Professor Brian Cox

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the scientist Professor Brian Cox. When he was embarking on his doctoral research into high energy particle physics, he can barely have thought it would make him the face of science for a generation. In the press he's the Pop Star turned pin up professor. Indeed, his T V programmes are credited with creating the Brian Cox effect, a significant surge in the number of would be scientists applying to university.

Presenter0:59

By his own admission he was a nerdy kid, asking for a fuse box for his tenth birthday. But as a teenager he decided to be a rock star, wired up his own synthesizer to kick start his career, got a recording contract at eighteen, and toured the world.

Presenter1:14

His band D Reem had a number one hit with Things Can Only Get Better.

Presenter1:18

These days it could be the theme tune to his mission to improve funding for science research in the UK.

Presenter1:24

He says History shows us that simply being curious about the universe and allowing ourselves to explore it is by far the best way to make discoveries that eventually change everybody's lives. I wonder, Brian Cox, as a University Research Fellow at the Royal Society, you're supposed to educate us about science. How do you think you're doing?

Professor Brian Cox1:43

I think more inspire people to learn is what I'm trying to do at the moment. I'm at the University of Manchester, I am an academic and one of my jobs, as you said, I'm a Royal Cita University Research Fellow, and one of the jobs is to promote science. I mean, it's very difficult to educate in a television programme. So to spark an interest, and then obviously you can go on and discover the details for yourself.

Presenter2:08

And given that you are a proper scientist, as long as you are making television programmes, of course you're not doing your research. Is that a a constant uh bugbear for you?

Professor Brian Cox2:18

Yes, it is actually. I mean, in in a sense, there's an embarrassment of riches because it's great fun and interesting to make television programmes. But I've always seen myself as a physicist. So it is very frustrating not to use your brain in that way and to be sidetracked in a sense. But there are a lot of reasons why I think that it's valuable to put science on television and make it as accessible as you can. One of them is I think it's exciting, fascinating and interesting. But the other one is that I think it is the route to prosperity. Certainly in a democracy you need that. If you want funding to come there and people to do it and people to celebrate science, then you need to show people what science is.

Presenter2:57

So let's talk a little bit then about austerity. Uh do you manage to push open the the political doors these days, given that you're such a well-known face and say to them, come on, cough up?

Presenter3:06

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox3:06

Yeah, a little bit actually. And it does work like that, unfortunately, in a sense. If you're on television, you get access. And I do try to use it. For me, it's almost because the intellectual argument's won, it's almost a case of saying to them, you know, this will also be politically popular. If you invest in our universities, in our knowledge base, in our young people in Britain who want to go to university, want to learn in the sciences, or indeed any subject, but particularly for me the sciences, if you do that, you'll get a electoral kickback as well. I mean, that's the bit that I think they need convincing about, that it's actually a popular thing to do.

Presenter3:41

Have you been to number ten, then?

Professor Brian Cox3:43

Yeah, yeah, I have, actually.

Presenter3:45

You have said that you wish that David Cameron was a little bit more like President Kennedy. You know, mm the the the famous speech about wanting to go to the moon and having great scientific ambitions for America as a nation. Did you say that to him, face to face?

Professor Brian Cox3:52

Having

Professor Brian Cox3:57

I haven't said it to David Cameron, actually. You get very little time with him if you ever go to number ten. But I've said it to a few of the ministers, actually. Tell him to stand there and say, I choose to make Britain the best place in the world to do science. Let's just make that a national goal. And it may not require more money. It's almost an aspiration. It's like we aspire to be the best place in the world to do science. By the way, it's worth saying that we're already not bad. We're probably second only to the United States by most measures. However, we could aspire to be the best again. Time for some music then, Brian Cox. First off, today.

Presenter4:34

Mm what's your

Professor Brian Cox4:35

Your first ass Well I've chosen Queen Bitch by David Bowie because that's from the Hunky Dory album which is I think it always has been my favourite album for as long as I can remember. The musicianship is brilliant. Rick Waitman who's one of my favourite piano players plays on the album. So I could have chosen any track on Hunky Dory at all and I chose Queen Bitch.

Speaker 34:57

Pots in the basement, my weekends at an all-time low.

Speaker 35:04

Cause she's open to storm So I can't see her letting him go

Speaker 35:08

Walk out of the heart, walk out of the mind.

