Oct. 22, 2024

Curiosity and the Cosmos: Paul M. Sutter’s Path from Science to Space

Curiosity and the Cosmos: Paul M. Sutter’s Path from Science to Space
Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
Castro podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player badge
Youtube Music podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon Castro podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon Youtube Music podcast player icon
Season 5

Ever wondered what it’s like to unravel the mysteries of the universe? In this fun and fascinating episode of No Wrong Choices, we sit down with Paul M. Sutter, a theoretical cosmologist who has made science not only accessible but downright exciting. From hosting his popular podcast Ask a Spaceman! to appearing in countless television series and serving as an advisor to NASA, Paul brings the wonders of the cosmos into everyday conversations, making science fun for everyone—whether you’re a curious mind or a seasoned space enthusiast.

In this episode, Paul takes us on his career journey, sharing:

  • From Curiosity to Cosmos: How a small-town Ohio kid’s love for reading and a chance astronomy class set him on a path to the stars.
  • Challenges of Academia: Discover the realities of academia and how Paul forged his own unique career, balancing deep research with playful science communication.
  • Making Science Fun and Accessible: Through his podcast, TV appearances, live events, and his work with NASA, Paul shares how he breaks down the complex to inspire curiosity and excitement in learners of all ages.
  • The Joy of Discovery: Why embracing curiosity, staying open to unexpected opportunities, and having fun along the way led Paul to where he is today.

Whether you're fascinated by the cosmos, curious about the world of science communication, or simply looking for inspiration to carve your own path, this episode offers a lively look at how following your passion can lead to unexpected and extraordinary places.

Join us for a fun and inspiring conversation with Paul M. Sutter on No Wrong Choices—you won’t want to miss this cosmic journey!


To discover more episodes or connect with us:


Chapters

00:02 - Cosmologist Paul Sutter Career Journey

14:54 - Journey to Becoming a Cosmologist

24:28 - Academic Path in Research Science

35:19 - Balancing Research and Science Communication

50:58 - Navigating an Academic and Artistic Journey

01:01:49 - The Art of Science Communication

01:07:52 - Finding Success Through Open-Mindedness

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:02.766 --> 00:00:12.692
Hello and welcome to no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of interesting and accomplished people in pursuit of great stories and actionable insights.

00:00:12.692 --> 00:00:19.013
I'm Larry Samuels, and in just a moment I'll be joined by my co-hosts, tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.

00:00:19.013 --> 00:00:32.121
But before we kick off, we have a small favor to ask If you enjoy what we do, please take a moment to support us by following no Wrong Choices on your favorite podcast platform, such as Spotify, apple Podcasts or YouTube.

00:00:32.121 --> 00:00:41.112
We also ask that you connect with us on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram Threads and X, or by visiting our website at norongchoicescom.

00:00:41.112 --> 00:00:49.728
On our site, you can sign up for our subscriber list or explore our blog, which digs into each one of the episodes that we're putting forward.

00:00:49.728 --> 00:00:53.524
Your support helps us keep bringing these great stories to light.

00:00:53.524 --> 00:00:54.847
Now let's get started.

00:00:54.847 --> 00:01:00.987
This episode features the theoretical cosmologist, paul M Sutter.

00:01:00.987 --> 00:01:04.251
Larry Shea is the person who brought Paul to us.

00:01:04.251 --> 00:01:06.015
Can you please tell us what that means?

00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:11.790
I can't at all, and I'm going to make sure that Paul tells us exactly what it means.

00:01:11.790 --> 00:01:25.233
Look, we've been trying to get somebody on the show for a long time who's like this right, whether that be an astronaut or a theoretical cosmologist, whatever the case may be, I'm fascinated with the universe.

00:01:25.233 --> 00:01:45.203
I'm fascinated with the way the universe works, the physics of it and, funny enough, you know, we reached out to do this booking and we're thrilled when he came back and said he would do it and the day I got confirmation of the booking, I'm watching one of my favorite programs called how the Universe Works, and who pops on my screen?

00:01:45.203 --> 00:01:49.233
But Paul M Sutter, giving his opinion about, you know, dark matter.

00:01:49.233 --> 00:01:56.870
It was meant to be Dark matter and space and time, and yeah, so this guy is going to be super cool.

00:01:56.870 --> 00:01:58.206
We're going to have a really good time.

00:01:58.206 --> 00:02:02.921
He's super smart and really personable, we're hoping, so.

00:02:02.921 --> 00:02:07.091
I'm hoping he sheds some light on this fascinating career choice.

00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:12.469
I have to admit I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of intimidated to speak to this guy because he is so smart.

00:02:12.469 --> 00:02:17.546
That's probably going to be one of the first questions I ask him Are we smart enough to actually speak to you?

00:02:17.546 --> 00:02:34.728
Because, let's be honest, you know he's mulling over the questions about how the universe started and it's it's so rare to have the opportunity to speak to someone of such a caliber, um, and kind of, you know, literally pick his brain about hey, how did you get into this?

00:02:34.728 --> 00:02:36.222
What does it mean to get into this?

00:02:36.222 --> 00:02:38.733
And in a lot of ways, you know, I gotta be.

00:02:38.733 --> 00:02:40.961
I'd have to think that he was always the smartest kid in the room.

00:02:40.961 --> 00:02:42.462
Uh, you know, even at this, this moment.

00:02:42.462 --> 00:02:44.466
So what's that like?

00:02:44.485 --> 00:02:45.687
Well, definitely in this moment.

00:02:47.008 --> 00:02:51.719
Oh yeah, you're right, speaking to us three, absolutely the smartest guy in the room.

00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:56.581
But you know, for the most part, you know what's that like to be the smartest person in the room, like all the time.

00:02:56.762 --> 00:02:58.524
Well, let's find out.

00:02:58.524 --> 00:03:02.169
Here is Paul M Sutter Now joining.

00:03:02.169 --> 00:03:07.175
No Wrong Choices is the theoretical cosmologist Paul M Sutter.

00:03:07.175 --> 00:03:30.106
Paul might be the busiest person on earth, or at least close to it, as he A advises NASA and the Department of Energy, hosts a variety of science shows on TV and digital, is an author, hosts a successful podcast, contributes to countless publications and is a globally recognized leader in the intersection of art and science.

00:03:30.106 --> 00:03:34.133
And, believe it or not, I left out a ton of stuff.

00:03:34.133 --> 00:03:35.804
Paul, thank you so much for joining us.

00:03:35.984 --> 00:03:41.627
Oh, thank you so much for having me, and I always have time for wonderful conversations like this All right.

00:03:41.647 --> 00:03:52.132
So, Paul, before we actually get into your background, the one thing we were talking before we got out, before we started speaking to you, was are the three of us collectively smart enough to speak to you after looking at your resume?

00:03:55.501 --> 00:03:56.663
No, I it's.

00:03:56.663 --> 00:04:04.609
This is weird because there is, I will admit, in academia, among scientists, I admit, a certain degree of snobbery.

00:04:04.609 --> 00:04:14.263
It's not easy to get a PhD in physics or astronomy or any of the hard sciences, and so we do like to wave around our PhDs and our doctorates.

00:04:14.263 --> 00:04:36.382
But where I find a lot of my fellow scientists failing when it comes to science communication and sharing what they've learned and engaging the public with what they've learned is assuming that other people are dumb and that they are empty vessels that you simply pour scientific knowledge into and then they will.

00:04:36.382 --> 00:04:39.531
Once that task is complete, they will come to the correct conclusion.

00:04:39.531 --> 00:05:07.475
It turns out that people are very intelligent, very smart, know when they're being lied to, know when they're being talked down to and spoken down to, and are very complex and come to their beliefs and their knowledge through a bunch of complicated twisting pathways, scientists included, and so I have a great deal of faith in the intelligence of my fellow humans.

00:05:07.699 --> 00:05:09.326
Obviously, you've not spoken with us before.

00:05:09.326 --> 00:05:11.946
Okay, yeah, that may be broken.

00:05:11.946 --> 00:05:12.689
That may be broken.

00:05:12.819 --> 00:05:15.867
You know, this is a hypothesis that I test with every interaction.

00:05:16.528 --> 00:05:16.930
I love it.

00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.649
I love it All right, so let's start with.

00:05:19.649 --> 00:05:28.651
You know yourself better than anyone, obviously, so why don't you take a second and just describe to the folks what it is that you do for a living, professionally?

00:05:28.651 --> 00:05:29.836
Who is Paul?

00:05:30.057 --> 00:05:30.959
M Sutter professionally.

00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:36.269
If I had to summarize it, it would be I am a searcher and a sharer.

00:05:36.269 --> 00:05:42.105
So I am deeply and intensely curious about the way the universe works.

00:05:42.105 --> 00:05:45.432
I've just always been fascinated by it.

00:05:45.432 --> 00:05:46.521
I know we'll dig into this.

00:05:46.521 --> 00:05:47.863
I've always been curious.

00:05:47.863 --> 00:05:49.286
I like to say.

00:05:49.286 --> 00:05:53.440
Scientists like myself are people who refuse to grow up.

00:05:53.440 --> 00:05:56.166
We just maintain that childlike curiosity.

00:05:56.166 --> 00:05:57.170
So I'm always asking.

00:05:57.170 --> 00:06:19.673
I always love learning new things and then I also love the sound of my own voice and I love talking and I love sharing and I love teaching and I love igniting a spark in other people and sharing that passion with them and seeing them get all ramped up and like, oh my, tell me more, I want to learn more, how can I find out more?

00:06:19.673 --> 00:06:21.507
And like that's a very, very special place for me.

00:06:21.507 --> 00:06:37.415
And so in my professional career I have tried to develop both of these sides of me, both the searching side, which I accomplish in my science and also in my writing, and then in the sharing and just getting it out there.

00:06:38.076 --> 00:06:38.276
All right.

00:06:38.276 --> 00:06:40.228
So let's take it back, then, to the beginning.

00:06:40.228 --> 00:06:43.507
As you said, you're an adult who's never had the chance to grow up.

