3D Images Of Galaxies Will Rock You (Ft. Queen)

Astronomer and Queen guitarist Brian May teams up with astrophysicist Derek Ward-Thompson to bring the cosmos to 3D.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  WNYC is supported by Bear. Science is about asking questions, testing, trying again. It's not easy, but it's relentless. It evolves, and that's why science delivers. Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 0:14Ira Flatow?

  Science Friday is supported by MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

• 0:33Flora Lichtman?

  Hey, it's Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday. As you know, we live in the Milky Way galaxy, one of an estimated 200 billion galaxies out there. You know the pictures, you've seen them, the cloudy, beautiful spirals? Well, now, a new book takes these images to a higher dimension. Islands in Infinity: Galaxy's 3D brings space to stereoscopic life, turning those flat galactic postcards into three-dimensional spacemaps. I've got the authors with me. Dr. Derek Ward-Thompson is an astrophysicist at the University of Lancashire in England, and astronomer Dr. Brian May.

• 1:16Flora Lichtman?

  He's had a circuitous career in astronomy because he was busy for 30 years, you know, doing this.

• 1:33Flora Lichtman?

  Yes, Brian May, as in the guitarist of Queen, that Brian May. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much for being here.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Thank you for inviting us.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  Thank you, Flora.

• 1:44Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, Brian, I don't know if this is charming or embarrassing, but I think on this show, your astronomer credentials may hold as much weight as being in one of the most iconic bands of all time. So, thank you for coming to nerd out with us today.

• 2:00Speaker 04

  Thank you, Flora. It's my pleasure, absolutely, and I'm very proud of the book, and I'm glad you like it. I had a great time creating it with Derek here and with JP Metzavainio, our Finnish genius friend who converted these, as you say, flat pictures normally of galaxies into wonderful, three-dimensional representations, which really are very true to life. And... Uh, yeah, it's a first.

• 2:28Flora Lichtman?

  It's a first. Is that true?

• 2:30Speaker 04

  There has never been a stereoscopic book on galaxies before, no, never, ever. And the reason is clear, it's very hard to do.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  You know, you can't go out with a stereoscopic camera, with a 3D camera and take pictures of galaxies. You have to do it another way. And it's a magic process that JP has pioneered using the available data on the spatial setup in each of these galaxies.

• 2:54Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm. I mean, Derek, you're an astrophysicist, you focus on star and planet formation. What interests you about these images?

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Oh, it's, um, it's just amazing. I mean, uh, I've been looking at stars and galaxies for, since my PhD over 40 years ago. And, uh, this is the first time I've felt them literally jumping out of the page at me. And, uh, actually, you, you, okay, you might be able to guess what their structure is from looking at a picture. But it's only when you see them in these stereoscopic images that you really, really get a feel for, um, for how they, how they genuinely look, how they, they feel. It's almost like holding them in your hands. It's, uh, it's quite, quite remarkable, it really is.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  JP is, uh, is a wizard.

• 3:50Flora Lichtman?

  I mean, it, they are, they're mesmerizing to look at. And it's funny, cause I, you know, I've looked at space imagery for decades in this job. And then to realize that they're, the shapes are actually quite different from what I had pictured in my mind. You know, I, I always imagined them as flat, because that's how they looked.

• 4:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, even, even the most familiar ones, it's a shock, isn't it? You see like M31, we've all seen countless pictures of M31, but we, I mean, the same for me. Until you actually see it in 3D, um, you don't have the right image in your head. You don't have the right understanding of the way it ticks.

• 4:30Flora Lichtman?

  Derek, can you learn something new by seeing these images in 3D? I mean, is it telling us anything scientifically?

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. In the book, we try to demonstrate the full sort of range of what galaxies look like. And in particular, there's one chapter in the book where we talk about so-called interacting galaxies. These are galaxies in the process of colliding with each other. And you look at those two dimensional pictures and it's sort of difficult to figure what's going on. You see it in three dimensions and suddenly you see the whole train wreck of these galaxies that are literally tearing each other apart.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  And there was one in particular where we contributed, we've contributed to the debate about how the collision is taking place.

• 5:30Flora Lichtman?

