00:00what if I told you that our
00:01understanding of The Big Bang Theory and
00:04the Very origins of our universe can be
00:06traced back to a map of pink and blue
00:09blobs the same blurry map that Stephen
00:12Hawking described as quote the most
00:15important discovery of the century if
00:17not all time well today we have the
00:20privilege of hearing from astrophysicist
00:21and Noble Laureate John Mather one of
00:25the great minds behind the cosmic
00:27background Explorer satellite which
00:28produced this very pink and blue blobs
00:30also widely considered to be the first
00:33strong evidence for the Big Bang or in
00:36the words of the noble committee the
00:37starting point for cosmology as a
00:40Precision science our map showed pink
00:42and blue blobs across the entire Sky
00:45it's very blurry but it was enough to
00:47say the early Universe was not the same
00:49everywhere there were hot and cold spots
00:51that matters to us because if the
00:53universe had been completely exactly
00:55uniform gravity wouldn't know what to do
00:57it would not have any way to pull
00:58material back together again
01:00to stop the expansion locally and make
01:03galaxies and stars and planets and
01:05people this video is
01:07also have a three-part series exploring
01:09the secrets of space many of which were
01:12it's part of a longer conversation where
01:14I had the pleasure of sitting down with
01:16John at the Aspen ideas Festival so
01:19listen in as we hear how John went from
01:21a dairy farm to a failed thesis project
01:24to being the first NASA scientist to win
01:27a Nobel Prize we also covered the
01:29ongoing challenge of unifying gravity
01:31and quantum mechanics John's time as the
01:33lead project scientist for the James
01:35Webb Space Telescope which by the way
01:37I'm sure you recognize imagery from and
01:40just how much of our universe we have
01:42left to understand as a reminder the
01:44content here is for informational
01:46purposes only should not be taken as
01:48legal business tax or investment advice
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01:52security and is not directed at any
01:54investors or potential investors in any
01:56ACC fund for more details please see
02:10tell us about when you started getting
02:13involved I got stressed it down pretty
02:15young I think I was about six years old
02:17wow I've heard from my dad at bedtime
02:20story time that uh living things are
02:23made out of cells with chromosomes and
02:26this was before we even knew about the
02:29so okay that got my attention uh my
02:32friends and neighbors were farmers my
02:34dad was studying dairy cows wow for his
02:37research for Rutgers University and so
02:40um that was where I got started yeah
02:43living out on the farm thinking about
02:45deep things like that the origin of
02:49um if you know about cells and
02:51chromosomes then immediately you
02:52understand Evolution and the huge
02:55changes that can happen through time I
02:58think it was about eight we went to see
02:59the Museum of Natural History in New
03:01York and the planetarium show and the
03:03giant meteorite sitting there as big as
03:05a small apartment just sitting there
03:08they say where does that come from where
03:10do we come from and where do we come
03:12from so you see the bones arranged and
03:14showing evolutionary order in the museum
03:16oh my golly what a fascinating story I
03:19want to know everything about this yes
03:21yes and we didn't know that much about
03:23space at that time maybe I'm getting a
03:25little too ahead of myself because I'm
03:26sure there's so many years between what
03:28you're described typing and when you won
03:30your Nobel Prize but that did seem like
03:33maybe the start of a new era of our
03:35understanding of space and so could you
03:37speak a little more to this satellite
03:40that you had developed with your partner
03:42and and what that really meant as maybe
03:44an inflection point so Back in 1970 I
03:48was in graduate school at the University
03:49of California Berkeley looking for a
03:51thesis project because I was tired of
03:53studying in the library and maybe I
03:55better build something so the people had
03:59just discovered the cosmic microwave
04:00background radiation okay it is thought
04:04to be the remnant of the early Universe
04:06the hot big bang still fills the
04:09universe and so uh can a graduate
04:12student do something to go measure it
04:13better so the answer is yes we'll try
04:15something so okay well I've worked on a
04:19project which was an instrument to
04:21measure the Spectrum which is to say how
04:23bright is this radiation at each
04:24different wavelength and we built it and
04:27we sent it up uh attached to a high
04:29altitude balloon and it went up and it
04:31did not work oh man what do I do now so
04:35my thesis advisor said okay well you did
04:37good work uh you can write this up you
04:39can make a thesis out of it they've
04:40already published some other papers uh
04:43so I said okay I'll get a job I got a
04:45job for NASA five years before that we
04:49had just landed on the moon for the
04:52so okay 1974 I met NASA laboratory in
04:58um okay so NASA puts out this
05:00announcement of opportunity uh calling