Speaker 35:13

Oh no, she's so squishy and a sad and a tight

Speaker 35:18

In a rock go the busy party.

Speaker 35:22

I could do better than that.

Presenter5:26

That was David Beauyan, Queen Bitch. So, Brian Cox, let's tackle some of the science you do. You've said that the rules of quantum theory are so simple that they can be summarized on the back of an envelope.

Presenter5:36

Convince me now.

Presenter5:38

Uh

Professor Brian Cox5:38

I think that's true. Quantum mechanics is notoriously difficult, but it's difficult conceptually. I've also said I think it should be taught in schools. It isn't at the moment. You have to wait until you do a physics degree to get any kind of formal quantum mechanics. And it's true that there are some mathematical difficulties, but the concepts are difficult because they're difficult to accept. What they tell you about the way nature works is counterintuitive. Entirely, yes. It's that idea of particles being in two places at once. Yeah, an infinite number of places at once. But the reason I think it's valuable is because it teaches you.

Presenter6:07

But that

Presenter6:08

Places it

Professor Brian Cox6:14

the lesson that nature doesn't have to be the way that you expect it to be. Your picture of nature is driven by experiment. So it teaches you about the scientific method very beautifully, I think.

Presenter6:24

The work you do is at CERN in Geneva. You're part of the Atlas project there. Can you explain to me what it is you're doing?

Professor Brian Cox6:33

Yeah, the Large Hadron Collider is 27 kilometers in circumference and it recreates the conditions that were present about a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. And the Atlas experiment is basically a camera, but essentially you're taking a picture of the early universe. And the reason we want to do that is we've discovered that the universe was very simple back then. And so the complexity we see today has evolved in a sense. But if you strip away all that complexity and look back in time to the first few moments, you see the underlying simplicity. So in other words, if you really want to understand the way the universe works at a basic level, this is one of the best ways of doing it.

Presenter6:37

Mm-hmm.

Presenter7:12

You've written that science has no brief to be useful. But of course we feel if we're spending our billions of dollars or indeed euros or pounds on it that it ought to be useful, that we need it needs to be money well spent. So

Professor Brian Cox7:15

But I've

Presenter7:24

You know, what is the point? is the question that some people ask.

Professor Brian Cox7:27

Uh Well, the key thing is that what we've learnt is that understanding the way that nature works has been profoundly useful. It's delivered the modern world. It's the thing that got us out of caves. So everything we do today depended on somebody

Presenter7:41

Being curious about nature. Can you give us some examples in the past then, when when people discovered things that at the time they just discovered because they did, and that subsequently changed our entire world as we know it?

Professor Brian Cox7:51

Well, I could give you a a very recent example. Manchester University, my university, won the Nobel Prize last year. Two physicists won it for discovering something called graphene, which is a form of carbon. Now, it turns out that this thing is one of the strongest materials ever made. Someone told me the other day, actually, if you built an aeroplane out of graphene composites and then fueled it up, it would weigh three times more fueled up than it would empty. It also turns out you can build transistors that are faster than anything you can build with silicon. You can build one atom thick displays for televisions, mobile phones. So it really is a revolutionary material. And it was discovered by curious physicists playing around actually with sellotape and a pencil. So and I know one of the physicists, Andre Guy, who I know quite well, he was famous before the discovery for winning an Ig Nobel Prize for levitating frogs. So he's got a track record of being curious about nature.

Presenter8:41

Levitating

Presenter8:47

Let's have some more music, Brian Cox.

Professor Brian Cox8:49

Yeah, well, this is a Frank Sinatra song called Come Fly With Me. And the reason I chose it was because I suppose, like most people growing up, my dad and my granddad actually had records. And this was one of them that I remember growing up with a big cover of Sinatra on the front with this remarkable pose. I remember the cover really well. And so it was just one of those things that I latched onto, one of the first pieces of music that I listened to.

Presenter8:58

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 29:11

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.

Speaker 29:18

If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in far Bombay. Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.

Speaker 29:32

Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru.

Presenter9:41

That was Frank Sinatra and Come Fly With Me. So, Professor Brian Cox, let's look back then. You say that was memories of childhood. Childhood was in Oldham. You were born in.

Speaker 29:46

Uh

Speaker 39:46

It's a very good thing.

Presenter9:49

Nineteen sixty eight, the the year just before the lunar landings. What what are your earliest memories?

