The Origin of EVERYTHING! Prof Joseph Conlon

Einstein's equations this is one of the most beautiful single things there has ever been it's incredibly beautiful and it's right and proper that we communicate this beauty and we communicate these Concepts to the broader world and there's a sense in which poetry is the highest form of language in the same way you look at you know the equations and you say these are incredibly beautiful then the science deserves attempts to do it in poetry attempts to do it in verse because you're trying to aim for the most beautiful language you can Joseph conin thank you so much for joining us all the way from the United Kingdom from snowy Oxford I believe is that right tiny bit of snow is not proper snow but I want to get your reaction to a statement by made by a a countryman of yours a late great scientist by the name of Paul Adrien Maurice dur who said in science one tries to tell people in such a way as to be understood by everyone something that no one ever knew before but in poetry it's the exact opposite what what what do you make of this kantankerous statement from man who was not known for using a language very uh very you know excessively Drax is kind of started in the 1920s and this is like modernism so and people like TS Elliott starting in and at some point you know Elliot made the statement at some point when he's writing it says you modern poetry needs to be difficult so I think you know if you think about what dur is reacting against I mean it's you know this is modernism this is the Wasteland this is the whole shift of poetry yeah in the way that when the physicists were discovering quantum mechanics the all the poets were deciding to be deliberately obscure and very difficult to read and so I think he must be reacting against that because that is the same time quantum mechanics happens you have the big shift to modernism in poetry and even though you know Elliot was saying yeah poetry needs to be difficult that's of course not not quite right but I I think that uh dra was sort of a a closeted poet I think in a lot of ways as you mentioned throughout the book there are many tie-ins to to to poets and and uh and scientist and and not the first of which came from my hero the Great Galileo galile who uh was featured in uh in Paradise Lost I think right so talk about that the ancient connections to poetry and then there was a connection that I wasn't aware of that you make a reference to which is to Clerk Maxwell so what was the you know kind of in intersection between Galileo and Milton for example you know Milton in Paradise Lost he makes a lot there's a lot of kind reference to the cosmology of the time there was this certainly was a time you know we we used to be natural philosophers we all used to be kind of broader Scholars and this idea that you had your little narrow discipline that you would go into and you know you only work on that and even like so later in the 18th Cent like AR Asma star when you know the people who wrote who were explor and they and they kind of wrote wrote about stuff in verse and of course classically you've got lucrecias which is you know when everyone wrote a vers so you know it goes back a long way and there's no you there are no artificial divisions between there should not be artificial divisions between different different kind of branches of knowledge or you know different ways of scholarly activity yeah before we look at the book cover and title it so forth tell me about the connection between uh James Clerk Maxwell in poetry I wasn't aware of that yeah he just wrote I mean I think it was this I think there was a much richer kind of verse culture that time you know in Victorian you know the education of Victorian England was in you know would have been a training in Classics and people would have learned to recite English verse so there was a much broader just verse culture like people would just know loads of verse by heart and they just everyone did that and so the idea of kind of writing social verse or just you know writing stuff just for fun this was as much kind of in the the fact that Maxwell would just it wasn't like that he's I think I think way it's not that he's some who one who's kind of completely away from his own culture he's in his own culture this is a culture where people know verse by heart they just write it for fun you know you so he would have written it kind just as almost naturally and he was obviously highly intelligent so he kind of writes not brilliantly but it's kind of not terrible either yeah I just looking it up we'll put some of his poems on there and uh you know it's it's quite you know striking the I think if you put it into context of a modern poet's ear so to speak maybe it wouldn't uh it wouldn't be so resonant but here here's a poem called a problem in Dynamics an inextensible heavy chain hung Loosely from the ceiling is drawn by a constant force which acts upon the extreme end what is the tension at any point and what is the velocity of the chain well I don't know I mean that sounds like a homework problem but or a qualifying exam problem not not something for the ages but let's turn to what you're never supposed to do Joe which is to judge a book by its cover so I'd like you to explain the the origin and the title of the cover of the book and the artwork and as well the subtitle the cosmos inverse so I should also say because that's a proof version I ought to just give you the you know the so this is the the color scheme so in terms of the artworks I think on the it's more obvious that you've got kind of the black of a night the night sky and the little things which are sort of you know the Stars I mean the reason it's when white so every single proof Edition that the public that one will do is in white so I don't yeah