dr. weinberg, what is this picture on the front of your book? >> that's a picture of lake austin as seen from our boat dock. i do most of my work at home in an office overlooking the lake. and so i have a certain feeling of connection with lake austin. >> why would a nobel prize-winning physicist of science put a lake on the front of his book? >> well, it is what i look at while i'm working, but also, you know, being a scientist, especially a few theoretical physicist, it's a little unworldly. and the sounds of the lake, especially in summer, the boats going up and down the lake playing music brings me back a little bit to the real world, the world of human affairs, which is i think healthy. >> well -- >> that's what i was trying to do in this book, in many of the essays, to peek out of the ivory tower of debt, something to say about the real world. >> let's peek back into the ivory tower. what's the purpose of studying physics? >> well, there are many reasons for doing it. it has enormous practical value, of course. not the kind of physics i do

dr. weinberg, how do you get interested in these topics? >> isaac has said, enrolled her cousin who went i was 10 or 12, i got tired of his chemistry set. it was the number five chemistry set. and i got it as a hand-me-down. i got fascinated by chemistry and started to read about chemistry. i learned that chemicals behave the way they do because the items they are made of. and then i then i learned there is something called physics that you needed to study in order to understand adams. and it was a slippery slope. i got into it. i ties in high school i went to be a theoretical physicists. they're wonderful books written in the 30s and 40s on science for nonscientists by good working scientists like george cano and james jeans. i think i was excited because i didn't understand a lot of what i said if only i could learn the staffing understand it. so my fate was sealed from high school on. >> when it comes from private policy when you touch on, how is the u.s. done in your view when it comes to public policy, science funding, et cetera? >> we