James Harden & The Sixers Are Dead, NFL Schedule Release + In Studio With AstroPhysicist Brian Cox

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On today's part of my take, we have an unbelievable interview, something very different for the people.

Brian Cox, astrophysicist, rock star, incredible conversation in studio talking about stars the galaxy black holes everything you're not going to want to miss it we're also going to talk a ton of nba nhl playoffs a lot of action on thursday night we got some game sevens to look forward to and the nfl schedule has finally been released so we break that down as well well as Bucks Celtics from Wednesday night and a bunch of other things. Great, great Friday show to send you into the weekend for some game sevens.
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Today is Friday. May 13th in the Philadelphia 76ers are dead.
D E A D dead, dead, dead. James Harden had two shots in the second half tonight the same amount of shots that Ben Simmons

had in the second half tonight, the same amount of shots that Ben Simmons had in the closeout game against the Atlanta Hawks. They're dead.
That's tough. I didn't know that stat.
I was just going to say he scored the exact same amount of points in the second half of their final game as Ben Simmons did all playoffs. And I think you go back to the trade and neither team won.
It was the classic lose, lose trade. Like both teams in a weird way got a little bit worse from this trade.
So you love to see that. I think Doc Rivers had the best score of the night after the game was over.
He said, I came to the conclusion at the end of this game that we were not good enough to beat Miami. So for all you losers out there that love to say that Doc Rivers doesn't always talk about, he was right.
Hashtag Doc was right. You weren't good enough to beat Miami.
So that's a great quote. I actually compiled a few quotes.
I wanted to do a quote off for you in PFT. I want you to judge these quotes.
James Harden, by the way, I'm the one sucker alive that still believes in ben simmons so i'm like nets could still get something out of him crazy stupid irrational so i'm not giving up on ben simmons i'm the last person in the world because i'm like six ten point guards don't grow on trees even though he's scared of playing basketball either way james harden shot two times in the in the second half. Same as Ben Simmons, which we just said, scored zero points.
Ben Simmons actually scored one point in that famous second half against the Hawks in the closeout because he hit a free throw. James Harden, let me just do a quiz.
When do you think James Harden attempted his last two-point field goal attempt i'm gonna say three minutes left in the third quarter oh that would be great his last two-point field goal attempt was with eight minutes 54 seconds left in the first quarter oh two-point field goal two-point field goal attempt he just stopped trying for anything but standing around and shooting threes and even this is going to hurt Sixers fans this is a trigger warning they knew it though I think Sixers fans actually are the one fan base they want to just relish in the pain because they hate where this team is at right now um Ben Simmons had a better closeout game against the Hawks than James Hard harden did against at least he drove to the hole he had dunk it but at least he got it within the vicinity of the basket i forgot he had 13 assists in that game and eight rebounds so like say what you want but he was he was at least moving around a little bit i think i think you're unfairly targeting james hard and for only attempting uh uh his last field goal with two minutes left in the first quarter no it was his last no no it was his last two-point field goal attempt with 854 left in the first quarter so that means he basically just stood around the three-point line for the rest of the night i think you're i think you're unfairly targeting because he had a good explanation for that after the game in his post-game press conference he said the ball just didn't get back to me yeah what are you gonna do and then when asked if doc rivers didn't call plays for him he just said next question so i have some quotes i want you guys hank i want you to chime in as well because you hate philadelphia um i love the city of philadelphia i love sixers fans i think they want to hear this because i think they want to relish in just how bad this has gotten but you guys judge which quote is worse I'm gonna give you

three quotes okay first quote uh is from James Harden he said actually no I'm gonna go first

quote is from Joel Embiid he said I still don't know how we let him go I wish I could go into

battle with him still that's Joel Embiid talking about Jimmy Butler yeah good quote bad that hurts

Thank you. I still don't know how we let him go.
I wish I could go into battle with him still. That's Joel Embiid talking about Jimmy Butler.
Yeah, good quote. Bad.
That hurts. That hurts.
Good quote, though, because I feel like all of Philadelphia and Jimmy Butler said he wished that he never left after the game. I actually think, like, Sixers fans are like, yes, yes, you are the exact guy.
It was like the timing didn't add up in terms of how much they could pay him at that moment. They made a bad decision to pay other guys and not him.
But I feel like he would have been the perfect 76ers guy. Like he's perfect for the city of Philadelphia.
The city of Philadelphia is perfect for him in a weird, sick, perverted way. They're kind of rooting for Jimmy Butler.
Yeah, and it's just brutal to have your franchise player who could have been the MVP in Joel Embiid who, he looked gassed tonight. I'm going to give him a pass for the fact that he was playing with a half-broken body.
Whether that's fair or not, he didn't have a great game, but he literally is a broken man. Having him, though, say, look around the locker room and be like, that guy who just beat us, who just stomped us out at our home court in a closeout game i really wish i had him on my team still yeah i mean it's true it's true it sucks to hear but it's the truth it's the truth that's what i like about joel and beat those he'll say he'll say stuff like that because he knows that he's right yeah um all right quote two uh this one comes from doc rivers when talked about his job.
He said, when I first got here, no one picked us to be anywhere. So just as a history lesson, Doc Rivers got there.
He's been there for two years. So going back five years in 2018, the 76ers lost in five games in the conference semifinals.
In 2019, they lost in seven games in the conference semifinals.

The famous Kawhi shot against the Raptors.

In the bubble, they lost in – they got swept in the first round.

Doc got there.

They lost in seven in the conference semifinals last year.

They lost in six in the conference semifinals this year.

They've literally just gone – it was like they've been just doing the same thing year after year after year.

Doc Rivers has had no impact on it.

Thank you. the conference semifinals this year they've literally just gone it was like they they've been just doing the same thing year after year after year doc rivers has had no impact on it they were on the exact same trajectory and he's like we were a mess when i got here but i fixed it all to get us right back to where we were i actually know this is a marked improvement for doc rivers because there was no there's no washout at least there was no big choke job this play it was just kind of like the same miserable bad vibes we talked about bad vibes with like I think that was Kurt Goldsberry gave us Chris Paul's number one bad vibes guy I sat down I made I made an all bad vibes team tonight at dinner you want to guess who's on it so Chris Paul's the one Harden's the two LeBron is the no Are you going to throw Simmons in there as like a center? Yeah, you could have him as center.
He's on. No, he's on the bench.
Okay. Bad vibes.
Guys on the bench wearing a funny, funny outfit. Three is Paul George.
Well, three slash four, Paul George and LeBron. They change.
And then Dwight Howard at the five. And it's funny because if you look at that starting five of all bad vibes teams of guys that are just like trash and clutch situations, if you gave me the starting five, I would still be like, yeah, that team's going to win everything.
Yeah, they'd win everything. So the 76ers, their playoff performances in the last five years are almost an anagram.

If they had lost in five in this season,

it would have been literally the perfect, like,

lost in five in the conference semifinals, lost in seven,

four-game sweep, lost in seven, lost in five.

So Doc Rivers, he's done a lot.

Palindrome.

Yeah, palindrome, that's right.

It's late, and I can't talk. Last quote, and i think this is the worst quote for sixers fans it's a simple quote it's just james harden when asked if he'll opt into his contract he said i'll be here i'll be 47 addressing media.
47.366 million dollars next year.

That's crazy.

That's awesome.

God bless America.

James Harden has it figured out.

Seriously, like you show Flash a promise.

You get paid like a motherfucker.

And then you don't get paid that much in the playoffs, right?

Look at his face.

The guys at the end of the bench get paid the same as the stars in the playoffs, the playoffs right he's like i'm not getting paid enough to show up for the playoffs fuck this i'm gonna take some shots at halftime maybe rip a zigzag and come out and not play basketball in the second half unless you pay me more oh look at hank's face he's in shock 47.366 million dollars opt-in i would say he's probably gonna opt-in i'd say he probably won't walk away from that money the only thing that he might do is he might he might do an extension no no no i think the sixers only choice as crazy as it sounds their only choice is to extend them and like move some of the money around like they don't they he's gonna opt in what if what if he goes back to his old tricks and he just shows up he just eats his way through the summer shows up fat demands another trade but it's like yeah but but he he gets to like it's his choice of whether he wants the 47.366 million it's not the sixers choice yeah but can't the nba the contracts are so fake in turn but like for the players not like the the NFL. Can't you opt in and then get fat as fuck and then demand a trade and still get paid? I think that would still work.
Yes, of course. But I honestly think the Sixers might consider being like, don't opt in, we'll sign you an extension that will be more than 47.366, but it won't be 47.366 for one year yeah I all I know is I need there to be a way for James Harden to to make his way to the Lakers I need I need LeBron and Harden to team up together it's I mean it's shocking I know we were looking forward to this day it's it's almost getting to a point where it's like perverse to watch him do this.

And, of course, the Sixers are a team.

Like Danny Green gets hurt.

Joel Embiid's been fucking ravaged by injury.

The Heat deserve all the credit because I do think there's something to be said,

looking at you, sons, of going on the road, game six, being like,

let's not let this go to seven.

Let's finish this right now.

We're clearly better.

The heat deserve a lot of credit,

but man,

what a disaster in the process.

It's now the process has gotten to a point where you have one of the top

three best players in the league.

And then James Harden for $47 million.

Yeah.

I think,

I think Nick Saban's full of

i think the process is overrated i we're we're results guys on this podcast right it's so bad i don't care about the process as i'm a machiavellian just give me the result i don't care how we get there shout out our guy because anthony gargano who who hosts uh radio in philly who's been on this show. It's clear that he's like newer to Twitter.
And he said, I see it talked about a lot. And yes, I am just tweeting through it.
So I appreciate it. I appreciated him doing that.
Just admitting like, I'm just tweeting through this shit because it's bad. I mean, if we were to do like a pool of guys that we think would probably either get hacked or somehow some way like tweet out a porn link over the next year, I feel like the guys is because it's pretty high up on that list.
And when he needs PR one on one, we'll have him back on the show. We actually absolutely.
It's unfortunate because we did want to have him on. If the Sixers got to the conference finals, I think we got to have him on anyway.
We just got to to have them on. Have them on, but I want them unfiltered.
I want the stuff that he thinks is unsafe to say on Philadelphia radio. I want the raw, uncut, pure flake coming out of the cousin's mouth.
Yeah. I mean, it's a debacle.
And on the flip side, I'm now respecting the Heat. Heat culture is real.

If you don't think Heat culture is real,

just watch what Max Struess has been doing

because the dude is an undrafted kid

who went to DePaul his senior year,

who the Bulls had for, I think, a year or two.

He got hurt.

So he's undrafted.

He got hurt.

He played two games with the Bulls.

He got hurt.

The Heat pick him up. And then in a game six elimination on the road, he drops 20, 11, and five.
That's Heat culture. Max Truce is awesome.
That's Heat culture, though. I started noticing him only two weeks ago, I think, because he was getting an unusual amount of plaintiff.
Probably the Kyle Lowry thing had his minutes increase a lot. The dude is just legitimately good.
But that's what they do. Max is such a cool name.
Yeah. The Max's are hot right now.
And that's what they do. That's what the Heat do.
They are like a franchise that obviously they have really good players. Like Bam is incredible.
Jimmy's incredible. They got a lot of really good players, but they also find a way to get guys who can contribute and play in a system and are well coached it's heat culture i'm jake i don't i mean i don't know if they'll beat the bucks to the celtics but i'm not gonna i'm not gonna look past them at all like they anyone who says they can't beat those teams is crazy they've just they've proven it they've they are heat culture works in the playoffs yeah you know i'm just glad they made the cuts we talked about on this show but oh it's progress it's progress you know it's crazy it gets right there it is crazy to think though obviously lebron years but if the heat somehow could win a championship this year let's just just say it.
It's not that crazy. They're in the conference finals.
That would be what? Four titles over the course of 20 years, less than 20 years, with all three completely different rosters. I mean, that's the sign of what a really, really good franchise.
And three in a decade. Yeah.

Three in a decade.

Got another quote here from Joel Embiid.

Yeah.

Obviously, I'm sure since we got him, everybody expected the Houston James Harden.

But that's not who he is anymore.

He's more of a playmaker, I thought at times, as with all of us, who could have been more aggressive.

That's just Joel.

And you can't say shit to him because he's right. That's the thing.
The truth will set you, Joel. The truth will set you free.
No one's going to be mad at Joel Embiid for, for telling it like it is right now. Cause like James Harden is he, I might be actually flipping on James Harden.
I think I like James Harden now. Yes.
I can't, I don't, I don't like, it's fun to talk about the choke jobs in the playoffs and him just like not showing up. But now it's just like James Harden, I think, is just he's got it all figured out, man.
He's rich as fuck, and he doesn't have to show up for work. He can just get fat all the time and not work.
That's the American dream. You know what it is? I think it's because it happens every year.
It's like, can you cancel someone multiple, multiple times, like over and over? Eventually, everyone's going to put down their pitchforks and be like well this is kind of tiring james harden every year the internet's like let's rally and get them and yeah it was fun and i tweeted a picture of him just looking so tired and it like just just beat to hell but there is a small part of me that's like this guy no matter what it just we always end up right back here it's the story of the uh the scorpion and the scorpion the frog we're like you know that he's a scorpion so the frog's taking him across the river and then the frog's it sinks actually this time and it's like what's up with that and the scorpion's like sorry i gained 70 pounds i'm james harden. Yeah.
And I got out of breath and I didn't really want to shoot it. You know what the craziest part is? He played the entire third quarter.
I think he played like 21 minutes in the second half. Again, it wasn't like he wasn't playing.
You can't help but respect that. You know who he is.
There's enough body of evidence out there right now to know exactly who James Harden is. Hank is still amazed at how much money he's making.
47.36. Well, that combined with Billy's just been having like an absolute feast over here.
I'm just impressed with how much he's been eating. And it's great, too.
He gets your game ball. Yeah.
My game ball? Yeah. Tomas Nosek.
He had two points. it was instrumental in the bruins win nice the best

part is billy's just eating and he also who like no matter what the plans we ever do on this podcast

like we had a very set plan he's always the first to text being like what's the plan like we literally

said when when we when i was walking out of studio today you go what's the plan i was like let's let's

wait till the second half and then if it's out of hand we'll hop on like right around the start of

Thank you. literally said when when when i was walking out of studio today you go what's the plan i was like let's let's wait till the second half and then if it's out of hand we'll hop on like right around the start of the fourth quarter it was halftime and you're like what's the plan well you know i'm just trying to stay on top of things you know business first of course um but i i got i got hungry it is eating hour all right so that game sixers i mean yeah I don't know what to say other than they got problems they got big time problems I don't know if Doc Rivers I mean he he did no one expected anything out of him when he got there listen he if you look at the trajectory it improved over last year in a way no actually no it actually no you don't think right now where the team is at right now do you think less i feel like the vibes are like slightly higher than they were last year when they got there they're slightly higher but they're still really bad yeah they're like it's they're still negative vibes they're just not super negative vibes right Like, yeah, they're still really bad.
Yeah. They're like, it's, they're still negative vibes.
They're just not super negative vibes. Right.
Yeah. It's, they're less, they're less low, but even actually, I don't know.
Maybe not because the Ben Simmons part of it, you Philly fans going out of last year could have told themselves, well, at least we can do something about Ben Simmons. James Harden can opt in for $47.366 million.
It's almost like a reverse hostage situation where like James Tardin will be, he's holding himself hostage. It's John Q.
He's holding himself hostage on the Sixers unless they do something about it, like give him that big contract extension like you talked about and then try to move him somewhere else so uh I the only reason I say that the vibes might be like a little less low than they were at this point last year is because Embiid played so fucking well this season yeah no and you know that he's gonna come back you know that his ceiling is like so so high right now and that you can win a championship with him if you get him the right piece yeah no, no, that, that part, you're absolutely right. Like, you know, people be like, dude, what are you talking about? Your Bulls fan? Of course, I'd rather have Joel and B than pretty much anyone in the NBA at this point.
So you, you're right. You do have a piece that is whatever you want to say one, two or three best pull, like Giannis Joel, like whatever you want to rank them.
We're not going rank them but yeah you're right like you have a piece that is better than almost every other team in the NBA but fuck 47.366 that's so bad all right Suns game just went final uh Mavs forced game seven. Chris Paul opted out of this game.

