StarTalk Radio - A Quantum Life with Hakeem Oluseyi

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

How do you beat the odds and become an astrophysicist? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice sit down with astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi to discuss his path to becoming an astrophysicist and his new book A Quantum Life. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-quantum-life-with-hakeem-oluseyi/ Thanks to our Patrons EMILY RIVERA, Jocelyn Sailas, Nickalos Early, zach hughes, Shawn Shortridge, Ghokul S, Emily Long, Vijay Ramani, and Joe Means for supporting us this week. Image Credit: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today we're going to feature an exclusive conversation with a fellow astrophysicist of mine. Ooh. Ooh. Well, we'll introduce him in just a moment. Well, let me get Chuck out of the way here.

Chuck. Hey. Yes, get Chuck out of the way. No, no, sorry. How many times have I heard that in my life? I didn't mean it that way. It just came... Now I just feel like I'm at Thanksgiving dinner.

It just came out that way. Nah I just feel like I'm at Thanksgiving dinner. It just came out that way. Nah, I got it. Alright, so who we have with us today is Hakeem Oluweseyi. I think I pronounced that right. Oluweseyi. Did I get that right, Hakeem? Everywhere but in Nigeria.

That means I didn't get it right. Well, because the name is a statement, they demand it be stated like a statement. Olushayi. So then how... Olushayi. Oh, you got to get in it. Okay, let me hear you say the whole name.

Akeem Mwata Olushayi. So you got to get in it. Olushayi. Yeah, in Nigeria only. They let me know. Okay. All right, all right. I didn't know. Yeah, they don't care on Wakanda. They let me know. Okay. Right. All right.

All right. I didn't know. Yeah, they don't care on Wakanda. They don't care. Wakanda, no. They speak English in Wakanda, apparently. Right. So you are a fellow astrophysicist, and I don't think we've met before. So that's actually a good sign.

That means there are enough black people who do astrophysics that it's possible that two of them might have never met. Well, well, well, it turns out that very briefly in 2002 at the American Astronomical Society meeting we did meet. At the American Astronomical Society meeting, we did meet. I was standing in an empty poster hall monitoring the SNAP posters, the Supernova Acceleration Probe, right? Which, you know, came W first, which is now named after a brilliant woman. And so what happens is you walk up and I'm like, who is this black astrophysicist? I don't know. And I turned and looked around and saw your badge.

And I just, you know, I was looking at who are the other black astrophysicist? I don't know. And I turned and looked around and saw your badge. And I just, you know, I was looking at who are the other black astrophysicists in the world? And I just discovered you. And I'm like, oh, Neil Tyson. And you're like, hi, how are you? I was fresh back from Silicon Valley. I kid you not. That was my first stop. Okay. Wow. So we did our world lines. Okay, so here's the thing. You met Neil. He just has never met you. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. Until now. Until now. All right. So we got this. We got this. So, Hakeem, you came out with a book.

I did. A book. Let me get the title straight here. A Quantum Life. Damn, you don't waste any time just putting it right out. Quantum Life. My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars. We'll get to that in a minute, but I just want to get the rest of your resume out here.

So we've got you as an affiliated professor at George Mason University. Is that right? Yes, sir. Cool. And you are president-elect of the National Society of Black Physicists. That's correct. All right. And you used to be a space education lead at NASA and a chief science officer at Discovery Communications.

Yes. This is like not only Discovery Channel, but like 10 other channels that they control, probably other stuff too, is that right? Well, mostly focused, those three focus on science channel, discovery, and animal planet. We're sort of the science realm of Discovery Communications. Gotcha.

So if they got any science wrong, they send the letters to you. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. Absolutely. But what intrigues me here is you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But what intrigues me here is you're also an inventor. Yes. And you've got 11 patents.

Yes, sir. Wow. 11 patents. What's your favorite invention that you have made? You know what? It's the one that I can brag and say it's in all your chips. And it's not because it's that amazing. It's just because I work more.

It's guacamole is in my chips. Not those chips. Computer chips. But, you know, I worked at a large Silicon Valley company that puts chips in all your computers. So if you develop a technology. But basically, my work has made it more efficient and also helped with Moore's Law to keep progressing. Oh, cool.

All right. All right. So this is part of your, I mean, I'm calling you an astrophysicist, but as you list the rest of the stuff you've done, that gets us back to the subtitle of your book, My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars. Now, here's what I want to know. Is this book one of these, I was a poor black child?

Is it one of those kind of stories? You know what? Is that what's happening in here? Not really. Man, it is not. It really isn't. Yeah, it isn't. Because my story is so unique and it's so epic

that the reason why I wrote the book in the first place. Well, we'll decide whether it's epic. So don't you be putting that on your own stuff. We'll be the judge. That's what they told me. Yeah, you know, I'm here discovering. And everybody keeps telling me, oh man, you got to write a book.

You got to write a book because my life story is so crazy. You know how you meet somebody and they throw out something. You're like, holy crap. What haven't you done? What haven't you been through? Right? That was my life. And so I thought.

And you actually obeyed them and decided to write this up. Okay. All right. So if it's not. It's a story worth telling. It's a story worth telling. It's a story worth telling. It's a story worth telling. I got to tell you the truth.

