dr. tyson. beginning in 1989, dr. tyson has written several books. "merlin's tour of the universe" was his first." universe down to earth" came out in 1994. "just visiting this planet," 1998. "the sky is not the limit," that was his fourth book, 2000. "one universe" also came out in 2000. "origins" came out in 2004. "death by black hole," 2007. space crop cls -- chronicles three years later, and last year "star talk" came out as well as "welcome to the universe." and his most recent book, "astrophysics for people in a hurry." here's how you can participate, we'll put the phone numbers up. 202 is the area code, 748-8200 for those of you in the east and central time zones. 748-8201 if youly in the mountain and and pacific time zones. if you can't get through on the phone line, still want to participate in our program, try us on social media. @booktv is our twitter handle, you can also make a comment op our facebook page. you'll see dr. tyson's picture there, just make a comment right underneath,

one more time jerk all right, i apologize, dr. tyson. steve is not there. but you brought up carl sagan. what was your relationship? >> guest: it wasn't, you do, i think the press occasionally overstates what the relationship was. i met him when i was 17, just an anonymous high school kid. but what was remarkable about that, that he was already famous soviet not yet done cosmos but he is already famous, had been on johnny carson, the tonight show multiple times. cover stories in parade magazine. he was already well known and i'd apply to cornell where he was on the faculty and unknown to me the admissions office sent my application to him to get his comment and reaction. .. the bus and went from new york in december in the winter, cold and he met me outside the building show me the lab. reach behind him. ever forget this, didn't even have to look. signed it to me, i said wow, that's bad a. >> the book that you have written. i still have that book. it says to future astronomer. carl. so at the end of the day, he drives me back to the bus station and it begin

tyson. he's the author of many books including "welcome to the universe," "death by black hole," "and his latest, "astrophysics for people in a hurry." >> host: dr. neil degrasse tyson, in your new book, "astrophysics for people in a hur arely," you open it by saying the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. what does that mean? >> guest: get over it. [laughter] i think up until, well, really up til the year 1600 when we didn't have any particular tools to investigate the natural world, our five senses were the primary means by which we obtained all information about the universe. and if not even knowing that our five senses had limits. if it's everything you know, you think it's everything the universe is trying to give you but, in fact, it's not. and so around 1600 was the invention to have microscope in one direction and then the telescope in the other direction. each invented within a decade of one another. that all of a sudden pieces of the universe come available to us that transcend our senses. the fact9 that lieu wan hoping would look inside of a drop of pond water and see microorganisms just doing the backstroke, right?