do until you actually succeed. >> rose: thank you again. look forward to seeing you here when the talks move to the united states. >> thank you. thank you. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us.

>> rose: we continue this evening with major news from the world of physics and astronomy. physicists announced thursday they have detected gravitational waves for the first time. the discovery confirms a part of albert einstein's theory of general relativity. scientists say the break kicks off a new era of how we explore the universe. here's a "new york times" video looking at the observatory and how they detected gravitational waves. >> physicists long thought gravitational waves would never be measured on earth, but in louisiana and washingtoner two of the most sensitive detectors ever built have been waiting and listening. astronomy has grown ears. this is ligo, the laser gravitational waves observatory. each detector has an l shaped antenna with arms two and a half miles long. inside the ends of each arm,

mirrors of ultra pure glass are isolated from the noise, heat and vibrations of the outside world. a beam of laser light measures the separation of the mirrors. the beam is split and sent toward mirrors at the end of each arm. if the arms are precisely the same length, the returning beams cancel each other out and ligos' detector sees no light, but a passing gravitational wave which stretches one arm and squeeze the other, the resulting discrepancy is tiny, a fraction of the width of a proton, but enough to misalign the beams and light up the detector in a rhythmic pattern. >> rose: joining me from washington walter isaacson, president and c.e.o. of the aspen institute. he is the author of the biography "einstein: his life and universe." here in new york, brian greene,

of the world science festival, also professor at columbia university. janna levin, astrophysicist at barnard college. her book on gravitational waves is called "black hole blues and other songs from outer space." dennis overbye of the "new york times" has been covering the universe for more than three decades, he is the author of "einstein in love, a scientific romance." i am very pleased to have all of them on the program. dennis, explain it to us. (laughter) >> well, basically -- >> rose: what happened? what happened? >> rose: yeah. they heard something. >> they heard two black holes collide a billion light years away from here. these were enormous, monstrous things. one was 36 times the mass of the sun, the other was 29 times the mass of the sun. these are like gigantic masses packed into a volume maybe the size of manhattan, and they basically crashed together at half the speed of light at this really messed up space time in a

bi way. now, it created these ripples. >> rose: these are what we call gravitational waves. >> yes, that einstein predicted a hundred years ago. physicists have been trying to figure out if they could detect them ever since. they have to go to superhuman lengths to detect them. >> rose: why have they been able to detect them now, brian? >> well, they have been working on them 40 years so this is the end product of major effort to detect these gravitational waves. really einstein in 1915, to take a step back, taught us gravity is nothing but warps and curves in the fabric of space, but then if space can warp and curve, he realized, if something were to disturb space, it should cause a ripple to go through space. for instance, if you start to tap a trampoline, you will send ripples going along the trampoline. so he preticketed we should be able to see these ripples in the fabric of space. he actually flip-flopped.

sometimes he thought that prediction was right. sometimes he became uncertain of it. but by the '60s, people who came along and did the analysis again, basically everybody was convinced they were out there, but if black holes collide far away, they can really mess up, as dennis said, the fabric of space right nearby. but if they're a billion light years away, the wave dilutes as it spreads out over a billion light years so by the time it gets to earth, it squeezes and stretches objects on earth by a fraction of an atomic diameter. so these guys, the ligo team, they were trying to detect the stretching and squeezing of a detector by less than an atomic nuknucleus. that's the challenge and that's what they achieved. >> rose: this needs to be conn firmed. >> you can't confirm this particular event, the gravitational waves came and

went. they confirmed it. it came from the southern sky, hit one in louisiana, ten seconds later hits another instrument in washington state. so the confluence of both detectors ringing and exactly the speed of right apart is a tremendous confirmation internally. now, ideally, in science, you would have a completely unrelated experimental tasks that just might not be possible here. i mean, we could hope maybe a telescope saw a flicker of something to confirm it but two black holes are very likely to be dark. it's not impossible there would be a flicker of light but two black holes are likely to be dark so this event came and went. >> rose: walter, connect it to einstein because of how much time you spent studying those when you were writing the book, how is it tied to the general theory of relativity? >> the general theory of relativity is 100 years old and just says, as brian described,

