Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / The science fiction Universe of "Constellation"

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The science fiction Universe of "Constellation" · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, when did the latest run of the Large
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hadron Collider start?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Ooh a few months ago? Ooh?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Does that mean we've shifted into another timeline in the multiverse?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, people say that the Large Hadron Collider
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: somehow caused something called the Mandela effect, which is this
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: weird sensation that maybe we're in the wrong universe. Hmm.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I think I want to be in the timeline where
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: nobody believes in the Mendela effect, because that's just silliness.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: But isn't this an established the physics theory kind of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the multiverse.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to keep running the LC until we
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: end up in the universe I want to be in.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Is there a universe you want to live in? This
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: one's pretty good, So stop running the LAC then, because
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it could get worse.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: All Right, you convinced me?
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Good? Pressent button, press that big red button.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Oo.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Horaemery, cartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Big Universe.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: at uc Erline, and I'm a big fan of this universe.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a huge fan of this universe, especially because
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it made me and everyone I.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Know, and despite that we're all fans of it as well.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of the universes that didn't make me.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: The obviously didn't know what it was doing.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: What if blueberries in those universe taste twice as good?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: You still think that those universes are not worth knowing?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Well, you mean can we visit them?
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah? If we go visit those universes and they have
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: amazing pastries we never even thought about before, But there's
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: no jhee cham. Are you gonna be like, nah, this
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: isn't worth visiting.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well, it's worth visiting, but I still like my universe.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Could we import these blueberries? I mean it sounds like
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a market opportunity if you ask me.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a startup idea, right there, will multiverse pastries,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we need a need like economics term
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: for multidimensional trade benefits.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: I think gives a whole new meaning to import export,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: multi import, multi export, quantum importing or quantum exporting exactly.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Finally a use for the word quantum that means something.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be quantum rich. But anyways, Welcome to our
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Our Heart Radio.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: In which we explore the fundamental meaning of reality and
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the laws that govern it. We dig our way down
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: to the bedrock of nature and try to figure out
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: what the rules are for this universe, how they come
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: together to make this amazing, creative, bonkers universe that features
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: both blueberries, pastries and Jorge chams.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: That's right. We try to explore this universe, other universes,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: all the universes, and what it all means to maybe
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: have different universes, and how we're ever going to find
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: out what the true reality of nature is.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: One way to explore the reality of nature is to
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: do experiments and to test our universe and force it
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to reveal its laws. But another very important way is
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: to think about the possible universes we might live in,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: to be creative, to imagine the ways that the universe
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: might be. That's something that theoretical physicists do, but it's
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: also something that science fiction authors do. They create whole
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: new universes in their minds and think about what it
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: means to live in those universes, what the consequences of
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: that fictional science might be.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That's right. Science fiction has a long and interesting history
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of thinking about possibilities for technology science and what those
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: changes and those possibilities might mean for the universe we
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: live in and the way that we live in.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Because one reason why physics is so important and so
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: influential is because it has great consequences. The things that
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: we learned about the nature of reality tell us a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: lot about the meaning of our lives. If you discovered
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: that we lived in a multiverse with infinite numbers of
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: copies of you, would you feel more valuable less valuable?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It certainly would change your perspective on the meaning of
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: your life and the ways that you make your choices.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Science fiction authors are often very clever at exploring the
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: ways that understanding the universe affects the meaning of our lives.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Or I guess at least looking at current theories and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: then maybe exploring that, maybe before they're established or not,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: just kind of wondering what would that if this theory
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: was true? What would that mean for our everyday lives.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And sometimes even coming up with new technologies that might
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: be consequences of those theories that could change the daily
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: pattern of our lives. So on the podcast, we're normally
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: talking about actual physics of our actual universe, but we
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: have a whole series of episodes exploring the science of
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: fictional universes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So at the end of the program we'll be exploring
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the science fiction universe of Constellation. Yeah, this is a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: new TV show right on Apple TV.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: That's right, Constellation is on Apple TV and it's a
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: science fiction show written by one of my favorite screenwriters,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: and it's a lot of fun.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Ooh, one of your favorite screenwriters. I didn't know you
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: followed screenwriters.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I watch a lot of TV, so I do
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: call this Guy's written detective mysteries that I've seen, and
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: also wrote the adaptation for Jonathan Strange and Mister Norell,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a famously fantastical book.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my wife watched that show. Is that a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: good show? I guess you liked it if if it's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: one of your favorite writers.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: The book is absolutely astounding and incredible. Really just a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: worker genius. But I thought it was going to be unadaptable.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: It's just so complicated and intricate. But he did a
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: great job at the TV show. The TV show is