So, you know, Lindsay sent me a copy of the book. Lindsay, one of our producers, yes. One of our producers. One of our senior producers, yeah. A couple nights ago, and I only had time for that night to read it because I knew what my schedule was. And I got through about at this, about 250,

275 pages of the book. And that's how good it was. I was reading it as homework because I just wanted to be prepared, but I ended up reading it for enjoyment, which is why I read 275 pages in one sitting. Okay, now,

Lindsay didn't send me the book, so you should run the damn interview. I know she didn't. Oh, no. No. I'll send you the book. I'll bumble through it. I will, no, I will fumble through this,

and then, Chuck, you come in and make it better as I mess it up, okay? No worries. So tell me, so where are you born? That's right. So I lived in some, like, historic communities. I was born in New Orleans, and my home community is New Orleans East. My father is from rural Mississippi, so I spent half of my, you know, pre-18 life there.

But also, I have a foothold in south-central Los Angeles. Man. Where he has a bunch of cousins who are actually Crips. Yeah. Or were they the Bloods? No, they were Crips. OG Crips. They were Crips.

Yeah, they were OGs. You know, murders and went to prison for a couple of decades. These are the people you hung out with? Absolutely. Yeah.

Man, I've hung out with everybody. And that's the thing about the current life, the current moment, because in science we have this sort of conflict. You know, on the one hand, if somebody makes a mistake, let's cancel them.

But on the other hand, yo, let's go into the prisons. Let's deal with the, you know, the people that are incarcerated and help them up through education and science. So, you know, I believe in redemption. And because so many people in my life I've seen be redeemed. Well, I'm going to push back on you, Hakeem, just a little bit. I don't think that your story was one of redemption. No, not mine. I think.

Not mine. Oh, okay. You're talking about the other people. The other people. Oh, okay. I didn't even read the book and I knew that, Chuck. Yeah. Well, listen, I never said I was smart just because I could read 275 pages in a night.

Okay? It just means I can read. They're little pages. What you're saying is, not to put words in your mouth, but I think what you're saying is your environment and the people and the company you kept was quite an exposure, quite a baptism into the challenges of inner city life. In a way. And the challenges of inner city life. In a way. And the life of poverty. Absolutely. You know, look, everybody's ready to beat you up, including your own family.

My family happened to have an entrepreneurial spirit. So, and very highly competitive. So I got into that life at the age of nine very seriously, and it was something that I was drawn to. I was drawn to it. Wait, that life. Which life? I call it my dark side, right? It was a life of crime. Oh, gotcha.

Crime and lightsabers. Yeah, at the same time. That's the whole thing about it. That's what's quantum about it, right? You have this state of superposition between these two phases. Two quantum states. I get it. Two quantum states.

And I'm existing in both of them simultaneously. Nerd and gangster, right? Gangster nerd. Okay, but you're a black nerd, so that makes you a blurred. Ah, yes. To be clear. Okay, just to be clear about that. All right, so tell us about how is it that you kept your compass direction throughout the crime, the violence, the muggings, the, you know, how does it, because most people don't and there's probably still in jail, in prison.

Because I didn't want to stay that way. right? And for me, it was very simple. Tomorrow, I want to live indoors and eat, right? And so when I was finishing high school, I'm like, oh, what do I do? Oh, the military. So I joined the military. Then I get out of the military. And at that point, I'm aimless. And some friends convinced me to go to college. So now in college, you have your dorm paid for by your financial plan, which for me, one of the things people have been talking to me about all my life is this free education we get.

That missed me somehow. So with my student loans, I was able to pay for my tuition, housing, food. But then college was coming to an end and I had no idea what to do. And luckily, a woman named Cynthia McIntyre, Claude Poo and Aya Coot-Box showed up on campus and said, hey, we have this thing we're starting called the National Conference of Black Physics Students. So let me tell you why, how you can become a physicist, which I really didn't see as my career. I became a physics major because physics is what was easy to me. And the reason why it was easy is because I fell in love with Albert Einstein when I was 10 years old and just studied it. But even before that, I fell in love with Albert Einstein when I was 10 years old and just studied it. But even before that,

I fell in love with logic problems, right? And so I would solve all these logic problems. So even though I was like grossly undereducated by the time I graduated high school, I was passionate about the universe and I had taught myself a lot of physics without knowing. Okay, so you were incompletely educated. You still had passion for learning,

which is a very important thing. And I think you're being a little humble because you are clearly an autodidact and have been your entire life. Whatever that means. I don't even know what that means, Chuck. What is an autodidact? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Did you just cuss him? Did you just?

No, it means that you're able to teach yourself. It's like you are self-didactic. You tell yourself. So instead of saying he's self-taught, you call him an auto-didact. Didact, yes, yes. He must be a biologist. I don't know what the hell Chuck is. But seriously, I think the other thing that is a bit under looked, I mean, under appreciated.

And I say this not just to you, but to everyone listening. What people see in you is the case. And you should, you know, people often look at you and see something. And because you are in your current situation, you can't see it. And so throughout your life, according to your book, there were always people who were like, hey man, you should.

Absolutely. Hey man, you should. They see a spark or something in there. Right, the reason why they do that is because they see it. And now look where you are. They saw it and it was there. But. The reason why they do that is because they see it. And now look where you are. They saw it and it was there. But here's the thing. You didn't go quite far enough in the book. No.

That was... Okay. He became a serial murderer. No. I did not, but that's what people saw. So I'll give you a funny story from the book. So in 2013, I was at UC Berkeley doing summer research, and I ran into a graduate student friend.

And he said, Hakeem, remember that story you told me in grad school? And I had kind of forgotten about it. So basically what had happened is, because of my life of crime and the way I was living wrong, I dropped out of college, okay? And I didn't want to live the life I was living anymore. And to be honest, I continued after this relapse and relapse type thing. So I got a job and the only job I can get was as a janitor at a nearby hotel. I was making four dollars an hour, getting something like 20 some odd bucks a week.