that gravity is the curving of space and time and massive objects. einstein's only great blunders are when he doubted his own theory because if you look at the theory of general relativity, people realize it would mean black holes exist, it would mean that the universe is expanding, all of these things. every time i think well, maybe that can't be right, but, indeed, general relativity a century later keeps being proven right and it's just a most beautiful theory in the history of science and just a miracle that, you know, after a century we can still discovery how correct it was. >> rose: dennis, you've said hearing a gravitational wave has opened up a new kind of astron astronomy, far the first time -- for the first time, we have ears as well as eyes on the heavens. >> the black holes colliding vibrate space in a frequency of

a few hundred hertz which is the tone we're speaking now. if you get signals you can direct them into a sound wave and it's this chirp, like that. who knows what else we can hear because these vibrations are going through us all the time and this is like developing a whole new sense of seeing the universe, so hearing the universe, there might be things out there that theorists haven't imagined yet. >> rose: explain in terms of the pursuit of the universe. >> it's an incredibly powerful new tool because, you know, for thousands of years we have examined the universe, explored it by looking up and taking in light, waves of light, and as we've gotten better at it, we've built telescopes, more powerful telescopes, we've gathered more light, we can see further and understood more and more about the universe. but light can be blocked. if i put up my hand, you can't

see me right now because the light from my face can't get through my hand. so there are regions of the universe where you can't see because they're opaque, but gravity always gets through. there is no way to shield yourself from gravity. put up your hand and gravity from the earth still gets through it, right? so gravity can't be shielded. which means if we wanted to for instance look back toward the big bang itself, we can't see close to the big bang about 380,000 years because at that time the universe is filled with a charged plasma particles light can't get through, gravity can. in principal in the future, who knows when, we may have a more powerful version of this kind of detector where we're not just seeing black holes collide which is spectacular, but maybe we'll penetrate back to the big bang by using gravity as our probe as opposed to light. >> rose: janna when we say a

billion light years, what do we mean? >> the distance light would travel if given a billion years. the event was probably 1.3 billion light years ago. light travels 300 kilometers per second. i know brian likes to quote it in miles. >> 6 trillion miles a year. >> rose: how do dark holes collide? >> this is interesting. these black holes may have formed, presumably, best guess, is they formed the dust states of stars and those two stars were if a system together. jupiter is almost big enough to be a star, not quite. but you can imagine a two-star system like this, but the stars die and live a very long life orbiting each other, but because they're in space the entire time they're losing energy to the sloshing of space and spiral together because to have the gravitational waves -- because of the gravitational waves and after many billion years they get close enough to collide.

so we have the final 200 milliseconds of the life of this pair. >> rose: how long did it take einstein to come up with this theory? >> well, in 1905, his miracle year, he comes up with special relativity, and it takes him another decade to generalize it so he can include gravity into it. he did it almost alone, although he had a lot of help with the math. but the interesting thing about this experiment and the national science foundation should be credited, it was very crowd sourced. people around the world were involved and, you know, just east of baton rouge, you know, there was one of the antennas, i think some hunters at one point shot at it, sort of in the meeting of duck dynasty with general relativity. but it was a very human endeavor and i think one of the things we have to do to contrast what einstein did a century ago in that decade in which he came up with general relativity is, now,

we try to so science in so much more of a collaborative way, and we have to keep funding that notion of basic research, having the national science foundation and others do it. osterwise, we -- otherwise, we won't have discoveries that will turn into useful devices of the future. >> rose: i'm trying to figure out and associate this with another scientific discovery. is what we've just realized yesterday about the gravitational waves similar to, for example, discovering the structure of dna? is it that big? >> yeah, but the interesting thing is this was not a surprise for us. everybody expected this to be the result. the surprise is that this team of scientists could pull it off and measure this tiny, tiny signal that confirmed ideas that the community basically already agreed must be the case. but in terms of looking to the future, then i would say, yeah, this is like the invention of the telescope. >> i just want to add this is one of the greatest examples of