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a different thing than the book, but really well adapted.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Well. Now, this writer called Peter Harness now has a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: new show on Apple TV and it's titled Constellation.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: That's right, and this one's salve in the science fiction category,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of quantum physics in it. Bose
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Einstein condensates, space travel, multiverse, all this kind of stuff.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: WHOA, So, I guess what's the TV show about.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So it starts on the International Space Station. There's a
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: bunch of astronauts up there and they're doing a science experiment.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: They're making a Bose Einstein condensate on the space station,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: which is what so Bose Einstein condensate is a weird
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: state of matter. Remember that particles fall into two categories,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: fermions and bosons. Fermions, like electrons and other matter particles,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: have this rule that you can't have two of them
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: in the same state. So if you try to cool
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: down a bunch of electrons, for example, that won't actually
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: all fall down to the lowest energy level. They'll each
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: find their own place on the ladder, so the whole
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: thing won't really cool down as much. But if you
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: play with bosons like photons or some kind of atoms,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: they have no compunction against occupying the same energy level,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: so you can cool them down much much lower. And
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: if you take a bunch of them and you cool
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: them all down, then their wave function overlap and they
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: form this new state of matter called a Bose Einstein contensate,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: which is cool because it's sort of macroscopic. It's like
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: big enough you can see it, and it has quantum properties,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: like it interferes with itself and all sorts of cool stuff.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So it's like a macroscopic piece of matter that has
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: quantum properties. It was first discovered in the nineties and
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: now they've replicated it in lots of situations, including in
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: real life on the space station.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Wha, don't you need a lot of equipment for that,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: like like giant machines or can you do this in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: your desktop or your spacetop.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I guess you don't need giant machines. It's not like
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the large Hadron collider. Mostly this is done with atomic physics,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: and so you need like an atom trap and you
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: need magnets, maybe lasers. It's not enormous, Okay.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: So then the scientists in the show did this in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: space and then what happened?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: So in the show they do this in space, and
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: then weird stuff happens. There's an accident and they come
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: back to Earth and discover that it's not really the
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Earth they're familiar with. You know, some details are different
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: and people have different memories, and everybody thinks maybe they
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: went crazy up there. And as you watch it, you
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: discover that you're actually watching two stories in parallel, like
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: two different elements of a multiverse that have come to interact.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: When the scientists did that experiment in space. WHOA.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So the show is following this group of astronauts and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: when they come back, things are different, and it's because
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: they're not in the same universe or are we going
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: back and forth between the two universes.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Both some of them have switched over to another universe,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: and so now they don't like have the memory of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: the correct history anymore. They disagree with people like did
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: we buy that red car? I thought our car was blue,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. And there is still some interaction
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: between the universes, like the same person from two universes
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: can now talk to each other under some circumstances, and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: so it's like these two universes have come into contact
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: and changed both of them.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Wait, like the people in the two universes swap places.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: In some cases, yes, not everybody, but in some cases yeah.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Oh interesting. Now I guess as a quantum scientist, Daniel,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: do you watch this and you're like, that's a lot
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of vs or or do you find it interesting?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I always find it interesting, and what I'm looking for
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is consistency. I treat each of these shows the way
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I treat our universe, like I assume it's following some rules,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: and I want to figure out what the rules are.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: It's like watching a murder mystery. You're gathering clues, You're
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out what happened. And so when they
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: do experiments and get weird results, I take that as
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the writers communicated to me some information about the way
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: their universe works, so I want to try to figure
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: it out. I'm not insisting that the science in that
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: universe obey the same rules as the science in our universe.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Of course, it's called science fiction for a reason, and
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: it's really fun for me to try to figure out
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: what are the rules of that universe.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, so then what are the rules in this universe.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It sounds like maybe it's getting into the multiverse and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the quantum multiverse in particular.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this leans a lot on things we're familiar with
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: in quantum mechanics, you know, superposition, the idea idea that
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: a particle can have the possibility of being in two
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: places at once, that both possibilities can exist simultaneously before
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: you look, and that only when a classical object interacts
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: with it does universe have to pick one or the other.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Like an electron can have a possibility to go left
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: or right, and it's not that it does both, but
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: that it maintains the possibility of having done both until
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: you've measured it. The idea of entanglement that two particles
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: with these possibilities can have their possibilities like tied together
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: in complicated ways. Ideas of interference, that these possibilities can
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: cancel each other out. All this kind of stuff is
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: used to pretty good effect in the show. But the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: fundamental concept they're dealing with is actually not a multiverse.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It's something else. It's called a mirror verse, which is
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: like a multiverse but with only two universes in it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But two is multi though, isn't it.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think the more common idea of a
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: multiverse has an infinite number of universes in it, or
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: at least an enormous number. The most typical idea of
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: multiverse is the one that exists in like the Many
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: World's theory of quantum mechanics that says that when an
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: electron has a possibility to go left and to go right,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that both things do happen, that the universe splits into
