I don't like trying to influence politicians, who are themselves representative of huge numbers of people. As an educator, I'd rather enlighten the people and educate the people and let they be the ones who put the pressure on their elected officials.

Everything we do, every thought we've ever had, is produced by the human brain. But exactly how it operates remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries, and it seems the more we probe its secrets, the more surprises we find.

While I'm a big fan of science fiction, especially as rendered in expensive Hollywood blockbusters, it's the real universe that calls to me. To fall into a black hole, that is more amazing than anything I've ever read in a science-fiction story.

There is a growing awareness that we're losing our technological competitive edge. I think there's an awareness that we're losing our leadership, and that maybe our self image over the past several decades has been a little bit delusional.

For all we know, the aliens have already done this and unwittingly concluded that there was no intelligent life on Earth. They would now be looking elsewhere. A more humbling possibility would be if aliens had become aware of the technologically proficient species that now inhabits Earth, yet they had drawn the same conclusion.

If we want to unlock the secret behind the origin of our sun and its planets, it would be helpful to find some remnants from the birth itself, an event that took place about four-and-a-half-billion years ago.

I have found that when calculating what no one has calculated before, like my observing sessions on the mountain, my mental acuity peaks. Ironically, these are the times that I would flunk the reality check normally reserved for mental patients and dazed boxers: What is your name? What day is it? Who is the president of the United States?... I do not know, and I do not care. I am at peace with my equations as I connect to the cosmic engines that drive our universe.