maybe other Publishers do that so Origins the title this is you know the origins were going back right to the you know close to the beginning of time to inflation to Nu nuclear synthesis and the thing you also wants a slightly hint as I think which is true is that this is the you know this story is kind of the creation story of the modern world I mean this occupies a place in the popular Consciousness that you know for example when Milton right you know the story of the story of Adam and Eve that was the kind of the creation story of time I think it's the story of the early universe is the creation story of the modern world it is the you know the story of the beginning of the universe and so so origin is partly you know it's getting that the cosmos inverse subtitle you thought about the universe inverse but that just was to was too twe and the cosmos inverse is exactly what it is I mean it's a it's a verse account of the now you're a particle physicist a theoretical particle how did you come to take on you know my domain you know the the way the bread gets buttered around the king household is cosmology what what turned your attention to cosmology as a particle physicist the intersection between particle physics and cosmology have been close for a long time if you think about something like inflation then you have you know what is the inflaton that's kind of probably a a particle physics question if you're interested in string theory as I am then and you say well where string the got a chance of making intersection with things you can do experiment things you can do observation cosmology I think is the most like most likely place so and I think generally today with the you know with the if you're someone who was trying to think beyond the standard model then cosmology is the is the place to be um because unfortunately LHC did not find there are no definitive signals of anything beyond the standard model from the LHC so kolog is a very natural place to be this book is what is called interdisciplinary you know where it's connections between many different uh Realms of of Academia and or you know the the human mind and scholarship how did that come to you and and and how do you think poetry can actually enhance our understanding of physics astrophysics Etc what we do in physics sometimes you feel this is some we deing some of the absolute peaks of human achievement it's some of the highest the best things people have ever learned ever in the entire history of humanity Einstein's equations this is one of the the most beautiful single things there has ever been you know this is one of most you know it's it's incredibly beautiful and you know and obvious and it's right and proper that that we communicate this beauty and we communicate these Concepts to the broader world and there's a sense in which poetry is the highest form of language that in the same way you look at you know the equations and you say these are incredibly beautiful then the science deserves you know attempts to do it in poetry attempts to do it in verse um because as language you know poetry everyone if you're trying to write you're trying to aim for the most beautiful language you can the subject deserves no less right try now it's not for me to say whether succeed or not but it's definitely absolutely right to try to put for you know what we think some of the best Concepts people have ever discovered and give them the best words I agree I mean they share some common DNA I would say with with uh with one another including you know parsimony economy you you don't want Superfluous terms in your equations or in your experimental results you don't want that in language and poetry if you're going to be effective and efficient as a communicator and so I see great resonance with it and yet and yet you must realize our colleagues you know I told you we taught a I taught a class with Ray Arman trout 10 years ago called poetry for physicists and I had more you know poets in the class than physicists that's for sure and it sort of looked down upon the humanity sort of um by these by you know these otherwise brilliant individuals and Scholars that poetry language it's something you have to take as a PR or you know as a mandatory requirement to graduate and now we have many more you have to take a Dei class and this but um but what do you make of that why is there not only kind of a a lack of of feeling of utility but actually a condescension a you know looking at with with a disrespect of of the humanities from our fellow physicists certainly that wasn't the case hundreds of years ago I think there might be two Trends so one Trend I think there's as I think there's a part part of the humanities that has gone in a direction which is not knowledge based which is you know there's a part which is kind of got I think got slightly sort of corrupt you know going down a kind of a political thing where you know mean is you know if you look across to say you and you says look people these people you people who have a enormous knowledge of English language or English poetry people who can you know translate anything into Latin or Greek translate back complet you know you have to be a fool not to kind of look across with a a great deal of admiration but I think there is a there has been a trend in some parts of the human Humanities which is not to become less kind of knowledge focused and more you know activism or politics focus and I think when people look across at that they do not look across with with with respect that's I think that's one part yeah and then the and the other part is you know people do like their own subject I that's just you people like their own subject and they're proud of their own subject and they everyone thinks their own subject is the best one right they're biased in that way