00:06:43.507 --> 00:06:49.802
So then at some point, when you were a child, looking up at the stars, you said wow, you were just fascinated by what you saw.

00:06:49.802 --> 00:06:51.307
So what was that moment like?

00:06:51.307 --> 00:06:51.608
And?

00:06:51.608 --> 00:06:53.711
And at that time, and how old were you?

00:06:53.711 --> 00:06:59.663
And at that moment did you say to yourself this is kind of what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, even as a young child?

00:06:59.863 --> 00:07:03.971
yeah, yeah, as a young child there, there was no point like that.

00:07:03.971 --> 00:07:05.814
There was no moment.

00:07:05.814 --> 00:07:15.774
I was a super nerd growing up and what I remember about my childhood is I would read nonstop.

00:07:15.774 --> 00:07:21.591
I was devouring any book I could get my hands on.

00:07:21.591 --> 00:07:35.142
I was reading nonstop science fiction novels, but then I was also reading any book about science, any nonfiction book about history, about astronomy, about paleontology, about genetics.

00:07:35.142 --> 00:07:41.269
I just remember books being this source for me.

00:07:41.269 --> 00:07:49.427
Um, where I, you know I go, I go to school, I would learn and, you know, I would take the test and I would just want to know more.

00:07:49.427 --> 00:07:54.324
I just always wanted to, you know, expand a topic just a little bit more.

00:07:54.324 --> 00:07:59.062
I just wanted to always want to dig in a little bit deeper, and books were my avenue for that.

00:07:59.062 --> 00:08:09.935
But growing up, uh, I was fascinated by the night sky, but I was also fascinated by dinosaurs and optics and chemical reactions.

00:08:09.954 --> 00:08:11.237
The usual kid stuff, all of it.

00:08:11.701 --> 00:08:13.648
The usual kid stuff.

00:08:13.648 --> 00:08:25.333
And throughout my childhood, though, I grew up in rural Ohio, a town called Lancaster Ohio, southeast of Columbus.

00:08:25.333 --> 00:08:32.408
First I lived in Cleveland, then, when I was eight years old, we moved to central Ohio.

00:08:32.408 --> 00:08:45.754
It's just a rural town, decent-sized city, but not exactly connected to the rest of the world, especially high-powered academia and science.

00:08:45.754 --> 00:08:51.811
When you think elite science institutions, you do not think Lancaster Ohio.

00:08:51.811 --> 00:08:58.125
Sorry, lancaster Ohio, you're wonderful in some ways, but that is not one of them.

00:09:00.248 --> 00:09:08.567
I never, growing up all the way through my teenage years, made the connection that I could be a scientist.

00:09:08.567 --> 00:09:12.529
I just had this curiosity.

00:09:12.529 --> 00:09:27.801
I loved reading, I loved learning, I loved putting together new thoughts and having new thoughts wash over me, but I never thought that I could be a creator of new knowledge, that I could be one of those people.

00:09:27.801 --> 00:09:34.703
I always thought, assumed that scientists were just other people, smarter people, more capable, just different people.

00:09:34.703 --> 00:09:41.642
But being the nerd that I was, I ended up majoring in computer science.

00:09:41.642 --> 00:09:44.549
I wanted to be a computer programmer or software engineer.

00:09:44.549 --> 00:09:50.154
I've always had a thing for computers, for programming, an affinity for it.

00:09:50.154 --> 00:09:58.581
You know, joy and digging around in computers is one of the things I enjoy doing and I thought, oh, that's a job that people create software.

00:09:59.864 --> 00:10:09.889
And it wasn't until my third year of college I was like 20, 21 years old I took an elective, an astronomy class.

00:10:09.889 --> 00:10:15.931
It's one of those things where you have a list of options that you have to take to fulfill your major.

00:10:15.931 --> 00:10:16.993
I'm like, oh, astronomy.

00:10:16.993 --> 00:10:18.667
I remember astronomy.

00:10:18.667 --> 00:10:19.764
I remember reading books.

00:10:19.764 --> 00:10:22.047
I had a backyard telescope as a kid.

00:10:22.047 --> 00:10:23.390
I thought this would be fun.

00:10:23.390 --> 00:10:28.528
Turned out it was really fun and I was really enjoying myself in the class.

00:10:28.528 --> 00:10:29.783
I was talking to the professor.

00:10:29.783 --> 00:10:30.326
I remember this.

00:10:30.326 --> 00:10:33.808
I was at the time I was at California Polytechnic State University.

00:10:34.662 --> 00:10:50.923
That does mean I got as far away from Ohio as I possibly could At the moment I turned 18, I was gone, gone and I was taking this class and I actually entered cal poly as a computer science major.

00:10:50.923 --> 00:10:55.072
It's a very well renowned, uh computer science, uh, university.

00:10:55.072 --> 00:10:57.525
They have a wonderful department program there, uh.

00:10:57.525 --> 00:11:10.230
But then I just took this astronomy class with I remember his name, professor john polling, and I was, and I was what like two, three weeks in, and Professor Poling pulls me aside.

00:11:10.230 --> 00:11:12.388
We had been chatting a bunch about astronomy.

00:11:12.388 --> 00:11:17.111
He was like Paul, you seem to really enjoy this subject, this topic.

00:11:17.111 --> 00:11:19.840
I'm like, oh yeah, this is so fascinating.

00:11:20.260 --> 00:11:26.859
This was my first time that I had dug into science as a mathematical discipline.

00:11:26.859 --> 00:11:32.940
I had always approached it from popular science, from books, where you describe these high-level concepts.

00:11:32.940 --> 00:11:36.855
But it turns out actual science is grounded in mathematics.

00:11:36.855 --> 00:11:42.331
It is a mathematical exploration of nature, and this astronomy course was my first exposure to that.

00:11:42.331 --> 00:11:56.461
Like, oh, you're not just describing stuff in the universe, you're not just thinking about it, you're taking these and boiling it down to its mathematical essence and then you're using that to make predictions and understand things at a deeper level.

00:11:56.461 --> 00:11:58.345
And so this was mind-blowing to me.

00:11:58.345 --> 00:12:04.206
And Professor Polling says well, you know, we have a physics major here at Cal Poly.

00:12:04.206 --> 00:12:07.113
You can just switch majors if you want.

00:12:07.113 --> 00:12:09.225
This is your third year of school.

00:12:09.225 --> 00:12:16.868
Third year of college, wow, wow, third of seven, yeah, third of five.

00:12:16.988 --> 00:12:17.690
I finished in five.

00:12:17.690 --> 00:12:21.145
You're on the five-year plan I forgot how your leg thing's at.

00:12:22.740 --> 00:12:27.980
And I went back and started thinking about it, putting the back of my mind, you know.

00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:31.650
And then you know there's a midterm coming up, you start focusing on other stuff.

00:12:31.650 --> 00:12:46.456
A week later I wake up one morning and just my brain explodes and in that instant I became a scientist and I went to the admissions office or office or whatever office is in charge of that.

00:12:46.456 --> 00:12:53.520
I dropped two of my classes, I added a physics class and I switched majors to physics and I never looked back.

00:12:53.520 --> 00:12:54.503
I had no plan.

00:12:54.503 --> 00:12:57.269
I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

00:12:57.269 --> 00:13:06.091
I had no long-term career trajectory and dream of being a professor or a science communicator.

00:13:06.091 --> 00:13:09.970
I just wanted to learn more about physics.

00:13:10.932 --> 00:13:18.792
The very next semester I regretted it, partially because I had to start taking some very, very difficult physics classes.

00:13:18.792 --> 00:13:32.631
You know the kinds of physics classes that only the physics majors take in, the kind of classes designed to make you cry, designed to make you regret and like filter you out and weed you out, like no, this is, this is serious business.

00:13:32.631 --> 00:13:40.102
Um, you know, not serious like doctor or like lawyer or government serious, but like serious physics.

00:13:40.102 --> 00:13:40.924
So we're gonna leave you out camp.

00:13:40.945 --> 00:13:42.347
You went to physics boot camp, essentially right.

00:13:42.609 --> 00:13:43.450
Physics boot camp.

00:13:43.450 --> 00:13:44.231
It felt like that.

00:13:44.231 --> 00:13:48.181
But I got over that, you know.

00:13:48.181 --> 00:13:57.750
The tears came and went, moved on, and then I just found more and more joy doing this and then it blossomed into my career.

00:13:58.320 --> 00:13:59.903
What are some of the like.

00:13:59.903 --> 00:14:10.333
When I think about physics and I think about science and the type of work you do, your whole world sort of changes when you begin to understand some of those things.

00:14:10.333 --> 00:14:29.759
You know what were some of the early shocking revelations for you as you dug into physics and dug into science things I remember was from undergrad at cal poly, was um one being introduced to quantum mechanics.

00:14:30.421 --> 00:14:35.871
And quantum mechanics is fun and spooky and weird and it's great to talk about, uh.

00:14:35.871 --> 00:14:44.970
But then having a mathematical treatment of quantum mechanics where you start to play around with some of these fundamental equations, you're like oh and and.

00:14:44.970 --> 00:14:46.922
Then it was just like this evolving step.

00:14:46.922 --> 00:14:53.942
The more I got into the mathematics, the more things seemed very, very cool and powerful.

00:14:53.942 --> 00:15:04.390
I remember taking a class an introduction to general relativity, and we'd get homework problems like how long does it take for two black holes to spiral together?

00:15:04.390 --> 00:15:11.003
Or, if you were to pass through the event horizon of a black hole, calculate how long it takes for you to hit the singularity very common questions.

00:15:11.043 --> 00:15:17.883
I got those all the time, yeah I know I know this was before the weeder class, right, this was before that.

00:15:17.883 --> 00:15:22.148
This is for the everybody, the jed ed class, um.

00:15:22.148 --> 00:15:36.221
And I remember just feeling like you know those montages in superhero movies or animes where, like you know, they're like working out or they're getting new weapons and or like they're getting new tools.

