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Mar 24, 2024 18:00:00

When reading science fiction novels set in a future where humans have left Earth and entered the solar system, you may come across scenes where people living on the Moon or Mars speak with a unique ``Moon accent'' or ``Martian accent.'' there is. If a colony is built on the moon or Mars and people start colonizing it, the scientific media Live Science explains whether or not an accent unique to that planet will really be born.

Will future colonists on the moon and Mars develop new accents? | Live Science

It is believed that in the not-too-distant future, humans will advance into the solar system and begin colonizing and establishing colonies on stars such as the Moon and Mars. The first manned space colony will be built on the moon, and it is possible that it will be settled within the next few decades. The idea of humans living away from Earth poses many challenges for experts to solve, such as securing food and water and adapting to an environment without gravity.

However, one of the questions that has been commonplace in science fiction works but has long been overlooked by experts is ``Will future space colonists have their own accents?''

Human accents are a fascinating research topic in their own right; people all over the world speak with some type of accent without realizing it, and accents can be related to the time period, place, language, or race in which they live. I am. However, the accent that space colonists develop is unknown because it does not even exist yet.

Professor

Accent changes happen unconsciously when you interact with people with different accents over a long period of time. Therefore, it seems that people who move from the place they used to live to another area will notice their accent change without them noticing.

Furthermore, Harrington argues that if a group of people with different accents are isolated from the rest of the world, the people in the group will imitate each other's accents, and eventually a completely new accent will be born. Especially in small groups, the birth of new accents can occur rapidly.

In a 2019 study , Harrington and colleagues analyzed how the accents of 11 researchers who lived in isolation for an entire winter at a research facility in Antarctica changed. The group is made up of a diverse group of members: five with accents from the South of England, three with accents from the North of England, one from the North West of the United States, one from Germany, and one from Iceland. Ta.

The results of the study showed that the subjects' accents changed throughout the experiment, with the entire group now pronouncing certain sounds with different accents. This can be said to be the first step in forming a new accent in an isolated group. 'Exactly the same thing should happen in any environment where individuals are isolated for long periods of time, whether it's Antarctica or space,' Harrington said. 'In fact, in space, contact with the population is more difficult, so the accent 'The changes should be even greater,' he said, expressing the view that unique accents will emerge in space colonies.

In colonies on Mars or the Moon, the accents of the colonists could begin to change unconsciously within a few months. In particular, on Mars, it takes about 20 minutes to exchange voice with Earth, so it is likely that accents will change, making it difficult to communicate with people on Earth.

For a unique accent to be passed down over time, a colony must be large enough to reproduce and produce offspring. However, once the ``Moon accent'' and ``Martian accent'' are fully established in the colony, it is thought that the way new settlers speak will slowly change due to the influence of that accent.

Harrington points out that the accents that develop within space colonies are likely to be formed by 'the most prevalent accents within the original group.' A good example of this is the Australian accent, which has many similarities with the Cockney accent, as many of the first settlers were

Colonies on the moon and Mars are likely to develop different accents depending on the composition of the colonists. On the other hand, Harrington thinks it's unlikely that environmental factors on the Moon or Mars will have a big impact on accents.

A 2019 study used a computer program to predict how subjects' accents would change and found that actual accent changes matched the program's predictions very closely. Therefore, if you know the accents of people who will colonize Mars or the moon, it may be possible to predict in advance what kind of accents will occur.

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Will future people living in colonies on the moon or Mars speak in a ``Moon accent'' or ``Martian accent''? - GIGAZINE

Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments arent currently attempting in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail.

Musk, the companys CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan.

If theres something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole, Musk said during a virtual Mars conference on Aug. 31. Then, theres the kind of excitement and adventure.

SpaceXs plans for a Red-Planet settlement bring up numerous technological, political and ethical questions. One of the most challenging hurdles may also be financial: Not even Musk has ventured to guess an all-in cost estimate.

The last space program that came close to Musks interplanetary travel ambitions was NASAs Apollo program, the mid-20th Century effort that landed six spacecraft and 12 astronauts on the moon. Apollo cost well over $280 billion in todays dollars, and, in some years, NASA was taking up more than 4% of the entire national budget. The space agency, which in more recent years has received less than half of one percent of the federal budget, is mapping its own plans to return humans to the moon and, eventually, a path to Mars.

But the agency has not indicated how much the latter could cost, either.

Musks personal wealth has ballooned to about $100 billion at least on paper thanks in no small part to a series of stock and stock awards from his electric car company, Tesla. Musk has also repeatedly said that he hopes profits from SpaceXs other businesses, including a satellite-internet venture that is currently in beta testing, will help fuel development of his Mars rocket. SpaceX has also raised nearly $6 billion from banks and venture capitalists, swelling into one of the most highly-valued private companies in the world, according to data firm Pitchbook. Presumably, at least some investors will one day be looking to cash out.

