- 7 minutes ago
First broadcast 20th February 2009.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
Sean Lock
Ben Miller
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
Sean Lock
Ben Miller
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Welcome, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, welcome to QI.
00:08Tonight we're fathoming the future, festooned with a fellowship of fire-seeing forecasters.
00:14We have the wily wizard of Woking himself, Sean Locke.
00:22And we have the prognosticating arch-druid of Pertolbet, Rob Brydon.
00:32And we are so honoured with our next guest, Ben Miller, who had a crack at a Ph.D. in
00:38novel quantum effects in quasi-zero-dimensional mesoscopic electrical systems.
00:46Wow.
00:49And Alan Davis, who has also come along.
00:55Oh, hey.
00:57Oh, hey.
01:00Let's have a foretaste of your futuristic fingerings.
01:04Sean goes.
01:08Rob goes.
01:16Ben goes.
01:24And Alan goes.
01:26There may be trouble.
01:30Oh, oh, oh.
01:42Great.
01:43So, the future begins now.
01:46Alan, what do you do?
01:48Nothing.
01:49Oh.
01:54Oh.
01:55Oh.
01:56Oh.
01:56There is no such thing as nothing.
01:59On any level, has there ever been discovered to be such a thing as nothing?
02:03Sitting, holding my pen.
02:04There's so many things, exactly.
02:06It's impossible to do nothing, to think nothing.
02:08There is no such thing as nothing.
02:11Exactly.
02:11In fact, physics tells us, actually, that there's no such thing as nothing.
02:15Does it?
02:15Well.
02:15In what way?
02:16Because elementary particles become created and annihilated in the vacuum, so nothingness
02:21is really a swarm of elementary particles.
02:23But also, there's considered to be a field permeating the whole of space called the Higgs
02:28field, which gives elementary particles mass.
02:32And this is the thing.
02:33Ah, yes.
02:34And it's...
02:36I like this.
02:37And the Higgs field...
02:38Heard it.
02:41If the Higgs field exists, we need a Higgs boson.
02:43Yeah.
02:44And we have built a huge hadron collider, colliding huge beams of protons together at CERN in Switzerland
02:50to detect the Higgs boson.
02:53You are the best supply teacher we have ever.
02:58That is fabulous, though.
03:03Even if you don't believe in the Higgs field, gravity operates in a vacuum, does it not?
03:07This is a really interesting thing.
03:10There are four...
03:13Is it?
03:15We are interested.
03:16No, this is...
03:17No, don't worry, Ben.
03:18This is me looking interested.
03:20Go on.
03:21This is actually really, really interesting.
03:23There are...
03:24There are...
03:25There are four known forces in the universe.
03:28Right, gravity.
03:29Four forces.
03:30Gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force, which holds nuclei together, and the
03:36nuclear weak force, which causes radioactivity.
03:39Now, the nuclear weak force, the nuclear strong force, and electromagnetism are all of a similar strength.
03:45Right.
03:45But gravity is incredibly weak, and you can see that by a fridge magnet can hold a pin, using electromagnetism,
03:54and defeat the whole force of the earth, pulling down on it.
03:57And one of the things they think is that are three, four dimensions, if you like, are actually part of
04:03a much bigger space.
04:06And gravity permeates all these other dimensions, and gravity permeates all these other dimensions, and gravity permeates all these other
04:09dimensions, they think ten in total, which means that it becomes weakened, by a corresponding amount.
04:16LAUGHTER
04:18It's...
04:18I'm sorry, but I have to depart from that theory.
04:23LAUGHTER
04:23There, because that's...
04:25There's one theory, though.
04:26Telemetry mistake, you've been.
04:27There is one theory, is there not?
04:28That all matter has its corresponding antimatter, and I can't help but look at you, Ben, and you, Rob, and
04:35see...
04:38Come on, man.
04:41APPLAUSE
04:42Isn't that weird?
04:44APPLAUSE
04:45Never been seen in the same room before.
04:49LAUGHTER
04:49Oh, now you're so close, when some sort of awful thing happened.
04:52Well, it is. We can't actually touch. Let's just... let's just...
04:59It is phenomenal. I mean, there are a lot of horse-faced people in the world. There are a lot
05:03of...
05:03LAUGHTER
05:04Sorry.
05:05No.
05:06But, it is remarkable.
05:09That's... no.
05:10Well, what happened...
05:10They put you two...
05:11They put you two in the Haydon Collider, and send you underneath the ground in Switzerland, and impact you.
05:18That would be brilliant.
05:19Like the finest comedian in the world.
05:20That would be brilliant.
05:20A black hole of result, yeah.
05:22They're gonna make a black hole, aren't they, and actually suck Switzerland into the ground, even nothing else.
05:25Nothing but chocolate.
05:26LAUGHTER
05:27Well, I thank you for that. It's an honour and a pleasure, if I may say, Ben Miller,
05:32to have someone who knows what they're talking about on this programme.
05:34We are very, very pleased to be given the heads up on what's going on in particle physics.
05:39And you know what's so good about it, is there'll be a fair number of viewers watching now, thinking,
05:42that Rob Brydon knows a lot about science.
05:46LAUGHTER
05:47It's... win-win.
05:48It's true. It's true.
05:50Anyway, there is no such thing as nothing, arguably, anyway.
05:53On the other hand, if you want to disagree, there's nothing to stop you.
05:58And now...
06:01Our QI time capsule.
06:03When do you think the first time capsules were?