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: two branches, and both of those universes then exist, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: those are different elements of the quantum multiver.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Right, And then that's supposed to happen with every single
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: particle that exists in the world. Like each time any
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: of the Brazilians electrons in the universe does something or
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: picks a possibility, you split off a new universe.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so every billisecond, all the ten to the ninety
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: particles in the universe are creating new universes. So there's
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: an enormous number, many more than just two. In this show,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: he's operating a much simpler sort of multiverse with just
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: two universes in it, which he calls the mirror Verse.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: But why only two? How did these two get created?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. And as you'll hear in
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: my interview, I asked him about that, and he didn't
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: want to reveal it because he's got secret he wants
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to reveal in season two. But there are some.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: That's like a side to saying, I'll do this in
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: my future work.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: My second Nobel Prize, we'll explain all of that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But there are some legit theories of the mirror verse
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: out there. I'm not exactly sure what Peter Harness has
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: in his brain, but there are scientists that talk about.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: The mirror verse really like why too well.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Our universe is weird in some ways. For example, our
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: universe does not respect parody. Parody is like if you
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: flip the universe so that everything looks the way it
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: would in a mirror, you like, reflect it through the axis,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: then the laws of physics would operate a little bit differently.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Our universe is sort of weirdly left handed, you've reflected
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: it in a mirror, it would look a little bit different.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: We have a whole episode about paroity violation in our universe.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: But there are some ways in which our universe has
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: made one of two choices, and so you can imagine
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: that there might be a mirror of our universe out there.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: In a mirror verse where the opposite is true, like
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: the right handed version of our universe.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Then this is just like one choice you can make.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Aren't there like a bazillion of these choices.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. You know, there are other
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: basic symmetries. Parody is one that's violated maximally, though, and
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: so it's the one that seems most ripe for flipping,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: you know, like time invariant symmetry is also not respect
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: in our universe, but is violated less dramatically than parity.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: But you're right, you could have another universe where that's flipped.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: There's also charge in variance, but that one's actually respected
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: in our universe. But yeah, there are other ways you
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: can imagine flipping the universe where it's made one choice
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: or another, Like you could have another universe where what
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: we call anti matter is the dominant kind of matter
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: in the universe.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Right. I think what you're saying is, maybe, you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: there are certain rules in physics that maybe apply to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: there being two versions of us of a universe.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, exactly, and time is an especially powerful one.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: There was a theory that bounced around a few years
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: ago that at the Big Bang, two universes were created,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: one flowing forwards in time and one flowing backwards in time.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Right, the Big Bang and then the Big Bong, Right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pass it over man, and another hit.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Of the big Bone. That's how they came up with
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this theory, isn't it Yeah?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And there were even those crazy events from the
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Anita experiment at the South Pole that we just talked
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: about on the episode with Harry Cliff that received a
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: lot of silly buzz in the press for NASA discovers
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: a parallel universe right next to hours, which was totally
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: scientific misinformation. But there are those theories of another universe
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: going backwards in time. In none of those cases, though,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: would you be able to interact with that universe? Like,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: in none of those cases could you do an experiment
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: which is then can interfere because the quantum mechanics of
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: it is quite crisp. Like these universes when they branch,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: do you call them another universe because you cannot interact
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: with it? That's sort of what it means. Like you
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: have the big wave function from the multiverse and then
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: it decoheres into separate wave functions. Those wave functions don't
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: interfere with each other, can't interact with each other at all.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: That's sort of what we mean by another universe. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the idea that you could do an experiment, even a
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: weird quantum one with Bose Einstein condensate in space, that
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: would somehow bring those universes together, that's science fiction. That's
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: not something we see in our kind of science at all.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: That doesn't mean Peter Harness can't write it into the
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: fiction of his universe, but it's not something that exists
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: in our theories in any way.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So you're saying the whole show is just a bunch
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of bs. I'm going to ask you, that's kind of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: what you just said, Daniel. I didn't say it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: No, I'm saying it's fiction, and he's allowed to create
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: new rules for his universe. And as you'll hear in
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the interview, I asked him about this, whether he's operating
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: by the rules in our universe or some speculative physics theories.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing he just said, yes, I'm going to reveal
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the reason for that in the next season.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what he said.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: See, I can predict things in our universe as well,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: all right, well, here is Daniel's interview with screenwriter Peter Harness,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: creator of the new Apple TV show Constellation.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: All right, well then, it's my great pleasure to welcome
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: to the podcast. Peter Harness, an English playwright, screenwriter and actor.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much for joining us.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I need to update Wikipedia. I
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: haven't done any acting for a very long time, but
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: it's nice. It's still it's nice, it still believes that
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I have more.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Once an actor, always an actor. So tell us a
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: little bit about your background. How did you get into
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: writing for television and science fiction writing starting from playwriting?