And that's all I got.

They just killed him.

Like that wasn't even, that was never close.

Yeah.

I fully expected the Suns to win this game too.

I thought that they were going to run away with it.

I don't know what's going on. I saw that you texted the group chat that Rosillo is already hedging

against Chris Paul saying that he's hurt.

Should we get on board that?

Should we say?

He didn't say he was hurt. He said something is off.
And I replied, yeah, we're a month into the NBA playoffs. This is right when Chris Paul, something is off.
But yeah, something is off. He said, I did expect the Mavs to win.
Now, before the game, or before we hopped on, Hank, you said the Suns are definitely going to win game seven. Yeah% so I tend to agree but now the Suns are in a spot where they're playing against Luca in a game seven where he can easily be the best player on the court like that's so dangerous to be in a game seven where if Luca is like I'm going to not miss tonight he could easily do that and steal this series so what's weird about this game seven is I think for the Mavs, it's going to be like a real big turning point for their franchise if they win or if they lose this one particular game, because it feels way different.
If the Mavs get bounced in the second round, they've got Luca, who's a great player, but you almost have to admit at that point, like you to find a piece to fit around Luka to take it to the next step. And it's going to be tough to find a real good complementary player for a player like Luka because just of his style.
It's tough to find somebody that'll fit in nicely with him and take it to the next level. Now, if they just happen to win the next game, then you can be like, listen, we made it all the way to the Western the western conference finals last year luca is good enough to do this with the team that we have around right now to take us to the finals and maybe win one so in a weird way it's like this one game actually will mean a lot for the future of the mavericks yeah i do think they're already in a little bit not house money but like luke they they did the progression thing like luca had never won a playoff series win the first playoff series.
They're taking the Western Conference champs to seven. So they are like, I wouldn't say if they get bounced in seven at Phoenix, I wouldn't say this was a disappointing run for the Mavs, but I get what you're saying.
Like the course of the franchise could change, like similar to the Hawks being're we've arrived when they go to the Western or Eastern Conference finals last year and they clearly hadn't right so I'll take it one step further how's this for take it would actually be better for the future of the Dallas Mavericks if they lose this game oh what get on that level this is like um did you guys see the take hold on I'm gonna find it there was a there's a real take quick that's a good take quick i kind of you could convince yourself of it i i get what you're saying i don't agree listen no it's stupid as fuck saying yeah but it's fun but you know what i'm saying like if they if they had gotten blown out in the second round then i feel like mark cuban would kind of like have to go nuclear and try to put something good together and get like an awesome player to team up with luca to take that next step it would be like all right we need we need to do a re not a rebuild but we need to like actually focus on getting um like as much new talent around luca as possible whereas if they make it to the finals and they put up like a decent showing in the western conference finals then you can go into the offseason with the mentality of our team's good enough we just need to be together for another year i don't think cuban is like that yeah no i don't think he falls under that category of owners that are just like happy with with what they do and if they're successful then they're just not going to care like i feel like he cares yeah no he does and he wants to put the team around it. It's one of those takes that I don't agree with, but I respect.
Yeah, thank you. That's all I need.
Yeah, yeah. This is another one.
So this is another one that I saw. Is Bob Kravitz one of your deflake eight guys, Hank? He had a headline.
I didn't read it, but he, so he might have explained it better. I don't care.
I just read headlines, whatever. That's the Indianapolis star guy, right? Yeah.
A repeat of Jonathan Taylor's output would be bad for the Colts. Yes.
Yes. I love that.
I love that. Fucking great.
Those are the best takes in the world though. That's what makes talking about sports fun is to see like who can, who can be so smart that they actually become stupid as shit.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So, um, to talk a little hockey then let's talk some nfl and we'll get to the rest of the show uh he's actually responsible for deflate gate by the way he's like he is he was like he was the the reporter who like first reported it and then said he has a seat of doubt afterwards oh shit i didn't know that um i have something to read to you guys it's the famous tweet we don't have any words we know you don't want to hear them we understand your anger your frustration your sadness everything you're feeling we get it this isn't the ending we imagined and certainly not the one we wanted thank you for being there the entire way that's the tampa bay lightning tweet from 2019 they're 17 and 0

off a playoff loss since that tweet insane insane run i don't know if we'll ever have a run like that again and it even includes the stupid bubble qualifying thing that they did did you see the guy that's up in what's the name of the it's it's like jurassic park but when it's for the maple Leafs when all of Toronto goes outside

and watches on the big screen TV.

There was one of the it's it's like jurassic park but when it's for the maple leafs when all of toronto goes outside and watches on the big screen tv yeah there was one guy and it's tough to tell because the lightning and the leaves have very similar uniforms very similar colors and so there's a guy that's wearing a lightning jersey and right after they score in overtime to win the whole place gets like super quiet everyone puts their head down the guy in the lightning jersey slowly just calmly takes his jersey off and wraps it up so that he can walk out of there and get home safe it's awesome it's such a funny video it's a smart move too that like credit to that guy for not even celebrating for knowing his role in that environment why for my question actually is why was he there in the first place right if you didn't think that he was going to win in the middle of a bunch of pissed off torontoyans but still like great situational awareness on his part the fear in the city of toronto on saturday morning waking up is going to be at an all-time high like this is just everything everything they haven't won a series what since 2004 it's crazy it's crazy that they're going into a game seven against the defending stanley cup champions i i'm nervous for them i think they're going to win but i'm very very nervous this is if they go down early if things could just get real ugly real fast i i i think they're going to win too i haven't been a maple leaf supporter for longer than a month. But if there's one thing that I feel about this type of team, the Toronto Maple Leafs are engineered to win clutch playoff game sevens.
This is that that's just in their DNA. You go, you go, you see them play at their arena.
You see all the banners hanging up. I think some of them are even from as late as the 60s.
Like, that's just what this team does. They win clutch game sevens.
Yeah, they do. Game of the year, lightning.
I couldn't love a team anymore. Two-time defending champs.
Game of the year? Game of the year. Wait, you game of the year? Oh, yeah, okay.
Game five, that hit. Two-time defending champions.
They've been there. They've experienced it.
They've played as a team. They've won championships won championships this is the first round they don't have as much pressure toronto has all they have the they have the pressure of a city that needs a championship and an entire country that needs a championship but they have me there's no yeah and exactly that's actually worse that's like the straw that breaks the camel's back that's fucked up you can't curse something that's been cursed forever but you can make it worse you can like join the bandwagon i don't know game of the year where i make it better i like how how confident you are on a on hockey like i don't know it's hockey i don't fucking know it's but that's where it's not hockey big cat it's life this is psychological yes i see what you're saying all right so hank your hockey team uh also game seven you fell asleep though speaking of psychological i mean i can only go through stats i can only go with what i know and that's that uh the two games they won we were traveling and then we were in vegas so i didn't see those two games tonight i was tired watching like the the beginning of the first period.
Fell asleep on the couch. Woke up.
The game was over. We won.
So I can't watch game seven. I'm not going to watch game seven.
I have to just go with the stats, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's what happened with you and the Patriots. You were in the concourse.
I think you've got to do that again. These ones weren't even intentional.
These weren't even like, let's superstitiously not watch. This was just like I was traveling and then I fell asleep.
But stats are stats. I think you need to just like wake up.
Wait, when is game seven? Saturday. Saturday.
Three game sevens on Saturday. Saturday.
So you just need to not think about the game at all. Not even check the score until after the game's over.
Seven o'clock. And then I like that.
And the lightning Maple Leafs are on seven 30. So I'll just watch that.
Yeah. I should correct that.
The Oilers are up to one going into the third. There might not be three games.
I don't want to jinx. I have the Kings.
Could be two. Should we talk some NFL schedule before we get to the rest of the show in studio yeah just quickly fuck the wild terrible team terrible franchise worst future ever um i think the big the big news from the nfl schedule off the top is that there's an awl in nfl scheduling department because we get the bears commanders thursday night football and then bears patriots monday night football and back-to-back weeks so someone's fucking with us i love that i love that i'm so glad that thursday football is actually like the perfect venue for the washington sea words and the bears it really is and be great we got to think of something good to do for that street maybe go to the game i don't know yeah well i'm down and it also um is nice that they finally figured out like someone in the NFL scheduling department from the bears perspective said, Oh, week seven is right around when the bears are going to be so bad.
No one wants to watch them because they have three primetime games in the first seven weeks and then they're done. Genius.
You're raising your hand, Billy. So I just want to talk about the jet schedule..
My prediction is either what? Go off. You had your hand raised for like 20 minutes.
Well, it's either going to be low level, 7-10, high level, 9-8. Thank God.
Thank God you had your hand raised for that. We knew who you were playing before tonight.
No, but it's different. I know what you're saying.
No, no, no. Looking at the schedule.
Right. This way you get to incorporate where the bye weeks are.
You get to see where your schedule gets weaker. Where is the best? For example, you know who you're playing, but you don't know.
You're going to have an injury bug late in the season. Right.
But none of – we don't know anything. We always do this.
It's this it's fun to do it oh well this is why we're doing it right but are you saying it confidently or is this just a yeah like i think the bears are gonna go 17 and now no no i'm saying i'm saying realistically hopefully nine and eight we make a playoff berth and then we get something going i mean we have an electric team there it might be low to a wagon where a lot of players we had a lot of electric players got a lot of parts and got a defense that's head by salah that's going to be good what's the point of your schedule that you're most worried about billy patriots and buffalo yeah but when is when is now we're doing the schedule that you just saw the opponents. You knew you were playing them four times, but what – Right.
But late – Patriots late in the season for the playoff berth because, look, Bailey Zappi might actually be a starter and they might have a rookie quarterback that we can beat. I'm just saying.
I'm talking to a high person. This is why we love the schedule release.
And for me, you, Big Cat, Jake. They always play the Patriots.
That's how it works. Every fucking answer.
They're playing the Patriots and Bills no matter what. No, imagine.
Think about this. Imagine if Mac Jones gets benched for Bailey.
And then, like, we have a Patriots team for the first time in disarray. Like, we haven't seen that in years.
Yeah, we haven't seen a Patriots team led by a rookie quarterback. And I literally couldn't even think of the last time.
Since last year, then maybe you can count Garoppolo. And then like Tom Brady, like 20 years ago, legitimately 20 years ago.
I'm just saying not 20 years ago. But also last year would probably be like they've kind of experienced it.
Right. The most recent season.
I think there's going to be a quarterback controversy in New England that is going to actually like really tank them. I'm just saying, why'd they draft Bailey? Just saying.
Okay. Thanks, Billy.
Okay. One thing we all need to be cognizant of on this podcast, with the exception of Hank probably, is that we are the teams that other people schedule that everybody looks at and says okay that's a win for us yes so we're of course easy wins we're all we're all a bunch of marks over here i stopped looking at the the the bears schedule after weeks i was like all right just show me where the prime time games are all right cool nothing after seven all right i'm good like just everything else at noon or one o'clock like that that's all I want.
Cause I did when I got off the train today, that's when we saw, that's when the schedule came out and Jake was walking outside of the train station with me and I pulled it up and I started going through it. And I'm such a fucking sucker.
I was doing the win, win, loss, loss, win, win, Jake. What I, what I come up with, like, honestly, in the moment, 12 and five, Washington.
12-5 Washington. 12-5.
I think the commanders actually have an easy schedule this year. If you look at it like the NFC beast, we're going to be good.
The entire division is going to be good. We played the worst teams.
That wouldn't be an easy schedule. Well, we're going to beat each other up inside the division.
But besides that, I think if you look at the rankings of strength of schedule schedule i think the four teams with the weakest schedules are all the nfc east teams because probably because they play each other actually now that i think about it so i'm pulling it up right now the four teams with the weakest schedule is actually it's the yes it's the giants the eagles the colts the Bears. I saw the commanders had the easiest schedule.
Where did you see that? It was on at least three articles. I'm going off Warren Sharp, who I trust.
He's got to be like different. He's got his own metrics.
He's got his own metrics. Yeah.
I feel like the Ferris was winning percentage from last year, right? Yeah. doesn't yeah i guess i guess but you have to like take into account like if you're playing the broncos this year it's different than playing last year seahawks like so i i don't know how he does it but you'd have to take into account like shifting of quarterbacks and everything right yeah i mean that's that's probably fair thing to say, but I do know that the Bears have an easy schedule too,

like on paper.

Yeah, because they stunk last year.

That's kind of, you know, they do design it that way.

I do.

I love kind of all the pageantry that goes around the schedule release.

They do the release of the schedule release date like two weeks ago,

and then there's like a slow trickling out of information,

but I have a better way to do it.

I think this would actually be, what if, what if every year,

Thank you. release date like two weeks ago.
And then there's like a slow trickling out of information, but I have a better way to do it.

I think this would actually be,

what if,

what if every year they just like announced during football season on Monday mornings,

they did like a selection show for what teams were going to be playing

that week.

Like not even the teams knew about it.

Yeah.

And they just announced it at the start of the week.

That would get me through my Monday morning so much faster.