And that begs the question: Is there money to be made on Mars?

SpaceX is likely still many, many years from developing all the technology a Mars settlement would require. The company is in the early stages of developing its Starship, a massive rocket and spaceship system that Musk hopes will ferry cargo and convoys of people across the at-minimum 30 million-mile void between Earth and Mars. Musk has estimated Starship development will cost up to $10 billion, and Musk said Aug. 31 that SpaceX will look to launch hundreds of satellites aboard Starship before entrusting it with human lives.

If it proves capable of the trek to Mars, settlers will need air-tight habitats to shield them from toxic air and the deadly radiation that rains down on its surface.

Its not for the faint of heart, Musk said. Good chance youll die, and its going to be tough goingItd better be pretty glorious if it works out.

But for at least the first 100 years that humans have a presence on Mars, the economic situation will be dubious, said Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASAs Mars Exploration Program, which recently launched the Perseverance rover to further study the planet robotically.

Musk does have a plan for making Mars an attractive destination for long-term living: Terraforming, a hypothetical scenario in which humans make Mars more Earth-like by pumping gases into the atmosphere. Itd be an attempt to use the same greenhouse gases causing the climate crisis on our home planet to make Mars atmosphere thicker, warmer and more hospitable to life. Musk has promoted the idea that the process could be kicked off by dropping nuclear bombs on the planet.

The idea of terraforming arose from scientists who were kicking around ideas, Meyer said, but not from anyone who thought it was something humans could or should do.

It was an intellectual exercise, Meyer said. But theres barely any oxygen in Mars atmosphere. And theres an infinitesimally small amount of water, meaning it will be extremely difficult to grow crops, much less create a Mars-wide water cycle. Its not even clear if there are enough resources on Mars to make terraforming possible at all.

I think Total Recall has the right idea, he joked. Youd need to use some alien technology.

Musk has also acknowledged that terraforming will be extremely resource-intensive. But the concept is ingrained in SpaceX lore, so much so that the company sells t-shirts saying Nuke Mars and Occupy Mars.

Musk is frequently seen wearing one.

There are no known resources on Mars that would be valuable enough to mine and sell back to Earthly businesses, Meyer said. Part of the reason [scientists are] interested in Mars is its pretty much made of the same stuff as Earth, he told CNN Business.

Musk has previously suggested that he agrees, noting that the resources on Mars would likely be valuable only to settlers hoping to build up industries on the planet. He noted eight years ago that the only economic exchange between Mars and Earth dwellers would be intellectual property.

Money-making ambitions aside, the idea that Mars could one day become home to a metropolis and potentially a tourist destination is acknowledged by mainstream scientists like Meyer, NASAs lead Mars expert.

Meyer said that, 20 years ago, he attended a presentation about Mars business and tourism. I went in pretty skeptical of this and coming away I was thinking, Well, [there are] some pretty reasonable ideas, he said, adding that he now embraces the idea that businesspeople could make space travel more accessible.

Meyer added that, in his mind, its not if Mars travel will one day be a profitable venture, but when.

Musk hasnt expanded on his ideas for making money on Mars, but his musings about exporting intellectual property echoed a book written by Robert Zubrin, an influential but polarizing figure in the space community and a longtime Musk ally.

Ideas may be another possible export for Martian colonists, Zubrin, who heads the Mars Society, wrote in his oft-cited 1996 book, The Case for Mars.

To look towards a potential future of humanity, Zubrin looks to its past.

Just as the labor shortage prevalent in colonial and 19th century America drove the creation of Yankee Ingenuitys flood of inventions, so the conditions of extreme labor shortagewill tend to drive Martian ingenuity.

In a recent interview with CNN Business, Zubrin stood by those ideas, arguing American colonization has worked. Zubrin again harkens back to the colonization of North America as an example of how would-be Mars colonists might fund their trip.

If you say, okay, you want to go to Mars, youre going to want to offer something, Zubrin said. If you look at Colonial America, a middle-class person could travel to America by liquidating their farm. But, the proceeds would give them a one-way ticket. But if you are working, what you could do is sell your labor for seven years.

Zubrin, who has worked with conservative think tanks but says he is not politically affiliated, also acknowledged that colonization can go hand-in-hand with exploitation: If somebody says, But wont there be exploitation there? Well sure, thats what people do to each other all the time.

(Musk has not expounded on his thoughts about colonialism, and he donates to both US political parties.)

To be clear: The story of American colonialism also included chattel slavery and the brutalization and erasure of many native populations.

