Ep 157: Professor Brian Cox

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

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Welcome to the Off Menu podcast.

Taking the cod of humor, dipping it in the batter of chuckles, and then deep frying it in the hot oil of the net that was a voice of a gamble my name is James Acaster we own a dream restaurant and we're inviting in a guest every single week and we're asking their favorite ever starter main course dessert side dish and drink not in that order and this week our guest is

professor professor brian

cox you gotta say the professor bit man otherwise they think it's the guy of succession yeah it's professor brian cox yeah prof brian cox that's who you thought it was gonna be yeah that's why i was

shouting fuck off all morning haven't you?

Yeah, I was like, everyone told me I was being rude.

I was like, come on.

Clearly, everyone else isn't a fan.

I know what's going on.

No, it's the Professor Brian Cox.

I mean,

first scientist we've had on?

First scientist we've had on.

I hope we're clever enough.

To have a scientist on the podcast.

I think, look, I reckon scientists appreciate inquisitive minds.

Yes.

I think we just go into this fully, you know, we just be inquisitive.

We've got a lot of questions.

Yeah.

professor brian cox is on tour he's going to be chatting about that a little bit he is doing an arena tour james yes briancoxlive.co.uk for tickets it's very exciting it's a world arena tour he's all over the world arena tour i mean i'm looking here brighton london o2 arena wow edinburgh cardiff motor point

dublin free arena

an arena tour the likes of which we can't even imagine the universe is infinite and so is that tour yeah but don't think that there were infinite tickets available.

No, you need to get it, snap up your tickets.

Very excited to speak to Professor Brian Cox, but of course, if he picks a secret ingredient, which we have agreed upon, he will be removed from the restaurants.

We're turning off the gravity and kicking him out.

This week, the secret ingredient is

space raiders.

Space Raiders.

We were spoiled for choice this week when it came to foods that we could associate with Brian Cox.

Yeah, Milky Way,

Milky Way, Mars, Galaxy.

Galaxy.

Star Bar, Mini Eggs, what?

There's a lot.

I mean, you really do realize when you sit down and think about it, how many chocolate bars are named after

the planets.

I don't know why that is.

No, weird.

Also, Cox Pippin.

Yep, Cox Pippin.

We've gone with Space Raiders, which is a doubler for me because I hate Space Raiders.

Wow.

I hate any corn-based crisp posers.

Uh-huh.

Interesting.

I hate it.

Interesting.

I like them.

I'm not sure.

Also, recently, what?

Yeah, because what?

Recently, I watched...

Ever watched Snack Wars on YouTube?

Yeah, I've watched Snack Wars on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah.

Where they get people to try British snacks versus American snacks.

Steve Carell did it.

He chose Space Raiders as his favourite of the whole.

Yeah, but he called them Martian Crisps.

I didn't remember the name.

He said he said I liked the Martian Crisps.

Yeah.

Well, it's the perfect secret ingredient for Professor Brian Cox.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Perfect.

But hopefully he doesn't pick them because we'd love to chat to him and pick his brain.

Yep, we're going to come out of this wiser and cleverer.

Yes.

I'm on tour, Ed Gamble Electric, doing the Edinburgh Fringe in August and also all over the country again from September.

Check it out.

Big shows in London, Manchester, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, but many, many more besides.

And you can buy James A.K.S.

Guide to Quitting Social Media, Being the Best You You Can Can Be and Curing Yourself of Loneliness, Volume 1, wherever you get your books or pre-order.

I don't know when this is going out.

But now this is the off-menu menu of Professor Brian Cox.

Professor Brian Cox.

Welcome, Brian, to the Dream Restaurant.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Welcome, Brian Cox, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Here we are.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the decor, actually.

Can we start with that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about it.

The thing is, look, you've seen the wonders of space, Brian, and a genie just exploded in front of you and you're like give us a second i want to talk about the decor yeah yeah well i you know i thought you know they made an effort you know like you said maybe a view of a galaxy or something like that

hey look this is you this is your dream restaurant if you want us to pop in a view of the galaxy you're most welcome it should be like a star trek holodeck oh i want to be in space surrounded by galaxies that's what i think so no visible furniture of any kind that could be invisible that'd be a good idea wouldn't it Invisible table.

Oh, yeah.

You've got to just judge where the edge is.

Yeah, you're going to make a judgment.

There is an edge to it.

Yeah.

Well, the universe, we're not sure.

Oh, yeah.

I'm talking about the table.

Don't tell me, Brian, that tables are infinite.

You're going to blow my mind too early in the podcast.

Well, yeah, the universe, arguably, you could consider it as an infinite four-dimensional table.

Yeah.

That's the good point.

Although, one of the dimensions would be time.

Right, sure.

But, well, I'm trying to keep up with this.

Yeah.

Sometimes do you lie there at night?

And do you think like, well, I've really got it.

I'm never going to know for sure.

No, the opposite.

Being a scientist is if you do research, then the idea is you're excited by not knowing.

It's kind of an obvious statement in a way.

But I know that I think there are two types of people.

There's one sort of person that really wants to know and actually then make stuff up, which is, you know because they say well i think we don't even know the universe began we we don't even know if the universe had a beginning we know there was this thing called the big bang 13.8 billion years ago but the the answer is was that the beginning of everything is we don't know now that's either exciting or terrifying or or you can make something up yeah

but the the scientists i think are people who just think well i'm excited that there's something that i don't know and therefore i'll try and find out that's nice isn't it yeah so do you feel that way about genies as well?

Like, you know, with genies like me, you know, I can make any food, get any food from any point in your life, make you your dream meal from wherever you want in the universe.

Is it exciting for you that like you can never understand genie law and what makes me so magic?

Yeah, I think you violate the second law of thermodynamics, which is one of the most fundamental physical laws.

So I actually don't accept that you exist.

That's going to make it a very tricky episode.

Yeah, the second law of thermodynamics is the thing that says that everything tends to get more disordered.

So it's my, you know, I don't even know, but I was in a band called D-Reem years ago, and we had a song called Things Can I Get Better, and that's wrong.

It's the opposite of that.

So second law of thermodynamics is things can only get worse.

Is that why you stopped doing music?

Because you didn't agree with the title.

Yeah, I was deeply...

Subsequently, I found out it was a...

terrible error.

I just, you know, I would not have now, you know, my integrity would prevent me from playing on or being involved in that.

I love the Ben actually.

Peter kind of probably listening, so I'm just I'm joking Peter, of course.

I do

get onto the subject of food from D-Reem.

I'm trying to remember if it was on shooting stars or no, not shooting stars.

Actually, don't I think it was?

I think it was...

Have you ever been in a sketch with Trevin Simon?

No.

What was it?

There was something that I saw with you on it.

Right.

And somebody was saying, I've made you a C-ream cake.

No.

Do you know what?

It it wasn't even that it was d ream

on

oh i've been kicking no you trevor and sideman have made them a sea ream cake i i think

you know we did so many of those yeah

we did so many of those strange breakfast programs and kids programmes yeah and it was the early 90s so yeah i don't i think trevor and sitemon made you a sea ream cake and i thought it was really funny i mean yeah as a kid i think i think the majority of comedians our age uh the first time we really laughed was at uh Trevor and Simon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were very funny.

And this is what's happened straight away.

You're talking about the infinite nature of the universe, and we've immediately shifted the conversation to Trevor and Simon.

Imagine, though.

I mean, so the universe did produce them.

Yeah.

It's one of the great mysteries.

Not only them, but

complex as humans.

If there's anything in life that irks you or vexes you, it's just quite nice to to put it in that context of, well, the universe produced this and then everything seems wondrous again.

It's one of the great mysteries.

It's a good question on how many planets did collections of atoms come together to think and do the things that we do and eat and make food and do comedy and all those things.

And the answer might be on very few because there are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

There are two trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

And it's a reasonable assumption that there might be very few civilizations.