Professor Brian Cox9:50

P

Professor Brian Cox9:52

What a

Professor Brian Cox9:54

Uh

Presenter9:54

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox9:55

Um, I get confused about real memories and memories from photographs. You refer to the lunar landings. I I remember growing up in a house where they were prominent. I remember my dad still has actually one of one of the newspaper covers from that day in July 1969. I remember a photograph on the wall of I think it would be Apollo 8, which was my first Christmas Eve in 1968 when it famously went round the dark side of the moon. I remember listening to music like that at my granddad's house,'cause I used to go there for lunch. And I remember going there and listening to these albums on a radiogram, one of those big wooden things with BBC light service written on the wood, embossed in the wood.

Presenter10:37

Would you go there every day for lunch on a school day?

Professor Brian Cox10:39

On the school day? Yeah,'cause my mum and dad both worked, so I used to spend a lot of time.

Presenter10:43

A lot of times. So will your grandparents sit down with you at lunch and chat to you and?

Professor Brian Cox10:43

A lot of time

Professor Brian Cox10:46

Yeah. Yeah. And my granddad actually was a

Presenter10:47

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox10:50

He did write a couple of academic papers. He became a a chemist and ran a dyeing company. But he started sweeping the floor there, I believe. He was born in nineteen hundred, so in nineteen fourteen he was he left school and he was sweeping the floor in in some cotton factory in in Chatterton.

Presenter11:07

And so the the academic papers he wrote were about dy the dying of the nylon. Was it to do the processes of that?

Professor Brian Cox11:11

So yeah

Professor Brian Cox11:12

Yeah, he he he came up with the process of dying nylon black.

Professor Brian Cox11:15

So I suppose well he w he didn't have any formal scientific training, but he sort of became a a scientist of of sorts actually through his work. And what did your parents do? They both worked in banks, not banks like Deutsche Bank and things, but Lloydsbank and Yorkshire Bank in in in Oldham.

Presenter11:29

Yeah.

Presenter11:31

You have said that your family's story is the typical twentieth century story of the North. Tell me more about that.

Professor Brian Cox11:38

Yeah, I think so. My dad was the first person to do A levels and he went to a grammar school. Before that, as I mentioned, my my granddad and grandma both worked in cotton mills and then I was the first person in my family to go to university. So you see that kind of twentieth century story of leaving school at fourteen to work in a mill, their son goes to grammar school, gets A levels and then his son goes to university. So it's that that I think it's a progression that I fear and I hear is is less possible now, which would be a an absolute disaster because I think that's quite a common story throughout the twentieth century.

Presenter12:15

You were a very, very, very, very nerdy boy.

Professor Brian Cox12:20

I think so. I mean, I certainly was interested you mentioned in this production about getting a fuse box for for my birthday.

Presenter12:27

I really hope that's true.

Professor Brian Cox12:29

I wanted I was I remember it was a four-way fuse box and the reason is that I had a shed at my grandad's house that with a friend of mine who I'm still very good friends with we used to wire up so we had a railway transformer in his garage and ran twelve volts into this shed and and put switches in it and lights and just sit there my friend now actually works for the electricity board United Utilities in Manchester so he pursued that career

Professor Brian Cox12:55

And I deviated. Let's have some more music, Brian Cox. Our third piece of the day. Yeah, this is the jam going underground. And this comes from the time when I'd started getting seven-inch singles. So I must have been asking my mum and dad for the money. And this is one of the first ones that I got. Absolutely loved it, played it over and over again. And I think it not only stands up, it's still brilliant.

Presenter13:00

Yeah, this is

Speaker 313:20

Might get some pleasure out to hate me I've done up already on my fate People might need some tension to relax me I'm too busy dodging between the facts You see So what you get You've made your fetch, you're fatal in it You choose your leaders and place your trust As their lies will shut down and their promises cross Those are hidden machines with paper, rockets and guns And the public wants what the public gets But I don't give up the society wants

Presenter13:50

That was the jam and going underground. I I mentioned a moment ago, Brian Cox, that you were born just before the first moon landings. And uh as a young boy I wonder, were you watching things like Star Trek and Doctor Who and Blake Seven? Absolutely. I was a hu

Professor Brian Cox14:02

Huge science fiction fan. I couldn't tell the difference, I I don't think, between science fiction and science and physics and I suspect that that mixture, that exciting mixture of the tail end of the moon landings is great science fiction renaissance that was there. I I suspect that fed into my uh desire to be a scientist and to be a physicist.