06:05Who, who came up with the first time?
06:07The 30s.
06:07Blue Peter.
06:09The 30s is not far off.
06:10The 1930s.
06:11The Guinness Book of Records says 1940.
06:12It says the University of Atlanta.
06:14Those are the first recorded ones.
06:16The first ones that were done was in Pittsburgh.
06:19Technically, Jesus.
06:19In 37.
06:21Seriously, in Loxfield in Pittsburgh.
06:23Come on. Yeah, go on.
06:25And...
06:25Well, it was done by Loxfield in Pittsburgh.
06:27Yeah.
06:27By two scientists.
06:28Bruh.
06:29You never... come on here.
06:31Yeah.
06:31You never believe a word I say.
06:33That's the point in the research that I do for this show.
06:37All right, I'll believe you.
06:38However, the Guinness Book of World Records...
06:41Yes, I saw that at the corner of my eye.
06:44The Guinness Book of World Records gives it to the Crypt of Civilization located in the basement of Phoebe Hurst
06:48Hall.
06:49There it is, behind you.
06:50You can see that is the... it's more than a time capsule.
06:53It's a huge room.
06:54Destined to be opened in the year 8113.
06:58Cool.
06:59It's very specific.
07:00And it contains all kinds of things, including the Bible, the Quran, the Iliad.
07:05Why 8113?
07:07Ah, well, if you could guess why 8113, I will be staggeringly impressed, and you will get two fanfares.
07:13Is it some reversal of numbers, or is it somebody's birthday?
07:15It's not that.
07:16No.
07:17Somebody's birthday.
07:18At the time...
07:258113, I will be...
07:28I can't even work it out.
07:31No, they...
07:32At the time they believed that human history began in the year 42-41 BC.
07:37Began in the sense that that was the beginning of the Egyptian, first Egyptian calendar.
07:41And therefore, if they took themselves as that midpoint and put the same amount of time after the time capsule,
07:48it would go up to 8113.
07:50That's fantastic.
07:50And when they opened it, they would be looking at the midpoint of human history.
07:54That's wonderful.
07:55Which is rather splendid.
07:55And they also included all kinds of things.
07:57They didn't know whether electricity would still be around.
07:59Obviously, in 8113, so there's a windmill to drive all the various speech and electric machines and projectors.
08:05They should have put a bucket of water over the door.
08:12That would have been so sweet.
08:14And there should have been nothing in it except one of those big ball pits that you rolled around in.
08:19I imagine the people find it, just open the door and go, and just take it to whatever the 8113
08:24equivalent of a car boot sale is.
08:26Just flog the lot.
08:28Yeah, it would be worth a fortune, wouldn't it?
08:30Do you know what I like doing, the sort of, the more mundane aspect that we all have access to,
08:35is when you strip wallpaper off a room in your house.
08:39Yeah.
08:39And you get down, you get a few layers of it, don't you?
08:42With an aglipter and all these different, there's a flock thing.
08:44Ancient rose.
08:46I've always stopped showing that.
08:48And you eventually, eventually you get through to something that the previous owners of the house have written there.
08:54Just the first amoeba.
08:55They've written, you know, John and Susan, 1973, or something like that.
08:59It's very nice.
09:02It's a realistic version of archaeology.
09:05It's a version of archaeology that's within all our grasp.
09:08We can all try it at home, just go up to the wallpaper, start, steam.
09:12I would recommend you steam.
09:13Would you?
09:14Don't go in with a scraper, you'll be there all day.
09:16It's lovely, because you get a sense of the history of your house.
09:19But usually those things were drawn by decorators, and it'd be like, Dave's a ****.
09:28It's a drawing of a beer-based arsenal.
09:31Beer in the steps, in houses that have steps or stoops, it's very common to have a barrel of beer
09:35in the cement under there, apparently.
09:37We found, in our house, the family that lived there before had recorded the height of all the inhabitants, and
09:42you see it growing.
09:43So I've started doing that with my kids now, and with me.
09:46Why don't you put yourselves really high?
09:48I give myself an extra inch, yes.
09:51My house was repossessed, so I actually had the scratch marks of the children as they were dragged around the
09:55room.
10:06On our house, we've just put Ben Miller lived here.
10:08Yeah.
10:11There are apparently 10,000 time capsules worldwide, and most of them have been lost where they are.
10:16So there is now the International Time Capsule Society, and if you have a time capsule, they urge you to
10:21be in touch.
10:22Perhaps they have a website, so that they can register where yours is.
10:25And, of course, we've sent them into space.
10:27Mariner, was it?
10:28Voyager?
10:29Yes.
10:30Which has got a gold slab with a picture of a man etched into it, and binary information about the...
10:35Was that designed by Carl Sagan?
10:36Carl Sagan, yeah.
10:37Who said that rather wonderful thing when they suggested having also music, and someone said about Bach, and he said,
10:43no, that would just be showing off.
10:45Do you think there's anyone out there? I don't.
10:47Don't you?
10:48Not really.
10:48Well, according to the equivalence principle, there have to be aliens out there.
10:51There have to be.
10:52Yeah, there absolutely have to be.
10:53Yeah, but I doubt the equivalence principle, in all honesty, and have done for a long time.
11:00You show me some hard proof about the equivalence principle.
11:03Well, the hard proof is that we're here.
11:04The hard proof is that we're here.
11:06Well, I just thought it's not too fanciful the idea that there wouldn't be an arrogant and peculiar in the
11:10universe this size.