There arent native Martians, Zubrin said.

But Damien Williams a teacher and PhD student at Virginia Tech who studies the intersection of advanced technologies, ethics and societies warns that the stories we may tell ourselves about America and exploring outer space can leave out key context.

Its still unclear, for example, who Musk envisions as the first Mars settlers. NASA astronauts? Ultra-wealthy thrill-seekers? SpaceX employees?

This competitive stance of expansion and exploration, its not necessarily a bad thing, Williams, who also works with the advocacy group Just Space Alliance, said. But, when it comes to a private company using resources that international treaties say do not belong to anyone Whos been brought in and how? Whos been left out and why? These things matter.

Musks use of the word colonization also belies a long history of Americans and other Western nations enriching themselves by exploiting and enslaving others. And when it comes to colonizing another planet, its not just the microbial lifeforms that may exist on Mars that should be concerned. Without clearly defined objectives and agreements, SpaceXs colony could create a contentious sphere of conflict, Williams said.

The values that we take with us into space exploration should be front and center, he added.

SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

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Colonizing Mars could be dangerous and ridiculously expensive. Elon Musk wants to do it anyway - AOL

After the obligatory time jump, Apple TV Plus's "For All Mankind" splashes down in 2003. The U.S. has teamed up with the Soviet Union and other allies to build a thriving colony on Mars, and plans are afoot to capture and mine asteroids that will help the base to become self-sustainable.

But, this being "For All Mankind," there's also plenty of human drama to unpack. Indeed, the key players are still dealing with the aftermath of a 1995-set season three finale in which NASA was left reeling by the Johnson Space Center (JSC) bombing that killed both Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanSanten) and hero-of-the-hour Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger).

Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu), meanwhile, gave birth in orbit around Mars, as Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson) faced stern consequences for causing the deaths of some of the red planet's first human inhabitants. Plus, former NASA boss Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) seemingly struck up a deal with the Soviets to defect and avoid punishment for passing on state secrets.

Related: Season 4 of 'For All Mankind' debuts with alternate asteroid history

Picking up the story eight years later, "For All Mankind"'s fourth season premiere, "Glasnost," has a lot of work to do establishing its new world order. As such it can sometimes feel like a case of information overload, but thanks to its big action set-piece we reckon it lays the groundwork to ensure the show's latest run of episodes is ready for launch.

Watch "For All Mankind" on Apple TV Plus

As ever with "For All Mankind", there's a lot of catching up to do in the opening minutes of this season premiere. In what's quickly become one of the show's hallmarks, the episode opens with a montage of news clips strategically placed to fill you in on eight years of alternative history.

Some of the pop culture events Woodstock '99, the rise of reality T.V., chess champion Garry Kasparov taking on IBM computer Deep Blue, hit movies "Jerry Maguire" and "Castaway" look remarkably familiar. However, beyond that it's clear that the "For All Mankind"-verse is diverging further and further from our own reality, nearly 40 years after the space race began to unfold very differently back in season one.

Since we last visited the Happy Valley Mars colony in 1995, humanity's expansion into the solar system has continued at pace. Trips to the moon are now increasingly commonplace, with plenty of job opportunities and even a hotel for the growing business of space tourism. Seven leading space-faring powers (including the U.S. and the Soviet Union) have established a "Mars-7" agreement to help keep things cordial on the Red Planet, while private sector space pioneers Helios have unveiled an advanced new plasma propulsion technology. This cuts the travel time to Mars down to one or two months, and will undoubtedly be a narratively expedient way for the writers to negate the vast distances and timescales generally involved in space travel. It's also surprisingly sci-fi tech (for now, at least) in a show that's generally kept one foot in the real world.

Back on Earth, Jimmy Stevens (David Chandler), younger son of former astronauts Gordo and Tracy (Michael Dorman and Sarah Jones, respectively), made a plea bargain after testifying against the perpetrators of the Johnson Space Center bombing. Meanwhile, ex-astronaut Ellen Wilson (former series regular Jodi Balfour) won an unexpected second term as President in 1996. So, during her term in office she legalized same-sex marriage and subsequently married her long-term sweetheart, Pam Horton (Meghan Leathers). Her running mate, George Bush Sr., fared less well than his son did in real-life, losing the 2000 election to Al Gore.

Former Beatle John Lennon performed a successful halftime show at Superbowl XXXVI (it was U2 in real-life) and over in the Soviet Union, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had significant success with his new Glasnost and Perestroika reforms. Gore later declared the Cold War over.