It'd be amazing. Yeah.
It's like when they announced like where the game, where college game day is going to be. Yeah, exactly.
Why not? I mean, imagine how exciting Monday mornings would be. Even if the best part about that would be if you have a shitty team and you lose on Sunday, you still have something to look forward to on Monday.
You can use the internet on Monday morning because at least there's some important information that you're going to need to know. Um, others quirks that I noticed going through the schedule week one Broncos at Seahawks.
That's awesome that they did that Monday night football. That's going to be great.
Like we'll just, I I'll soak that in, um, Thanksgiving night. I'll always got to look, you always got to look at the schedule and see, like, am I going to have to be around family, talk about stuff? Thanksgiving night, Hank's Patriots at the Vikings, Kirk Cousins prime time, like, thank you, NFL.
You gave us a great talking point, like, ha-ha, look at Kirk Cousins. That's so nice of them.
Yeah. Now, is that going to be like a superpower game for Kirk Cousins playing on Christmas? No, that's Thanksgiving night Thanksgiving.
Okay. Thanksgiving.
Yeah, no, he's yeah, that's going to be that's actually going to be perfect for Kirk Cousins to have like an awful game. Belichick is going to dismantle him limb by limb.
There's a working weird theory out there that the Browns got an easy first four games because Goodell is going to suspend Deshaun Watson for the month of September. i don't really understand that one because like when has the nfl done anything nice for the browns yeah it doesn't add up it doesn't matter they do have an easy schedule to start like that would start that would absolutely be the first time that like yeah dealers fans would be nfl rigged because the browns are getting a break yeah they play the panthers the jets the steelers and, the Steelers, and the Falcons.
So it is an easy first four weeks. And then the last one, which Roger Goodell, like you didn't have to do this.
We all were going to watch NFL anyway. What they did for the Christmas Day schedule is so mean because they did.
So it's Packers at Dolphins first game. I don't know.
Might want to have the Heat and Bucks playing the NBA. That's funny.
Then second game, they have the Broncos at the Rams. I don't know.
Playing the Lakers. You might want to have the Lakers playing the NBA Christmas Day or maybe even the Nuggets with your two-time MVP.
And then the last game is, I don't know who's playing the Cardinals. I can't remember.
Oh, the, Oh, the bucks bucks at Cardinals. I don't know.
The Phoenix suns seem like a pretty good team. They literally just picked out the best NBA teams.
I think the, I think the bulls and the Knicks are going to just have to play five times on Christmas day. I didn't notice that about, about the schedule, but I guarantee you that that crossed Roger Godel's mind.
He's like, if we're going to invade Christmas Day, we're going to take the entire fucking holiday for ourselves. It took five teams that right now, sitting right now, you would say you're almost a lock to be on the NBA's Christmas Day schedule.
Five teams. The Bucs, the Heat, the Lakers.
You could even throw the Clippers, the Nuggets, and then the Suns. They just completely cucked the NBA on their day.
I also love the first game of the season. Oh, my God.
The Bills, the Rams as the kickoff game. So I've never done a game of the year.
But I think i'm in advance calling that my game of the summer game of maybe yeah maybe just game of the year on the over calling it right now like throughout the summertime when i'm making yeah the over the over is gonna happen and i'm gonna i'm gonna like save money as much as i can over the summer bit by bit by bit and and squirrel all away to make this my biggest bet ever I just I can envision that being like a 48 47 ball game yeah that's going to be a fun one goddamn and then we also have uh Bucks at Cowboys Sunday Night Football to start that's I mean good job and if I I looked through I scrolled through it and honestly there's like nothing nothing you can say like oh that game shouldn't be like i just want football yeah i just want football you only i have the i have the uh self-awareness to realize just when the bears are on national television other people are looking at that being like we don't want to watch that and obviously week two packers bears national television i'm just i'll just kill myself yeah uh don't do that but maybe for real this time who cares don't do that no dishes nothing uh as much as we made fun of like everything trickling out and being such a weird way of like announcing your schedule and taking yourself very seriously if you're the nfl when it comes out i i still get excited yeah i actually i i i was reading i was like super pumped up i was doing all the things that i make fun of other people for doing like like scheduling out what my wins were going to be next year it's just it's good to have some optimism every now and again yeah no you have to do this i was i was getting frustrated this morning just because it was like every blue check mark was holding it over our heads did you see that one guy by the way shout out the one guy who named his twitter account nfl schedule leaks yeah and he was completely just making them all up and he got like 10 000 followers and then he was just like yeah this this is all made up yeah I love I love the move of just being like yeah I was bored and I just decided to fuck with people online so I just invented all this stuff and I got over 10,000 followers and then one of the first replies underneath is from one of the new like anonymous uh like NFL injury and trade update accounts I think it's called like JPA football takes himself seriously. And that guy was like, yeah, well, guess what? You just lost like 900 of them over the last hour.
And it's like, yeah, that's the guy's point. That's the point.
It's like, he doesn't care about building his brand because it's all fake. Yes, exactly.
And also one last shout out to the chargers for doing the anime is including uh urban meyer as a jaguar at the bar

which was great yeah little nuggets everywhere wait so let's let's grade the schedule releases i think the chargers get an a yeah lions lions get an a oh yeah a plus commander dale brown from Detroit urban survival training.

Yeah.

So they get an a plus. And those are really the only two that stood out to me.
I think Cleveland I think Cleveland did something cool, too. The Cardinals did a flappy bird, which is OK.
That's had Ernie Adams. Oh, that's kind of cool.
That's cool. So people.
Yeah. The Bears were just throwing throwing footballs into a like a bucket it was like a solid f minus like as much of an f minus as you could get the commanders just took three players they took like charles leno jr into a break room and just had him smash different items they get an f as well like i don't know i just i would actually be fine if they just if the bears just released this get like here's our schedule i don't know funny if a team didn't do it be like you can find it online fucking google it dude or focus on football on our team not schedule releases last thing to not to go back to sixers fans, but memes is updating this.

So thank you to memes.

What one last quote, Jimmy Butler in the hallway yelling Tobias Harris over me.

So that's tough.

That's tough.

That that's tough.

But yeah.

All right.

Should we kick it?

Should we kick it to ourselves?

Yeah.

Everyone listen to Brian Cox.

Incredible interview. Let's kick it back to ourselves kick it to ourselves? Yeah.
Everyone listen to Brian Cox. Incredible interview.

Let's kick it back to ourselves in the studio.

Did Billy leave?

Yeah.

If you notice when Billy started doing a studio, he was like, you went like this.

Someone.

I am recording.

All right.

So I noticed this.

Billy was closing his laptop.

Like if your mom walks into the room and you're like looking at. Somebody walked in and he was ashamed to be doing a podcast.
He was like, I'm not working. I also like that.
Well, you got a black ball when we visited him there, remember? Yeah, that's true. We'll kick it to ourselves in a second.
But that was very funny that Billy, now it makes sense that he raised his hand to try to talk about the Jets schedule first because he wanted to be done. Oh, okay.
So, so my God, I don't want to, let's talk about the schedule. He goes, he was like, he was like, Oh, jets first.
Let's do it. And like what Billy is like, I just want to talk about the jets.
Like, of course we're going to lead off with the fact that are all like our three teams play each other in like aroundin. In like two weeks.
He's like, no, no, Jets. Okay, so I don't want to throw Billy under the bus, but he did reach out to me at 1102.
And he said, low-key, how bad of a move is it to not zoom in tonight? So something weird is going on. And I told him, I said, it's not a good idea to just not show up at all without asking ahead of time.
No. Correct.
Correct. All right.
We'll leave this all in. When I, yeah.
Also, when I, when I picked it up, he was just like walking through a neighborhood and was like, oh, let me find somewhere good. And he was on his phone and then just like walked into a TD bank and like sat on the counter of it and was there like before.
And like we were trying to set up pft's mic and he like kept trying to get in so i was like billy just fucking hold on like i'll get you in after and then that's when he showed up on a laptop so i was like so confused too because i texted everyone i said let's start at 11 30 and 11 25 billy texted let me in did billy break into a bank to record a podcast i thought he was doing it i thought he was doing a video when he was like i'm at the bank no i have schedule first all right this will this will be on this will be on pm tv i guess yes no well i say keep this in the podcast yeah keep it Keep it in the podcast. Now let's kick it to ourselves.
Yeah, great show, boys. Let's kick it back to ourselves.
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Rest of the show. Boys, I don't know who we want to start with because Hank and PFT, you both just had crushing, crushing defeats on Wednesday night.
Let's start with Hank. You go first, Hank.
Hank, the Celtics had that game up six with a minute and a half left.

It's crazy, like, seeing how it all played out.

The Bucs went six for six from three in the fourth quarter.

Celtics didn't try a three.

Drew Holiday literally stole the Defensive Player of the Year award

from Marcus Smart.

To regular season award.

In back-to-back plays.

Panic button, because it did feel, it felt like a game you guys should have won. And the Bucs found a way to just make enough plays down the stretch where they win the game in stunning fashion.
Bobby Portis never stops hustling. Thoughts? Worst loss since Game 7, Eastern Conference Finals against LeBron for sure.
As good as the win the other night felt last night felt significantly worse.

It was like a big time lose sleep over it.

Like you're kind of up at night thinking about it.

It's the first thing you wake up.

First thing you think about when you wake up,

just deep sigh.

And just like,

you look at the,

all the,

the Bobby Portis,

Drew Holiday stuff like it shouldn't have even happened.

It was,

it was 14 seconds left. Giannis missed a free throw.
Marcus Smart and Jalen Brown were the only two people close to it. Somehow they didn't say anything.
They didn't communicate. They got mixed up.
The ball went out of bounds. They both got their hands on the ball.
Insane bounce. And because everyone was going for the rebound, Bobby Portis was able to get his shot up without anyone contesting it, which even Bobby Portis, I think, if you asked him, if you hit him with true serum, he didn't think that was going in.
The way he shot it was like, I have the ball, I have to shoot, I'm right here. Threw it off the glass, in, and then the Drew Holiday play, which was an insane defensive play to help with Pat Connaughton

and snatch the ball from Marcus Smart, then throw it off of him.

We talked about Marcus Smart when we talked about him passing up that shot,

and it was like that's something the old Marcus Smart would do,

and I said that's something that Marcus Smart might do tomorrow.

Last night was a perfect example of that where Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown

didn't touch the ball in the most crucial possessions of the game.

Yeah, he kind of had an open look at the basket, but there was still a lot of time

I don't know why they wouldn't have gotten the ball to one of those guys first and then on the inbound play there was just a lot of turnovers the Celtics had in the fourth quarter that were like I don't know just lazy or like kind of inexcusable where they just had bad passes kind of lazy passes go out of deflected, get stolen. But to just not even get a shot at the tie when you had the lead and essentially the ball with 14 seconds left, it's devastating.
It was a devastating loss. I still think the Celtics are going to win the series, though.
I like that attitude. I think they're going to win tonight.
Is it a must-win or can't lose? It's a must-win. Okay.
Smart's revenge. I have a bet in the Barstool Sportsbook.
Celtics to win. Marcus Smart over points, rebounds, assists.
I mean, it was as bad as it gets. But you heard that stat, though, right, where 82% of the people that win game five go on to win the series.
So? So I'm wondering if you heard about math. Yeah, I do.
To me, I hear people win all the time, 18%. That's true.
That's a lot. 18% is nothing to scoff at.
No. And when we were talking about Marcus Smart the other day, I think I said you'd be like a pitcher in the major leagues with that batting average.
That's true. Yeah, you're like the best hitting pitcher in the majors.
It still feels dangerous when they get up to the plate, right? Yep, Jake Arrieta. Especially in the playoffs.
But we were talking about good Marcus and bad Marcus after game one, I think. Or no, it was against the Nets, right?

The Nets game one.

And I thought of this last night when I was on Twitch,

and it hit me like the perfect example.

He's like Rembrandt, the painter.

I know you're familiar with his work, Hank.

Sometimes you get a guy that paints beautiful scenes of Puritan families,

and then other times you get the guy that cuts his own ear off and goes totally psycho. And last night we had the Marcus Smart was cutting his own ear off game.
And I was paying attention. It was on my second screen.
I was watching a little bit. I was checking in on it.
I thought the Celtics had him like at halftime. I thought like this game is absolutely up seven and a half.
Up seven and a half time. They were up 13 in the fourth quarter.
They were up 13 at one point. And so, like, you don't think that that's going to carry over? Like, that's a deflating loss.
I also, I'm going to defend Marcus Smart for a second. I think that was more of an incredible play by Drew Holiday.
Now I'm talking about the cut to the basket off the inbound on the side out with 14 seconds left. That was just a great, like he beat Pat Connaughton to get the pass to get the open shot.
Drew Holiday just made a great help defense play. Like I don't really know – I think Marcus Smart – There's still so much time left on the clock though.
It's like that. Something tells me that that's not what they drew up.
They weren't like get the ball, drive to the hoop immediately, Marcus Smart, because then you're going to give him seven seconds left to win the game. That's not – And then the end of the game, I also thought that was just a bad play that they kind of drew up because it was inbound to Al Horford back to Marcus Smart, so he basically had to start at the baseline and go all the way – you know what I mean? They should have had someone who can handle the ball, catching the ball, and then going up.
He's the point guard. Right, that's the problem.
Maybe he shouldn't have been inbounding it, but obviously he's open after the inbound. I thought that was a little weird.
Jason Tatum, get him the ball running up the court is what I would want in that situation. There was just some, like Derek White had a pass that he just passed it out of bounds.
There was just a few just like lazy plays. I don't want to call them lazy

but just plays like even that one where it's like

handle the ball and pass it. Like they were just

you know dribbling

like way in front of them. It got stolen pretty easily.