00:15:36.221 --> 00:16:29.159
I felt like I was getting armed with new tools to approach the world, like, wow, I don't just talk about black holes, I'm able to calculate and make predictions about black holes, I'm able to make predictions about quantum mechanics, I'm able to say what's going to happen in this scenario, and just that unfolding of a deeper understanding of the way that nature works, where I can go out and enjoy a beautiful sunset and then also I can go back and I can calculate the diffraction and refraction of the light rays at different wavelengths and understand why the sunset has different colors, and that allows me to appreciate the sunset at an even deeper level and just the magic that we're even able to grapple with these kinds of concepts.

00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:30.724
And then it culminated.

00:16:30.764 --> 00:17:03.350
This train of thought culminated in graduate school, where I remember taking my first cosmology course with Dr Brian Fields, and this was at the University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign and I remember taking that class and now we were taking this, you know, mathematical description of nature to its ultimate expression, where we are writing down equations that describe the entire universe.

00:17:03.350 --> 00:17:15.423
Come on, wow, I mean 13 billion years of cosmic evolution, the expansion, this, the breadth, the scope, the forces involved, the gravity, everything, and we can boil it down to a single equation.

00:17:15.423 --> 00:17:32.304
We can say, aha, yes, so if you go out and measure this property, in this property this much, you put it into this equation and out pops an age of the universe and just the fact that this, these like vast time and distance scales, is like barely comprehensible scales, uh, that don't fit inside of a human mind.

00:17:32.304 --> 00:17:36.836
But then I can, I can write down an equation and I can.

00:17:36.836 --> 00:17:43.067
I have a tool that I can use to grapple and wrestle and interrogate the entire universe.

00:17:43.067 --> 00:17:47.994
Yeah, it was in that class that I became a cosmologist.

00:17:49.382 --> 00:17:51.692
Did you believe what you were discovering?

00:17:51.692 --> 00:17:57.949
You know, like, you're going through these equations and it's like how do you know that it's 13 billion?

00:17:57.949 --> 00:18:00.012
Like, did you believe it?

00:18:00.012 --> 00:18:06.663
And what convinced you that this was right and accurate, if that's even the right phrase to use?

00:18:06.703 --> 00:18:37.863
here concept of what we call first principles, which is, everything starts from the barest set of assumptions possible and then from there you unfold, you unpack, you develop the theory and you let the evidence lead the way.

00:18:37.863 --> 00:18:48.144
So in this case, in the case of cosmology, the cosmology class didn't start with hey, by the way, the universe is 13.77 billion years old.

00:18:48.144 --> 00:18:55.727
The cosmology class started with okay, we're going to start with general relativity.

00:18:55.727 --> 00:19:00.481
We are going to start with some basic assumptions about the universe.

00:19:00.481 --> 00:19:03.749
Here's how we're going to test those assumptions.

00:19:03.749 --> 00:19:09.189
Now that we've verified those assumptions, we're going to fold those into the mathematics and see what we get.

00:19:09.189 --> 00:19:15.511
And then we're going to derive some evolution equations and then we're going to unpack those further.

00:19:15.511 --> 00:19:19.588
And then we're going to take more observations, more data, and fit them in here.

00:19:19.588 --> 00:19:24.767
Say, ah, when you make this kind of observation, it fits into this parameter in the equation.

00:19:24.767 --> 00:19:36.044
You make that kind of observation and it modifies this parameter in the equation, and then we put all those together and then the end result 13.77 billion years it doesn't matter.

00:19:36.365 --> 00:19:38.315
It's just the number that pops out of the machine.

00:19:38.315 --> 00:19:41.670
But what matters are the observations, what matters is the equations.

00:19:41.670 --> 00:19:44.760
What matters is that this accurately describes the universe.

00:19:44.760 --> 00:19:46.424
That's what the class was about.

00:19:46.424 --> 00:19:53.589
The actual number that pops out at the end, that's a matter of debate, that's a matter of observation, that depends on the universe we live in.

00:19:54.111 --> 00:19:59.333
What we care about as physicists is do we have an accurate mathematical description?

00:19:59.333 --> 00:20:11.173
And so, because everything starts from first principles, I remember, exam after exam after exam, they would ask you a question and you don't get to start with the end.

00:20:11.173 --> 00:20:20.873
It says begin with first principles, where you have to start from the very beginning and re-derive everything and then be able to present your answer.

00:20:20.873 --> 00:20:29.423
And that is what matters present your answer, and that is what matters.

00:20:29.423 --> 00:20:40.333
And so, in that sense, I do believe that the equations that we have developed to describe the history of the universe seem to be relatively accurate, because they seem to be doing a good job of describing the actual universe that we observe.

00:20:40.333 --> 00:20:43.730
And then the number that pops out is the number that pops out.

00:20:44.643 --> 00:20:48.885
Wow, you're using the term, so I I want our education to continue as well.

00:20:48.885 --> 00:20:53.622
A theoretical cosmologist is different from an astrophysicist.

00:20:53.622 --> 00:20:54.022
How?

00:20:54.144 --> 00:20:54.825
great question.

00:20:54.825 --> 00:21:01.026
So there are lots of fields and subfields within physics and astronomy and there are a lot of overlaps in these fields.

00:21:01.026 --> 00:21:24.335
So a traditional astronomer is someone who is highly focused on instrumentation, on how do I build a good telescope, how do I gather high quality data, how do I make sure that what I'm producing and the images and the data and the spectra and all the stuff that I'm creating, how do I assure that I understand the uncertainties in it, the noise in it?

00:21:24.335 --> 00:21:26.521
How do I build a better telescope?

00:21:26.521 --> 00:21:28.567
That's like a classical astronomer.

00:21:29.830 --> 00:21:32.817
Then there are the astrophysicists.

00:21:32.817 --> 00:21:46.275
These are people who apply our knowledge of physics, the laws and theories that we have developed, and apply to all sorts of scenarios out in the universe, like, oh, we just saw a star explode.

00:21:46.275 --> 00:21:48.020
I wonder how stars explode.

00:21:48.020 --> 00:21:51.790
I wonder what physics happens to make that happen.

00:21:51.790 --> 00:21:54.035
Oh, our sun is really hot.

00:21:54.035 --> 00:21:55.618
I wonder why our sun is really hot.

00:21:55.618 --> 00:21:57.750
What are the physics to make our sun really hot?

00:21:57.750 --> 00:22:00.436
This is the job of the astrophysicist.

00:22:00.436 --> 00:22:06.011
Really hot, this is the job of the astrophysicist, and I've certainly done in my career a lot of astrophysics research.

00:22:06.031 --> 00:22:18.036
And then a cosmologist is a very broad term that describes someone who tries to understand the universe as a single physical object.

00:22:18.036 --> 00:22:22.394
So we are less concerned with the individual galaxies and stars that appear in the universe.

00:22:22.394 --> 00:22:24.905
We are less concerned with the individual galaxies and stars that appear in the universe.

00:22:24.905 --> 00:22:29.518
We are more concerned with the overall evolution and history of the universe.

00:22:29.518 --> 00:22:32.394
What was the universe like in its earliest moments?

00:22:32.394 --> 00:22:34.702
Why is it so big?

00:22:34.702 --> 00:22:36.547
Why does it have the size that it does?

00:22:37.328 --> 00:22:44.644
And within cosmology, again, there is this two sides an observational side and a theory side.

00:22:44.744 --> 00:23:03.217
There are people who are more aligned with traditional astronomy, who are trying to build massive surveys or maps of our universe, trying to get data of a very old light that is filtering through the cosmos and I've certainly participated in surveys like that.

00:23:03.905 --> 00:23:18.959
And then there is the more theoretical side, which is trying to develop theories of how the universe has evolved and what the universe is made of, and especially where I like to fit in, is trying to match up those theories to observation.

00:23:18.959 --> 00:23:20.565
So how do we test these ideas?

00:23:20.565 --> 00:23:23.374
How do we find new ways to validate?

00:23:23.374 --> 00:23:37.049
When you come up with a new idea Like, oh, I think the universe does this, or I think there's this component in the universe, or I think this happened, how do we match that with the observations that we do have, the data that we do have?

00:23:37.049 --> 00:23:40.897
How do we pick winners and losers in this kind of game?

00:23:40.897 --> 00:23:53.884
And that's where I like to fit in as a theorist of generating ideas about the universe and then going to the observational data and finding interesting ways to test those and validate those All right.

00:23:53.924 --> 00:23:55.351
So we were going to ask you a question.

00:23:55.351 --> 00:23:58.915
It's a question we kind of ask all of our guests, essentially like well, you're a good student in school.

00:23:58.915 --> 00:24:03.192
Now the obvious portion here is that, yes, you were a good student in school.

00:24:03.192 --> 00:24:10.169
Now the obvious, the obvious portion here is that, yes, you were a good student in school, but before you even got to college, were you a student who challenged your teachers?

00:24:10.169 --> 00:24:21.476
In that sense, were you, were you that kind of a student that was so, such a voracious learner and wanted to know so much that in many ways, your own teachers probably couldn't keep up with you in your, in your, in your want to learn?

00:24:22.925 --> 00:24:24.887
Teachers probably couldn't keep up with you in your want to learn.

00:24:24.887 --> 00:24:27.931
That is certainly true, and I don't want to brag about myself.

00:24:27.931 --> 00:24:33.457
I was not the top GPA in my class.

00:24:33.457 --> 00:24:36.599
I was not valedictorian, I didn't have the highest scores.

00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:38.040
I was an A student.

00:24:43.144 --> 00:24:44.650
Like in almost every single class, I would end up getting an.

00:24:44.650 --> 00:24:44.690
A.

00:24:44.690 --> 00:24:46.596
What was your worst class, by the way we?

00:24:46.596 --> 00:24:47.319
We thought it was jim.

00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:47.861
We thought it was.

00:24:47.861 --> 00:24:48.323
We thought it was.

00:24:48.323 --> 00:24:49.645
Uh, we thought it was jim.

00:24:49.685 --> 00:25:05.413
I was pretty terrible in pe I'll give you that um, but, uh, I actually I can't remember in high school what my worst class is, but I do remember in college my worst class was chemistry.

00:25:05.413 --> 00:25:12.430
I got a C in chemistry and, I'm sorry, chemists, you do wonderful work and you're you're a fantastic scientist.