With the alt-history revision done and dusted, the episode wastes little time reminding us where all the familiar "For All Mankind" faces find themselves in 2003. Series mainstay Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) is still employed by Helios and is the second-in-command at the thriving Martian mini-metropolis at Happy Valley. Part of the same generation of spacefarers as Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and the other Apollo astronauts, Ed is now well into his 70s, and as is the case with the other survivors from season one the show's make-up department has done extensive work adding three decades onto the 40-something. The results are both impressive and convincing.

Ed's due back on Earth in two months' time and daughter Kelly (Cynthy Wu) can't wait for his return. She's busy raising "space baby" Alex whilst she has a difficult house guest in the form of Olga, the mother of the kid's late cosmonaut dad, Alexei. Right now, however, Ed's busy commanding the Ranger One spacecraft on a groundbreaking mission to haul an asteroid into Mars' orbit, where it will be mined for resources that will help make Happy Valley self-sustaining. Cosmonaut Grigory Kuznetsov (Lev Gorn) the first Soviet on Mars has the honor of taking the first ever steps on an asteroid.

With the Johnson Space Center in Houston destroyed in the season three finale, the impressive Mars Mission Control Center at the renamed Molly Cobb Space Center has a modern new look. It's also under new management, with Eli Hobson (Daniel Stern) now pulling the strings as the boss of NASA. Interestingly he's a recruit from the private sector, credited with driving America's move to electric vehicles when he was CEO of Chrysler. The adoption of alternative energy sources seems set to be a major theme in this new season, as does Hobson's penchant for cost cutting.

A few feet away from him, engineer Aleida Rosales (Coral Pea) follows the action from her console, as Kuznetsov pilots his self-propelled suit towards the asteroid. Naturally, his efforts culminate with him as the focus of a beautifully composed shot of a guy standing on the horizon of a tiny, rocky world.

As teased by the season three finale, former NASA head Margo Madison wakes up in a sparse Moscow apartment, her morning routine a neat echo of the old days back at JSC albeit without her trusty piano. Living under the alias of Margaret Reynolds, she's now clearly doing her best to assimilate on the other side of the Iron Curtain she speaks Russian with a strong American accent and keeps up with current affairs via the International Tribune.

Meanwhile, Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), the first American on Mars, has left NASA and is keeping a close eye on the family of disgraced astronaut (and Jimmy's elder brother) Danny Stevens. The episode never reveals what happened to Danny after he was banished to solitary confinement on the Martian surface, which suggests there's a big reveal to come later in the season. Whatever Danny's ultimate fate turned out to be, it still haunts Danielle.

The significant new addition to the cast is Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell), an offshore oil driller who's fallen on hard times following the decline of fossil fuels. Estranged from his young family, he applies for a job extracting natural resources from the moon, but doesn't bank on the booming popularity of careers in outer space, fueled, in part, by the hit "Moon Miners" reality T.V. show. After lying about his college experience, he manages to get a placement that will start in two years' time, but complains that it's not soon enough. He's ultimately offered a two-year trip to Mars harder, longer and further away, but with a "bigger upside." Reasoning that it's the best option for his family, he accepts the position.

"Glasnost" spends so long getting its pieces in the right place on the chess board that there's little time for actual plot. What story there is focuses on the aforementioned Martian asteroid and in the long-established tradition of the show what happens when something goes very, very wrong.

The mission starts out with plenty of promise, as astronauts, cosmonauts and private contractors team up to build the apparatus that will tow the rock back to Mars' orbit. In fact, the construction of this surprisingly Death Star-like structure plays out like an outer space version of the famous barn-raising scene in "Witness."

When the connection with the ship inevitably starts to malfunction, the episode makes ingenious use of sound effects, music and "2001: A Space Odyssey"-style silence to ramp up the tension. Grigory immediately volunteers for a spacewalk to fix the problem and he's joined by Parker, a private sector colleague keen to secure his bonus. The situation quickly goes from bad to worst, as Parker is fatally impaled and Grigory finds himself trapped with his suit running out of air. Ever the action hero, Ed wants to go outside to rescue his friend, but the Soviet commander tells him it's pointless and sacrifices himself for the good of the crew. For Aleida, the incident triggers flashbacks to the JSC bombing and she rushes out of mission control. She subsequently dodges all phone calls from NASA.

Like the space hotel disaster in the season three premiere, Polaris, this failed mission seems primed to be the catalyst that sets this year's events in motion. Within hours, Margo is making her way to Star City to meet with Soviet Space Agency director Catiche, although it turns out she's not as important as she used to be. She obviously made some kind of deal to consult on space matters when she relocated to Moscow, but nearly a decade after she left NASA, she's in danger of becoming obsolete. An official tells her never to come to Star City without an appointment again and she's escorted out of the building.

