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[gentle music]

[no audio]

[gentle music]

[gentle music]

- [Larry] Just about everybody
that's into astronomy

has this sort of wonderment
about the universe,

its vastness, its
mystery, all that we know

and so much more
that we don't know.

[gentle music]

- [Elise] Everyone is
fascinated with the cosmos.

There are so many unknowns.

We are really just
bumbling in the dark.

[gentle music]

[gentle music continues]

- [Announcer] All
right, keynote speaker

for the evening is
Dr. Larry Molnar,

"The Lives and Dramatic Deaths
of Contact Binary Stars."

Dr. Larry Molnar.

[audience clapping]

- Thank you for having me here.

I always enjoy telling
stories about the stars.

Tonight and tomorrow you're
going to hear a new story.

This hasn't been told on the
lecture circuit all around.

You're hearing it
for the first time.

I did not really
know when I began

where I was going to end up.

It's been a bit of
a rollercoaster.

I didn't always know what
was gonna happen next,

and it's actually a story

where there's still a
few pages left to write,

and particularly the topic
for tonight is the search

for the next star
that's going to explode.

[gentle music]

[no audio]

[crowd chattering indistinctly]

- Well, we're on the top of
the science building right now

on Calvin's campus, waiting
to see a total lunar eclipse

at the point of perigee.

So that means

that the media would call
it a blood moon super moon.

[attendees chattering
indistinctly]

- [Larry] Yeah, and a lot
of people were upstairs,

just looking at the mirror

and hear about what
the observatory does,

and it's better PR if
the clouds are clear,

but I think people
know we're here.

They might well come back
and that's exciting to me.

[attendees chattering
indistinctly]

- Astronomy is one of
the oldest sciences,

in part because everyone
can participate.

If you're a sheep
herder 5,000 years ago,

if you sit out at
night, you can observe

that the planet's move over
the course of the year,

and that next year at
about the same time

the constellations will
be in the same place.

So there's an important
sense in which

these are the earliest
patterns that humans can see.

- Even in ancient times,
Aristotle understood

that the Earth was a sphere
and his proof for that.

- [Matthew] Larry is a
passionate astronomer.

He loves astronomy, and his
default, his assumption is

that everyone should
love astronomy.

- The right size to
exactly block the sun.

Sorry about the clouds.

Everybody gets a free voucher

to come and visit the
observatory on another night.

We are open Monday night
through Thursday night,

when it's clear.

We have so many good things you
can see with this telescope.

Just come back another night.

- Larry's a very social guy.

When Larry joined the
physics department at Calvin,

he noticed that there weren't
standing social events,

and he felt like it would
be a really great idea

to get students together
so they could get a chance

to get to know each other.

[all laughing]

- [Student] Oh, that's bad.

- [Student] Now I send it flying

about 30 feet through the air.

[gentle music]

- Larry loves astronomy,
and as a scientist,

is perhaps one of the most
careful people I know,

but that's so perfectly
balanced with somebody

who cares deeply about
a community around him,

who's very involved
in church life.

He's an example to many of
us on that front as well.

[choir singing faintly]

[choir singing faintly]

[door rattling]

[lock rattling]

- [Larry] I did my graduate
study at Harvard University,

master's and doctoral degrees.

[roof buzzing]

- Larry was, I thought,
unbelievably smart,

meticulous, and already
an excellent scientist

when he came here,

and it's sort of
something, I think,

you almost can't teach somebody,

is how to be a really
good scientist.

- Of those students
that graduated

about the same time I did, one
is a senior official at NASA,

one was the president of
"Sky and Telescope" magazine.

Others are faculty
members at Yale

and other institutions
like that.

I don't know of any who
are currently teaching

at a small liberal arts college.

This is linear, it's going up.

And then this time,
it's today's date here.

- [Student] You've got a
really, really amazing memory.

- So the star that
led to this prediction

was actually first investigated
by an undergraduate student.

I've heard of graduate students

or postdocs being the
ones to make a discovery,

but it's exceedingly rare
that it's the undergraduate

who's looking at the raw data

and who is the one who
makes the discovery,

so that's really cool.

[gentle music]

- Daniel van Noord, I was
the original discoverer

of the period change
in KIC 983227,

and the student
researcher who did

most of the preliminary
analysis on the system.

I will say I didn't actually
discover the star itself.

- The star was originally
identified as a variable star

in a survey that I used

for my PhD thesis
at Michigan State.

