What is the inspiration behind your latest live show, Emergence?<\/p>\n
It came from a book that I\u2019ve loved for years: The Six-Cornered Snowflake by Johannes Kepler. Kepler is most famous for his laws of planetary motion<\/a> in and around 1610, but he wrote this little book about New Year\u2019s Eve in 1609, when he was walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague in a snowstorm. He was going to his benefactor\u2019s house and he hadn\u2019t bought him a present. So he writes this beautiful little book about looking at the snowflakes landing on his arm and thinking about the symmetry of them and asking, why are they six-sided?<\/p>\n This is a really modern question. It\u2019s a tremendously 20th and 21st century way of looking at the world as a scientist \u2013 what is the origin of the symmetry that you see? He had no way of knowing it is to do with water molecules and atoms. But one of the most important things about the book is that he says, I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s really radical.<\/p>\n So the show is about the things that we know, which are remarkable; the things that we don\u2019t know; and the things that might be unknowable, which are important too.<\/p>\n That neatly leads to the next question \u2013 if you could have the answer to any scientific question that we don\u2019t have an answer to, what would it be?<\/p>\n There are loads. I\u2019d love to know if there\u2019s life beyond Earth, in the solar system or elsewhere. We might have a chance of answering that. We have two spacecraft en route to Jupiter\u2019s moons now. And even the James Webb space telescope now can look at atmospheres of planets around distant stars. And there\u2019s a slim chance that we might detect a signature of life. I\u2019d like to know how far you have to go to see something else alive.<\/p>\n Twenty minutes ago I spoke to Damian Lewis<\/a> and he had a question for you: is music a science or an art?<\/p>\n Oh! But you could say, is science a science or an art, as well. The honest answer is I really don\u2019t like these divisions between disciplines. My answer would be, music is both. Science is ultimately a response to the beauty of the world and so is music. All human pursuits are a response to the beauty and mystery of the world.<\/p>\n \u2018In the north of Manchester, there weren\u2019t many people who were becoming astronomers!\u2019 \u2026 Brian Cox on stage. Photograph: Nicky J Sims<\/p>\n Which area of science do you think is going to see the most exciting developments in the next decade?<\/p>\n Obviously we don\u2019t know where AI is going and how powerful it\u2019s going to become \u2013 which is both exciting and potentially a problem. But quantum computing is interesting. I\u2019m not an expert in the field but you ask them: \u201cWhen are we going to access the power of quantum mechanics?\u201d And some of them say: \u201cNot in my lifetime\u201d and some of them say: \u201cIn five years.\u201d It just shows you that these technologies we\u2019re developing are so revolutionary but we don\u2019t quite know where they\u2019re going, which is both a challenge and an opportunity.<\/p>\n What is a matter or belief you have unexpectedly changed your mind about?<\/p>\n I\u2019m constantly changing my mind about social media and whether it\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing. It\u2019s so noisy and so full of misinformation and fake information that it\u2019s just not useful. But I was one of those people in the early days that had quite a utopian feeling about it. It was wonderful because everybody could talk to everybody and have access to all these different points of view and different opinions and it kind of felt healthy.<\/p>\n double quotation markMy first job was playing music on stage when I was 18, then I did a bit of work as a roadie. I\u2019ve been really lucky<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s clear that social media has become a negative influence on politics. But I\u2019m constantly changing my mind on whether it is good for the world or not.<\/p>\n What is the best piece of advice you\u2019ve received?<\/p>\n Do what you most enjoy. My parents did encourage me in that respect. They thought I would go to university \u2013 they hadn\u2019t, so they were really keen that I would. And I didn\u2019t want to, I wanted to be in a band! But they supported that because it was the thing I was interested in. If you have children, the thing that matters is that they find something they like doing. I did, I was in music for five years<\/a> \u2013 and then I thought, no, I want to do astronomy. So I went and did astronomy, which was not necessarily thought to be a great career path at the time. It is a wonderful career but where I came from, in the north of Manchester, there weren\u2019t many people who were becoming astronomers!<\/p>\n What is your most controversial pop culture opinion?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a good question, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m struggling because I\u2019ve lost contact with popular culture somewhat, so I don\u2019t know what\u2019s controversial and what isn\u2019t. What would be a controversial opinion?<\/p>\n Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth told us she\u2019s not a fan of Taylor Swift<\/a>.<\/p>\n I think that is fairly understandable, personally. Maybe my most controversial opinion is I don\u2019t know anything about pop culture. Actually, I\u2019d say the level of innovation in music has slowed down somewhat. If you look at the evolution of music from the 1950s to the 1980s, you are going from early Elvis and Frank Sinatra to Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd \u2013 it is vast. But if you played me something from 2000 or 2010 or 2020, I don\u2019t think there\u2019d be tremendous stylistic differences. I don\u2019t see the evolution.<\/p>\n What has been your most memorable interaction with a fan?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you a name-droppy story. I was at an ELO concert and someone came up to me and said: \u201cI loved your documentary. I\u2019ve got a question about Saturn\u2019s moon Enceladus and its ice fountains. I\u2019m really sorry, I\u2019m always doing this \u2013 I walk up to people who I\u2019ve seen on telly and I think I met them, but I haven\u2019t met you before. Sorry! I\u2019m Paul McCartney<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n That was the first time I met Paul McCartney. I\u2019ve met him a few times since. He\u2019s always wonderful. But the first time I met him, because I\u2019m such a big Beatles fan, I was completely overwhelmed. I loved that he introduced himself to me.<\/p>\n What song would you like played at your funeral?<\/p>\n I\u2019m good friends with Eric Idle and he always jokes that Always Look on the Bright Side of Life has become a funeral song. So I have to avoid that because it\u2019s cliche now. What would I choose? Probably something really silly and happy. Like, Twist and Shout. I\u2019d like something utterly inappropriate while everyone is crying.<\/p>\n Do you have a favourite fact?<\/p>\n The number of galaxies in the observable universe, the bit we can see, is around 2tn galaxies. That is a remarkable fact, because it\u2019s completely impossible to picture. We were still arguing about whether there were galaxies beyond our own in the early 1920s. In 100 years, we\u2019ve gone from arguing about whether there\u2019s only one galaxy, to discovering that the universe is bigger than what we can see \u2013 and there are 2tn galaxies in just the bit we can see! Also, we\u2019ve measured the age of the universe, which is astonishing. Not the fact that the universe is 13.8bn years old, but the fact that we actually measured the age of it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is the inspiration behind your latest live show, Emergence? 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