One week later, Margo has an interesting encounter with a woman on a park bench. Initially, the only thing that would raise eyebrows about this benchmate is her surprisingly deep knowledge of the migratory habits of bullfinches. However, she suddenly starts talking English and events shift into the realms of a Cold War spy movie. The woman claims to have Margo's "best interests at heart" and reminds her that she "must be patient." The fact she also knows Margo's real name suggests that the exiled former NASA boss still has a significant role to play this is no accident.

Back in the U.S., we learn that asteroid missions are grounded until the Mars Commission publishes its report. Changes are already afoot at Happy Valley, as commanding officer Colonel Peters' position has been deemed untenable in the wake of the debacle. Ed who's clearly not keen on heading back to Earth anyway uses it as an excuse to stay on Mars longer, reasoning that a new commander will need the continuity of a long-standing executive officer to help them settle in.

NASA director Hobson's first choice for the job is Danielle, but she's reluctant. It turns out that she only agreed to meet him because of what happened to Grigory, one of her closest friends. Unsurprisingly, Hobson's not inclined to take no for an answer and proves to be a master of persuasion, pointing out that she's the only person with a chance of controlling Ed Baldwin.

Danielle eventually accepts, and the episode ends with her floating on board a Unity spacecraft ready to fire up its plasma engines to Mars and sitting further back is none other than Miles Dale.

Not a vintage "For All Mankind" episode, perhaps, but it's one that puts this fourth season on the launchpad for an intriguing journey into the 21st century.

New episodes of 'For All Mankind' debut on Apple TV Plus on Fridays

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'For All Mankind' season 4 episode 1 review: Lots of moving parts ... - Space.com

Itd be easy to write off Apple TV+s new series The Buccaneers as the services attempt to develop its own version of Netflixs Emmy-winning Bridgerton. After all, the show checks a lot of the same boxes. Romance! Opulent costuming! A handsome duke! Uptight English people! But the show, which is inspired by Edith Whartons final, unfinished novel, is anything but a copycat.

Set in the 19th century, the surprisingly modern series from creator Katherine Jakeways follows a group of wealthy young Americans who travel to England in search of husbands after one of their own, Conchita (Alisha Boe), weds an aristocrat from across the pond. The result is a lively and entertaining clashing of cultures, as the stuffy families were used to finding in traditional period dramas dont know what to make of these impulsive young newcomers. While the brash and free-spirited Conchita struggles with motherhood and finding her place within her husbands buttoned-up, judgemental family, Nan (Kristine Froseth) finds herself on the receiving end of a proposal from a much sought-after duke. But The Buccaneers the first three episodes of which are now streaming on Apple TV+ is not your typical historical romance, and once the initial rush of lust and romance dissipates, the show reveals itself to have a sharper and more honest view of life and relationships, making the The Buccaneers the awards contender to watch this weekend.

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SEE The Morning Show production designer Nelson Coates on expanding the shows home and work environments in Season 3

However, if youre looking for something that doesnt revolve around money and marriage, other contenders to watch include:

The Morning Show: Another wild season of Apples Emmy-winning drama concluded this week, but not before showcasing another excellent performance from series star Jennifer Aniston. The show channels its inner Succession in the Season 3 finale, as the Hyperion-UBA deal comes to a vote, while Bradley (Reese Witherspoon) makes a tough decision regarding her involvement in the events of Jan. 6. What a gem this show is. The finale is now streaming on Apple TV+.

For All Mankind: Say what you will about the small size of Apples content library, one cannot deny the company has developed several entertaining and worthwhile shows. The streaming services critically acclaimed sci-fi drama about the ongoing space race is back for its fourth season this week. Picking up eight years after the end of Season 3, the new episodes are set in 2003 and find that the colony on Mars has continued to grow and the focus has now turned toward mining asteroids rich in minerals that could change the future of life on both Earth and Mars. The Season 4 premiere is now streaming on Apple TV+.

Albert Brooks: Defending My Life: Rob Reiner directs this outstanding new HBO documentary that chronicles the life and career of comedian Albert Brooks, who has been hard at work entertaining us since the 1960s. It features testimonials from family, friends and many well-known names in the comedy field, including Conan OBrien and Chris Rock, but its the deeply personal conversation between Reiner and Brooks at the heart of the film that makes it worth your time. The documentary airs Saturday at 8/7 on HBO and Max.

PREDICTthe 2023 Emmy winners

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Dont miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

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What to watch this weekend November 10, 2023: TV awards contenders - Yahoo Entertainment

Marcelo Gleiser thinks we have the story of the universe all wrong. And that its time to restore Earth and humanity to the center of the cosmos. The Brazilian physicist, astronomer, and winner of the 2019 Templeton Prize thinks modern science has fallen prey to an increasingly bleak perspectivea view of Earth as an insignificant speck alone in a cold, dark universe.

