What is it that causes some physicists to become arrogant, and how do we maintain humility in that world? [00:29:46] Adam Grant: And I guess as you get older, you start to realize that well, somehow people all manage that we all work day to day without the owner's manual. August 1982 As a result, the carbon footprint of this computation related to the electricity our computations caused the PCs in the network to useabove and beyond what they would have used, in any case is lower than it would have been if we had used a supercomputer.. Well, it was, there's a really lucky moment, and this is in the, the mid to late eighties, in fact, where people had for a long, long time, ever since Hubble and other colleagues saw that the universe was expanding, there had always been the thought that, well, that expansion can't go on for everything because all the stuff in the universe, um, everything gravitationally attracts everything else. After about 7, 8, 9 months of hunting for all the things that could be wrong with the experiment, and all the things that could be wrong with the computer program, and doing all the sanity checks that we could possibly do, we started concluding, you know, I think this is actually the answer. And then it's a team activity because you need other people to listen to it and to help you decide: is this right? Well, any computer *can* solve the problem, provided you are willingto wait long enough, but with roughly half a million PCs working on the problem in parallel (each with multiple cores), we were able to complete the computation much more quickly than we could have using the Bristol machine (or any of the machines here at MIT), says Sutherland. Agrajag reveals that Arthur has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating into a new form that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. Life, the universe and everything. [00:10:34] Saul Perlmutter: [00:11:57] Adam Grant: But ideally, it generates something that allows us to fly airplanes and, and, and, you know, and cure, uh, diseases. Or any, anything could be wrong. [4] The word "asshole" is replaced with the word "kneebiter", and the word "shit" is replaced with "swut". Not teaching any individual to be infallible. That it goes all the way from things that we just barely are sure about and that we think we see some indication of, all the way to something that you would bet your life on and you would bet everybody's lives on. Life, the universe, and everything with Nobel laureate physicist Saul Perlmutter Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverise him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able to function but at a much weaker level. What do you think? And then I remember realizing that you could, uh, possibly use, um, astrophysics as a way in, because you could see some really deep fundamental things there. And then. And being open to the possibility that something you think you're pretty sure about is wrong, and then looking for evidence for that that you're wrong is already a big trick of the trade. The international partnership focuses on climate and sustainability. Extensively. Big men sometimes don't know what to do with all those elbows, feet and knees, which makes them . [00:13:49] Saul Perlmutter: I couldn't imagine a better project. With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities and discover that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar (due to the obvious flaw in the idea that the people of Krikkit are simultaneously smart enough to develop their Ultimate Weapon- a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe- while also being stupid enough not to realise that this weapon would destroy them too). What you find, of course, for any specific area that gets to be complex. Reverse engineering their own vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and determining it must go. If I were to ask you, for example, like, what's the probability that Pluto is in fact a planet or that the earth is not round? [00:19:35] Adam Grant: [00:06:45] Adam Grant: Ric Machuga. Life, the universe, and everything. Booker and Sutherland say there are 10 more numbers, from 101-1000, left to be solved, with the next number being 114. Follow along with what interests you or mix and match your experience throughout the symposium. [00:13:07] Saul Perlmutter: So picture something that goes-- that's infinite, as far as you want in every direction. *Weeks 1-9 . At the end of five years, we found our first of the very, very distant supernovae. Life, The Universe, & Everything: The Marion K. "Doc" Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy originated at Brigham Young University and has grown and changed a lot over the last thirty years. So you would imagine that the expansion would be slowing down, and depending on the density of the universe, it would slow down, you know, more or less. Several of the names and items in the story are references to (or puns on) terms associated with the sport of cricket, with the effect that the sport is jokingly portrayed as having cosmic antiquity and significance. I think they were, were scared and they were convinced by all those television producers that always come to me when they're making a new documentary and they say, "This is television. Life, the Universe and Everything Quotes Showing 1-30 of 157. Yeah." And 42 is now the number of years since the publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the first in the . [00:22:58] Saul Perlmutter: The universe is everything. On the other hand, it's supposed to be expanding, so whats. Booker and Sutherland discussed the algorithmic strategy to be used in the search for a solution to 42. After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. Wow. Browse the library of TED talks and speakers, 100+ collections of TED Talks, for curious minds. Saul serves at the White House on the President's Council of Advisors on science and technology. An extensive but still incomplete list of the changes between the two versions can be found on, Life, the universe and everything (disambiguation), Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Life,_the_Universe_and_Everything&oldid=1124915951, This page was last edited on 1 December 2022, at 05:25. I was also really amused to see Jerry Seinfeld talk not too long ago about how he sees comedy as a scientific process where he's got a hypothesis about what's gonna make people laugh, he runs the experiment, and the audience response is evidence. Wow. Now all you had to do was go out, measure the brightness of some of these exploding stars? While everything around the universe is all the matter that is in the universes and