Maybe one per galaxy on average.

In fact, a friend of mine, great physicist Sean Carroll, I asked him that the other week on our Infinite Monkey cage.

I'll plug that as well because, you know.

There you go.

It's the BBC.

And he said, on average, he thinks there are no civilizations per galaxy.

Wow.

On the average, none.

So it could be just us.

Imagine if it.

In the Milky Way galaxy.

That would be mad.

But it's all mad, right?

Imagine if it is just us, mad.

Imagine if there is other ones out there.

That's mad.

Yeah.

To think another planet out there that we're knocking about.

Arthur C.

Clarke said that.

The great Arthur C.

Clarke, who co-wrote 2001, Steve McKubrick.

And he said there's only two options, either we're alone or we're not.

And each one of those is terrifying.

Yeah.

You're like Arthur C.

Clarke.

I'm like Arthur C.

Clarke.

I mean,

imagine if there's other planets don't have the Beatles.

We're the one that's got the Beatles.

That's pretty good.

Imagine if we didn't have the Beatles.

I've just had an idea for a film beneath it.

Write it down.

Everyone forgets the Beatles.

I've got Danny's number.

Also, you said you're doing a plug for Infinite Monkey Cage, but we also want people to know about your brand new Arena World Tour as well.

That's true.

That's actually the reason I'm here, isn't it?

I always get confused and never plug the thing I'm supposed to play.

But yes, we just finished actually in the States.

So I did two and a half months.

I came back last week.

Wow.

And that was 50 shows or something in the US and Canada.

So we're well, we're rehearsed now.

I mean, for most people, a world tour is pretty massive.

To you, it must seem relatively small.

It's limited in scope.

There are 20 billion potentially Earth-like planets in the Milky Way.

So there's plenty of room to get out there and do some more.

But it takes so long to do this one.

I mean, you've been two and a half months just in one country.

You must be like, oh, God, I hope they don't open any venues on planets.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's going to go on.

It's going on to at least March next year as well.

Wow.

So at least.

Does the tour change a lot as you're doing it?

It's going to change because there's a telescope called the Webb Space Telescope, which is up there.

You might have seen it unfurl.

It was just this incredible thing that was launched.

And then the big mirror unfurled.

It's the successes of the Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful thing we've ever put into space.

And the images from that are going to be released next week, the first images.

And I heard through my little science back channel things that they're at spectacular.

So I'm going to have to put those in because part of the show is huge LED screens in the big arenas.

I think it's 30 meters by 10 meters or something of LED.

And so you can put those images of the universe onto those screens and you never see them like that.

And so I'm told that these images are going to be brilliant.

So they'll be in there.

So I did that last time.

Last time we were on tour, the first ever image of a black hole was released, which is an astonishing thing.

There's a guy that's called M87, 55 million light years away, has a black hole, supermassive black hole in the center, six billion times the mass of the Sun.

Imagine that.

It's a black hole six billion times more massive than our Sun, into which you can fit a million Earths inside the sun and so yeah six billion of those squashed into something that's essentially nothing inside of which is the end of time by the way so black holes there's a lot of black holes in the show but that image we got an image of the thing sometimes space stuff sounds like a kid's made it up yeah yeah it is six billion yeah six billion it's throwing numbers like that around yeah 6 000 million times more massive than our sun i mean the the the region that surrounds it it's called the event horizon if you go in there you can't get out.

And that's about twice the size of our solar system, just a bit bigger.

So there's a region around this thing, two times or three times the damage of our entire solar system out to the orbit of Pluto, from which if you go in, you can't escape.

Sometimes the end of time.

I don't get 10,000 steps in.

Yeah.

Also, I can't...

I mean, I can't even comprehend.

You go in there, and then you get to the end of time.

What?

Yeah, that's no, that's...

That's the end of the what?

It's a weird thing about black holes.

When you go across the event horizon of a black hole, then space and time swap around.

And so the thing that used to be, you say it's a place, it's the center of the black hole.

That becomes like tomorrow.

So the reason you can't get out, one way to think about it is if I said to you, now let's run away from the weekend.

Yes.

You go,

I can't run away from the weekend.

Which direction is that?

The weekend is in your future and it's coming.

Well, in the black hole, the end of time is in your future and it's coming.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

Still a sparkling water is how we always like to start the the meal.

This one, the restaurant, so I'm going to change it.

Well I think we should be inside the event horizon of a black hole.

But would you be there fore forever then?

Or is that not a concept that's no i inside the big one, the m eighty seven one that I just spoke about, you I think you've got about thirty five hours.

So we we'd we'd have about thirty-five hours.

We'd just be sitting here eating and drinking and drinking the water.

Yeah.

Sparkling on by the way, I love it.

Yeah.

And then and then uh and time would end.

On the M eighty seven.

So what on the on the hard shoulder?

That's true.

true messier the messier yeah i mean so but smaller ones you get much less time so you're better if you if we're gonna go in yeah and have dinner then we go into a big one and not

there's 35 hours and then it's and then it's

time ends just literally time ends

and then what happens to us then yes we don't know that so stephen hawking in 1974 published a very famous paper which showed that black holes evaporate it's called hawking radiation by the way the equation is chiseled in stone on the floor of Westminster Abbey because it's so important.

And that led to something called a black hole information paradox, which I talk about in the show.

And ultimately, it turns out that we now think that everything that falls in ultimately comes out again, which is very weird because I just said nothing can escape and time ends.

But the black hole evaporates away.

And our essence, right?

So you're a genie, so you would be imprinted.

in the Hawking radiation.

And in principle, you could put everything to a quantum computer in the far future and and reconstruct everything we think which is very weird on a matrix

yeah almost matrix like would have the same consciousness yeah i think that's that that

in principle yeah i mean in in practice it's impossible yes but yeah so the so the answer to the question what happens is we think probably you you end up you end up your all your bits all the bits of information that are you get scrambled and somehow imprinted into this radiation in the far future.

Do you want a wedge of lemon in it or anything?

Yeah, yeah.

In the what in the sparkling water?

Yeah, not in the black hole.

Yeah, well you'd have to send it in.

So now what we have to do now is throw, we're inside the black hole eating.

Yeah.

So you have to throw everything in.

All the things.

Into the black hole.

It crosses the event horizon.

Then we take it.

And ultimately, presumably, it would come out at some point in the far future, scrambled and imprinted into the talking radiation.

And then we could finish.

And then we could finish it all.

Not bad.

Good idea for a restaurant.

Yeah, you've got to wait a while.

Yeah, yeah.

And they go, all the food comes out when it's ready.

So it all comes out at different times, just so you know.

Space wagger mummers.

Yeah, yeah, space wagger mummers, man.

We chisel that on the floor of Westminster Abbey.

Space wagger mummers, all food comes out when it's ready.

It'd be called Hawking's Deli or something, wouldn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

We should name it after Stephen.

So on, are we in the black hole or the event horizon?

We're inside now.

I think we're inside.

We're inside it now.

Yeah.

And how long have we got for the meal?

Well, as I said, probably 35 hours.

We're going to choose.

If we chose the Milky Way one, the Milky Way black hole is a lot smaller.

Okay.

It's only four million times the mass of the Sun.

So we'd have a lot less time in that.

Have we chucked anything into that?

The Milky Way does.

Things fall in.

Have we lobbed anything in there?

We haven't.

No, I think we're in M87 because I would prefer 35 hours to

sure.

Well, we could do the

I'm not going to do live mathematics.

Oh, hang on.

Six billion divided by four million, whatever.

Eight.

Yeah, yeah.

it's about it's there or thereabouts it's about a thousand it's about a thousandish yeah it's about a thousand times less it'd be a thousand times less than 35 hours i think although now we'll get letters because i haven't entirely thought that through i'm guessing

our listeners are thick as

i do not

well they've already no if they've already gone

if they are

they've turned off yeah they've erased it and gone to the next one yeah what's the what's the you won't say what What's the dumbest one you've done?