Presenter14:23

We are watching the sky at night, too.

Professor Brian Cox14:25

I did watch the sky at night.

Presenter14:27

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox14:27

Um, I mean, the the only place you could get signs on television, I think, was uh in those days with the sky at night and horizon.

Professor Brian Cox14:34

As far back as I can remember, there's something about science and about the

Professor Brian Cox14:39

The the excitement of exploration, there's something about that that always appealed to me.

Presenter14:44

And I wonder, is that about finding certainties or exposing more uncertainties?

Professor Brian Cox14:49

It's about uncertainty. Science is about celebrating the edge of our knowledge. It's certainly not about celebrating what we know. I suppose the job of a professional scientist is to break down those great pillars of understanding. You want to find the the little chinks in the armour of our understanding of nature. The idea that it doesn't matter what people's opinion is really appeals to me. I I'm not a great fan of opinions actually.

Presenter15:15

You've got you do, of course, enthuse, I think your series on T V got incredible figures for a science series. Around about six million people watched a

Professor Brian Cox15:20

For a sign.

Presenter15:23

The first episode, uh, uh, as well as being out there trying to enthuse all of us, of course, you you're a dad at home and a stepdad. You've got two boys. Do you manage to enthuse them about the work you do?

Professor Brian Cox15:29

And

Professor Brian Cox15:32

Yeah, I mean, um, you said my little boy's probably a bit young, although he does have a favorite rocket launch already, that but he likes Apollo eight, and the reason he likes it is because when it takes off, if you watch it on YouTube, someone shouts Clear the tower really loudly. And so he he asks for that. He goes, and he wants to watch Apollo eight. He's too young yet, I imagine, to be watching you on T V.

Presenter15:51

He wants to watch a follow-up.

Professor Brian Cox15:55

No, he does actually. And very bizarrely, he has a different name for me. So he points at me and says Brian Cox rather than points at you on T V. Dadda or Daddy, yes. He goes, Brian Cox.

Professor Brian Cox16:08

It's very strange.

Presenter16:09

Charming. Let's have some more music then. Uh we're halfway through our fourth disc. What is that?

Professor Brian Cox16:13

Yes. Well, this is a song by Joan Duran called Friends of Mine. Joanne Duran were the first band that I got into in a big way, you know, as a fan. And it was accidental, it was because my parents had asked me to take my younger sister to a Joan Duran concert. Although I'd seen concerts before, this was the first, you know, that kind of Beatlemania type thing, you know, that atmosphere of screaming girls. So I just was blown away by the spectacle. And that's the moment when I thought, I want to be a pop star. So the first thing to deflect me from the geeky pursuits of physics.

Speaker 316:45

Georgie Davis is coming out.

Speaker 316:49

Oh here was we twisted shot

Speaker 317:01

She's throwing away this gun. So leave her mouth now. Exactly.

Presenter17:14

That was Duran Duran and friends of mine. Memories for you. Back in nineteen eighty four then, you would have been, what, sixteen? Yeah, yeah. And you've become friendly, is is it fair to say, with one of the members of Juranjaran? Now science has united you.

Professor Brian Cox17:19

Yeah, yeah.

Professor Brian Cox17:24

New science has united you? Yeah, I've met uh Nick Rhodes recently several times to talk about CERN, to talk about quantum mechanics. And I didn't tell him until quite a long time after I'd first met him. Actually, I was a huge Duran Duran fan.

Presenter17:38

You saw that concert when you were sixteen, and by the time you were eighteen, you were playing on stage in front of thousands of people. How how did it happen? How did it begin?

Professor Brian Cox17:47

Yeah, um just after seeing Duran Duran, I formed a a band with a friend of mine up the road. Primarily we were interested in electronic music. We had been for years. So it was all based around synthesizers and playing around with bits of kit, some of which we built ourselves. When I was eighteen, um

Presenter18:01

That some of which

Professor Brian Cox18:05

A guy from the band Thin Lizzie had moved in down the road. He was a keyboard player called Darren Wharton. And I think my dad had met him in the pub a few times. He was the local celebrity. There aren't many celebrities in Oldham. Or there weren't then. Maybe there are now, but there weren't then. And so I think I sent him a demo tape, if I remember rightly, when I was about 16 or 17, which was obviously not very good. But he remembered when he put a band together that there's some young keyboard player up the road and asked me to go and audition to join the band. And this is in the run-up to my A-levels. So the idea initially was to join this band and take a year off university and see what happened. And in that time, we got a record deal and signed to AM Records. And by the time I was supposed to be in university, I think I was.