and and we'll certainly get into your research and the and the contributions you've made in string theory and other forms of theoretical physics Etc uh one thing I you know found very delightful because I I knew the bbes they they both were here at UC San Diego I just missed meeting you know Fred hoil and uh never got to know Willie Fowler but I know many of his students and uh including George Fuller and Rocky colb and Etc and and they make a very significant role play a significant role in this book can you talk about the elements we are often told that we're made of star stuff and you do mention that that's very poetic of Carl Sean who is another person who was looked down upon you know almost for Outreach efforts and wasn't granted admission to the National Academy of Sciences as you know talk about the the role that the elements and the structure of this book for you know from elements to galaxies you know to the origin of the universe itself talk about that what is uh the significance of those stories why did you choose those stories maybe and exclude other stories so the books is there's two long poems in the book so one is broadly on the origin of the chemical elements and the the other is on the origin of the Galaxy so the first um the orig the elements is the story of kind of nuclear synthesis sort of how the elements came to be and there's kind of three main parts to that there's the very early Universe the hot big bang which is when you get kind of hydrogen and helium tiny bit of lithium then you get basically in inside stars um which is the life cycle of stars as you elements are fused up until iron and then I mean and as you know we don't quite know with the heavy elements there's basically we know it's kind of the r process but whether it's kind of massive supern noi or with um coll colliding colliding neutral Stars we don't quite know exactly what what is but But whichever it basically involves you know exploding Stars so this is one part of the origin stories of where we come from the other long poem is is galaxies which is on the origin of structure in the universe which I we not we're not completely sure you know I don't know maybe you feel more sure than I do but I still feel I feel very sure that we think came from inflation and inflation is certainly overwhelmingly our best um best best theory of this so This describes the theory of cosmic inflation and how this beautiful combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity and the uncertainty principle create structure in the universe which then subsequently grows into inter galaxies and so why is these stories well the these are very much or origin stories and they'll I mean also you know mean it takes quite while takes quite a while to write these so these were the kind of this was you know this is kind of poetry book length already and there's two pretty coherent stories and then I wanted to include scientists in that which is why there's the bbes appear Fred Hoy appears Cecilia Cecilia Payne appears you know s Chandra is to tell the stories also that it's a human story as well as a scientific story when I look at those stories for both cases actually for all three cases you know the Big Bang um the origin of the elements Etc and then inflation there always seem to be sort of these two different paths that people are taking one kind of the Orthodox you know as you say most scientists look at inflation but not all as as the dominant kind of exp explanation the Genesis event of the universe but not your colleague across the the the snowy greens there sir Roger penr many Time guest on the podcast so to with the big bang uh Fred Hoy the bbes they did not adhere to the big bang you you talk about how they came up with the name or Fred did as a as a pejorative so so to speak you know obviously in terms of formation of Galactic structure and things like that people have very differing viewpoints so how do you separate you know kind of the crackpots the amateur poets the the the Renegades that that might be right but probably are not how do you kind of separate them as a professional and and know who you should pay you only have so much attention to give so how do you know then as a professional who do you pay attention to yeah that's a hard question because that's something we'll all doing all the time and I guess the way I try to think of is is question like where I have a particular angle on on something I mean there's there's no point as a scientist moving to somewhere you know very different and trying to do like three steps where you're both going to be against the Orthodox and you're going to be in an area you know you know nothing about because we all have our kind of Circle of things we know extremely well circle of things we know reasonably well circle of things where we have a good sense of the people and so I think to me the thing of going where you go slightly you know the areas you kind of know you kind of know best where you can go unorthodox or who to try of trust I think it's dangerous if you step you know if you go complet completely outside your the areas where you've got real proper real expertise and feeling and then start off being being unorthodox because I think that's that's like an Epsilon squared thing and that's almost certainly going to be a disaster so in your domain of um high energy particle physics Etc uh there are great controversies and and and great number of detractors from String Theory some say it's not only wrong but it's dangerous and is actually harmful to society or at least to our profession comment on that and and how do you listen to the to the Steven wols or the you know the Garrett Le's or I'm trying to think of some Julian Barbour H how do you know in that realm which is your realm of expertise how much attention do you