The stupidest episode we've ever done.

I mean...

There's a lot to choose from.

We always drag it down.

Yeah, we're a constant.

Yeah, we're always there.

They've gone to that one.

Yeah, whoever enabled that the most.

I'll let you know my level of intelligence, ever since you said supermassive black hole, I've been thinking, that's a Muse song.

That's a Muse song, yeah.

That's what I thought.

So

here's the saddest thing.

When you said supermassive black hole in unison, Ed and I went, Muse?

Yeah.

That's what's on my Muse.

We didn't name those things after the Muse song, though.

No,

it's the other way around.

Oh, okay.

They took it from Museum.

It's interesting because Muse have a lot of space theme stuff, and I would have thought that would have inspired you guys.

It's not been around the term, actually, it was coined by some history.

John Wheeler, very famous physicist, in the 1960s.

So the term black hole.

describing those collapsed stars, centers of galaxies, has only been around since the 60s.

A supermassive black hole, it sounds like not a proper scientist came up with that.

Well, it sounds like another kid thing, right?

Yeah, yeah, supermassive, supermassive black hole.

Okay, we'll let that, like a scientist let their kid name it for the day, like going, come on, you can name this one, like Pluto.

Pluto was named by, I think it was a competition, and it was, yeah, I think she was about 12 years old.

I can't remember her name now, but I think it was a 12-year-old that named it Pluto.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

I didn't know that.

In the 19th

by Tom, I can't remember.

That 12.

Kids must have been

got declassified as a planet

as an adult.

My one claim to fame.

Not a planet anymore?

Still not a planet?

No, it got back in the current.

It's because there are lots of things that big out there that we've discovered since, out there in the far reaches of the solar system.

So if you admit Pluto, then you end up with another 20, 30, 40,

huge number of them.

Fair enough.

Popadoms or bread.

Poplums or bread, Brian Cox.

Poppadoms or bread?

Uh, poppadums.

Now, because we've been talking a lot about planets and stuff.

Is there a reason why you've chosen pop a doms?

No, I just it's related to space.

It's no deeper than I just fancied a popped on.

Hang on, what reason were you thinking?

Well, I'm thinking like if I think about the shape of a pop-adom, I think like, oh yeah, like the orbiting of planet the circle circles and planets going round.

And it looks a bit like the surface of the moon, I guess.

Yes, it does, actually.

Yeah, they are flat.

Like Saturn's rings.

We could make a little hole in the middle.

Yeah, yeah.

And then it'd be a ring.

Can you do it?

That would be difficult, wouldn't it?

To not break it they're very fragile yeah saturn's rings

is saturn gas planet yeah see ed yeah i told you before ed was saying it was solid no i never said that when did i say that he said that

the rings are mainly water water ice oh wow frozen water and they're only about a meter thick or something like that i just want you to know as well brian that you don't need to we're not forcing you to connect everything with space if you just fancy a pop a dom you can you can have a pop a dom no but i'm now interested i'm now interested in in whether this is a challenge to to listeners whether anyone can chisel yeah the in the inside out of a poppadom to make the poppadom into saturn's ring to model saturn without breaking it yeah if you can do if anyone can do that well it'd be incredible and so to photo in then uh yeah yeah we'll be pretty excited about that i guess the only way to get a ring poppadom would be to the actual raw popadom uh-huh would be to cut the ring out then and then fry it yeah and then you could have the ring poppadom pop an onion pop an onion bargie in the middle oh yeah pop a bargie in the middle yeah i'm gonna do i'm gonna do a competition yeah we'll we'll sat outside you'll have to deal with this now yeah i reckon you're right if someone can actually show and i don't want it to be i don't i don't want it to be reconstructed i want them to actually cut the centre out of a pop a dom without breaking the outside yes if anyone can do that and send a video in of that i will give them tickets to my my tour

i will go two tickets to any gig in the uk

if someone can

chisel out the inside of a pop-a-dom

without breaking it

one of of the tasks from series two, a squid game.

Squid get more tasks, master.

That is exciting.

I hope that happens now and you end up with two people at a show because they cut the ring, sent him out of a pop-up dump.

I think you'd have to do it with a laser or something.

You might end up with, I mean, probably the only people who have equipment to do this are scientists.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you'll end up with fellow scientists that have a lot of money.

And they're not listening to us.

No?

They might be listening to this episode because Brian's on.

I wonder if any scientists ever listen to us.

Way, man.

No?

Kidding me?

None of our listeners have got a laser at home.

They're not even trusted with a butter knife.

That's true.

I mean my parents,

my dad used to be a chemistry teacher and my mum's the one who listens to this podcast.

You could cool it down, couldn't you?

Yeah, sort of freeze it solid.

Yeah.

Liquid nitrogen.

But then would it would that make it more likely to

be terminator?

So if we liquid nitrogen.

I'm still thinking about muse.

Yeah.

If we liquid nitrogen at the popadom, I thought it would just go, it would just crumble if you try and cut the middle off.

That's probably true oh it's probably true

you might have to liquid

helium it i don't know it's a good question it's another good question isn't it yeah what happens if you liquid nitrogen a poppadom does it i mean it obviously be brittle but maybe it'd be easier to cut yeah or maybe you have to yeah maybe you have to heat it up maybe you have to wet it maybe it's a case of scoring the poppadom as lightly as you can in the middle

right before you then liquid nitrogen it and then you could just punch the middle out where you've weakened it already punch it with your fist no just punch it like a hole punch yeah oh yeah or with your fist or or do it with a hole punch?

Yeah.

Get a hole punch long enough and just do a little hole.

You don't see how big the hole had to be.

These are all options for you, listeners.

We're giving you ideas.

Yeah.

Man, a lot of people, I can't wait really to hear about the responsibilities that people neglect in order to try and do this.

They get so absorbed with getting the hole in the poppadom that there are several things they should have done that they don't do.

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There's the part of me that everyone sees.

I'm Howie Mandel, the comedian.

Apparently, I know what funny is.

Funny bought me a house, but I also know what isn't funny, OCD.

I've lived with OCD my entire life, and people throw the term around like it's no big deal.

But OCD is severe, often debilitating.

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What would you like for your starter, your dream starter?

Well, I thought about this and I thought, I mean, I could just say my favorite food, couldn't I?

Or I could say, following the Martian, I want potatoes that I grew in my own shit on the surface of Mars.

Because I thought that might be interesting.

Because, you know, because then I would have to go to Mars, which I wouldn't like to do unless you can arrange it, because you're a genie.

So we could go instantly to Mars.

Yeah.

Plant the potatoes.

yeah.

Well, actually, we if we don't even need to use our own shit, then do we, I suppose, we could actually take

that's what he did, personalized, he did, yeah, so maybe we have to do that, yeah, yeah, so yeah, so I think that would be an interesting starter, and then make them into chips and have chips and take some mayonnaise or curry sauce because I'm from Eldham, so it'd probably be curry sauce, actually, wouldn't it?

The curry sauce, chips, and curry sauce, but the chips have to be made from potatoes grown on Mars.

What's your own shit in your own ship?

That's the question: what's the curry sauce made?

I don't know.

If I was eating, you know, if you offered me a bowl of your shit chips and then the curry sauce, I'd be like, I have to hold the sauce.

I think, even though I know it's curry sauce,

I need to get it out of my mind.

Yeah, yeah, I can't.

I'm already trying not to think of the fact you grew the chips in your own shit.

The curry sauce isn't healthy, but

well, mayonnaise is real problem.

Also, if you're existing on Mars on a diet of the very thing you're feeding me, you're like, if he's eating curry sauce all the time,

his shits must be awful.

And then he's growing the potatoes in them.

There's actually no condiment that wouldn't make me feel ill in that situation.

