Hey there, I'm Jason Gots, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Started back in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.

On the podcast, we revisit these ideas in new ways. Our producers surprise me and my guests with short interview clips from Big Things Archives,

ideas that we didn't necessarily come here expecting to discuss.

I'm very happy to be here today with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

He's an astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum

of Natural History here in New York.

And the spiritual air to Carl Sagan in getting us all worked up about the cosmos.

He's been appointed to special NASA commissions,

hosted multiple TV specials and podcasts, and written many excellent books,

the latest of which is astrophysics for people in a hurry.

It's a succinct,

Riley, funny book that's surprisingly informative for its size. It has the informational density

of a black hole. Welcome to think again, Neil. Thank you. Thanks for having you back.

And I'm not saying your book is dense. I'm not saying, or that light can't

take it, I could take it. Or that light can escape it because lots of light escaped it into my brain. Yeah, the book just comes right out. You know, the first chapter is called In the Beginning. Of course, that's where you would begin something in the beginning. But I don't pull any punches. I mean, the people have joked, they said, oh, astrophysics for people in a hurry.

Did you call it that because astrophysics for dummies was taken?

Right.

And I say, yes, that title was taken.

But no, there's nothing sort of dumbed down in the book.

It's real astrophysics.

But it's, for me, if I'm reading something

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