Gleiser, a noted theoretical physicist who teaches at Dartmouth College, has published a string of books on high energy physics, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. In his latest, The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanitys Future, he writes that ever since Copernicus, the more we learn about the universe, the smaller and less important planet Earth seems. Its a toxic narrative, he thinks, that set the stage for reckless use and abuse of the planets resources. There arent that many writers who could make the story of the Big Bang, expansion of the universe, and galaxy formation relevant to fossil fuel consumption and the climate crisis. In Gleisers hands, the story of the universe becomes a call to action.

In a recent conversation, he seemed energized by the flood of new data raising questions about the current model of the universeand by the very real possibility that humans will never truly understand the universe, a lesson he felt personally after a devastating loss in childhood.

You have argued that findings from the James Webb telescope are calling the story of our universe into question. What, specifically, makes you think cosmology may be due for a conceptual revolution?

We always thought stars were made when the universe was about 100 million years old. So the usual narrative is that first you have a bunch of big, big stars. They collect, they form black holes, they attract more stars, and then you have galaxies. And this takes a while. The idea was that it would take about a billion years for you to have big galaxies.

But in comes the James Webb, and we find that, nopethere were huge galaxies right around the same time that the first stars were being formed. So somehow we have to find a way of increasing the speed at which galaxies form.

So were surrounded by mystery.

Absolutely. I wrote a book called The Island of Knowledge a few years ago, where I said that the island of knowledge is surrounded by the ocean of the unknown. And as the island grows, so does its periphery, which is the boundary between the known and the unknown. So the paradox of knowledge is that the more you learn, the more you discover that you dont know.

That sounds like a profoundly depressing realization for a scientist.

If youre a card-carrying reason will solve everything and science is truth, person, then maybe. But in my case, I think its inspiring because it means there is no end to the quest; we humans will always have a limited grasp of what reality is. And what could be more fascinating than being surrounded by mystery?

If youre someone who likes mystery. I think we humans tend to have a contentious relationship with the unknown.

Yeah, you know, in my other life, where I do all these extreme sports like endurance running, we have this sayingyou have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think that applies here tooyou have to be comfortable with the fact that we will never know everything, that there are questions that have no answers, and thats not a bad thing.

The paradox of knowledge is that the more you learn, the more you discover that you dont know.

As a theoretical physicist, youve been working with big questions and mysteries for most of your career, but what drew you in that direction to begin with? I know your mother died when you were very young. Do you think that helped shape you as someone who was drawn to those questions?

Yes, absolutely, I have no doubt about that. I was 6 when my mother died, and it was a time of darkness in my life. There was just this void, the emotional void of not having a mom, you know? All your friends have moms, who come and pick them up from school and hold their hands. My dad sometimes came by, but he was a busy man. So what do you do with that kind of loss?

Did you have any kind of faith tradition to help explain it?

My family is Jewishand I had a pretty traditional Jewish educationwith traditions, but not so much belief in all of the details of the Old Testament. But theres an element of the supernatural in all the big monotheistic religions, and I tried to connect with that. I was obsessed by supernatural stories and supernatural beings. When I was about 11 years old, vampires in particular were fascinating to me because they were both living and non-living, they had a foot in the world of the dead and a foot in the world of the living. So I said, Hey, maybe if I became a vampire, I could go and connect with my mom!

And you were growing up in Rio de Janeiro, which must have been filled with stories of the supernatural?

Oh, big time. There were spirits everywhere, according to my nannies. My dad was superstitious too. Every Monday was Souls Day, so people would go to the crossroads and light up candles and leave offerings for the spirits. Yeah, in Rio, you cant avoid the other dimension.

Did you ever feel like you were able to be in touch with your mother?

Many times. In fact, if you had asked me when I was 9, I would have sworn that I could see her sometimes hovering in the big, long corridor of my house. I was desperate for that connection.

But then I started to transition from that to nature and to being in the natural world by myself. Thats when I began to fish. I was 12, and I would go all by myself to Copacabana Beach and spend hours alone fishing. I mean, what kid does that? I was surrounded by all these retired men, who were always like, what is this kid doing here? And I was just there, hanging out, looking at the horizon for 2 or 3 hours, you know, three or four times a week. For years, I did that. It was really trying to connect with, I dont know what, the vagueness of the horizon? Because it is a weird place, the horizon, when you think about itwhere the earth and the heavens join. The line of connection between one worldoursand another world, which is up there.

I can see you feeling drawn to thatas though you yourself, in your life, were hovering there, stuck on the horizon in a way, because your mothers death propelled you into this in-between place?