Sure.

No, I think I like the eating the curry.

It's kind of a recycling thing.

There's a constant.

Would it impart flavour into the potato itself?

Would the flesh of the potato then have a curry tang?

Yeah, it would have a curry tang.

It must do, mustn't it?

Because you do...

things like you know lavender honey or something because the bees go to lavender so whatever i'm not sure those are equatable

Because they kind of go and eat the stuff and the lavender flavour goes into the honey.

So I assume whatever you grow it in, if there are any farmers listening,

I assume whenever you grow it in, somehow the flavour is transparent.

It feels a bit

human centipede-y, in a way.

Eating the shit and shit.

Two different opinions.

It's a bit like bees with lavender honey, and it's a bit like the human centipede.

Both interested in insects.

Yeah.

I'm not going to get told that.

Yeah, yeah, go on.

I'm not very good at biology, but...

One of them's not an insect.

Or Or both.

Probably both of them are not insects beetles.

It's not centipedes.

Oh, no.

I'm going to get in real trouble.

I always get real.

Shamagoon.

It's a lagoon.

The potatoes you're eating, is it that I'm taking you to Mars, you're growing them using your own shit?

Or is it that we go to Mars,

the Martian Mars, and Matt Damon's made them for us and his shit?

Because I would want to eat, with all due respect, Brian, I would want to eat those.

I would want to try Matt Damon's potatoes that he's grown in his life.

prefer his yes i don't i think with all due respect covers what you just said there why why don't you want to eat brian shit potatoes this

because he wants a hollywood hollywood yeah

i i like i like imagining matt damon up there in his space suit and he's made him in his own ship no

this is this is getting really weird now so you want to imagine

matt damon's an actor So I can imagine him in any role and I can believe him as an astronaut.

And

I think

I just see Brian Cox.

I'm like, that's just Brian Cox.

So he's a dump on a potato.

No, you wouldn't be because you've got to grow them.

So you wouldn't be.

You don't do a dump on the potato.

That defeats the object of the fertilizer, doesn't it?

You don't put the fertiliser on something after it's grown.

Why not?

See, this is why you're getting confused.

It's a lack of basic agricultural knowledge now, isn't it?

Because why would you fertilize something that's already grown because uh

flavor

well yeah and this is why it's never should causing it because it's not for the flavor wash it after yeah yeah i hope you would wash it fertilizer is not added for flavor no no that's the thing brian by the way what you just did there happens every episode where you looked at me and with your eyes you said help me what's the good

help me out here mate i can't understand what this guy's people who aren't even scientists that come by and and looked at Ed like, well, I really need your help here communicating with this guy.

It's funny because the whole strange conversation of the last 10 minutes now makes sense.

Yes.

Because he's not been thinking of the shit as fertiliser.

He's thinking it as a garnish.

That's why

it's all gone strange.

I think it's an interesting idea for a starter.

Chips are good.

Chips.

I'm trying to think of a word for it.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah.

I like it.

And it's all your own shit, just to be clear.

Not Matt Damon's or a mixture, and see if people can tell the difference.

I don't think it matters.

He was he did a mixture though, didn't he?

Do you remember in the film?

Oh, does he?

Because he used all the other everyone else's shit.

Yeah, yeah, dead.

Yeah.

Well, no, they weren't dead, they weren't they.

Have you seen it?

It's years ago when it came out.

They didn't die, they didn't die.

They all left him on the surface.

Wankers,

great starter, great starter.

The chits

Your dream main course.

So when I was growing up, my favourite meal was

steak and kidney pudding, chips, peas and gravy from Haggit Chippy in Oldham.

Yeah.

Where every Saturday we used to go and have steak and kidney pudding, chips, peas and gravy.

So I would go, if I was going back to my childhood, I would say I'd go to the chip shop.

Lovely.

Just at the roof of my house and have that.

i thought it was delicious i love a steak and kidney pudding yeah nice and moist a lot a lot of gravy that yeah

had dry ones in the past and it's scarred me and i've been upset but like it's the ones in foil you know in tin foil that they they boil or steam in a big pan at the chip shop so that's what i would do what was it like growing up in oldham oh it had a brilliant time it was a great place to grow up yeah um because it's sort of it's in the country oldham it's surrounded by the pennines and at the time then when i was a bit older we had a brilliant football team.

Because Oldham Athletic had a season ticket to Oldham Athletic.

And they were founder members of the Premier League.

And now got relegated out of the league.

Really?

Last year.

If they keep getting relegated, do they get to the end of time?

I wonder what the lowest level of the football is that you could possibly...

You're right.

Do they have to play in like a schools league or something?

I don't know where you could go to.

Do you watch them still?

Do you support them?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not in Oldham anymore.

Yeah, I do.

Do you want the whole meal for

your main?

Do you want the chips as well?

And you know what, I'm going to ask, what sort of chips are they?

No, they're just chips from the chippy now.

Or normal chips.

No, they're not.

We've left Mars.

Right.

Because do you want to compare the chips?

So that you'll have the chips still, and you've got your chips from the chippy.

And do you want to compare them?

I've just realised that I've got this starter.

The starter's chips.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then...

Yeah.

Then I've got chips again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I could go.

The other thing we used to do was half chips, half rice, and curry sauce.

Wow.

So we graduated to that.

What I would also say is you've picked a steak and kidney pudding, which is probably the worst thing you could eat after you've eaten something that you've grown with your own shit.

Maybe we'll revisit.

We'll have smoked salmon to start.

What?

We're having a reverse.

No, you're right.

Forget all the Mars thing.

That salmon.

You can't shit on a salmon, though.

I've changed my mind.

This is a good restaurant.

Now I'm imagining a salmon.

Trying to make it up the water to its birthplace again to lay its eggs.

So you're shitting on it.

you're you're the dodging way out at the top of the waterfall dropping some nugs down and it's and it's it's avoiding them in the stream well is this hard enough no you see could we go back in time mars about three and a half to four billion years ago had rivers and actually there's a rover at the moment called the perseverance rover which is in a crater called jezero crater and there's a river delta there and it was a lake a lake bed and it's currently digging down in the river delta searching for signs that life existed on mars and those samples are going to be brought back to Earth.

So we could, because you're a genie, we could go back to Jezero Crater

three and a half, four billion years ago and there would be rivers flowing in there and so we could take the salmon with us,

put them in the rivers of Mars and then we could eat Martian salmon.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's

a good starter.

Right, so we've reversed.

So we're going Martian smoked salmon.

Yes.

That's nice.

Then I can have pudding, chips, peas and gravy.

But you want the chips?

No, the chips now are just normal chips.

Normal chips.

So then we've reversed.

I've reversed out of my plan.

Yes.

Is your shit involved in the menu at all?

No, no, it's gone now.

So this is good.

So it's Martian smoked salmon.

Yeah.

How would you like it to be smoked?

Is there any way we can bring Mars into the smoking process?

That's a good question.

Because there probably wasn't...

oxygen in the atmosphere at that point so you couldn't burn anything to smoke it you've hit on a problem well we'd have to bring the salmon back.

Well, we could smoke it in the restaurant.

Fox and grain.

Because the restaurant has oxygen in it.

Yeah, we've got stuff in the restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

It's fox and grain.

What?

It's the fox and the grain and the chicken, isn't it?

Oh, yeah.

You take the salmon there, but then you have to bring it back.

Yeah, but there's nothing else there that you've got.

Have you said salmon?

Good point.

I mean, you just, you've got to take something somewhere is what I meant.

You've got to not eat it.

Yeah, you're in.

Now you've hit on another problem, of course, because now you've pointed out there wouldn't be any oxygen in the atmosphere.

Even if there was water on the surface, then what would the salmon breathe?

So, yeah, just

live in the middle.

You'd just be chucking a dead salmon in a stream.

Could you give it like a helmet, like a little suit?