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: I think that I always wanted to write for TV
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: really more than anything else. And if I did a
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: little bit of playwriting earlier in my career, I think
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: it was a bit of a I can't really say
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: means to an end because both careers are pretty difficult
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: to get into, but I think I kind of did
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: it in the absence of writing for TV because really
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: that's what I've always wanted to do. That's my first love,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: rather than film or the stage or anything like that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: So it was, yes, I was always trying my best
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: to get into TV from the get go.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: And why is that. Why were you so excited about
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: writing for television? What about that medium excited you?
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: I think that I grew up watching so much television.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but the majority of my
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: childhood was spent watching TV, and I was a big
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: fan of I was a doctor who obsessive when I
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: was small. And there's something about that program and the
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: kind of level of scrutiny that fans go into on it.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: It kind of brings you into an awareness of television
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: is actually made by people, and that it has writers
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: and producers and other people who make it. I found
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: that fascinating, and I found the whole, like the history
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: of television fascinating, and I kind of started doing a
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: PhD on an English TV dramatist called Dennis Potter who
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: wrote The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven and Blue Room,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: embed Hills and things like that, and he was very
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: well known in his day, and he was one of
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: those people who just, you know, expanded the boundaries of
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: what is what's possible with storytelling on the small screen.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: And I've always wanted to get into it and be
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: able to tell those biggest stories over a longer period
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: of time. That you can't do in a movie or
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: a play. It's really it's really luxury to have seven
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: or eight hours to play with, or fifteen hours or
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: something like that. You can essentially tell a whole, big,
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: novelistic story and it can go anywhere and do anything.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I still find that incredibly exciting.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you've done such a diversity of work, including original
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: stuff like Constellation and also really challenging adaptations like Jonathan
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Strange and Mister Norell, which I watched and loved. Congratulations,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I tell us about the various challenges of that adapting
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and existing complex work and inventing a whole new world yourself.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: It's very nice that you mentioned Jonathan Stranger Miss Normal
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: because I think, actually, other than Constellation, it's the thing
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: that I'm most proud of. I really I wouldn't change
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: a single second of that. I really love that show.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And I have to say, watching that, I was very
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: skeptical because I thought, who is going to adapt this? Wow?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: This book is insane, So congrats, I was really impressed
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: by it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it's a challenge to get hold of
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: one of those unadaptable books. It is a challenge to
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: adapt it, and I like that kind of challenge. I
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: like that kind of mental puzzle. And it's an interesting
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: process adapting a book. And it's different with every book, actually,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: because some authors have strengths or weaknesses in certain areas
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: and you have to be quite sensitive with them. I mean,
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: I think, maybe this isn't the right way to do it.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: But whenever I adapted a book, I wanted I always
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: wanted it to feel something like the experience of reading
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: the book, you know, to preserve not just cherry pick
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: the ideas and the characters and some of the plot
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: and just do a kind of radical throw out of
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: everything and put all of my own ideas into it,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: perhaps naively and foolishly, like I say, I always wanted
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to preserve, preserve the tone and the soul of the
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: original book, and that varies obviously very much from books
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: to book. And with something like Johns and Stranger, Miss
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: and Noral, which has such a distinct voice and such
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: a distinct sense of humor and world, and I love
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: that book myself, and I really wanted, I really wanted
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: to make it as magical and funny and exciting to
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: watch as it was to read. The challenge usually is
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: to just basically take the book to pieces and find
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: out what all the component parts are, and what the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: what makes the characters tick, and which images and which
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: scenes are important, and then and then I tend to
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: kind of build a dramatic structure underneath it. If you
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: see what I mean. A lot of novels don't really
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: they're not really according to like a film or TV
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: structure for storytelling. They've got their own pace and they
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: expect you to spend ten minutes with them on an
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: evening or kind of a couple of hours with them
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: on a train. So they're not they're not hooking you
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: in the same way. And so I always kind of
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: get inside and make the architecture a little bit different,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: and then and then layer the bits of the story
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: that we remember back on with that. So it's quite
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: it's quite a delicate and surgical procedure, but it's a
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: lot of fun. And like I said, I was always
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: interested in adapting books that maybe people had had a
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: go at before and found difficult or found not easy
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: to tell in a movie or something. And I enjoyed
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: that very much. But I kind of found myself doing
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: more and more adaptations, and that's not surprising because most
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: things are adaptations these days. But really, after Strange and Novel,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: I made myself a promise that I wasn't really going
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: to seriously focus on anything else until I'd gotten an
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: original idea over the line. That's why I got into writing,
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: That's why I wanted to be a writer. I have
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: stories that I want to tell, and it's easy to
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: get sidetracked into not telling them. So I promise myself