00:25:12.430 --> 00:25:18.615
I, I could not care about college level chemistry.

00:25:18.615 --> 00:25:20.332
My late father was a chemist.

00:25:20.332 --> 00:25:21.376
Okay, my respects about college level chemistry.

00:25:21.376 --> 00:25:22.221
My father, my late father, was a chemist.

00:25:22.221 --> 00:25:22.805
Okay, um, my respects.

00:25:22.805 --> 00:25:30.895
Noble, noble and honorable profession amongst humanity.

00:25:30.895 --> 00:25:35.166
But I gotta see in that class and and and.

00:25:35.227 --> 00:25:42.817
So what I do remember from high school is, yeah, being bored a lot and I would absorb the information.

00:25:42.817 --> 00:25:44.601
I would listen to lectures.

00:25:44.601 --> 00:25:51.817
Usually I would get all my homework done on a Monday night at the beginning of the week.

00:25:51.817 --> 00:25:55.153
I would look ahead in all my classes, see all the homework I had to do.

00:25:55.153 --> 00:26:01.056
I would read ahead in the math book, in the world civilization book, et cetera, et cetera.

00:26:01.056 --> 00:26:07.752
I would read ahead, do all of it, get it all done on monday night and then spend the rest of the week playing video games.

00:26:08.855 --> 00:26:14.259
Um, I, I was not very, like, strongly motivated and I was not very, uh, challenged.

00:26:14.259 --> 00:26:27.308
In high school I did have some teachers who did recognize like, oh, I think there's something about this kid and they would give me extra stuff to read, extra stuff to engage with, especially especially my computer science teacher, which is one of the reasons I picked computer science as a college major.

00:26:27.308 --> 00:26:29.974
He was able to create some extra.

00:26:29.974 --> 00:26:31.986
This was Mr Winstead.

00:26:31.986 --> 00:26:39.585
In high school he gave me extra projects to do, extra things to do let me explore on my own.

00:26:39.585 --> 00:26:43.173
So he was able to accelerate me in that sense.

00:26:43.173 --> 00:26:56.505
But a lot of the other teachers, they don't have a lot of flexibility because they're teaching to the entire class, they're trying to meet certain state mandated standards and so I ended up just being bored a lot.

00:26:56.505 --> 00:26:57.787
I didn't misbehave, I would just kind of sit in the back corner.

00:26:57.787 --> 00:26:59.347
I didn't misbehave, I wasn't.

00:26:59.347 --> 00:27:08.617
I would just kind of sit in the back corner, read the book, do the assignment, stare out the window, get my homework done as quickly as possible, play video games.

00:27:08.698 --> 00:27:09.638
Test time rolls around.

00:27:09.638 --> 00:27:21.055
I would prepare, over-prepare, for every test, because I would always be nervous I was a terrible test taker and then get the test race through it as quickly as possible.

00:27:21.055 --> 00:27:32.333
I would almost always be the first one done with a test, and by like like half the time, or the next person, and, but not necessarily but other people would get higher scores on those tests than me.

00:27:32.333 --> 00:27:37.548
But I would just simply know what I I knew what I knew and I knew what I didn't know.

00:27:37.548 --> 00:27:39.412
And so I just go through the tests.

00:27:39.412 --> 00:27:40.532
I'm like, okay, I know that answer.

00:27:40.532 --> 00:27:41.755
Okay, right, okay, right now, that's it.

00:27:41.755 --> 00:27:42.737
I don't know that one.

00:27:42.737 --> 00:27:50.513
Okay, skip that, know that one, that, and that would just be done and I wouldn't bother going back to like a zoleo that okay, who was it?

00:27:50.513 --> 00:27:52.699
Oh, who was at the battle of agigor?

00:27:52.699 --> 00:27:53.325
Who was it was?

00:27:53.684 --> 00:28:01.710
you know, I wouldn't bother uh, because if I didn't know, I didn't know, and so I just turn my test in right away and get like an A minus or so and be fine with it.

00:28:01.710 --> 00:28:23.246
And it wasn't really until college like that that difficult physics classes in that I started to feel truly challenged and actually have to stretch beyond my limits and actually sweat it out and actually have to work with other students to figure out the right answer.

00:28:23.246 --> 00:28:30.752
And then grad school happened and it was like the hammers the bag of hammers just came down and I was crushed into oblivion.

00:28:31.315 --> 00:28:33.040
So how did you focus all this stuff?

00:28:33.040 --> 00:28:37.057
You're pushing yourself in physics, you're exploring, you're dreaming, you're discovering.

00:28:37.057 --> 00:28:40.567
The world is flipping upside down as you knew it before.

00:28:40.567 --> 00:28:46.917
How did you start to focus all this stuff on a next step, on a path, on a journey?

00:28:46.917 --> 00:28:47.960
That's the thing.

00:28:48.105 --> 00:28:55.078
Looking back, I had an incredible lack of vision which actually I think, served me very well.

00:28:56.724 --> 00:29:05.980
Because now, looking back, I, especially as an undergraduate, I didn't know what I wanted to do with a degree in physics.

00:29:05.980 --> 00:29:10.550
Lots of people go into industry, a lot of people go into graduate school.

00:29:10.550 --> 00:29:12.256
Some get a master's, some get a PhD.

00:29:12.256 --> 00:29:18.136
There's, you know, there's like 100 PhD institutions in the United States alone.

00:29:18.136 --> 00:29:22.777
I'm like you don't know what you're going to do with that, right, and I had no idea.

00:29:22.777 --> 00:29:32.074
And then finally, like junior year comes around, or you know, fourth year, fifth year, getting close to graduation, I'm like, oh, I wonder what I should do.

00:29:32.074 --> 00:29:35.673
And I had found I had done some research.

00:29:35.673 --> 00:29:48.773
I had an advisor, an undergrad, dr Senefmi Tanaka, and with him I wrote my first research paper, published my first research paper, and I actually enjoyed this process of discovering new things.

00:29:48.773 --> 00:29:55.517
I really, really enjoyed opportunities to do research, undergraduate research.

00:29:55.517 --> 00:30:00.169
I had an internship at University of Rochester for a summer.

00:30:00.169 --> 00:30:04.657
I was able to do research with faculty at Cal Poly.

00:30:04.657 --> 00:30:12.105
I was really starting to enjoy this process of discovering and learning and creating new knowledge.

00:30:12.105 --> 00:30:15.734
So I'm like, okay, I think I should apply to graduate school.

00:30:15.734 --> 00:30:17.686
What am I going to do with PhD in physics?

00:30:17.686 --> 00:30:18.268
I don't know.

00:30:18.268 --> 00:30:19.330
I'll figure that out later.

00:30:19.672 --> 00:30:37.489
But then I get into graduate school, start working on a PhD, and then it was in that time, within the first two or three years, that I did start to focus, and this was to my detriment of I know I am going to have a research-based career.

00:30:37.489 --> 00:30:41.018
I am going to be a research scientist at a top-flight university.

00:30:41.018 --> 00:30:42.722
I'm going to be a research scientist at a top flight university.

00:30:42.722 --> 00:30:45.609
I'm going to have graduate students and postdocs working for me.

00:30:45.609 --> 00:30:47.153
I'm going to teach.

00:30:47.153 --> 00:30:59.829
This is what I want to do, and the good thing about that is it did give me focus and it did give me drive and I did know what the next steps would be.

00:30:59.829 --> 00:31:03.326
If you want to follow the academic path, here are the steps you take.

00:31:03.326 --> 00:31:04.230
Here's what you do.

00:31:04.230 --> 00:31:05.815
So it did help to focus that.

00:31:06.316 --> 00:31:12.150
The downside is that we drastically overproduced PhDs in physics and astronomy.

00:31:12.150 --> 00:31:25.526
We produced about 10 PhDs for every one open faculty position, and that includes pure teaching positions, not even research-based positions.

00:31:25.526 --> 00:31:34.319
So that wasn't exactly on the brochure and still isn't, and is actually a major problem.

00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:53.930
In my latest book, rescuing Science Restoring Trust in the Age of Doubt, I actually get into this how we are lying and misleading young scientists about the potential career opportunities in astronomy and physics, astrophysics, cosmology all mushed together.

00:31:54.150 --> 00:32:02.334
If you want to go on an academic path, if you want to become a research scientist, you get your PhD, which takes between six and eight years.

00:32:02.334 --> 00:32:19.388
Then you do something called a postdoc, which is short for postdoctoral research appointment or research fellowship, and this is anywhere from a two to five-year position, usually two to three years long, where you just work for someone else.

00:32:19.388 --> 00:32:34.214
You get your PhD under one advisor I got mine under Professor Paul Ricker and then you go work for someone else for a few years and they pay for you and you do research and then, in physics history, you usually do a second postdoc, so you move somewhere else.

00:32:34.214 --> 00:32:44.074
You do another two to three years and then you're considered seasoned enough to be in Enough for what?

00:32:45.536 --> 00:32:47.117
Salty, you get salted.

00:32:48.740 --> 00:32:49.520
Salty, that's right.

00:32:49.520 --> 00:32:51.166
You are considered.

00:32:51.166 --> 00:32:59.701
You know, if you've demonstrated a solid track record of research, you can start applying for faculty positions.

00:32:59.701 --> 00:33:05.655
And this was a very, very delicate time for me.

00:33:05.655 --> 00:33:15.588
I did one postdoc at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics in France, working with Ben Wondelt, and I had a wonderful, wonderful time there.

00:33:15.588 --> 00:33:18.336
It was like the peak of my research productivity.

00:33:18.336 --> 00:33:21.994
And in fact that's true for, like any scientist, their first postdoc, because it's all you do.

00:33:21.994 --> 00:33:25.204
There's no teaching, there's no advising, there's no committee work.

00:33:25.204 --> 00:33:27.170
You are just doing research full time.

00:33:27.170 --> 00:33:28.192
You're getting paid nothing.

00:33:28.192 --> 00:33:30.518
I'm like next to nothing.

00:33:30.518 --> 00:33:32.931
You know, half of a stale baguette a week.