I got a small apartment deep in the hood and I don't even have enough money to eat. So the way I eat most days is I eat people's leftovers from room service. That's how I was eating. Then I get my big break, or so I think, and that is the bellhop at the hotel. Bellhop. Right? And I'm thinking, yeah, I get $100 in tips in a day. But guess what? According to the hotel, I was in bellhop material, right? I was in front door material. And so my friend who I was speaking to in 2013, he said, Hakeem, you know what?

To me, that story encapsulates what it's like to be a black man in America because they didn't realize that the guy standing in front of them was a Stanford PhD physicist. All they could see was the janitor. Right. But that is because they were trying to hire a freaking bellhop.

So you also got to consider the source, you know? So I won't belabor the point, but I'm right, Hakeem. As always. All right, wait, wait. Way more to this story. We got to take a break. But I want to know what branch of the service you went to. How did you end up in Stanford?

How did you end up even in college in the first place? And so I don't want to jump ahead too fast because I'm still in South Central L.A. with you right here in my own head. So when we come back, more of Hakeem. And let me get his last name printed out. So when we come back, more of Hakeem, and let me get his last name printed out, Hakeem Aluseyi, and his story coming up from the depths of American poverty and crime to be a leading astval, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to Earth, this is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're back with an exclusive interview with Hakeem Olusayi, who is a fellow astrophysicist. My first time really officially meeting the guy.

And apparently Chuck got a copy of the book before this interview because he wrote a memoir and Chuck read the book and I haven't even seen the book. So Chuck, I think I should just go have lunch now and you finish the interview. No, because I'm hungry too. So it's a quantum life, my unlikely journey from the street to the stars.

And quanta are sort of states of existence of particles. And if you apply that to your life, Akeem, you told us in the first segment that you were this sort of street kid, but you were also this nerd. And the two generally don't have bridges between them. And when you don't, they're separate quantum states, but they coexist in the same body. So it's a superposition of these two quantum states, if we're going to run with the physics of it. So at what point did you say,

maybe I'll go to the military? Was that to try to bring some order to your life and get a hot meal every day? No, just like many other things, I had no direction. And someone came along and said, hey, how about you try this? So what happened is at our high school, now let me tell you about my high school. I grew up in Heidelberg High School in Jasper County, Mississippi. All black. A mile and a half down the road, Heidelberg Academy.

All white, right? And so we were all told to go to the cafeteria. Wait, wait, wait. It can't have just been a mile and a half down the road. There had to have been like railroad tracks or something or freeway. Nothing like that. You could actually just walk from... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay.

They made it especially cruel. They were like, we're not even going to put any railroad tracks between you. You're not even going to cross the tracks. You can be able to look right down the street and see what you're missing. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to be able to look right down the street and see what you're missing. What was the question? Sorry.

So just how did you land in the armed services? And which branch was it? Yeah. So I was in the U.S. Navy. So it was a very lucky thing for me. What happened was we were all ushered into the cafeteria and we were given the armed services vocational aptitude battery exam. And I would kill all standardized exams, everything but the math. And so what happened was a few weeks later, I get called to the principal's office, which was not an uncommon occurrence. But when I got there, he blew me away with what he said.

He asked me, he said, what are you doing after high school? And I said, uh, I'm gonna go to college. And he goes, because I knew that's what you're supposed to do. And he said, how are you gonna pay for it? And I said, well, I'm a good musician, I'm a good student, I'll get a scholarship. And he's like, let me introduce you to someone.

He takes me into his inner office, and in there, in his dress whites, is Senior Chief Gage, the Navy recruiter. He stands up, looks me in the eye, puts out his hand, and goes, hi, look, the most I can offer you is $20,000 a year. This is 1983. When he said that number, my mother's voice went off in my head because I remember her bragging about my brother-in-law earning $15,000 one year. And this guy just offered me $20,000? Was that $20,000 a year after you get out for you then to spend on college?

No, no, no, no, no. This is full-time Navy career, right? So I joined the Navy thinking that was going to be my career forever. They were going to put him in the nuclear program. He was going to go nuke. Passed the nuke test. But then my recruiter was like, dude, you're so amazing. You know what? I think I can get you in the academy. But he had never done the process, so it was too late. But he did find this program designed to take enlisted people and convert them to officers. But it was people from backgrounds that were undereducated. So they gave you a year of education and they had two math classes, the regular math class and the remedial math class.

Now we have a Facebook group for all of us that were in this boost 85, 86 class. They think it's hilarious that they were in a regular class and the astrophysicist to be was in a remedial class. But in that remedial class, we were taken from arithmetic through calculus in one year. Before arriving, I never heard the word calculus in my life. Luckily, I didn't get kicked out until I completed the algebra portion. Okay, so just to recap, so this standardized exam you took, you did really well on all parts except the math part. And you did so poorly on the math part but so well on the other part that they brought you in the back office, but then they put you in the remedial math class. Did I get that right?

It's similar-ish to that. You had to take a placement exam, and that's what landed me in the remedial class. I got it. Okay. All right. So then you became a fast study. You pick it up and then you go to the Navy. And what do they do with you in the Navy?

Oh, man. So I started off in a nuclear program and then I transferred to this program called Boost. And it's run by the Marines. And man, do Marines kick your butt. So my discipline level. Just to remind people, the Marines are actually a branch of the Navy, in case anybody needed to remember that. But also,

there are two kinds of nukes. There's the nuclear submarines, which is just an energy source, and then the nuclear weapons. So which of those were you signed to? Nuclear submarines. In fact, I befriended a former nuclear submarine captain and I would sit around with him talking about his he's retired and became an instructor at Boost.