11:10That's almost the opposite view to mine, isn't it?
11:12It is.
11:13It is.
11:14The whole of modern astronomy is based on the principle that we're not in a unique position in the universe.
11:20Astronomy or astrology?
11:21Oh!
11:22Stop it!
11:22Well, no, because to say the word astrology...
11:25No, astrology, of course, is star science.
11:27I mean, that's rubbish, isn't it?
11:29Thank you, yes.
11:30No, I'm not saying...
11:30I'm not backing it up.
11:32Oh, thank you.
11:33I'm debunking it.
11:33Yes, yes.
11:34But in fact, if you're watching QI now, and you believe in astrology, you're banned from watching it.
11:39You will not allow you to just turn it over now.
11:47Now, you may not know that, amazingly, nothing in the laws of physics forbids time travel.
11:53But if this is the case, where are all the time travellers?
11:58She could do so much better than him.
12:01He looks absolutely shocked to be with her, doesn't he?
12:04I mean, I can't believe my luck.
12:07There's a thing known as the grandfather paradox, isn't there?
12:09That if you could travel in time, could you go back and shoot your own grandfather?
12:14Obviously, you couldn't, because the person killing your grandfather, once your grandfather's dead, you could never have existed.
12:18If you haven't existed, you can't have killed your grandfather.
12:21The point relates nicely to the business about where are all the aliens?
12:24Because the question, where are all the aliens, is essentially, is known in physics as the Fermi paradox.
12:32Enrico Fermi.
12:33Yes.
12:37I'll spare you the details.
12:39Yeah.
12:42Hawking mirrored his quote.
12:44Hawking mirrored his quote.
12:45When you say there's nothing in physics that prevents time travel, that's not actually strictly true,
12:50because there are plenty of physical laws that are not reversible, such as the second law of thermodynamics.
12:54Really, what you're saying, swings and roundabouts.
13:01Do it.
13:02Do it.
13:04Swings and roundabouts.
13:05Here's the quite interesting point.
13:07If you had a picture of a glass, and then a smashed glass, you could never put the picture of
13:14the smashed glass as earlier in time than the picture of the glass.
13:17Yes.
13:18So, the question is, are we human beings only capable of living in a universe in which we experience time
13:24in a thermodynamic sequence, in a linear thermodynamic sequence, or is time actually reversible?
13:31Is it multiple choice?
13:32There's the girdle.
13:33Because I think if it were multiple choice, I'd have a stab at it.
13:38If you walked space enough, time could fold back on itself.
13:42Yeah, wormholes.
13:43Wormholes.
13:44But there's also the simple fact that if you travel near the speed of light towards a planet, and it
13:50might take, you say, a minute to get to that planet, on Earth, four years would pass.
13:54Well, in your spaceship, only a minute passed.
13:57That's exactly right.
13:57What Stephen is saying is that time travel is possible. Time travel to the future is possible.
14:02Because the closer you get to the speed of light, the faster the...
14:04We're all traveling to the future, aren't we? Just very slowly.
14:09That's not a problem.
14:10It's more going back that's the issue, I think.
14:12But there is a belief also that the very thing you were talking about, the Large Hadron Collider, might initiate
14:18the world of time travel, because there are some people who think time travel may be possible in the future.
14:23But like telephones, you can't have one telephone. It's useless. You have to have someone else with a telephone.
14:28And in the future, if they have any access to time travel, they need first something on Earth to have
14:35been built, like the Large Hadron Collider, which might well cause wormholes to exist that would allow people in the
14:43future to connect with it.
14:44I was there two weeks ago.
14:45Were you really?
14:46Yeah, very excited.
14:47That was one hell of an anniversary for you and Mrs. Miller, wasn't it?
14:53My objection to all this physics, this level of physics, is that you can't explain it to, let's call us,
15:01not, just ordinary people.
15:03You could actually just be making it up.
15:05Until it makes machines work. That's the point. When Faraday talked about electricity and magnetism, it didn't make any sense.
15:12But then somebody makes a sonoroid, somebody makes an electricity generator. Suddenly you've got lights, you've got television, people can
15:17talk about quantum p-states and n-states and they can talk about this.
15:20And suddenly you've got a computer and you go, I think you'll find...
15:23I was the same with the leaf blower.
15:29Someone said to me, one day, you won't have to break up the leaves. I said, you are living in
15:35cloud cuckoo land.
15:38Can you? I don't understand electricity. Even the most... I don't understand the telephone. No.
15:43If you could explain to me the theory of telephone, I would still have... I've had the same expression at
15:47the start that I had at the end.
15:50I mean, something as similar as I was... I mean, it's been around since I was a kid, that how
15:54your voice can be heard miles away.
15:57Ben, help us out.
15:58You need, you need something called a transducer. You need something that's capable of changing one energy form into another.
16:03Um, via something like a piezoelectric crystal, which is a crystal which, if you compress it, it creates an electric
16:10charge.
16:10And you can set up an electric circuit. You have a piezoelectric crystal in the mouthpiece of the telephone.
16:18You speak into it, it vibrates, it converts that into electrical currents.
16:22No.
16:23Those currents are then converted into a signal by an amplifier, passed along the telephone wire to the other end,
16:27where it's converted back through a transducer from an electrical signal into movement of the piezoelectric crystal,
16:33which moves the air, which moves the...
16:35It's like a palindrome, which means you hear the other person's voice.