  Wow, that's cool. Brian, I know you have a long relationship with stereoscopy. How did this come into your life?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Well, it goes back a long way to when I was a kid eating my breakfast cereal. And in those days, you used to get toys with your breakfast. It doesn't happen anymore now, it's rather sad. But with Weetabix, you used to get little cards at one point, which had two little images on them. And I remember taking this one picture out of the packet and it was of a hippopotamus. But there's two images of it and each of the images is flat. And it says on the back, send away a packet top and one and sixpence and we will send you a stereo viewer. And you can look at these things as they're meant to be seen. This is what I did. In the post comes the viewer, I pop in the hippopotamus and suddenly

• 6:21Speaker 04

  the thing isn't two flat pictures anymore, it's one picture. And it's so three dimensional, I feel like I could fall into the mouth of this hippo. Um, it's incredible. I could almost like smell the breath of this animal. So I think to myself, if this is what can be done in three dimensions, why does anybody bother with two dimensional pictures? Why don't want, why isn't everything in three D? So it is a really life changing moment for me and truly I've never lost that excitement. It always seems to me if you can see it well in two D, you can see it a whole lot better in three D. And that's the inspiration for where I am now with Derek.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  Now, my, you know, I don't have any genius about this. My, my only genius is bringing Derek and JP together, uh, which is a masterstroke because it's not just a picture book. You have this genius who can make, uh, pictures in three D coupled with one of the world's greatest experts on galactic evolution, which is Derek. And, you know, I thought I knew about galaxies. I didn't until I started writing this book with Derek. And every time we ventured into a new page, I learned something more. Uh, so to me, this has been a wonderful voyage of discovery and marrying these pictures with this incredible knowledge, very up to date knowledge in galaxies has been completely

• 7:43Speaker 04

  eye opening for me. And that's what I hope will happen to you and anyone who opens this book. I hope your eyes will be open to the universe in three dimensions.

• 7:54Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm. Derek, I watched a video of you showing people pictures in three D and you can hear people responding. There were literal oohs and ahs in the audience.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:08Flora Lichtman?

  I mean, beyond the science, is this about pleasure? The pleasure of seeing space in a different way?

• 8:15Speaker 03

  It's the pleasure of scientific discovery that I'm sure all your listeners can relate to learning something new. I learn something new every day. Ryan's being far too modest, by the way. He, um, basically translated it from nerds into English so that the idea is that, that every, everybody can understand it. It's not just a book.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  The scientific expert. It's it's a book for everyone. And what we hope is people will pick it up and go, ooh, and ah, as you said, and then pause to read some of the words and actually actually learn along the way as as as well.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  I'm so glad we did this. I'm so glad we did this interview. I'm going to cherish that quote forever.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 9:09Flora Lichtman?

  Nerdy's translating nerdy.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  That's true. That's my job. That's my job. That's my job specification.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  We had we had lots of fun writing the book together. We had lots, lots of fun in our little team. It was great.

• 9:29Flora Lichtman?

  You can tell. You can tell you all are having fun. This is the perfect segue because after the break, I want to talk about the collision of art and astronomy. Stick around.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Science Friday is supported by PBS, presenting Going Wild. If you love learning about the natural world and meeting the scientists who help us understand it, be sure to check out the new season of Going Wild with Dr. Ray Wynn Grant. It's the chart topping and Webby award winning podcast from the folks at Nature on PBS, now with a video companion series. In this season of Going Wild, host acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Ray Wynn Grant heads out into the field to explore the animals, people and stories that make nature worth saving. Stops include a hibernating black bear den in Arkansas and an underwater shipwreck site off the Florida coast. If you're looking for a place to start, check out the season's debut episode, where Ray joins beloved biologist and influencer Jordan King in the Florida Everglades

• 10:28Speaker 00

  to learn about his unlikely journey into science and how to study a wetland when it's not very, well, wet. So don't miss out. Follow Going Wild with Dr. Ray Wynn Grant on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  Support for Science Friday comes from the William K. Bose Junior Foundation.

• 10:51Flora Lichtman?

  Brian, let's go back to your salad days. You said, growing up, that you were told that you couldn't do both art and science. What did you hear exactly?