And I would just love to hear his war story. So I thought I was going to be the captain of my sub someday. Wow. So but then you had to you couldn't serve because you had a skin condition and you can't be. Yeah. Is that the deal? Absolutely. So you know how it is. If you don't have health insurance, you don't go to the doctor. So I had had this horrible skin condition my entire life and I got diagnosed for it properly for the first time in the Navy. And they were like, oh, sorry, you can't be in the Navy with this

because it impacts your readiness. It really was horrific, I must say. And I didn't get proper treatment until almost a decade later when I was in graduate school. Wait, wait. So this is like some kind of psoriasis or something? It's atopic dermatitis. It's an incredibly severe case of atopic dermatitis. Like if you've seen me in my youth, I'd scratched so much. I was hairless and I was several shades darker for breaking all the melanocytes or whatever they're called in my skin. Yeah, it was a mess, man.

And I was in pain 100% of the time, of course, my torso. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so that's all right. Damn. You know, you should write a book. Okay, so wait. So over all this time, you're reading Einstein and other sort of fun physics.

And the Bible's in there, too. So how did the Bible show up in your life? Well, listen, I was in church every Sunday. You know, wherever we lived, we moved every year and several times every year, right? Several times in some years. And everywhere we went, my mother didn't care what the denomination was. We're always in the black community for the most part. And you were going to church.

And, you know, being a little scholarly dude, you know how it is. I became voracious with books. So when I was in Mississippi, my brother-in-law let me know that, dude, you're not sitting around with everybody else eight years and older going to work. At 12 years old, you're going out there, you're hauling pulpwood in those woods with my father and brothers. And if you don't know what hauling pulpwood is, you don't want to know. It is crazy hard work. And for a child, it's criminal down there. But a few days out there, my skin erupts head to toe, right? And so I'm left at home every day and I'm searching for reading material. And there's the big children's version of the King James Bible and the regular version. So I just spent day after day sitting there and I devoured the Bible from cover to cover. And the next year I was the adult Sunday school teacher.

OK. Yeah. Teaching adults, teaching adults. Oh, yeah. So I started off with the kids and then I moved up to teaching the. Because, you know, I had so much insight at that point. And, you know, you know how it is when you have that process of praying. But it's one thing to have read the Bible. Yeah.

It's one thing to have read the Bible and know what's in it. It's another thing to have digested it so that you can now teach lessons to people in Bible school. That's a whole other level, right? Yeah, it is. But it happens automatically, right? You start making connections, and you start. And for me, I don't know about you. No, it is, but it happens automatically, right? You start making connections and you start, and for me,

I don't know about you. No, it doesn't happen automatically. It happened automatically for you. Okay. I mean, just think about it. I mean, by the way, it's not unique to the Bible. Just because you got an A

in your physics class doesn't mean the next day you can start teaching that very same class. True. Because teaching it requires some deeper insights that enable you to communicate

what you just learned. And it's not just a recitation of a fact that just came off the page. That's right. All right. So, yeah. Stop trying to think everyone is as smart as you. Humans are dope. Humans are dope.

I'm a human. You're a human. Chuck's a human. We're dope. No, no, no. Chuck. The jury's still out. The jury's still out.

I was with you until you said Chuck. Yeah. We're not sure yet. But I do think Neil is right in this, that people who are in your position feel as though, oh, well, everybody does this and it's not really the case, you know? And it's funny because I had a teacher who that was how he taught us. He would say, all right, so you think you got it? And when you said yes, he would say, now teach it to me.

And that's how you got your grade. Well, here's the thing, though. Were you interested in that? How did you think when you were interested in things? Because the thing about you was- Then it would come to you easier. It would come easier. Absolutely.

And I was surrounded by people, like my good friend, Chris Morgan, right? He finished high school. He's been working a job ever since. Didn't even consider going to college, right? And in fact, we were chatting and I was like, what are you doing after high school? He was like, nothing.

And it was like, ah, so I thought, okay, you're supposed to go to college or the military, right? But look, that dude was brilliant. He was kicking my ass. We would play games. You know, he was, Chris was dragging brilliant. He was kicking my ass. We would play games. Chris was dragging me.

And I was surrounded by brilliant people. Even now. And one of the worst things that happens, you go home and you want to hear the wisdom of your homies, but because you got some fancy degree, they're like, I can't talk to you, man. I'm like, no, man. I need the wisdom that's in your head too, right? Right. You had some good friends. Absolutely. You had some good friends because when I go home and I see my friends, man, I need the wisdom that's in your head too, right? Right, right, right. There's wisdom in all walks of life.

Absolutely. You had some good friends, because when I go home and I see my friends, I'm like, I don't want to hear nothing that you got to say. I've known you my whole life. You's a dumbass if I ever met one. Well, you know, I do, but listen now, when I start talking science, I had this one friend, he'd always go,

there he go with that stuff again. Like, they didn't want to hear that. They didn't want to hear the science. Yeah. Right. Right. Well, so what's this about daydreaming and why that was dangerous? Did you daydream a lot as a kid? I still do. I still do, man. I still do. I just daydreamed up four big bangs last week. What do you mean by four big bangs? Because we think of it as one big bang, right? So to us physicists, you know, we know that, you know, matter and all this stuff is an illusion and we live in this universe of fields.