how science is done. when these guys started imagining the idea of detecting gravitational waves in the late '60s and early '70s, it was not popular, was very obscure. it started with one, two, three people who got this started. ron came later in the '80s. this was a difficult campaign, was not popular, wildly obscure and was an obsession. >> rose: why was it not popular? >> people didn't think it was possible. they thought it was phenomenally expensive. false detections earlier turned the tide of the community against it. so it was tremendous what these guys did to stick at it and to bring in so many people and now we have a team of a thousand that pulled this off. >> rose: what might people be looking at to see if there are any flaws in this? >> one test will be if they see more events. so the reason they believe this is because they have done supercomputer simulations of black holes colliding and

neutron stars colliding and things they know that might be out there, and these measurements fit the simulations exactly. what would be really interesting is the first time they get a signal that they haven't seen in a simulation and they will have to say, what is this? that will be the real eureka moment. >> rose: and that will tell us? >> that will tell us there is something in the dark we have no idea about. >> i don't think you have a real worry about this being disproven. this is in einstein's theory, and as everybody else just said, it had to happen. it was like when einstein was asked when the eclipse observation proved general relativity right almost 100 years ago, another great head line, lights askew in the heavens, when einstein was asked by graduates, would you have thought it would have come out differently? he said i would have felt sorry for the good lord because the theory is correct, and we know the theory is correct. >> the team spent six months on

this day to ensure that what they were seeing was in fact the merger of these two black holes. so it's not that the theory could be wrong at this point, that would be absolutely shocking, but, yeah, could it be a false alarm in the measurement? very unlikely but, bear in mind, a couple of years ago, there was a false alamplet there was another team who thought they saw gravitational waves in a different setting, everyone got excited and turned out to be premature, so they were quite careful this around and great confidence it is correct. >> what they looked at is whether a hacker had gotten in. >> rose: they made sure that wasn't true. what sounds does the universe make and how does that fit into this? >> it's interesting, if you were actually floating nearby these two black holes colliding, in principal, it's possible the wobbling of space would pluck your eardrum and you would hear the sound even without a medium like air. so in some sense these are closer to sounds than just an

analogy. like the electric guitar, you record the ringing sound of the drum, plug the record of the wave into a speaker system and you -- an amplifier and play it back as sound. so literally in the control room at the two ligo sites, they listen to the detector. it's quite charming, and you can hear it moving. you can hear noise and rumbling, they can hear earthquakes. but we're hoping for these cataclysmic astro physical events, super high energy, lots of mass, sudden events, stars exploding, black holes colliding. brian was saying the big bang actually might have made a bang, although that would have been hard to hear because it can be extremely faint, neutron stars that are dead stars that didn't become black holes is like paddle swishing space time and causes a monotone, so there's a panoply of expected sounds. >> rose: walter, what did einstein hope this would lead to? >> einstein's fingerprints is on

all things. when i it this my iphone to get a iewber, g.p.s., but einstein wanted this to understand our cosmos. it wasn't let's invent a laser or microchip. that is the essential nature of humans is to say, okay, what is it that is this yawfers and to try towns it? and i think that's all he was hoping it would lead to. >> having this new tool, gravitational waves, is really a new tool to explore space in time. >> rose: and what might we find? >> well, we might find that the theory and the more refined observations that no doubt will be made in the future, they may not completely agree. einstein might be in the right direction but it might not be the full story and there is many reasons thinking it won't be the full story. >> when galileo first looked through a telescope he was only

considering our neighborhood. he didn't see galaxies or massive jack holes powering jets. all of this came with the telescope. now we have a new instrument that's recording space time, not taking pictures. so maybe there are dark things that we're just looking at the things we know about as did galileo, but there is stuff out there we had not foreseen. >> rose: what might be out there? >> janna -- (laughter) >> brian and i have written papers like dark energy. it's extremely likely darnlg energy can generate gravitational waves. but we have to think harder. this is something that jeanly dark, not something you can take a picture of with a telescope and there is also dark matter. there are things to think about we at least have hints towards that maybe there is some way they would only be represented through the sounds. >> rose: why is this in your curiosity, walter? >> one thing you want to know is how did it all begin.