Now it was just bad. It was bad

fourth quarter execution. Their offense like they

went away from they were just playing isolation basketball

for the last six minutes. Like it seemed like they were up

and then like alright we're just going to kind of play

iso ball run the clock out and we got this easy. Now how much can you say though it's they're the champs for a reason because it did feel like the bucks like their second best player big plays hitting two threes in the fourth like janice was scored 40 he kept them afloat at times i that felt like more like they're the champs for a reason they They find a way to make a big play when it matters the most.
You've got to beat them without their second best player. It's unacceptable.
So where are you at on percentages? You said 18% is pretty good, but I get the feeling that you're more in the 22-23% range. That they lose.
Oh, so you're saying 67% chance that they win both these games. Yes.
Wait, that way that's the wrong math isn't it yeah 77 percent chance i would say the game six is kind of like if the celtics win game six i they were they're gonna win the series in my mind i agree like the bucks have to win the bucks actually have a must win because going back to boston for a game seven after you could have closed them out at home that a must win. That's a can't lose to me.
Yeah. That's a can't lose.
Game six at home, you don't want it to go back. That's a can't lose.
So it's a must win versus a can't lose. It's a must win versus a can't lose.
We'll find out tonight which one is more important. Wow.
Huge. Smart revenge.
You were pretty, Liam said that he had to take a walk after. Yeah.
I mean, I was like, I was, I just sat on my couch kind of staring for like a while and like I said it was the first thing I thought about this morning was just like 14 seconds left with a rebound like it should have been 14 seconds left up one with the ball and instead it was down one and then down three in two seconds it was it was horrible yeah yeah it was they like changed the way that they were playing, essentially. Once they had the lead, they did kind of play not to lose instead of to win.
Right. They were on their heels the whole time.
Once there was five minutes left where they weren't pushing on offense and their defense was just playing prevent defense, essentially. Yeah.
And then eventually, they're just going to get picked apart doing that. I want to go to game seven.
I do too. I'm rooting for that.
And it's not because I want to see the Celtics lose right now. I actually want to see Hank happy.
I want to see him thriving. So I'm rooting for the Celtics hard.
I want to see them lose in the championship. I want to get that heartbreak.
Okay. So I'm pulling for you, Hank.
And then the other heartbreak we had, PFT's caps were up 3-0. Uh-huh.
In Florida, felt like it was stranglehold on the series, and then the Panthers showed up and absolutely, like, blitzed the caps. It happened so fast.
All right. Well, to be fair, they also concussed our goalie.
It's a dirty play, high stick to the chin. Jake, you saw it.
Samsonov collapsed to his knees. It looked like he was unconscious for a little bit.
It looked like he died. They gave him a penalty.
There was no blood. That's such a weird rule that they have in the NHL where it's like, if you bleed, that's how we determine.
Actually, now that I think about it, that's a good rule. That's as good a rule as any.
It's like, if you are showing visible blood, it's a more severe penalty. No blood, no foul.
But still, they concussed our goalie. he didn't look right for the rest of the game Bobrovsky looked like he had looked all year I'm I'm worried I'm a little bit worried that Jake is going to defeat me in my own barn and that he's going to be so nice and polite about it he's going to stick his hand out we're going to do the handshake line it's going to be like losing to a golden retriever and I can't mad at him.
So I don't know who I'm going to be mad at in that instance. I'm talking myself into all the worst things.
A couple good spin zones that I have for myself. Number one, we got into a fight at the very end of the game.
I always love that in hockey. At the end of a playoff game, if you get your ass kicked, if you can get into a fight with the other guy with under a minute left, I feel like that momentum actually does carry over to the next game.
So I think it was Lars Eller beat the shit out of your guy. I agree with that.
I just care about the scoreboard. We're skating downhill right now.
We're skating downhill. The ice is tilted towards the Capitals.
That's what I'm telling myself. The ice is tilted.
We've got home ice. We're going to be rocking the red in the barn for the tits bet.
So you guys are going to be in theiday night we're gonna be there jake and i we're gonna go on dc sports radio tomorrow i'm gonna open up the phone lines to have any listeners to 1067 the fan call in and just roast jake i just want to i want it to be a roast of jake marsh what's on the radio tomorrow i don't have the number okay text it to me okay i'll text it to you uh what time it's gonna be 11 a., no, I mean, corporate Hank will be up. I'll cancel some meetings.
Yeah, I'll move some meetings around. I want everyone.
I want Hank to call in. I want everyone to call in and just roast Jake Marsh to his face.
He'll sit there and he'll take it. I'm going to show you what it's like to be a visiting sports fan in D.C.
This ain't Raujohn. This ain't Raujohn, baby.
I'm not coming in like flipping off the caps. No, yeah, you are.
Yeah, you are. Right before we started, you're like, I will beat the fuck out of any Capitals fan that tries me.
Jake was like- That's what he said to me. You mean the Washington Crapitals? I thought that was out of line, Jake.
He was like, if any Cap fans even fucking look at me funny, I am going to pound their face in. It was disgusting.
I may have said that. Yeah, he did.
So everybody call in and roast Jake to his face.

I need all the false confidence that I can get going to this game. Now, PFT, if someone did try Jake, you have a heavy burden of not letting our darling boy get hurt.
I will personally murder anybody that hurts Jake. Yeah.
I will murder anyone that tries to hurt Jake. Jake, if someone tried to hurt Jake, it would be pretty close to someone trying to hurt my child.

I would have big time dad strength.

I would go to jail for you, Jake.

If someone tried to hurt Billy, I'd be like, tag me in.

I'm kidding, Billy.

That's how we set up the jokes here.

But Jake.

Billy can fucking beat up anyone.

Yeah.

Heroin. Beat the fuck out of anyone.

Well, not a banana.

Heroin. Not a banana.
Heroin heroin Heroin yeah, I'm excited. It's be fun.
There's gonna be a decent crowd for a Panther fans see why do you say that? Because I've had like three people who I went to high school I said they moved to DC and they're gonna be at the game Okay, all right, so for at least four Panthers confirm there and we. I loved watching the game on ESPN.
I don't know what the hierarchy is for all the NHL, like the rabid fans out there. You probably, from what I gather, you like listening to your home broadcast first and foremost, and then there's probably some national announcers that you like, some that you don't.
The guys on ESPN too, I don't know who they were, but at the end of the game, they broke it down for me. I'm not a smart hockey fan, but they broke it down in a way that I think even— Oh, it was like a Trent Dilfer.
Yeah, even Paul Bissenech could understand the way that they broke down the game when it was 5-3 and we pulled our goalie with three minutes left. The announcer goes, all right, so what you're going to want to do here, you're going to want to score as fast as you can because if you score fast, then that gives you more time to score again to tie the game.
And I was like, oh, fuck. So you want to put the pressure on them.
You really want to put the pressure on them that you might score again. They almost did.
They almost did. We had our chances.
We missed them. I'll just get to my fire fest already, which is a lot of people are saying that I jinxed the Capitals.
I don't believe in jinxes. I did say when they were up 3-0, I was like, if we win this Stanley Cup and the next Stanley Cup does that count as a dynasty taking into account the 2018 Stanley Cup that they have I was just asking the question I think that's too many years you have a COVID year and then last year Mickey Mouse with no fans I think it does I think only because of COVID you could make it work I think it the Lightning hadn't won two.
But those are COVID. Right, but the Lightning won two in between, so it's tough to bubble championships.
That's like the Rockets winning when the Bulls weren't winning. Right.
You wouldn't call the Rockets a dynasty. No, I'm saying, but I would call the Bulls.
That entire thing was a dynasty. Right.
Six, not three. I'm going to count three.
And it was three, Pete. It's really three in five years at that point.
Again, that's if we win this Stanley Cup and next year's Stanley Cup. Oh, you're eliminating COVID year.
Eliminating COVID year altogether. And then last year I'm calling it a Mickey Mouse one because certain teams did not have fans.
Got it. So, yeah, I guess if we eliminate two years, it'd be three and four.
Good, but I did tweet that out. When you do it that way, yeah, you're right.
Within 30 seconds of my tweet, the Panthers scored their first goal,

and then it just never stopped after that.

And I experienced the same thing that Hank did,

where I just sat and I stared at my TV for a long time. It was actually shocking that it happened to both of your teams

at the exact same time almost, where I was like, oh, fuck.

That's the price you pay.

This is going bad.

That's the price you pay for rooting for excellence.

Yeah.

Other games that we had, well, we have a new narrative that's very fun. Are the Grizzlies better without John Morant? I love that narrative.
You know I love that. People are talking because they absolutely whomped the Warriors.
It was shocking to watch. It was so shocking that I watched the whole first half, and usually it's like auto-bet Warriors second half.
I just went to bed. I was like, the Warriors don't want to be here.
They've packed it in. The Grizzlies are absolutely killing them.
But the stat is the Grizzlies are now, I think, 21-6 without John Morant. Interesting.
21-6. That's very interesting.
I still can't not bet the Warriors, though. The Warriors are going to be, as long as they have Steph Curry and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green playing, I'm going to automatically bet them.
Yeah. Because I feel like they can't be this bad at shooting for this long.
It was a stunning, stunning game. But I also do think, like, right, they tried to make a little push in the middle of the second quarter, and the Grizzlies stayed firm and then extended the lead.
And at that I think the Warriors are like this is not us tonight we're out yeah so I think that the Warriors are that good of a team where if if they think that a game is out of hand they don't have to really like try to push back no right point lead they can just say we'll roll the dice in the next game because we're a vastly superior team right I do like the fact that John Morant, his bone bruise, was not caused by the violation of the code.

No way.

He just like banged his knee on a separate play

and then he went back and he was like,

that's a violation of the code.

You can't do that.

But yeah,

John Morant's probably out for the rest of the playoffs, right?

I believe so,

but that means he'll probably win the title.

Bro football doc.

Bone bruise.

Contusion.

Deep. How long? Medium depth.
Like two hours. John Morant's a pussy.
Yeah, no, like a bone bruise just like stings at first. Yeah? And then it's like it's a bone so it doesn't really move so it's like not really sore.
So just deal with it. Yeah.
Bones don't move? No. Think about it.
Hockey players, they play bone bruises all the time. Bones move, but muscles are moving the bone.
The bone doesn't actually move. Bones break.
Bones break, but they... But they don't move.
And they don't bend. Hmm.
But I'm moving. You're moving the bones, but your muscles are the ones moving the muscles are moving the bones so two hours what's moving the muscles electroshocks causing contractions what about your heart it's electricity polarization depolarization of the heart we're organic robots like Tesla's yeah for not no one no one throwing in a bonk there because that could have we're just talking about bones moving that's yeah that's it right there um all right uh rangers and penguins have some bad blood which is awesome need it sydney crosby out i don't know how long he'll be out somebody told me that he was gonna be the rest of the playoffs.
Well, he does have concussion history. It's an upper body injury, which could be anything above the penis.
I think it might have been a concussion. Maybe I'm wrong.
But it was an elbow. It felt like to the face.
So Sidney Crosby is a guy that I begrudgingly have to admit that he is one of the greatest hockey players of all time. Very, very good.
I want to root for him to be out with an injury, but if it's his head, given his history, I feel a little bit dirty about that. So I'm just going to say I think it's his shoulder.
Okay. Until proven wrong.
I think it's his shoulder. Yeah.
I think he's separated his shoulder, and I hope it keeps him out for the rest of his career. Now, that being said, if it's his head, I hope that he returns and makes a full recovery within the next 12 hours.
Right. And he's fine.
But I really hope it's his shoulder and that he's never able to play hockey again and that he dies alone okay there it is that's that's perfectly put um okay let's get to our interview we got an interview that is something very different but very interesting brian cox who is what is his official title astrophysicist rock star astrophysicist yeah crazy conversation in studio blew our minds we'll blow your mind hit the blunt now hit the blunt now good point and then we'll uh finish with fire fest on the other end go check him out on his tour yes billy and i stopped by and we we stayed for like the first uh like hour and a half of it it was i looked over at billy and he seriously had his head in his hands and i watched his mind explode when he was discussing black holes this guy's a fascinating fascinating interview yes absolutely all right so let's get to all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with reese's and hershey's only one Reese's peanut butter lover's protein bar is made with Reese's peanut butter. And only one Hershey's cookies and cream protein bars is made with Hershey's cookie bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and three grams of sugar.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on Amazon dot com. OK, we now welcome on a very special guest, something a little different.

It is Professor Brian Cox.

He is a physicist, very highly acclaimed.

I actually have to tell you right now, though, up until like 10 minutes ago,

we thought we were getting the guy from Succession.

Do you know?

I know him.

Oh.

And we went out for dinner together in London about two years ago.

And we planned it. So he went into the restaurant.
He said, you have a table for brian cox and they said yeah and he went and sat down and then just after i went in and said you have a table for brian cox and they panicked because they thought oh no we've given the wrong table away so yeah did you eat dinner with them yeah okay there we go both brian cox's i'm just imagining the uh the back and forth conversation at that table you two have both very distinctive voices but at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum where he's like screaming you're like oh yes yes yeah yeah he's quite gentle though in real life he's not the succession character yeah i mean i was joking by the way we knew you were we actually requested for you to come on the show i was just trying to gain a mental edge because i know this is probably not going to go well for us understanding everything. But it's great to have you on.
It is a little different, I guess. I don't even know where to start with a guy.
All right, let me start with this. When you go on podcasts and you go around in life, does it ever get tiring, everyone being like, there goes the smart guy? No, I mean mean it's incorrect i always say to when i go to schools or something and talk that scientists are no smarter than anybody else they're just people who got interested in nature and in the sort of big questions that we'll talk about but it's no more difficult than learning to play guitar well you don't expect also you're an acclaimed musician who is in a band who has two uh albums So yeah, okay.
There is that. Yes, I did that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's like learning a musician, which I also do.

Yeah. Which also you're an acclaimed musician who is in a band who has two albums.
So yeah, okay. There is that.
Yes, I did that as well. It's like learning the musician, which I also do.
But you know, it's about practice, really. And it's about what you spend your time doing.
Sports, you know, you don't suddenly become a great quarterback or whatever it is. You have to practice.
And it's just the same as that. It's just focus.
I like that because I was listening to an interview you did and you said something similar when someone was brought up like, oh, I've never was good at science.