00:33:33.010 --> 00:33:38.634
I was going to ask that question at some point because, in my mind, your student loans are racking up like mad.

00:33:42.484 --> 00:33:57.400
So the student loan thing in physics and astronomy and this is true amongst hard sciences uh, undergrad full loans, the whole deal, uh, in fact, I just paid them off a year ago and but graduate school is paid for in in most of the hard sciences.

00:33:57.400 --> 00:34:02.032
Um, you apply for graduate school and it's very competitive.

00:34:02.032 --> 00:34:17.114
Programs will carry anywhere between like two and maybe 20 or 30 students a year and they will provide a stipend, they will pay your tuition and they will provide a stipend in exchange.

00:34:17.114 --> 00:34:21.512
You have to teach, so you're teaching at in your graduate career.

00:34:21.512 --> 00:34:33.157
If your research advisor once you find a research advisor, if they're well-funded, if they have grants coming in, then they can take over paying you, paying your stipend and paying your tuition.

00:34:33.157 --> 00:34:37.514
So you don't have to teach and you just devote yourself to research.

00:34:38.034 --> 00:34:42.539
So, no matter what, I was going to get paid in graduate school it's not much, I got paid.

00:34:42.539 --> 00:34:43.885
Gonna get paid in graduate school it's not much, I got paid.

00:34:43.885 --> 00:34:46.931
Uh, I was in graduate school between 2005 and 2011.

00:34:46.931 --> 00:34:49.396
I got paid I think 15 000 a year.

00:34:49.396 --> 00:34:54.489
Uh, stipend, wow, which was fantastic.

00:34:54.989 --> 00:35:14.168
Uh, living the life there in champaign, illinois I can only imagine what that was like oh well, there was this Indian vegetarian buffet that was very cheap and specifically catered to graduate students, and we would hit that place up a lot.

00:35:14.188 --> 00:35:17.657
But we put that guy's kid through college at the University of Illinois.

00:35:17.657 --> 00:35:36.949
But then, a year in, I did receive a fellowship, and a fellowship is an award from either a university or government that steps in, gives you a much larger stipend, also pays your tuition and gives you total independence.

00:35:36.949 --> 00:35:43.295
So you're not tied to any one particular advisor, you don't have to teach, the fellowship just pays for everything.

00:35:43.295 --> 00:35:49.918
And this fellowship came from the Department of Energy, a program called the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.

00:35:49.918 --> 00:35:54.034
So you know how I switched majors from computer science to physics.

00:35:54.034 --> 00:35:56.632
I never left computer science behind.

00:35:56.632 --> 00:35:58.632
I still love computer programming.

00:35:58.632 --> 00:36:00.632
I still love developing software.

00:36:00.632 --> 00:36:01.628
That's still something.

00:36:01.628 --> 00:36:02.052
Computer programming.

00:36:02.052 --> 00:36:03.885
I still love developing software that's still something I enjoy.

00:36:03.885 --> 00:36:21.614
And it turns out, almost all of modern science is done by amateur computer programmers and I was one of them, except I had some partial training from two and a half years at college and so I leaned heavily and I still do in computational science.

00:36:21.614 --> 00:36:33.596
So developing simulations of the evolution of the universe and developing analytical tools that can comb through the data and find interesting combinations like a lot of computer-heavy work.

00:36:33.596 --> 00:36:40.592
I applied for this fellowship and I was very, very honored and privileged to win it.

00:36:40.592 --> 00:36:45.195
It's a very competitive program still runs today.

00:36:45.195 --> 00:36:52.851
Usually there are between 400 and 600 applicants every year and there are between 15 and 25 awards.

00:36:52.851 --> 00:36:53.713
Oh my God.

00:36:53.713 --> 00:37:06.117
And I know those numbers because now I serve on the selection committee for the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship and and so I'm very, very lucky that I can give back to this program.

00:37:06.137 --> 00:37:08.987
That really changed my the trajectory of my career.

00:37:08.987 --> 00:37:16.344
So I I didn't have any loans coming out of graduate school itself.

00:37:16.344 --> 00:37:23.356
I still carried forward the undergrad loans which I deferred throughout graduate school, which is why it took me so long to pay off.

00:37:23.356 --> 00:37:28.483
And so I show up in Paris, I start paying off my student loans.

00:37:28.483 --> 00:37:35.302
I'm getting paid half a stale baguette every other week and I'm having like the time of my life.

00:37:35.302 --> 00:37:48.117
We developed this like really vibrant research group centered on these vast empty regions of the universe known as cosmic voids, becomes a cornerstone of my research and something I carry forward.

00:37:48.117 --> 00:37:55.416
Even today I still research voids and study them, and I go from there to Italy, trieste, italy.

00:37:55.565 --> 00:38:07.355
I won a fellowship position from the Italian government there for a two-year postdoc, and it was during that position that that was the time to government there for a two-year postdoc, and it was during that position that that was the time to start applying for faculty positions.

00:38:07.355 --> 00:38:15.434
That was the time to start uh, aiming for, you know, gunning for one of these top tier uh research institutions.

00:38:15.434 --> 00:38:21.329
That was also the time that I started my podcast, ask a spaceman.

00:38:21.329 --> 00:38:29.748
And this is something that, um, I'd wanted to start a podcast for a really long time.

00:38:29.748 --> 00:38:52.815
I'd been listening to podcasts for years, so this is in 2012, 2013, like in that time frame, and podcasts were relatively new, but but, and and there were some science podcasts and there's some really good ones, but as I would listen to them and think I would think, I think I could do this, I think I could do this better Um, I think I can make a podcast.

00:38:52.815 --> 00:38:58.255
And so, just on a whim, I buy a microphone, the exact same microphone I'm using today.

00:38:58.255 --> 00:38:59.288
Which microphone is that?

00:38:59.288 --> 00:39:01.891
By the way, it's a blue Yeti.

00:39:04.465 --> 00:39:07.271
Everyone uses the blue yeti, and this is one of the og ones.

00:39:07.311 --> 00:39:18.485
It's like the old school us like the, the big usb connector that I need adapters for now and everything we all do right, yeah, of course um, I bought this microphone, I downloaded audacity.

00:39:18.485 --> 00:39:22.228
I look google search like like, how do you record a podcast?

00:39:22.228 --> 00:39:23.409
Like what do?

00:39:23.429 --> 00:39:41.322
you actually do and I remember recording seven episodes, like scripting out seven episodes, recording them, putting them out there, emailing every single person in my contact list with a personal email saying hey, I just started a podcast.

00:39:41.322 --> 00:39:44.349
It's a fun little experiment in science communication.

00:39:44.349 --> 00:39:45.956
I'd love for you to share it.

00:39:45.956 --> 00:40:02.478
And very quickly the audience got a very uh, sizable audience and it became very fun and I was doing two episodes a month and the more I was doing it, the more fun I was having.

00:40:02.478 --> 00:40:11.219
The podcast became large enough that it started to attract some attention from some local media.

00:40:12.626 --> 00:40:25.777
At the time, even though I was based in Italy, my ex-wife my wife at the time lived in Columbus, ohio, and so I was going back and forth a lot and so I was very tied to the Ohio State University.

00:40:25.777 --> 00:40:32.585
They gave me a guest appointment there so I could have a desk when I float back and forth, start to get the attention of Columbus.

00:40:32.585 --> 00:40:49.577
Space Media started appearing on Good Day Columbus at 7.30 am and, like, let's talk about the latest, uh, you know, discovery in astronomy and, uh, you know, started doing radio interviews, started writing a little for spacecom.

00:40:49.577 --> 00:41:00.487
Uh, just like I started to grow more media contacts and as I was doing this, uh, the faculty that I would interact with.

00:41:00.487 --> 00:41:05.788
You know, my advisors, co-authors, say like Paul, you got to knock this off.

00:41:05.788 --> 00:41:09.056
Like you, you're, you're, you're jeopardizing your career.

00:41:09.284 --> 00:41:10.369
I was going to ask you that Cause.

00:41:10.369 --> 00:41:15.132
I mean, obviously you're starting very early, very, very early in the in the podcast universe.

00:41:15.132 --> 00:41:19.369
I would assume that hardcore academics would look at you as like what in the hell are you doing?

00:41:20.152 --> 00:41:28.181
oh yeah, I remember one of my um like mentors and advisors and now friend, uh john beacom at the ohio state university.

00:41:28.181 --> 00:41:29.585
I told him I was doing this.

00:41:29.585 --> 00:41:38.260
He goes, so, um, oh, what's a podcast and like like we're at that level also.

00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:40.429
He's like ignorant of how the world works.

00:41:40.429 --> 00:42:07.534
John, I love you, but like um and also in science, especially like research, centered r1, top, you know, top tier universities uh, doing anything but research is detrimental to the trajectory of your career because it's seen as wasting time, because your job is to get grants, is to write papers, to have students is not to communicate science.

00:42:07.534 --> 00:42:12.030
That's not part of the deal, um, and so they were rightly they.

00:42:12.030 --> 00:42:14.016
Everyone was absolutely correct.

00:42:14.016 --> 00:42:22.496
They're saying paul, the more you're doing this like media and outreach, the the more you are risky, you're putting a scientific career at risk.

00:42:23.918 --> 00:42:31.898
And so what you usually see in science communication is people who leave academia altogether after like a phd.

00:42:31.898 --> 00:42:37.766
They just, they're just, they just stop the train, they don't do a postdoc, they don't gun for research positions.

00:42:37.766 --> 00:42:46.820
Uh, they just go out and then they start writing or they start like a YouTube channel or something or working with a science museum.

00:42:46.820 --> 00:42:48.793
There are a bunch of careers in science communication.

00:42:48.793 --> 00:43:01.168
Or you see late stage academics, people who have tenure, people who it's impossible to fire, and then they start devoting more of their time to like writing books and doing interviews.

00:43:01.190 --> 00:43:01.550
They have no risk.

00:43:01.570 --> 00:43:05.193
I did it exactly wrong, and then they start devoting more of their time to like writing books and doing interviews.

00:43:05.193 --> 00:43:05.713
They have no risk.