Exactly. And then I discovered Einstein. And that changed everything because I realized that some of these questions about space, about time, about duration, about the origins of everything, were actually also scientific questions.

How do you go from being a boy who thinks maybe he could see his mothers ghost and who believes in spirits, to being a scientist working in the materialist paradigm?

Well you can see that I didnt choose to work on superconductors or lasers or bacteria! I chose to work on the nature of space and time and the Big Bang and the origin of life. These are really boundary questions between scientific and philosophical or religious thinking. So I think I found a way to be what you could possibly call a rational mystic.

You have to be comfortable with the fact that we will never know everything.

Did that ever create problems for you in the scientific community, among other scientists?

No, simply because I never told them. Likeand Im not comparing myself to Einsteinbut Im sure that Einstein also didnt talk about his Spinoza notion that God is everywhere.

Thats what he thought?

He had a very wonderfuland I would say mysticalway of relating to this intelligence that he found embedded in nature, which was some sort of divine presence. He didnt associate it with a Jewish God or anything like that, but there was something and he thought that science was a portal to connecting with this kind of intelligence.

Thats way more mystical than I thought Einstein was. I mean, theres his famous remark, God does not play dice with the universe.

Yeah, but that was a joke. He had a much deeper connection, what I would call truly a mystic connection to the natural world, and to this kind of hidden intelligence in the depths of nature that we can never quite understand, but which is there. He has this famous quote that I love, which is: the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. I mean, who would write that? Krishnamurti, yesbut that was Einstein!

So were circling around the subject of storytelling. Lately youve been saying that we need a new story of the universe, that ever since Copernicus, science has been telling the story of cosmological history wrong. Thats a pretty big rewrite.

Im saying we have to rethink the story of who we are and how we relate to the planet. A little bit of deep time history here: Homo sapiens have been here on this planet 300,000 years, more or less. Of that time, about 95 percent, almost all of it, we were hunter gatherers moving about the planet. And we had a completely different relationship to the world than the agrarian civilizations did. For the hunter gatherers, the world was sacred. They understood that there were powers in nature that were beyond themselves, that they were not above nature.

But that was 10,000 years ago, so how do we know? Are you extrapolating from what current Indigenous cultures and traditions have to say?

No, we have anthropological evidence of how earlier hunter-gatherers congregated and how and what they ate. Its amazing that we can tell that story. And of course, there is a dark side, and maybe overhunting was what caused the extinction of the mastodon and other mammals. But yes, I think current Indigenous cultures carry that tradition of coexisting with the natural world and respecting the sacredness of a place. Agrarian societies ushered in a complete phase transition: look, we can actually control nature. We can tame the plants and animals to serve our purposes, and we can be the masters of the world. No wonder the monotheistic religions say God created the world for humans.

And suddenly we get stories of paradise. Gardens of Eden given to us.

And most importantly, look what happened to the gods. Once, they were part of the trees, the rivers, the waterfalls, the winds, the volcanoes. Now, the gods are way up there, far away from the world. The world is not divine anymore. It becomes an object.

We carry the whole history of the universe in ourselves.

And this is the precursor to the revolutionary moment when Copernicus says Earth is also not the center of the universe?

Right. And then when Copernicus says, Look, the Earth is not even the center of everything, the sun is, then the Earth became not the center of creation, but just another world. Which further disrupted the vertical hierarchy of us here on Earth and the gods up in the skies. Now that Earth is revolving around the sun, it becomes less important. And we become less important too, because immediately after Copernicus, people started to speculate: Wait a second. If there are other worlds, why should life only be here?

Really, right afterward?

Very, very quickly. Copernicus published his book in 1543. In the 1580s, Giordano Bruno was saying, look, the stars are just like the sun, so they should also have planets moving around them, and those planets should have life, just like here. In the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler, who came up with the mathematical laws of planetary motion, wrote a fictional story about a trip to the moon.

So people were already beginning to think about escaping the Earth and heading to other planets.

It was all over the place. In 1686, one year before Newton published his famous book that changed the world, a French philosopher, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, published a book called Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. And then as science advanced, we learned more about stars and galaxies and the expansion of the universe. But within the framework of the Copernican narrative, the more we learned about the universe, the less important we and this planet became.

And today we talk about multiverses.

Yeah, thats the final insult, right? Hey, theres not just our universe, there are countless universes! Ours is just one.

Theres this thing people talk about in astronomy, the principle of mediocritymeaning we are not important at all. I think this is just completely wrong. Because there is a fundamental element missing in this whole story: We have no clue what life is or how it emerged on this planet. I mean, we dont even know how to define life very well. We have an operational definition: a biochemical network system that is capable of metabolism and of Darwinian evolution. But thats what life doesit doesnt tell me anything about what life is.