Professor Brian Cox18:47

probably in Los Angeles making an album. So it it happened very quickly for us actually as a as a band.

Presenter18:53

Is this the album that you were making in Joni Mitchell's studio?

Professor Brian Cox18:55

Yeah, it was the two producers of the album. One of them was Mike Shipley, who was the engineer on Night at the Opera for Queen and then had a real illustrious history of making rock albums. The other one was a man called Larry Klein, who was married to Joni Mitchell at the time. So we made the second half of the album in a house. She had a studio in a house in Bel Air in Los Angeles. So I'd not been abroad. I think I'd been abroad once on a school ski trip. And then actually the first gig that we played was a support tour with Jimmy Page, who had a solo album out at the time. So we ended up, you know, from playing, I think it was called the Maple Squash Club in Oldham. We were suddenly on stage at Hammersmith with Jimmy Page. So we had big.

Presenter19:23

Van Salo

Professor Brian Cox19:33

Big rock gigs that we played.

Presenter19:35

And your your parents, uh, as you said, you know, it's a very important uh point in the development of your family history. There you were, the first of the family to to be on his way to university. When you said I'm taking a year off, I'm going to California, recording an album, and we're doing a gig here, there and everywhere, w what did your parents say about that?

Professor Brian Cox19:41

Family

Professor Brian Cox19:47

Hmm.

Professor Brian Cox19:50

Yeah

Professor Brian Cox19:52

They actually were really supportive and and I think they loved watching us live. Um they came to Manchester Apollo, I remember, to see us with Jimmy Page and then with Europe and and really enjoyed the process. And I think they were quite upset actually when the band split up and I I went back to university. I think they kind of enjoyed their their time in the rock and roll sun.

Presenter20:12

And d uh yeah, interesting that you you

Professor Brian Cox20:13

You you mentioned rock and roll. Did it get quite rock and roll?

Presenter20:15

Get

Professor Brian Cox20:16

In hindsight, when you look back, we were quite innocent rock and rollers. I remember I think the worst that happened, I remember um throwing a tea tray out of a hotel window in Carlisle and it just landed and the teapot smashed on the pedestrianized shopping area outside the window. And I think that was about we never got to the point where we drove Rolls-Royce's into swimples.

Presenter20:19

I remember

Professor Brian Cox20:37

Yeah.

Presenter20:37

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox20:38

Sit down.

Presenter20:38

Uh

Professor Brian Cox20:38

Brian Cox

Presenter20:39

What's next, then?

Professor Brian Cox20:39

Well, this is actually a song from that band Dare called King of Spades, and it's a song that Darren Wharton wrote as a tribute to Phil Linnet. Phil Linnet had had died sadly, and it's one of those anthemic rock tracks. And when it worked, if there were twelve thousand people there with their lighters out, then it really worked.

Speaker 321:00

Can't see how long it will be rises

Speaker 321:07

And we got some ball to go to the horizon.

Speaker 321:13

But it's not enough to fail

Speaker 321:17

Try that you will find me

Speaker 321:22

You the king bones baby

Presenter21:27

That was Dare, the group you were part of, Professor Brian Cox, and King of Spades. I'm wondering what what did you look like on stage?

Professor Brian Cox21:33

Oh, a lot of uh long hair, hairspray, rich ripped jeans, leather jackets.

Presenter21:38

Yeah, I could almost feel the wind machine off that tune, is that were there wind machines involved?

Professor Brian Cox21:38

Yeah, I could all

Professor Brian Cox21:41

Yeah, smoke and um I remember actually for some reason Darren who's probably listening to this but I remember he used to cover himself in what I thought was chip fat. It must have been he used to grease himself up like and run around. We were very eighties. It was it was an eighties rock band, which was interesting because it was you know looked a bit like Bon Jovi but it was from oldham, the old'em Bon Jovi. But it was slightly late I think. Were you dripping in groupies?

Professor Brian Cox22:08

Uh there were a few of them, although I was kind of probably too naïve to notice at the time. I probably would have made more use of the I'd have been a bit older, actually. Did I just say that? I don't know.