16:38Very good.
16:39Is it like a palindrome?
16:42So is it like a palindrome in the sense that it starts off one thing, it has to transform and
16:47then come back to what it wants?
16:48Exactly. Yeah.
16:49I think for people who find it hard to tell us apart, I think we've hit upon a good way
16:52now, haven't we?
16:58Well, eh.
16:59The future, of course, is obvious with hindsight, but now it's time to poke predictable fun at people who are
17:05foolhard enough
17:06to make forecasts and have the misfortune to get them hopelessly wrong.
17:10So, fingers on buzzers, please.
17:12In 1955, Variety magazine predicted that what would be, I quote, gone before June?
17:20Yes, Rob.
17:22May.
17:32Something else I said they predicted wrongly.
17:37You made me look a fool.
17:39No, you did that.
17:41So, television.
17:42Television is not, but you're on much cinema.
17:45It's an F show.
17:46Frisps.
17:49I'll tell you what it was.
17:50Remember them?
17:50I'll tell you what it was.
17:51If it was 55, who's Elvis Presley?
17:54Wider.
17:55Wider.
17:55Rock and roll.
17:56Rock and roll is the right answer.
17:57Yes, they did say that.
17:59Don't look so stupid now, do I?
18:02Quite so stupid, Rob.
18:04You don't.
18:05But all things are relative.
18:06But all things are relative.
18:07Yeah.
18:08It was rock and roll.
18:10Now, in 1977, Ken Olsen said there is no reason for any individual to have a what in their home?
18:18Butler.
18:21No.
18:22It's outmoded.
18:22Japanese prisoner of war.
18:25Again, wonderful try, but no.
18:28He, if I may say, was the chairman of DEC, DEC, the digital equipment company.
18:34Computer.
18:34Computer.
18:34A computer, he said, exactly.
18:36Oh, he was wrong.
18:37He said he was very wrong.
18:38I know quite a few people who've got one.
18:40Yes.
18:40Yes.
18:42These days, they're very much the coming thing, I believe, aren't they?
18:45Absolutely.
18:45Some of these whiz kids, they.
18:47Oh, good.
18:49In 1955, what nuclear-powered device did Alex Lewitt predict would be a reality within 10 years?
18:55TV remote.
18:57No, but as daft, really.
18:59Hover boots.
19:01That's the invention that everybody always says.
19:05My son has said to me, Dad, will there be hover boots when I'm grown up?
19:09Like, that is the height of scientific and technological advancement.
19:14And Ben, now, is going to talk for a little while about the possibility of hovering.
19:20Just how possible it is.
19:22Um, hover gloves, aren't they?
19:24It's not hover gloves.
19:27That's how it is.
19:28Surely, surely you can do your own hovering.
19:30You're doing it, in fact.
19:31Yeah.
19:32It's not a hover thing, but it is a domestic appliance that he thought would be nuclear-powered,
19:37not an electric toothbrush.
19:38Fridge.
19:39Hoover.
19:40Hoover, yes.
19:41A vacuum cleaner.
19:42Vacuum cleaner.
19:42Nuclear vacuum cleaner.
19:43He honestly thought, in 1955, within 10 years, there'd be a nuclear-powered one.
19:46They had vacuum cleaners in America in the 19th century, and they were huge, and they
19:51had to go on the back of a cart drawn by horses.
19:53I remember seeing that on a program called QI.
19:56Yeah.
19:57Well done.
20:00But well remembered.
20:08Yeah.
20:10Yeah.
20:11Yeah.
20:11It really does, yeah.
20:13Well, the nuclear-powered domestic vacuum cleaner, but not everybody gets it wrong.
20:16A few remarkable people shaped the future by being the very first in their field.
20:21Men like St. Ambrose, the fourth century bishop of Milan.
20:24What did St. Augustine of Hippo catch St. Ambrose doing that had never been done before in public, but
20:32which nearly all of us, nearly all of us now can do?
20:36Yeah.
20:37Was he using his mobile in a crowded compartment?
20:41Because we all do it, let's be honest.
20:42We do.
20:42Even when we see that little sign saying, this is a mobile-friendly or mobile-free,
20:46Kaz, you still kind of think it doesn't apply to you?
20:49No.
20:50I don't, actually.
20:51No.
20:51I don't?
20:52No.
20:52I think it's just you, Paul.
20:54But when I do, people think it's you.
20:58Anyway.
20:59No, it is not.
21:00It was like a party trick, a thing he could do.
21:02It seemed it.
21:03But we can all do it, and it seems natural to us.
21:05But it was just not done.
21:08And it involved reading.
21:10Did his lips move?
21:12Reading?
21:12His lips did not move, is the point.
21:14Ah.
21:14Ah.
21:15Ah.
21:15He was the first person, it seems, in certainly post-classical times,
21:19who could read without moving his lips.
21:24It's very odd.
21:25It seems so natural to us.
21:26But as children do, when they first read, they read out loud,
21:29and then their lips move, and that had never stopped.
21:32And presumably, if you could read, then you sort of wanted to show off a bit
21:35about the fact that you could.
21:36I think there's an element of that.
21:37Whereas he did the opposite.
21:38And this is what St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions.
21:41When Ambrose read, his eyes scanned the page, and his heart sought out the meaning.
21:45But his voice was silent, and his tongue was still.
21:48Anyone could approach him freely, and guests were not commonly announced,
21:51so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence,
21:55for he never read aloud.