In the meantime, theres a lot of money going into looking for exoplanets that might support life. Elon Musk thinks we can terraform Mars. Theres the whole narrative of when weve wrecked this planet, well head to another. Youre pushing back on all that?

Okay, lets qualify. Searching for other planets, and in particular searching for biosignatures, meaning the signs of life, is essential research right now. I work on this. But Elon Musk and terraforming Mars? Thats just silly stuff. Our problem right now is the next few decades on this planetnot if, in 500 years, were going to have a colony on Mars. I mean, thats useless.

Then why even bother looking for exoplanets? Why not focus our attention on this one?

Because thats how we advance knowledge, by asking profound questions about the universe and matter. Looking for life on other planets is essential because for now, as far as we know, Earth is the only planet that has life. The post-Copernican narrative decreased the value of our world, and we constructed a whole civilization based on the idea that we can use and abuse it. We built giant cities and industries by essentially consuming the entrails of our planet. Oil, gas, and coalthe insides of the planetfed our technologies, and it all worked until it didnt.

Without our voice, the universe itself would have no memory.

At this point, it almost seems like the problems are too big to do anything about.

So what can we do? Well, we can tell a different story. First of all, when you look at the evolution of life, you realize that its completely dependent on the history of the planet. If you change or tweak something that happened here on our planet a long time ago, life would be different, which means we wouldnt be here.

The most famous example is 66 million years ago, the big asteroid hits the Yucatan Peninsula. It wipes out the dinosaurs and a bunch of other creatures, with the exception, maybe, of the birds and some little mammals. It completely changed the evolution of life on the planet. And it was a cosmic accident.

So your point is, its not about counting up the number of planets that could possibly support life because theyve got the right chemistry and the right mass. Its that there were so many little contingencies without which you could never get this form of life again. Although, you might get a better one.

What Im trying to say is that instead of thinking of the Earth as just another planet and life as ubiquitous in the universe, the truth is that Earth is not just another planet. The Earth is a very rare oasis that has supported life for at least three and a half billion years, which allowed for life to change and adapt to different environments that coincidentally and completely randomly evolved to generate a species that is able to reconstruct this entire story and to tell it. And without our voice, the universe itself would have no story, would have no memory. It would be a dead universe. So its not just that we are we are stardust, as Carl Sagan used to saywe are how the universe is telling its own story.

I think this is only possible because of this incredibly spectacular and rare planet that we live on. Look at Mars, a horrible frozen desert. Look at Venus, a boiling soup of sulfuric acid. Other planets, you cant even stand on them because theyre gas giants. So this is not just another world; its a rare gem in the universe. And yes, there could be other planets with life on them, maybe. But probably very simple lifesingle celled organisms. Never or very rarely complex organisms.

The other thing I was thinking about is James Lovelocks Gaia Theory and the suggestion that at some point the universe would develop consciousness. It sounds like youre saying it already hasin the form of humans.

Thats the beauty of this whole story. We carry the whole history of the universe in ourselves. The atoms in your bodythe iron in your blood, the calcium in your bonescame from stars that exploded 5 billion years ago. They traveled gazillions of light-years to fall four and a half billion years ago into this nebula that was collapsing to become the sun and the planets. And then in one of these planets, which happens to have water and carbon and magnesium and phosphorus, molecules organized themselves and became aliveand then began to evolve, three and a half billion years ago, into a species that is telling this story. That is not something that is going to be happening all over the universe!

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautiful concept called interbeing, which he described this way. He said: Lets say youre reading a poem, and the poem is printed on a sheet of paper. Well, that paper came from a tree. The tree only grew because there is water and there is sunlight. But the sun is a star, and the star is shining because there is a universe that developed stars. So every time you look at a piece of paper, you are connected to the rest of the universe.

And thats what Im talking about: the re-sacralization of the planet.

Do you think doing science can be sacred?

Absolutely. Not everybody will agree with me, but thats how I wake up every dayto go do my calculations and write my papers and try to figure out if there is life on another planet. To me, thats a sacred engagement with the universe. And I know Im in very good company saying that, because Einstein used to say the same thing.

Lead image: Benjavisa Ruangvaree Art / Shutterstock

Posted on November 8, 2023

Anne Strainchamps is the host of To The Best Of Our Knowledge. She co-founded the show, along with Steve Paulson and Jim Fleming, and has been a featured interviewer on the program for more than a decade. She has worked in public broadcasting at WAMU in Washington, DC, and at NPR. She has been a reporter, producer, news director, live talk show host, a food and wine columnist, andin a former lifea chocolatier.

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