Presenter22:20

So it was a sort of in in band fight that Put Put paid to Dare it all that they broke up and you decided you were going to university and that you were going to leave the the the m th the world of the music business behind. So you went to Manchester University and and did you feel like suddenly like a round peg in a round hole? Did you think, Yep, this is these are my people, this is where I belong?

Professor Brian Cox22:20

The hell.

Professor Brian Cox22:28

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox22:33

And

Professor Brian Cox22:40

Yeah, I remember we I I think we had our fight and split the band up in in October. Um immediately the moment I came back I I opened a a maths book and then just started relearning how to do maths and relearning how to do physics.

Presenter22:52

But you also you you continued your music career at the same time because then of course you were part of this group D Ream which was a big band. They had a big number one hit with Things Can Only Get Better and h how did you manage the the two lives?

Professor Brian Cox22:58

So yeah.

Professor Brian Cox23:03

It was interesting actually, it was an accident almost. I mean, I wanted a job in the year that I had off before going to university. A friend of mine was a sound engineer. So he said, Well, just drive these guys around the country. I don't like them. They're not going anywhere. Just go and sit there. And, you know, I get 20 quid a night for sitting there doing the sound. And that was De-Ream. And they got a record deal subsequently and needed a keyboard player to do a television show, I think. So I just stood there and waved my hair around. And then it was actually one of the big decisions. I've made very few big decisions. I've kind of been carried along in life. But one of them was the second year of university when DeReem got very big. And I think we just toured with Take That, supporting Take That. It was a huge band.

Speaker 323:43

And

Professor Brian Cox23:44

And um we d D Reem went off on a big world tour, I think Australia or America. And so the question came up, you know, do you stay at university or do you go off and tour the world with Deerem? And I chose not to. I chose to stay at university, which was exactly the right decision. Do you remember being on top of the Pops?

Professor Brian Cox24:01

Yeah, I was I did it about five times I think and it was brilliant. I'd never done it with Dare and um we had very lucky top of the pops. We did one with the Bee Gees and one with Robert Plant um so so it was that was iconic. It's one of those things it's like the sky at night actually we spoke about earlier. I think I I've been on the sky at night now. I it was and it was like that, this thing that I'd grown up with that I could be part of.

Presenter24:25

There's a wonderful thing that I I hope you did say this, that you said people call me the sort of glamour boy in in when it comes to television and science, but it's a pretty low bar. It's basically just me and Patrick Moore. Yeah. And and I went on to say, you know, he was obviously a good looking man in his time.

Presenter24:40

And and your parents then you said, interestingly, you think there was a little bit of them that just slightly regretted that you'd given up your glamorous musical life.

Professor Brian Cox24:50

I I think so, because I suppose in hindsight it can look like a backward step. It it wasn't because that those five years of being in a a a a rock band really formed my character. And also I think subsequently as as I've got into this

Professor Brian Cox25:04

sort sort of new career in in the media, that is a good grounding actually. The way that I handle increasing levels of attention now, I think, has a lot to do with the the fact that I'd had to do it once, albeit in a smaller bubble, when I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty. It's helped, I think.

Presenter25:21

Let's have some more music then.

Professor Brian Cox25:23

Well, this is going way back to one of the the first bands that I was into called OMD, Orchestra Maneuvers in the Dark. It's actually the first concert that I went to. But this is a song from their first album, a song called Messages.

Speaker 325:40

To never go down.

Speaker 325:44

Occupy your waking horse

Speaker 325:51

We're taking sides again.

Speaker 325:55

I just wept I couldn't understand

Speaker 325:59

Why is God in this together?

Presenter26:06

That was O. M. D. and messages, and you were saying during that, Brian Cox, that as a teenager you used to spend days trying to replicate those sounds. Did you ever manage it?

Presenter26:14

Um sort of. We had a l

Professor Brian Cox26:15

Little studio. This is when

Presenter26:17

Uh

Professor Brian Cox26:17

I suppose 13 or 14. I'd mentioned I didn't really want to be a pop star, it was just the interest in the electronics, actually. And I remember for an electronics project at school, building a little machine, a little box, which would allow us to trigger synthesizers off drum machines, which is very difficult at the time in the early 80s. And I subsequently met Billy Curry from Ultravox, the keyboard player, and I said to him, you know, how did you do that thing on Vienna? I think it was. And he said, oh, I built this little box that triggered things off drum machines. It was exactly the same thing that we did. So it was interesting. Electronic music in those days, I think, was almost.