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's exactly what I was told. It was, there were points in my school days where they said, "You have to choose now between this and this." There were always choices between art and science. And I always felt that I did not want to be abandoning one for the other. And that's kind of been my whole life, because I think the complete person, the complete human being, has to understand both art and science. They have to understand the beauty of the universe, and they also have to understand the way it works. They have to understand people. People are part of the universe. People are artistic creatures, as well as scientific creations, if you like. So it all intermingles. And people, people that I've met more and more are understanding this. A lot of the

• 11:46Speaker 04

  greatest scientists throughout history were actually great musicians, or, in some cases, other kind of artists, including my great friend Patrick Moore, who's an inspiration to all of us. He was a great scientist, but also a fantastic musician and composer. But you look at Sir Isaac Newton, he's a musician. So it's not a new idea, but it's an idea which I think got lost when I was growing up. The previous generations somehow got separated into art and science. And I think it was damaging. I think human beings need to be able to do both, and to be able to enjoy both sides of their, their nature.

• 12:24Flora Lichtman?

  I agree completely. Derek, where do you fall on this?

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. And Brian gave the example of, of, of, of, of music. And music is, in fact, highly mathematical, follows very strict mathematical rules. And actually, to, to understand music, you have to understand the, the mathematics of the, of the rhythm and of the, of the frequencies, the overtones. It's all pure maths and, and applied physics.

• 13:03Flora Lichtman?

  I mean, Brian, let's go, I want to go to this moment in your life where your musical career is blasting off, and you're trying to do a PhD, which seems just, like, very difficult to me. What was that like?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yes, difficult. It was, um. Yeah, I'm trying to do the two things at the same time. I'm also trying to teach because I have no money and the money for my PhD has run out. So I'm teaching at a comprehensive school in Brixton. So I'm doing this. I'm, I am trying to get the group going and the group is, um, looking hopeful, but at the same time, we don't have any contacts. We don't know how to, to break into the world of music. And I'm trying to finish off my PhD, which is increasingly hard because my supervisor doesn't really think I've got it in me. I think I can sum it up that way, you know, so I'd written up most of my work and he kept coming back and saying, well, you could just do a bit more on this, a bit more on this.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  And I'm thinking, okay, that's another three years' work he's suggesting there. So I'm feeling more and more that this is never going to happen. And I have to make the choice of where my life's going to go at this minute. And I made the choice to, to jump into, uh, to playing guitar around the world. And I think it was a good decision. I remember saying at the time, this is going to be a good decision for science because I'm obviously not good enough. Hopefully it's a good decision for music as well.

• 14:34Flora Lichtman?

  I think, I think many, many millions, if not billions of people, thank you for that decision that you made.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Oh, bless you.

• 14:44Flora Lichtman?

  Derek, do you think scientists could learn something from musicians?

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Oh, definitely, definitely. And from artists generally. Uh, and that is how to communicate. Scientists are very good at inventing our own language and behaving like a, a sort of high priesthood. And you have to be initiated into the secrets of, of our science before you're allowed to, to participate. I mean, that's been changing in the last, the last couple of decades, but it certainly used to be more like that. But we still need even more. I spent quite a lot of time trying to pass on the excitement that we feel about science.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Because, uh, the other aspect about. About schools is they can make science seem very fusty and kind of boring and hard work, when it should be fun.

• 15:46Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  And and I think that's something that artists do very, very well.

• 15:53Flora Lichtman?

  Did you have a perspective on that, Brian? The idea that could can musicians learn from scientists or scientists learn from musicians?

• 16:02Speaker 04

  I think it's part of a bigger picture. I feel that we live in very dangerous times because it's hard to find the truth. And it's much easier to propagate mistruths on the internet than it is to put to in it. Sometimes for some reason, it's more exciting to propagate misinformation than the truth. And it concerns me greatly because we're seeing science being submerged in a welter of superstition and we seem to be going backwards in many ways. I think you you get more views for for saying the earth is flat or people didn't go on the moon and, you know, all this sort of stuff. And that's a whole mass of of nonsense to make your way through if you're a kid now.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  So it's our responsibility to give kids an inquiring mind so that they find out for themselves what the truth really is. So music is a help in that. Music is part of that. You know, music opens people's minds and brings people together. And we have to get away from this kind of polarization culture that we seem to have at the moment. It's good to discuss. It's good to have alternative points of view. But out of those discussions should come an awareness of truth, not just scientific truth, but universal truths, human truths.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  And the ideas of compassion and mercy and decency, justice are embodied in those discussions. And I would like to see more of that. And I think it's our responsibility as a generation to try to bring that back.