I was presenting a short
talk on this particular star,

and it was very fortuitous
because, at the time,

I was looking for
experts in the field

who could help me
interpret what was going on

with this very strange star.

- I volunteered and said,
"I can figure that out."

- His interest and his alertness

has actually started down a path

which now is going way
beyond what he imagined

at that moment.

[gentle music]

Other people could, in
principle, recognize

this is an interesting
star, but they didn't.

[suspenseful music]

- We have this image of science
that you see in the movies

and in television and books,

and it's sort of a
eureka moment, right?

You have the badly
dressed scientist

sitting in a dark room, working
on something by themselves,

and then they make a discovery,

and then they run out of
the room and they say,

"I have discovered this thing,"

and then everyone now
knows that to be true

and they believe it.

None of those
aspects is correct.

Very rare for a scientist
to work by themselves.

It's almost always in a group.

When it comes to the
moment of discovery,

there's never a
moment of discovery,

but one person says, "Hey,
I just saw something funny.

Can you come take
a look at this?"

[gentle music]

- [Larry] This is a star
that was changing its light,

getting brighter and
dimmer, brighter and dimmer

every 11 hours.

It would go brighter
and dimmer twice.

And the question is

is that because the star
is really getting brighter

and dimmer, that it's a pulsing,

something inherent to the star,

or is it an artifact of
how we look at the star?

Binary stars, as they
orbit around each other,

one star eclipses the other,

and so it will
look fainter for us

just as we see it at
different phases of the orbit.

What we were able to
show is that, indeed,

it is a binary star,

but as we put all
the data together,

we came to a very
striking pattern.

[suspenseful music]

- They presented
this initial result

where they had
looked at the star,

they had figured out that
it was a binary star,

and they had realized,

"We think it's starting to
spin faster and faster."

- What does that mean?

It means the stars actually
have to be getting closer.

Well, these stars
are already so close,

they're nearly touching.

How much closer can you get?

They have to be pushed
into each other.

They have to begin to merge.

That event can
release as much energy

as the Sun would release
in its entire lifetime.

- That's when it
was hitting me, wow,

this is just a few years away.

Nobody's ever seen
anything of this kind.

I raised my hand and
pointed out to the students

that, "This is
important, people."

- What we're talking
about is a prediction

that a pair of stars
are going to collide

and essentially blow up.

Nobody has ever been
able to do that before.

- A lot of people know that
things will blow up eventually,

and they publish articles
about it all the time,

but my prediction is

that this thing is going
to become a red nova

in three to five
years from right now.

- That's an incredible
needle in the haystack.

It's sort of like one
in 10 million stars

would go through this
in a human lifetime.

- It only happens when
you're not looking.

It only happens if you had a
lifetime of a million years

that you'd be there to see it.

- The odds of it are very small,

the odds that someone would
be looking at the right stars

at the right time.

- Will there be predicted,

now for the first
time in history,

the appearance of a new star?

That's what Larry
Molnar is looking for.

[dog barking]

[birds chirping]

- Generations of students
have really liked Casey

'cause he's just so friendly.

He's almost 16.

[Casey yelping]

Oh my.

You know, we run the telescope
robotically overnight

and sometimes he'll wake up
in the middle of the night

and then, 'cause he
woke me up, I'll catch

that the dome had gotten
stuck or something,

so I give him credit

for catching a few astronomical
problems in the bud.

- There girl, there you are.

Yes, she likes to go for a walk.

[door thuds]

[dog barking]

Hello.

There's a good girl.

Yeah, there's a good girl.

Got my tail up 'cause
this is my street.

Merging stars are
thought to happen

about once every 10
years in our galaxy,

so there must be
one that's out there

that's only a few years
away from blowing up.

It's a question of which one.

In a sense, I guess, the
thought occurred to us

two years ago that
it was a possibility,

but we didn't think
of it seriously.

In that first year, what
we saw is it continued

to get faster, and it's
been keeping right on it,

and that's where sort of the
tension melts, if you will.

I still have to say
with one part of me,

it just seems unlikely
that it's gonna explode

because statistics are

how do you know it's
gonna be this star?

There's so many other
stars it could be,

but if it's not going
to, it's teasing me.

If it's not going to, why
is it continuing to do

exactly what I've predicted
that it's going to do?

Having realized that
even if it isn't this one

that goes off, that there is
a star out there somewhere,

and the thought is we
should look for it.