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: that for good of thrill, I would I'd focus on
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: trying to get an original thing over the line.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Cancelation is definitely a very original story, and so we
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: want to talk about that. But first we want to
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: orient ourselves sort of where you stand in the science
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: fiction universe. So we have a few questions we ask
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: all of our science fiction authors. So the first one
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: is do you think that Star Trek transporters kill you
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and clone you or actually transport your atoms somewhere else?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: That is, are they teleporters or actually murder machines.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I think that's such a depressing thought. I'm always much
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: more on the doctor Who's side than the Star Trek side,
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: so I always feel a little bit kind of adulterous
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: thinking about the Star Trek, but they use that technology
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: in a Peter Cavaldi episode and Stephen actually made a
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: kind of play of that that he'd been broken down
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: into atoms and essentially killed and recreated. And I just
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: think that such a disturbing and horrible thought. But I
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: think that that kind of has to be how it works, right,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: that has to be how it works. But it's just
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: it's just the most hideous thing that I've ever that
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I've ever thought about. It looks, it looks so beautiful
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: and graceful, but yeah, they're just being butchered. No. I
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: think horrible as it is to think that, I think
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: that that that is what happened.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: So as difficult as that is to embrace. What technology
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: in science fiction would you most like to see become reality? Which,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: as a scientist to actually be working on.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: It's hard to think of anything that I'd like to
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: see become a reality because usually the potential uses of
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: it or are also disturbing. I don't know, I'm a
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: bit of a ludd Eye. Really, I'm kind of anti technology.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: It's not a great place to be in if you're
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: writing science fiction. I'm more horrified by the by the
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: potential frontiers of science than I am that I am
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: excited by them necessary I can't actually think of something.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'd love to see time travel happening. I'd
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: love to see interstellar space travel. Actually, in terms of constellation,
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: it would be very interesting to get to the end
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: of quantum physics, or get even half an inch further
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: along the line, because the suggestions that it makes about
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: the universe are so are so tantalizing and interesting. But
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: I just generally think we're probably it's very hard for
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: us to cope with the technology that we've got. It
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: would be great if we could invent a machine which
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: would just put some of it back in the box
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: and then ration it out again a little bit more,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: a little bit more slowly, so we could actually cope
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: with it without driving ourselves mad.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: As a species, well, maybe we should see science fiction
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: as warnings rather than inspiration. And then our last general
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: question is what's your personal answer to the Fermi paradox?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: If the galaxy is so old and there's so many
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: habitable planets, why haven't any aliens visited us yet?
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: It's another depressing answer, and I'm obviously not the first
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: one to come up with it. It's because civilizations tend
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: to wipe themselves out before they managed to achieve that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: And also it might actually be impossible crossing such vast
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: levels of space might be something which just stumps any science. Yeah,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: and I'm not entirely sure that aliens haven't visited as either,
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I think it's probably that they can't start
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: fighting each other for long enough to concentrate on getting
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: off the planet.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So then let's turn to Constellation. The show, which is
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun, features a lot of themes of
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: quantum mechanics, this superposition, multiverse, entanglement, et cetera. Tell me
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: what droot of these themes? What excited you about these
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: themes from a storytelling point of view.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't start out by one wanting to write
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: something about quantum physics. I started out really from the
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: idea of astronauts returning to Earth and feeling that something
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: was a miss and also this little ghost story of
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: a little girl lost in the forest and hiding in
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: a cupboard in an old, abandoned cabin. And that was
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: what really just came out when I sat down to
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: write the pilot, and so the whole development of the
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: show was working out how those two things fitted together,
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: and how and how that mother got back to that
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: child and had what had happened up there, and what
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: was causing the things that he was going through back
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: on Earth. And I think the quantum physics ideas just
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: started to slot in and started to give it some
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: degree of organization. And I'm very interested in the frontiers
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: of some ions and that quote biartheisy Clark about any
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: science sufficiently advanced being indistinguishable from magic. I find it
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: very interesting to see science at at the edge of
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: itself and how many things remain mysterious and unexplained. And
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: one of the things that the people who work with
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: quantum physics keep on saying about it is that it's
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: that if you think you understand it, you don't understand it.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, Einstein called it spooky action at a distance,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: didn't it? And there is something tantalizingly spooky about it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: And I like thinking about how you might explain you
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: might explain things like ghosts or fairies or historical UFO
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: encounters in terms of science and how they collide and
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: whether there's actually any difference between them, or whether whether
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: we're just describing the same thing in different terms. If
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: you see what I mean. It's very interesting to play
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: around with where science interacts with mythology or madness or
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: consciousness or other things that we don't really understand about