So imagine you got something like swimming pool of jello, right? And you have several, one's green, one's blue, one's red, one's yellow, and you just merge them together in one, right? So that's like all these fields merge together. So we have the inflaton field goes from this high energy to low energy. Boom! Gives all this money to the space field. That's the first bang. Space

expands rapidly as a result. Boom! Second bang. But that rapid explosion of space causes it to fill with matter and energy suddenly. Pow! Right? But it's equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which annihilate. Pow! Right? But it's equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which annihilate.

Boom! Fourth bang. Okay, Chuck, he's still on drugs, apparently. That's the third bang. Come on, now. It happened like that.

With all the authorities now. But it's four. The Fermion field, right? It sends this energy into the electromagnetic field. It's like energy goes from the infotainment field to space field

to Fermion field to electromagnetic field. And then what energy goes from the infotainment field to space field to far beyond field to electromagnetic field. And then what has happened? Space stretches it out, right? Okay, so is this something you daydreamed recently or when you- Last week. Last week.

I may have been. I don't know. What was the transition between physics and astrophysics? When you finally, you know, when you finally, sense finally descended upon you and you realize the universe is cooler than anything else. Yeah. So the thing about the universe, I've been attracted to it from day one. I've been attracted to nature, but I was also attracted to weirdness, right? So I learned, you know, my friend told me that,

you know, if you're under 18, you can't be held to a contract. So I used to order those time life books, you know, Yeti, you know, Bigfoot, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I got into comics. My Mississippi cousins introduced me to Marvel and DC Comics and I loved it. So when I hit Einstein and Relativity, I'm like, this is just like that stuff, like the miracles in the Bible, sci-fi, all that stuff, but it's real. Except it's real. Yeah, exactly. It's real. And then I was like, I got to learn this. So I started teaching myself relativity at the age of 10 and I just struggled with it. And I didn't realize that I, how well I knew it until I won first place in physics in the Mississippi State Science Fair, right? These professors started coming at me place in physics in the Mississippi State Science Fair, right? These professors started coming at me and, you know, I didn't know anything else about physics, but I knew that. And so in college,

what ends up happening is I take my first physics class, realize this has to be my major, and then I get accepted miraculously, though strategically, at Stanford for graduate school. And when I talk to all the professors, they have one African-American professor. I wanted to do experimental astrophysics. Astrophysics, I felt, was where the natural world met weirdness. And whew, let's do it. Yeah, that's true. I got to agree with that. So where did you go to college before Stanford? Tougaloo College. Yeah. Tougaloo in Mississippi. In Mississippi. That's right. Okay. That was their motto, Boogaloo at Tougaloo College. Yeah. Tougaloo in Mississippi. In Mississippi. That's right. Okay. That was their motto. Boogaloo at Tougaloo. Is that right? No. No, I just made

that up. Alright, we gotta take another break but when we come back, I want to understand Hakeem, what this obsession you had growing up with compulsively counting things and a little more about your very unlikely quantum life on StarTalk.

Time to shout out our Patreon patrons. Emily Rivera, Jocelyn Salias, and Nicholas Early. Guys, how would we do this show without you? Well, the truth is, we wouldn't do it as well. And for those of you listening who would like your very own Patreon shout-out, please go to patreon.com slash

StarTalkRadio and support us. We're back. Star Talk. I got Chuck Nice with me. Chuck. Hey. Reading Chuck Nice comic. And I got my special exclusive guest for this interview,

Hakeem Oluseyi. And Hakeem, you're on social media? I am. Yes, I am. So what do we call you? How do we find you on Twitter? If you put Hakeem Ol're on social media? I am yes I am. So what do we call you how do we find you on Twitter? If you put Hakeem Oluseyi in Twitter that is my handle there. And no one else has that Twitter name? It wasn't me

yes O-L-U-S-E-Y-I again there's a Facebook page as well I presume? There is I'm not there as much I suck in that way. Okay TikTok or that way. I will. Any TikTok? No, but I do have Instagram.

And I have my first initial, middle initial, HMO Luce. HMO Luce. Yes. Okay. All right. Thanks for that info.

So we learned from your profile that you counted things as a child. And I still do. Obsessively, compulsively. And I still do. And is that, compulsively. And I still do. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, I went to see a psychologist because I thought it was a problem

because my eye is diverted to count things in the room around me, right? And so if you're doing business negotiations, you should be looking the person in the eye. Are you counting like objects or any kind of objects in the same category? Patterns. Like behind you, there is a picture frame.

I like particular numbers like 10s and 20s. So every frame is an easy 20. So my mind would do it over and over as I'm talking to you, just like I have been doing the entire time we have been talking. So each inner corner is 2, 4. The outer corners are 6, 8. The inner and... Wait, wait.

Pay attention to me. What? I'm showing you 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. You just do it over and over and over and over and over. I just can't stop it. I don't know what's going on. Yeah.

All right. That's a little weird. Oh, you want to hear even weirder? When I go up and down stairs, not only do I have to count them, I have to count them in such a way

that when I go down them, my left foot lands at the bottom and lands on the number one. that when I go down them, my left foot lands at the bottom and lands on the number one. And when I go up them, my right foot must land at the top and land on the number 100, which means I have to guess what number and what foot to start on at the beginning of the stairs. And you'd be counting by fives or sevens or tens? No, just ones, just by ones, just by ones. But I am so good at it.

Wait, wait, wait. You're serious? You might not have 100 steps. Yeah, suppose you have 10 stairs. No, below 20, I'm nailing it. If it's 10 stairs, I got it. Boom. I don't know what it is by my mind, but it's like, bloop, bloop, bloop.