>> rose: ah... everything we do gets us a tiny step closer to the origin, the big bang. i don't know if we'll ever figure it out. i don't know if we'll ever have a unified theory the way einstein was hoping that would tie together all the forces of the universe, but everything we do gets us a little step closer to that holy grail. >> rose: the hol holy grail is figuring out how it all began? >> that is the deepest question in all of modern science. why is there a universe at all? everything else is subordinate to that question. >> gravitational waves could have been used to communicate because you can traverse the universe. >> rose: to communicate with civilizations somewhere else? >> right, getting your congressmen to pay for the black holes that we're going to vibrate -- >> rose: yeah. it's a good day for physicists?

>> for einstein. >> rose: an extraordinary day for those of us who care about future and science and need a clarian cal to deepen our commitment, this is it. thank you all very much. we'll be right back. stay with us. >> rose: von miller of the denver broncos super bowl champions is here. he was the most valuable player. he helped them win that championship and we're pleased to have him here. congratulations. great to have you. >> yes, sir. >> rose: what do you think of this picture? >> great. picture of my teammates in the background. it's incredible. >> rose: tell me about the broncos defense? >> we spend a lot of time together. it's not just about xs and os or a scheme, we spend a lot of time together. it's not just a 7:00 to 5:00 type of thing. that's where we get our success from. >> rose: designed by wade phillips? >> designed and managed by coach phillips. for him to be 68 years ol', he's

very, very into his players. the connection he has with his players is something i've never seen before. him being 68, he's on social media, can relate to all his players and the energy level he brings every single day -- >> rose: so are you. i saw you taking photos. >> a snapshot, always trying to get in. >> rose: he build this team. what principles did he instill in you playing defense. >> on defense, see ball, get ball. >> rose: see ball, get ball. he just wants you to play fast, play with a fanatical effort and pursuit and get everything else done. >> rose: they say see ball, get ball. >> yes, sir. >> rose: they say you have an uncanny sense of knowing where the ball is. can you explain that? >> i really can't. i like to have fun out there. i don't feel like it's a job or work. i like to have fun, i like to be there with my teammates.

i like to get my offense the ball as much as possible. >> rose: the great coach from the pittsburgh steelers, cbs analyst, said he would like you to finish this sentence before you played the patriots, "to win with, i have to do this --" and he said, get two sacks or more, and you got two and a half sacks. >> yes. >> rose: why was that a telling number for you? >> if i get two sacks, the odds are in our favor. >> rose: did you get about 11 ap.m getting sacks, it's a it means malik and derek wolf and demarcus ware might as well have two as well. i was predicting that we would be able to get that as a defense. >> rose: what worries you most about a great offense? >> consistency. when we were watching the carolina panthers, it wasn't a

lot of positive things you get from the offensive film. >> rose: they don't show you many weaknesses. >> they're scoring 35 points every game, running the ball 20 yards every carry. that's something we had to dig deep in ourselves to finish the game. >> rose: what's remarkable about your story as you well know better than anybody, at the year that the broncos lost two years ago, it was not your best year. you came back from suspension. what did you do? what did you change your mind that made you able to go from there to the top of the n.f.l.? >> i just had to refocus. football is always -- football has always been number one in my life. i am the person today because of the values you get from playing football. i got complacent when i was in national football league and i lost what it meant to play in national football league. i lost what a privilege it was. when i had that threatened and taken away, i was able to refocus and reevaluate what i

was doing. and i really didn't want to lose football. i really didn't want to be away from my guys. i've got the best teammates in the world. our locker room is very colorful. being with the guys helped me to get back right. >> rose: johnny manziel played with you guys and he can do it. >> he's that good. >> rose: in the end, you said to me it came from him. nobody can give you that will. >> i have been in that situation and have had my rough patches as well. you're going to have support all around. i had great support from my mom, dad and teammates, but the biggest person involved in the process of you getting back right is yourself, and i had countless nights of just looking in the mirror and getting my why back. >> rose: my y? my why, why do i do what i