pay to alternatives are you familiar with Steven wolfram's you know physics project and and the hypergraph theory is that something that you pay attention to or and if not what would it take to get your to pay attention to it I mean I think it's the more people know about String Theory at technical level the less skeptical that they they become of it and this comes with the reason why string theory is so successful is that it's not that lot people are sitting around trying to solve quantum gravity and there's some by bunfight about quantum gravity is that string theory is successful because you know like people who worked on mathematics people who are interested in mathematics people who are interested in say questions in algebra in algebraic geometry it wasn't kind of you know String Theory could do things for them it could solve their problems for them it could solve problems they were interested in the same was true with Quantum field Theory people who are were Quantum field theorists they were not strength theorists they were Quantum field theorists they're interested in solving Quantum field Theory at strong coupling strength Theory gave them techniques and told them you know here are ways you can solve Quantum spill Theory at string strong couling which is what they're actually interested in and you can get results for the quantum field Theory at strong cing so I mean I think there's this General thing expression that you can buy from people in your own language but you have to sell to them in their language and I think this is what's happened basically I mean String Theory sold to lots of people people because it could solve the problems they were interested in not because it got you know all these people saying well let's go and think about quantum gravity what do you say to those people who you know upon spotting your famous uh statement in chapter 7 of why String Theory published by CRC press chapter 7 uh is the shortest chapter in known popular physics books direct experimental evidence for string theory and the whole chapter consists of a single statement there is no direct experimental evidence for string theory you've become a meme uh I think I think you even been retweeted by by Elon Musk I actually want to take issue with that because I had on a guest who you surely know cun vafa but I had a conversation with camran you know four years ago or so and I said that there aren't many uh predictions you know kind of echoing what I learned from you and and and other colleagues of yours and the question I pose to him is you know how how do you how do you operate in a in a regime where you have no direct uh not only experimental evidence but you also don't even have predictions I I said to him and he said no Brian you're wrong String Theory actually does make predictions predictions about black holes according to Stephen Hawking be in stenen Hawking and particular but he said now I want to give you an example Brian where we can make predictions right now from String Theory which have been experimentally verified Joe so you ready now these predictions are rather in a sense I would not say precise but it's still a prediction I'll give you an example he said to me you take the electron it has a mass and if you compute the mass of the electron in the fundamental units of physics which is plank Mass it's a very tiny Mass something of the order 10us 23 so if you say great do we have any predictions that the electron Mass should be this small without knowing there is an electron just knowing that there is electric charge and by knowing that there is dark energy in the universe you find a bound on the electron Mass you find that the electron Mass should be bounded by 0.1 plank Mass uh or and 10us 31 on the lower Edge so he's giving us 30 orders of magnitude what do you make of that he's saying the string theory given dark Energy's existence predicts the value of the electron's mass it's not a prediction because the electron Mass was measured by JJ Thompson back in 1897 so anything which is of the nature of this is something we actually know about the universe already that is not a prediction because that's not you know that's not the goods you sell to in that it's a retrodiction but let's say you knew that Dark Energy existed and electrons existed but you didn't know their Mass I mean would this even count or if I tell you the neutrino or some super symmetric partner it's going to have some Mass with 30 orders of variation would you consider that to be a prediction even if it comes true I think it's if you predict something is going that is that might you so there's two things first of all you need to the question is is this an absolutely 100% nailed on prediction of the theory as opposed to a prediction of you know some model model you have that's one question and even if that is the case well I think generally if you're predicting that is something is going to be within about 30 you know if you're about to possibly going to measure something and it can only be measured in kind of here and you you say well it's going to be like here it's within 30 years of magnitude I'm I'm not sure many people be impressed by such a prediction from my perspective it's a it's it's sort of maybe just in there to count on a technicality of passing some paparian notion of what constitutes science right so if there's never any possibility of getting experimental evidence if you knew there was a no-go theorem that said we'll never get evidence or God tells you we'll never get evidence I've talked to other leading proponents of like mitaku says of course you know String Theory can make predictions but you have to tell me which of the 10 to the 500th vacuum states of the universe is true and he'll say well that's exactly like choosing a gauge Theory what what do you