• 17:42Flora Lichtman?

  As we're talking about music opening people's minds and bringing people together, can I I we have to talk a little bit about one of my favorite songs, Don't Stop Me Now,

• 17:56Flora Lichtman?

  which uses space as a metaphor for pleasure.

• 18:09Flora Lichtman?

  Did you have anything to do with those lyrics?

• 18:13Speaker 04

  No.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  In fact, I kind of berated, I remember berating Freddie for saying that he was travelling at the speed of light. I go, Freddie, you cannot travel at the speed of light, I'm sorry. And he says, I don't care.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Sorry for my friends, but you can't really quote Freddie without using those words. But, you know, it's, it's all about fun and joy, yeah. And I, I stayed out of it. I was worried, actually, because being such a hedonistic thing.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  There were dangers to living a hedonistic lifestyle at that time. And I remember, you know, being a bit of a schoolmaster, a bit of a geek myself, you know. I felt worried for Freddie at that time, which is part of my reservations about the song. Now, I look back and see the song, and I think it is a work of genius, because it takes you away from, it takes you above those questions. And it became, it's funny, it didn't immediately become a huge hit. It had a slow burn. And now it's become one of Queen's best-known songs around the world, and it's universally played at hen nights and stag nights, and god knows what, funerals,

• 19:28Speaker 04

  births, weddings. So, you know, it's got to be a great song. And I appreciate that. And I'm happy that I was at least something to do with it.

• 19:39Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, I mean, it strikes me that space provides a place for our imagination to go when we feel perhaps imprisoned or constrained by our life on earth. And that's what I love about it.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  I've found it very helpful at certain times, particularly when I was deep in depression. I found that looking at the stars, there's a particular time when, when winter is coming on and you start to see the winter stars. I used to call them the brave stars, Orion, and Sirius, and Gemini, and Alt-Debran.

• 20:22Speaker 04

  The Pleiades, I find great comfort in seeing these beauties in the sky and thinking they will be there long after I've gone away. They will still be strong, they will still be beautiful, and my descendants will be seeing them and getting the same strength as I do from them. So it's a spiritual thing, I think, connecting with those fantastic beacons in the sky.

• 20:50Flora Lichtman?

  Hmm, that's really beautifully put.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  Can I tell you, Flora, which one's my favourite Queen track?

• 20:56Flora Lichtman?

  Yes, please!

• 20:59Speaker 03

  This one might make Brian blush because it was written by him. It's called "The Year of Thirty-Nine", and it's actually a very, very sad, tragic love song that uses a thing that some of your listeners will have heard of called the twin paradox, which is an effect of relativity. That if you go away from the earth in a rocket ship fast enough, and you turn around and come back again after about a year, you will have experienced a year in your time, but time as we know is relative. And so there are these two lovers, and he goes off on the spaceship and comes back,

• 21:44Speaker 03

  and a hundred years have passed, and his beloved is dead and buried, and he's still got his life ahead of him.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 21:54Flora Lichtman?

  Oh!

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Thank you for bringing that up, Derek.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  It's a beautiful song. It's a beautiful song.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Thank you, Derek. Yeah, it's a long time ago now. I mean, I'm old enough to be that time traveller now. In fact, when I was recently playing my acoustic guitar on tour quite recently, I felt like I had been away and come back because I'm playing to a new generation. In fact, two generations, you know, apart from me, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I think everyone will appreciate, I was, there's a scientific backbone to that song, there's a reason for that, as Derek has told you. But I was concerned with the emotional side, really, with the human side, that's what the song is about.

• 22:58Flora Lichtman?

  Dr. Derek Ward-Thompson is an astrophysicist at the University of Lancashire in England, and Dr. Brian May is an astronomer and, yes, the guitarist in the band Queen. Thank you both for joining me today. This has been really such a pleasure.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Thank you, Flora.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Thank you, Flora. Great pleasure.

• 23:27Flora Lichtman?

  This episode was produced by Rasha Aridi with help from Dee Peter Schmidt. I don't want to put you under pressure, but if you like what you heard, why not tell a friend about our show? It really does help us if you get the word out. And if you have a great review you've been meaning to write for the podcast, don't let it bite the dust. Go to your favorite platform and leave us a review. Catch you next time. I'm Flora Lichtman.