do. i refocused on that. i really wanted to be with my teammates. i knew i had a huge opportunity to be a great football player for a great organization and i really didn't want to lose that. >> rose: when cam newton was drafted number one by the carolina panthers, who was drafted number two? >> i was drafted number two, but it was only 30 seconds after him. the competition part of it, of course i wanted to be number one, and everyone else in the draft thought they had a chance to be number one. >> rose: people who know you and cam say there is something there, for you to be across from cam newton, that's a great time for you because he's that good. he was number one, you were number two, you wanted to show him who was number one. >> i get 60 minutes to go out there, play with my guys, wore for a common goal and get after a great quarterback, nothing better. >> rose: for kids watching, if a running back comes with a

ball, how are you thinking about the tackle? >> when i was younger, some of these kids' age, i was thinking how do i get him down without getting hurt in. the national football league, i'm bigger than most. >> rose: 6-3, 250? yes, sir, right about. >> rose: okay. so what i'm thinking about is how can i get the ball -- >> rose: first stop and then get the ball. so if i'm a running back -- >> i want to tackle first stew and just grab it? >> yeah. >> rose: you've got to be stronger than his arm to get it. >> i have to get more people on it. if i have other people on the pile, i want to get the ball out. >> rose: so you're actually attacking the ball as well as me. >> yes, sir, all of my body is going on this one arm. i let the other guy come tackle you. >> rose: how good can you be? do you think you have reached the prime of what you can be? you're at the top of the n.f.l.

now. >> there are always levels you can go to, but from a teammate standpoint, there is always something i can do better. i can always influence my guys to play at a level they wouldn't normally play at. >> rose: do you believe you have to be a better athlete to play on the defense than offense? >> most definitely. you look at some of the athletes you have playing receiver, you have to be twice as good and fast to cover those guys. >> rose: eye-hand coordination? >> for sure. easier to play defense than offense. >> rose: tell me about peyton. everybody knows peyton manning and papa john's and all this incredible stuff he does, nationwide. >> rose: millions in endorsements. >> what you see is the person peyton manning is ten times greater than that. his memory is remarkable. it doesn't matter if you're a star on the team or a chef in the kitchen, he's going to remember you, your name, your kids, everything about you, and you really had to care about somebody to remember all this stuff about them.

>> rose: did peyton help you come back? >> most definitely. he takes me every single week. >> rose: he texts you every single week? >> when i was injured, he texted me every single week. he scored seven times against the ravens in 2013. his text after the game was i miss you, booedy, can't wait to get you back. i thought that was so admirable and i wanted to get back and help my team. >> rose: any skill that you'd like to have that you don't think you have well now? if i come to you at the beginning of the season next year and say this is what you can do better, what might that be? >> me being a competitor, i think i can do just about everything well, but one thing we all struggle with is consistency. >> rose: day in, day out. being the guy in they brought you to be, being the guy they drafted you to be, being the type of leader you can be, being that every single day is the challenge. >> rose: what is this season, this super bowl, this most

valuable player mean for you? >> the most valuable player, it's great, but the super bowl ring and the super bowl is even better. it weighs more. it's something me and my teammates will cherish for eternity. >> rose: since you have been in football you have been dreaming about being in the super bowl and winning. >> yes. >> rose: are your mom and dad alive? >> yes, they have been there. my dad's missed maybe four games in my life. my mom never missed a game, a track meet, assembly. she gives me comfort knowing she's my biggest fan. she told me the other day, i gave birth to my favorite football player. >> rose: what a pride for her. it means so much to me because she's been to every single game. >> rose: this means everything. as a team, a vindication for all the hard work, all the time you've spent on the field trying to get better and better. >> most definitely.

you go back to april two years ago when we first got everybody in there working out, all the workouts are hard, all the blood, sweat and tears we put into the super bowl, to go out and win it is definitely great. >> rose: great to meet you, congratulations. >> nice to meet you. >> rose: i appreciate you. i appreciate you, too. >> rose: thank you. von miller, super bowl 50, most valuable player denver broncos outside linebacker: for more about this program and earlier e about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: >> rose: on monday's pbs >> rose: on monday's pbs "newshour", a look at

man: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. kastner: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.