make of those sort of Highly technical but nevertheless you know quasi quasi uh legitimate attempts to make string theory comport with popper the way I kind of think which is interesting is you know there's all these things where you can kind of do measurements so what I think string theory is very good at is sugest you know is suggesting kind of ideas that you know say the these these are things these are things you could these are things you could look you know we've got this kind of where technology is and you've got the kind of pum of stuff that is kind of kind of kind of around that forget kind of plank scale accelerators we're not getting plank scale accelerators in but the pum of stuff around that and then defining what are the kind of interesting things you can things you can look for because as a more sensible philosopher said you know all all data is Theory Laden this is extremely true in cosmology you know the whole thing of how you interpret the CN CNB you what you should look for what you should measure in the CNB how you should interpret the CNB is a complete is very much a theory Laden thing and so saying you know what are the kind of things you should look for so for example axient are one of these things that are highly motivated in strength theory if we see an aient it is not proof of string theory you can have acents in beyond the standard model things but it gives one of these that gives you lots of ideas about how you should look for axians how you can look for axians and as you know the search for axians is one of the you know most active areas in experiment experimental political physics and in cosmology it's one of our top uh quaries for the Simon Observatory the Simon's array and there have even been claimed you know hints of detections of of uh what's called Cosmic bior refringence which would be a consequence of an Axion uh and there's many different uh forms thereof so then you know turning to sort of one of the more I would say opulent or you know grandiose aspects of string theory extra Dimensions can you explain how you envision extra Dimensions playing a role in string theory uh and especially with regard to cosmological phenomena in other words do we need extra Dimensions I mean certainly we need them to to instantiate string theory but what role does the specific number of dimensions for example play is that something that's observable uh within a a cosmological context so I think the most interesting thing from a cosmology point of VI most interesting about ex Dimensions is that the things like the size and shape of the ex Dimensions when you look at them from the persective of four dimensions these effectively correspond to Scala Fields called called moduli and this is this is one of these generic expectations I mean if you want to say prediction you can but generic expectations of strength theory that you should have Scala Fields with how which whose interactions are suppressed by gravitationally strength interactions so these are really interesting in various ways they're very interesting in the early Universe because if they exist you know the this normal picture where you've got a radiation dominated hot big bang that come lasts from inflation you know all the way um you know through nuclear synthesis this basically almost never happens in a string model and the reason is if you have a scaler and it's gravitationally coupled it takes a long long time to Decay it comes to dominate and you have these early periods of M matter domination so you know in this kind of first half of the universe lasting about 30 ords of magnitudes in time between inflation and nuclear synthesis about about which we know essentially nothing think observationally string theory you know this is one of these things scal such scal of fields gravitation couples give a strong reason to modify the equation of state from um for example just just the the radiation domination through that period and such scal of fields can also because if for example canian which is something I'm sure you've kind of studied at some point as a as a cosmologist this is something which only really makes sense in a kind of a UV complete in a plant complete Theory because in something like canian Fields move a plank in distance in field space every Hubble time and moving trans planking distances in field space is only something you can do in a controlled way inside some something like strength Theory so these are kind of where I think extra Dimensions matter because they give you scal of fields they give you the moduli scal of fields and the modul scaler Fields can modify the equation of State in the universe in this period between inflation and big bang and give you lots of interesting stuff that you can go and potentially and hopefully look for and I'm not too bothered as to whether you say this is like a prediction of string theory or whether it's just something interesting you can look for in the universe because I'm a physicist and my goal is to find out new and interesting stuff about about the universe not get hung up in some you know discussion about whether or not this is a prediction of string theory or not what about Dark Matter I've heard you know comments and and proposals ranging from uh Steven Wolfram who told me recently that he envisions dark matter as sort of a flow of heat you know throughout the Universe what does string theory offer regarding dark matter and how does your research contribute to the ongoing discourse about its nature I think so as you know I mean the thing we know about the two things we know there two very solid things we know about dark matter it's dark and that is matter yeah it doesn't interact with stuff and it just and it behaves like like like like dust so this means there you know as you know there are a lot of