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: the human condition. And I wanted, I wanted to write
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: something which which took you through those steps and also
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: had the feeling of each of those each of those things.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Well, the show feels almost like it's written in the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: style of a thriller or a mystery, but you know,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: in a science fiction y sort of universe or in context.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And I know it's often said that you can't write
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: a mystery in the science fiction universe because for a mystery,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: the reader has to know what the rules are, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: in science fiction the rules can be almost anything. And
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: you've written mystery and detective shows yourself, so for you,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: how important is it for the viewer that your universe
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: follows a coherent and consistent set of rules, even if
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: those rules, you know, not the same as the rule
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of our actual universe.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I think writing something like this it's very important. I
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: think that it's it's it's no good if you if
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: you can just switch things out at the last minute
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: and and say and now she can grow another head,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: or it's all about time travel. I think it's I
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: think it's very important because obviously part of the part
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: of the interest for some members of the audience is
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: figuring out those rules, and part of the fun of
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: making it is dropping hints to that and trying to
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: try to ration the ration the information, or allow people
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: a little bit more information here and there and let
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: them let them work out what's happening. But within that,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I think you've got to be very the audience has
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: to feel confident that there are rules. I think you've
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: got to present it with enough confidence to say, Okay,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe you don't know what's happening yet, but
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: that's all right, because none of our characters do either,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: and they're figuring it out alongside you, and you'll probably
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: actually get there a little bit ahead of them. So
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: it's fine. It's fine if you don't know everything at
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: the beginning, because you know, trust me, we're not making
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: it up. As we go along. Things will start to
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: fall into place. I think it's very important to do that,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: and I think it's I think it's also very important
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: within that to give to have characters which are which
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: are living and breathing, and real characters and real situations.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: So even if the law of the series or the
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: background of the series isn't in focus, you have clear
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: emotional investment in the characters. You know what they're going through.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: And with Constellation, I really tried in each of those
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: situations that Joe or Alice or Henry and Bud find themselves,
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: I wanted to kind of present them like everybody knows
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: what it's like to go through a breakup, or most
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: people have an indication of what it's like to live
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: with someone who's suffering from mental illness. Everybody knows what
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: it's like to have a difficult relationship with a parent
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: or a child, And so I tried to get at
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: it through those things and give the emotional, the emotional
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: journey of it, the emotional backbone of it, a real strength,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: so so it would carry all the weirdness along with
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: it and be and be understandable of itself.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm definitely the slice of the audience that likes
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: to figure out what are the rules of this universe
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: that I'm watching. To me, that's the fun of science fiction.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: It's like a big detective mystery. It's like what are
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: the clues. How does this world work? I'm trying to
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: piece it together. And that's a parallel to what we
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: actually do in reality. Like that's what science is. Where
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: all trying to solve the mystery of the universe and
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: we're getting a bunch of clues and trying to figure
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: out how it all makes sense. And I completely agree
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: with you with to trust the writer that it does
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: make sense, that there is some sense. And here in
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: our actual universe, I'm hoping that there really is some
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: sense behind everything. And we do wonder sometimes if there
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: is a coherent explanation, if they're just making things up.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: So tell us in your universe, the universe of Constellation
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: takes place in in your mind, is it following the
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: same rules of physics as our universe or have you
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: sort of departed from it and created your own laws
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: that that that universe follows.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, I would say yes, yea, yes it is. But
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: the laws of physics that it's following are perhaps interpreted
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: in a slightly kind of artistic way. They're not necessarily
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: kind of literally interpreted. I think the various quantum elements
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: are probably slightly I just I just found analogies kind
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: of from life or illustrated them in a way which
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: is not kind of replicatable in an experiment. But I'm
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: kind of obviously not a scientist, but from what I've
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: read and researched and understood it, here's to certain theories
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: about how physics might work, and whether they're provable or
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: proved or possible in the way that I present them,
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know, but it's all it's all, to my
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: mind possible, and and to to the kind of scientists
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: that I've spoken to, it's it's possible. Perhaps it's not likely,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: but but it's a there's a world in which it's possible.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I'd love if you could go into more detail about
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: your process here. You mentioned that you've spoken to scientists,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: you've done some research. What is it like when you're
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: writing on a topic that, as you said, you're not
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: an ex britty and you want to get right. Do
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: you call it a bunch of old friends? Is there
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: some like bank of scientists you can refer to. You
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: just do a bunch of reading yourself, some combination.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: It's a bit of a combination. I read up on
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: it as much as I could, and we had a
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: very really brilliant scientific advisor called Michael Brooks who used