05:02for new satellite missions for science
05:04because what are we going to do after
05:06the moon landings are done maybe do
05:08something else so okay so okay boss my
05:11thesis project failed we should try it
05:15so I had no idea how much nerve was
05:17required to to do this but we just did
05:19it we wrote a little thin proposal we
05:22said we have an idea so after a couple
05:24of years NASA said well we think it's a
05:26good idea wow and and I got a job at the
05:28big NASA laboratory in Greenbelt
05:30Maryland just outside Washington
05:32and they gave us some engineering time
05:34to work with people who knew how to
05:36build stuff in space
05:40in 1989 it went up and it worked and
05:45measured the Spectrum so my thesis
05:47project that had failed under as a lewd
05:50payload now worked beautifully in outer
05:52space that's incredible I showed a graph
05:54to the astronomy society and we got a
05:57standing ovation for a graph
05:59and so they knew what it meant they knew
06:02basically that Not only was the
06:04equipment working but the story of the
06:06hot big bang was basically right uh
06:09people don't remember now that there
06:11used to be alternate theories that said
06:13well maybe it wasn't so a couple of
06:15years after that first announcement we
06:16were able to say we made a map of this
06:18Cosmic heat and we our map showed pink
06:21and blue blobs across the entire sky and
06:24what they show is if you could see
06:26millimeter waves with your eyes you
06:28would see this big fuzzy map it's very
06:30blurry but it was enough to say the
06:33early Universe it was not the same
06:34everywhere there were hot and cold spots
06:36and that matters to us because if the
06:39universe had been completely exactly
06:43um gravity wouldn't know what to do it
06:45would not have any way to pull material
06:48to stop the expansion locally and make
06:51galaxies and stars and planets and
06:53people so we're here because of those
06:55spots and so that's pretty revolutionary
06:57it used to be people looked at this
06:59amazing universe and thought it requires
07:02um divine intervention because it's too
07:04dang complicated nobody could possibly
07:06see how it could work we confuse I don't
07:09know how it works yes I don't know how
07:10to do it with it can't be done or it's
07:14impossible when it comes back to how did
07:16we get here it used to be we couldn't
07:19understand how to calculate anything so
07:21we figured it must be impossible it must
07:23require divine intervention and now I
07:26think we have a different picture yeah
07:27let me divert into that a little bit
07:31how is it that nature spontaneously
07:34produces complicated stuff yeah so
07:38there are reasons the real are
07:39fundamental deep reasons why nature
07:41produces complicated stuff so when you
07:44think of nature as just full of atoms
07:46and rent atoms are just little billiard
07:48balls and they have no shapes and no
07:50properties then of course how it would
07:52be extremely unusual for them to stick
07:53together and form what they do but
07:56quantum mechanics says no atoms are not
07:58little billiard balls they have uh
08:01shapes and they have they're like little
08:04covered with velcro of different flavors
08:05so atoms stick together in certain
08:08patterns that's how nature is so okay
08:11then also we move into about
08:12thermodynamics which tells us which
08:14kinds of reactions are favored by Nature
08:18so if energy is released when two atoms
08:20come together then it's likely to happen
08:22so now we say okay it's not completely
08:27without pattern the nature gives
08:29patterns because of quantum mechanics
08:31and thermodynamics so
08:33it's just built in that complicated
08:35things will occur given a chance yeah
08:37yeah so okay then what complicated
08:40things have occurred uh well there's
08:42another feature here which is that the
08:45university the universe spontaneously
08:49um this is something they don't teach
08:50you in school uh in school they say well
08:53nature does not have two objects just
08:55sit there at the same temperature and
08:57one gets hot and one gets cold that's
09:00true in normal life but gravity is an
09:02exception to that gravity is the reason
09:04why the universe has heated itself up
09:07right gravity can stop the expansion of
09:09the material of the big bang and pull it
09:11back in to make stars then when it does
09:13that the Stars can light up and release
09:16nuclear energy and now we have a state
09:20of the universe where it's hot some
09:22places and called other places so energy
09:24flows from place to place and this is
09:26then the basis of the complexity that we
09:28now have yeah and that's partially what
09:30we got from you're saying this image
09:32because if this wasn't the case if
09:34you're saying gravity didn't exist and
09:36create these local changes then what
09:39would we see would we instead have seen
09:40just a clean image yeah if gravity could
09:44not have acted on those hot and cold
09:45spots those dents and lists regions then
09:49nothing would have happened which has
09:50been a completely featureless expanding
09:53Universe with no stars no galaxies no
09:55any things yeah all the same temperature
09:58completely boring as far as we're