Professor Brian Cox26:55

It was it was a geeky hobby.

Presenter26:57

You were saying a moment ago that it was that time of being in the white heat of fame on, you know, Top of the Pops and a number of times touring with Take That that that taught you how to deal with the subsequent fame that you've had of being being a T V star. Um you're a happily married man, but uh it was interesting to me that there are entire web pages devoted to is Brian Cox divorced yet? I mean it's fair it's fair to say you have a fairly big and enthusiastic uh female following.

Speaker 227:07

Yeah.

Professor Brian Cox27:22

Yeah, I I suppose so. It it you're a heartstrop, aren't you? Infuriates and um amuses my wife in equal measure.

Presenter27:25

But you're you're a heartstrop, aren't you?

Professor Brian Cox27:30

I'd say. But you don't notice it. Actually, I bizarrely, I did with a few friends of mine a few live shows last year with Ben Goldacre, the journalist, and Simon Singh, and a friend of mine, Robin Int, comedian. These are live science shows. Yeah, yeah. So we did a place called Newcastle City Hall. We got a tweet which was from a school and said, Can you give a shout out to this school? So we said, Hello, whichever school it is. And there was a scream like.

Presenter27:42

These are live signs showing.

Professor Brian Cox27:55

A Beatles concert came back. So it's so I've kind of noticed, but only in the context of doing these live shows, where we get a a very really inspiring audience actually of a mixture of young and old and and and girls and boys who are who are beginning to I hope they're beginning to treat ideas almost like we treated um rock and roll, like David, but I hope so. It would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if if ideas were the new rock and roll.

Presenter28:21

Yeah.

Presenter28:23

Well, it would be wonderful, but I wonder also how inspired they are by those very moody shots of you staring into the middle distance with some very powerful m soundtracks in the background. I mean, I d do you think maybe they're much more interested in you than the ideas?

Professor Brian Cox28:37

Well, I don't mind about that. I mean, I think there's an emotional context and and an emotional drive in science. Why do I do science? Why are scientists scientists? Because they were fascinated by, let's say, the stars, or they were fascinated by looking at the smallest insects you can find. But it's an it's initially it's an emotional response. I want to say nature is beautiful, number one, right? Notice that. And that's the door that allows you to then decide to go and have a career exploring it.

Presenter29:07

Uh what about the amount of criticism you get? You got into a proper old Barney on Twitter recently with a journalist who was having a go at you. I mean, how much does that bother you?

Presenter29:15

Uh

Professor Brian Cox29:15

It it doesn't. I mean, I I I suppose you it would be dishonest to say it doesn't bother you at all, but it actually angers me more than anything because I think.

Professor Brian Cox29:23

There's a history of scientists being criticized for attempting to publicize their subject, particularly when they get successful or popular. You're trying to bring it to everyone to publicize it and as I said at the start, then try and inspire them to find out a little bit more.

Presenter29:37

So your penultimate track, Brian Cox, what are we going to hear now?

Professor Brian Cox29:41

Yeah, this is by a band called Clem Snyder, and it's called Moment in the Sun. And my wife actually introduced me to the song, but we used it in the first episode of Wonders of the Solar System. And we were in Chile, I remember, in the Atacama Desert, and there's a beautiful sunset. And we rushed, we said, Make a fire, let's make a fire and sit there and talk about the dying embers of the sun. And we didn't have any of the things you need to track for the camera, so we hung the cameraman off the back of a pickup truck and pushed him away from this fire. And you get this beautiful shot with a magnificent sky. And I thought it beautifully expressed the idea that the sun will die at some point in the future, but then that's the chemical elements that are released from that death will be rebuilt into a new series of planets. And it's a beautifully romantic idea of the regeneration of the universe.

Speaker 330:28

When it's my moment in the sun

Speaker 330:35

Oh, how beautiful I'll be.

Speaker 330:42

But in a normal sort of way.

Speaker 330:48

Like I am you, and you are me.

Presenter30:57

That was Clem Snyder and Moment in the Sun. It was a track that was introduced to you, Brian Cox, by your wife, Gia. Is it is it true your first date was on nine eleven?

Professor Brian Cox31:05

Yeah. She was on a train coming up to Manchester to to see me and um yeah, we we spent th those two hours on on the phone'cause my my wife's from America. She's from Duluth in Minnesota.