And I count myself in that category, like math and science were never my strong suits. And you said, well, that's I don't think people can't learn.
It's just practice and it takes a little bit longer for some people, which is a good way to approach it because it does seem like at this point in our history and we don't need to get into like too deep but science has kind of been thrown out a little bit and people don't pay attention to it as much which is strange because it's just the study of reality right so if you it's scary though for a lot of people because it is something they maybe don't understand at a deep level i think that's where the interesting stuff lies. I mean, the live shows that I'm doing, I start with just a quick tour of the universe.
And so I say, you know, this planet is one planet around one star amongst 400 billion stars. So in our galaxy, the moment you said that 400 billion stars, that's a challenge.
And nobody can can visualize that and then that galaxy is one galaxy amongst two trillion galaxies in the piece of the universe we can see and we are very sure the universe extends way beyond that and could be infinite in extent and even that we think that our universe might be one of an infinite number of universes in the so-called multiverse okay that is challenging yeah yes it's very that hurts my mind is rebelling against the words that you're saying right now because it's almost too big to comprehend do you have to like how can you even comprehend that or at some point it just becomes all theoretical and you have to like disassociate yourself from thinking about the reality of the fact that we are so infinitesimally small that like can your brain actually understand how small we are or is it just like words that you say at this point no i i don't think anyone can visualize even the 400 billion stars right this little bit the little island that we live in the milky way even that you know it takes light 150 000 years to cross it traveling 186 000 miles a second you can just keep the i don't think anyone can visualize those numbers but what you said though is really interesting that you there's a difference between being able to visualize it and then getting annoyed because you can't make sense of it or you can try to understand what it means it does it you're right it means that we are not at the center of the universe and we are physically insignificant that that that's a fact but then you have to deal with that yeah and that's the interesting bit actually isn't it it's what you make of it so how do you deal with it i mean right now i'm actually already considering a a good comeback i can have somebody calls me short i'll be like yeah well in the cosmic sense you're very small too yeah exactly so we're we're equally insignificant yeah i think that the the other side of it is that if you ask questions about life in the universe, and particularly complex life, intelligent life, things like other civilization, I think there's a good argument that there might be very few of those. And actually, there's a reasonable argument we might assume there's about one per galaxy on average at any one time, which means that we are it.
So interestingly, notwithstanding our physical insignificance, we might be tremendously valuable at the same time so you're saying our narcissism is actually like well-founded it may well be i mean the astronomers have a name for it they call it the great silence which is that it's it seems surprising given 400 billion stars most of them are planets so there'll be trillions of planets in the Milky Way. It's been around for pretty much the age of the universe, 13 billion years.
You would expect there to be other civilizations way ahead of us. And you kind of might just naively expect to be able to see them.
But, you know, and then some people are watching this, they'll go, well, yeah, we can see them because they come down and right you have crop circles down things but given that given that we ignore that because because it's not true it might be then you know the the scientific evidence is we haven't seen anyone so that is a problem yeah it's a challenge right yeah because a lot of people i i think the one of the biggest problems right now that we have as a society is a lot of people they just question all science and facts because they think that everything is almost like a conspiracy theory against them how do you go against that how do you go against the people right now that are basically saying i don't need science i can you know read a facebook message and be like i i've done my own research. Well, they can.
And then you ask them, how are you reading the Facebook message? Right. On what? Right, right.
On a device that's basically at the fundamental level based on quantum mechanics, because the silicon and things in there operate in a quantum manner. And so you're using, actually, well over 100 years worth of scientific knowledge in order to read your facebook that's a good reply yeah i mean it's the same with people who say i heard it once someone tweeted um i don't need this gps the gps satellites and all that things because i've got my iphone you know how that map works yeah right you know but i think that's it's it's important i I mean, it's kind of amusing, but it's important.
My great hero, Carl Sagan, is one of my great heroes. And he wrote a book called The Demon Haunted World, which is a brilliant book, which is back in the 80s, he wrote it, or early 90s, before a lot of this sort of tension.
But he pointed out that we live in societies, whether we like it or not, that are based on science. It's one of the pillars of our society.
And we all use it every day, medical science, and we go on aircraft and we have our iPhones and whatever it is. And we're also a democracy.
And if a large number of citizens not only don't really understand the basics of that foundation, but distrust it, that's a problem for democracy itself. Yeah.
itself yeah as you kind of allude to yeah if you have people who don't believe our best answer to a sensible question like for example what will happen it's a good question what will happen if we keep burning fossil fuels at the rate we do right that's a sensible question right um well the answer is it's very complicated but given the best to the best of our ability we use the models that we have and the measurements that we have it looks like it will warm the climate up yeah that's that's it right that that's it that's the best we can do given that the question is sensible if you have a load of people who don't believe even that opinion that you know the the scientific view at some time then you're in trouble yeah you've seen it with the pandemic if it's a public health crisis and that was interesting because we saw science being done in real time right so you go back to two and a half years we didn't we knew nothing about this virus we didn't even know it probably didn't exist actually in humans if you go back three years and so you saw us doing science and learning about it and there are good questions is it airborne or is it getting transmitted in droplets is it good to wear masks how do we develop the vaccines and so on all those things are just science scientific questions yeah we're doing research in real time so if people don't understand just that process of how we acquire reliable knowledge i think the process yeah the process i think was a real issue because there were um like people don't understand that science is trial and error or trial and error it's like you know you hypothesize and then sometimes your hypothesis is proven correctly sometimes it's it's proven to be false and uh some of the hypotheses that people had were proven to be false. And that's normal for a brand new virus, for something new that we're exploring, that we're learning about.
But people saw, you know, they saw those and they thought that they were failures of science or that they were, you know, proof that they were all the scientists are not to be trusted to begin with. When actually what they're seeing is the scientific method playing out as it should in front of their eyes but in real time it can just like completely screw up your worldview and you can point at that and be like see scientists are all wrong about yeah at the end of the day people just want answers yeah like to feel good about it you know what i mean because that's the scary part that a lot it's similar to what you said about the universe universe yeah you start to think about it you get scared you're like well no like it could be infinite it's scary that's a scary proposition there's a it's interesting to look back into the 50s there's um rob oppenheimer right so oppenheimer is most famous for the manhattan project the lead scientist on the manhattan project so he was in part large part responsible for the atom bomb and then he saw what had happened and in the 50s he the Manhattan Project.
So he was in part, large part, responsible for the atom bomb. And then he saw what had happened.
And in the 50s, he thought really deeply about whether, kind of to paraphrase him, whether the things that we know, our knowledge exceeds our wisdom. And he was very worried that he delivered knowledge to politicians and to society which could not be controlled.
Right. And so he thought about what is it? How can we use the thought processes that we use in science, that nature forces on us if we're going to understand it? How can we use that in wider society? And he came to the view that the really important thing is that acceptance that we don't know everything.
Once you accept that you don't know, that's the key.

It's the key to it.

And then you can make progress and you can try to find out.

And you're not annoyed if you're wrong because once you've accepted you don't know,

then you're going to be wrong about a lot of things.

You're happy because you now made a bit of progress and you understand something a bit better.

So he felt that we need to, we can transfer that skill that we've developed in trying to understand nature to the wider public sphere and it would be a tremendous imagine imagine a political world imagine politicians where the first thing they say is well we don't really know because it's really complicated so the best guess we have have at the moment, the best informed guess is to try this. And if that doesn't work, then we'll go, OK, that's good.
Now we'll try this. It's almost unimaginable.
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And it taps into human nature of wanting to be comforted with the answers.
And, you know, this is now getting even deeper, which is actually good because we don't usually have conversations like this but a lot of the reason why religion is around you know is has been around for so long is people don't have the answers and that's an answer you know of like hey there's heaven there's a there's hell there's there's things that we can't explain are explained with religion and so like people just genuinely I think wake up and just want to be told hey hey, this is how it works, even though, like you said, we don't know. Yeah, well, exactly.
I couldn't put it better myself. I mean, also, one of Oppenheimer's colleagues, Richard Feynman, who's a really, if you've never encountered him, he wrote a series of books.
There's one called Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman.
He's an incredible character. Won the Nobel Prize, also famous playing bongo drums.
Incredible guy. And he wrote an essay, again, in the 50s, called The Value of Science.
And in it, he said science is a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance. That's all it is.
So it's merely satisfactory, and it's a philosophy of ignorance. Again, it's based on this idea that we start out knowing nothing.
But you apply that you say you know how do you answer people who say i just don't believe this stuff i don't believe the big bang and uh whatever you know and but the same processes go into designing aircraft for example so you very rarely get people on aircraft going sort of knocking on the door and saying right i am a member of a democratic society i

i have a right to land this plane right right you know i know you're an expert you know fair enough captain but i my right i know my rights i'm going to land it that doesn't happen yeah so people or i'm going to design that nuclear power station i don't think it should be done like yeah so i think people do understand that there is such a thing as expertise but you're right that it's some people find it difficult when the things we find out about nature run counter to their kind of expectations or desires or the things they want to believe in i mean it is you know we don't even know the universe had a beginning in time right we know that it was very hot and very dense 13.8 billion years ago because we've measured it um but and that's what we used to call the big bang right hot dense universe but we strongly suspect the universe was around before that and may have been around forever we're actually beginning to think now that time itself emerges from some deeper theory which we can talk about that's the study of black holes is telling us that which we can talk about later but the point is that we when you talk about you know if you dogmatically believe that you know how the universe began we don't even know if it began yeah that's the that's the philosophy of ignorance that's going to stop that goes back'm saying. It's way easier to just be like, God did it in six days.
And then on the seventh day, he took a nap, ate a sandwich, and then you're supposed to chill out on Sundays. What do you mean, scientists? You don't know how it began? That is for a lot of people discomforting.
And I know I understand exactly what you're saying. It's, again, you've put us in a spot where i'm like trying to understand how time emerges that's the thing is like we can talk about that it's cool you could be making all that up right now and we just be like wow i always say that in it that's fantastic but what do you mean like what what was there when you say we don't even know when time what was going on before time began wouldn't that be a time too well Well, that's a good point.
We really, so if I wind back a bit, we have a theory now called inflation, which is one of our best theories. It's Biden.
Yeah, exactly. Well, but it's worse than that.
Okay. So the idea is that before the universe was hot and dense, it was still around and it was expanding very quickly.

And so if you take two points in that universe, like say, just, you know, a centimeter apart, whatever it is,

then the distance was doubling every, in scientific language, 10 to the minus 37 seconds, which is 0.000000000.

It's 37 zeros, one of a second.

So it was doubling, doubling, doubling. So that's why why it's called inflation so it's worse than the current level and that carries on it's like corner yeah yeah yeah it's like back in the 70s now yeah i've tried this with gambling too if you just like bet 25 a blackjack hand then 50 then eventually you're gonna win it's an exponential yeah exponential expansion and then that drew to a close and everything heated up and the energy that was driving that got dumped into the universe.
And that's what we call the Big Bang. So that's called inflation.
So we have that theory. But the study of black holes now, which really began with the simplest question, you need to talk about, you said to me before, you know, there might be some silly questions.
No questions are. So Stephen Hawking asked what might sound like a silly question back in the 1970s, which is that if you throw something into a black hole, a book, something, anything, then what happens to the information in the book? Does it get destroyed? Does it get banished from the universe forever? Or does it somehow come out again? It comes out on a bookshelf in the middle of iowa what was that movie oh interstellar yeah that's what we learned that's not what i so we know that interstellar yeah but actually uh kip thorne who co-wrote interstellar has got a nobel prize he's one of the greatest living physicists huh so so actually interstellar has got a really that that was kind of a representation of these ideas, but about 10 years ago.
So we've made this huge progress now. And now we think that the information comes out again.
Huh. It comes out the other side? It comes out...
The black hole evaporates away. Deconstructs it.
And that's Hawking's great discovery, what's called Hawking radiation. So the black hole glows a bit.
And so eventually, over long times, very times very long times it'll evaporate away and it looks now that like the information of everything that fell in is imprinted in that radiation that comes out so if you jumped in weirdly from your perspective you go to the end of time in the black hole so the center of a black hole the so-called singularity in the middle is the end of time

which is a weird thing in itself so you go to the end of time so one way of thinking why can't i get out of a black hole is because you have to go to the end of time it's like saying which direction should i run to escape tomorrow right so if i say to you i want you to run now away from tomorrow then you can't

backwards

I just go backwards

back inside

not culture I say to you, I want you to run now away from tomorrow. Yeah.
Then you can't. I just go backwards.
Back inside. Keep going west.
It's not culturally. If I keep backpedaling away, then it's never going to actually confront me.
Going to the 50s. Where would I go? I'm not even going to say that.
Ban the forward pass. Yeah.
That's what we do. The Chicago Bears go back in time every time every sunday they do but yeah go ahead so um so that's from your perspective that's what happens to you you go to the time ends for you but then you're the information that was you the essence of you sort of comes out again eventually in principle apparently um well according to the current research so but what that's led us to do is suspect that there's a there's a theory below this theory of space and time so really you can think of building blocks of space and time atoms of time if you like we don't know what they are but it looks like somehow this experience of space and time that we have emerges from a deeper theory is there anything that you'd like to discover because you just mentioned the was it the hawking effect of the hawking yeah hawking radiation hawking radiation to get something named after you must be pretty exciting do you have anything named after you uh no i was trying to think of a witty reply but i can't even think of that actually so the big bang the big cox yeah well exactly there's a lot of potential there yeah there is it really is innuendo i mean if you want to get kids interested in science having a name like before the big bang it was actually the giant cox yeah it people yeah i agree with it yeah i should work harder just for that, just to give the Nobel Prize speech with that in it.

And I have named this theory. Now, is that a goal? Like, Nobel Prize, is that something that, you know, we think of everything in sports terms? Like, you know, the goal is to win the Super Bowl.
The goal is to win the Stanley Cup. Do scientists, even though we know that scientists get into, you know, their profession for different reasons, but is there ever a point where, like, yeah, the goal is to get the Nobel Prize? I think so, yeah.
I mean, they all deny it. Everybody gets a Nobel Prize and says, well, that's nice, but I didn't do it for that reason.
But it is, you're right right it is the highest possible accolade that you can get and um you know i've i've i've been lucky to meet a few nobel prize winners but they all say that i did it for the for the love of knowledge so we but then i think they're quite pleased yeah right and we could again because we're a sports podcast we could be like brian cox artist, hasn't won a Nobel Prize. Like, you haven't won a ring.
No. So you got to do it eventually to cement your legacy.
Yeah, well, it's hard. I mean, even Stephen Hawking didn't.
I think he should have done. Oh, he never won one? He's like the Dan Marino of scientists.
Not my goat? Yeah. What the hell? Who's the goat? Is, the greatest of all time, would you say? Is it Einstein or is that just kind of a basic answer? I mean, there are a few.
I mean, you know. No, there's only one goat.
Yeah, actually, I think it's Newton. We always, by the way, we get in whenever we have anyone on the show that is in any, you know, we just had a tennis pro on last week.
Like, we always just distill every conversation to, like, just tell us who the goat is. And then we can argue about whether or not your goat is my goat.
Yeah, right. And then it just becomes an endless cycle of feedback.
I think it's Isaac Newton. I think Newton's got to be the goat.
I'm going to go with Einstein. Even though he married his cousin, which is like, what? Isaac Newton never married at all.
He died a virgin. There we go.
You might both be right okay no no no you don't get the going newton was i mean newton was the so his theory of gravity it was the first time that anyone had taken a a theory of a little mathematical description of how things move around here you know you should throw a tennis ball in the air or something and it goes in this path so and then extend it to the whole universe so he's well the moon the moon behaves in the same way and the earth goes around the sun in the same way that's a huge leap so he was a genius but Einstein you're right I mean that this his idea that space and time emerge together and then his theory of gravity his new theory of gravity which replaces which replaces Newton's and is better than it, general relativity, is still the state of the art today. So you're right, they're both...
There's a guy called... The thing is, Newton had this phrase, I think he's correct, it's not apocryphal, he said he was standing on the shoulders of giants and one of the reasons he said that is because his great rival hook was about um four feet high and he was a little short guy and he hated him so so one of the reasons he said that is because of hook but he's right he did mean it as well which is that there was galileo before him and there's there's a kepler kepler you might not have heard of but yeah kepler wrote a book, which is a brilliant book, called The Six-Cornered Snowflake, which is this beautiful book, 1619, I think it was.
And he got interested in a snowflake that landed on his arm when he was walking across a bridge in Prague, going to his benefactor's party. And he realized that he hadn't bought him a present.
And it was a bad move, you know, back in 1619 to buy the rich guy that was funding you and didn't buy him a present so he wrote this book saying i brought you the the gift of something that's almost nothing but is in fact everything and he talks about the structure of a snowflake and he thought why are they all sort of six-sided what is it they all look the same but they're all different so what is the reason they all look the same and then he started thinking well maybe it's something to do with the building blocks of the snowflake and he's right right it's water molecules but he had no idea in 1619 but when you read his book even now you see a genius right at work and so these people that are all of this list they're all brilliant that without a doubt so that's why i'm not going for this yeah i each other that's true you're saying that like Newton is Newton is Bob Cousy yeah and then Einstein is Chris Paul yeah kind of like that the other yeah yeah yeah yeah who's yeah who's the the best athlete of all the scientists? The best athlete?