00:43:05.713 --> 00:43:12.442
I did it exactly wrong by doing it in between, which turned out to be exactly right, hence the title of your show.

00:43:14.684 --> 00:43:15.748
I was going to say that, but I'm glad you.

00:43:15.748 --> 00:43:20.429
But I did it like I can't think I have not met someone.

00:43:20.429 --> 00:43:33.344
I'm sure there is someone else out there who followed a similar path, but I can't find someone who, uh, tried to do both because I loved research and I also loved outreach, and I was, and I was growing in this love and passion.

00:43:33.344 --> 00:43:36.735
I knew I had always enjoyed conference presentations.

00:43:36.735 --> 00:43:42.644
Um, I had always enjoyed preparing for those and giving those and like sharing the results of my work.

00:43:42.644 --> 00:43:43.965
I enjoyed writing papers.

00:43:43.965 --> 00:43:58.038
I had always enjoyed the sharing aspect, which is a normal part of a scientific career it to the public.

00:43:59.199 --> 00:44:11.329
And so when it came time to start applying for faculty positions, I was spending less and less time in research.

00:44:11.329 --> 00:44:15.619
My research productivity was dropping, my paper output was dropping and I was becoming an unattractive candidate.

00:44:15.619 --> 00:44:22.132
But I was also having a lot of fun and so I just kept going.

00:44:22.132 --> 00:44:39.838
And then I was able to carve out in Columbus a joint position after a lot of discussions and negotiations and going back and forth, where I was halftime at the Ohio State University doing research and then halftime the chief scientist at the Center of Science and Industry, the Science Museum in Columbus, ohio.

00:44:39.838 --> 00:44:41.851
So we created that position.

00:44:41.851 --> 00:45:03.659
Then I had I had two lives, so I would spend 20 hours a week at COSI, uh, doing being the chief scientist there and communicating science, and I spent 20 hours a week, uh, doing research and and, and that position served me well for about three years and then I started growing more and more in outreach and communication and media.

00:45:03.659 --> 00:45:06.713
I was flying to New York and LA all the time.

00:45:06.753 --> 00:45:15.297
I was starting to appear on national TV and produce television shows, working with more people, and I knew I needed to make another change.

00:45:15.297 --> 00:45:38.195
In 2019, 2018, 2019, I quit those positions and moved to New York and became entirely freelance science communicator.

00:45:38.195 --> 00:45:41.480
So my income deriving entirely from articles, appearances patreoncom slash, pm Sutter, where you can support my show.

00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:46.786
Patreoncom slash, pm.

00:45:46.786 --> 00:45:50.532
Sutter, where you can support my show um, the whole deal, book, uh, royalties, uh, you know, appearance fees for for tv, the whole, the whole deal.

00:45:51.994 --> 00:45:58.893
And I spent a few years focusing on state growing that, stabilizing that, creating a career from that.

00:45:59.434 --> 00:46:17.086
And then it's been in the past year, year and a half, that I've been able to carve out time again for research and start reach and I'll work with my collaborators again, find pockets of money to pay for my time, you know, and you know still half a stale baguette every other week.

00:46:17.086 --> 00:46:51.681
So it's like like a hobby, but it it allows me to engage in research, and so now I feel like I get the best of both worlds, where I get to have an income that can support my family doing something that I absolutely love, which is communicating science and sharing science, and I get to continue my own lines of research in terms that are dictated by me, not dictated by a grant deadline or a university provost breathing down my neck.

00:46:51.681 --> 00:47:04.652
I don't have to follow the trends, I can just research what I want to research and publish when I want to publish.

00:47:04.652 --> 00:47:07.965
So I feel like I'm at a place where I get the absolute best of both worlds and I'm so glad I went down the path that I did.

00:47:08.846 --> 00:47:17.610
You know, as you laid all that out, I couldn't help but think about the hypocrisy of the people who are telling you not to do this.

00:47:17.610 --> 00:47:19.795
You know I think about zoos, for example.

00:47:19.795 --> 00:47:21.527
You know some people are against zoos.

00:47:21.527 --> 00:47:31.492
However, if you want to succeed in conservation, people need to understand the animals and appreciate them, et cetera, et cetera, and the zoos help tell that story.

00:47:31.492 --> 00:47:33.536
So I think about you.

00:47:33.536 --> 00:47:59.038
In your set of circumstances, you're bringing science and you're bringing all of these great ideas to the forefront for people to engage with and discover and to learn, which I would think behind the scenes, would drive revenue and projects and a foundation for a lot of these people who are telling you not to do this, to work and to survive and to thrive.

00:47:59.038 --> 00:47:59.907
Am I wrong?

00:47:59.947 --> 00:48:02.635
Yeah, that makes so much sense, doesn't it?

00:48:02.635 --> 00:48:09.114
You're absolutely right, it is hypocritical.

00:48:09.114 --> 00:48:11.998
And I do take my fellow scientists to task.

00:48:11.998 --> 00:48:20.750
I I do um visits to departments surrounding my latest book and I talk to fellow scientists and I say you got to get out there.

00:48:20.750 --> 00:48:25.873
You have, we have to support science, outreach communication or we are going to die on the vine.

00:48:25.873 --> 00:48:35.137
But the ultimate irony is, like I said, we overproduce PhDs by a factor of 10 to 1.

00:48:35.137 --> 00:48:44.454
So all these faculty that were telling me, like you're jeopardizing your career in research, there was no career in research, there are no jobs anyway.

00:48:44.454 --> 00:48:46.351
What was I putting at risk?

00:48:47.686 --> 00:48:52.764
Less than 10% chance of landing a research job, like that's what I was putting at risk.

00:48:52.764 --> 00:48:57.893
But these numbers aren't discussed, these numbers aren't distributed.

00:48:57.893 --> 00:48:59.657
Uh, no one really knows.

00:48:59.657 --> 00:49:08.655
Everyone pretends that, oh, as long as you publish more, as long as you're the best, then you're guaranteed to get a job somewhere, but that's not how the real world works.

00:49:08.655 --> 00:49:12.027
Um, they all these faculty, are very well-meaning, absolutely.

00:49:12.027 --> 00:49:13.731
Uh, they were trying to look out for me.

00:49:13.731 --> 00:49:25.972
They really didn't care for me, but they had a very like myopic, limited view of of what a phd in physics can mean and what a successful, thriving career can mean all right.

00:49:26.072 --> 00:49:28.677
So, uh, just to kind of stick on that topic for a moment.

00:49:28.677 --> 00:49:37.440
So you have now obviously proven to a point that your, your, uh, your path has proven successful.

00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:42.400
You know you are obviously very successful as a podcaster, prolific writer.

00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:49.467
Um, you have, uh, you've obviously made your your, your, your way as a consultant on a number of different projects for shows, for things of that nature.

00:49:49.467 --> 00:49:54.596
Um, do you think your model now has obviously, you know, stodgy?

00:49:54.596 --> 00:49:59.264
Older academics are going to be the same way as you said yeah, yeah, we don't have to worry about that.

00:49:59.827 --> 00:50:02.735
They're always going to be about hey, once I get tenure, then I don't have to worry about anything.

00:50:02.735 --> 00:50:23.027
But for those who are trying maybe to get into or want to continue to maintain their standing within academia early in their careers, early in their careers, is it smarter now to try and be more versatile, so to speak, where you should try and build more of a I hate to say, but a social media following so people know who you are.

00:50:23.027 --> 00:50:24.612
Is it better to advertise yourself?

00:50:24.612 --> 00:50:25.936
I guess is what I'm trying to say.

00:50:26.820 --> 00:50:57.213
Yeah, so definitely we need to take a different approach to graduate education as a whole, and what I argue in my book education as a whole, and what I argue in my book is that because so few of our PhD graduate students end up in a research career, we can't pretend that graduate school is a training ground for a research career, because only one out of 10 of those students are actually going to do the thing that we are pretending to train them to do.

00:50:57.213 --> 00:51:01.556
So, yes, please, like, we need to continue graduate education.

00:51:01.556 --> 00:51:05.516
We need to have the same classes that we need to do some independent research.

00:51:05.516 --> 00:51:13.574
You know we need to write a dissertation, like all that can stay the same, because that is the bones of how you, how you can call yourself a doctor.

00:51:13.574 --> 00:51:15.257
You know, phd in physics.

00:51:15.257 --> 00:51:22.074
But we also need to add on to that like actual real world job training, like how to write a resume.

00:51:22.534 --> 00:51:40.780
to this day, I do not know how to write a resume, uh, because I've never had to apply to do one right job right, I have a cv, a curriculum vitae, you know the academic version of the resume and I know how to knock one of those out of the park, and I know how to write a research statement and I know how to pitch a book idea.

00:51:40.780 --> 00:51:43.264
I do not know how to write a resume.

00:51:43.264 --> 00:51:46.514
If you ask me, like Paul, do you have tips for writing an effective resume?

00:51:46.514 --> 00:51:56.097
I'm going to have to look it up and graduate students, a doctor of physics should be able to write a resume.

00:51:56.097 --> 00:52:00.817
They should be able to move smoothly through LinkedIn and develop contacts.

00:52:00.817 --> 00:52:07.219
They should be able to work with industry people outside of academia, because that's where they're going to land.

00:52:07.219 --> 00:52:17.456
90% of them are going to land outside of academia, so it behooves us, it obligates us as a community, to prepare them as much as possible.

00:52:17.456 --> 00:52:18.806
What are you?

00:52:18.847 --> 00:52:20.193
most proud of in your work.

00:52:20.193 --> 00:52:22.610
All the work you've done, I mean, it's vast.

00:52:22.610 --> 00:52:26.652
I don't know if you could single out one thing, but what is the thing that you're like?

00:52:26.652 --> 00:52:29.938
This is my, this is my baby right here.

00:52:30.204 --> 00:52:40.045
This is what I, yeah, this is my baby, what I yeah, this is my baby um, I have.

00:52:40.045 --> 00:52:54.856
There is one project that is uh, incredibly special and um, uh, very, very close to my heart in in many ways, as you'll see um around the time that I moved to new york, I I had started dabbling with um, art and connections.