Presenter31:18

Fuck.

Professor Brian Cox31:19

So yeah, we never forget our anniversary.

Presenter31:22

Yeah, indeed. How does she deal with with all of the fame?

Presenter31:26

Um I mean, even just walking down the street these days with people with their camera phones and all of that stuff.

Professor Brian Cox31:30

That's

Professor Brian Cox31:31

That is actually for for for both of us, I think, the most

Professor Brian Cox31:34

uncomfortable bit. Until you've experienced it, y y you might think that it's fun, or you might think that everybody knows you and that's but it isn't because most people just look at you. So I think we're both a little bit uncomfortable with it, but then, you know, that's the price you pay.

Presenter31:51

You went uh to collect your o

Professor Brian Cox31:52

BE last year, who went with you? Yeah, oh, my mum and dad and and my wife. They absolutely loved that. I think my dad hadn't been to London since before I was born. He so it was literally, I think it was in the fifties last time he went to London. Um and he came down, you know, to go to Buckingham Palace and and the Queen presented it. It was a wonderful day, particularly for them actually.

Presenter32:12

That's amazing. How did you celebrate? Did you celebrate afterwards?

Professor Brian Cox32:15

Yes, yes, we went for went for lunch and had a wonderful day in London and it was it was great. I I I really genuinely was surprised about that. Wonderful.

Presenter32:23

I'm wondering if you talked to your parents on that day what what your granddad would have made of it.

Professor Brian Cox32:28

Yeah, he would have absolutely loved it. That that would have been

Professor Brian Cox32:31

You know, wonderful. Because I think that for that generation and in

Professor Brian Cox32:35

you know, in somewhere like Oldham. I think even being in the presence of the Queen in Buckingham Palace, you don't think

Professor Brian Cox32:42

that that's gonna happen to you, you know, that you so so so I yeah, I I he would it's if I could yeah, if I could have chosen one thing to happen, I think it would be that my my granddad would have been able to come to that.

Presenter32:53

So I'm going to abandon you to the island. That's your fate as a castaway. How are you going to handle it?

Professor Brian Cox32:59

I don't.

Professor Brian Cox33:01

think I would enjoy I like being around people. I mean, I could say something like I'd enjoy doing some astronomy'cause it'd be lovely on a desert island and you'd so I'd probably want to be in the southern hemisphere'cause the sky's better in the southern hemisphere. So I'd make that request.

Presenter33:15

Let's have your final piece of music then, Brian Cox, what are we gonna hear?

Professor Brian Cox33:17

This is a song by Billy Joel called New York State of Mind and it's um I've always when I first started really wanting to learn to play the piano, um the uh Billy Joel and Elton John were two big influences because I used to sit there and and play along to these songs. If I sit down at a piano and I can't think of anything to do, then I play New York State of Mind.

Speaker 333:40

I've seen all the movie stars in their fancy cars and their limousines.

Speaker 333:48

Built high in the Rockies, under the evergreens.

Speaker 333:56

I know what I'm needing.

Speaker 333:59

I don't wanna waste more time

Speaker 334:05

I'm in a New York state of mind

Presenter34:09

Billy Joel with New York's State of Mind. So the books then, Professor Brian Cox, the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and what else?

Professor Brian Cox34:17

Well, I decided that you need a book that you could dig into often. It can't be a short book. And actually, there are two famous physics textbooks. One of them is is Goldstein, it's called Classical Mechanics, and the other one's got Jackson, it's called Classical Electrodynamics. And anybody who's done a physics degree will know these things, huge tomes. So I think I would take Jackson's book, because it's bigger, Classical Electrodynamics, because you could just sit there for years and not understand everything, and probably decades and not do all the problems in it. So it would keep me occupied. It's yours and a luxury? I think, you know what? I d one of the things, and it's my wife's fault, is that I just can't function without coffee. So I suspect that I would probably have to take a a coffee machine.

Presenter35:04

A Boy from Oldham with a Coffee Machine. We'll give you that then. And if you had to choose just one of these eight tracks today, which one would you choose?

Professor Brian Cox35:06

I know.

Professor Brian Cox35:11

I I think I'd have to choose Queen Bitch.

Presenter35:13

It's yours, Professor Brian Cox. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Professor Brian Cox35:17

Thank you.

Presenter35:54

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.