21:56And he's obviously astonished by that.
21:58It's considered a remarkable trick.
21:59I sort of think of myself as a man of limited talents,
22:03and I just wish that I'd been around then.
22:07I would have blown them away.
22:10I could read whole books like this.
22:18But I have to say, they would have been in Latin.
22:21That's where I would have fallen down.
22:23But you could also, you could have given them your Ronnie Corbett impression, which goes...
22:27It's not the one about the chap that reads the book without moving his lips.
22:38They might have burned you as a witch, but they would have been impressed.
22:41Anyway, so, another man who was ahead of his time was Christopher Wren.
22:45This is one of his buildings behind me here.
22:48My question is, what are the pillars in the middle of the open area for those four pillars?
22:53Hoodies to lean on menacingly.
22:56Probably true, it's Windsor, we're in Windsor here.
22:58Do you know what they're for?
23:00To hold the roof up.
23:02Oh, no!
23:06No, oddly enough, he took over the commission from a man called Fitz,
23:09who'd been commissioned to do the building, and there were these four pillars, and he being a fine...
23:14Where do these go, go? I'll just put them in the middle.
23:16Well, him being a Christopher Wren, fine mathematician and an extraordinary architect,
23:20he reasoned quite correctly that the pillars were not necessary.
23:23But the bureaucrats who had said, no, no, no, you've got to have the pillars.
23:26So he deliberately had the pillars made too short actually to touch the ceiling.
23:30It's a way of putting two fingers up to them for them insisting he have them.
23:34Oh, I know a builder like that.
23:35No supporting rail whatsoever.
23:37We had a builder like that did our extension actually.
23:40Did it fall down?
23:42Yes.
23:42Did it fall down?
23:43Yes.
23:44He didn't do it on purpose.
23:45No, no.
23:46So he's got a failsafe that if it doesn't work, he just goes, dunk, then it's all right.
23:50Exactly.
23:50No one would ever know with you.
23:52But in fact, needless today, even today now, they've...
23:54What happened?
23:54Actually, they forced tiles in there.
23:57Shims.
23:57Because the current Jobsworths also think, no, no, it's got to have this.
24:02But it's in Windsor, it's the corn market.
24:04Now, a common theme of science fiction B-movies set in the future is robot invasions.
24:10But has Britain ever actually been invaded by robots?
24:14Yes.
24:15Well, I'm guessing they have.
24:16Yes, they have.
24:16And when?
24:18Er...
24:19Forties.
24:191880.
24:20Forties is the right answer.
24:21Forties.
24:21Forties.
24:22Yeah, I'm afraid the point there goes to young Alan.
24:25But what were these robots?
24:27The Germans?
24:27The Germans?
24:27The Germans.
24:28Oh, yes.
24:29The doodlebug.
24:29The doodlebug and the buzzbonds, the V1 and V2.
24:33And the point is not just that we're saying they are a kind of robots.
24:36They were called robots.
24:37They were called robots more than they were called doodlebugs in the forties.
24:41Inasmuch as they were publicly called anything, because they were more or less banned to be discussed.
24:46The British authorities were terrified of letting the Germans know how successful or otherwise the V1 and V2...
24:53When the V2 landed on the Cingford plane, it was quite widely discussed.
24:57Oh, it would be.
24:58But the point is not in the newspapers.
24:59Well, see, you ask, has Britain been invaded by robots?
25:03If you wanted to answer that question in a satirical manner that took a swipe at modern life in Britain...
25:08Go on.
25:09...you'd say, we're in the process of it now, and those robots are the bloody call centres that we have
25:15to put up with.
25:15Oh.
25:19Yeah, so my answer is yes, and it's happening now.
25:22You should be a stand-up comedian.
25:24Oh, Rob, on an equally satirical note, the bloody cameras take photographs of us everywhere we go...
25:33Yeah.
25:34...and send us electronically...
25:36...pictures of our cars.
25:37...pictures of our cars.
25:37Summonses and fines and...
25:38...more cameras than any other time and any other country in Europe, and yet we can't catch anybody who kills
25:44somebody.
25:45Right!
25:46Why has nobody ever murdered in front of a camera?
25:49A couple of mad old men moaning about the state of Britain.
25:54Oh, I don't know.
25:57I agree with you.
25:58I like you.
25:59I like you.
26:00I like you.
26:01Yeah.
26:02I like you.
26:03I listen to you, it's like listening to me.
26:05Yeah.
26:06I like your attitude.
26:08Yeah.
26:08They're going to fuse into one horrifying Rob Miller.
26:12No!
26:13This is like...
26:13It's a Siamese twin.
26:15Wow!
26:16Oh!
26:18We're quite keen to have the operation, but obviously we're not sure how we'd get on without each other.
26:24Oh!
26:31Oh!
26:33Oh!
26:34Oh!
26:35Oh!
26:36Oh!
26:36Oh!
26:36That's what it's like!
26:37Yeah!
26:38I can see the attraction!
26:40Now I know why my wife married me.
26:42Yeah!
26:43That was good!
26:44God damn!
26:49Just...
26:49Horrible!
26:53Right.
26:55You can make up for it by telling me where the word robot comes from.
26:59Where do we get the word robot from?
27:01I can't get that out of my head.
27:03We get the word robotic from the word robot.
27:06Take the IC off robotic.
27:08You've got robot.
27:09It comes from the dance, Stephen.
27:11It comes from the dance.