Oh, it's up to 100 is how you would be engaging this. For example, if I see 17 stairs or whatever, I have to start on my right foot on number 84 at the bottom. And then go 85, 86, 87, 88. And so when I get to the top, my foot lands on 100. Yeah. And I'm so good at it. It's nuts. See, we have that in common.

I have to land on a prime number, which is why I always take the elevator. Okay. So, Hakeem, you know, do I even dare share this with you? So when I was a kid, I thought of all the numbers that were just living in my head, and I decided to write down every

single number that had any meaning or significance to me at one sitting. Are you done yet? No, at the time. So I wrote down every zip code At one sitting. Are you done yet? No, at the time. Just at the time. But still, that could take you forever. So I wrote down every zip code that had any meaning to me.

I wrote down every phone number, seven-digit phone number that had any meaning. Every street address. The digits of Pi. I also happen to know the fifth root of 100 to 12 decimal places. What? That's down there. Oh, my God. And so it's a whole page just filled with numbers.

But I didn't view that as compulsive. It was just how many numbers am I carrying with me, and is that necessary? I think it was more of a practical exercise. And then I stepped back and looked at it, and I said, I think that's a lot of numbers, but I tried to make sure it didn't grow so that I had room for other things in my brain. But this number thing, there's some resonance there between us. I just thought I'd put that out there. You know, there's even more. I also had other kind of superpowers like you named that I no longer have, like rotary phones.

I used to just amaze my family because I was like, you dial this number because I could just tell from the sound of the phone, right? Or if a car pulled up in a yard and it was a family member, that's so-and-so just from the sound of the car, right? So the people around me were like,

oh, this kid is a freaking, and you know. He has voodoo. Absolutely. And because my eyes are a weird color, when I moved to Mississippi, there were several elderly people that was like,

that boy have devil eyes. He's evil. And they just treated me like crap. Yeah. What a shame. Yeah. Okay. So let me ask you both this.

It's so weird. Speaking of your childhood. All right. So like in your book, you have these moments where you look to the stars and it has a profound effect on you where it causes you to go outside of yourself. You know? And I know Neil, when he was a kid, had the same experiences. Yeah, in the planetarium, I was nine years old, and the lights dimmed, the stars came out, and that's it.

I was starstruck ever since. And I'd go out into the real sky when I finally saw a real sky because I grew up in New York City, and I'd go out into the real sky when I finally saw a real sky because I grew up in New York City. And I'd look up at the stars and I'd just place them in the full three-dimensionality of the universe. And for my whole life to this day,

anytime I'm alone out under the stars, but I have to be alone. If I'm alone, I want to be abducted by aliens. I want a beam of light to come down and zap me back to some other planet, and I want to meet the aliens. I'm with you on that.

Oh, you should have told me that. I would have made a call. You got me. Is there something now, with all of your experience, exposure, and knowledge of the universe, is there something now that gives you that same experience? Yes. In your work or in your admiration of the universe

or anything that puts you in that same wonder of i see the night sky in 3d oh my god out of body kind of like this this is why i'm this is why i'm here. Well, you know. Is there something now that happens? Sometimes you have these insights, right, that aren't really insights, but just like, oh, that's really interesting. So for me, data does it. And so the data that did that for me a year ago

was a visualization created from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data done by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. So we say things like, oh, there's 2 million or 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. So we say things like, oh, there's 2 million or 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, and we show these slices of the universe. But when you see a 3D representation, you can look around the universe, you see what the galaxies are. But just to be clear, when you project the full 3D universe on paper,

you take slices through it. These are slices you're referring to. When you go to a full visual 3D representation, no longer are slices necessary. Absolutely. I just want to clarify that. Go on. Now, is that the barrier on oscillating stereos?

Woo! You heard a lot of stuff. Survey? Well, no, this is before that. So, boss. This is before that. Yeah, this is the, okay. This is the precursor to that.

Basically, in a way, yes. Okay. Slow digital sky survey. But so here's what I thought about. But this is not your imagination. No, it is. It's actually in 3D. It's actually in 3D, but it triggered my imagination.

Because what do we do when we teach students astronomy? In order for them to understand the universe, we say, well, you know, things like this, analogies. The universe is the basic building block. The galaxy is the basic building block of the universe in much the same way that the cell is the basic building block of your body. And I thought to myself, well, you know what, let me take that to the limit. Let me take that seriously. So what if I shrank myself down so small that the size of a human cell in respect to me is like the size of a galaxy with respect to me now, right? So that's like 20 orders of magnitude for the nerds out there. So I did that. Now I was like, what if I then study the universe from that perspective?

So say I'm in an elephant and I'm like, oh, I see these types of galaxies. They're spirals. They behave this way. They're structured this way. Oh, I see these. They're ellipticals. They behave this way. They orient themselves this way. Now let me do the same thing in my analogy. I'm in an elephant. Oh, I see a nerve cell. These things behave this way. They distribute this way. Now, let me do the same thing in my analogy. I'm an elephant. Oh, I see a nerve cell. These things behave this way. They distribute this way. Blood cells, bone cells, muscle cells. Do you have any freaking idea what an elephant is?

Okay, so what you're saying is... Interesting. So, you are... Who's the woman who drives the bus that can go any size and shape? The magic school bus. You're on the magic school bus. At all times.

At all times. At all times. Yeah. Wow, that's pretty wild, though, man. That's a great analogy. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a change of perspective.

It is. It's a true change. Let me give you another change of perspective, right? Because us scientists, we always like to talk about, like, how everything is just all space. Like, oh, you know, how long does it take a light ray? You know that visualization on the Internet where in real time we're going to travel from the sun at the speed of light. The travel of the beam of light.