Is it Neil Tyson?

Wasn't he a kind of semi-measurable athlete?

Is there one world-renowned scientist?

I think I could take him, though.

You could take Neil?

Yeah, I think so.

I think, yeah.

What's your martial art of choice?

I box.

So I reckon I could.

Rough and rowdy? Who's your boxing is it ali yeah yeah i mean you'd have to say yeah when you're just watching the just the speed and skill and arrogance which i love we should get you we should get you uh boxing and rough and rowdy so we have a boxing league that's amateur uh just random guys three rounds uh one one minute rounds billy actually fought jose canseco did you another mental titan yeah true mental titans that would be quite something if you know one of the smartest guys in the world fought in roughing rowdy yeah i'll have a go with that it's probably wear headgear though yeah gotta to. You've got to protect the brain.
Yes.

I've got kind of an unusual question.

If we did discover carbon-based life and intelligent life on another planet, and let's just say they came to Earth,

and you were put into a room with an alien from the other planet that had your exact same job and background,

but on this alien planet. So they were scientists, they studied astrophysics.
How would you begin to communicate with that alien life form to let them know, here's my knowledge base, I am also a scientist, but here on Earth? There are properties of the universe that are completely universal. like, for example, the wavelength of light that gets emitted from hydrogen atoms is a famous one.
So it's something that hydrogen atoms do, that they do everywhere in the universe. They're all the same.
And the wavelength of light is 21 centimetres. So it's that long.
So you can start by saying, look, this is a universal length. It doesn't matter what you call it.
You call it centimeters or inches or whatever. One cocks.
One cocks. Yeah, that's it.
Whoa, that's a big one. You just expanded the universe.
So you can talk in terms of these fundamental universal properties. Speed of light is another one.
No matter how you measure distance and time, you will know that there is this constant speed that's always measured to be the same. So you use the universal properties of the universe.
So if you had a piece of paper and a pencil and you were told okay demonstrate that to this alien you would draw like a 21 centimeter line yeah that's like a baseline it was done so there's um in the i think it was in the 60s so a message was sent out from the arecibo telescope in um in puerto rico which is uh which has actually just recently sort of collapsed actually one of the iconic telescopes but it's gone now sadly but uh frank drake was the astronomer who did it and they had to think about that because they wanted to send a message out into the universe that could be decoded and they did use the hydrogen it's called the hydrogen line the 21 centimeters because once you've established a length and you need a time scale so you can a lot of well a lot of atoms sort of vibrate in a particular way and so that they have a particular they're like little clocks and so you can say well you can have a picture of one of those and say here's our clock so here's our time and here's our distance and once you've got that you can build up everything else did it on voyager the voyager space probe they sent it out with a message to anyone that found it is the that had the beatles record on it it did well no it didn't have george harrison on it because apparently his publisher wouldn't give them the rights oh that's funny and he was annoyed he was very angry when he found that but chuck berry's on it there's also that's a good one but that's it was in the 70s so it was vinyl right it was actually gold i think but it was it was basically a vinyl record so they had to send out the instructions to build a record player in order to play the record and they had to do this so we ended up with the 21 centimeter hydrogen line you play at this speed 33 and a third rpm or whatever it is so we sent a bunch of aliens in ikea box that's terrible it's basically what the fuck it's the instructions with a stylus and everything because you've got to show them how to decode the message right and then they they thought you know what are we going to put on it and so chuck berry got on it there's a some bark some classical music and some pictures of earth images of earth they're worth seeing online actually because they're bizarre and carl sagan had a lot to do with it and his wife andreanne thought about what to put on there um what can we send out what would the image of earth that we would like to present to the air responsibility to think about like the game of the year it's up to you yeah what are aliens going to know about planet earth yeah yeah i don't even know how i'd begin to even like that's the weight of that decision would be pretty hefty yeah there's a picture on there actually if you look online there's one and it's inexplicable to me and it's a guy with there's some other people three of them and he's drinking wine out of what looks like a flower vase so he's like drink like that it's a huge thing and he's and he's sat there drinking red wine out of it and they sent that to some so there's some really weird choices yeah that would be great as we progress through

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Another dumb question, and this is just a basic question. How many years of school did you do? total

well I

I actually left school at 18

and became a musician for five years and went back to yeah university at 23 wow and i've kind of been there ever since basically okay uh but yeah i had five years off and and you you i mean your band was a good band that had you know real albums so what was your decision like hey maybe this isn't for me i i would imagine you are the only person in the entire world to leave a rock band to go to back to college for physics almost but brian may as well almost however he'd had more slightly more success than me by the time he went back. Yeah.
But he'd also probably done slightly more cocaine than you. Yes.
Yes. Probably has.
I would assume. Yeah.
So why did you decide to do that? Because that's a very interesting life choice. Well, yeah.
I mean, we toured for five years. And we ended up, I mean, we had a fight, actually.
The band had a fight and sort of split up. Although it's actually still together, in fact.
They're still making music now. but we kind we had a fight actually the band had a fight and sort of split up although it's actually still together in fact they're still making music now but we kind of had a split at the time that's what i was trying to do and you guys were getting it was a big one yeah and i was going kepler yeah but yeah but i'd got a bit sick of it was you know it's hard work being in a band and we were one of those working bands although bands.
Although we did, the first professional gig I played was supporting Jimmy Page. Oh, wow.
So it was quite a, when I was 18. So it was quite a sort of introduction.
And then Gary Moore. And then a band called Europe.
I don't even remember Europe, which is a bit different to Jimmy Page. But we toured for three months with them.
So it was hard work. And so I just got sick of it, basically then we had a fight i like how you're like it's hard work and then i became a world-renowned physicist well that was also extremely hard work at the time yeah but there's a story about einstein where he used to he gave a talk in a school and he said to them the first thing he said to them when i when i was your age i was no einstein which i thought was a great thing to say yeah that's true yeah uh here's another dumb question we've been actually debating this this will give you a nice little baseline about the level of intelligence of our podcast we've been discussing this for six years still haven't got to the bottom of it if the sun is hot why is outer space cold, you have to understand what hot is, what temperature is.
And it's not a dumb question. It's a really good question.
It took people hundreds of years to work out what temperature is. And then it's only the 20th century, really, that everybody agrees that everything's made of atoms.
That's astonishingly. Einstein wrote a paper in 1905, which was proving or trying to really give good evidence for the fact that everything's made of atoms.
So it's quite recent. But temperature is, one way of thinking about it, is a measure of how fast these things are moving around, these little components, these little atoms.
How fastiggling higher temperature they're moving around faster so that's one way of thinking about it there are other ways but and so um in space in a vacuum there's basically if it's a perfect vacuum there's no temperature at all because there's nothing there right so that's that's one way to think there's no atoms to mean around you yes so i mean the way that we feel heat so why is it hot why do you feel hot it's because things are bumping into your skin so that they're either the molecules of the air or it can be light right that's hitting you but it's something is hitting you and that's that's what that's what you feel as temperature so if you're in outer space and you take your let's say you cut your sleeves off but you've got the rest of the space suit on um will you get a sun tan or a sunburn from the radiation well yeah if you're close to the sun you so wouldn't that when that you would feel hot uh yeah but you'd um it's about the amount of ultimately the amount of energy that hits you so so you'd need to be pretty close to the sun um because we have a spacecraft now that's quite close there how close well that's a good question because i realized when i said that yeah i don't actually know what the number is but it's called the parker solar probe and that's orbiting around there um it comes in very close actually goes into the solar atmosphere wow um so so it's it you these are really good questions about temperature and energy and and ultimately to damage you it's about energy it's how much energy hits you um and so if you're in a vacuum then you're right all you've got when you're close to the sun is the light um which is um not the same as being immersed in a a bath of water at 100 degrees c or something like that because there's more energy hitting you then and and damaging you so it's they're all they're they're it's called the science of thermodynamics this and it's a really good question because i think it's actually i'm writing a book at the moment on black holes and uh there's a lot of this thermodynamics in it and uh and actually i realized that i all the way through being at university and all that stuff i hadn't really understood it properly by by trying to write a book on it so it's actually it took people there people, there's another guy, Boltzmann, there's a list of great names in physics who thought about just what is temperature, what is energy, what is something called entropy, which is the way everything's arranged, and so on. So it's a really good question.
We started to question it because I stumbled my way onto a conspiracy theory that the sun was actually cold and there's a community of people out there that believe that yeah that the sun is cold which is why when you go up in uh to the top of a mountain you get colder than you do yeah it's just because the air so given what i said it's just broadly speaking if you think even if the air is the same even if the average energy of the molecules is about the same yeah there's not as many of them i was i was so intrigued yeah they're not hitting you i was so intrigued by this community of people that believe that the sun was cold because it seems like the most possible incorrect hypothesis that you can possibly have and then they're going out of their way to like backfill all the information about why it's actually true it's just fascinating to watch the human mind twist itself into a pretzel to the point where they actually think it's like that the sun is cold yeah it's like the conspiracy theory birds aren't real it's the most wrong you can be about anything yeah i think yeah there's one that the birds are just robots planted by the government does this stuff when you hear that stuff Do you get disgusted? Are you like, oh my God, we're so screwed? There are actually people who are like, birds aren't real? Well, if there was enough of them, then yeah, I'd be really worried. There's only five of them.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not so worried about it.
No, I mean, there might be more soon. Who knows? I think that one was actually started somewhat satirically, Yeah.
To point out. What happens is people actually start believing it.
People believe it. But the sun one is a real thing.
That's a real one. And then there's also one that Finland doesn't exist.
I'm really into that one at the moment. I think it's just, it's a big farce set up by the Russian government to ensure fishing rights off the coast of norway so that's what i always think i always you know mainly conspiracy theories other than being nonsense they fall down sometimes on the motivation don't they it's like why would you spend you know what presumably hundreds of years uh inventing a great fallacy about a country that doesn't actually exist just so that you can get more fish more fish why't you just go and get more fish? Just build some more fishing boats.
Does it frustrate you though on conspiracy theories? Because we had one of the weirder moments with the Will Smith, Chris Rock thing. And there were people who were convinced that it was fake, even though we watch it with our own two eyes and it was set up and all these things and it someone said something that like it made so much sense to me we're like the best thing about conspiracy theories is the conspiracy theorists always put the onus on other people to prove it to prove that like what they're saying is wrong they never actually give like real facts as to why they're right does that bother you when you hear that when it's like you you basically get challenged at every second and no one is really actually presenting any evidence on the other side they're just challenging you yeah i mean it it becomes a problem it's not a problem i mean if you've got a few people who think that the sun is cold doesn't really matter does it but it does matter if there are enough of them and they as we talked about earlier and they stop trusting anything right because because you have to have a an accepted sort of base level of knowledge about the world in a democracy otherwise people will vote for ridiculous things right and that's bad for everybody so then it then it worries me yeah and i think the is, the answer ultimately has to be education, doesn't it? It's not that people should know how old the universe is or how many stars are in a galaxy.
It just doesn't matter, right? But what matters is that people have a basic understanding of how we acquire reliable knowledge and what that means. What is it? What do I mean by by reliable knowledge i mean as you said i mean that we understand um that if you if you're putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in large in large amounts then it will um increase the average temperature of the earth it's just that's just reliable knowledge it's been known for hundreds of years um it's not a conspiracy it's the way that nature works.
You can see why from the chat we've had about temperature. It's about trapping energy.
It's a really simple idea, really. It's just that CO2 traps, absorbs what's called infrared radiation, which is the heat radiation that comes from the surface of the Earth.
So it absorbs it. The visible light comes visible light doesn't bother it but visible light comes and hits the ground heats it up and it's the heat that gets trapped and that's it that's been known i can't remember when it was 1700s i think 1800s certainly so it's just basic stuff right but if people start to mistrust that and then confuse it with politics which which is a whole different thing.
Politics is really complicated. Politics is the idea that people have different views of how we should run countries.
And that's perfectly right because it's really hard to run a country. We don't know how to do it.
Actually, Feynman, again, in that essay I mentioned earlier, said that democracy is a great example of the scientific method in action. Because in order to have a democracy, you have to realize that we don't know how to run a society so you change it every four years yeah and it's actually the fact that we change it that tells us that we are free right it's the garant the guarantor of our freedom is that you sit there and watch your country and sometimes it swings away from you and it does things that you don't like, and sometimes it swings towards you and it does things that you do.
Once that pendulum, the moment that pendulum stops swinging, so you always agree with the government, for example, or always disagree, then you know that you're not in a free society anymore. So you're supposed to celebrate the fact that society is very complicated, there are lots of people with different views and so it's understanding those things are the things that really matter i like that that's a good way of saying like yeah we like instead of just shouting down people who disagree with you like that's it's the scientific process at work conflict is good unless they're saying the sun's cold yeah then yeah right you just go right One thing that's intrigued me is I was reading about ancient Greece a while ago, and they had this process for choosing their leaders called sortition, which would be they would put everybody's name in a hat, and then they would draw a name out of the hat every five, six years.
And then that person, completely at random, would run the entire city state. And that sounds insane, especially when you like look around any given room that you're in.
You're like, oh, my God, that guy could be our leader. But the theory behind it was that it would ensure that education was extremely high because any one of these clowns could end up becoming your leader and in charge of your life in the future.
That to me just seems it seems like the ultimate chaotic move but i understand the process because right now i don't i feel like education at least in the united states has taken a big back seat in the last i don't know 20 30 years seems like uh everyone's like own pet projects and infighting at the local level has really overtaken the importance on education i i couldn't agree more. And it's quite, you know, you have to ask whether that would produce worse leadership than we have at the moment.
I'm not actually sure it would. You know, just a random choice of people.
I mean, it's an old truth, isn't it, in a way that anyone who thinks that they want to run a country probably shouldn't. Yeah, I agree.
I've been saying that for years. Anybody that wants to be president, immediately I do not trust you.
Correct. If you grew up wanting to be president, you just want to grow up to rule everybody.
Yeah. That's a red flag.
It should be somebody completely random who is afraid of having all the responsibility and is just like completely, they think that they're in over their heads as opposed to somebody that possibly thinks to themselves that yes i can manage i know the answers yeah well yeah i mean what would well what would you do or i you know i don't know how to run a country so what i think my response would be well i better get some people who know about things and and listen to them experts and try to sort of work out the best way of doing this that you're probably right that's probably what a normal person would do rather than say i know i would do the i would do that short story the lottery where they where they pick a name every year and they stone them to death i'd do that because i would just be thrilling yeah i would that be thrilling i would i would also add on my first thing would be like i got to get these people to like me so every every Friday we're doing Pizza Fridays. Yep.
Every pizza place. Jeans Fridays.
Yeah, Jeans Friday and Pizza Fridays. Every place in America, they have free pizza.
If you just walk in, you get a free slice. And then Sunday Sundays, where everybody eats ice cream on Sundays for free.
And no taxes. And no taxes.
But no, you don't need to, because they don't need to like you, because they don't vote for you. That's a good point.
But I would feel like they don't vote for you. But everyone wants to be liked.
But I feel like in sortition in that process, there's a high probability of an angry mob coming at you with pitchforks. I feel like most of those people didn't really last the five-year term.
Oh, so your policy choices would become a kind of self-defense. Yes.
Make everybody like me.. Please don't kill me.
So based on this discussion, have you had, like, what's the most spirited debate you've had with another scientist? Does it ever get very heated, disagreeing on things? Yeah, all the time, because that's the process. Because science, if you think about what research is, it's about operating at the edge of knowledge.
It's about not being afraid of the unknown. It's about standing on the edge of the known and peering out into the unknown with excitement and delight, not with fear.
So you're interested in being on the edge of the known. So when you're there, then everybody that's standing there on that boundary with you probably has a slightly different view of what you're going to find because you don't know.
And that's how it works. Yeah.
So it's about robust. There's robust debate.
But, and I think this is true, and it's certainly true for me, if my theory of what was going to happen turns out to be wrong, then I am actually genuinely happy because I i learned something because you you're in it you're in it to know more about nature you're not in it to be seen to be right see this is foreign to like i would be so pissed if i if i had a theory and i presented it and it was just wrong i'd be like fuck all these people i suppose if you do i suppose if you do it all the time then you might lose your job is there anyone who's just been wrong like the worst picker of science but my most there's a thing in science called cited citations right it's how many people refer to your papers and use it in their research and my most cited paper is about uh physics at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva without a Higgs boson. So I wrote it before the Higgs particle was discovered.
You predicted. You said one day there will be a Higgs boson.
No, it was the opposite. We said, what would it look like if there wasn't one? And so we were wrong, right? There is one.
So it got discovered. So you might think, well, that was useless.
But actually, it's my most cited paper because we developed some techniques in it that were useful to people and they still use them so it was a successful paper even though the premise turned out to be wrong nonsense there is a higgs bozon so it doesn't matter so can you explain the the hadron collider real quick in layman's terms because i remember i just remember seeing a picture of like what looked like an mri machine on steroids and everyone was like, this is going to blow up the world. Yeah, well, that was nonsense.
Did it blow up the world? You don't know. What if we're at the end of time right now having this conversation? Are you finding yourself learning something from us? Because we're kind of presenting what I would say.
I'd say we're smarter than the average bear, but we're very far away from learning. I don't think you thought that.
I mean, so the LHC. Yeah, you pause there because you definitely are like, these guys might have actually thought it was going to blow up the world.
No, I was going to say, because it's quite a small thing in terms of the world, right? It's a little thing. It's about 16 miles in circumference.
But you remember those articles. They're like, this is going to blow up the up the world yeah and actually though so if you if you follow it through so so what we do well what it does is it's a big sort of circle basically 16 miles and we accelerate particles around it until they're going very fast 99.999999% the speed of light so they go around 11 uh they go around uh seven i've forgotten the number now because i do uh 11 000 times a second i think they go around holy shit and then we collide them together and uh the reason we do that is we want to create really high energies in a very small space because uh if you go back towards the big bang then that that we had really high energies so we're really recreating the conditions that were present close to the Big Bang to see how the universe works in those early times.
That's one way of thinking about it. But actually, the energies that we collide things at are way lower than the energies that we experience every day in things called cosmic ray collisions.
So there are particles coming in from the universe with energies 100 000 10 000 way way in excess of those energies hitting the earth all the time and they don't do anything right they they don't destroy the planet they don't cause anything strange to happen it just doesn't happen so we we did check that you know so you actually did like it doesn't take you along but you realize that the energies that we can create in our little machine are routinely created and exceeded by the universe and you can have a look into the universe and you see that the universe is not somehow unstable and strange things happen at those kind of energies we we know that so that's the answer so that's what you did what did you find out yeah so the answer is that you know insane if they got a sense that doing this experiment may cause a giant explosion or destroy everything that we know yeah then you would notice you wouldn't do it right right right so so i mean the energy actually the energy is um it's it's like a mosquito just hitting you in the face it's a of energy, actually, because these are really tiny particles that we're colliding together. It's just that in this subatomic piece of space, inside these giant detectors that we have, we create these conditions that are really violent.
But it's in a tiny, tiny amount of space. The total energy is quite an amazing figure.
So the beams of particles are smaller than a hair, than a human hair, right? It's in Daimisa when we focus them down to collide them. And they carry the energy of an aircraft carrier traveling at about 40 miles an hour or something like that.
Wow. So they're incredible energies, but in tiny, tiny spaces.
And even then, an aircraft carrier going at 40 miles an hour, you can drive that into a wall and it doesn't destroy the world right it's not that much energy in itself yeah so what was the big takeaway from from that entire experiment well it's still running so we're learning more and more about the way the universe got it nice we did discover the higgs particle okay you found god what is that the the God particle it got called. But it was an idea, a theory from the 1960s.
The way things get mass, right? So if you think about the subatomic particles in your hand, like an electron in your finger, the way that gets mass in this theory is by interacting with this kind of stuff that permeates the universe which is called the higgs field so so it's literally like pulling something through treacle that's the right word isn't it in us is it treacle syrup whatever you call it so it's like if you pull something through treacle the through syrup then it's hard to pull right it's got kind of inertia it's because it's going through this stuff that's the way that fundamentally we think that things get mass and so ultimately the reason why we exist right because if everything nothing had mass we wouldn't exist right so it's a fundamental theory about the way subatomic particles behave in the 60s developed mathematically and ultimately we discovered the higgs particles which are the the things that make this universe. So it was a remarkable discovery, and that was one of the reasons it was built.
I've got kind of a theoretical question for you. Do you think, given your background in studying physics and particles and how everything was set into motion billions and billions of years ago, luck exist well it's again it's a brilliant question because there are properties of our universe like the strength of gravity for example that just seem to be the way the universe is and if you change them a bit then you end up with no stars or no galaxies, certainly no life.
And so it's a good question. It's like, well, what does that say about our universe and the way it's configured? There are theories that say there are actually a lot of universes.
So there are actually billions, trillions of universes, all with slightly different values of all these things like the strength of gravity and so we are then in a sense lucky but we the better way to say it would be we live in the universe that allows us to exist right but but there is a sense of luck in that they all vary so every possible combination is realized that's called the multi-place so if every if every particle that we know was expanding beyond the speed of light, then everything that has been set in motion since that point was already determined from the energy that was used at the start of our known universe. And so do you really even have free will? Or are the molecules in my brain that are firing just a result of everything that's already happened in a predetermined path before me well this is an even better question because so one of the big problems with with black holes was that initially we thought that they destroyed information if they destroy information then what you said it's called determinism doesn't apply because what determinism is which is what you said is if you knew everything about everything everything the way everything was moving around at some point in time then you can predict what it's going to do in the future and predict what it was doing in the past and that's what the laws of nature are like but then if you have these things in the universe that destroy information then you can no longer do that so so for long time, it was thought that black holes were destroying the foundation of science in some sense because they were stopping that from being true.
Actually now, as of the last couple of years, we think we have a really good understanding of the fact that they don't do that. Remarkably, even though they're things from which nothing can escape it seems that ultimately over