That's what I was thinking.

Little breathing apparatus on it.

Submarine.

Well, submarine, doesn't it?

No, a submarine would be no use to it because it needs water.

Yeah,

inside a submarine.

What, fill the submarine with water?

Yeah, fill it with water.

Fill the submarine with water.

Well, then why you need the submarine?

And then put the submarine in the

river fast.

And then the salmon can drive around in the submarine.

Fill with water.

why not just take the submarine away and give it the breathing apparatus which was developed all right yeah okay scuba little scuba suit scuba suit yeah scuba sudden though because like i think it'd be quite hard for salmon to learn the sign language required for scuba

because uh

under the water and having trying to communicate i feel that's quite difficult for a salmon tap against watch yeah yeah doing that a-ok sign and stuff i feel it's quite hard with little fins it's got to use them to yeah to go back to its birthplace anyway we filmed with a mantis shrimp once, which is this remarkable thing that has really it has the best colour vision of virtually anything on the planet because it uses colours to signal to other mantis shrimps underwater.

And as you know, because you you dive,

then um then as you go down and down and down the colour gets more washed out.

Uh-huh.

And so so it has a really sensitive vision in order to communicate using colour.

Oh, wow.

So they're they're remarkable things.

There you go.

drink one of those as well for starting yeah mantis shrimp cocktail

yeah

dream side dish then well maybe that's the potatoes i think that's the potatoes no no we've got chimps you can't have a potato side with chips can you well you can if you want you can prepare the shit potatoes in another way and the mushy peas the side dish so it's yeah you can have that if you would like the mushy peashy peas

yeah rare they rarely come up Yeah, rarely.

And that's weird because I think mushy peas are the most Martian-looking food.

They're very Martian-looking food.

They're very Star Trek, aren't they?

Yeah.

In the 60s, Star Trek.

It's sort of green sludge that people eat, yeah.

I mean, they are nice.

Yes.

But when I used to work in the kitchen, if you've ever opened a cold industrial-sized tin of mushy peas, because you work in a kitchen, the smell of that really puts you off them.

Yeah.

I can eat them now, but it's because it's been 20 years.

Yeah.

But like, you used to to like smell of a thousand guffs just open that open it up and it would hit you you're like well that just smells like someone is that really does smell like someone's made

their own chicks you've never had a plate of chits mate yeah yeah if i had a plate of chits i'm sure it'd taste just as bad i don't know how matt damon did it good actor they do have them though in in sort of restaurants in london and but they're called something else aren't they they're always called minted peas yeah but they're still mushy peas who are they loving i love a mushy pea yeah yeah really good would you rank it above the garden peas Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

I'm not a massive fan of garden peas.

No?

No.

They're a boring vegetable.

Yeah.

I think the mushy peas, when you get them from the chippy and they're in like a polystyrene cup with a little lid,

and you open it up and they're all just sat in there.

That's sad.

All nestled together.

It's exciting.

That's the side dish.

Yeah.

That.

A polystyrene cup of mushy peas.

Yep.

See, the polystyrene's put me off now.

Why?

Squeaky.

Oh, you don't like polystyrene?

No, no.

Too squeaky.

It has to squeak.

No, thanks.

Whatever's in there is not worth it.

I don't know.

What would you have yours in then?

Hmm.

Good question.

I would probably like mine in a thermos.

A thermos flask?

Yeah.

But they can squeak meat at the top of it.

No, no, no, no, not in the same way that polystyrene does.

I'd unscrew it.

They'd be the exact temperature that I wanted.

And then I'd either pour it onto my plate or I'd plug it out the flask.

I don't think mushy peas are the right consistency to pour or glug.

What?

How do you feel about that, Brian?

Do you think you could glug mushy peas?

I think you need to spoon them out, really, don't you?

Yeah, I don't think you could glug mushy peas.

No, there's another challenge.

I think they'd move fast enough.

Some of them are different consistency, though, aren't they?

Yeah,

that is true.

So you could have more liquid kind of mushy peas.

You know, when you see astronauts, like they're showing off when they like squeeze their food in the air and then chase it around and catch it with their mouth.

Brilliant.

And that is showing off, isn't it?

They do that.

Mushy peas are that consistency all the time, I think.

They feel like they could float away and you could chase them.

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever been in zero gravity and eaten food?

I have been in zero gravity and chased a maltezer.

uh yeah we we did a zero-g flight yeah which was just we were supposed to be filming supposed to be professional and i was supposed to be talking about einstein einstein's great insight that led him he called it the happiest thought of his life that led him to general relativity in 1915 was to realize that when you're falling gravity has gone away it's not there at all which is completely different to newton right which is the so the reason einstein would say that astronauts float inside the space station he said if they get some water or some mushy peas, whatever it is, it just stays there, is because there are no forces acting on anything.

Everything just stays where it is, which is a completely different view of gravity.

And so Einstein, he called that the happiest thought of his life.

So we were supposed to be doing that.

So we were filming.

But the point is, when you go into zero-g, you just laugh because it's

so incredible that suddenly you're weightless and just floating around like an astronaut.

So the whole sequence that we filmed, it's in one of my films, you know, that I made years ago, but it's just basically spinning around and laughing.

And then the camera's spinning around because the cameraman's spinning around.

Everyone's just

absolutely nonsense.

They have no educational value at all.

Because

I had this romantic idea that I would explain Einstein's general theory of relativity.

You only get about 30 seconds or so.

of wavelessness and then the plane has to go back up again and you get another 30 seconds another 30 seconds so i had it all planned out i had these 30 seconds little bits and i would film and it would be a very coherent explanation of of this beautiful theory.

But it wasn't.

It was just like they were just pissing around basically in zero G.

It's a wonderful thing to do.

It's incredible.

Einstein's legend?

He's a legend.

Fair to say?

Yeah.

OG, the OG scientist.

No.

Huh?

Probably not the OG scientist.

Yeah, yeah.

There's probably scientists before Einstein, weren't there?

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

He's the OG.

Newton.

Newton, Galileo.

Like Galileo, but like Einstein, number one.

It's difficult, you know.

It's difficult to rank these people.

Newton was clearly a genius.

An apple fell on his head, Brian.

Yeah, and you know the

Newton would have said that the apple fell on his head because there's a force between the apple and the earth.

So that was his great insight.

That's Newton's theory of gravity.

Einstein would have said exactly the opposite.

Einstein would have said, no, Isaac, you accelerated up to headbutt the apple.

Wow.

It's completely the opposite view.

Because when the apple's falling off the tree,

in Einstein's picture, the apple is just not moving in a real sense.

It's not accelerating.

It's just minding its own business.

The thing that's accelerating is the ground.

It's a completely different.

So the reason everyone's listening now and we're sat on chairs, we're getting pressed into the chair.

Newton would say because there's a force pulling us down towards the center of the earth.

But Einstein would say that...

What's actually happening is our trajectory through space should be towards the center of the earth.

That would be just free fall.

So we should be freely falling.

And the ground's in the way, or the chair's in the way.

So the chair's exerting a force on us that's stopping us.

Oh, that one makes me feel weird.

Freely through space.

And so we're accelerating.

So you're being pressed into the chair in the same way you're pressed into the

back of your car seat when you accelerate in your car.

Then why isn't my face all pulled back?

Well, it is.

It sort of is.

It's at 1G.

Yeah, I hate about it.

Oh, no.

So Einstein, no.

Einstein would say in this room now, so it's called the equivalence principle.

So he would say that if there's no windows in in the room they're basically you can't see out then you could not tell there's nothing you can do to tell whether we're just accelerating with a big rocket at 1g through space or we're sat on the surface of the earth exactly the same sensation what's the happiest thought you've ever had that's a good question it's understanding something

i find that sometimes quite slow to understand things i'm writing a book at the moment on black holes there's loads of black holes in the live show and they're really difficult to understand and so you you can sit there i can sit there for months trying to understand something and and it's that my happiest thoughts are when when it suddenly becomes obvious it's a strange sensation actually because it clearly isn't obvious because you said so you sit there for months trying to understand it but once you understand something or find your own way of understanding something then it becomes obvious and those are happy moments I always say that to students, you know,

whether they're at school or at university, that some things are really hard to understand.

