Imagine the day that aliens arrive not with a death ray, but with a rug and a new understanding of physics. Daniel Weitzen's new book opens with a wild question. What if aliens show up with a better understanding of physics, but we can't even recognize that's what they're offering, how it would react. Physicists hope that aliens might carry the product of millions, billions or gazillions of years of alien scientific thought that would catapult us unimaginably into the future. But Daniel speculates on why we might not be able to understand even the language it's written in. Join us today for conversation about Daniel Weinson's new book, Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Erupt through the Drake equation. The future of artificial intelligence and physics, and even the search for exotic new particles. Now let's go deep into the impossible today with, with Daniel.

We're talking about his newest book, Do Aliens Speak Physics? With co author Andy Werner. So this is an interesting book. And as you know, what I like to do is what you're never supposed to do, judge books by their covers.

Hey, book lovers, we're judging books by the covers. We know we're not supposed to do it, but I enter the impossible. There's nothing to. Let's take a look and judge some books.

So I want you to take us through the title, the subtitle of this book, and the amazing illustrations throughout. But, but especially the COVID illustration. We, we both forgot to bring in professorial, you know, prerogative, professorial physicist podcast, or, you know, triple P, Triple Threat. Take us through the COVID What does it mean and how did you come up with the idea? Titled subtitle, cover card.

Nice. Thank you. So, yeah, the title is Do Aliens Speak Physics? And the book is really asking the question of whether we can make men contact with another intelligent species using physics. Because this is something you hear often. You know, Carl Sagan says that aliens live in the same universe as we and so they must discover the same laws of physics and chemistry as we. And when you see it on television shows, it's often math and physics that people begin with to make connections with aliens. Because the assumption is that while, you know, psychology and economics and biology are about Earth based questions, physics is about the universe. And Newton told us that physics doesn't just apply here on Earth, but also in the cosmos.

Right. And we can see galaxy spinning and apply our laws of physics. And so there's this sort of widespread belief that physics is something we'll have in common with aliens. And I'd love for that to be true, because I want to know the answers to questions. I want to talk to aliens about physics. I hope that civilizations that have been asking these questions for billions of years have figured a bunch of stuff out right, and they would share the knowledge with us. But it always seemed to me to be a little bit too flattering, too self centering to assume that the ideas we have, our descriptions of the universe, are the description. The human humanity's attempt to explain the cosmos is the reality of the cosmos.

So I wanted to dig into the assumptions behind that and to figure out, like, what do we really know about how aliens might think about the universe? Whether they are. Whether they have to use math, whether they'd be interested in the same things. So that's the impetus. And, you know, it comes really from a philosophical question which is, you know, is physics, human physics discovered? Is it part of reality or is it invented? Is it our description? Is it the map or the territory? And that was the book I wanted to write originally. And I pitched that to my teenager who's interested in science and tech, and he was like, ugh, philosophy and physics, yawn. And I thought, oh no, this is my passion project. But then I went back, add in some 6, 7.

Add in some brain rot.

Well, I decided to add in aliens. I was like, well, why does it matter if physics is invented or discovered? It matters when we meet the aliens, when we try to have that conversation. If they have a different way of approaching explanations of the universe, it'll be quite obvious quite quickly. So I can't back to him and said, well, what if it's a book about when aliens arrive and we try to talk to them about physics? Would that go well or badly? And he was like, oh, I'd read that book. And so that's why aliens are in the book. And that's why it's about whether aliens speak physics. Is physics the language that we can use to communicate with them? Is it the thing we have in common? Are you and I, Brian, just two professors in like a galactic enterprise to understand the universe? Wouldn't that be incredible? But because it's philosophical, we added, you know, and other questions about the nature of reality and the universe.

And it's. It follows in your long tradition. Tradition of collaborating with artists. Yes. So there's a tremendous number of artistic renderings of many different things. In particular, just the way in which Andy, I guess, illustrates it to bring out and really make not the dumb down. I hate when people say dumb it down, but make it accessible. And so was that a conscious choice? I mean, are you ever going to write a book that doesn't have a world renowned artist like Jorge or Andy?