Since I was a little kid, I was always fascinated with not just my own origin, you know, which is the only story you come into, but the universe and what is the ultimate, potentially the ultimate origin story of all, which is how did everything come to be?

To say what happened on the Tuesday before the Big Bang? That may have an answer for the first time in history by technology that my colleagues, who are far smarter than I am, are helping to build via what's called the Simon's Observatory.

Going to Mars is fundamentally, I believe, an escapist kind of fantasy. Do you think it's pointless? Is there anything for us on Mars, I guess is what I'm asking?

Well, so there's something for us, right? The question is, is that worth the price you'll have to pay? There's a famous quote by one of my heroes, Richard Feynman. He said, science is the belief in the ignorance of experts, not the wisdom, not the knowledge of experts, but the ignorance of it.

What the hell are you talking about guy? Find someone's a genius, find someone's a genius. Yeah, they were genius because they doubted what came before them. Science has never settled.

Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you, if you want, on his conversations with fascinating people.

Terrific guest today is a cosmologist, which as he just told us is a branch of astrophysics. Professor Brian Kissen, welcome to Trigonometry.

That's a great pleasure and honor to be here, guys. Thanks for asking me. It's great to have you on the show before we get into everything to do with space and everything that's out there and not out there.

Tell everybody, who are you? How are you? Where you are? What's been your journey through life?

Yeah, so I always like that question that's become your trademark because it allows me to segue into what I always ask people, what's the most important day on the calendar?

You know, I say, what is it? Usually if you're smart and you're a guy, you'll say my anniversary, right?

But it's always some kind of origin story, right? Everyone's fascinated with an origin. And since I was a little kid, I was always fascinated with not just my own origin, you know, which is the only story you come into,

that you will have to rely on other people to tell you the truth of what came before, but the universe. And what is the ultimate, potentially the ultimate origin story of all, which is how did everything come to be?

And it's interesting because what I do is called cosmology, which a lot of people, you know, because of the way that I look and, you know, my handsome visage, they think it has cosmology.

So, you know, if I don't get that, I get, you know, you're an astrology astrologer, whatever can you tell me my horoscope? I used to say no. I used to say no, but now I take opportunity to actually answer it.

And I say, oh, you're a Gemini. Oh, that's really terrible. You know, you should have that wart looked out on the back of your neck, but the similarities between both astrology and astronomy, cosmology and cosmology are very deep.

You know, etymology is very important. Cosmos means beauty or face. And what I study is the face that's presented by the universe to ordinary mortals to perceive. And it's very beautiful.

And so, I've been fascinated by that on aesthetic level and never really thinking as a kid when I was interested, got my first telescope as a 10 year old little boy, that I could do it as a job.

I was going to pay me to be, you know, like essentially the equivalent for nerds of being an ice cream taster or, you know, a wizard or, you know, or one of those guys who, you know, like test a roller coaster at SeaWorld.

So, I didn't think you could do it as a job. So, I was kind of stymied because I loved it. I had this great passion for it all throughout high school, college and graduate school. And even in graduate school, I didn't think I could do what I'm doing now, which is to be a professor of physics and astronomy at a top university in Southern California.

UC San Diego, where I get to teach young people and work with brilliant people that teach me things about how the universe came to be and what's going to happen in the deep future of our existence.

And so, in a real way, I get paid to ask and answer and just grapple with the most fascinating origin story of the moon. That's how that our universe come to be.

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