November 7, 2019 9:00 pm

Friday, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Edward Norton Explore the Cosmos and More

He’s one of the best actors of his generation. He’s played iconic roles in Fight Club, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, The Incredible Hulk, and many more. And, on this week’s episode of StarTalk Radio, Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down for a conversation with the man himself – Edward Norton.

Some of my favorite moments on our show come when you learn something totally unexpected about a guest and that happens on this episode more than once. It starts with Edward revealing that he was once planning on becoming an astronomer. What? You’ll learn about his early education and his love for the universe. We discuss the role Carl Sagan played in inspiring Edward to pursue astronomy. You’ll also hear about Edward’s personal connections to the Hayden Planetarium.

As we all know, Edward took a different route than that of an astronomer. However, before we dive into that, we dive into his work for President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities where he helped study the importance of arts programs in overall education and their relationship to STEM learning. We also explore Edward’s work with his data company, EDO, Inc., which uses machine learning applications to study media data. Do you feel that geek cred building up? We haven’t even gotten to his role as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity.

Discover more about his new film Motherless Brooklyn, which is a story that follows “Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, [who] ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis).” Edward takes us through the development process and how he decided to adapt a modern-day novel into a historically-charged time in New York City’s past. You’ll learn about his research into Tourette Syndrome and what he discovered about his own brain during the process.

Lastly, Edward gets a chance to ask Neil some Cosmic Queries and he does not disappoint. He asks about worm holes, black holes and the bending of spacetime. We also explore bio-signatures on exoplanets. All that, plus, we ponder if telescopes will ever be put on the dark side of the Moon.

Please join us tomorrow night for A Conversation with Edward Norton at 7pm ET right here on our website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re a StarTalk+ Patron or an All-Access subscriber, you can listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
-Ian Mullen