And a lot of of people, I think one of the problems people have when they say, I can't do math, so I can't do science, I don't, I can't do physics.

What that really is, is just giving up too early.

And you have to be persistent.

And if you're persistent, there's a great reward at the end of it.

So it's not, you don't have to be, you know,

I mean, even Einstein, there's a great story about Einstein when he was at a school and everyone's, you know, going, he's Einstein, you know.

And he said, when I was your age, I was no Einstein, which is true.

He didn't know that stuff when he was six years old, but he spent a lot of time thinking about it.

Ed, same question as you?

Oh.

Happiest thought.

Yeah.

Be honest.

Still thinking about Muse.

Yeah.

I don't think I think very often, you know.

No.

No.

That's fair enough.

What's your happiest thought?

Ice cream or sex.

Yeah.

Brian, your dream.

That's not a thought.

That's a question.

I think about it all the time.

Brian, you're...

Dream drink.

Dream drink.

I used to like Guinness a lot, but as I've got older, the number of drinks I can drink without getting headache has reduced.

So I'm pretty much reduced to,

I like white wine now, actually.

I really particularly like white wine, and I like champagne.

It's another proof that things don't only get better.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

If I drink like two or three pints of Guinness now,

it's not good.

That's the closest drink to a black hole.

Yeah.

Did you say that's why you love it?

That's a good point.

Yeah.

The darkest drink.

And if you drink three of them or more, time ceases to exist.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Okay, so we go to Guinness then.

Because it's a good story.

There we go.

I wish that you sold it to him.

Yeah, because it's like the fuck drinking a black hole.

Yeah.

I love Guinness.

If you could drink a black hole.

That's my nicest thought.

Oh, yeah.

He's drinking a Guinness.

I'm glad we found it.

Yeah.

And sex.

Yes.

We love sex.

It's really interesting you asked, what's the dumbest episode, Brian, because we've been the dumbest we've ever been on this episode.

Yeah.

Well, we see

balance, isn't it?

Yeah, it's all about balance.

If we, if, like, I use my genie powers to get a black hole and make it into a drink, would you drink it?

I'm trying to think.

See, the thing about a black hole, so if it's what's called the eternal black hole, so one that's been around forever, that's a technical point for the listeners that are well-versed in these things, eternal black hole, then let's say it's really small, so it would fit in your mouth, right?

A tiny, little, tiny black hole.

You could all hold it in your hands.

And if it's a spinning black hole called a Kerr black hole, you'll be holding an infinite number of infinite universes in your hand.

So that it's called a Kerr Wonderland.

So there is very, very weird internal geometry.

Even in an eternal, non-spinning black hole, which is called a Swatchel black hole, then there is a wormhole in there.

connecting two universes.

So the science fiction wormholes, Einstein discovered them in 1935 with a colleague called Rosen, Einstein-Rosenbridge wormhole.

So inside black holes, if they've existed forever, is an infinite complexity of space-time.

So that's what you'd be drinking.

What would happen if you drank that?

What do you think it would happen to you?

But the thing about very small black holes is that they're also very hot.

So tiny microscopic black holes.

So you'd have to blow on them.

They're extremely hot and they evaporate away very quickly.

Well, no, that wouldn't help.

It might make you feel better, but it would do nothing to the black hole.

Yeah,

so it might be quite dangerous.

It depends how big it was, how massive it was.

Well, a pint.

A pint of a black hole, you'd be in real trouble.

It converts it into a liquid pint.

So if the event horizon of the black hole was the same size as a pint glass,

then it would be colossally massive.

Right.

That black hole.

It would be billions of tons.

So you wouldn't be able to lift the glass up.

Straw?

You wouldn't be able to lift it.

Straw.

Yeah.

i know it makes me getting rid of those these days but like yeah give you a straw

it wouldn't help would it wouldn't help at all no because if you put the straw across the event horizon of the black hole

then you wouldn't be able to suck anything out of it you'd have to soak faster than the speed of light

in order to get anything

out

stop it i'm having one of my nice thoughts again yeah no one has ever thought of it like that to ed love he loves it's his happy thoughts.

His happy thought just got even happier.

I was just thinking, actually,

this is like...

No one has ever considered this physics.

No, it's pretty exciting.

In the history of physics.

And he can get into some labs to pose these questions.

You couldn't get the straw across the event horizon.

The problem with approaching the event horizon of a black hole is when viewed from outside, time

stops on the horizon.

Right.

So you never see anything fall in.

What if we've discovered a black hole you can drink yeah but then it's interesting about the whole time stopping thing because about guines because that's all about tick follows talk yes if the glass follows talk and good things come to those who wait you'd have to wait a long time wait a long time it's time stop yeah so so if the glass of guinness was the black hole yeah then you have to get your hand to it

and as you move your hand towards the black hole then from your vantage point,

then time slows down and it would freeze on the horizon.

so I think you can't pick the glass up if it's a black hole

notwithstanding the fact it's very heavy but we'll forget about that yeah even then you've got a place on the horizon where time stops you never reach it so does that does the same apply for the person who's trying to draw the little shamrock in the foam on the top would they have a problem doing that if they're inside the event horizon yeah with the Guinness then no but then from outside you'd never know whether they'd done it would you drink it or not well we haven't established that you could physically drink it.

Yeah, yeah.

If you could.

We think there are physical problems.

Yeah, I think physically you can't by the sound of things.

Yeah, I think we're going to have to say

knowing what we know about Einstein's theory of general relativity,

then yeah, you're not going to be able to drink a black hole.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I suppose you could ingest a small enough one.

But as I said, it would evaporate away very quickly.

I think you can drink small enough.

New cocktail.

Yeah.

That's called a plug-in baby.

Stopping about music.

Yeah.

So let's go for a glass of champagne, shall we?

Let's see.

But it's good to consider these things, isn't it?

And work out whether they're possible.

Yeah, we've learnt a lot.

About relativity.

Any particular type of champagne?

I would go for a Dom Runard.

Because I like Runa, because it's 100% Chardonnay.

Blanc de Blanc.

I would go for the vintage Runa, which is Dom Runa.

And I'd probably go for 2008.

This is good.

We've never had this specific choice.

Again, it's weird.

Every time Brian mentions something that's like time-related, like he used to make 2008, I'm just like, there must be a scientific reason why it's too

good.

Yeah, if it's a good year and it's a good vintage.

I suppose there is a scientific reason in a way, because so many things have to coincide to make it a good vintage for wine, right?

Yeah.

I once talked to a winemaker and they said that the grape is the means by which the season and the land talk to you.

Oh, I love that.

Which is beautiful.

So it's the landscape, but also the season.

Did it rain in late August?

And what's the season like?

And all the messages are in there.

And then the wow, yeah, the grape and the wine are the medium by which they talk to you.

I love it.

It seems to be other jobs, like scientists or like this vineyard owner or whatever.

They're just so much happiness and joy in it.

And we're comedians, and it's just

awful.

As ever, you speak for yourself.

Yes.

Let's be real.

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There's the part of me that everyone sees.

I'm Howie Mandel the comedian.

Apparently, I know what funny is.

Funny bought me a house, but I also know what isn't funny.

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Your dream dream dessert.

Black holgato.

Black holgato.

Same problem though, Ed.

Yeah, I think you wouldn't be able to even pick it up.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

I like dark chocolate.

And I don't like dessert too much, actually.

I don't like sweetness

so much, but I like dark chocolate.

How dark are we talking?

Very dark.

100% dark.

Not quite.

No, I go for about 80.

