{"id":4299,"date":"2010-03-10T20:56:26","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T04:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2010-03-10T20:56:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T04:56:26","slug":"report-from-colbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/10\/report-from-colbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Report from Colbert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reporting back from a hotel in midtown Manhattan, having made it through<\/a> the Colbert Report<\/a> basically unscathed. In fact the experience was great from beginning to end. Update<\/strong>: here is the clip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'Sean Carroll<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n\n\n
The Colbert Report<\/a><\/td>\nMon – Thurs 11:30pm \/ 10:30c<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
www.colbertnation.com<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Colbert Report Full Episodes<\/a><\/td>\nPolitical Humor<\/a><\/td>\nSkate Expectations<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Monday morning I talked on the phone with Emily Lazar, a researcher for the show. I was really impressed right from the start: it was clear that she wanted to make it easy for me to get across some substantive message, within the relatively confining parameters of what is basically a comedy show. From start to finish everyone I dealt with was a consummate pro.<\/p>\n

We got picked up at our hotel in a car that brought us to the Colbert studio, and hustled inside under relatively high security — people whispering into lapel microphones that we had arrived and were headed to the green room. Very exciting. The green room was actually green, which is apparently unusual. I got pep talks from a couple of the staff people, who encouraged me to keep things as simple as possible. They made an interesting point about scientists: they make the perfect foils for Stephen’s character, since they actually rely on facts rather than opinions.<\/p>\n

\"colbert\"<\/p>\n

Stephen himself dropped by to say hi, and to explain the philosophy of his character — I suppose there still are people out there who could be guests on the show who haven’t ever actually watched it. Namely, he’s a complete idiot, and it’s my job to educate him. But it’s not<\/em> my job to be funny — that’s his bailiwick. The guests are encouraged to be friendly and sincere, but not pretend to be comedians.<\/p>\n

We got to sit in the audience as the early segments were taped, which were hilarious. I feel bad that my own interview is going to be the low point of the show, laughs-wise. But I went out on cue, and fortunately I wasn’t at all jittery — too much going on to have time to get nervous, I suppose.<\/p>\n

I had some planned responses for what I thought were the most obvious questions. Of which, he asked zero. Right off the bat Colbert managed to catch me off guard by asking a much more subtle question than I had anticipated — isn’t the early universe actually very disorderly? That would be true if you ignored gravity, but a big part of my message is that you can’t ignore gravity! The problem was, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t use the word “entropy,” resisting the temptation to lapse into jargon. But he had immediately pinpointed an example where the association of “low entropy” with “orderly” wasn’t a perfect fit. So I had to go back on my pledge and bring up entropy, although I didn’t exactly give a careful definition.<\/p>\n

As everyone warned me, the whole interview went by in an absolute flash, although it really lasts about five minutes. There was a fun moment when we agreed that “Wrong Turn Into Yesterday” would make a great title for a progressive-rock album. Overall, I think I could have done a better job at explaining the underlying science, but at least I hope I successfully conveyed the spirit of the endeavor. We’ll have to see how it comes across on TV.<\/p>\n

I shouldn’t end without including some good words about the bag of swag. Not only does every guest get a goodie bag that includes a bottle of excellent tequila, it also includes a $100 gift certificate for Donors Choose<\/a>. How awesome is that?<\/p>\n

And as we left the studio, there were some young audience members lurking around hoping for a glimpse of the great man himself. They had to settle for me, but they sheepishly asked if I would pose for a picture with them. Not yet having perfected my diva act, I happily complied. I hope they take away some great memories of the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reporting back from a hotel in midtown Manhattan, having made it through the Colbert Report basically unscathed. In fact the experience was great from beginning to end. Update: here is the clip. The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm \/ 10:30c <td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'Sean Carroll www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}