ADVENTURES IN PHYSICS AND MATH Edward Witten From a young age, I was fascinated by astronomy. This was not exceptional because the late 1950's were the start of the space race and everyone was excited about space. I really cannot remember how much my interest in astronomy predated the space race. At the age of about nine or ten, I was given a small telescope (a three inch reflector) and one of the highlights of my growing up was to see the rings of Saturn. Something that puzzles me in hindsight is that in those days I thought Saturn was hard to find. By now, having assisted several children with their own small telescopes, I am quite aware that Saturn is one of the most obvious objects in the sky and easy to find from almost anywhere on Earth in any small telescope on any clear night when it is above.. https://www.sns.ias.edu/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ComemorativeLecturePopular(1).pdf
Witten looks very uncomfortable talking about consciousness. One gets the feeling that he wants to tell the interviewer: I can't even answer a question a trillion, trillion times easier, like,why is there something rather than nothing?