27:12This dance.
27:15Is it something you can shout at a machine, it's got a chance of understanding?
27:20Interesting thought on that.
27:21You robot!
27:23Whereas if it was called a quark assimilator fasmissilator, it might not pick up...
27:28It might not pick up how angry you are.
27:29It must be an acronym, right?
27:31No, it's not actually.
27:32It's from a perfectly good Slavic word, robota, meaning a drudge, slave worker.
27:36A slave worker.
27:37Oh, like a drone.
27:38Robota.
27:38And it was from a play by a man called Carol Chepek in 1920 called Rossum's Universal Robots.
27:44And that's when it was first used.
27:46But now, back to the future.
27:47What will be the language of the future here on Earth?
27:51Well, if it carries on the way it is, it will be the sort of hoodies that Ben and I
27:55are so firmly against.
27:57Kind of like talking like this, everybody is going to talk like that, and that is going to be like
28:01the way of the future.
28:02You know, like it don't matter where you come from, you're just going to talk like that, which I hate.
28:09And I think we'll get that.
28:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:12Good, yeah.
28:15And we're going to be Mandarin or Spanish?
28:18Uh, interesting thought.
28:19Oh, is it a trick?
28:20Is it binary?
28:21Is it binary?
28:21Is it binary?
28:22No, it's not, though.
28:22You have a picture on there, no.
28:23No, it's generally thought to be English, in fact, but a certain kind of English.
28:28As many as 80% of the people...
28:29Is this kind of English?
28:30It's like, kind of, English?
28:31Is that sort of like English?
28:36Is that sort of like English?
28:37Is that sort of like English?
28:37Is that sort of like English?
28:37Is that sort of like English?
28:37Because that's what I hate.
28:38I hate that, too.
28:39Yeah.
28:39I hate that, too.
28:40Well, there's a proper debate about it, isn't it?
28:42I mean, what...
28:43Because I am a bit of an old funny...
28:44Oh, it shouldn't change.
28:45But, of course, language...
28:46It must change.
28:46It does evolve.
28:47Absolutely.
28:48I can't bear people being...
28:49Well, I am, yeah.
28:50People are writing to Radio 4 and moan about whether or not someone said more, you know, fewer or less.
28:55That's actually...
28:56Yeah, that's true.
28:57It's a living language.
28:58They just want to show...
28:59They've spotted something.
29:00And deal with it.
29:00Yeah.
29:01Have you...
29:01Have you told me off a fewer or less, on no fewer or less than three occasions?
29:04Yeah, obviously.
29:05I...
29:09Heavens above.
29:10No.
29:10Apparently, as many as 80% of people who speak English do not speak English as their first language.
29:15They're speaking it together with other people who...
29:18For whom it is their second or third language.
29:20And the one that seems to be growing is a thing called Panglish, they're going to call it.
29:23I pan-English, a kind of every-man English.
29:26There's a version at the moment which is spoken by a lot of people called Singlish, apparently.
29:30Which is a mixture of English, Chinese and Malay.
29:33The Singaporean equivalent to franglais.
29:35Yeah, see if you can see what these words mean.
29:37Lay-leo.
29:38It's written as two words.
29:39It's actually one.
29:40L-A-Y-L-E-O.
29:42Lay-leo.
29:43That's instructions from Mrs Sayer.
29:44No, it's just radio.
29:49You are not on clue now.
29:51Very good.
29:52No, it's radio.
29:53Lay-leo.
29:54Lay-leo?
29:55Lay-leo.
29:55That's just...
29:56That's just bad.
29:58That's just...
29:59That's just...
30:00That's just...
30:00That's just...
30:00Lay-leo.
30:01Well done.
30:02He's speaking English, you know.
30:05No.
30:05No, he hasn't learned to speak the language of the people.
30:08Lolex.
30:10A Rolex what?
30:10Yes, exactly.
30:11Oh, that's rubbish.
30:14Orleng Tzu.
30:16O-R-L-E-N-G.
30:18Tzu.
30:19Tzu.
30:20See you soon.
30:21No, it's actually...
30:22It's a drink.
30:23I have grass of Orleng Tzu.
30:24Orange juice.
30:27Orleng Tzu.
30:28Orleng Tzu.
30:29Orleng Tzu.
30:29Orleng Tzu.
30:29Orleng Tzu.
30:29Orleng Tzu.
30:30Orleng Tzu.
30:30Orleng Tzu.
30:31Orleng Tzu.
30:31They give you an orange juice.
30:33They really must...
30:33They must try hard.
30:34It's...
30:36Well, that's...
30:37English has evolved.
30:38I mean, a Saxon or an Angle would hear us speak English and go,
30:41No, what have they done with our language?
30:43They must try harder.
30:44Because we've evolved it into what we call English.
30:47They'll do it into what they...
30:48You know, what be their language.
30:50I mean, that's after they've said,
30:51What are you wearing?
30:54No, I had said to me in Singapore...
30:55What?
30:56You!
30:57Lick ass re!
30:58Lick ass please.
31:01Wow.
31:02It's 1988, and I was mistaken for the pop star
31:04Uh, Rick Astley.
31:05Oh!
31:07I thought he said,
31:08Lick ass please.
31:09You want that?
31:11You pop star!
31:11You lick ass me!
31:13You lick ass please.
31:14No, he was asking to lick...
31:16You to lick his ass.
31:17You lick ass please.
31:18Being offered a service.