candidates for dark dark matter and I don't think string theory particularly helps you here I mean axians are one very good candidate you axians do come up in in string theory you can have there lots of other candidates for dark matter there's nothing particular about String Theory which says that any one of these should be the D matter I don't think string the adds anything extra particularly to the question of what is what is D matter you know one thing that I think you've you've done research in or you know things regarding you know topology and so forth talk about uh what you know your research that you're currently working on say has to do with either topology or moduli and and if you could explain those also for the for the audience's benefit um the core nature of your research these so these moduli are the kind of it's like even suppos extra are true parts of nature with the the kind of experimental apparatus we have we cannot actually dis distinguish them now there can be stuff on small scales that you know if you've only got big things you can't think so one thing I like to an image I like to give here is imagine trying to kind of knit wearing boxing gloves you can't do it yeah it involves fine detail small scale structure and if you're wearing boxing gloves you know you just cannot access stuff at a very tiny tiny level of detail so this is a bit like the this is an example like you know this is like even things like the LHC are the boxing gloves and extra dimensions are are the kind of knitting you just can't can't access it is there any Legacy of it you can't see all the structure but you have some some broad structure so moduli what they are they're kind of particles they'd be particles and these particles are the kind of legacies if you like of the extra Dimension the legacies that we have got a chance of being able to detect or being able to to to to measure and modul their existence is often not always but it's often tied to the topology of the extra dimensions and the more topologically complicated the extra dimensions are then the more kind of moduli and you might imagine it's a topology is something that survives when nothing else does so you can kind of sense topology in some sense even though you you can't really see see all the micr structure so what my research is kind of on is these kind of legacies of extra dimensions and how you would detect their effects on physics you can actually observe another thing that's that's you know sort of I think quite pertinent is how perhaps you think your research and strength theory in general fits in in terms of maybe the philosophy of science you know which is adjacent to things like Humanities poetry literature Etc and how you view yourself as a communicator not just as a you know practicing scientist of the highest caliber what do you see as a obligation of the public scientist if any I mean a lot of the people I've spoken to say we don't have an obligation but I think Fred Hoy and maybe you and and I might disagree so what do you think is the obligation in the realm of popularizing and or inculcating a notion of what we do as researchers into the popular Zeitgeist so the biggest obligation is is truth towards the public I mean sometimes people this take example the chapter 7even of my book I mean sometimes people say to me you you shouldn't have written that because it turns people kind of an anti strring Theory but I mean I say you know the most important thing we owe the public is truth is to be completely accurate about our subject and you know to be say this is precise so I mean part of the book If you you've seen the book the book is very much a case that string theory is the best theory we have and it's an extraordinar rich and extraordinary deep intellectual lectual structure and I say that because I think I think it's true not because I'm doing boosterism from my own subject but but part of that it's completely honest and we should also say we do not have any direct experimental evidence that string theory is a true fundamental theory of nature so in terms of communication I think the thing we the thing we most owe the public is truth to be completely honest about about about the subject and then clarity mean I think you know so sometimes with Humanity people you know there this you know for example poetry there's a lot of people who translate poetry you know like the classical epics you know like The Iliad The Odyssey the Ana these have been translated into many many different languages because you have these idea that this you know not almost no one can read them in their original and it's part of the kind of the common Heritage of humanity that these things should be translated to a wide audience and to this I see very much this is what we do as communicators I mean the language of our subject is mathematics you can't sort of the mathematics of general relativity for example you know people don't know unless they spent several years at University studying this but this is absolutely part of the common Heritage of humanity and it's right that we translate this into the the the vernacular which is which is English and we tell people about about this because these are great and beautiful ideas and people deserve to be talk them what do you say to people like you know my friend Saina Hassen Felder who says no you know you should be in the lab doing what laboratory you know scientists do or Joe you should be at the at the chalkboard um doing what a theor proper theorist should be doing and you know we don't pay you to do that we we pay you to do research and there are very few people that can do what you do and there are many people that can do what Neil degrass Tyson does so how would you react to somebody a claim like that that's not true I think that's we're not I mean as