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: to I believe he used to edit New Scientist, and
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: he writes a lot about the quantum universe and research
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: into the quantum universe, and he was very helpful at
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: looking at how the plot was taking shape and suggesting
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: ways in which it could more closely mirror the research
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: or certain theories or certain branches of it, and that
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: was really helpful. He was very good about suggesting the
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: actual physical circumstances in which you know, a consciousness might
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: porously go somewhere else and chemically what that might look
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: like in terms of how the brain is working. I mean,
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: I asked him quite a lot about consciousness because I think,
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: as well as all the quantum stuff, I think that
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: it's really about It's really about how the human consciousness
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: works and how we process reality, and to what extent
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: consciousness is a thing that can bleed between different places
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: and so and so we have rules for all of that,
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: those things that Henry writes on the board in episode
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: for hinting at it, but there's he was just very
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: useful at filling in gaps where I maybe was just wondering, how, how,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: how could this work. If this was a thing, how
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: might it work? And he was very responsive and helpful
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: in saying, well, it could work like this, And I'd say,
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: does that sound likely to you? And it sounds as
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: likely as anything else. What do I know? He was
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: great And for the space stuff, I mean, we were
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: very keen that everything that could be made authentic about
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: it was felt very authentic. The design of the ISS
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: is extremely authentic, and the space procedure in the space
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: jargon is as authentic as we could we could make it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: We had Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: and is also an identical twin whose brother also spent
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: a year in space, and he was extremely helpful. We
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: had a couple of consultants from ISA, and I did
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: a lot of research about it. You buy yourself a
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: luxury to invent these weird and crazy happenings by telling
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: a story which otherwise seems very plausible and very authentic.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Well, congrats, I'm doing so much research. I respect that.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So I asked our listeners if they had questions for
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: you about the show, and many of them are watching
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: it and enjoying it, and some of their questions were
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: about the multiverse, it struck them that it seems like
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: in the story there are basically two universes interacting, and
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: they were wondering why these two and why you decided
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: to have two universes interacting rather than like many many
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: universes you know, of the potentially infinite in the multiverse.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to tell you everything that I could,
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: because I want to give us some grunt to cover
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: in the event that we get to continue telling the story.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: It's a mirror verse rather than a multiverse, I think,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: And there's also a kind of physics related reason for
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: that too that I'm not going to kind of say
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: much about for now, But I think if you get
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: if you get into a multiverse situation where suddenly everything
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: is possible and you're suddenly achering off into bubble universes
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: at every decision point, that's a different kind of story.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: And that is a world in which theoretically everything is possible,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: and I wanted it to feel rather more closed and
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: consequential than that. You know, there are two realities. They're
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: extremely closely mirrored for reasons, but there are only kind
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: of two versions of our characters who may who may
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: or may not meet in the middle somewhere, and I
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: think that that somehow seems a bit more dangerous to
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: me and a bit more important than a multiverse where
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: some where, you know, someone can die and it doesn't
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: matter very much because there's another version of them there,
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: and someone can choose to wear a pink hat one day,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: and someone can have, you know, several noses and eighty
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: five sisters in one different universe, and eighty four sisters
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: and the other. It just suddenly becomes kind of weird, baffling.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: And I wanted to make something about a very tight,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: particular constellation of people, and I think the mirroring and
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: having another one of you, that's something that we can understand,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: and that's a notion that we have in us. We
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: have you know, we've got mirrors all around us, We've
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: got reflective surfaces. I think that that's a much more
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: to me. That's a more interesting proposition really than a multiverse,
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: which is which is also fascinating. But I wouldn't know
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: how to begin to organize the rules of telling that story.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: And you know, you get into kind of everything everywhere,
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: all at one situation, which is utterly exhilarating. But I'd
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: soon I'd soon feel totally out of control of that,
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: you know. So it's a mirror verse, and there's obviously
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: some sort of meeting point in the middle, some sort
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: of liminal space or some you know, superpositional space where
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: things are not quite decided in the middle, and that
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: just seemed to be eventually the right way to tell
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: the story. I'm sure. I'm sure I did tinker around
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: with them maybe being other versions, other realities, but it
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: would have just it would have driven me even more
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: insane than writing it with two realities already drove me.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: So I didn't do that well.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: This idea of a liminal space, the connection between the
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: two universes, I thought was really fascinating as you're writing it.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: What are the sort of rules for how the two
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: universes can overlap? Because sometimes they seem separate, like two
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: characters can't hear each other, and sometimes they do seem connected,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: they can hear each other. Other times it's through a
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: tape recording. I don't want to ask you to reveal
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: too many secrets, but so, what are the rules you
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: have in your mind for how these two universes interact?