31:19He was Rick Astley.
31:20He was an example of a brick road.
31:21They were gonna give you an...
31:23There is...
31:23There is...
31:24There is no more mysterious language, of course, than Welsh,
31:27where, uh, mini golf, for example, is golf mini.
31:33Kiraway.
31:33True.
31:34You Welsh.
31:36You Welsh.
31:37There are other languages, obviously invented languages.
31:40Do you know anything about Klingon?
31:42Oh, yeah, that's a proper language now, isn't it?
31:43It seems to be.
31:44There are degrees in it, I believe, in Klingon.
31:46It was invented by a man called Mark Ockrand, or at least devised.
31:49It's rather difficult to have normal conversations in it.
31:52There are words for things like a transporter ioniser unit,
31:55which is a jollboy, which you probably knew.
31:58Wasn't he a Midnight Cowboy?
31:59For the...
32:02Also, for the bridge of a ship, which is mech.
32:05But there's no word for a bridge that goes over a river.
32:07But they have translated Hamlet into Klingon.
32:12And...
32:12Tach, Pach, Tachbe is to be or not to be, apparently.
32:15Is there any word for what have I done with my life?
32:20That's so true.
32:21Has it come to this?
32:22Trekkie, I think, is the word for this.
32:26But there are more sensible ones.
32:28Esperanto.
32:28Now, that was invented, wasn't it?
32:30It was an entirely invented language, but apparently,
32:32because it's so easy to learn,
32:33has only 900 words and has no irregular verbs.
32:36It takes you a year less to learn to speak another language reasonably fluently.
32:40So, in that sense, it's quite useful.
32:42Here's an example.
32:43What am I saying?
32:44Saluton.
32:45Saluton.
32:46Hello.
32:46Greetings, yeah.
32:47What could be easier than that?
32:49Tuvi parolas esperanton?
32:51Quidditch.
32:54Do you speak...
32:56Tuvi, do you have the esperanto words?
32:58In fact, let's just say...
32:59Well, this is...
33:03My cousin is a meerkat of strange angles.
33:08Now, you can work this out.
33:10Anguilla.
33:11Nothing.
33:12Eel.
33:13Eel, in most Romance languages, that's an eel.
33:15Eel?
33:16Cousin.
33:17Cushion.
33:18Cushion.
33:19Cushion.
33:20Cushion.
33:20Peter Cushion.
33:21The Hammer Horrors.
33:23Cushion vehicle.
33:24Eel cushion.
33:25Hovercraft.
33:25Yes, my hovercraft is full of eels.
33:30Seriously?
33:31Yes.
33:34I thought you were a bit cross with me then, you were saying that just to move on.
33:37No, that's what it is.
33:38In esperanto.
33:39What do you want?
33:40Anyway, that's enough of that.
33:41The language of the future looks like actually being panglish.
33:44And we'll only understand it if we're lucky.
33:47Now, it is possible to imagine a future in which there will be no war and no poverty, but
33:52I confidently predict there will always be general ignorance.
33:56So fingers on buzzers, please, to be serious for a moment.
33:59The most urgent issue facing the future of the planet is the environment.
34:05The Republic of Guiana is in South America, as you probably know, immediately to the north
34:10of Brazil.
34:11Brazil.
34:11Between the years 2000 and 2005, what percentage of the country's rainforest was cut down?
34:19Yes.
34:20400.
34:23Is that bad?
34:27Is that going bad over it and over it?
34:30Yeah.
34:31Like a Mach 4 Razor, the first time gets it close.
34:37The second time, closer still.
34:40The third time gets rid of any trees at all.
34:43The fourth time, you know you're treeless.
34:47The best a country can get.
34:49It's not 400%, I have to say.
34:51None.
34:52Half?
34:53None is the right answer.
34:54They replace every tree they've pulled down with another tree.
34:57It's a rather happy thought that Guiana has this splendid, don't you think?
35:01That's a photograph taken at Kew Gardens in the Park House.
35:06Well, what's the only South American country to play cricket?
35:10Guiana, because they speak English.
35:11Yeah.
35:11It's an English colony.
35:12It's a Caribbean country, essentially.
35:13It's an English colony, isn't it?
35:14Absolutely.
35:15It's next to Suriname.
35:16Next to Suriname, which is exactly right.
35:18Where they don't play cricket, I suspect.
35:20Anyway, there you are.
35:21Now, picture the scene.
35:23I'm out windsurfing.
35:25The breeze is ruffling my children's sandwiched hair.
35:29I look up, and I see, on the horizon, a ship.
35:33How far away is it?
35:3421 miles.
35:36No.
35:37I thought it was always 21 miles.
35:39No.
35:40And I didn't even get flags for that.
35:41No, no, I didn't know that anybody always thought that it was 21 miles.
35:46How far away is the horizon?
35:48That's the point.
35:49I'll tell Ben Miller the formula for working it out, and he will tell you very quickly.
35:53It's very straightforward.
35:54Let's assume I'm six foot tall.
35:55I'm actually a bit taller.
35:56The distance to the horizon in miles is approximately the square root of one and a half times your height
36:02in feet.
36:04That depends how low your eyes are, though, doesn't it?
36:08Three miles.
36:08Three miles is the right answer.
36:10Well done.
36:13It's a lot closer than you think.
36:16If you're standing at sea level, the normal horizon is only about three miles away.
36:21Back home now, what kind of weather kills more people in Britain than any other?