long periods of time all the information does come out again and that's so determinism is you can't find that that giant roadmap out there in principle in principle if you had if you were able to establish determinism see all the information possible you could know whether or not you should hit on 16.

Yeah.

Blackjack.

Got it.

Yeah.

In principle, it's very much in principle. Yeah.
Right. In practice, we've got no chance.
Right. So along those same lines, like, you know, you study quantum physics.
Quantum computing is something that I've heard about a lot recently, mostly in kind of a fear-mongering way where it's like quantum computer computers will get so strong that eventually the artificial intelligence that they'll produce will be able they'll try to destroy itself they'll try to destroy everything that we know is that something that you ever like wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about like oh no quantum quantum computing has gone too far well i mean it certainly hasn't yet because they're really primitive quantum computers that we've got at the moment. But they're really interesting.
And actually, not to keep talking about black holes, but the same ideas that we're understanding how the information gets out of black holes are very similar to the ideas we use in quantum computing. And in some sense, the universe is beginning to look like a giant quantum computer right in the way that it works that is not to say that we live in a simulation that's my next question so yeah it really isn't because we just don't know enough and it it's just to me it's just a irrelevant question but what is interesting is that the the the physics has become about information in the 21st century.
And so it really is the case that the... I'll give you this example, which no one really understands yet, because this is 2020, 2021 physics, right? But you might say, well, in that hawking radiation that comes off the black hole

and carries this information how does it carry the information and what we've learned from black holes is that it's called the holographic principle right which is so this room now in a sense it seems that everything that's going on in the room can be perfectly represented by a quantum theory that lives on the walls.

So the universe appears to be in some sense a hologram right it's called it's got a fancy name it's called the ads cft correspondence you can look up online but basically we've discovered that you can you can characterize everything that's going on in a region of space by a theory that just lives on the edge. And the coding between the two, the sort of dictionary, as people call it, looks very much like the coding you have to use in quantum computers to write quantum algorithms, and they do error correction in the memory of quantum computers and stuff like that.
So it's interesting that it seems to... This is the lower lower level i was talking about of space and time because space and time don't exist in the theory on the walls the the interior for being not a simulation guy you're sounding a lot like a simulation guy well they go too far because i've read you know i read there's an article in wired i think the other month that said this someone sent it to me on twitter where someone was just claiming this kind of discovery is suggesting we live in a simulation the answer is we don't really know what's going on at the moment you know it's it's really cutting-edge physics it is interesting that there's a a way of describing the way the universe works using information theory rather than what we call forces and you know normal physics but that's all it is it's really interesting we don't really understand what's going on at the moment and then then i tend to stop at that point yeah my instinct is to go we don't we by we i mean the the greatest physicists in the world don't really have a picture of this it's interesting stuff and then you just put a stop you go all right stop now yeah since i'm not gonna go therefore yeah there's a teenager in an extra dimension yeah with a really powerful computer who's coded us all in and we're version 18 000.6 of the sims that that seems to me to be quite a leap right right right that's true the smarter somebody is the more likely they are to say yeah like i'm i don't i don't get i don't know i don't know yeah um it's like saying are we are we alone in the universe you know are we alone in the milky way at the moment we don't know yeah that's why we've got a rover on the surface of mars as we speak taking samples in an ancient river delta it's called the perseverance rover it's going to send the samples back and we're going to analyze them and the reason we're doing that is because we don't know whether there's life on mars or not right so that's it so at at the moment.
Yeah, I mean, this stuff is fascinating to me. So you've got to go in a second.
I have one last question, but I do have to say, I read an article where you were quoted as saying you were in a meeting once. It might have been with politicians.
I don't know. But you basically left the meeting and you said that they didn't like you because you were intellectually aggressive.
Yeah. I just thought like the funniest way to put that like they i was just too smart and they just didn't want to hear it i heard that intellectually aggressive i wasn't i i all i'd said is like you know you're trying to fight bro you're trying to fight all i'd said is they they probably asked something and i just said well no yeah right you know what we said is the sun cold no it isn't yeah right it's like I don't know that's it you want to take this outside it's like what

sometimes thing and i just said well no yeah right you know we said is the sun cold no it isn't yeah right that's it you want to take this outside it's like what some people think it is okay i don't care at the edge of knowledge yes that's great you make being a scientist sound pretty fucking metal yeah i liked it i just i saw the quote and i was like oh that's fucking awesome hey it's ria from in the Office. It's officially mini skort season.
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Shop their newest arrivals in-store and online. We have to go in a few minutes, but Billy, who's been sitting here and been doing a great job of being quiet because I could see his face.
He wanted to hop in many times, but now the row back question is essentially, Billy, we have like six, seven more minutes. It's yours.
The floor is yours. This is really a meeting between two intellectual titans.
Because every time we talk about conspiracy theories, we're literally talking about him. We've already agreed to this.
Yeah, right. My question is, sorry if I'm mispronouncing some of these words.
I've only read them. I had a lot of questions about the Hadron Collider and the CERN Center, and we covered a lot of that earlier.
But I got to ask, what was up with that hoax video that came out in 2016? Do you know what I'm talking about? Which one? There was a video that was claimed to be from the CERN Center with a statue of Shiva, the Hindu god. There is a statue of Shiva there.
Yeah, with a bunch of people crowding around in robes. And apparently some of the scientists there did a prank on everyone who thought it was a conspiracy by staging a weird ritual before.
Do you know anything about this? I didn't know, but it sounds quite plausible because we like, you know, in English, in the UK we say, in English, I know you speak English,

in the UK we say taking the piss, right?

So scientists like to take the piss.

So that was just like a... So I'd be...

They're trolling.

I wouldn't be surprised.

That was like Monty Python,

like British humour, right?

I think, you know,

I'm going to tell you a story.

I know we only have seven minutes left,

but my Python story is that Eric Idle,

when they did the live shows in London, Eric Idle idol called me and said do you know stephen hawking and i said yeah i i sort of know stephen a bit and he said will you invite him to do a sketch and so i sent him an email and stephen responded really quickly and said yeah and the sketch was that i because i've been arguing with eric about the galaxy song which i said was inaccurate because it's got all sorts of numbers in it which we've now shown to be we've got better numbers right so I said the galaxy song is all wrong and so I was explaining this on the banks of the river and then so we went down to Stephen's office and we talked to him all day and the idea was I'd be saying after the galaxy song at the in the live shows I'd be saying well it's just wrong it's nonsense it's just it's you should know the earth the earth doesn't orbit the sun in a circle it goes in an ellipse and all these things and as I'm saying that Stephen comes flying up in his wheelchair and knocks me to the ground and says I think you're being pedantic and then he starts singing the galaxy song so we did it so we filmed it and did the whole thing for the monty python life and then at the end i was leaving after the whole day with stephen hawking with and eric said to me we kind of wasted that didn't we because we just spent the whole day messing about we didn't ask him anything about you know the cosmos or the universe the whole day and we just did a silly sketch and it was the most python-esque thing you can possibly imagine doing. Wasting your whole day alone with Stephen Hawking.
Just to get him to knock me over and say one line. I love that.
That's awesome. All right, you got one more? When you were talking about information being lost in the black hole, were you saying, like, even though the book contains information, like you may read a book and know a story or know a concept are you saying that when the book goes in the black hole that concept that we experience and in our brains then goes into the black hole with it no it's it's you're just saying that if so if you burn a book then in principle it goes back to what you said about determinism then you could if you collect everything that came off all the ashes and all the gas and everything If you could measure it all perfectly, then you could, if you collect everything that came off, all the ashes and all the gas and everything, if you could measure it all perfectly, then you could reconstruct the book.
So you reconstruct, literally reconstruct the information in the book. And it seems now that's what happens in black holes.
So you throw the book in and then at some point in the distant future, you could collect all the Hawking radiation that comes off and reconstruct the book. That was a, like, explaining it, because now I totally understand what you're saying.
Yeah, so the information as in the information of the construct, not actual information. Well, it is everything.
I mean, it is everything. So if you went into the black hole, then it would be that some sufficiently clever, super advanced civilization, if they could collect all the Hawking radiation and put it into some quantum computer would actually reconstruct you i mean that would be such a bummer for the aliens if they're like let's reconstruct this radiation then just billy showed up i mean i had some bro have we ordered dinner yet yeah it's sort of billion year project that they done, put all their effort into it and built a quantum computer.
Yeah, they're like, oh, is this guy? Oh, man. Well, we appreciate it so much, Brian.
This has been awesome. You're welcome back anytime.
Anytime you're around or want to come on, because this has been truly like something totally different. Yeah.
A lot of fun. I've got a million more questions I could ask you right now.
So you're always welcome back on. I'll come straight back.
I did it to someone the other week, actually. I'll tell you what it was.
I'm going to name drop. I'm going to name drop.
It was Conan, right? And I was at a party a few months ago, and he was there, and he said that. He said, oh, you should come on the podcast.
And I said, okay, I'll come on on Monday. And he went, no, you're not supposed to do that.
You're supposed to say my people will talk to your people that's not how this business works and i said no i'm only here till monday so yeah so i did so i went so he managed to arrange it so i could go on a monday so don't invite me back because i will say okay well i'll go we do it reverse i've got my diary now we do it reverse when someone comes on once they're a recurring guest and so then they have to come on anytime we ask right so we have you now contractually we might call you tomorrow i signed it yeah yeah yeah we just reverse that on get rid of the middleman and we'll just give you our number and then we're just gonna text you and be like hey brian you down yeah come shoot the shit but yes this has been awesome thank you so much really appreciate it thank you noble is known for their-class, award-winning footwear with options across training and lifestyle. No Bowl has options for everyone exclusively for Barstool listeners.
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Okay, let's wrap up.