scientist you know you would know we are also paid to sit on committees we're also paid to help run run physics departments there's a whole lot of stuff we we we pay to teach undergraduates there's a whole lot of stuff which is part of our job you know the mission of our University the University of Oxford you know teaching research dissemination and I think it's also it's also true I mean that as you move through your career you there's always the question you're asking what am I best at how can I you know I've got a career for you 40 years 50 years something like that how do I optimize my contributions to the subject and this varies with your different points in your career I mean there are times when you could just focus kind of entirely on yourself where what you should be doing is learning as much as the subject you know traveling around the world giving talks do there are times in you your it's really important we teach undergraduates it's important that the department physics departments run that requires as you know kind of requires Administration which isn't always the most exciting thing in the world and so I think as you as you move through your career there are the balance between different you know things changes sometimes subjects are particularly exciting and it's you know everyone goes fill in on research but you know as you balance you know you these broad obligations to many parts of the subject and the balance shifts and varies and fluctuates up and down through different parts of the throughout throughout the career and another thing you know that's I'd like to talk to you about um you know is the nature of our um of our profession of being University professors um and you know if I am correct the you know Oxford has basically been around for almost a thousand years uh and is is the oldest uh English language speaking University in the world I don't think they spoke you know the English that you and I are speaking even though we're as it said divided by a Common Language what do you make of profession in the future with rise of tools like AI not not as researchers which I think there is some promise but as as professors you're going to say jobs that are absolutely not going to go out you know with AI for example work working in a bar as well why is that because this you it's the human the human contact and this I think is not just not going to go away I mean you know as a you we talk to students we teach our students in O you know we have a we kind of we have this tutorial system we teach them in SCH small groups of two we see them over over several years we know our students very well I think this the human aspect is never is always going to be in demand and you know humans Inspire humans um people get inspired because of people they know they also learn to be scientists from people they know I think this aspect you know this is going to be around for maybe if there humanoid robots we we're all we're all gone but um and what about uh on the other side poetry uh the I've I've played around a lot with you know generating poems and generating you know songs and which are not too dissimilar uh from from po so what what do you make of that the um the the possibility for AI poets to kind of subsume not only uh physics Nobel prizes but but possibly literature Nobel prizes in the near future certainly not yet I mean you know if you look at what say chat GTP produces in terms of poetry is it's really not very good at the at the moment the future will bring what the what what the future will bring I mean at the moment you know these things are are sort of almost like things which are memorize the internet so they could reproduce a lot of stuff but you know the change the first derivative has been has has been rapid um yeah I don't know are they will they Plateau will they will they end up really being able to produce things that what people would say is really first class and original first class literature not something that they've just kind of you know found somewhere on the internet yeah who knows I'm speaking with Yan Lon uh tomorrow on the podcast and you know he's a an AI maximalist at meta and and you sure that that AI isn't a problem he he calls it as sophisticated as a cat but you know only as a cat I I I think some cats are quite quite impressive especially the the greater cats that are you know plying the serengetti okay so final questions uh that I have for you I want to I want to ask you what kind of man are you Joseph are you a Witman or a fine man and let me let me just read to you two different poems and I want to get your reaction to them first one is by Walt Witman and it's called when I heard the Learned astronomer when I heard the Learned astronomer when the proofs the Figures were ranged in columns before me when I was shown the charts and the diagrams to add and divide and measure them when I sitting heard the astronomer when he lectured with much Applause in the lecture room how soon unaccountable I became sick and tired and until rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself in the mystical moist night air and from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars so first of all react to that as a poem what do you make of it what of the things which just Straits me about a lot of poets writing about science is that the structure of this is it sort of starts with it picks up on St so it starts with the kind of science but then it uses the science as what it does it doesn't properly engage with it it uses it as something that you then Twist Off onto emotion emotional response um with the slight thing that really you but then actually what is actually kind of superior which is kind of suggest you know is the the emotional response of getting out of the lecture theater where the actual details of