36:27Bad weather.
36:30Wind.
36:30It's wind.
36:31Not wind.
36:33Oh, hello.
36:34Oh, dear, you've got a fork in the wind.
36:36Oh, bugger.
36:37Is it rockets?
36:38Does they come down like weather?
36:41No.
36:41No.
36:44No.
36:44No.
36:45No.
36:48Fog.
36:48Fog is the right answer, finally.
36:51Well done, fog.
36:52Because of road traffic accidents, I'm afraid.
36:54Do you want me to explain fog to you, Ben?
36:58What happens if...
37:01Everybody's been asleep, right, for quite a long time.
37:03Aha.
37:04And all their breath gathers up.
37:07And then next to the little window, it all goes out.
37:11And that collects in the valley all together.
37:15Right.
37:15And it gets blown around by the lorries that they're driving up and down.
37:20You still with me?
37:23No, I like it.
37:24Do you know the difference between fog and mist?
37:25There is an official difference.
37:27Is it the height of it?
37:28No, it's actually just the density.
37:30Mist is water.
37:30Fog is visibility of less than one kilometre, while mist is usually between one and two.
37:35Because in mist, you can be seen in a sort of Mac, whereas in fog, they can't see you at
37:40all.
37:40You're safe.
37:41Never can spot you.
37:42Step back in, you're gone.
37:43It's interesting.
37:44You see, that's how you think of fog, as a way of hiding yourself.
37:47Yeah, it is.
37:48You can go about your beastly business.
37:53It's not a beast.
37:54I'm just putting stickers on things.
37:55Oh.
37:56It's you.
37:57Yeah.
37:58Putting silly stickers on people's faces.
38:00Oh.
38:00Not a bit pervy.
38:02A bit of chewing gum over Cameron Diaz's eye.
38:04Anything.
38:04You know, just cheers me up.
38:07Smog, of course, is an urban phenomenon.
38:09Smoke and fog, sulfur dioxide usually, and fog mixing together.
38:12The last really bad one in London was in 1952 and lasted four days.
38:16How many people did it kill, roughly?
38:18256.
38:19No.
38:20They all died fairly, roughly, didn't they?
38:22No.
38:23It was 12,000 people.
38:26Whoa.
38:26Four days were killed by the smog of 1952.
38:29This is what hurried in the clean air and smokeless zones.
38:32And in London now, fog is pretty rare, to be honest, isn't it?
38:35But I was in, last week, one of the Hawaiian islands in Honolulu.
38:39In what?
38:39In Hawaii.
38:40In Hawaii.
38:41In Hawaii.
38:41In Hawaii.
38:41And they don't have fog there, they have, do you know what they call it?
38:45It's not smog or fog.
38:47Sun.
38:47No.
38:49They have lots of that.
38:50But they have a...
38:52Is it a low hog?
38:53Is it a low hog?
38:56It's a fog.
38:57They have fog.
38:58Why fog?
38:59All the Jewish people have made it.
39:00No.
39:02Hey, it's a fog.
39:03What do I care?
39:04I can't see it.
39:06I can't see it in front of you.
39:06Look at you.
39:06You can't see him.
39:07I can't see it.
39:08I don't care what it is.
39:11I don't know.
39:12I don't care what it is.
39:12Look at you.
39:12Where are you?
39:13You're there.
39:14I can't see you, for Christ's sake.
39:15What's going on?
39:20Oh, God.
39:24Thank you, Jackie Bryden.
39:26No, it's a volcanic fog.
39:28It's the fact that there's a volcano going off on the big island there.
39:30Oh.
39:30And it mixes with natural mists and fogs and creates this denser item.
39:34called fog.
39:36Anyway, fog or mist, it's all the same stuff.
39:40It causes road crashes, that's the thing about it.
39:42Now, lastly, when, oh when, will they finish painting the fourth rail bridge?
39:49Yes.
39:50Never, because, by the time they get to...
39:56See my little face light up as I thought it was.
39:58Yes.
39:58It's been done, they don't need to worry about it anymore.
40:00They're putting on a new special coating that's a combination of paint and epoxy resin.
40:04It's the right answer!
40:06Great!
40:08Very good!
40:11Absolutely right.
40:14You never cease to amaze me, Alan Davis, but you're absolutely right.
40:18It used to be considered the proverbial unending task.
40:21Yeah.
40:22But they have a new epoxy resin paint.
40:24It's been developed.
40:25It will last 25, possibly even 40 years.
40:2740 years.
40:28You've just come back from that big industrial paint conference, haven't you?
40:33Yeah.
40:33You were just out there, just seeing what was going on in the paint world.
40:36A lot of it on the web as well.
40:37Yeah.
40:39Thanks to a clever new paint, they'll actually finish painting the fourth rail bridge in the year 2012.
40:44And so, with the future safely behind us, let's have a look at the old scoreboard!
40:49And, well ahead of his time, with 14 points, is Ben Miller!
40:59But, not so far behind, with seven points, is Sean Locke!
41:04Thank you!
41:07We plunge into the minus numbers in third place, with minus 31, it's Rob Brydon!
41:19But, knocked into the middle of next week, with minus 60, Alan Davis!
41:34Well, that's all for next week, but from Rob, Ben, Sean, Alan and me, we trust that you will live
41:41long and prosper.
41:42And I leave you with this observation from physicist Niels Bohr.
41:45Prediction is very difficult, he said, especially about the future.
41:50Good night.
Comments