Nice.

So

dark matter.

Yes.

Yeah.

We don't know if that exists.

We suspect it does.

The Large Hadron Collider just switched on actually again.

And it's now looking for dark matter.

Really seriously trying to...

Because we thought we'd have discovered it.

Dark matter is something that we think is out there in the universe because we see its gravitational effects.

And so we're pretty convinced there's something out there, which is a kind of particle, a subatomic particle that we haven't yet discovered.

And we thought LHC at CERN would discover it.

But it hasn't done, but we're switching on again with much more capability.

So that's one of the things that's top of the list.

Do you ever worry?

There's some things you just shouldn't go looking for.

Because you'll wake something up and it'll be evil.

Dark matter seems to me.

Leave that stuff well alone.

Yeah.

No, but if it hadn't been there, assuming it's there, so we're pretty sure it is.

Assuming it's there, then it played a central role in the formation of galaxies and the early universe.

Yeah.

So we wouldn't exist.

Yeah, but it doesn't want to be found.

You can't find it.

Well, it's just a particle, though, so it doesn't

have once.

It feels like it's going to be a venom situation.

Yeah, and addressing Ed's original question of what if it is evil.

Well, it's like saying, what if a grain of sand is evil?

Good point.

Well,

answer that then.

It's not.

It's a grain of sand.

It's got no consciousness, no nothing.

It's just a

grain of sand.

So dark matter would be like very small grains of sand.

So there's no possibility at all that it could be evil.

So we can rule that out.

What if you're in a lab, right?

And one of the scientists is looking in the microscope at some sands that you've got from the beach.

And they look up and their face is ashen white.

And you're like, Everything okay?

And they went, Brian, this sand is not like any sand I've seen in my life before.

And you say,

What are you talking about?

I say, This is there is evil in this sand.

It is evil.

And they say that to you.

What's the next step?

throw them out.

Fair enough.

And every scientific society they're a member of, just throw them out.

Yeah.

But then we know from films, they're the ones that are right.

Yeah.

And everyone else is a film.

And we told the Jeff Goldblum.

Jeff Goldblum, yeah.

Life fights away.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I do agree with that.

Yeah.

Actually.

Well, interestingly.

So

Mars is a good question because we think that life may have begun on Mars three and a half billion years ago because the conditions were right

and we're pretty certain that it probably isn't there today we're pretty certain it wouldn't be that we tend to look for signs that life existed but it's it's interesting that we do think there may be water subsurface and if there is then that life finds a way you know it does seem that if life can survive then it will that does seem to be the case so maybe maybe

I go with life finds a way.

That's not anything to do with sand being being evil, though, is it?

Because

sand isn't alive

because it's sand.

Okay.

But evil is like

a force, isn't it?

That's just like gravity is.

It's a property of living things, isn't it?

A property of consciousness.

Spirit.

No.

I'm vice versa.

I'm either way on this.

I see your point.

I see James's point.

How come it's me versus Brian now?

I'm back.

I'm yes, I did your thing.

But he hasn't got a point for a laugh.

No, I'm saying, what if because dark matter clearly doesn't want to be found?

So what if we are

want?

Are you objecting to the use of the term want?

But have we found it?

Well, that's not because it doesn't want to be found, is it?

Because it can't want.

But what if it is like venom?

It's a basic...

It's just a subatomic particle.

So subatomic particles don't want anything.

Yeah, they don't want to be found.

No, they don't.

They don't.

There's no such concept as want, is it?

It's just a

basic building block of matter.

what if you touch it and it goes all the way up your arm and then you're evil because of your arm and now you're evil well it wouldn't do that how do you know you've not found it no because it's a subatomic

what if you find it and it is evil and then you've unleashed that on the world

see let's just go let's just think about a grain of sand because it's easier to visualize which is a lot of subatomic particles right so in principle a grain of sand has got more possibilities open to it than just a single subatomic particle.

So they're more likely to be evil than the dark matter.

No, even then,

go and get a grain of sand and have a look at it and see if you think it's got sufficient complexity to,

well, to be to be as intelligent as you.

But what if they were all loads of sand, not just one grain?

Yeah.

Loads of sand.

And also,

I'm going to just

tiptoe back a little bit.

I've never heard the phrase, as intelligent as you, said with such stank.

You put a real spin on that?

As intelligent as you?

Yeah, fair enough.

I thought someone had pick it up.

You're comedians.

It's an open net, isn't it?

And

you didn't go through it.

I'm just worried about the sound, in all honesty.

It is quite worried.

It's a good question.

So you could ask, so look at a human brain.

So that's a collection of, remarkably a collection of atoms and molecules.

that can think.

So you could ask, how complex does something have to be to have that property?

I mean, as I said,

it's a reasonable assumption that nowhere else in the Milky Way galaxy are there collections of atoms that can think because it's a big ask.

It's astonishing.

But all these things that you're talking about,

so evil or love or fear or science or music and art, all those things are things that emerge from these remarkable collections of atoms.

So you could ask the question, how much stuff do you need and how complex does it have to interact together to produce those what we call emergent properties?

The answer is we don't know.

It's one of the great questions.

So it's not an entirely stupid question to say if grains of sand could interact with each other and you could build them into some enormous structure that could process information,

then

would it become...

Yeah, there is a

sand motion.

Yeah, I think that's a scientifically inaccurate question.

Yeah, I think someone should have said something i was a consultant on a science fiction film once with uh danny boyle going back to danny boyle and the beatles film so he created a film called sunshine yes i love sunshine well the direct the commentary

the audio commentary on the sunshine dvd is me is it yeah that was years ago

i haven't listened to it see so you never listen to those comedy i did the commentary and then danny did a commentary and so and that was before i'd been on tele or anything it actually was the first thing i'd done some uh horizon which is one of the the you know on bbc too it It was years ago.

It was the first one I'd done.

And

Danny saw it and thought,

he looks a bit like this character that I've got in Sunshine, which is the Killian Murphy character.

How he envisaged him to be.

So they got in touch and said, do you want to come and whatever?

That's so cool.

And so I did that kind of film and I did the commentary.

It's a great film.

I think it's an underrated masterpiece.

It is.

It is underrated.

I think just because it's like at the end, it changes genre.

And always people

find that difficult in films.

Yeah.

But it's great.

Well, Alex Garland wrote it.

He wrote 28 Days Later.

Yeah.

It's a nice great film.

Directed his own brilliant films as well.

Did Ex Mackina?

Ex Mackina is a fantastic film, isn't it?

Fantastic.

Here we go.

Now we're all on the same page.

We've changed genre, right?

The end of the podcast.

We've changed genre at the end of the podcast.

It's a film podcast.

I want to get to the bottom of this dessert, though.

Dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate.

How would you like this dark chocolate presented?

And also, don't feel like you have to have a dessert.

If you don't want anything sweet for dessert, there's always other options.

I also like

cheese on toast for dessert.

Oh, what the that happens do you want in certain restaurants a rare bit a nice rare bit yeah yeah saint john a fantastic restaurant is it has a wonderful rare bit yeah dessert menu yeah and i like that i often go that way actually because i don't like sweet things yeah so i often go for the rare bit well this is the dream restaurant if you if you want to have a lovely bit of rare bit rare bit with yeah buster sauce in it yeah lovely uh oh

what is it

james is our uh resident dessert head and he doesn't like it when people pick something savoury for dessert.

No.

After all that chat

about what is and isn't evil,

let me tell you, Brian Cox, a savory dessert,

scientifically

evil.

And anyone who orders one falls into that category as well.

You and that rabbit

may as well have been touched by the venom that you don't want to find in space.

No, the rare bit can't be evil.

We've gone through this.

It's not sentient.

No one

thinks that rare bit is sentient.

You can't have a conversation with cheese on toast.

Sometimes it feels like the cheese is so mature it's having a chat with you.

What?