00:52:54.856 --> 00:52:57.280
I am not a trained artist.

00:52:57.280 --> 00:53:01.215
I got an A in art class in high school.

00:53:01.215 --> 00:53:07.878
In elementary school I remained forever as second trumpet.

00:53:07.878 --> 00:53:09.871
So that's it.

00:53:09.871 --> 00:53:12.012
That's my list of artistic achievements.

00:53:14.585 --> 00:53:28.844
But I really have always been captivated by art and moved by art, by music and dance and theater, and I realized very early on that this can be an effective way of bringing science to new audiences.

00:53:28.844 --> 00:53:43.552
Because people show up to read my books, listen to my podcast, show up to a live presentation at a science center, and it's generally the same kind of people and that's fine, that's great.

00:53:43.552 --> 00:53:44.315
They're paying my bills.

00:53:44.315 --> 00:53:45.797
So, thank you, please keep showing up.

00:53:45.797 --> 00:53:57.318
That's patreoncom slash pmsutter, but it's a different crowd that will show up to a dance performance or a music concert or come to hear some poetry.

00:53:57.318 --> 00:54:03.557
So even when I was in Columbus, I was starting to work with local companies, work with a local dance company.

00:54:03.557 --> 00:54:28.836
We created a production that actually aired on PBS member stations around the country and around the time I was starting to move to New York, I got connected to a New York-based company, siren Modern Dance, and we created this project called TikTok, which explores the nature of time, and this performance it's evening-length performance, it's about 45 minutes long.

00:54:28.836 --> 00:54:35.057
I narrate two sections of it on stage with the dancers, where they're interacting with me.

00:54:35.057 --> 00:54:37.708
The music is happening, everything's choreographed.

00:54:37.708 --> 00:54:39.954
My words are choreographed to the music.

00:54:39.954 --> 00:54:48.230
The dancers pick me up, sometimes I work, you know, interact with them, and then I step off the stage and then, you know, beautiful, mozart continues.

00:54:48.230 --> 00:54:56.525
And so we explore this nature of time from the angle of physics, the angle of human experience and memory and anticipation.

00:54:56.525 --> 00:54:58.853
It is a wonderful combination.

00:54:59.025 --> 00:55:12.496
I've had the privilege of getting to share this project around the world and the choreographer of the work and co-artistic director of the dance company, kate.

00:55:12.496 --> 00:55:13.659
We started out as collaborators.

00:55:13.659 --> 00:55:15.443
We were collaborators when I moved out as collaborators.

00:55:15.443 --> 00:55:18.010
We were collaborators when I moved to New York.

00:55:18.010 --> 00:55:19.775
We we developed this project.

00:55:19.775 --> 00:55:23.668
We finished this project, um and and and.

00:55:24.391 --> 00:55:25.934
Now we're married to each other.

00:55:25.934 --> 00:55:29.320
Wow and uh, we have two wonderful children.

00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:53.077
Uh, yeah, she had, she had two boys, uh, and they're not my step sons and they are the lights of my life, and we have a beautiful family and getting to share in that artistic joy and seeing the world through her lens, the artistic lens, lens of modern dance and movement, and then she gets to see the world through my, like, scientific lens and we get to create.

00:55:53.077 --> 00:56:09.994
We don't collaborate on a new project because we're, you know, collaborating on a family right now, yeah, um, but, uh, we still perform tiktok when that's the name of the this, this piece, um, we still perform it when we get bookings.

00:56:10.876 --> 00:56:13.329
Uh, we'll, we'll create a new project together someday.

00:56:13.329 --> 00:56:21.637
But it just opened up my world in, not just to new audiences, uh, but to new ways of of seeing and appreciating the world.

00:56:21.637 --> 00:56:31.155
And it goes back to my childhood of just being hungry and wanting to learn more and wanting to look at things in a different way and wanting to poke and dig a little bit deeper.

00:56:31.155 --> 00:56:37.315
And I feel like I've saturated my abilities as a scientist like I.

00:56:37.315 --> 00:56:45.809
Like I, I have the all the scientific tools at my disposal for investigating nature that way, and now we have a whole new set of tools.

00:56:46.471 --> 00:56:57.659
Um, I do not dance nobody wants to see me dance but but, but, seeing my wife and opening that up to like looking at the world through an artistic lens and reading about it and experiencing it.

00:56:57.659 --> 00:57:06.655
I feel like I have a brand new set of tools and ways and lenses to view the world, and that has brought me immeasurable joy.

00:57:07.545 --> 00:57:22.568
So what advice do you have for someone who wants to follow the academic path, maybe not the same way as you, but maybe even a little bit like you in terms of, you know, maybe encompassing more of an aspect of bringing in a social media aspect to the learning, to the learning portion of it?

00:57:22.568 --> 00:57:28.110
Is there one piece of advice or two pieces of advice you would have for someone who wants to go down that path?

00:57:29.313 --> 00:57:33.371
If you want to go down the academic path, I think it's best to do this.

00:57:33.371 --> 00:57:39.431
It was actually it's funny you say this because I was at an event at the Frost Museum in Miami last night.

00:57:39.431 --> 00:58:01.780
They invited me to be the keynote speaker for a fundraising gala and they invited the physics department and astronomy department for the University of Miami and they got a table there and then they introduced me to some of their graduate students and I'm standing in front of these wonderfully intelligent young people and they're saying it's like so, dr Sutter, do you have any advice for them?

00:58:01.780 --> 00:58:08.492
And I'm like okay, the bad news is there are no jobs.

00:58:08.492 --> 00:58:29.992
Sure, yeah, and I think it's important.

00:58:30.032 --> 00:58:46.132
If you're going to go down that path, you have to go odds, like not because of your lack of skills or intelligent or cunning, or wit or grit or any of the qualities we aspire to as a scientist, just simple dumb luck, like there just aren't enough chairs.

00:58:47.233 --> 00:59:16.228
That means that it empowers you to craft your own career, because if you follow the strict academic path and you chase one of these research positions, you're doing what everyone tells you to do Like oh, if you want this, then you need to do this postdoc and you better have an elite fellowship over here and you better publish at least three to five papers a year, and then this is what you need to highlight in your research statement.

00:59:16.228 --> 00:59:20.007
Yeah, I know your passions are over here, but this is spot in the field right now.

00:59:20.007 --> 00:59:31.746
So you need you're always going to be having other people tell you what to do, to dictate the path of your career, but if you open yourself up, then you get to decide what success looks like.

00:59:31.746 --> 00:59:38.099
You get to decide what a PhD in physics or any academic field means to you.

00:59:38.099 --> 00:59:49.192
You become the author of your own destiny, not to somebody else, and so I hope I was able to inspire those young students last night.

00:59:49.211 --> 00:59:50.715
Sure, I said there are no jobs out for them.

00:59:50.965 --> 00:59:55.956
Absolutely inspiring, so there are no jobs, but that means you get to define success.

00:59:55.956 --> 00:59:59.248
It is in your hands and nobody else's.

01:00:00.445 --> 01:00:03.168
Last one from us, and we can't thank you enough for your time.

01:00:03.168 --> 01:00:04.052
This has been amazing.

01:00:04.052 --> 01:00:07.407
What do you hope your legacy will be?

01:00:07.407 --> 01:00:08.389
Have you thought about it?

01:00:10.393 --> 01:00:14.753
No, Honestly, I haven't thought about my legacy.

01:00:14.753 --> 01:00:18.708
I am focused on what I am doing.

01:00:18.708 --> 01:00:28.719
I assume that nobody listens to me or downloads my podcast, even though the statistics say otherwise.

01:00:28.719 --> 01:00:30.001
The book sales say otherwise.

01:00:30.001 --> 01:00:38.893
I know my, my impact on the world is larger than like I assume because I'm so focused in, like the next project, the next thing.

01:00:38.893 --> 01:00:38.952
Uh.

01:00:38.952 --> 01:01:10.967
So I know I'm having an influence on the world and what I care more about are like those small scale interactions, like what I had last night or this conversation, or the legacy of my, my step-sons, um, and then their kids, and just being an influence in the world, where I see the universe as beautiful and complex and mysterious and knowable and that is worth exploring and that is worth sharing.

01:01:10.967 --> 01:01:17.039
If this ripples out and affects a few people, then I'm a happy man.

01:01:17.724 --> 01:01:27.117
So, with that in mind, if people want to, if people are listening to our podcast who don't know you and are not currently following you, how do they get to know you better?

01:01:27.117 --> 01:01:31.335
The podcast, the stories, the books, where should people look?

01:01:31.394 --> 01:01:35.795
Yes, yes, the best place is my website P M Suttercom.

01:01:35.795 --> 01:01:40.329
That's P, as in Paul, m as in Matthew happens to be my name, suttercom.

01:01:40.329 --> 01:01:42.784
That's my website and that's where I link to everything.

01:01:42.784 --> 01:01:46.534
I have three books out by now, working on a fourth.

01:01:46.534 --> 01:01:49.269
I my podcast called ask a spaceman.

01:01:49.269 --> 01:01:59.869
Appearances on various TV shows, hosting a few TV shows and digital shows, um, and appearances on on news.

01:01:59.869 --> 01:02:06.652
Regularly You'll see me on NBC news, on weather channel, on CNN, you know, anytime there's a space related newsworthy event.

01:02:06.652 --> 01:02:11.487
Um, that's where I link, uh, my social media handles.

01:02:11.487 --> 01:02:13.596
I'm mostly on Instagram and LinkedIn.

01:02:13.596 --> 01:02:22.090
Nowadays there is a Paul Sutter on Facebook, but my page was stolen from me in a hilarious incident a year ago and it's impossible for me to-.

01:02:22.090 --> 01:02:25.331
Hilarious incident, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was that's the next one.

01:02:27.967 --> 01:02:28.688
That's the next one.

01:02:28.688 --> 01:02:33.286
So the Paul Sutter that's on Facebook is not me and I can't Facebook Zuckerberg.

01:02:33.286 --> 01:02:34.210
If you're listening, listening?