We got Fire Fest of the Week.

Send everyone on their way

for a nice weekend.

Weather's getting nice. Playoffs.
Everything. playoffs everything playoffs hank i don't have much pretty pretty normal week for me good just everything uh drama no yeah everything's smooth yeah just you know corporate life just did a bunch of meetings you know nothing crazy it does suck that i can't make fun of you for waking up late anymore because i know you're up all the time now yeah i'm getting up working out in the morning yeah damn i tried to call hank the other day he's like i'm at the gym fuck that's sick i was trying to text on my uh apple i mean i'm an apple watch guy now too yeah it is nice being apple watch guys have you considered being a briefcase guy that would be cool l.e.l mr ice that'd be a mr ice move it's a power move i think it's always a power if you handcuff yourself to a briefcase.
Well, Mr. Ice walks around with a briefcase that's like the dodgeball scene where he opens the briefcase and there's just one stack of bills in it.
Yeah. He carries a briefcase around with like $5,000.
What a wallet could easily handle. Yeah.
No, but yesterday, this is a literal fire fest. I was walking to the train station to the path and I had my AirPods in and a fire truck.
Literal fire. It was like a EMT.
It wasn't, it looked like an ambulance, but it was a fire, you know, NYPD vehicle. Billy knows what I'm talking about.
Had its sirens on behind me and I kind of was like not paying attention. And then a lady tapped me and was like, hey, and I took my headphones out and she points to the fire truck and it was an EMT like screaming my name on 6th Avenue being like Hank team Hank with his buzzers on and everyone was just looking at me like what what is going on it's like come here it was just it was a scene and I was just like this this is a fire is a fire fest.
I have the fire department tracking me down to like scream my name. It was a lot.
But kind of, I mean, it has to be your number one loved week of all time. Yeah.
I will say, you know, it is nice. Like it's one of those things where if it was up to me, none of this ever would have happened.
Agreed. Although if you, you know, Tom Brady thing, whatever, but it is nice, you know, getting the support from your friends and people like, obviously everyone struggles with self-confidence issues.
So knowing that you have that love and support from everyone is nice and I appreciate everyone that reached out. Basically like, Billy's laughing at you, right? I'm laughing because I saw online.
Someone was like, someone thought it wasn't Hank, but Frank they were talking about. So we're like, this guy, it was a joke in my head.
It made more sense. Okay.
Okay. Sounded sick.
We should get a storyboard maybe. I would love to be in Billy's head.
Yeah. Nah, scary place.
Seems awesome. Scary place.
Yeah, you basically got eulogized without dying. Yeah.
Like everyone, like, that would have been. It was like the Tom Brady thing was like basically a make-a-wish situation.
I just just like my girlfriend started dating someone else. My ex-girlfriend started dating someone else.
You know what? There actually should be a make a wish program, not for people that are sick or dying, but for people that are just like down. Just like if you get broken up with, there should be a website like a cameo for celebrities just to be like, Hey, I want to give you a pep talk.
You look great. Keep hitting the gym.
Everyone loves you. I mean, if I was really going to get into it, I would say that, and this happened when we broke up to her.
I was like, I don't want to see shit, and then I get all these people, and they're in good nature. They mean well, but they reach out to me with their stories, and it just depresses me even more.
I'm just like, that's brutal. I don't feel as bad as you're describing.
And what your situation sounds way worse than what I'm going through, but it's just like, that sucks. And then I get a bunch of those messages because they're trying to relate and be like, yeah, man, this happened to me too, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, that's super depressing. Don't want to read that.
I want to respond and be like, yeah, let's get through this together, bro. So if you have reached out and I haven't responded, that's why.
Yeah. All right.
But appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it.
I appreciate it when I reached out. Feels good.
See Hank for life. We love you, Hank.
Love you guys too. PFT? Well, really my fire fest is that I'm deathly fearing the fact that Jake is going to just be laughing at my face in my own hometown.
Rubbing his titties in you. Rubbing my titties in my face.
It's going to happen. And it's going to be like.
No, he's going to be motorboating you. He's going to motorboating.
He's going to titty fuck you. It's going to be like, yeah.
It's going to be like getting pegged by Lisa Simpson. Yeah, he's going to get you.
Yeah, it is the scariest person to go to a game when your team can be eliminated in his camp. Yeah, he's like that movie The Ring.
When Jake shows up next to you, shaking your hand, being like, I'm just rooting for a good game for both teams. It's like, I'm going to die.
Because I'm not the biggest Panther fan of supporting the hometown team. He's already doing it.
This is the worst. This is the worst.
I hate it. This is the worst.
Because everything that Jake says, he thinks he's being super polite. And he is being super polite in his own brain.
But I want you to hate me. That's the thing.
If the Panthers lose the series, I'll be like, alright. Stop! If the Panthers lose the series, stop! Jake, stop! But I'm being dead serious.
I know. You're still making it worse.
We know. One other, I'll say this, I mentioned this in the group text, but a post mostly Fyre Fest that I was kind of laughing about and post mostly, the best in the office clip, when that happened, i think it was the anniversary this week or something that was like also the week that me and ria basically broke up privately like we didn't say anything for a little while so that happened and then the best in the office thing happened and i was just getting destroyed so i was like i was i was in a bad spot and everyone was like oh you're in a bad spot because of jake like shitting down your throat I was like, not only that, and I couldn't even talk about it.
So that was like a... That also is like...
For context, that was a bad week for me. There are some people who are like, oh, Big Cat, you went too hard.
And it's like, but I also am very close to Hank, and I know he was down bad for a while. It wasn't fun.
No breakups are ever fun. Right.
Ever. Right.
No matter what. They just aren't.
I remembered uh my other part of that same fire fest is that marlin's man is also actively oh he's now i'm being actively engaged from all angles by marlin's man yeah he keeps sending memes to people close to me reverse he's reversing your yeah he's texting me reverse memes and being like please send a pft yeah it's it's the meme that i put out of kodak Black, doggy styling that chick at a Panthers game, where I put caps on Kodak Black and then Panthers on the poor girl. And then he's just reversing it, creating the meme to be about me and the Capitals, and then texting it to the people I'm closest with, asking them to share it to me.
Correct. He has not contacted my mom.
No, not her. Brutal.
Alright, my my fire fest is I just keep losing my voice. I got to do something about it.
I just got to start treating my voice like a quarterback treats his arm. Or like Adele treats her voice.
Yeah. Got to start drinking tea and honey.
The travel, the lack of sleep, two kids, all this stuff, I need to just start being like, all right, my voice is going. Stop talking.
Don't, you know, rest it. So I got a load management.
Pitch count. Yeah.
I did. I was whispering last night.
And my son was like, why? He started whispering back. But it was very bizarre.
How many words per day do you think you speak? It's great. Because I was thinking about it.
I was like, I'm losing my voice. I lost my voice this week.
And I was thinking about it because it makes sense. Red eye Vegas, doing a five hour broadcast all that and yeah when you add it all up it's like oh shit show after show after show so I gotta just do a better job and I'm gonna do it I know I've said this before but I'm gonna do it sorry to everyone who had to listen to me sound like I was dying on Wednesday Wednesday's show.
So on Monday, I got back to the East Coast from Vegas at 7 a.m. I was running on about like three hours sleep.
How was your Saturday? Saturday was sick, dude. So we went to the – Yeah, I know.
Sorry, a blackjack. It was a callback.
Oh, that's like a normal question. Not on a Tuesday.
Not on a Tuesday. Well, it's Thursday.
Not on a Tuesday. I had a great Saturday.
You used it when the fun stuff happened. Not on a Tuesday.
How was your Saturday? I love that Billy, actually, like, it's totally normal and acceptable for him in his life to go around all week, every day that's not a Saturday, just talk about what he did on his last Saturday. Saturdays are the best day.
Yeah. For the boys.
That's when you really have enough time to go do cool shit. With the boys.
Exactly. So I got back, I was like.
I kind of would take Fridays over Saturdays, but that's just me. I like Friday nights.
We have to work on Sundays. We have to work on Sundays and Fridays just there's no better feeling than Friday after lunch.
There's just it feels like the weekend is forever. But like you can get up to excursions on Saturday.
You can go for adventures on Saturdays.

Day trips. I'm also counting this as

someone who has two children, so Saturdays are

a lot for me.

Even in general.

How was your Saturday?

How was your Saturday? The upcoming

one? Last one. It was fine.

We did the Canelo fight. You were with me the whole time.

Yeah, it was a good Saturday, right? Yeah.

Total excursion. Totally normal question.
So I got back and I was like we were with each other I was beat up from Vegas I was like I gotta do something to correct this so I decided to drop myself off about six miles from my house and just was like you got to get to your house and I just literally like had an exorcism running the six miles to your bags yeah like well this was in the afternoon after i came in oh so not your bags well i had one backpack backpack yeah so then i was like i was like forcing myself to exercise so you just walked home no i ran uh excursion it was just like an over the river just well i dropped myself off somewhere over the river and then I ran five miles. So was just like an exorcism.
Over the river? Well, I dropped myself off somewhere

over the river and then I ran five miles.

So you just went for

a run. You just decided

to do it in your pants

in a backpack. How are you not talking about your pants

by the way? How is this not your

fire fest? My pants? You just keep getting

ripped off. Yeah, well my pants keep

falling apart. We keep clowning you, bro.

I'm going to get one

of these days and we get one of you guys with the pants.

No, you're not. I highly doubt that.

Oh, yeah. off yeah well my pants keep calling you bro yeah we need i'm gonna get one of one of these days we get one of you guys with the pants no you're not i highly doubt that oh yeah i think this is we were talking about this day because like everyone has to come in and like guests need to start ripping your pants it needs to be your version of how i'm gonna start ripping other people's pants your hot ones is gonna be somebody comes up to you like a celebrity rips your pants off without you knowing and then you just do like a three second interview interview where you just react to them taking your pants off well it's like oh what the fuck dude how was your saturday it's the ultimate catch 22 because it's like that'll be the show title no i what the fuck dude to hit your to hit your monthly quota for numbers it's like you've made your job so much easier but the flip side is you have no pants yeah you have to get You pants you hit all your tiktok goals but you have no pants i also like how billy just treats like when he's bored he treats the entire world like an escape room because i dropped myself off like far away from my house yeah and then i had to find my bed it would it forced me to exercise and you could have just gone for a run right but that's so hard mentally i had to have to get home.
I actually understand that completely. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
Like, it's like, you can't just run six miles on a treadmill or, like, around your neighborhood. You gotta just drop yourself off somewhere and it's like, you gotta get back.
You have no other, like, choice. I was gonna go to the gym after the Celtics game and then they lost and I was like, I'm not going now.
And that doesn't even make sense, but, like, when you're home, you find any reason to not do it. Or if.
Or if you just drop yourself off six miles from your home. Wait, how'd you get the car back? What do you mean? How'd you get back to the car? Oh no, he took an Uber.
No, I drove it to a place. He took an Uber.
He just picked a random address and didn't have a car. Did you have...
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. All right, Jake.
I love you, Billy. So two elevators in my building.
One was out. I'm on the 16th floor.
Takes a while to go down. At the end of the day, I'm stuck with five people and three dogs.
Oh, no. In the elevator? Yeah.
I'm allergic to dogs for context. You should have just gone on the stairs.
Down 16. Force yourself, yeah.
Yeah, I could have. It'd be a real shame, Jake, if we got a special exclusive meet and greet with the Capitals' dog mascot, Biscuit.
A real shame. Well, you guys already tried to kill me once this month.
Yeah. That's true.
That's actually very true. How are you going through withdrawals? Are you clean now? Never again.
Never again? I mean, there's a lot of sports that have to happen. Yeah.
Right. What about if you're beloved? We're definitely going to do a wampus cat bet again.
There would be other punishments. Would you do a wampus cat if it meant that your beloved Panthers won the Stanley Cup? No.
This sucks. This sucks for me.
What about Syracuse? What if Jim Boeheim got one last year? He's literally going to win and then apologize. Jim Boeheim's last drive.
Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. All right.
Let's do numbers. I'm not surprised by those.
He's going to win.

I'm not surprised by those anymore.

He's going to be like, I'm really sorry, PFT.

I know that you wanted this.

Admit a lot to you.

I hate that we did it.

I'm sorry.

If I could give this win back, I would do it.

I wish you could feel this win, not me.

I wish I had lost.

Would you Wampus Cat for a broadcasting primetime gig?

Whoa.

There it is.

Nice, Billy.

Got him. Got him.
Throw him down. All right, 22.
Whoa. There it is.
Nice, Billy. Got him.

That's smart.

Throw him down.

All right, 22.

Nine.

69.

25.

61.

Turn it on.

It's on.

Uh-oh.

It's on.

Wait.

No.

No, stop.

Now it is.

Hey, you still haven't gotten this?

Ever?

13.

Friday the 13th.

13.

Is that?

Whoa.

Wait, Sabato the 13th?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whoa.

The fucking witch, bro.

Whoa.

Love you guys. Tortoises fucking witch, bro.
Whoa. Love you guys.

Tortoises hate the color black.