Don't even joke.

This is...

Someone just ordered cheese on toast as a dessert.

I think it's amazing.

No one's ever ordered cheese on toast.

This is perfect.

I love this.

We have sat here and we have indulged this man

in every crackpot theory he's been following us.

I've drawn a line

and cheese on toast for dessert.

I have grinned and bared it through every single thing he's gone on about.

None of it made any fucking sense.

I do not let this go.

What happens if we go sweet for the starter then?

I mean, is that...

What, we're making that salmon swim through sugar now?

That's something that's gone through enough.

Is that even worse?

I'd feel better about that.

We're changing the starter again.

No, no, no, no.

Stick to your guns, Brian, you know?

I tell you what.

I tell you what, Brian.

There's one of your courses that should be shut on.

And I can't stress enough.

Brian was never shitting onto the potato.

I'm just not over this.

You're going to fertilise it, are you?

You're not going to fertilise it.

I hope you like it fertilized.

What's the other one with the dates with the bacon wrapped around it?

What's that?

Devil's on horseback.

Yeah.

He was on horseback.

Evil.

Evil.

The clue to the name, Brian.

The Devil's Fair.

God.

Right, I'm going to read your menu back to you now.

I'm not happy about it.

Sparkling water, poppa doms, for poppadoms on bread.

Starter, we've settled on Martian smoked salmon.

But shout out, honourable munchon to the chips,

the chits.

main course steak and kidney pudding chips and gravy from the olden oldham chip shop side dish of mushy peas drink 2008

don't ruin our ruin our champagne goes very well with the steak and kidney pudding it's it many a similar will say that

and the dessert proof that you don't have to be sentient to be evil

rare bit with worst i can't even believe i'm reading that this is a man of science

just chosen a savoury for a dessert.

He goes on about all the laws of the universe and he has a savoury dessert.

This is, I mean, for me, this is great ammo.

Our smartest guest ever picks cheese for dessert.

Oh, it is.

You're playing into his hands.

This is a constant debate on the podcast.

And now here's it to go.

Brian Cox said, have a savory dessert.

It's going to make...

Oh, you've got to be joking.

I'll go for a Sauterne.

This is the worst thing that could have happened.

Would that make him feel better if I had a Sauterne with it?

Yeah, that might make you feel a bit better.

sauterne a dessert a dessert wine the best dessert wine no it doesn't make me feel better toc eye

no it's just i'm not i'm just gonna have to live with this for a while i'm gonna have to think a lot about it it feels bad yeah didn't see it coming at the end there i loved it oh you loved it it's magnificent i saw it coming on the horizon goddamn rabbit

i cannot believe that's the dessert brian quickly before we go um daro brin says you're friends is that true or is he lying no it's true it's very true Yeah.

Be honest.

No, is he.

How often is that tweet bringing you up and going like, please be my friend?

We had such a great time.

Stargazing Live, it was just a great, fun thing to do.

Yeah.

You know,

every time we see him, he's like, oh, Brian Clark's brief.

No.

He hasn't stopped talking about you.

And you've not mentioned him once.

We've had to bring him up to you.

Yeah.

Right at the end.

I gave you enough chance to bring him up.

He's on this podcast.

Benny, who says the edit was mainly editing out him talking about you all the time.

I was really hoping to make fun of him more, but you're too nice for that, Brian.

Yeah, yeah, trying to get you to make fun of him.

Thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant, Brian.

Yes, thank you, Brian.

I'd like to say it was a pleasure, but the end is soured at the end, and they were

messed it up.

I'm absolutely live.

Thank God we're heading towards the center of a black hole, and time will soon be over.

Right, we ruined that.

We had a great opportunity to chat to a genuinely clever, intelligent man, one of the science minds of our generation, James.

Yes.

And we ruined it, didn't we?

No.

We asked, but people are too afraid to ask scientists.

We got the proper questions.

That's answers.

I wasn't messing around about that stuff about dark matter.

It's called dark matter.

Why are we fucking around with it?

I think it's about time scientists addressed evil.

Yes.

And you can tell he was shook.

Yeah, he was shook.

He was shook when we were asking him about it.

He was shook to his molten core.

Yeah.

I think we did a good job there yeah all right okay sorry i was just worried you've got to ask the big questions yeah we asked him yeah and it's not our fault he couldn't give us a definitive answer yes but he likes that apparently he likes not knowing stuff because it means there's yeah always stuff to discover which i liked he didn't say space raiders No, so we didn't kick him out.

No, we didn't kick him out.

Good.

Don't forget to go and see Brian Cox on his World Arena Tour.

Where can people find out about that, James?

Briancoxlive.co.uk.

Go and check it out.

Horizons is what the show is called.

Go and check it out.

21st Century Space Odyssey to take audiences on a dazzling cinematic journey.

Very exciting.

And as you heard him say, there's going to be stuff added to the tour as it goes along as well.

As new science is released.

It's new material, baby.

Yeah.

When comics are doing new material, it can be quite scary.

When scientists are doing new material,

it's the best stuff.

I wouldn't do it on this tour, though.

I'd save it for my next tour.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stupid to do new material on a current tour.

Yeah, tour.

Wasting it.

Do that in the the pubs.

Yeah, exactly.

Do that in the pubs and clubs.

Then update people on the new science, you know, at the Bill Murray or something.

Yeah, then save it for the O2 when you've honed it.

I'm on tour, of course, as well.

I take people on a journey through space and time.

You do?

In my show, Electric.

Well, yeah, in that they walk in to a space and I'm on for some time.

Yeah.

Come and see me anyway, edgamble.co.uk for details.

Big shows all over the place.

And please get my book, James A.

Cass's Guide to Quitting Social Media, Media.

Being the best who you can be and cure yourself of loneliness, volume one, wherever you get your books.

Thank you very much to people who've been sending us stuff.

We've had some lovely, lovely food from some wonderful food producers, including, rather appropriately for this episode, James, Dark Matters Brownies.

Mad.

Mad that we didn't remember that during the episode.

You should have told him.

You'd spend all this bloody time looking for it.

We've been sent it, mate.

Yeah, we've already got some in the kitchen.

But let me tell you, it's not evil.

It's brownies.

It's not evil, mate.

You should go through and get some.

Dark Matters Brownies, of course, sent us some because Kiri had Dark Matters Brownies on her dream menu thank you kiri thank you kiri much appreciated much appreciated maybe we'll get sent some actual dark matter from the cosmos because

mentioned it that would be good wouldn't it yeah some space treats but then it would attach itself to us and then we turn into venom yeah well then we're venom yeah that's what i took from the conversation yep speaking of stuff that we've got because guests have shouted it out yeah Buxton shouted out Adam Buxton shouted out goo desserts

yes please great I felt like I was living at my mum's again that was our treat goo desserts oh was it when i saw she bought the goo's i thought your your mum's treats were putting muffins in the

freezer that was later eating them that was later on when we were both trying to be healthy and she bought some mini white chocolate and lemon muffins and then she was like no we're just going to eat these too quickly put them in the freezer and then we worked out they're just as delicious if you eat them rock hard

the goo's great though absolutely great love the goo love the ramekins yeah and also treat kitchen sweets they're very nice i've been picking at them in the office yeah

A little sneakily when you guys aren't looking.

Oh, yeah.

And yeah, I like them a lot.

Why do you think you have to hide this from us, James?

Well, because it's, you know,

you'll look at me and roll your eyes and go, oh, there he is.

Of course he is.

Yeah, so it doesn't, it's not a shock to me.

It's not a surprise.

No, but that's what I'd rather surprise people and then shock them than have people go, there he is eating the

sweets out of in the corner.

But they're nice, you like them?

Yeah, very nice.

Yeah, great.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much for listening.

We'll be back again next week with another scintillating episode of the Off Menu Podcast.

A universe of food.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah, and we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September, the time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true, Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.