01:02:34.210 --> 01:02:49.445
I can't access my own page like I'm the guy on the picture, like that's me and like I can't anyway solve the universe's problems, but you can't get into your face exactly you know it's good for the universe to still have mysteries.

01:02:49.485 --> 01:02:53.170
That makes it more fun, and I so like.

01:02:53.170 --> 01:02:58.237
Instagram and linked LinkedIn is where I post about upcoming events and things I'm doing.

01:02:58.237 --> 01:03:01.701
You know, and but the website is is the hub Perfect?

01:03:02.065 --> 01:03:04.405
Well, paul, I've learned a ton.

01:03:04.405 --> 01:03:14.619
This has been an incredible conversation, and I should also call out that, in my mind, when I think of a scientist, I don't think of a great communicator, which is just my ignorance.

01:03:14.619 --> 01:03:18.784
You have broken the mold and are a brilliant storyteller.

01:03:18.885 --> 01:03:21.114
I had another two hours worth of questions to ask you.

01:03:21.967 --> 01:03:22.951
I'll have to come back.

01:03:22.951 --> 01:03:24.230
We'll do another two hours.

01:03:24.371 --> 01:03:24.731
We'll do it.

01:03:24.731 --> 01:03:26.139
We'll do another one.

01:03:26.139 --> 01:03:27.465
Paul, thank you so much.

01:03:27.505 --> 01:03:28.630
Thank you so much for having me on.

01:03:28.630 --> 01:03:30.753
This was a wonderful opportunity to share.

01:03:31.465 --> 01:03:33.010
So that was Paul M.

01:03:33.251 --> 01:03:33.572
Sutter.

01:03:37.324 --> 01:03:39.349
And going in, we wondered whether or not we were smart enough to have that conversation.

01:03:39.349 --> 01:03:42.708
I'm not exactly sure how we're feeling now, but I think we hung in there pretty well.

01:03:42.708 --> 01:03:43.974
Tushar, what are your?

01:03:44.014 --> 01:03:44.596
takeaways.

01:03:44.596 --> 01:03:48.409
I can come away with this, and you don't have to be a genius to come to this conclusion.

01:03:48.409 --> 01:03:50.936
We were not smart enough to speak to this guy.

01:03:52.885 --> 01:03:53.768
It's fine.

01:03:54.510 --> 01:03:56.036
But it was fascinating.

01:03:56.036 --> 01:03:57.422
Let not, let's not sugarcoat.

01:03:57.422 --> 01:03:58.885
It was a fascinating discussion.

01:03:58.885 --> 01:04:14.914
Now, he didn't paint a very, uh, positive, rosy picture of what life as an academic is like, but, uh, and we could have spoken to him and you know, we probably could have spoken to him for another two hours about what it meant to have a job of that kind of caliber, of that level in a private situation.

01:04:14.914 --> 01:04:16.907
Like what would a private company like that look like?

01:04:16.907 --> 01:04:19.331
Whether it be spacex, things of that nature?

01:04:19.331 --> 01:04:29.865
Um, look, I think the type of job he has, obviously it's not meant for everyone, right, this is not the job that you're just going to go out and say.

01:04:29.885 --> 01:04:33.130
Your guidance counselor says, yes, be a, be a cosmologist.

01:04:33.130 --> 01:04:34.610
It's not going to happen.

01:04:34.610 --> 01:04:45.431
You have to obviously be wanting of the rigors of an extremely academic life, right, I once called my sister a professional student.

01:04:45.431 --> 01:04:46.195
That's what you have to be.

01:04:46.195 --> 01:04:48.070
You have to be a professional learner.

01:04:48.070 --> 01:04:49.454
That is your job.

01:04:49.454 --> 01:04:52.795
And if you're able to land one of those positions, look, that's great.

01:04:52.795 --> 01:05:02.255
Then you can quite literally ponder and mull over the literal origins of the universe and move forward in your career in that sense.

01:05:02.255 --> 01:05:05.713
But maybe this is not the job for everyone.

01:05:05.713 --> 01:05:13.853
But what a fascinating conversation to have with obviously one of the absolute best in the business, and I'm smarter for it.

01:05:13.853 --> 01:05:20.123
Thank you for making me feel a lot smarter than I was before we started this interview, and hey, it makes me.

01:05:20.123 --> 01:05:28.750
It will give me a greater appreciation of books that I read in the future Hell, even science fiction movies and science fiction shows that I watch.

01:05:28.750 --> 01:05:29.271
In the future.

01:05:29.271 --> 01:05:31.704
I will have a better perspective on how I look at them.

01:05:31.724 --> 01:05:33.869
Yeah, what a great conversation and what a great person.

01:05:33.869 --> 01:05:38.577
You know he spent, he gave us his time and we can't thank him enough for that.

01:05:38.577 --> 01:05:41.208
You could just hear the passion in his voice.

01:05:41.208 --> 01:05:48.759
You know what I mean that he wants to share, and he wants to share his experience, his knowledge and get people excited about science.

01:05:48.759 --> 01:05:51.065
And you could just feel that.

01:05:51.065 --> 01:05:58.242
You know the bad news there's no jobs, so he very few jobs.

01:05:58.242 --> 01:06:02.130
I mean the numbers he gave 10 PhDs for what?

01:06:02.130 --> 01:06:04.534
Every one open faculty position.

01:06:04.534 --> 01:06:05.096
I mean that's a.

01:06:05.096 --> 01:06:07.507
That's a pretty bleak outlook for that.

01:06:07.889 --> 01:06:14.827
Now the good news is that he's been able to craft and carve a career in a really fascinating way.

01:06:14.827 --> 01:06:18.346
You know you get to decide what success looks like.

01:06:18.346 --> 01:06:20.451
You're the author of your own destiny.

01:06:20.451 --> 01:06:22.376
You could craft your own career.

01:06:22.376 --> 01:06:23.867
I mean I love that advice.

01:06:23.867 --> 01:06:31.731
That's not just for academia, that's not just for this particular career, that's for any career that you want to choose in your life.

01:06:31.731 --> 01:06:36.061
You get to decide what success looks like For him.

01:06:36.061 --> 01:06:42.177
I mean he said it, he has a childlike curiosity and scientists are people who refuse to grow up right.

01:06:42.177 --> 01:06:44.088
He's a searcher, he's a sharer.

01:06:44.088 --> 01:06:57.250
I mean I can't thank him enough for just opening my eyes to those things and getting me excited about the universe and physics and not chemistry but everything else?

01:06:57.585 --> 01:06:58.309
Well, you like chemistry?

01:06:58.349 --> 01:06:58.650
don't you?

01:06:58.650 --> 01:07:00.992
I mean, you know what.

01:07:00.992 --> 01:07:03.211
It's funny when he said chemistry was his worst.

01:07:03.211 --> 01:07:07.074
You know class, because it was by far and away my worst class.

01:07:07.585 --> 01:07:07.927
I got a.

01:07:08.148 --> 01:07:11.344
D in high school chemistry and I never had a D in my life.

01:07:11.344 --> 01:07:13.753
But imagine the grade he gets in his worst class as compared to us, oh, for sure.

01:07:14.045 --> 01:07:14.547
Well, true.

01:07:15.269 --> 01:07:19.315
True, but no, I mean, that was a really inspiring conversation.

01:07:19.315 --> 01:07:29.409
You know, bleak in terms of, like, the academia job aspect of it, but I love the way he's carved out his own career and gotten other people excited In the world of social media.

01:07:29.409 --> 01:07:31.014
Now, sky's the limit.

01:07:31.014 --> 01:07:36.865
You could do whatever you want to do with this type of field and he's doing it.

01:07:36.865 --> 01:07:37.568
It was frowned upon before.

01:07:37.568 --> 01:07:46.565
I don't think it's frowned upon anymore when you see people like him and, yeah, neil deGrasse, tyson and others who are finding a way to teach people and share that passion.

01:07:46.626 --> 01:07:51.418
Very cool For sure, and my primary takeaways were, you know, one keep an open mind.

01:07:51.418 --> 01:07:59.878
You know he was a coder and he went to college and he discovered all these different things that he found compelling and followed that path forward.

01:07:59.878 --> 01:08:04.231
So he was very malleable and open to consider new ideas and try stuff.

01:08:04.231 --> 01:08:10.865
He came out and he said you know, I think there's a need here for a podcast, ask the spaceman.

01:08:10.865 --> 01:08:13.628
And he just put it up there to see what would happen.

01:08:13.628 --> 01:08:25.756
And, sure enough, things took off and he found a niche that has turned out to be incredibly important and incredibly, you know, meaningful to both he and his family.

01:08:25.756 --> 01:08:32.079
So keep an open mind, try stuff, put yourself out there and you never know what can happen.

01:08:32.079 --> 01:08:35.761
So with that, paul Sutter, thank you so much for joining us.

01:08:35.761 --> 01:08:43.779
Everybody out there, make sure you check out his podcast, ask the Spaceman and visit his website at pmsuttercom.

01:08:44.564 --> 01:08:51.930
On behalf of Tushar Saxena, larry Shea and me, larry Samuels, thank you again for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices.

01:08:51.930 --> 01:09:01.931
If, after listening, you've thought of someone who could be a great guest, please let us know by sending us a note via the contact page of our website at norongchoicescom.

01:09:01.931 --> 01:09:09.077
While there, please be sure to check out our blog and explore other great episodes while signing up to become a member of our community.

01:09:09.077 --> 01:09:18.345
You can also follow us on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram, youtube Threads and X.

01:09:18.345 --> 01:09:19.448
Tiktok is up and content has begun rolling out.

01:09:19.448 --> 01:09:20.671
We'll be back with another episode next week.

01:09:20.671 --> 01:09:29.697
Before then, always remember there are no wrong choices on the road to success, only opportunities, because we learn from every experience.

Related to this Episode

Curiosity and the Cosmos: Paul M. Sutter’s Journey from Science to Space

When you think about the vast mysteries of the universe, few people come to mind who can make these complexities feel both accessible and exciting. Enter Paul M. Sutter, Ph.D., a theoretical cosmologist, media personality, and NASA advisor, who&rsqu…