all this stuff is happening and just going up and kind of you know romantic in the kind of sense semi kind of American romantic kind of just just stare at the the skies so obviously it's kind of a it works it's a famous poem and it's a famous poem because it works and it speaks to kind of a certain kind of emotional reaction but it's a common kind of thing on a lot of poets writing about science which is they kind of pick science as a topic to then say you know talk about the superiority of what is essentially an a kind of an inside the heart emot emotional reaction and then I want to read to the um kind of response poem which I believe uh you were also probably familiar with uh by Richard feeman it's not really a a poem it's a verse uh perhaps essay and Fineman said poets say science takes away from the beauty of the Stars mere Globs of gas atoms I too can see the stars on a desert night and I feel them but do I see less or more the vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination stuck on this little Carousel my little eye can perceive and catch 1 million year old light a vast pattern of which I am a part what is the pattern or the meaning or the why it does not do harm to the mystery to know a little bit about it far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it why do The Poets of the present not speak of it what men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he was were a man but if he is an immense spinning sphere of method say and ammonia must be silent so what do you think of this as a poem as a kind of you know as in craft of writing as in you know the craft of writing Whitman is obviously a better as much better at the craft of my sensibilities are all refinement in terms of streaming but I mean that in terms of kind of craft of writing wh Whitman is obviously better but I I completely share the sensibilities of fan on this that you are you as I've said I mean you like these Einstein these are some of the most beautiful things of all of humanity and you should not write at them you to write treat them in a slant fashion you can engage them as they are and you should present them as what they are which is some of the most beautiful things that exist rather than so Whitman engages in a slam fashion and fan engages directly and obviously Whitman writes better than fan does but um my sensibilities are all with fan in terms of the the actual the thought right I understand okay finally I want to ask you how is your personal Journey as a as a physicist uh and maybe as a poet been influenced by your perspective on the universe and our place within it including the research that you have uniquely done the Poetry starts a long time ago the Poetry kind of starts starts when I was a child um that I learned poetry as a as by heart as a child my kind of parents encouraged it I I I enjoyed it and I sort of it wasn't you know it was just something something you know it was something I enjoyed and then you kind of if you learn stuff by heart it lives with you and it kind turn you turn it over even when you're not thinking about it you know obviously then as a at some point you know when you get your kind of your late even when you're committing to professional there was this period you I was just went completely I thought about nothing else pretty much you know seriously than science and physics for like you know 10 or 15 years starting at start St start starting at kind of 18 and then but all the kind the the literary side of me was all there in the background and then so then I kind of started wanting to write about physics and that was my f you with wi string theory and then I sort of turning to kind of trying to write poetry just for fun originally you know um about seven eight years ago or something and then I I developed this kind of inner conviction that there's so much poetry about you know Love and Death and parents and all those things but there's very little on kind of physics and and I'm a physicist yeah the physics deserves you know so I started writing something on physics and it kind of which tend to be 50 or 100 lines I thought well then I'll try but then it grew and it grew and as it you know I just then I had in this conviction that you know as I've said this is the creation story of the modern world and it it deserves averse treatment I mean and the only person who can write such a verse treatment has to be someone who is completely trained as a physicist who speaks these languages of mathematics as a fluently as a native speaker and that I was as less unqualified as anyone to to try I mean you know you can't do something unless you decide well okay I'm just actually going to give this a go and see if I and and and try and write this so slowly yeah this book over kind of a period of about four or five years was um written and yeah now and and now it's finished well now it's done and now it's published and it makes a wonderful contribution to you know otherwise very uh non-fiction heavy uh kind of framework that uh that science popularization has kind of undergone I I have and and I enjoy it and I've contributed to it uh as well but it's nice to have a very um distinct and perhaps much needed break from you know pure non-fiction uh to to actually learn and and be delighted by so uh Joseph conin is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oxford and fellow of new College his research spans particle physics String Theory cosmology and astrophysics he's the author of why String Theory which was a physics World Book of the year in 2016 and he's the author of over 70 Publications uh Joseph thank you so much for joining us all the way from the UK it's been a long time congratulations on the book and I I do hope we get to meet in person and maybe we'll do a poetry slam together that would be great