even which cannot be touched by human beings. And I'm sorry that I caused all this . But, we're kind of in a middle point where things aren't too far apart and things aren't too close together. It's a very social activity, and all the work that you're doing that I was describing is done in groups, a small team of people, and we're all, you know, trying to, you know, help each other and, and make the whole thing work. It is the third book in Adams' much-beloved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, taking place shortly after the events of the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.The book was followed by So Long, and Thanks for the Fish in 1984. Guilty as charged. Douglas Adams said it was the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. They go to the courtroom in the hope of learning the question of Life, the Universe and Everything from him. Prak began to tell all truth, horrifying the involved parties so badly that they abandoned the courtroom and sealed it up with him inside. To think I'd have never wanted. He teaches classes at Berkeley on physics and music'cause he plays the violinand on sense, sensibility, and science. As Booker found with his solution to 33, they knew they didnt have to resort to trying all of the possibilities for x, y, and z. [00:27:28] Adam Grant: And that's completely fair game, right? With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart of Gold. The field that we think caused it to accelerate decayed away, and then the universe started to slow down. So at the very beginning, you know, as I was saying, the project wouldn't start unless you were really excited about the project, and that's what, you know, got, got me into it. 45 minute to 2 hour events that occur throughout the symposium. You're choosing odds rationally, you're, you're weighing what the options are in a way that you would if you were trying to make a scientific decision. They said, You can't explain to them that there's parts of the story that we don't understand.. This is another reason I really liked running this computationon Charity Engine we actually did use a planetary-scale computer to settle a longstanding open question whose answer is 42.. Life, the Universe and Everything (published in 1982) is the third installment of the increasingly inaccurately named The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (although, of course, when it was first published the series was still a perfectly accurately named trilogy). What can I tell you? Life, the Universe and Everything [1982] is the third book in the five volume sci-fi trilogy: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.This is . And how often you hit these galaxies is just a matter of what the average distance is between these galaxies if you were traveling around. [00:16:16] Adam Grant: just so happens that things live here and the environment near the surface of this particular planet is hospitable for life as we know it. Publisher [00:10:33] Adam Grant: Right there. You take the sticks that don't fit in and you ask, "Well, what's incomplete about the theory?" [00:27:35] Adam Grant: The right size, we're the right time in history, it's almost perfect. Thank you, Saul. The book continues the series' tradition of exploring the complexities, ironies, and absurdities of life, the universe and everything. One of the things that I'm very excited to talk about is the question of teaching people to think more like scientists. With help from Zaphod and Marvin, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities. Earth is a . I was always curious about how the mind works. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Panelsand Presentations are the bulk of our activities, providing attendees withthe chance to hear from professional authors and artists. It includes all of space, and all the matter and energy that space contains. Anything to do with you. [00:04:48] Saul Perlmutter: 2004, EMBO reports. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverize him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit. Of course, because some of them actually are. Experts from MITs School of Engineering, Schwarzman College of Computing, and Sloan Executive Education educate national security leaders in AI fundamentals. The book was loosely adapted from a rejected script for a Doctor Who episode that was to be called "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen." You just need to make the room a little smarter. Since franchise creator Douglas Adams had told his original story in its . [00:06:24] Adam Grant: And so those people who like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy always enjoyed the fact that we were answering this deep question with 42 supernovae. To think I'd have never wanted. You have a, a course on sense and sensibility and science that you teach at Berkeley. It seemed like the whole field, everybody would be doing that? We, we tend to, um, like to see results that confirm things we already think we believe, and it's really hard to start to train yourself to look for results that might have a chance of proving something's wrong that you believe. Open Preview. Well, I am thrilled to have you here, especially as, a once upon a time wannabe physicist. This has been such a treat and so enlightening and surprisingly uplifting. Well, glad to. The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes." Chicago Tribune The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their headsso they plan to destroy it. If The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a work of genuine lunacy, and its sequel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe less inspired and considerably more ragged, this is a much busier but practically mirthless offering: the whole notion palls, the dialogue is frequently reduced to the characters telling one another to zark off, and even the chunks of furious hyperbole have an . There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. Language The treatment did not get far and was eventually scrapped. I wanna wrap us where we started, which is, I am desperate to know, is the universe gonna last forever? For me, I think I've always felt like we were somehow in this very interesting place as humans cause we, we are in a size where we get to look out at things that are much, much bigger than us and also look down at things that are much, much tinier than us, going down to the elementary particles. After 4 years of being stranded on prehistoric Earth, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic chesterfieldsofa. translators. Well, there have been a couple of papers that have come out recently suggesting