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: What can I say I don't I don't want to
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: seem coy about it. I'm a bit allergic to shutting
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: everything down in terms of spoilers, but but I know
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: if we carry on telling the story, there's a lot
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: of this to reveal, and I don't want to want
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it and
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: advance for anybody because I know how how much people
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: enjoy figuring it out. Yeah, there are there are rules
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: to it, and perhaps it's got something to do with
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: the cow, and perhaps it's got something to do with
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: being in space, and perhaps it has something to do
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: with a particular emotional state or brain chemistry or something
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: like that. That's very vague, but it's kind of in
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: that area.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: It's vague but intriguing, Thank you very much. So then
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: my last question for you is do you have a
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: full idea of the whole story before you sit down
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: and write. You outline the entire plot and then you
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: sit down to write it, or you sort of discovering
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: it on the page as you write it. And is
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: that also true for like seasons two and three, you
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: already have those worked out.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: That I completely don't do it like that. I wish
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: I did. It would be a lot more efficient, I think,
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: But I tend to. I tend to work things out
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: on the page, and I tend to I tend to
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: write a lot of different material and then look at
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: it because it all, it all kind of comes from
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: the same place. If you're if you're dreaming up a project,
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: it all your your brain is very clever and good
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: at working things out subconsciously and generating these things without
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: you having to instruct it too much. So I tend
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: to write quite quite a big bunch of stuff and
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: then work out how how it all fits together, and
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: how the stories fit together, and how the characters, how
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: are the characters journeys and personalities merge, and give it
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: forward momentum. And I don't know, I don't know whether
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: that's the most efficient way of doing it, but I
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: know that I know that if you're outlining something properly,
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: outlining it is almost as difficult as writing it. It's
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: a peril of the job that you do have to
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: do outlines and things. But I'm not that great at
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: sticking to them all the time, because you just find
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: that if you're writing an outline of thing, something you're
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: kind of writing in shorthand. Often because you're not seeing
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: how ideally, if you're writing scenes, kind of characters just
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: lead you off in a different direction, or they lead
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: you somewhere a bit surprising and you think, oh, well,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: I actually kind of can't tell that scene next because
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: because the characters, you know, decided against that and we
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: and we have to go somewhere else. And I'm a
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: big believer in going down rabbit holes and exploring blind
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: alleys because you'll always you'll always find something of interest there,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: and even if it's just a line or a thought,
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: or even if or if it's just the knowledge that
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: the path that you that you didn't take, you were
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: right not to take. So it is a big period
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: of exploration for me. Having said that, I've been living
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: with this world and these characters for such a long
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: time that I do have I've got a good broad
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: idea of where it all goes. I've got i've got
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: a good idea of their their history and their backstory
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: and the stories that they can tell. And I've i've
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: got i've got an end destination. So so really i've
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: kind of I've got the broad brushstrokes of it, and
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: many specific happenings and events along the way, but I could.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: I couldn't tell you what's going to happen at the
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: end of episode three in season four, because I mean,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: I've got to leave myself somewhere to go as well.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: You know, if you know exactly what you go into
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: right then then you can't surprise yourself and it stops
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: being so interesting to sit down and do it if
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: you just feel your inking it in.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: As I say, well, congratulations on season one. It was
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun to watch. What are you working
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: on right now? Is it Constellation season two or do
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: you have some other project cooking? Well, well, I am
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I can't answer that, Okay, undisclosed projectdisclosed projects.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, but I'm busy. I'm fairly busy just now.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: I wish I was having a holiday, but I'm not. Yes,
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: so I'm keeping myself busy.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Wonderful. Well, congratulations again, and thanks very much
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: for talking to us.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: All Right, pretty interesting interview. I noticed you were sort
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of fan boying a little bit.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I really respect what this guy has done. I
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: like his writing. I like what he's done with his career.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: You know, he's taken chances. I think it's just awesome.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I love getting to talk to people in other paths
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: in life and hearing about their experience and the risks
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: they took and what it's like to be there, because
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you know, we only choose one path in our life,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: and so it's sort of fascinating to imagine other paths
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: in your own life. And one way to do that
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: is to talk to people who have taken those paths.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: The mirror verse of your life. Yeah, did you ever
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: think at some point of being a TV writer? Sounds
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: like maybe you did.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I have written for television, dude, so have you?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: We have a TV show together, I mean, like science fiction,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: physics stuff.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We don't have any science fiction in
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: our show. Yeah. I would love to write science fiction.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about for television, but I read a
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: lot of science fiction. I think about science fiction just
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: like I think about science It's a lot of fun.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe one day.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: So what else did you do You feel you learned
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: from Peter Harness about the process of writing for science
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: fiction for TV.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was really curious what his process was, and
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: he took it pretty seriously. You know, he's not a physicist,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: of course, but he reached out to some scientists. He
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: did a bunch of reading. He tried to write something
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: which was respectful of the ideas of science, but also
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: he took some liberties, you know, in order to tell
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: a story, and so I respect what he did.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Cool. Did you give me your business card? Are you like.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Calling let's collab man?
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Is that how they say it these days.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Let's find ourselves in a universe where we worked together.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: That's right. I want to interfere with your next project.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I want to entangle myself now.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: That career sound like something you would one in your
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: in your life there.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I want to superimpose myself on your writing process.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: That's right. I am super imposing myself onto your contact list. Yeah.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: I think he wants to keep my spooky action at
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: a distance.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, he wants no entanglement for exactly.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: I respect that. I respect that. No, it was very
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: nice of him to take some time to talk to me.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: I enjoy it.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you very much, Peter Harness, and please check
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: out his new show Constellation, available on Apple TV. Well,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us. See
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: you next time.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: For more science and curiosity, come find us on social media.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: disc Org, Insta and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: favorite shows.