10:00concerned we wouldn't be here we
10:02wouldn't be here but nature does have
10:03gravity nature does have the other three
10:05forces of physics and it does have
10:08quantum mechanics and and thermodynamics
10:10and so it is a universe in which
10:13complexity naturally appears yeah and
10:15maybe you could just speak to
10:17kind of what a phase change again this
10:19was in our understanding because I think
10:21even Stephen Hawking said this maybe was
10:22one of the most important images to come
10:25through science why was this such an
10:27important Discovery Stephen Hawking
10:29looked at our map of the pink and blue
10:30blobs and he said it was the most
10:32important scientific discovery of the
10:33century of all time and I first thought
10:36oh Stephen you're just exaggerating
10:39but it's very nice and then I thought
10:41okay well in Truth uh if we could
10:44understand where those spots come from
10:46it would tell us perhaps about the
10:48unifake unification of the forces of
10:50nature right now we still have the great
10:53mystery of quantum mechanics doesn't
10:55seem to describe gravity but we we know
10:58it is the opinion that it ought to yeah
11:00and if it does then it means that even
11:02space and time are randomly fluctuating
11:05and weird and so that was it's like one
11:09of the great mysteries of Science
11:12and we think there ought to be something
11:14there yeah scientists have been working
11:16at least 50 maybe 100 years trying to
11:19figure out how grativity and quantum
11:21mechanics go should go together the
11:23other thing of course is where did we
11:25come from yeah and if it was spots there
11:27then we wouldn't be here so that's
11:30pretty cool and it even tells us
11:33through detailed analysis that there is
11:36something called Cosmic dark matter
11:38which we can't see and perhaps never
11:40will see so we've got all these
11:43wonderful Mysteries that are all
11:44embedded in this hot this map of pink
11:47and blue blobs yes and so it's totally
11:50fascinating and and draws in thousands
11:53and thousands of scientists since the
11:56Kobe satellite was flown two more
11:58satellites were built and flown and they
12:00confirmed our original measurements
12:01which is nice because that meant we
12:04could get a Nobel Prize for discovering
12:06the thing that turned out to be true
12:07congratulations what if it weren't true
12:09then of course you don't get a prize
12:11um but now we have much much more detail
12:15to go on let's talk about that right so
12:17you were the senior project scientist on
12:19the James Webb Space Telescope and I
12:22feel like that was the most recent
12:24exposure that the everyday person had to
12:28the frontier yeah that that we're now
12:31approaching after the Hubble telescope
12:33was launched uh scientists said how
12:36wonderful it was yes and by the way we
12:39still can't tell how the galaxies grew
12:41and it was still one of the great
12:43mysteries of science because we thought
12:45we would understand we saw oh now we
12:48know about the big bang and the hot and
12:50cold spots and we should be able to
12:52simulate and calculate how galaxies
12:54would grow and then we measured with the
12:57Hubble telescope oh we got it wrong the
13:00predictions had been that galaxies would
13:02grow slowly so the Hubble would be able
13:05to see the first ones happening
13:07and of course how do you see that well
13:09you see Back In Time by looking at
13:11things that are far away so you've got
13:13your own time machine in your eyeballs
13:15every morning but you don't feel it so
13:17look back in time see what the universe
13:20like when it was young and see what were
13:22the Galaxy's doing and they were already
13:25pretty grown up as far as back in time
13:28as the Hubble could see
13:29so please build us another telescope to
13:31look farther back because we've got a
13:35so we still have a big mystery because
13:37we built the web telescope it did what
13:39it was supposed to do it produced
13:41beautiful pictures and right away we
13:43could see that the Galaxy screw even
13:45faster than we thought yeah and so even
13:48though we had the information from
13:50Hubble and all the simulations and
13:52calculations we've and predictions we
13:54were still wrong so we're looking for
13:57something really deep and fundamental
14:00so don't don't know what it is
14:02so that's why astronomers are thrilled
14:04right now that they've got something to
14:06work on yeah it's going to take us a
14:08good long time could be
14:10decades before we really really deeply
14:12understand what were we wrong about and
14:15it's even possible that there's some new
14:17force of nature or some thing that
14:20happened early on that's just so
14:21different than we can't even imagine it
14:23yet all right that is all for today's
14:25video however if you've liked this video
14:27we have a lot more where that came from
14:30in fact we just released a full length
14:33episode with this guest on the a16z
14:35podcast so if you'd like to hear it go
14:37check it out in your favorite podcast
14:39app of choice or we'll link it in the
14:41description below thank you so much for
14:43listening and we'll see you next time
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