that the blanket Trust science or Believe scientists recommendation does not help people. Audiobook narrator(s) Um, however, almost every topic we talk about, um, even gravity and electricity, magnetism, there are new things that we can learn, and that's I think, one of the real fun aspects of science. They then used a number ofoptimizations and adaptations to make the code better suited for amassively distributed computation, compared to a computation run on a single supercomputer, says Sutherland. I think as a child I thought, "Well, here we are on this earth and it's our toy and, and nobody gave us the owner's manual, and doesn't everybody need to know the owner's manual?". Some time earlier, he had been reporting on a court case in which a witness named Prak was inadvertently given an overdose of a truth drug. Students get a $5 early-bird student discount for LTUE 2024 until April 31st, 2023. We would, we'd just be alone by ourselves. But as a graduate student, I was looking for something where you would feel a little bit more directly personally involved. That, I think that is the most encouraging answer I could possibly imagine to this question. [00:15:06] Saul Perlmutter: it was even better than that. [citation needed]. If you could make that measurement, you could also tell whether the universe was infinite or not in space because if there's enough stuff in the universe, it has this weird property in Einstein's theory, general relativity of bending space, and so you could actually bend space in on itself if there was enough to slow the universe to a halt and have it collapse, that would also be enough to make it bend in on itself so there is only a finite amount of real estate out there. Douglas Adams, 'The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.' 27."My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes." Douglas Adams, 'Life, the Universe and Everything.' 28."The Answer to the Great Question. Then, there's all of the, um, frustrations that you have to work your way through. [00:01:48] Adam Grant: How did you document something that, as far as I understand, that people in your field have been trying to study for decades, if not centuries? He then attempts to tell Arthur where God's last message to his creation is, though he dies seemingly before Arthur is able to memorise the location. [00:15:09] Saul Perlmutter: Adams himself, at his own suggestion[citation needed], makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s. I might have, I might have landed on a different career path, although I, I really love the one that I chose. No, we don't-- we shouldn't just be talking about both sides equally, you weigh the more rigorous evidence more heavily. However, upon learning that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag realizes that he has pulled Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon and that killing him now would cause a paradox, but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. And it didn't work out that well when people tried doing this with galaxies because it turns out galaxies, um, have evolved over time and they changed their brightness, and then people started to think that you could use these exploding starssupernova. So, [00:01:43] Saul Perlmutter: In fact, if anything, I think I'm more curious about why everybody didn't, didn't get hooked. Everything has to be as absolutely simple as possible. Additional fee for masterclasses. Attribution Learn from our world-class creators on specific subjects. I think that there's an interesting tension here in that I have often heard physicists stereotyped as the most arrogant of all scientists because they believe they can understand the universe, and I never could wrap my mind around that because any physicist, even early in training, knows how vast the unexplained universe is. [00:01:33] Adam Grant: tags: flight , flying , hg2g , humor. Booker also wanted to know the answer to 42. Why couldn't Bristol's supercomputer solve this problem? I, I have so many questions about this. And we thought, "Well, all right, I'm sure there's some computer bug somewhere in the software or else, um, it'll turn out that we need an extra control in our analysis of the dust that could be absorbing the light from the supernova.". Well, well, I, maybe I should even go further back because the, I, it feels to me the whole scientific process is a, a amazing interplay of emotions and this cold rationality that you also are using at the same time. Held daily for the entire duration of the symposium. [00:18:44] Saul Perlmutter: See the Masterclass Page for the full list of LTUE 2023 Masterclass instructors and class details. [00:30:17] Adam Grant: Okay, so the, the deep admission I have to make is that even though the whole point of the experiment that I started was to find out whether the universe will last forever and whether it's infinite or not. And that my job isnt to take away people's comfort in the world. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish So you need all this, this extra, you know, ability to fool yourself into thinking that you're, you're getting somewhere. And, so I can't take any favorites right now on whether or not it's going to come to an end or whether it's going to expand forever. After 4 years of being stranded on prehistoric Earth, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy . I think the first one is people tend to think about science as this very cold, rational, calculative process, and yet I hear all this emotion in your voice when you talk about it. Open Translation Project. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Silver Bail. The only information he can provide is that the Ultimate Question and its answer can never both be known about in the same universe. Learn more about the I love that. Douglas Adams ", [00:21:19] Saul Perlmutter: And I thought those were great questions. David Scutt (UK) Booker devised an ingenious algorithm and spent weeks on his universitys supercomputer when he recently came up with a solution for 33. But that's another whole problem you know. If you go backwards in times, the fun thing is that now you suck space out between objects, and things get closer and closer and denser to each other. [00:29:04] Saul Perlmutter: It's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything: 42. We kept having these points appearing in the part of the graph where they, we didn't think they would be, and that happened to be the part of the graph where if the universe was slowing down earlier, but for the last half of its life, it's been speeding up, that's where these points would be. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated.