QI (2003–…): Season 6, Episode 9 - Future - full transcript
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Well... Good evening!
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Good evening, good evening, good evening
good evening, good evening, good evening.
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Welcome to QI.
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Tonight, we're fathoming the future,
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festooned with a fellowship of
far-seeing forecasters.
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We have the Wily Wizard of Woking
himself, Sean Lock!
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Thank you.
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And we have the prognosticating
Arch druid of Port Talbot,
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Rob Brydon!
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And we are so honoured with our
next guest, Ben Miller,
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who had a crack at a Ph.D.
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in novel quantum effects in Quasi-Zero
Dimensional Mesoscopic Electrical Systems!
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Wow!
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And Alan Davies,
who has also come along.
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Let's have a foretaste of your
futuristic fingerings. Sean goes...
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Rob goes...
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Ben goes...
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And Alan goes...
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Thank you.
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Great. So, the future begins...now!
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Alan, what are you doing?
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- Nothing. Wha...?
- Oh!
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There is no such thing as nothing,
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on any level has there ever been
discovered to be such a thing as nothing.
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- Sitting, holding my pen.
- So many things.
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Exactly. It's impossible to do
and think nothing.
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There is no such thing as nothing.
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Exactly. In fact, physics tells us, actually,
that there's no such thing as nothing, as well.
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Does it? In what way?
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Because elementary particles become created
and annihilated in the vacuum,
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so nothingness is really
a swarm of elementary particles.
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But also, there's considered to be a
field permeating the whole of space
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called the Higgs field, which
gives elementary particles mass.
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- And this is the thing...
- Ah, yes...
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- And it's...
- I like this.
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- And the Higgs field...
- Heard it!
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For the Higgs field to exist, we need a Higgs boson.
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And we've built a huge hadron collider,
colliding huge beams of protons together,
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at CERN, in Switzerland, to detect the Higgs boson.
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You are the best supply teacher we have ever had.
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That is fabulous.
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Even if you don't believe in the Higgs Field,
gravity operates in a vacuum, does it not?
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This is a really interesting thing.
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There are four...
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We are interested!
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No, this is... No, don't worry, Ben.
This is me looking interested.
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This is actually really,
really interesting. There are...
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- There are four known forces in the universe.
- Right, gravity...
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Gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force,
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which holds nuclei together,
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and the nuclear weak force, which causes radioactivity.
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Now, the nuclear weak force, the nuclear strong force,
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- and electromagnetism are all of a similar strength...
- Right.
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But gravity is incredibly weak.
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And you can see that by, a fridge magnet
can hold a pin using electromagnetism,
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and defeat the whole force
of the earth pulling down on it.
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And one of the things they think is that
our three, four dimensions, if you like,
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are actually part of a much bigger space.
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And gravity permeates all these other dimensions,
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they think ten in total,
which means that it becomes weakened
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by a corresponding amount.
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- You disagree?
- I'm sorry, but I have to depart from that theory!
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- There's one theory, though, is there not,
- There, because there's an elementary mistake...
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that all matter has its corresponding antimatter.
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And I can't help but look at
you, Ben, and you, Rob, and see...
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Am I alone?
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Isn't that weird?
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Never been seen in the same room before.
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Ah, now you're so close,
won't some awful thing happen?
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What it is; we can't actually touch.
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Let's... Let's just check...
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- Whoa!
- Whoa!
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- Whoa!
- Whoa!
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It is phenomenal. I mean, there are a lot of
horse-faced people in the world...
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Sorry! No. But it is remarkable.
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- No. Neigh, indeed!
- What would happen if they put you two,
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they put you two, in the Hadron Collider
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and send you underneath the ground
in Switzerland and impact you?
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- That would be brilliant.
- Would be the finest comedian in the world.
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Black hole would result.
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They're gonna make a black hole, aren't they?
And actually suck Switzerland into the ground,
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leaving nothing but chocolate.
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Well, I thank you for that.
It's an honour and a pleasure,
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if I may say, Ben Miller, to have someone
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who knows what they're
talking about on this programme.
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We're very pleased for the heads-up
on what's going on in particle physics.
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You know what's so good about it, is that there'll
be a fair number of viewers watching now, thinking,
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"That Rob Brydon knows a lot about science!"
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- It's a win-win.
- It's true! It's true!
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Anyway, there is no such thing as
nothing, arguably, anyway.
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On the other hand, if you want to disagree,
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there's nothing to stop you!
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And now...
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Our QI time capsule.
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When do you think the first time capsules where?
Who... Who came up with the first time capsules?
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- Blue Peter.
- 30's...
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"Blue Peter"?
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- 30's is not far off.
- 1930's?
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Guinness Book of Records says 1940,
the University in Atlanta...
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Those where the first recorded ones, but...
The... The first ones that where done...
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- Was in Pittsburgh...
- Technically, Jesus.
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...in '37.
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Seriously, in Lockes Field in Pittsburgh...
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- Come on, yeah? Go on. And...?
- Well it was done by Lockes Field in Pittsburgh...
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- Yeah?
- By two scientists.
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Right...
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You, and... Come on here!
You never believe a word I say!
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- I do! There's some point...
- There's the point in the research...
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...that I do for this show!
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All right, I'll believe you. However...
The Guinness Book of World Records...
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Yes, I saw that out of the corner of my eye!
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The Guinness Book of World Records give it to
the crypt of civilization located in the basement
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of Phoebe Hearst Hall. There it is, behind you.
You can see... That is the...
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It's more than a time capsule, it's a huge room.
Destined to be opened in the year 8113.
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It's very specific.
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And it contains all kinds of things.
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Including the Bible, the Qur'an, the Iliad...
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Why 8113, then? What's that...?
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Ah, if you could guess why 8113,
I would be staggeringly impressed,
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- and you will get TWO fanfares.
- Is it some reversal of numbers?
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- Or is it somebody's birthday backwards, or something?
- It's not that, no.
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- Somebody's birthday?
- At the time...
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In 8113, I will be...
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I can't even work that out!
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At the time, they believed that human history
began in the year 4241 B.C.
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Began, in the sense that that was the beginning of
the Egyptian... The first Egyptian calendar.
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And therefor... If they took themselves as that
midpoint and put the same amount of time after the...
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The time capsule, it would go out to 8113.
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- So when they opened it,
- That's fantastic!
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they would be looking at the midpoint in human history.
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- That's wonderful.
- Which is rather splendid.
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And they also included all kinds of things. They didn't
know whether electricity would still be around,
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obviously in 8113, so there's a windmill to drive all
the various speech and electric machines and projectors.
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They should have put a bucket of water over the door...
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That would have been so sweet.
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And there should have been nothing in it, except one
of these big ball pits that you roll around in.
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I imagine the people who find it,
just open the door and go...
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And just take it to whatever the 8113
equivalent to a carboot sale is.
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- Just flog the lot.
- Yeah, it'll be worth a fortune, wouldn't it?
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You know what I like doing? The... The...
The sort of... The more mundane aspect
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that we all have access to, is when you
strip wallpaper of a room in your house.
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- Yes?
- And you get down...
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You get a few layers of it, don't you?
You find an glyph, and all these different...
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- There's a flock thing...
- Ancient Rome...
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- I've always stopped for that.
- Cave... Cave paintings.
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Eventually... Eventually, you get through
to something that the...
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- The previous owners of the house...
- Amoebas, just a pressed amoeba.
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...have written there. They've written, you know,
"John and Susan 1973", or something like that.
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- That's all...
- That's very nice.
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It's sort of a... It's... It's...
It's a realistic version of archaeology.
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It's... It's a... It's a version of archaeology
that's within all our grasp.
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You can all try it at home; just go up to the
wallpaper, start... Steam! I recommend you steam.
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- Would you?
- Don't go in with a scraper, you'll be there all day.
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It's just lovely, because you get a sense...
The history of your house.
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Well usually, those things are drawn by decorators,
and it would be like, "Dave's a wanker".
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- It might.
- "I hate Arsenal."
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Beer. In the steps in houses that have steps or
stoops it's very common to have a barrel of beer
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in the cement under there. Apparently.
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We found one... In our house,
the family that lived there before,
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had recorded the height of all the inhabitants,
and you see it growing,
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so I've started doing that
with my kids now, and with me.
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Why don't you put yourself really high?
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I give myself an extra inch, yes.
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My house was repossessed, so I actually
had to scratch marks for the children
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as I was dragged down the room.
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- Very good.
- That sort of lovely moment we...
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We kept it, we decorated around it.
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At our house, we just put, "Ben Miller lived here".
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There are, apparently, 10,000 time capsules worldwide,
and most of them have been lost, is to where they are.
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So there is now the International Time Capsule Society,
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- and if you have a time capsule,
- The Blue Peter one was ruined.
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they urge you to be in touch; they have a web site.
So that they can register where yours is.
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And, of course, we've taken them into space.
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- Mariner, was it? Or Voyager?
- Yes.
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Which has got a gold slab with a picture of a
man etched into it and binary information about the...
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- Was it designed by Carl Sagan?
- Carl Sagan, yeah.
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Who said that rather wonderful thing when they
suggested having, also music.
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And someone said, "What about Bach?"
And he said, "No, that would just be showing off."
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You think there's anyone out there? I don't.
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- Don't you?
- Not really, no.
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Well, according to the equivalence principle,
there HAVE to be aliens out there.
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- There have to be?
- Yeah. There absolutely have to be.
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Yeah, but I...
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- I doubt the equivalence principle, in all honesty.
- It's a principle...
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And have done for a long time.
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You show me some hard proof about
the equivalence principle.
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- Well the hard proof is that we are here!
- It can't, it's fanciful.
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I thought it's all too fanciful
idea that there wouldn't be.
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And arrogant and peculiar, and the universe...
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- That is almost the opposite view to mine, isn't it?
- There's science...
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- It is, yeah.
- Yeah, it is.
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The whole of modern astronomy is based on
the principle that we're NOT in a unique position
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- in the universe.
- Astronomy or astrology?
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Oh, stop it!
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- No, astronomy...
- That you would even say the word "astrology" in...
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Astrology is of course, star signs.
I mean, that's... Rubbish, isn't it?
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- Thank you, yes. That's right.
- Yes, but I'm not saying that...
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- That you even begin to thing about it.
- I'm not backing up! I'm, I'm...
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- I'm debunking it.
- But, in fact, if you're watching QI now,
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and you believe in astrology, you are banned
from watching this show...
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You're not allowed, you must turn over NOW!
Thank you.
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Now...
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You may not know that, amazingly, nothing in
the laws of physics forbids time travel.
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But if this is the case,
where are all the time travellers?
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She could do so much better than him.
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He looks absolutely shocked
to be with her, doesn't he? I mean...
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"I can't believe my luck!"
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There's a thing known as the Grandfather Paradox,
isn't there?
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That if you could travel in time,
could you go back and shoot your own grandfather?
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Obviously, you couldn't, cos the
person killing your grandfather,
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once your grandfather is dead,
you could never have existed
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and if you haven't existed,
you can't have killed your grandfather.
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Point related nicely to the business about
"Where are all the aliens?".
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Cos the... The question
"Where are all the aliens?" is essentially...
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Is known, in fact, as the Fermi paradox, and...
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- Enrico Fermi...
- Yes?
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- I will spare you the details!
- Yeah.
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Erm, Hawking mirrored his quote,
Hawking mirrored his quote...
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When you say there's nothing in physics
that prevents time travel,
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that's not actually strictly true,
because there are plenty of physical laws
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that are non-reversible, such as the second
law of thermodynamics.
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Really, that you're saying; swings and roundabouts.
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- Swings and roundabouts...
- That is the quite interesting point...
242
00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:45,500
If you had a picture of a glass and then;
a smashed glass, you could never put the picture
243
00:13:45,500 --> 00:13:48,500
of the smashed glass as earlier in time
than the picture of the glass.
244
00:13:49,500 --> 00:13:54,500
So, the question is; are we human beings
only capable of living in a universe
245
00:13:54,500 --> 00:13:58,500
in which we experience time in a thermodynamic
sequence, in a linear thermodynamic sequence?
246
00:13:59,500 --> 00:14:01,500
Or, is time actually reversible?
247
00:14:01,500 --> 00:14:04,500
- Is it multiple choice?
- Then there's the... There's the girdle...
248
00:14:05,500 --> 00:14:07,500
'Cause I think, if there's a multiple choice,
I'd have a stab at it.
249
00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:11,500
- If you warp space enough?
- If you warp space, that's the idea, yeah...
250
00:14:11,500 --> 00:14:14,500
- Time could fold back on itself.
- Yeah, wormholes.
251
00:14:14,500 --> 00:14:19,500
Then wormholes, but there's also the simple fact
that if you'd travel near the speed of light,
252
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:23,500
towards a planet, and it might take you, say;
a minute to get to that planet...
253
00:14:23,500 --> 00:14:25,500
- To which...
- On Earth; four years would pass,
254
00:14:25,500 --> 00:14:28,500
- while, in your space ship; only a minute passes.
- That's exactly right!
255
00:14:28,500 --> 00:14:32,500
What Stephen is saying is that time travel
IS possible; time travel to the future, is possible.
256
00:14:32,500 --> 00:14:34,500
Because, the closer you get to the speed of light,
257
00:14:34,500 --> 00:14:37,500
- the faster the universe...
- We're all travelling to the future, aren't we?
258
00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:38,500
Just very slowly.
259
00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:43,500
That's not the problem. It's more going back,
that's the issue, I think.
260
00:14:43,500 --> 00:14:48,500
But there is a belief, also, that the very thing
you where talking about: The Large Hadron Collider,
261
00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:52,500
might initiate the world of time travel, because
there are some people who think
262
00:14:52,500 --> 00:14:56,500
time travel MAY be possible in the future,
but, like telephones; you can't have one telephone,
263
00:14:56,500 --> 00:15:00,500
it's useless, you have to have someone else with
a telephone; and that the...
264
00:15:00,500 --> 00:15:06,500
In the future... If they have any access to time travel,
they need first something on Earth to have been built,
265
00:15:06,500 --> 00:15:09,500
- like a large hadron collider.
- One of those...
266
00:15:09,500 --> 00:15:15,500
Which might well cause wormholes to exist, that would
allow people in the future to connect with it.
267
00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:16,500
I was there two weeks ago!
268
00:15:16,500 --> 00:15:18,500
- Where you really?
- Yeah. Really exciting.
269
00:15:18,500 --> 00:15:21,500
That was one helluva anniversary for you and
Mrs. Miller, wasn't it?
270
00:15:24,500 --> 00:15:30,500
My objection to all this physics, this... This level
of physics, is that you can't explain it to...
271
00:15:30,500 --> 00:15:31,500
Let's call us...
272
00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:36,500
Not... just ordinary people. You could,
actually, just be making it up.
273
00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:38,500
Until it makes machines work, that's the point.
274
00:15:38,500 --> 00:15:42,500
When Faraday talked about electricity
and magnetism, it didn't make any sense,
275
00:15:42,500 --> 00:15:46,500
but then somebody makes a solenoid,
somebody makes an electricity generator,
276
00:15:46,500 --> 00:15:48,500
suddenly you've got lights, you've got television,
277
00:15:48,500 --> 00:15:51,500
people can talk about quantum P states and N states,
and they can talk about this.
278
00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:53,500
And suddenly you've got a computer to go,
279
00:15:53,500 --> 00:15:56,500
- "Ahem, I think you'll find...!"
- I was the same with the leaf blower.
280
00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:03,500
Someone said to me, "One day you
won't have to rake up the leaves."
281
00:16:04,500 --> 00:16:07,500
I said, "You are living in cloud cuckoo land, mate."
282
00:16:09,500 --> 00:16:12,500
Can you? Like, I don't understand electricity.
Even the most...
283
00:16:12,500 --> 00:16:16,500
I don't understand telephones. If you could explain
to me, the theory of the telephone,
284
00:16:16,500 --> 00:16:19,500
I would still have... I've had the same expression
at the start, that I had at the end.
285
00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:25,500
Could somebody... A simple analogy. I mean, it's been
around since I was a kid. That how your voice...
286
00:16:26,500 --> 00:16:28,500
- Can be heard miles away?
- Ben! Help us out.
287
00:16:28,500 --> 00:16:32,500
You need... You need something called a "transducer".
You need something, that's capable
288
00:16:32,500 --> 00:16:34,500
- of changing one energy form into another...
- See, I'm gone, lost my train.
289
00:16:35,500 --> 00:16:40,500
Via something like a piezoelectric crystal,
which is a crystal, which if you compress it;
290
00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:42,500
it creates an electric charge, and you can...
291
00:16:42,500 --> 00:16:48,500
Say, if an electric circuit; you have a piezoelectric
crystal in the mouthpiece of the telephone...
292
00:16:49,500 --> 00:16:53,500
You, um... You speak into it; it vibrates;
it converts that into electrical currents...
293
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:55,500
- No!
- Those currents are then converted into a signal
294
00:16:55,500 --> 00:16:59,500
by an amplifier; passed along the telephone wire to
the other end, where it's converted back
295
00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:04,500
through a transducer, from an electrical signal into
movement of the piezoelectric crystal,
296
00:17:04,500 --> 00:17:07,500
- which moves the air; which moves the...
- It's like a palindrome.
297
00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:10,500
- ...which hits the ear which hears your voice.
- Thank you. Very good.
298
00:17:10,500 --> 00:17:11,500
It's like a palindrome.
299
00:17:13,500 --> 00:17:17,500
So, it's like a palindrome, in the sense
that it starts off one thing; it has to transform
300
00:17:17,500 --> 00:17:19,500
- and then come back to what it was?
- Exactly! Yeah.
301
00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:23,500
I think that people find it hard to tell us apart.
I think we've hit upon a good way now, haven't we?
302
00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:35,500
The future, of course, is obvious with hindsight,
but now it's time to poke predicable fun
303
00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:41,500
at people who are foolhardy enough to make forecasts
and have the misfortune to get them hopelessly wrong.
304
00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:43,500
So, fingers on buzzers, please.
305
00:17:43,500 --> 00:17:50,500
In 1955, Variety Magazine predicted that what
would be, I quote, "gone before June"?
306
00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:52,500
Yes?
307
00:17:52,500 --> 00:17:53,500
- Rob.
- May.
308
00:18:03,500 --> 00:18:05,500
I said they predicted it wrongly.
309
00:18:08,500 --> 00:18:09,500
You made me look a fool.
310
00:18:10,500 --> 00:18:11,500
No, you did that!
311
00:18:12,500 --> 00:18:15,500
- Television.
- Television is not... But you're much...
312
00:18:15,500 --> 00:18:18,500
- Cinema.
- It's an "F" show; Frisps.
313
00:18:19,500 --> 00:18:21,500
- I'll tell you what it was...
- Remember them?
314
00:18:21,500 --> 00:18:23,500
- I'll tell you what it was...
- Yeah, then...
315
00:18:23,500 --> 00:18:25,500
If it was '55, it was Elvis Presley.
316
00:18:25,500 --> 00:18:27,500
- Wider. Wider, more...
- Rock and roll!
317
00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:29,500
"Rock and roll" is the right answer.
Yes, they did say that.
318
00:18:29,500 --> 00:18:31,500
Don't look so stupid now, do I?
319
00:18:32,500 --> 00:18:37,500
Not quite so stupid, rather... You...
You don't. But all things are relative.
320
00:18:37,500 --> 00:18:40,500
Um, yeah, it was rock and roll.
321
00:18:40,500 --> 00:18:49,500
Now in 1977, Ken Olsen said, "There is no reason
for any individual to have a 'what' in their home"?
322
00:18:49,500 --> 00:18:50,500
Butler!
323
00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:52,500
No.
324
00:18:52,500 --> 00:18:55,500
- Jap moded...
- Japanese prisoner of war.
325
00:18:56,500 --> 00:18:59,500
- Again; wonderful tribe. No.
- No need for it.
326
00:18:59,500 --> 00:19:04,500
He, if I may say, was the chairman of D-E-C.
DEC. The Digital Equipment Company.
327
00:19:04,500 --> 00:19:07,500
- Computer!
- "A computer", he said, exactly!
328
00:19:07,500 --> 00:19:09,500
- He was wrong, wasn't he?
- He was very wrong, yes.
329
00:19:09,500 --> 00:19:12,500
- I know quite a few people who've got one.
- Yes! Yes.
330
00:19:12,500 --> 00:19:17,500
They are, these days. They're very much the
coming thing, I believe, aren't they? Absolutely.
331
00:19:17,500 --> 00:19:19,500
Some of these "whiz kids", they...
332
00:19:20,500 --> 00:19:26,500
In 1955, what nuclear powered device did Alex Lewitt
predict, would be a reality within ten years?
333
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:27,500
TV remote.
334
00:19:28,500 --> 00:19:31,500
- No, but as... As daft, really.
- Hover boots.
335
00:19:32,500 --> 00:19:34,500
- Nuclear powered hover boots? I like the sound...
- Yeah! That is the invention,
336
00:19:34,500 --> 00:19:38,500
that everybody always says, "Will there be..."
My... My son, he said to me,
337
00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:40,500
"Dad, will there be hover boots when I'm grown up?"
338
00:19:40,500 --> 00:19:45,500
Like, that is the height of scientific
and technological advancement, and Ben knows,
339
00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:47,500
he's gonna talk for a little while about...
340
00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:52,500
- The possibility of...
- How possible it is...
341
00:19:54,500 --> 00:19:56,500
- Hover gloves, that might.
- It's not hover gloves...
342
00:19:57,500 --> 00:19:58,500
Now, that's brilliant!
343
00:19:59,500 --> 00:20:02,500
Surely, you could do your own hovering,
you're doing it, in fact.
344
00:20:03,500 --> 00:20:06,500
It's not a hover thing, but it is a domestic
appliance, that he thought...
345
00:20:06,500 --> 00:20:08,500
- Electric toothbrush!
- ...would be nuclear powered.
346
00:20:08,500 --> 00:20:09,500
Not an electric toothbrush.
347
00:20:09,500 --> 00:20:10,500
- Fridge.
- Hoover!
348
00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:13,500
- "Hoover", yes. An electric nu... Vacuum cleaner
- Vacuum cleaner, yes.
349
00:20:13,500 --> 00:20:16,500
- Nuclear vacuum cleaner?
- He honestly thought, in 1955,
350
00:20:16,500 --> 00:20:18,500
that within ten years, there'd be nuclear powered ones.
351
00:20:18,500 --> 00:20:22,500
They had vacuum cleaners in America
in the 19th century, and they where huge,
352
00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:24,500
and they had to go on the back of a cart drawn by horses.
353
00:20:24,500 --> 00:20:27,500
I remember seeing that on a programme called "QI". Yeah.
354
00:20:28,500 --> 00:20:29,500
Yeah. Well done.
355
00:20:32,500 --> 00:20:33,500
But, well remembered!
356
00:20:40,500 --> 00:20:41,500
It goes in somewhere.
357
00:20:42,500 --> 00:20:43,500
It did! And it does, yeah!
358
00:20:44,500 --> 00:20:47,500
Well, the nuclear powered domestic vacuum cleaner.
But not everybody gets it wrong;
359
00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:52,500
a few remarkable people, shaped the future
by being the very first in their field,
360
00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:58,500
men like Saint Ambrose, the fourth century
bishop of Milan. What did Saint Augustine of Hippo,
361
00:20:58,500 --> 00:21:04,500
catch Saint Ambrose doing, that had never been done
before in public, but which nearly all of us...
362
00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:07,500
Nearly all of us now can do in public?
363
00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:08,500
Yes?
364
00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:11,500
Was he using his mobile in a crowded compartment?
365
00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:13,500
- Because we all do it, let's be honest.
- We do.
366
00:21:13,500 --> 00:21:17,500
Even when we see that little sign saying,
"This is a mobile friendly..." or "mobile free..."
367
00:21:17,500 --> 00:21:19,500
'Cause, you still kind of think it doesn't apply to you.
368
00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:22,500
I don't, actually, yeah.
369
00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:23,500
- I don't!
- No.
370
00:21:23,500 --> 00:21:24,500
I think it's just you, Rob.
371
00:21:25,500 --> 00:21:28,500
For, when I do; people think it's you!
372
00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:33,500
Anyway. No, it isn't that. It was like
a party trick thingie he could do.
373
00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:36,500
It seemed it, but we can all do it.
And it seems natural to us.
374
00:21:36,500 --> 00:21:38,500
But, it was just not done.
375
00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:41,500
And, it involved... Reading.
376
00:21:41,500 --> 00:21:42,500
Did his lips move?
377
00:21:42,500 --> 00:21:45,500
- Reading...
- His lips did not move. Is the point.
378
00:21:46,500 --> 00:21:50,500
He was the first person, it seems,
in certain post classical times,
379
00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:52,500
who could read without moving his lips.
380
00:21:55,500 --> 00:21:59,500
It's very odd. It seems so natural to us.
But, as children do, when they first read,
381
00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:03,500
they read out loud, and then, their lips moved.
And, then they'd never stop.
382
00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:04,500
- Presumably, if you could read,
- And this man, Saint Ambrose...
383
00:22:04,500 --> 00:22:06,500
then you, sort of, wanted to show of a bit
about the fact that you could.
384
00:22:06,500 --> 00:22:09,500
I think, there's an element of that.
Whereas he did the opposite.
385
00:22:09,500 --> 00:22:12,500
And this is what Saint Augustine
wrote in his confessions:
386
00:22:12,500 --> 00:22:16,500
"When Ambrose read, his eyes scanned the page,
and his heart sought out the meaning,
387
00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:20,500
but his voice was silent. And his tongue was still.
Anyone could approach him freely,
388
00:22:20,500 --> 00:22:23,500
and guests where not commonly announced,
so that often, when we came to visit him,
389
00:22:23,500 --> 00:22:27,500
we found him reading like this,
in silence. For he never read aloud."
390
00:22:27,500 --> 00:22:31,500
And he was obviously astonished by this.
It was considered a remarkable trick.
391
00:22:31,500 --> 00:22:34,500
I... I sort of think of myself
as a man of limited talents,
392
00:22:34,500 --> 00:22:38,500
and I just wish that I'd been around then.
393
00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:40,500
I would have blown them away!
394
00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:43,500
I can read whole books like this!
395
00:22:48,500 --> 00:22:50,500
But I have to say, they would have been in Latin.
396
00:22:51,500 --> 00:22:53,500
- That's where I would have fallen down.
- Yeah.
397
00:22:53,500 --> 00:22:57,500
But you could have, also... You could have given
them your Ronnie Corbett impression, which goes...
398
00:22:58,500 --> 00:23:02,500
It's not the one about the chap that
reads the book without moving his lips.
399
00:23:03,500 --> 00:23:04,500
Very good! Very good.
400
00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:12,500
They might have burned you as a witch
but they would have been impressed.
401
00:23:12,500 --> 00:23:16,500
Anyway, so... Another man that was ahead
of his time, was Sir Christopher Wren.
402
00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:19,500
This is one of his buildings behind me, here.
403
00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:24,500
By question is, what are the pillars in the middle
of open area for? Those four pillars?
404
00:23:24,500 --> 00:23:26,500
For hoodies to lean on menacingly.
405
00:23:27,500 --> 00:23:30,500
Probably true, it's Windsor. We're in Windsor here.
Do you know what they're for?
406
00:23:30,500 --> 00:23:32,500
Hold the roof up?
407
00:23:32,500 --> 00:23:34,500
Oh, no!
408
00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:40,500
No. Oddly enough, he took over the commission
from a man called Fitz, who'd been commissioned
409
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:44,500
to do the building, and there where these
four pillars, and he...
410
00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:46,500
- Being a fine...
- "Where do these go, guv?"
411
00:23:46,500 --> 00:23:48,500
- "Oh, just put them in the middle..."
- Well, him being a...
412
00:23:48,500 --> 00:23:51,500
Christopher Wren; fine mathematician,
and an extraordinary architect,
413
00:23:51,500 --> 00:23:53,500
he reasoned, quite correctly,
that the pillars where not necessary.
414
00:23:53,500 --> 00:23:57,500
But the bureaucrats, who had said this:
"No, no, no, you got to have the pillars!"
415
00:23:57,500 --> 00:24:01,500
So he deliberately had the pillars made too short,
actually to touch the ceiling...
416
00:24:01,500 --> 00:24:03,500
- Oh, yes! They're not...
- As a way of putting two fingers up to them,
417
00:24:03,500 --> 00:24:06,500
- for them insisting he have them.
- I know a building like that...
418
00:24:06,500 --> 00:24:08,500
In fact, they had no supporting role, whatsoever.
419
00:24:08,500 --> 00:24:10,500
We had a building like that in our extension, actually.
420
00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:14,500
- Did it fall down? Or did it... Did it fall down?
- Yes! Yes.
421
00:24:14,500 --> 00:24:16,500
- He didn't do it on purpose.
- No! No.
422
00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:20,500
Also, it's got failsafe. That if it doesn't work,
it just goes... Then it's all right.
423
00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,500
Exactly! No one would ever know, but you!
424
00:24:22,500 --> 00:24:26,500
- But in fact, needless today, even today, now...
- "What happened?". "Don't worry about it!"
425
00:24:26,500 --> 00:24:28,500
- Actually, they force tiles in there.
- Shims.
426
00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:32,500
Because the current jobs worths, also think,
"No, no. It's got to have those..."
427
00:24:32,500 --> 00:24:35,500
But, it's in Windsor. It's the corn market,
428
00:24:35,500 --> 00:24:41,500
Now, a common theme of science fiction B-movies
set in the future is robot invasions.
429
00:24:41,500 --> 00:24:45,500
But, has Britain ever actually been invaded by robots?
430
00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:47,500
- Yes.
- Ooh, I'm guessing they have.
431
00:24:47,500 --> 00:24:50,500
- Yes, they have. And when?
- Er, '40s.
432
00:24:50,500 --> 00:24:52,500
- 1880's.
- '40s is the right answer.
433
00:24:52,500 --> 00:24:56,500
- 1940's.
- I'm afraid the point there goes to young Alan.
434
00:24:56,500 --> 00:24:57,500
- But...
- The Germans?
435
00:24:57,500 --> 00:24:59,500
- Was it the Germans?
- The Germans.
436
00:24:59,500 --> 00:25:02,500
- Had to be. The doodlebug.
- The doodlebug and the buzz bombs.
437
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:04,500
- The V1 and V2.
- "We will zend zie robots!"
438
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:07,500
And the point is not just that we're
saying they are a kind of robots,
439
00:25:07,500 --> 00:25:08,500
they were CALLED robots.
440
00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:11,500
They were called robots more than
they were called doodlebugs in the '40s.
441
00:25:11,500 --> 00:25:14,500
In as much as they were publicly called anything,
442
00:25:14,500 --> 00:25:17,500
because they were more or less
banned to be discussed,
443
00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:23,500
the British authorities were terrified of letting
the Germans know how successful or otherwise
444
00:25:23,500 --> 00:25:25,500
- the V1 and V2 were.
- I'll tell you what, when the V2 landed
445
00:25:25,500 --> 00:25:27,500
on Chingford Plain, it was quite widely discussed.
446
00:25:27,500 --> 00:25:30,500
Oh, it would be. But the point is,
not in the newspapers.
447
00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:34,500
You ask, has Britain been invaded by robots?
448
00:25:34,500 --> 00:25:37,500
If you wanted to answer that
question in a satirical manner...
449
00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:39,500
- Yes?
- That took a swipe at modern life in Britain...
450
00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:42,500
- Go on!
- You'd say we're in the process of it now,
451
00:25:42,500 --> 00:25:47,500
and those robots are the bloody call
centres that we have to put up with.
452
00:25:50,500 --> 00:25:52,500
So my answer is yes, and it's happening now.
453
00:25:52,500 --> 00:25:55,500
- You should... You should be a stand-up comedian.
- Or, Rob, on a... On a...
454
00:25:56,500 --> 00:26:03,500
On an equally satirical note, the bloody cameras
that take photographs of us everywhere we go...
455
00:26:04,500 --> 00:26:06,500
- And...
- More cameras now in this country...
456
00:26:06,500 --> 00:26:08,500
- Send us, electronically...
- Pictures of our cars...
457
00:26:08,500 --> 00:26:11,500
- Summons and fines...
- More cameras than any other time,
458
00:26:11,500 --> 00:26:16,500
and any country in Europe, and yet
we can't catch anybody who kills somebody!
459
00:26:17,500 --> 00:26:20,500
- The Acton Bowling Club!
- Why is nobody ever murdered in front of a camera?
500
00:26:20,500 --> 00:26:24,500
A couple of mad old men moaning
about the state of Britain today!
501
00:26:28,500 --> 00:26:29,500
I agree with you!
502
00:26:29,500 --> 00:26:33,500
- I like you! I like you.
- I like you!
503
00:26:33,500 --> 00:26:36,500
- I listen to you, it's like listening to me!
- Yeah!
504
00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:39,500
- I like your attitude.
- Yeah, yeah!
505
00:26:39,500 --> 00:26:42,500
They're going to fuse into one horrifying Rob Miller.
506
00:26:43,500 --> 00:26:46,500
If we go like this; this is like a Siamese twin.
507
00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:53,500
We're quite keen to have the operation but obviously
we're not sure how we'd get on without each other.
508
00:26:54,500 --> 00:26:56,500
Mmm. All right. Er...
509
00:26:56,500 --> 00:26:57,500
Oh, Christ!
510
00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:08,500
- Whoa! That's what it's like!
- Yeah!
511
00:27:09,500 --> 00:27:11,500
I can see the attraction!
512
00:27:11,500 --> 00:27:13,500
- Now I know why my wife married me.
- Yeah!
513
00:27:14,500 --> 00:27:16,500
That was good! Goddamn!
514
00:27:19,500 --> 00:27:21,500
Just horrible!
515
00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:25,500
Right, thank you.
516
00:27:27,500 --> 00:27:30,500
You can make up for it by telling
me where the word "robot" comes from.
517
00:27:30,500 --> 00:27:33,500
- Where do we get the word robot from?
- I can't get that out of my head.
518
00:27:34,500 --> 00:27:36,500
We get the word robotic from the word robot!
519
00:27:36,500 --> 00:27:39,500
Yeah, take the "IC" off robotic, you've got robot.
520
00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:43,500
It comes from the dance, Stephen.
It comes from the dance.
521
00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:44,500
This dance.
522
00:27:46,500 --> 00:27:50,500
Is it something you can shout at a machine
it's got a chance of understanding?
523
00:27:50,500 --> 00:27:53,500
- Oh? Interesting thought, no.
- Like, "You robot!"
524
00:27:54,500 --> 00:27:57,500
Whereas if it was called a
quark assimilator fassamisilator,
525
00:27:57,500 --> 00:28:01,500
it might not pick up how angry you are.
526
00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:02,500
It must be an acronym, right?
527
00:28:02,500 --> 00:28:05,500
No, it's not, actually. It's from a
perfectly good Slavic word; robota,
528
00:28:05,500 --> 00:28:09,500
meaning a drudge, slave worker, a labourer.
529
00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:10,500
- Ah, like a drone.
- Robota.
530
00:28:10,500 --> 00:28:15,500
And it was from a play by a man called Karel Čapek
in 1920, called Rossum's Universal Robots.
531
00:28:15,500 --> 00:28:18,500
And that's when it was first used.
But now, back to the future.
532
00:28:18,500 --> 00:28:22,500
What will be the language of the future here on earth?
533
00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:25,500
Well, if it carries on the way it is,
it'll be the sort of hoodies
534
00:28:25,500 --> 00:28:29,500
that Ben and I are so firmly against.
Kind of like talking like this,
535
00:28:29,500 --> 00:28:33,500
everybody is gonna talk like that,
and that's gonna be the way of the future.
536
00:28:33,500 --> 00:28:36,500
Like, you know, it don't matter where you
come from. You's gonna talk like that...
537
00:28:36,500 --> 00:28:37,500
Which I hate.
538
00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:42,500
- I think you all got that!
- Yeah!
539
00:28:43,500 --> 00:28:44,500
Oh, dear.
540
00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:50,500
- Is it gonna be Mandarin or Spanish?
- Interesting thought.
541
00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:52,500
- Oh, is it a trick qu...? Is it binary?
- Binary.
542
00:28:52,500 --> 00:28:54,500
- Is it binary?
- No, it's not, though you have a picture on there.
543
00:28:54,500 --> 00:28:58,500
No, it's generally thought to be English, in fact,
but a certain kind of English.
544
00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:02,500
- As many as 80% of the people...
- Is this gonna be, it's like, kind of, English?
545
00:29:02,500 --> 00:29:03,500
No! It's like...
546
00:29:05,500 --> 00:29:08,500
- Kind of like English? That sort of like English?
- That goes up at the end?
547
00:29:08,500 --> 00:29:11,500
- Cos I hate that.
- I hate that too. I hate that too.
548
00:29:11,500 --> 00:29:15,500
There's a proper debate about this. I mean, wh...
Cos I am a bit of an old, funny...
549
00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:17,500
"Oh, it shouldn't change!"
But, of course; language...
550
00:29:17,500 --> 00:29:18,500
- It must change.
- DOES evolve.
551
00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:21,500
Absolutely. I can't bare people being pointy
about language. It drives me mad!
552
00:29:21,500 --> 00:29:25,500
People who write in to Radio 4 and moan
about whether or not someone said "more",
553
00:29:25,500 --> 00:29:28,500
you know, "fewer" or "less".
actually, that's showing off...
554
00:29:28,500 --> 00:29:29,500
- It's a living language...
- They just wanted to show,
555
00:29:29,500 --> 00:29:31,500
- they've spotted something...
- And deal with it!
556
00:29:31,500 --> 00:29:34,500
How you've told me off for "fewer" or "less";
557
00:29:34,500 --> 00:29:36,500
- on no fewer or lesser occasions.
- Oh, YOU, yeah! Obviously. I...
558
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:41,500
Heavens above!
559
00:29:41,500 --> 00:29:44,500
No, apparently as many as 80% of people
who speak English do not speak English
560
00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:46,500
as their first language.
561
00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:48,500
They're speaking it together with other people, who...
562
00:29:48,500 --> 00:29:50,500
For whom it is their second or third language.
563
00:29:50,500 --> 00:29:54,500
And the one that seems to be growing is a thing
called Panglish, they're gonna call it,
564
00:29:54,500 --> 00:29:57,500
i.e., "pan" English, a kind of everyman English.
595
00:29:57,500 --> 00:30:01,500
There's a version at the moment, which is spoken
by a lot of people called Singlish, apparently,
596
00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:04,500
which is a mixture of English, Chinese and Malay.
597
00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:08,500
Singaporean equivalent to Franglais.
See if you can see what these words mean.
598
00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:14,500
Lay leo. Written as two words,
it's actually one. L-A-Y-L-E-O. Lay leo.
599
00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:17,500
- Instructions for Mrs Sayer.
- No, it's just radio.
600
00:30:20,500 --> 00:30:25,500
You're not on Clue now!
Very good! No, it's radio. "Layleo."
601
00:30:25,500 --> 00:30:28,500
Layleo? That's just bad!
602
00:30:28,500 --> 00:30:32,500
That's a child, "Layleo."
"Well done!"
603
00:30:32,500 --> 00:30:35,500
"He's speaking Panglish, you know!"
604
00:30:36,500 --> 00:30:38,500
"No, he hasn't learned to speak!"
605
00:30:39,500 --> 00:30:41,500
- Lolex.
- A Rolex watch.
606
00:30:41,500 --> 00:30:43,500
- Yes! Exactly!
- Oh, that's rubbish!
607
00:30:44,500 --> 00:30:50,500
Orleng tzu. O-R-L-E-N-G, T-Z-U.
608
00:30:51,500 --> 00:30:52,500
See you soon.
609
00:30:52,500 --> 00:30:56,500
No, actually it's a drink. "I have
glass of orleng tzu." Orange juice.
610
00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:03,500
Orleng tzu. If you go to Singapore and say,
"orleng tzu", they give you an orange juice.
611
00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:05,500
They really must... They must try harder.
612
00:31:08,500 --> 00:31:12,500
English has evolved. I mean, a Saxon
or an Angle would hear us and go,
613
00:31:12,500 --> 00:31:15,500
"What have they done with our
language? They must try harder."
614
00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:17,500
Cos we've evolved it into what we call English.
615
00:31:17,500 --> 00:31:21,500
They'll do it into what will be
their language, I mean...
616
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:23,500
That's after they've said, "What are you wearing?"
617
00:31:24,500 --> 00:31:26,500
Do you know what I heard said to me in Singapore?
618
00:31:26,500 --> 00:31:27,500
What?
619
00:31:27,500 --> 00:31:29,500
"You! Lick Ashwrie!"
620
00:31:29,500 --> 00:31:30,500
"Lick arse, please?"
621
00:31:32,500 --> 00:31:34,500
- Wow!
- 1988, and I was mistaken,
622
00:31:34,500 --> 00:31:36,500
- for the pop star Rick Astley.
- Oh?
623
00:31:38,500 --> 00:31:43,500
- I wanted "Lick arse, please!"...
- "You pop star! You Lick Asslie!"
624
00:31:44,500 --> 00:31:46,500
- "You lick arse, please!"
- "Sorry? Say, I'm sorry?"
625
00:31:46,500 --> 00:31:48,500
- No, he was asking you to lick his arse.
- He was, yeah!
626
00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:51,500
- You where being offered a service.
- He thought I was Rick Astley.
627
00:31:51,500 --> 00:31:53,500
- He was an early example of "Rickrolling"
- "Never gonna give you up..."
628
00:31:53,500 --> 00:31:54,500
- Hey!
- There is... There is...
629
00:31:55,500 --> 00:31:58,500
There is no more mysterious language,
of course, then... Then... Than Welsh.
630
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:02,500
Where, uh... Mini golf, for example,
is "golf mini".
631
00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:05,500
- Get away!
- True. True.
632
00:32:05,500 --> 00:32:07,500
- "Welsh".
- True!
633
00:32:07,500 --> 00:32:08,500
Honestly!
634
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:11,500
They're are other languages,
obviously; invented languages.
635
00:32:11,500 --> 00:32:12,500
Do you know anything about Klingon?
636
00:32:12,500 --> 00:32:15,500
Oh, yeah! That's a proper language now, isn't it?
637
00:32:15,500 --> 00:32:17,500
It seems to be. They have degrees
in it, I believe. In Klingon.
638
00:32:17,500 --> 00:32:20,500
It was invented by a man called Marc Okrand,
or at least devised.
639
00:32:20,500 --> 00:32:23,500
It's rather difficult to have normal
conversations in it. There are words for things
640
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:28,500
like a transporter ionising unit.
Which is a "jol'Voi", which you probably knew...
641
00:32:28,500 --> 00:32:30,500
Wasn't he... Wasn't he a midnight cowboy?
642
00:32:33,500 --> 00:32:35,500
Also, for the bridge of a ship, which is "meH".
643
00:32:35,500 --> 00:32:38,500
But there is no word for a bridge
that goes over a river.
644
00:32:38,500 --> 00:32:41,500
But they have translated Hamlet into Klingon.
645
00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:46,500
And, "taH pagh taHbe’",
is "To be, or not to be" apparently.
646
00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:49,500
Is there any word for:
"What have I done with my life?"
647
00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:52,500
Perhaps, there should be.
648
00:32:52,500 --> 00:32:53,500
"How did it come to this?"
649
00:32:53,500 --> 00:32:55,500
"Trekkie", I think, is the word that...
650
00:32:57,500 --> 00:32:59,500
But there are more sensible ones; Esperanto.
651
00:32:59,500 --> 00:33:02,500
- That was invented, wasn't it?
- Is was an entirely invented language.
652
00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:07,500
But, apparently because it's so easy to learn,
has only 900 words and has no irregular verbs,
653
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:11,500
it takes you a year less to learn
to speak another language reasonably fluently.
654
00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:13,500
So in that sense it's quite useful.
655
00:33:13,500 --> 00:33:15,500
Here's an example. What am I saying? Saluton.
656
00:33:15,500 --> 00:33:17,500
- Saluton?
- Hello.
657
00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:19,500
- Greetings.
- Yes. What could be easier than that?
658
00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:23,500
- Cu vi parolas Esperanton?
- Quidditch.
659
00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:30,500
Do you speak - Cu vi,
do you have Esperanto words?
660
00:33:30,500 --> 00:33:33,500
But this is... Mia kusenveturilo
estas plena je angiloj.
661
00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:37,500
My cousin is a meerkat of strange angles.
662
00:33:39,500 --> 00:33:42,500
No, you can work this out. Angiloj?
663
00:33:42,500 --> 00:33:43,500
- No, nothing.
- Eel.
664
00:33:43,500 --> 00:33:47,500
- Eel. In most romance languages that's an eel.
- Eel, is it?
665
00:33:47,500 --> 00:33:51,500
- Kusenveturilo... Kusen... Kusen?
- Jellied eels?
666
00:33:51,500 --> 00:33:53,500
Cushing? Peter Cushing, the Hammer Horrors?
667
00:33:54,500 --> 00:33:56,500
- Cushion vehicle...
- Eel cushion?
668
00:33:56,500 --> 00:33:57,500
- Hovercraft.
- Estas plena...
669
00:33:57,500 --> 00:33:59,500
Yeah, "My hovercraft is full of eels."
670
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:02,500
- Seriously?
- Yes!
671
00:34:05,500 --> 00:34:08,500
I thought you were a bit cross with me then
and you were saying that to move on.
672
00:34:08,500 --> 00:34:10,500
No, that's what it is in Esperanto.
673
00:34:10,500 --> 00:34:12,500
There you are. Anyway, that's enough of that.
674
00:34:12,500 --> 00:34:15,500
The language of the future looks
like actually being Panglish,
674
00:34:15,500 --> 00:34:17,500
and we'll only understand it if we're lucky.
675
00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:23,500
Now, it is possible to imagine a future in
which there will be no war and no poverty
676
00:34:23,500 --> 00:34:27,500
but I confidently predict there
will always be General Ignorance.
677
00:34:27,500 --> 00:34:29,500
So fingers on buzzers, please.
678
00:34:29,500 --> 00:34:35,500
To be serious for a moment. The most urgent issue
facing the future of the planet is the environment.
679
00:34:35,500 --> 00:34:40,500
The republic of Guyana, is in South America,
as you probably know...
680
00:34:40,500 --> 00:34:45,500
Immediately to the north of Brazil.
Between the years 2000 and 2005;
681
00:34:45,500 --> 00:34:49,500
what percentage of the country's rainforest was cut down?
682
00:34:49,900 --> 00:34:50,500
Yes?
683
00:34:51,500 --> 00:34:52,500
400.
684
00:34:55,500 --> 00:34:56,500
It's that bad!
685
00:34:58,500 --> 00:35:00,500
It's that bad it's got.
686
00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:07,500
Like a Mach 4 razor. The first...
The first time gets it close...
687
00:35:08,500 --> 00:35:14,500
The second time; closer still.
The third time gets rid of any trees at all!
688
00:35:14,500 --> 00:35:17,500
The fourth time; you know you're treeless.
689
00:35:18,500 --> 00:35:22,500
The best a country can get.
It's not 400%, I have to say.
690
00:35:23,500 --> 00:35:24,500
- None!
- Half?
691
00:35:24,500 --> 00:35:25,500
"None" is the right answer.
692
00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:28,500
They replace every tree they pull down with another tree.
693
00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:32,500
It's a rather happy thought that Guyana
has this splendid...
694
00:35:32,500 --> 00:35:33,500
- Don't you think?
- That's a photograph taken
695
00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:35,500
at Kew Gardens, in the palm house.
696
00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:40,500
Where was the only South American country
to play cricket?
697
00:35:40,500 --> 00:35:42,500
Guyana, 'cause they speak English.
698
00:35:42,500 --> 00:35:45,500
- Yeah. It's a Caribbean country, essentially.
- It's an English colony, isn't it?
699
00:35:45,500 --> 00:35:46,500
Absolutely.
700
00:35:46,500 --> 00:35:48,500
- It's next to Suriname, which...
- Next to Suriname, which is...
701
00:35:48,500 --> 00:35:49,500
- Dutch Guyana.
- Exactly right.
702
00:35:49,500 --> 00:35:52,500
Where they don't play cricket, I suspect.
Anyway, there you are.
703
00:35:52,500 --> 00:35:54,500
Now, picture the scene.
704
00:35:54,500 --> 00:35:55,500
I'm out windsurfing,
705
00:35:55,500 --> 00:36:00,500
the breeze is ruffling my tousled,
sun-bleached hair,
706
00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:05,500
I look up and I see on the horizon; a ship.
How far away is it?
707
00:36:05,500 --> 00:36:06,500
21 miles.
708
00:36:07,500 --> 00:36:09,500
- No.
- I thought it was always 21 miles.
709
00:36:09,500 --> 00:36:12,500
- No.
- I know, they didn't even get flagged for that.
710
00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:16,500
No, no. I didn't know that anybody
always thought that it was 21 miles.
711
00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:19,500
How far away is the horizon?
712
00:36:19,500 --> 00:36:22,500
That's the point. I'll tell Ben Miller
the formula for working it out,
713
00:36:22,500 --> 00:36:23,500
and he will tell you very quickly.
714
00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:27,500
It's very straightforward. Let's assume I am
6ft. tall, I'm actually a bit taller.
715
00:36:27,500 --> 00:36:29,500
The distance to the horizon in miles
716
00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:33,500
is approximately the square root of
one-and-a-half times your height in feet.
717
00:36:35,500 --> 00:36:37,500
That depends how low your eyes are, though,
doesn't it?
718
00:36:38,500 --> 00:36:41,500
- Three miles.
- Three miles is the right answer! Well done.
719
00:36:44,500 --> 00:36:46,500
It's a lot closer than you think.
720
00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:52,500
If you're standing at sea level, the normal
horizon is only about three miles away.
721
00:36:52,500 --> 00:36:57,500
Back home now. What kind of weather kills more
people in Britain than any other?
722
00:36:57,500 --> 00:36:58,500
Bad weather.
723
00:37:01,500 --> 00:37:03,500
- Wind. It's wind.
- Not wind.
724
00:37:04,500 --> 00:37:06,500
Oh, uh-oh! Oh, dear.
You got a fault for the wind.
725
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:08,500
- Oh, bugger.
- Is it rockets?
726
00:37:10,500 --> 00:37:11,500
They come down like weather.
727
00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:12,500
- Sort of.
- Snow?
728
00:37:15,500 --> 00:37:16,500
- No.
- Hail?
729
00:37:16,500 --> 00:37:17,500
No!
730
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:19,500
- Fog!
- Heat wave...
731
00:37:19,500 --> 00:37:25,500
Fog is the right answer! Finally! Well done. Fog.
Because of road traffic accidents, I'm afraid.
732
00:37:25,500 --> 00:37:27,500
Do you want me to explain fog to you, Ben?
733
00:37:29,500 --> 00:37:30,500
What happens is...
734
00:37:32,500 --> 00:37:34,500
Everybody has been asleep, right, for quite a long time.
735
00:37:35,500 --> 00:37:37,500
So all their breath gathers up.
736
00:37:38,500 --> 00:37:45,500
And they'd left a little window open and it all goes
out and that collects in the valley all together.
737
00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:50,500
And it gets blown around by
the lorries driving up and down.
738
00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:52,500
Are you still with me?
739
00:37:54,500 --> 00:37:56,500
- I like it.
- Do you know the difference between fog and mist?
740
00:37:56,500 --> 00:37:58,500
- There is an official difference.
- Is it the height of it?
741
00:37:58,500 --> 00:38:00,500
No, it's actually just the density.
742
00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:02,500
- Mist is watery, isn't it?
- Fog is visibility of less
743
00:38:02,500 --> 00:38:05,500
than one kilometre, while mist
is usually between one and two.
744
00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:11,500
Cos in mist, you can be seen in a, sort of mac,
whereas in fog, they can't see you at all.
745
00:38:11,500 --> 00:38:14,500
You're safe, no one can see you,
step back in, you're gone.
746
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:18,500
It's interesting that you think of fog,
as a way of hiding yourself.
747
00:38:18,500 --> 00:38:23,500
So you can go about your beastly business unobserved.
748
00:38:24,500 --> 00:38:26,500
It's not beastly, I'm just putting stickers on things.
749
00:38:26,500 --> 00:38:28,500
Oh! It's YOU!
750
00:38:28,500 --> 00:38:32,500
Yeah. Putting silly stickers on
people's faces. Nothing pervy.
751
00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:36,500
A bit of chewing gum over Cameron
Diaz's eye. Anything, it just cheers me up.
752
00:38:37,500 --> 00:38:43,500
Smog of course is an urban phenomenon, smoke and fog.
Sulphur dioxide, usually, and fog mixing together.
753
00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:47,500
The last really bad one in London
was in 1952 and lasted four days.
754
00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:48,500
How many people did it kill, roughly?
755
00:38:49,500 --> 00:38:51,500
- 256.
- No.
756
00:38:51,500 --> 00:38:52,500
- They all died fairly roughly, didn't they?
- 3000!
757
00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:53,500
- No.
- Four!
758
00:38:53,500 --> 00:39:00,500
No. It was 12,000 people, in four days,
killed by the smog of 1952.
759
00:39:00,500 --> 00:39:03,500
This is what hurried in the clean air
and smokeless zones.
760
00:39:03,500 --> 00:39:06,500
In London now, fog is pretty rare,
to be honest, isn't it?
761
00:39:06,500 --> 00:39:10,500
But I was in, last week, one of
the Hawaiian islands, in Honolulu.
762
00:39:10,500 --> 00:39:12,500
- Hawa-i-i-i.
- Hawa-i-i-i.
763
00:39:12,500 --> 00:39:16,500
And they don't have fog there, they have...
do you know what they call it?
764
00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:17,500
It's not smog or fog.
765
00:39:17,500 --> 00:39:19,500
- Sun.
- No.
766
00:39:20,500 --> 00:39:22,500
They have lots of that. But they have...
767
00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:24,500
- Is it...? Is it alo-hog?
- No.
768
00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:31,500
- It's vog. They have vog. Why vog?
- All the Jewish people have moved there.
769
00:39:33,500 --> 00:39:39,500
Vog, what do I care, I can't see it.
Look at you, you can't see him, I can't see her.
770
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:41,500
I don't know what I'm doing. Why should I care?
771
00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:44,500
What it is, I don't know.
Look at you, where are you?
772
00:39:44,500 --> 00:39:47,500
You're there. You're too far! I can't see you
for Christ's sake, what's going on?
773
00:39:51,500 --> 00:39:52,500
Oh, God!
774
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:56,500
Thank you. Thank you, Jackie Brydon.
775
00:39:56,500 --> 00:40:02,500
No, it's a volcanic fog. It's the fact there's a
volcano going off in the big island there.
776
00:40:02,500 --> 00:40:07,500
And it mixes with natural mists and fogs and
creates this denser itemry called vog.
777
00:40:07,500 --> 00:40:12,500
Anyway, fog or mist, it's all the same stuff,
it causes road crashes, that's the thing about it.
778
00:40:12,500 --> 00:40:18,500
Now, lastly! When, oh, when, will they finish
painting the Forth rail bridge?
779
00:40:19,500 --> 00:40:20,500
Yes?
780
00:40:20,500 --> 00:40:23,500
Never, because by the time they get to...
781
00:40:27,500 --> 00:40:28,500
You see my little face light up,
782
00:40:28,500 --> 00:40:29,500
- as I thought of it?
- Yes.
783
00:40:29,500 --> 00:40:31,500
It's been done, they don't need
to worry about it anymore.
784
00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:35,500
They're putting on a new special coating,
that's a combination of paint and epoxy resin.
785
00:40:35,500 --> 00:40:36,500
It's the right answer!
786
00:40:39,500 --> 00:40:40,500
Very good!
787
00:40:42,500 --> 00:40:43,500
Absolutely right.
788
00:40:45,500 --> 00:40:49,500
You never seize to amaze me, Alan Davies.
But you're absolutely right.
789
00:40:49,500 --> 00:40:52,500
It used to be considered the
proverbial un-ending task.
790
00:40:52,500 --> 00:40:55,500
- Yeah!
- But they have a new epoxy resin paint,
791
00:40:55,500 --> 00:40:59,500
it's been developed to last 25,
possibly even 40 years! 40 years!
792
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:02,500
You've just come back from that big
industrial paints conference, haven't you?
793
00:41:04,500 --> 00:41:06,500
You just out there, just seeing what's going on.
794
00:41:06,500 --> 00:41:08,500
- What's new in the paint world.
- Followed a lot on the web as well.
795
00:41:10,500 --> 00:41:15,500
Thanks to a clever, new paint, they'll actually finish
painting the Forth railway bridge in the year 2012.
796
00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:19,500
And so, with the future safely behind us,
it's time for a look at the old scoreboard.
797
00:41:19,500 --> 00:41:23,500
And... Well ahead of his time with 14 points,
798
00:41:23,500 --> 00:41:25,500
it's Ben Miller!
799
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:29,500
But...
800
00:41:30,500 --> 00:41:34,500
Not so far behind, with seven points,
801
00:41:34,500 --> 00:41:35,500
- it's Sean Lock!
- Thank you!
802
00:41:39,500 --> 00:41:43,500
We plunge into the minus numbers,
in third place with -31,
803
00:41:43,500 --> 00:41:45,500
it's Rob Brydon.
804
00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:54,500
But knocked into the middle of next week with -60,
805
00:41:54,500 --> 00:41:56,500
Alan Davies!
806
00:42:03,500 --> 00:42:10,500
Well, that's all for next week, but
from Rob, Ben, Sean and Alan and me,
807
00:42:10,500 --> 00:42:14,500
we trust you will live long and prosper,
and I leave you with this observation
808
00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:16,500
from physicist, Niels Bohr,
809
00:42:16,500 --> 00:42:18,500
"Prediction is very difficult," he said.
810
00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:21,500
"Especially about the future."
Good night.
Well... Good evening!
3
00:00:35,460 --> 00:00:38,380
Good evening, good evening, good evening
good evening, good evening, good evening.
4
00:00:38,380 --> 00:00:40,180
Welcome to QI.
5
00:00:40,180 --> 00:00:42,220
Tonight, we're fathoming the future,
6
00:00:42,220 --> 00:00:46,100
festooned with a fellowship of
far-seeing forecasters.
7
00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:50,100
We have the Wily Wizard of Woking
himself, Sean Lock!
8
00:00:50,100 --> 00:00:52,140
Thank you.
9
00:00:53,300 --> 00:00:58,340
And we have the prognosticating
Arch druid of Port Talbot,
10
00:00:58,340 --> 00:01:00,300
Rob Brydon!
12
00:01:03,980 --> 00:01:07,220
And we are so honoured with our
next guest, Ben Miller,
13
00:01:07,220 --> 00:01:08,820
who had a crack at a Ph.D.
14
00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:15,020
in novel quantum effects in Quasi-Zero
Dimensional Mesoscopic Electrical Systems!
16
00:01:17,060 --> 00:01:19,900
Wow!
17
00:01:19,900 --> 00:01:24,060
And Alan Davies,
who has also come along.
19
00:01:32,380 --> 00:01:35,820
Let's have a foretaste of your
futuristic fingerings. Sean goes...
21
00:01:40,060 --> 00:01:41,100
Rob goes...
23
00:01:47,820 --> 00:01:49,300
Ben goes...
25
00:01:55,900 --> 00:01:57,420
And Alan goes...
29
00:02:11,980 --> 00:02:14,020
Thank you.
30
00:02:14,020 --> 00:02:16,980
Great. So, the future begins...now!
31
00:02:16,980 --> 00:02:18,300
Alan, what are you doing?
32
00:02:19,500 --> 00:02:21,060
- Nothing. Wha...?
- Oh!
34
00:02:27,540 --> 00:02:30,380
There is no such thing as nothing,
35
00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:34,300
on any level has there ever been
discovered to be such a thing as nothing.
36
00:02:34,300 --> 00:02:36,500
- Sitting, holding my pen.
- So many things.
37
00:02:36,500 --> 00:02:39,180
Exactly. It's impossible to do
and think nothing.
38
00:02:39,180 --> 00:02:42,140
There is no such thing as nothing.
39
00:02:42,140 --> 00:02:46,340
Exactly. In fact, physics tells us, actually,
that there's no such thing as nothing, as well.
40
00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:47,820
Does it? In what way?
41
00:02:47,820 --> 00:02:51,220
Because elementary particles become created
and annihilated in the vacuum,
42
00:02:51,220 --> 00:02:54,420
so nothingness is really
a swarm of elementary particles.
43
00:02:54,420 --> 00:02:58,260
But also, there's considered to be a
field permeating the whole of space
44
00:02:58,260 --> 00:03:03,420
called the Higgs field, which
gives elementary particles mass.
45
00:03:03,420 --> 00:03:05,420
- And this is the thing...
- Ah, yes...
46
00:03:05,420 --> 00:03:08,420
- And it's...
- I like this.
47
00:03:08,420 --> 00:03:10,300
- And the Higgs field...
- Heard it!
48
00:03:12,980 --> 00:03:15,340
For the Higgs field to exist, we need a Higgs boson.
49
00:03:15,340 --> 00:03:20,300
And we've built a huge hadron collider,
colliding huge beams of protons together,
50
00:03:20,300 --> 00:03:25,620
at CERN, in Switzerland, to detect the Higgs boson.
51
00:03:25,620 --> 00:03:28,460
You are the best supply teacher we have ever had.
52
00:03:29,700 --> 00:03:31,180
That is fabulous.
54
00:03:34,420 --> 00:03:37,860
Even if you don't believe in the Higgs Field,
gravity operates in a vacuum, does it not?
56
00:03:37,860 --> 00:03:40,420
This is a really interesting thing.
58
00:03:41,980 --> 00:03:43,460
There are four...
59
00:03:46,740 --> 00:03:48,380
We are interested!
60
00:03:48,380 --> 00:03:51,140
No, this is... No, don't worry, Ben.
This is me looking interested.
61
00:03:52,180 --> 00:03:55,380
This is actually really,
really interesting. There are...
63
00:03:57,340 --> 00:04:01,500
- There are four known forces in the universe.
- Right, gravity...
64
00:04:01,500 --> 00:04:04,460
Gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force,
65
00:04:04,460 --> 00:04:06,500
which holds nuclei together,
66
00:04:06,500 --> 00:04:09,580
and the nuclear weak force, which causes radioactivity.
67
00:04:09,580 --> 00:04:13,380
Now, the nuclear weak force, the nuclear strong force,
68
00:04:13,380 --> 00:04:18,300
- and electromagnetism are all of a similar strength...
- Right.
69
00:04:18,300 --> 00:04:20,500
But gravity is incredibly weak.
70
00:04:20,500 --> 00:04:25,180
And you can see that by, a fridge magnet
can hold a pin using electromagnetism,
71
00:04:25,180 --> 00:04:28,140
and defeat the whole force
of the earth pulling down on it.
72
00:04:28,140 --> 00:04:32,620
And one of the things they think is that
our three, four dimensions, if you like,
73
00:04:32,620 --> 00:04:37,900
are actually part of a much bigger space.
74
00:04:37,900 --> 00:04:41,020
And gravity permeates all these other dimensions,
75
00:04:41,020 --> 00:04:45,660
they think ten in total,
which means that it becomes weakened
76
00:04:45,660 --> 00:04:48,540
by a corresponding amount.
77
00:04:49,500 --> 00:04:53,660
- You disagree?
- I'm sorry, but I have to depart from that theory!
78
00:04:55,420 --> 00:05:00,020
- There's one theory, though, is there not,
- There, because there's an elementary mistake...
79
00:05:00,020 --> 00:05:03,380
that all matter has its corresponding antimatter.
80
00:05:03,380 --> 00:05:07,540
And I can't help but look at
you, Ben, and you, Rob, and see...
81
00:05:09,540 --> 00:05:11,540
Am I alone?
82
00:05:13,460 --> 00:05:14,820
Isn't that weird?
83
00:05:16,660 --> 00:05:20,060
Never been seen in the same room before.
84
00:05:20,060 --> 00:05:23,380
Ah, now you're so close,
won't some awful thing happen?
85
00:05:23,380 --> 00:05:25,020
What it is; we can't actually touch.
86
00:05:25,020 --> 00:05:26,100
Let's... Let's just check...
87
00:05:26,100 --> 00:05:27,340
- Whoa!
- Whoa!
88
00:05:28,540 --> 00:05:29,940
- Whoa!
- Whoa!
89
00:05:31,100 --> 00:05:35,340
It is phenomenal. I mean, there are a lot of
horse-faced people in the world...
90
00:05:36,340 --> 00:05:39,860
Sorry! No. But it is remarkable.
91
00:05:39,860 --> 00:05:42,500
- No. Neigh, indeed!
- What would happen if they put you two,
92
00:05:42,500 --> 00:05:45,900
they put you two, in the Hadron Collider
93
00:05:45,900 --> 00:05:49,500
and send you underneath the ground
in Switzerland and impact you?
94
00:05:49,500 --> 00:05:51,700
- That would be brilliant.
- Would be the finest comedian in the world.
95
00:05:51,700 --> 00:05:53,500
Black hole would result.
96
00:05:53,500 --> 00:05:56,500
They're gonna make a black hole, aren't they?
And actually suck Switzerland into the ground,
96
00:05:56,500 --> 00:05:57,860
leaving nothing but chocolate.
97
00:05:57,860 --> 00:06:01,300
Well, I thank you for that.
It's an honour and a pleasure,
98
00:06:01,300 --> 00:06:03,540
if I may say, Ben Miller, to have someone
99
00:06:03,540 --> 00:06:05,780
who knows what they're
talking about on this programme.
100
00:06:05,780 --> 00:06:10,540
We're very pleased for the heads-up
on what's going on in particle physics.
102
00:06:10,540 --> 00:06:13,660
You know what's so good about it, is that there'll
be a fair number of viewers watching now, thinking,
103
00:06:13,660 --> 00:06:16,580
"That Rob Brydon knows a lot about science!"
105
00:06:19,380 --> 00:06:22,180
- It's a win-win.
- It's true! It's true!
106
00:06:22,180 --> 00:06:25,260
Anyway, there is no such thing as
nothing, arguably, anyway.
107
00:06:25,260 --> 00:06:27,500
On the other hand, if you want to disagree,
108
00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:30,060
there's nothing to stop you!
109
00:06:30,060 --> 00:06:31,060
And now...
110
00:06:32,500 --> 00:06:34,500
Our QI time capsule.
111
00:06:34,500 --> 00:06:37,800
When do you think the first time capsules where?
Who... Who came up with the first time capsules?
113
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:38,800
- Blue Peter.
- 30's...
114
00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:39,800
"Blue Peter"?
115
00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:41,500
- 30's is not far off.
- 1930's?
116
00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:45,500
Guinness Book of Records says 1940,
the University in Atlanta...
117
00:06:45,500 --> 00:06:49,500
Those where the first recorded ones, but...
The... The first ones that where done...
118
00:06:49,500 --> 00:06:50,500
- Was in Pittsburgh...
- Technically, Jesus.
119
00:06:50,500 --> 00:06:51,500
...in '37.
120
00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:54,500
Seriously, in Lockes Field in Pittsburgh...
121
00:06:54,500 --> 00:06:58,500
- Come on, yeah? Go on. And...?
- Well it was done by Lockes Field in Pittsburgh...
123
00:06:58,500 --> 00:06:59,500
- Yeah?
- By two scientists.
124
00:06:59,500 --> 00:07:00,500
Right...
125
00:07:00,500 --> 00:07:04,500
You, and... Come on here!
You never believe a word I say!
126
00:07:04,500 --> 00:07:06,500
- I do! There's some point...
- There's the point in the research...
127
00:07:06,500 --> 00:07:08,500
...that I do for this show!
128
00:07:08,500 --> 00:07:12,500
All right, I'll believe you. However...
The Guinness Book of World Records...
129
00:07:12,500 --> 00:07:14,500
Yes, I saw that out of the corner of my eye!
130
00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:18,500
The Guinness Book of World Records give it to
the crypt of civilization located in the basement
131
00:07:18,500 --> 00:07:23,500
of Phoebe Hearst Hall. There it is, behind you.
You can see... That is the...
132
00:07:23,500 --> 00:07:29,500
It's more than a time capsule, it's a huge room.
Destined to be opened in the year 8113.
133
00:07:30,500 --> 00:07:31,500
It's very specific.
134
00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:33,500
And it contains all kinds of things.
135
00:07:33,500 --> 00:07:36,500
Including the Bible, the Qur'an, the Iliad...
136
00:07:36,500 --> 00:07:38,500
Why 8113, then? What's that...?
137
00:07:38,500 --> 00:07:42,500
Ah, if you could guess why 8113,
I would be staggeringly impressed,
138
00:07:42,500 --> 00:07:45,500
- and you will get TWO fanfares.
- Is it some reversal of numbers?
139
00:07:45,500 --> 00:07:48,500
- Or is it somebody's birthday backwards, or something?
- It's not that, no.
140
00:07:48,500 --> 00:07:50,500
- Somebody's birthday?
- At the time...
141
00:07:55,500 --> 00:07:58,500
In 8113, I will be...
142
00:07:59,500 --> 00:08:01,500
I can't even work that out!
143
00:08:02,500 --> 00:08:08,500
At the time, they believed that human history
began in the year 4241 B.C.
144
00:08:08,500 --> 00:08:12,500
Began, in the sense that that was the beginning of
the Egyptian... The first Egyptian calendar.
145
00:08:12,500 --> 00:08:18,500
And therefor... If they took themselves as that
midpoint and put the same amount of time after the...
146
00:08:18,500 --> 00:08:21,500
The time capsule, it would go out to 8113.
147
00:08:21,500 --> 00:08:22,500
- So when they opened it,
- That's fantastic!
148
00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:25,500
they would be looking at the midpoint in human history.
149
00:08:25,500 --> 00:08:27,500
- That's wonderful.
- Which is rather splendid.
150
00:08:27,500 --> 00:08:30,500
And they also included all kinds of things. They didn't
know whether electricity would still be around,
151
00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:36,500
obviously in 8113, so there's a windmill to drive all
the various speech and electric machines and projectors.
152
00:08:36,500 --> 00:08:39,500
They should have put a bucket of water over the door...
153
00:08:43,500 --> 00:08:45,500
That would have been so sweet.
154
00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:48,500
And there should have been nothing in it, except one
of these big ball pits that you roll around in.
155
00:08:50,500 --> 00:08:53,500
I imagine the people who find it,
just open the door and go...
156
00:08:53,500 --> 00:08:57,500
And just take it to whatever the 8113
equivalent to a carboot sale is.
157
00:08:58,500 --> 00:09:01,500
- Just flog the lot.
- Yeah, it'll be worth a fortune, wouldn't it?
158
00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:04,500
You know what I like doing? The... The...
The sort of... The more mundane aspect
159
00:09:04,500 --> 00:09:10,500
that we all have access to, is when you
strip wallpaper of a room in your house.
160
00:09:10,500 --> 00:09:11,500
- Yes?
- And you get down...
161
00:09:11,500 --> 00:09:14,500
You get a few layers of it, don't you?
You find an glyph, and all these different...
162
00:09:14,500 --> 00:09:16,500
- There's a flock thing...
- Ancient Rome...
163
00:09:17,500 --> 00:09:19,500
- I've always stopped for that.
- Cave... Cave paintings.
164
00:09:19,500 --> 00:09:23,500
Eventually... Eventually, you get through
to something that the...
165
00:09:23,500 --> 00:09:25,500
- The previous owners of the house...
- Amoebas, just a pressed amoeba.
166
00:09:25,500 --> 00:09:30,500
...have written there. They've written, you know,
"John and Susan 1973", or something like that.
167
00:09:30,500 --> 00:09:31,500
- That's all...
- That's very nice.
168
00:09:32,500 --> 00:09:36,500
It's sort of a... It's... It's...
It's a realistic version of archaeology.
169
00:09:36,500 --> 00:09:39,500
It's... It's a... It's a version of archaeology
that's within all our grasp.
170
00:09:39,500 --> 00:09:44,500
You can all try it at home; just go up to the
wallpaper, start... Steam! I recommend you steam.
171
00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:46,500
- Would you?
- Don't go in with a scraper, you'll be there all day.
172
00:09:46,500 --> 00:09:50,500
It's just lovely, because you get a sense...
The history of your house.
173
00:09:51,500 --> 00:09:55,500
Well usually, those things are drawn by decorators,
and it would be like, "Dave's a wanker".
174
00:09:59,500 --> 00:10:01,500
- It might.
- "I hate Arsenal."
175
00:10:01,500 --> 00:10:06,500
Beer. In the steps in houses that have steps or
stoops it's very common to have a barrel of beer
176
00:10:06,500 --> 00:10:08,500
in the cement under there. Apparently.
177
00:10:08,500 --> 00:10:10,500
We found one... In our house,
the family that lived there before,
178
00:10:10,500 --> 00:10:14,500
had recorded the height of all the inhabitants,
and you see it growing,
179
00:10:14,500 --> 00:10:16,500
so I've started doing that
with my kids now, and with me.
180
00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:19,500
Why don't you put yourself really high?
181
00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:21,500
I give myself an extra inch, yes.
182
00:10:22,500 --> 00:10:25,500
My house was repossessed, so I actually
had to scratch marks for the children
183
00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:27,500
as I was dragged down the room.
184
00:10:31,500 --> 00:10:33,500
- Very good.
- That sort of lovely moment we...
185
00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:36,500
We kept it, we decorated around it.
186
00:10:37,500 --> 00:10:40,500
At our house, we just put, "Ben Miller lived here".
187
00:10:42,500 --> 00:10:47,500
There are, apparently, 10,000 time capsules worldwide,
and most of them have been lost, is to where they are.
188
00:10:47,500 --> 00:10:50,500
So there is now the International Time Capsule Society,
189
00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:52,500
- and if you have a time capsule,
- The Blue Peter one was ruined.
190
00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:56,500
they urge you to be in touch; they have a web site.
So that they can register where yours is.
191
00:10:56,500 --> 00:10:58,500
And, of course, we've taken them into space.
192
00:10:58,500 --> 00:11:00,500
- Mariner, was it? Or Voyager?
- Yes.
193
00:11:00,500 --> 00:11:06,500
Which has got a gold slab with a picture of a
man etched into it and binary information about the...
194
00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:08,500
- Was it designed by Carl Sagan?
- Carl Sagan, yeah.
195
00:11:08,500 --> 00:11:12,500
Who said that rather wonderful thing when they
suggested having, also music.
196
00:11:12,500 --> 00:11:15,500
And someone said, "What about Bach?"
And he said, "No, that would just be showing off."
197
00:11:16,500 --> 00:11:18,500
You think there's anyone out there? I don't.
198
00:11:18,500 --> 00:11:20,500
- Don't you?
- Not really, no.
199
00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:22,500
Well, according to the equivalence principle,
there HAVE to be aliens out there.
200
00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:24,500
- There have to be?
- Yeah. There absolutely have to be.
201
00:11:24,500 --> 00:11:25,500
Yeah, but I...
202
00:11:25,500 --> 00:11:28,500
- I doubt the equivalence principle, in all honesty.
- It's a principle...
203
00:11:28,500 --> 00:11:31,500
And have done for a long time.
204
00:11:31,500 --> 00:11:34,500
You show me some hard proof about
the equivalence principle.
205
00:11:34,500 --> 00:11:36,500
- Well the hard proof is that we are here!
- It can't, it's fanciful.
206
00:11:36,500 --> 00:11:39,500
I thought it's all too fanciful
idea that there wouldn't be.
207
00:11:39,500 --> 00:11:41,500
And arrogant and peculiar, and the universe...
208
00:11:41,500 --> 00:11:43,500
- That is almost the opposite view to mine, isn't it?
- There's science...
209
00:11:43,500 --> 00:11:46,500
- It is, yeah.
- Yeah, it is.
210
00:11:46,500 --> 00:11:50,500
The whole of modern astronomy is based on
the principle that we're NOT in a unique position
211
00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:52,500
- in the universe.
- Astronomy or astrology?
212
00:11:52,500 --> 00:11:53,500
Oh, stop it!
213
00:11:53,500 --> 00:11:56,500
- No, astronomy...
- That you would even say the word "astrology" in...
214
00:11:56,500 --> 00:11:59,500
Astrology is of course, star signs.
I mean, that's... Rubbish, isn't it?
215
00:11:59,500 --> 00:12:01,500
- Thank you, yes. That's right.
- Yes, but I'm not saying that...
216
00:12:01,500 --> 00:12:04,500
- That you even begin to thing about it.
- I'm not backing up! I'm, I'm...
217
00:12:04,500 --> 00:12:07,500
- I'm debunking it.
- But, in fact, if you're watching QI now,
218
00:12:07,500 --> 00:12:10,500
and you believe in astrology, you are banned
from watching this show...
219
00:12:10,500 --> 00:12:13,500
You're not allowed, you must turn over NOW!
Thank you.
220
00:12:17,800 --> 00:12:18,500
Now...
221
00:12:18,500 --> 00:12:24,500
You may not know that, amazingly, nothing in
the laws of physics forbids time travel.
222
00:12:24,500 --> 00:12:28,500
But if this is the case,
where are all the time travellers?
223
00:12:28,500 --> 00:12:30,500
She could do so much better than him.
224
00:12:32,500 --> 00:12:35,500
He looks absolutely shocked
to be with her, doesn't he? I mean...
225
00:12:35,500 --> 00:12:37,500
"I can't believe my luck!"
226
00:12:38,500 --> 00:12:40,500
There's a thing known as the Grandfather Paradox,
isn't there?
227
00:12:40,500 --> 00:12:45,500
That if you could travel in time,
could you go back and shoot your own grandfather?
228
00:12:45,500 --> 00:12:47,500
Obviously, you couldn't, cos the
person killing your grandfather,
229
00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:49,500
once your grandfather is dead,
you could never have existed
230
00:12:49,500 --> 00:12:52,500
and if you haven't existed,
you can't have killed your grandfather.
231
00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:55,500
Point related nicely to the business about
"Where are all the aliens?".
232
00:12:55,500 --> 00:12:58,500
Cos the... The question
"Where are all the aliens?" is essentially...
233
00:12:58,500 --> 00:13:02,500
Is known, in fact, as the Fermi paradox, and...
234
00:13:03,500 --> 00:13:04,500
- Enrico Fermi...
- Yes?
235
00:13:08,500 --> 00:13:11,500
- I will spare you the details!
- Yeah.
236
00:13:12,500 --> 00:13:16,500
Erm, Hawking mirrored his quote,
Hawking mirrored his quote...
237
00:13:16,500 --> 00:13:20,500
When you say there's nothing in physics
that prevents time travel,
238
00:13:20,500 --> 00:13:22,500
that's not actually strictly true,
because there are plenty of physical laws
239
00:13:22,500 --> 00:13:25,500
that are non-reversible, such as the second
law of thermodynamics.
240
00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:27,500
Really, that you're saying; swings and roundabouts.
241
00:13:35,500 --> 00:13:37,500
- Swings and roundabouts...
- That is the quite interesting point...
242
00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:45,500
If you had a picture of a glass and then;
a smashed glass, you could never put the picture
243
00:13:45,500 --> 00:13:48,500
of the smashed glass as earlier in time
than the picture of the glass.
244
00:13:49,500 --> 00:13:54,500
So, the question is; are we human beings
only capable of living in a universe
245
00:13:54,500 --> 00:13:58,500
in which we experience time in a thermodynamic
sequence, in a linear thermodynamic sequence?
246
00:13:59,500 --> 00:14:01,500
Or, is time actually reversible?
247
00:14:01,500 --> 00:14:04,500
- Is it multiple choice?
- Then there's the... There's the girdle...
248
00:14:05,500 --> 00:14:07,500
'Cause I think, if there's a multiple choice,
I'd have a stab at it.
249
00:14:09,500 --> 00:14:11,500
- If you warp space enough?
- If you warp space, that's the idea, yeah...
250
00:14:11,500 --> 00:14:14,500
- Time could fold back on itself.
- Yeah, wormholes.
251
00:14:14,500 --> 00:14:19,500
Then wormholes, but there's also the simple fact
that if you'd travel near the speed of light,
252
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:23,500
towards a planet, and it might take you, say;
a minute to get to that planet...
253
00:14:23,500 --> 00:14:25,500
- To which...
- On Earth; four years would pass,
254
00:14:25,500 --> 00:14:28,500
- while, in your space ship; only a minute passes.
- That's exactly right!
255
00:14:28,500 --> 00:14:32,500
What Stephen is saying is that time travel
IS possible; time travel to the future, is possible.
256
00:14:32,500 --> 00:14:34,500
Because, the closer you get to the speed of light,
257
00:14:34,500 --> 00:14:37,500
- the faster the universe...
- We're all travelling to the future, aren't we?
258
00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:38,500
Just very slowly.
259
00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:43,500
That's not the problem. It's more going back,
that's the issue, I think.
260
00:14:43,500 --> 00:14:48,500
But there is a belief, also, that the very thing
you where talking about: The Large Hadron Collider,
261
00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:52,500
might initiate the world of time travel, because
there are some people who think
262
00:14:52,500 --> 00:14:56,500
time travel MAY be possible in the future,
but, like telephones; you can't have one telephone,
263
00:14:56,500 --> 00:15:00,500
it's useless, you have to have someone else with
a telephone; and that the...
264
00:15:00,500 --> 00:15:06,500
In the future... If they have any access to time travel,
they need first something on Earth to have been built,
265
00:15:06,500 --> 00:15:09,500
- like a large hadron collider.
- One of those...
266
00:15:09,500 --> 00:15:15,500
Which might well cause wormholes to exist, that would
allow people in the future to connect with it.
267
00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:16,500
I was there two weeks ago!
268
00:15:16,500 --> 00:15:18,500
- Where you really?
- Yeah. Really exciting.
269
00:15:18,500 --> 00:15:21,500
That was one helluva anniversary for you and
Mrs. Miller, wasn't it?
270
00:15:24,500 --> 00:15:30,500
My objection to all this physics, this... This level
of physics, is that you can't explain it to...
271
00:15:30,500 --> 00:15:31,500
Let's call us...
272
00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:36,500
Not... just ordinary people. You could,
actually, just be making it up.
273
00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:38,500
Until it makes machines work, that's the point.
274
00:15:38,500 --> 00:15:42,500
When Faraday talked about electricity
and magnetism, it didn't make any sense,
275
00:15:42,500 --> 00:15:46,500
but then somebody makes a solenoid,
somebody makes an electricity generator,
276
00:15:46,500 --> 00:15:48,500
suddenly you've got lights, you've got television,
277
00:15:48,500 --> 00:15:51,500
people can talk about quantum P states and N states,
and they can talk about this.
278
00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:53,500
And suddenly you've got a computer to go,
279
00:15:53,500 --> 00:15:56,500
- "Ahem, I think you'll find...!"
- I was the same with the leaf blower.
280
00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:03,500
Someone said to me, "One day you
won't have to rake up the leaves."
281
00:16:04,500 --> 00:16:07,500
I said, "You are living in cloud cuckoo land, mate."
282
00:16:09,500 --> 00:16:12,500
Can you? Like, I don't understand electricity.
Even the most...
283
00:16:12,500 --> 00:16:16,500
I don't understand telephones. If you could explain
to me, the theory of the telephone,
284
00:16:16,500 --> 00:16:19,500
I would still have... I've had the same expression
at the start, that I had at the end.
285
00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:25,500
Could somebody... A simple analogy. I mean, it's been
around since I was a kid. That how your voice...
286
00:16:26,500 --> 00:16:28,500
- Can be heard miles away?
- Ben! Help us out.
287
00:16:28,500 --> 00:16:32,500
You need... You need something called a "transducer".
You need something, that's capable
288
00:16:32,500 --> 00:16:34,500
- of changing one energy form into another...
- See, I'm gone, lost my train.
289
00:16:35,500 --> 00:16:40,500
Via something like a piezoelectric crystal,
which is a crystal, which if you compress it;
290
00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:42,500
it creates an electric charge, and you can...
291
00:16:42,500 --> 00:16:48,500
Say, if an electric circuit; you have a piezoelectric
crystal in the mouthpiece of the telephone...
292
00:16:49,500 --> 00:16:53,500
You, um... You speak into it; it vibrates;
it converts that into electrical currents...
293
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:55,500
- No!
- Those currents are then converted into a signal
294
00:16:55,500 --> 00:16:59,500
by an amplifier; passed along the telephone wire to
the other end, where it's converted back
295
00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:04,500
through a transducer, from an electrical signal into
movement of the piezoelectric crystal,
296
00:17:04,500 --> 00:17:07,500
- which moves the air; which moves the...
- It's like a palindrome.
297
00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:10,500
- ...which hits the ear which hears your voice.
- Thank you. Very good.
298
00:17:10,500 --> 00:17:11,500
It's like a palindrome.
299
00:17:13,500 --> 00:17:17,500
So, it's like a palindrome, in the sense
that it starts off one thing; it has to transform
300
00:17:17,500 --> 00:17:19,500
- and then come back to what it was?
- Exactly! Yeah.
301
00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:23,500
I think that people find it hard to tell us apart.
I think we've hit upon a good way now, haven't we?
302
00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:35,500
The future, of course, is obvious with hindsight,
but now it's time to poke predicable fun
303
00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:41,500
at people who are foolhardy enough to make forecasts
and have the misfortune to get them hopelessly wrong.
304
00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:43,500
So, fingers on buzzers, please.
305
00:17:43,500 --> 00:17:50,500
In 1955, Variety Magazine predicted that what
would be, I quote, "gone before June"?
306
00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:52,500
Yes?
307
00:17:52,500 --> 00:17:53,500
- Rob.
- May.
308
00:18:03,500 --> 00:18:05,500
I said they predicted it wrongly.
309
00:18:08,500 --> 00:18:09,500
You made me look a fool.
310
00:18:10,500 --> 00:18:11,500
No, you did that!
311
00:18:12,500 --> 00:18:15,500
- Television.
- Television is not... But you're much...
312
00:18:15,500 --> 00:18:18,500
- Cinema.
- It's an "F" show; Frisps.
313
00:18:19,500 --> 00:18:21,500
- I'll tell you what it was...
- Remember them?
314
00:18:21,500 --> 00:18:23,500
- I'll tell you what it was...
- Yeah, then...
315
00:18:23,500 --> 00:18:25,500
If it was '55, it was Elvis Presley.
316
00:18:25,500 --> 00:18:27,500
- Wider. Wider, more...
- Rock and roll!
317
00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:29,500
"Rock and roll" is the right answer.
Yes, they did say that.
318
00:18:29,500 --> 00:18:31,500
Don't look so stupid now, do I?
319
00:18:32,500 --> 00:18:37,500
Not quite so stupid, rather... You...
You don't. But all things are relative.
320
00:18:37,500 --> 00:18:40,500
Um, yeah, it was rock and roll.
321
00:18:40,500 --> 00:18:49,500
Now in 1977, Ken Olsen said, "There is no reason
for any individual to have a 'what' in their home"?
322
00:18:49,500 --> 00:18:50,500
Butler!
323
00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:52,500
No.
324
00:18:52,500 --> 00:18:55,500
- Jap moded...
- Japanese prisoner of war.
325
00:18:56,500 --> 00:18:59,500
- Again; wonderful tribe. No.
- No need for it.
326
00:18:59,500 --> 00:19:04,500
He, if I may say, was the chairman of D-E-C.
DEC. The Digital Equipment Company.
327
00:19:04,500 --> 00:19:07,500
- Computer!
- "A computer", he said, exactly!
328
00:19:07,500 --> 00:19:09,500
- He was wrong, wasn't he?
- He was very wrong, yes.
329
00:19:09,500 --> 00:19:12,500
- I know quite a few people who've got one.
- Yes! Yes.
330
00:19:12,500 --> 00:19:17,500
They are, these days. They're very much the
coming thing, I believe, aren't they? Absolutely.
331
00:19:17,500 --> 00:19:19,500
Some of these "whiz kids", they...
332
00:19:20,500 --> 00:19:26,500
In 1955, what nuclear powered device did Alex Lewitt
predict, would be a reality within ten years?
333
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:27,500
TV remote.
334
00:19:28,500 --> 00:19:31,500
- No, but as... As daft, really.
- Hover boots.
335
00:19:32,500 --> 00:19:34,500
- Nuclear powered hover boots? I like the sound...
- Yeah! That is the invention,
336
00:19:34,500 --> 00:19:38,500
that everybody always says, "Will there be..."
My... My son, he said to me,
337
00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:40,500
"Dad, will there be hover boots when I'm grown up?"
338
00:19:40,500 --> 00:19:45,500
Like, that is the height of scientific
and technological advancement, and Ben knows,
339
00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:47,500
he's gonna talk for a little while about...
340
00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:52,500
- The possibility of...
- How possible it is...
341
00:19:54,500 --> 00:19:56,500
- Hover gloves, that might.
- It's not hover gloves...
342
00:19:57,500 --> 00:19:58,500
Now, that's brilliant!
343
00:19:59,500 --> 00:20:02,500
Surely, you could do your own hovering,
you're doing it, in fact.
344
00:20:03,500 --> 00:20:06,500
It's not a hover thing, but it is a domestic
appliance, that he thought...
345
00:20:06,500 --> 00:20:08,500
- Electric toothbrush!
- ...would be nuclear powered.
346
00:20:08,500 --> 00:20:09,500
Not an electric toothbrush.
347
00:20:09,500 --> 00:20:10,500
- Fridge.
- Hoover!
348
00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:13,500
- "Hoover", yes. An electric nu... Vacuum cleaner
- Vacuum cleaner, yes.
349
00:20:13,500 --> 00:20:16,500
- Nuclear vacuum cleaner?
- He honestly thought, in 1955,
350
00:20:16,500 --> 00:20:18,500
that within ten years, there'd be nuclear powered ones.
351
00:20:18,500 --> 00:20:22,500
They had vacuum cleaners in America
in the 19th century, and they where huge,
352
00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:24,500
and they had to go on the back of a cart drawn by horses.
353
00:20:24,500 --> 00:20:27,500
I remember seeing that on a programme called "QI". Yeah.
354
00:20:28,500 --> 00:20:29,500
Yeah. Well done.
355
00:20:32,500 --> 00:20:33,500
But, well remembered!
356
00:20:40,500 --> 00:20:41,500
It goes in somewhere.
357
00:20:42,500 --> 00:20:43,500
It did! And it does, yeah!
358
00:20:44,500 --> 00:20:47,500
Well, the nuclear powered domestic vacuum cleaner.
But not everybody gets it wrong;
359
00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:52,500
a few remarkable people, shaped the future
by being the very first in their field,
360
00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:58,500
men like Saint Ambrose, the fourth century
bishop of Milan. What did Saint Augustine of Hippo,
361
00:20:58,500 --> 00:21:04,500
catch Saint Ambrose doing, that had never been done
before in public, but which nearly all of us...
362
00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:07,500
Nearly all of us now can do in public?
363
00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:08,500
Yes?
364
00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:11,500
Was he using his mobile in a crowded compartment?
365
00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:13,500
- Because we all do it, let's be honest.
- We do.
366
00:21:13,500 --> 00:21:17,500
Even when we see that little sign saying,
"This is a mobile friendly..." or "mobile free..."
367
00:21:17,500 --> 00:21:19,500
'Cause, you still kind of think it doesn't apply to you.
368
00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:22,500
I don't, actually, yeah.
369
00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:23,500
- I don't!
- No.
370
00:21:23,500 --> 00:21:24,500
I think it's just you, Rob.
371
00:21:25,500 --> 00:21:28,500
For, when I do; people think it's you!
372
00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:33,500
Anyway. No, it isn't that. It was like
a party trick thingie he could do.
373
00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:36,500
It seemed it, but we can all do it.
And it seems natural to us.
374
00:21:36,500 --> 00:21:38,500
But, it was just not done.
375
00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:41,500
And, it involved... Reading.
376
00:21:41,500 --> 00:21:42,500
Did his lips move?
377
00:21:42,500 --> 00:21:45,500
- Reading...
- His lips did not move. Is the point.
378
00:21:46,500 --> 00:21:50,500
He was the first person, it seems,
in certain post classical times,
379
00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:52,500
who could read without moving his lips.
380
00:21:55,500 --> 00:21:59,500
It's very odd. It seems so natural to us.
But, as children do, when they first read,
381
00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:03,500
they read out loud, and then, their lips moved.
And, then they'd never stop.
382
00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:04,500
- Presumably, if you could read,
- And this man, Saint Ambrose...
383
00:22:04,500 --> 00:22:06,500
then you, sort of, wanted to show of a bit
about the fact that you could.
384
00:22:06,500 --> 00:22:09,500
I think, there's an element of that.
Whereas he did the opposite.
385
00:22:09,500 --> 00:22:12,500
And this is what Saint Augustine
wrote in his confessions:
386
00:22:12,500 --> 00:22:16,500
"When Ambrose read, his eyes scanned the page,
and his heart sought out the meaning,
387
00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:20,500
but his voice was silent. And his tongue was still.
Anyone could approach him freely,
388
00:22:20,500 --> 00:22:23,500
and guests where not commonly announced,
so that often, when we came to visit him,
389
00:22:23,500 --> 00:22:27,500
we found him reading like this,
in silence. For he never read aloud."
390
00:22:27,500 --> 00:22:31,500
And he was obviously astonished by this.
It was considered a remarkable trick.
391
00:22:31,500 --> 00:22:34,500
I... I sort of think of myself
as a man of limited talents,
392
00:22:34,500 --> 00:22:38,500
and I just wish that I'd been around then.
393
00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:40,500
I would have blown them away!
394
00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:43,500
I can read whole books like this!
395
00:22:48,500 --> 00:22:50,500
But I have to say, they would have been in Latin.
396
00:22:51,500 --> 00:22:53,500
- That's where I would have fallen down.
- Yeah.
397
00:22:53,500 --> 00:22:57,500
But you could have, also... You could have given
them your Ronnie Corbett impression, which goes...
398
00:22:58,500 --> 00:23:02,500
It's not the one about the chap that
reads the book without moving his lips.
399
00:23:03,500 --> 00:23:04,500
Very good! Very good.
400
00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:12,500
They might have burned you as a witch
but they would have been impressed.
401
00:23:12,500 --> 00:23:16,500
Anyway, so... Another man that was ahead
of his time, was Sir Christopher Wren.
402
00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:19,500
This is one of his buildings behind me, here.
403
00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:24,500
By question is, what are the pillars in the middle
of open area for? Those four pillars?
404
00:23:24,500 --> 00:23:26,500
For hoodies to lean on menacingly.
405
00:23:27,500 --> 00:23:30,500
Probably true, it's Windsor. We're in Windsor here.
Do you know what they're for?
406
00:23:30,500 --> 00:23:32,500
Hold the roof up?
407
00:23:32,500 --> 00:23:34,500
Oh, no!
408
00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:40,500
No. Oddly enough, he took over the commission
from a man called Fitz, who'd been commissioned
409
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:44,500
to do the building, and there where these
four pillars, and he...
410
00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:46,500
- Being a fine...
- "Where do these go, guv?"
411
00:23:46,500 --> 00:23:48,500
- "Oh, just put them in the middle..."
- Well, him being a...
412
00:23:48,500 --> 00:23:51,500
Christopher Wren; fine mathematician,
and an extraordinary architect,
413
00:23:51,500 --> 00:23:53,500
he reasoned, quite correctly,
that the pillars where not necessary.
414
00:23:53,500 --> 00:23:57,500
But the bureaucrats, who had said this:
"No, no, no, you got to have the pillars!"
415
00:23:57,500 --> 00:24:01,500
So he deliberately had the pillars made too short,
actually to touch the ceiling...
416
00:24:01,500 --> 00:24:03,500
- Oh, yes! They're not...
- As a way of putting two fingers up to them,
417
00:24:03,500 --> 00:24:06,500
- for them insisting he have them.
- I know a building like that...
418
00:24:06,500 --> 00:24:08,500
In fact, they had no supporting role, whatsoever.
419
00:24:08,500 --> 00:24:10,500
We had a building like that in our extension, actually.
420
00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:14,500
- Did it fall down? Or did it... Did it fall down?
- Yes! Yes.
421
00:24:14,500 --> 00:24:16,500
- He didn't do it on purpose.
- No! No.
422
00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:20,500
Also, it's got failsafe. That if it doesn't work,
it just goes... Then it's all right.
423
00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,500
Exactly! No one would ever know, but you!
424
00:24:22,500 --> 00:24:26,500
- But in fact, needless today, even today, now...
- "What happened?". "Don't worry about it!"
425
00:24:26,500 --> 00:24:28,500
- Actually, they force tiles in there.
- Shims.
426
00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:32,500
Because the current jobs worths, also think,
"No, no. It's got to have those..."
427
00:24:32,500 --> 00:24:35,500
But, it's in Windsor. It's the corn market,
428
00:24:35,500 --> 00:24:41,500
Now, a common theme of science fiction B-movies
set in the future is robot invasions.
429
00:24:41,500 --> 00:24:45,500
But, has Britain ever actually been invaded by robots?
430
00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:47,500
- Yes.
- Ooh, I'm guessing they have.
431
00:24:47,500 --> 00:24:50,500
- Yes, they have. And when?
- Er, '40s.
432
00:24:50,500 --> 00:24:52,500
- 1880's.
- '40s is the right answer.
433
00:24:52,500 --> 00:24:56,500
- 1940's.
- I'm afraid the point there goes to young Alan.
434
00:24:56,500 --> 00:24:57,500
- But...
- The Germans?
435
00:24:57,500 --> 00:24:59,500
- Was it the Germans?
- The Germans.
436
00:24:59,500 --> 00:25:02,500
- Had to be. The doodlebug.
- The doodlebug and the buzz bombs.
437
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:04,500
- The V1 and V2.
- "We will zend zie robots!"
438
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:07,500
And the point is not just that we're
saying they are a kind of robots,
439
00:25:07,500 --> 00:25:08,500
they were CALLED robots.
440
00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:11,500
They were called robots more than
they were called doodlebugs in the '40s.
441
00:25:11,500 --> 00:25:14,500
In as much as they were publicly called anything,
442
00:25:14,500 --> 00:25:17,500
because they were more or less
banned to be discussed,
443
00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:23,500
the British authorities were terrified of letting
the Germans know how successful or otherwise
444
00:25:23,500 --> 00:25:25,500
- the V1 and V2 were.
- I'll tell you what, when the V2 landed
445
00:25:25,500 --> 00:25:27,500
on Chingford Plain, it was quite widely discussed.
446
00:25:27,500 --> 00:25:30,500
Oh, it would be. But the point is,
not in the newspapers.
447
00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:34,500
You ask, has Britain been invaded by robots?
448
00:25:34,500 --> 00:25:37,500
If you wanted to answer that
question in a satirical manner...
449
00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:39,500
- Yes?
- That took a swipe at modern life in Britain...
450
00:25:39,500 --> 00:25:42,500
- Go on!
- You'd say we're in the process of it now,
451
00:25:42,500 --> 00:25:47,500
and those robots are the bloody call
centres that we have to put up with.
452
00:25:50,500 --> 00:25:52,500
So my answer is yes, and it's happening now.
453
00:25:52,500 --> 00:25:55,500
- You should... You should be a stand-up comedian.
- Or, Rob, on a... On a...
454
00:25:56,500 --> 00:26:03,500
On an equally satirical note, the bloody cameras
that take photographs of us everywhere we go...
455
00:26:04,500 --> 00:26:06,500
- And...
- More cameras now in this country...
456
00:26:06,500 --> 00:26:08,500
- Send us, electronically...
- Pictures of our cars...
457
00:26:08,500 --> 00:26:11,500
- Summons and fines...
- More cameras than any other time,
458
00:26:11,500 --> 00:26:16,500
and any country in Europe, and yet
we can't catch anybody who kills somebody!
459
00:26:17,500 --> 00:26:20,500
- The Acton Bowling Club!
- Why is nobody ever murdered in front of a camera?
500
00:26:20,500 --> 00:26:24,500
A couple of mad old men moaning
about the state of Britain today!
501
00:26:28,500 --> 00:26:29,500
I agree with you!
502
00:26:29,500 --> 00:26:33,500
- I like you! I like you.
- I like you!
503
00:26:33,500 --> 00:26:36,500
- I listen to you, it's like listening to me!
- Yeah!
504
00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:39,500
- I like your attitude.
- Yeah, yeah!
505
00:26:39,500 --> 00:26:42,500
They're going to fuse into one horrifying Rob Miller.
506
00:26:43,500 --> 00:26:46,500
If we go like this; this is like a Siamese twin.
507
00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:53,500
We're quite keen to have the operation but obviously
we're not sure how we'd get on without each other.
508
00:26:54,500 --> 00:26:56,500
Mmm. All right. Er...
509
00:26:56,500 --> 00:26:57,500
Oh, Christ!
510
00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:08,500
- Whoa! That's what it's like!
- Yeah!
511
00:27:09,500 --> 00:27:11,500
I can see the attraction!
512
00:27:11,500 --> 00:27:13,500
- Now I know why my wife married me.
- Yeah!
513
00:27:14,500 --> 00:27:16,500
That was good! Goddamn!
514
00:27:19,500 --> 00:27:21,500
Just horrible!
515
00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:25,500
Right, thank you.
516
00:27:27,500 --> 00:27:30,500
You can make up for it by telling
me where the word "robot" comes from.
517
00:27:30,500 --> 00:27:33,500
- Where do we get the word robot from?
- I can't get that out of my head.
518
00:27:34,500 --> 00:27:36,500
We get the word robotic from the word robot!
519
00:27:36,500 --> 00:27:39,500
Yeah, take the "IC" off robotic, you've got robot.
520
00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:43,500
It comes from the dance, Stephen.
It comes from the dance.
521
00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:44,500
This dance.
522
00:27:46,500 --> 00:27:50,500
Is it something you can shout at a machine
it's got a chance of understanding?
523
00:27:50,500 --> 00:27:53,500
- Oh? Interesting thought, no.
- Like, "You robot!"
524
00:27:54,500 --> 00:27:57,500
Whereas if it was called a
quark assimilator fassamisilator,
525
00:27:57,500 --> 00:28:01,500
it might not pick up how angry you are.
526
00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:02,500
It must be an acronym, right?
527
00:28:02,500 --> 00:28:05,500
No, it's not, actually. It's from a
perfectly good Slavic word; robota,
528
00:28:05,500 --> 00:28:09,500
meaning a drudge, slave worker, a labourer.
529
00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:10,500
- Ah, like a drone.
- Robota.
530
00:28:10,500 --> 00:28:15,500
And it was from a play by a man called Karel Čapek
in 1920, called Rossum's Universal Robots.
531
00:28:15,500 --> 00:28:18,500
And that's when it was first used.
But now, back to the future.
532
00:28:18,500 --> 00:28:22,500
What will be the language of the future here on earth?
533
00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:25,500
Well, if it carries on the way it is,
it'll be the sort of hoodies
534
00:28:25,500 --> 00:28:29,500
that Ben and I are so firmly against.
Kind of like talking like this,
535
00:28:29,500 --> 00:28:33,500
everybody is gonna talk like that,
and that's gonna be the way of the future.
536
00:28:33,500 --> 00:28:36,500
Like, you know, it don't matter where you
come from. You's gonna talk like that...
537
00:28:36,500 --> 00:28:37,500
Which I hate.
538
00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:42,500
- I think you all got that!
- Yeah!
539
00:28:43,500 --> 00:28:44,500
Oh, dear.
540
00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:50,500
- Is it gonna be Mandarin or Spanish?
- Interesting thought.
541
00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:52,500
- Oh, is it a trick qu...? Is it binary?
- Binary.
542
00:28:52,500 --> 00:28:54,500
- Is it binary?
- No, it's not, though you have a picture on there.
543
00:28:54,500 --> 00:28:58,500
No, it's generally thought to be English, in fact,
but a certain kind of English.
544
00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:02,500
- As many as 80% of the people...
- Is this gonna be, it's like, kind of, English?
545
00:29:02,500 --> 00:29:03,500
No! It's like...
546
00:29:05,500 --> 00:29:08,500
- Kind of like English? That sort of like English?
- That goes up at the end?
547
00:29:08,500 --> 00:29:11,500
- Cos I hate that.
- I hate that too. I hate that too.
548
00:29:11,500 --> 00:29:15,500
There's a proper debate about this. I mean, wh...
Cos I am a bit of an old, funny...
549
00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:17,500
"Oh, it shouldn't change!"
But, of course; language...
550
00:29:17,500 --> 00:29:18,500
- It must change.
- DOES evolve.
551
00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:21,500
Absolutely. I can't bare people being pointy
about language. It drives me mad!
552
00:29:21,500 --> 00:29:25,500
People who write in to Radio 4 and moan
about whether or not someone said "more",
553
00:29:25,500 --> 00:29:28,500
you know, "fewer" or "less".
actually, that's showing off...
554
00:29:28,500 --> 00:29:29,500
- It's a living language...
- They just wanted to show,
555
00:29:29,500 --> 00:29:31,500
- they've spotted something...
- And deal with it!
556
00:29:31,500 --> 00:29:34,500
How you've told me off for "fewer" or "less";
557
00:29:34,500 --> 00:29:36,500
- on no fewer or lesser occasions.
- Oh, YOU, yeah! Obviously. I...
558
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:41,500
Heavens above!
559
00:29:41,500 --> 00:29:44,500
No, apparently as many as 80% of people
who speak English do not speak English
560
00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:46,500
as their first language.
561
00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:48,500
They're speaking it together with other people, who...
562
00:29:48,500 --> 00:29:50,500
For whom it is their second or third language.
563
00:29:50,500 --> 00:29:54,500
And the one that seems to be growing is a thing
called Panglish, they're gonna call it,
564
00:29:54,500 --> 00:29:57,500
i.e., "pan" English, a kind of everyman English.
595
00:29:57,500 --> 00:30:01,500
There's a version at the moment, which is spoken
by a lot of people called Singlish, apparently,
596
00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:04,500
which is a mixture of English, Chinese and Malay.
597
00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:08,500
Singaporean equivalent to Franglais.
See if you can see what these words mean.
598
00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:14,500
Lay leo. Written as two words,
it's actually one. L-A-Y-L-E-O. Lay leo.
599
00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:17,500
- Instructions for Mrs Sayer.
- No, it's just radio.
600
00:30:20,500 --> 00:30:25,500
You're not on Clue now!
Very good! No, it's radio. "Layleo."
601
00:30:25,500 --> 00:30:28,500
Layleo? That's just bad!
602
00:30:28,500 --> 00:30:32,500
That's a child, "Layleo."
"Well done!"
603
00:30:32,500 --> 00:30:35,500
"He's speaking Panglish, you know!"
604
00:30:36,500 --> 00:30:38,500
"No, he hasn't learned to speak!"
605
00:30:39,500 --> 00:30:41,500
- Lolex.
- A Rolex watch.
606
00:30:41,500 --> 00:30:43,500
- Yes! Exactly!
- Oh, that's rubbish!
607
00:30:44,500 --> 00:30:50,500
Orleng tzu. O-R-L-E-N-G, T-Z-U.
608
00:30:51,500 --> 00:30:52,500
See you soon.
609
00:30:52,500 --> 00:30:56,500
No, actually it's a drink. "I have
glass of orleng tzu." Orange juice.
610
00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:03,500
Orleng tzu. If you go to Singapore and say,
"orleng tzu", they give you an orange juice.
611
00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:05,500
They really must... They must try harder.
612
00:31:08,500 --> 00:31:12,500
English has evolved. I mean, a Saxon
or an Angle would hear us and go,
613
00:31:12,500 --> 00:31:15,500
"What have they done with our
language? They must try harder."
614
00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:17,500
Cos we've evolved it into what we call English.
615
00:31:17,500 --> 00:31:21,500
They'll do it into what will be
their language, I mean...
616
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:23,500
That's after they've said, "What are you wearing?"
617
00:31:24,500 --> 00:31:26,500
Do you know what I heard said to me in Singapore?
618
00:31:26,500 --> 00:31:27,500
What?
619
00:31:27,500 --> 00:31:29,500
"You! Lick Ashwrie!"
620
00:31:29,500 --> 00:31:30,500
"Lick arse, please?"
621
00:31:32,500 --> 00:31:34,500
- Wow!
- 1988, and I was mistaken,
622
00:31:34,500 --> 00:31:36,500
- for the pop star Rick Astley.
- Oh?
623
00:31:38,500 --> 00:31:43,500
- I wanted "Lick arse, please!"...
- "You pop star! You Lick Asslie!"
624
00:31:44,500 --> 00:31:46,500
- "You lick arse, please!"
- "Sorry? Say, I'm sorry?"
625
00:31:46,500 --> 00:31:48,500
- No, he was asking you to lick his arse.
- He was, yeah!
626
00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:51,500
- You where being offered a service.
- He thought I was Rick Astley.
627
00:31:51,500 --> 00:31:53,500
- He was an early example of "Rickrolling"
- "Never gonna give you up..."
628
00:31:53,500 --> 00:31:54,500
- Hey!
- There is... There is...
629
00:31:55,500 --> 00:31:58,500
There is no more mysterious language,
of course, then... Then... Than Welsh.
630
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:02,500
Where, uh... Mini golf, for example,
is "golf mini".
631
00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:05,500
- Get away!
- True. True.
632
00:32:05,500 --> 00:32:07,500
- "Welsh".
- True!
633
00:32:07,500 --> 00:32:08,500
Honestly!
634
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:11,500
They're are other languages,
obviously; invented languages.
635
00:32:11,500 --> 00:32:12,500
Do you know anything about Klingon?
636
00:32:12,500 --> 00:32:15,500
Oh, yeah! That's a proper language now, isn't it?
637
00:32:15,500 --> 00:32:17,500
It seems to be. They have degrees
in it, I believe. In Klingon.
638
00:32:17,500 --> 00:32:20,500
It was invented by a man called Marc Okrand,
or at least devised.
639
00:32:20,500 --> 00:32:23,500
It's rather difficult to have normal
conversations in it. There are words for things
640
00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:28,500
like a transporter ionising unit.
Which is a "jol'Voi", which you probably knew...
641
00:32:28,500 --> 00:32:30,500
Wasn't he... Wasn't he a midnight cowboy?
642
00:32:33,500 --> 00:32:35,500
Also, for the bridge of a ship, which is "meH".
643
00:32:35,500 --> 00:32:38,500
But there is no word for a bridge
that goes over a river.
644
00:32:38,500 --> 00:32:41,500
But they have translated Hamlet into Klingon.
645
00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:46,500
And, "taH pagh taHbe’",
is "To be, or not to be" apparently.
646
00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:49,500
Is there any word for:
"What have I done with my life?"
647
00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:52,500
Perhaps, there should be.
648
00:32:52,500 --> 00:32:53,500
"How did it come to this?"
649
00:32:53,500 --> 00:32:55,500
"Trekkie", I think, is the word that...
650
00:32:57,500 --> 00:32:59,500
But there are more sensible ones; Esperanto.
651
00:32:59,500 --> 00:33:02,500
- That was invented, wasn't it?
- Is was an entirely invented language.
652
00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:07,500
But, apparently because it's so easy to learn,
has only 900 words and has no irregular verbs,
653
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:11,500
it takes you a year less to learn
to speak another language reasonably fluently.
654
00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:13,500
So in that sense it's quite useful.
655
00:33:13,500 --> 00:33:15,500
Here's an example. What am I saying? Saluton.
656
00:33:15,500 --> 00:33:17,500
- Saluton?
- Hello.
657
00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:19,500
- Greetings.
- Yes. What could be easier than that?
658
00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:23,500
- Cu vi parolas Esperanton?
- Quidditch.
659
00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:30,500
Do you speak - Cu vi,
do you have Esperanto words?
660
00:33:30,500 --> 00:33:33,500
But this is... Mia kusenveturilo
estas plena je angiloj.
661
00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:37,500
My cousin is a meerkat of strange angles.
662
00:33:39,500 --> 00:33:42,500
No, you can work this out. Angiloj?
663
00:33:42,500 --> 00:33:43,500
- No, nothing.
- Eel.
664
00:33:43,500 --> 00:33:47,500
- Eel. In most romance languages that's an eel.
- Eel, is it?
665
00:33:47,500 --> 00:33:51,500
- Kusenveturilo... Kusen... Kusen?
- Jellied eels?
666
00:33:51,500 --> 00:33:53,500
Cushing? Peter Cushing, the Hammer Horrors?
667
00:33:54,500 --> 00:33:56,500
- Cushion vehicle...
- Eel cushion?
668
00:33:56,500 --> 00:33:57,500
- Hovercraft.
- Estas plena...
669
00:33:57,500 --> 00:33:59,500
Yeah, "My hovercraft is full of eels."
670
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:02,500
- Seriously?
- Yes!
671
00:34:05,500 --> 00:34:08,500
I thought you were a bit cross with me then
and you were saying that to move on.
672
00:34:08,500 --> 00:34:10,500
No, that's what it is in Esperanto.
673
00:34:10,500 --> 00:34:12,500
There you are. Anyway, that's enough of that.
674
00:34:12,500 --> 00:34:15,500
The language of the future looks
like actually being Panglish,
674
00:34:15,500 --> 00:34:17,500
and we'll only understand it if we're lucky.
675
00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:23,500
Now, it is possible to imagine a future in
which there will be no war and no poverty
676
00:34:23,500 --> 00:34:27,500
but I confidently predict there
will always be General Ignorance.
677
00:34:27,500 --> 00:34:29,500
So fingers on buzzers, please.
678
00:34:29,500 --> 00:34:35,500
To be serious for a moment. The most urgent issue
facing the future of the planet is the environment.
679
00:34:35,500 --> 00:34:40,500
The republic of Guyana, is in South America,
as you probably know...
680
00:34:40,500 --> 00:34:45,500
Immediately to the north of Brazil.
Between the years 2000 and 2005;
681
00:34:45,500 --> 00:34:49,500
what percentage of the country's rainforest was cut down?
682
00:34:49,900 --> 00:34:50,500
Yes?
683
00:34:51,500 --> 00:34:52,500
400.
684
00:34:55,500 --> 00:34:56,500
It's that bad!
685
00:34:58,500 --> 00:35:00,500
It's that bad it's got.
686
00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:07,500
Like a Mach 4 razor. The first...
The first time gets it close...
687
00:35:08,500 --> 00:35:14,500
The second time; closer still.
The third time gets rid of any trees at all!
688
00:35:14,500 --> 00:35:17,500
The fourth time; you know you're treeless.
689
00:35:18,500 --> 00:35:22,500
The best a country can get.
It's not 400%, I have to say.
690
00:35:23,500 --> 00:35:24,500
- None!
- Half?
691
00:35:24,500 --> 00:35:25,500
"None" is the right answer.
692
00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:28,500
They replace every tree they pull down with another tree.
693
00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:32,500
It's a rather happy thought that Guyana
has this splendid...
694
00:35:32,500 --> 00:35:33,500
- Don't you think?
- That's a photograph taken
695
00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:35,500
at Kew Gardens, in the palm house.
696
00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:40,500
Where was the only South American country
to play cricket?
697
00:35:40,500 --> 00:35:42,500
Guyana, 'cause they speak English.
698
00:35:42,500 --> 00:35:45,500
- Yeah. It's a Caribbean country, essentially.
- It's an English colony, isn't it?
699
00:35:45,500 --> 00:35:46,500
Absolutely.
700
00:35:46,500 --> 00:35:48,500
- It's next to Suriname, which...
- Next to Suriname, which is...
701
00:35:48,500 --> 00:35:49,500
- Dutch Guyana.
- Exactly right.
702
00:35:49,500 --> 00:35:52,500
Where they don't play cricket, I suspect.
Anyway, there you are.
703
00:35:52,500 --> 00:35:54,500
Now, picture the scene.
704
00:35:54,500 --> 00:35:55,500
I'm out windsurfing,
705
00:35:55,500 --> 00:36:00,500
the breeze is ruffling my tousled,
sun-bleached hair,
706
00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:05,500
I look up and I see on the horizon; a ship.
How far away is it?
707
00:36:05,500 --> 00:36:06,500
21 miles.
708
00:36:07,500 --> 00:36:09,500
- No.
- I thought it was always 21 miles.
709
00:36:09,500 --> 00:36:12,500
- No.
- I know, they didn't even get flagged for that.
710
00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:16,500
No, no. I didn't know that anybody
always thought that it was 21 miles.
711
00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:19,500
How far away is the horizon?
712
00:36:19,500 --> 00:36:22,500
That's the point. I'll tell Ben Miller
the formula for working it out,
713
00:36:22,500 --> 00:36:23,500
and he will tell you very quickly.
714
00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:27,500
It's very straightforward. Let's assume I am
6ft. tall, I'm actually a bit taller.
715
00:36:27,500 --> 00:36:29,500
The distance to the horizon in miles
716
00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:33,500
is approximately the square root of
one-and-a-half times your height in feet.
717
00:36:35,500 --> 00:36:37,500
That depends how low your eyes are, though,
doesn't it?
718
00:36:38,500 --> 00:36:41,500
- Three miles.
- Three miles is the right answer! Well done.
719
00:36:44,500 --> 00:36:46,500
It's a lot closer than you think.
720
00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:52,500
If you're standing at sea level, the normal
horizon is only about three miles away.
721
00:36:52,500 --> 00:36:57,500
Back home now. What kind of weather kills more
people in Britain than any other?
722
00:36:57,500 --> 00:36:58,500
Bad weather.
723
00:37:01,500 --> 00:37:03,500
- Wind. It's wind.
- Not wind.
724
00:37:04,500 --> 00:37:06,500
Oh, uh-oh! Oh, dear.
You got a fault for the wind.
725
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:08,500
- Oh, bugger.
- Is it rockets?
726
00:37:10,500 --> 00:37:11,500
They come down like weather.
727
00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:12,500
- Sort of.
- Snow?
728
00:37:15,500 --> 00:37:16,500
- No.
- Hail?
729
00:37:16,500 --> 00:37:17,500
No!
730
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:19,500
- Fog!
- Heat wave...
731
00:37:19,500 --> 00:37:25,500
Fog is the right answer! Finally! Well done. Fog.
Because of road traffic accidents, I'm afraid.
732
00:37:25,500 --> 00:37:27,500
Do you want me to explain fog to you, Ben?
733
00:37:29,500 --> 00:37:30,500
What happens is...
734
00:37:32,500 --> 00:37:34,500
Everybody has been asleep, right, for quite a long time.
735
00:37:35,500 --> 00:37:37,500
So all their breath gathers up.
736
00:37:38,500 --> 00:37:45,500
And they'd left a little window open and it all goes
out and that collects in the valley all together.
737
00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:50,500
And it gets blown around by
the lorries driving up and down.
738
00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:52,500
Are you still with me?
739
00:37:54,500 --> 00:37:56,500
- I like it.
- Do you know the difference between fog and mist?
740
00:37:56,500 --> 00:37:58,500
- There is an official difference.
- Is it the height of it?
741
00:37:58,500 --> 00:38:00,500
No, it's actually just the density.
742
00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:02,500
- Mist is watery, isn't it?
- Fog is visibility of less
743
00:38:02,500 --> 00:38:05,500
than one kilometre, while mist
is usually between one and two.
744
00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:11,500
Cos in mist, you can be seen in a, sort of mac,
whereas in fog, they can't see you at all.
745
00:38:11,500 --> 00:38:14,500
You're safe, no one can see you,
step back in, you're gone.
746
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:18,500
It's interesting that you think of fog,
as a way of hiding yourself.
747
00:38:18,500 --> 00:38:23,500
So you can go about your beastly business unobserved.
748
00:38:24,500 --> 00:38:26,500
It's not beastly, I'm just putting stickers on things.
749
00:38:26,500 --> 00:38:28,500
Oh! It's YOU!
750
00:38:28,500 --> 00:38:32,500
Yeah. Putting silly stickers on
people's faces. Nothing pervy.
751
00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:36,500
A bit of chewing gum over Cameron
Diaz's eye. Anything, it just cheers me up.
752
00:38:37,500 --> 00:38:43,500
Smog of course is an urban phenomenon, smoke and fog.
Sulphur dioxide, usually, and fog mixing together.
753
00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:47,500
The last really bad one in London
was in 1952 and lasted four days.
754
00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:48,500
How many people did it kill, roughly?
755
00:38:49,500 --> 00:38:51,500
- 256.
- No.
756
00:38:51,500 --> 00:38:52,500
- They all died fairly roughly, didn't they?
- 3000!
757
00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:53,500
- No.
- Four!
758
00:38:53,500 --> 00:39:00,500
No. It was 12,000 people, in four days,
killed by the smog of 1952.
759
00:39:00,500 --> 00:39:03,500
This is what hurried in the clean air
and smokeless zones.
760
00:39:03,500 --> 00:39:06,500
In London now, fog is pretty rare,
to be honest, isn't it?
761
00:39:06,500 --> 00:39:10,500
But I was in, last week, one of
the Hawaiian islands, in Honolulu.
762
00:39:10,500 --> 00:39:12,500
- Hawa-i-i-i.
- Hawa-i-i-i.
763
00:39:12,500 --> 00:39:16,500
And they don't have fog there, they have...
do you know what they call it?
764
00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:17,500
It's not smog or fog.
765
00:39:17,500 --> 00:39:19,500
- Sun.
- No.
766
00:39:20,500 --> 00:39:22,500
They have lots of that. But they have...
767
00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:24,500
- Is it...? Is it alo-hog?
- No.
768
00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:31,500
- It's vog. They have vog. Why vog?
- All the Jewish people have moved there.
769
00:39:33,500 --> 00:39:39,500
Vog, what do I care, I can't see it.
Look at you, you can't see him, I can't see her.
770
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:41,500
I don't know what I'm doing. Why should I care?
771
00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:44,500
What it is, I don't know.
Look at you, where are you?
772
00:39:44,500 --> 00:39:47,500
You're there. You're too far! I can't see you
for Christ's sake, what's going on?
773
00:39:51,500 --> 00:39:52,500
Oh, God!
774
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:56,500
Thank you. Thank you, Jackie Brydon.
775
00:39:56,500 --> 00:40:02,500
No, it's a volcanic fog. It's the fact there's a
volcano going off in the big island there.
776
00:40:02,500 --> 00:40:07,500
And it mixes with natural mists and fogs and
creates this denser itemry called vog.
777
00:40:07,500 --> 00:40:12,500
Anyway, fog or mist, it's all the same stuff,
it causes road crashes, that's the thing about it.
778
00:40:12,500 --> 00:40:18,500
Now, lastly! When, oh, when, will they finish
painting the Forth rail bridge?
779
00:40:19,500 --> 00:40:20,500
Yes?
780
00:40:20,500 --> 00:40:23,500
Never, because by the time they get to...
781
00:40:27,500 --> 00:40:28,500
You see my little face light up,
782
00:40:28,500 --> 00:40:29,500
- as I thought of it?
- Yes.
783
00:40:29,500 --> 00:40:31,500
It's been done, they don't need
to worry about it anymore.
784
00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:35,500
They're putting on a new special coating,
that's a combination of paint and epoxy resin.
785
00:40:35,500 --> 00:40:36,500
It's the right answer!
786
00:40:39,500 --> 00:40:40,500
Very good!
787
00:40:42,500 --> 00:40:43,500
Absolutely right.
788
00:40:45,500 --> 00:40:49,500
You never seize to amaze me, Alan Davies.
But you're absolutely right.
789
00:40:49,500 --> 00:40:52,500
It used to be considered the
proverbial un-ending task.
790
00:40:52,500 --> 00:40:55,500
- Yeah!
- But they have a new epoxy resin paint,
791
00:40:55,500 --> 00:40:59,500
it's been developed to last 25,
possibly even 40 years! 40 years!
792
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:02,500
You've just come back from that big
industrial paints conference, haven't you?
793
00:41:04,500 --> 00:41:06,500
You just out there, just seeing what's going on.
794
00:41:06,500 --> 00:41:08,500
- What's new in the paint world.
- Followed a lot on the web as well.
795
00:41:10,500 --> 00:41:15,500
Thanks to a clever, new paint, they'll actually finish
painting the Forth railway bridge in the year 2012.
796
00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:19,500
And so, with the future safely behind us,
it's time for a look at the old scoreboard.
797
00:41:19,500 --> 00:41:23,500
And... Well ahead of his time with 14 points,
798
00:41:23,500 --> 00:41:25,500
it's Ben Miller!
799
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:29,500
But...
800
00:41:30,500 --> 00:41:34,500
Not so far behind, with seven points,
801
00:41:34,500 --> 00:41:35,500
- it's Sean Lock!
- Thank you!
802
00:41:39,500 --> 00:41:43,500
We plunge into the minus numbers,
in third place with -31,
803
00:41:43,500 --> 00:41:45,500
it's Rob Brydon.
804
00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:54,500
But knocked into the middle of next week with -60,
805
00:41:54,500 --> 00:41:56,500
Alan Davies!
806
00:42:03,500 --> 00:42:10,500
Well, that's all for next week, but
from Rob, Ben, Sean and Alan and me,
807
00:42:10,500 --> 00:42:14,500
we trust you will live long and prosper,
and I leave you with this observation
808
00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:16,500
from physicist, Niels Bohr,
809
00:42:16,500 --> 00:42:18,500
"Prediction is very difficult," he said.
810
00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:21,500
"Especially about the future."
Good night.