Yeah. It's brilliant. Brilliant. Completely brilliant. Right, right. I love it. Visualization. I tweeted it.

Anybody's wondering. So someone shows the actual beam of, an actual beam of light, well, I mean a video of a beam of light moving from Earth to the moon. And it takes about one and a half seconds. So you see it take one and a half seconds. Then you see a beam of light go from the sun to the Earth that takes eight minutes and 20 seconds. So you wait there for the eight minutes and 20 seconds. And watch. You say, damn, that light is slow. Right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So what was I talking about? Yeah, so in your PhD, you quote Ibn al-Haytham. Yes. We spent a bit of time on him in Cosmos. Is that right?

So why don't you remind everybody who he is? He is, I consider him the first practitioner of the scientific method. He's the guy who showed that the eye is a passive receptor. It does not send out a beam and bounce back. And when Isaac Newton, your favorite scientist I've heard, said, if I have seen farther than others, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. Ibn al-Haytham was one of the people he was speaking of

because his book of optics as a scientific treaty is in history. At around the turn of the century, 1,000 just changed everything. Right, so this is in the golden age of Islam. That's right. Back between like 800 and 1100 AD. So there's a quote here, which it's got it all in it. Will you allow me to read it?

Please, sir. If you'll give me permission. Please. You know everyone loves to hear your voice. Okay, so just a reminder, Ibn al-Haytham was a mathematician and astronomer and basically credited with the first formulation of the scientific method, which would take probably another 600 years to become widespread use, but he landed there first.

He said, if learning the truth is the scientist's goal, then he must make himself an enemy of all that he reads. He should also suspect himself so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. There, in two sentences, is the fundamental seeds of the scientific method. Scientific method. Yeah, there you go.

And his statement about Ptolemy is amazing as well. For a man to imagine an arrangement in the heavens does not make it exist. Okay. I like the first one better. We got a couple minutes left here. So tell me, you were born James Plummer Jr. That's right. And now you pulled the African card.

Yeah. So where did that come from and why? You know what? So the first thing, the seeds of it started when I read my very first novel, which happened to be The Book Roots. Everybody was talking about it. I didn't have any love for adult books at the age of nine.

Right? And so I'm sitting around the farm, bored as I don't know what. I'm like, let me give this thing a read. And I got stuck. I mean, I could not put it down. But when he got captured, that was the first thing that just got me in the heart. When Kunta Kinte got captured. When Kunta Kinte got captured, right? Then the second one was the middle passage. And you've been a, wait, wait, and you've been a, a, a Star Trek Next Generation fan ever since. Right?

I was thinking of him. I didn't know whether or not I should say so. Anyway, no, no. Remind us who played Kunta Kinta. LeVar Burton. LeVar Burton. LeVar Burton. Who, when I met him,

was one of the very few times I've ever been starstruck. And he bought me my very first vodka tonic. So... Wow. Wow. All right, so keep going. So now you're in roots now. So now what?

Yeah, so then the thing that just kills me, man, is when they force him to change his name, right? And so that just planted a seed in my mind, right? And so as I'm developing, you know, believe it or not, this really isn't in the book. But so what happens is, you know how you make these connections? By the time I'm out of the Navy and I'm in college, I start making these connections about the society in which we live and all the way it works against, you know, the way it maintains the hierarchy, the socioeconomic

hierarchy we have, right? The identity hierarchy. Implicitly and explicitly and legally and de facto and de jure is a hierarchy. So you know how you sit around your dorm room, listening to music and other things. So I want to, you know, start talking about this stuff. And the group of people grew and grew and grew till we had to take it to the dorm. And everybody's like, oh, you're a prophet. And then these cats from the Nation of Islam showed up. And I was like, this is over. I am not doing this anymore. It's gotten too serious. But, you know, I was just like making all these connections, you know, of what's going on. But did that answer your question? Just to remind people, the Nation of Islam is the branch of Islam

that is based in the United States of America. Is there any more description of that that I have to give? Well, it's not really a branch of standard Islam. It's sort of a new religion that was founded by Elijah Muhammad, where he combined Islam and Christianity. So go on. Yeah. So when I get to Stanford, right, I feel like there are certain things I need to know. This is Stanford Graduate School in Physics. Graduate School in Physics. Right. Yeah. So I had this buddy because I was, you know, what they called Afrocentric at the time, who always was encouraging me to read certain literature, and I never would. When I got to Stanford, I was like, Blackness, help, where are you? And then, you know, I filed it in the library. And so I started just devouring, and I had certain questions

in my head. For one thing, I wanted to know the political structure. I wanted you to be able to tell me a year, and I'll tell you who the major nations in the world were at that time and what was happening in Africa at that time. I wanted to understand African religions. I wanted to understand everything, right? And so historically, I'm a huge history buff all the way back to the Big Bang. And so what happened is I realized, you know, okay, I'm doing well in school. Stuff like this matters. I feel like I've become a new person. I've let go of the old guy. I'm now the man. And I was reborn in a way. So I said, here's what I want. I want my middle name to express who I am. I want my first name to express who I wish to become. And I want my last name to honor my African ancestors. And the reason, that's who I identified with, right? And so my middle name, Muataata is Swahili, and it means

he seeks the truth. My first name Hakeem, most people know it from the Muslim connotation, but actually it's all over the Near East and Africa, and it always means the same thing, some form of wise. And my last name, Olushayi, means God has done this.

It is Yoruba. Because on my mother's side of the family, our, you know, we have family gatherings. They were proud of always saying, we were not slaves, we were not slaves. And frankly, until the actual research was done and put in my face in the 90s, I never believed that.

I was like, then how the hell did we get here then? We're black, right? But it was true. And so my ancestors, this... It was the Black settlers. It was the Black settlers that came across the Bering Strait. No, they went from the lost tribe of the Bering Strait. Well, you know, I did read, you know, you read Roger, what's his name? Roger A., somebody who's like, everybody in history was Black. This guy was black. That guy was black, right? Beethoven's black. So,

what was I saying? So, Olu Shea, they came from, he came from Eurobaland, went to France, went to San Domingo, had a son, my great-grand, great-great-grandfather, and then moved to New Orleans, where, so this is my great-great-great-grandfather. And my mother's great-great-grandfather.

Right. Yeah, yeah. So, Eurobaland, yeah. So, this is my great, great, great grandfather. And my mother's great, great grandfather. Yeah, yeah. So this is an important rebirth. Absolutely. This is, so you are a new person. See, now I thought you changed your name because when you went to Stanford and in your book, none of the white people would help you with your projects. And after you had helped them, and so you're like, you know what? I'm going to make these people as uncomfortable as possible.

Yeah, my name is Hakeem now, okay? No, it wasn't that. I did do that in my early years. I was in one of the few research groups that had a stereo in there. And they were known for that being so cool. They have a stereo in the student offices. Dude, one day I went on there. I put on Ice Cube America's Most, followed by Ice Cube, Kill at Will, followed by Ice Cube Death Certificate.

But later, I learned that we are all individuals. And then he puts Sina back to jail at that point. But, you know, I learned that we're all individuals. So I don't even say white people, black people like that anymore because, you know, I'll tell people I'm lucky. I've been abused by white cops and black cops. I've been held at gunpoint by black thugs and white thugs. I realize that there is an identity hierarchy in

our country. One of the things that happens is you leave America, you have this sense of whoo, because you don't feel it anymore. You don't feel that oppression anymore. It's a weight lifted. It's a fascinating phenomenon. I don't have that problem. I look down on everything.

Well, you know what? One of the psychological games I play, like when I'm driving across a part of the country where it's worse than others, is I pretend I'm in another country. Because then I don't know what your assumptions and thoughts are, right? I don't know what your mores are in your countries.

So I'm free. Yeah, but they'll let you know real fast. You're absolutely right. I'll tell you a funny story like that. When I was in Berkeley... I see you ain't from around here now. I'm from these parts. When I came back to astronomy, I was at UC Berkeley.

And among the group of people I was in, we saw a pearl mutter in those cats. And my blackness for the first time wasn't this issue. So I was sitting in a talk, and was like, oh, my God, I forgot I was black. Right. Right. I left that position and became a professor in northern Alabama.

And they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're black. Wow. So, guys, we got to land this plane. So let me. So this guys, we've got to land this plane. So, let me – so, this was quite the journey. Like I said, you should write a book. Oh, you did write a book.

That's right. A Quantum Life, My Unlikely Journey from the Streets to the Stars. And it's published in the Random House group, right? It's a Penguin – It is. It's on the Valentine imprint on Penguin Random House. The Valentine imprint. It's out this year. Yeah.

Yeah. So this sounds like a long overdue memoir based on all the stuff you were talking about. Now I wonder, you know, if all this is happening to you, this is just your memoir part one because the rest of your life, that's got to be worth another memoir, I'm thinking. Oh, it's absolutely. It's even crazier. I'm not abused for the first half of it. Okay.

But, you know, it's because now I have agency. Now I'm the guy who can make a difference in other people's lives, right? Yeah, so that'll be how all that got turned into something where you do some good for the rest of the world and for the frontier, the moving frontier of physics. So I'm liking it. Thank you.

Listen, thanks for being a guest on StarTalk. And will you invite us to the Hollywood premiere of the biopic on your life? Yeah, because you know they're going to make, they got to make this into a movie. Oh, I guess you haven't heard.

I guess you haven't heard. So after I got the book deal, I went to Hollywood. I met with several production companies. My last meeting was with a man named Chadwick Boseman and his partner, Logan Coles. And he took this on. And when he passed away, He had 10 projects. And Logan told me that my our project together was the only one where it wasn't resting on the fact that he was a an actor in it. He was purely directing. And we met a week before he was giving the commencement address at Howard. And I was being awarded an honorary doctorate at Tougaloo. Right.

being awarded an honorary doctorate at Tougaloo, right? And so we talked about this, and he championed my story, and Universal signed it on the first pitch, and we signed a movie deal two years ago. Already? Already. However, Chadwick's death has changed things. Okay. Yeah. Well, don't worry, because it's a great story. Somebody will pick it up. This should not need Shirey Bozeman to get made. I'm pretty sure about that and just make sure michael b jordan plays you man because then you know it's guaranteed success there's a great similarity between my childhood abs and michael's current abs i got six-pack abs, too. They're just under four inches of fat. But they're there. I promise you. All right, guys.

So, listen, thank you, Hakeem, for agreeing to this interview. And good luck with the book tour. And you got good backing behind that of Random Houses and The Equation. So, hope to see you on the bestseller list. And I'm waiting for my ticket to the premiere. And Chuck agreed that Michael Jordan's got to play you in this role. So that'll happen. All right.

Chuck, always good to have you here. Always a pleasure. This has been StarTalk Radio, an exclusive interview with Hakeem Olusai, who is a fellow astrophysicist. I'm meeting really here for the first time and who has a remarkable life captured in his memoir, which comes out this June.

Okay. So this has been StarTalk. I've been Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As always, keep looking up. Bye.