[suspenseful music]

The idea of novi, the idea
of stars that just blow up,

get so much brighter,
10,000 times brighter

than they were before,
such that you see a star

where you didn't see one before,

that has historical significance

for the very foundation
of science and astronomy.

- [Matthew] Before
the Renaissance,

the European understanding
of the cosmos was that,

by definition, it
did not change.

[gentle music]

- [Larry] Aristotle's science
was the heavens are immutable.

They go around and round in
cycles, but never anything new,

never anything missing.

- [Elise] That worldview
dominated for millennia.

- [Matthew] And then one day,

this Danish astronomer,
Tycho Brahe,

walks outside and as
he tells the story,

he looked up in the sky, and
he knew the night sky so well

that he could see that there
was a new star in the sky.

- [Owen] A nova as it was
called in Latin, new star.

It was so bright that
it could be seen at dusk

when other stars were just
beginning to come out.

- [Matthew] And that
might not shock you,

unless you had been deeply
trained in this tradition

that, by definition, the
sky can never change.

- [Owen] It indicated
that the truths

that had been handed
down for generations

were not necessarily final.

- It changed what seemed
to be unchangeable.

It was that one little dot
that begins all the questioning

about the nature of the cosmos.

If a new star can appear,
then what else might be true?

[tranquil music]

- Here we are hundreds
of years later

with a prospect, again,
of a naked eye nova.

- Stars do not
explode every day.

One of the things that
makes the prediction

of a luminous red
nova, something that
excites all of us,

is that if this
thing does pop off,

it's going to be easy to see.

It's going to be
a naked eye object

seen against the background of
the constellation of Cygnus,

the swan, which is one of the
more prominent constellations

in the sky, and that will make
it quite precedent setting

because we won't
have seen anything

that bright in the sky appear

where no other star was seen
before in centuries, basically.

[gentle music]

- [Larry] Hi Dan, welcome back.

- [Dan] Can you hear me?

- I can hear you,
but I find it curious

that the main console for the
weather station is still blank

after your reboot there.

Our computer hasn't worked
properly over the last year,

which has really limited us

just when we're trying
to do real research,

crashing in the
middle of the night,

not taking the data
we asked it to take.

We brought out a new
computer with the hope

that all of the power
of the telescope

will be unleashed again.

- What's counterintuitive
about the discovery

that Molnar has made
is you would think

that that would come out
of a large collaboration

where you have many
eyes on the sky.

- Our telescope setup
is small science.

It's this 16-inch mirror
that the telescope uses

to collect the
light from the sky.

Big science telescopes are
at least 10 times that big.

- [Karen] The field of astronomy
has been leaping forward.

A lot of the observatories now
are looking at eight meter,

10 meter, 12 meter,

and in the future, 25 meter,
30 meter, 40 meter-telescopes,

and these are the size

of a small football
stadium, basically.

[tranquil music]

- [Larry] So yeah, on the
one hand, it's gonna be

who is this guy exactly?

How is he coming up

with this exciting
discovery when we're not?

But actually, you might
consider it the opposite way,

the large telescope,

you never have much observing
time on any one object.

That means there's a
whole class of questions

they can't answer,
questions that involve

how things change over time.

[tranquil music]

- There's only a handful of
these giant research telescopes.

You can't tie them
up night after night,

monitoring a star that
may or may not erupt.

[tranquil music]

- [Larry] How would a astronomer
from a bigger institution

have done the 18 months

of follow-up
observations we've done?

We've done tens of thousands
of images of this star

since it first came
to our attention.

[tranquil music]

- I don't know if
other astronomers

would have the freedom of
mind even to sort of pause

and say, "What is this
thing we've seen in the sky

and what might this mean?

What might it imply?"

[tranquil music]

- At a less
distinguished university,

sometimes you have more
intellectual freedom.

The downside, of course,

is that you don't
have the resources.

So in a weird way,

modern academia pushes
resources towards the people

who are doing the
most incremental

and least groundbreaking work,

and the people who are doing
the really exciting, risky work

are displaced from
those resources.

[bag rustling]

- [Larry] Cleaning the mirror
is a very delicate thing.

Everything else is a
small piece, can be fixed,

can be repaired, whatever,

but the mirror you're
gonna have right.

We don't have any
formal room to do it in,

so we just have to do
it extremely carefully.

Any scratch you have,
you have forever.

You break the mirror,
we have no telescope.

Jason asked me if he dropped it,

whether he'd have
a job in the fall.

- The answer was "No."

- [Larry] The answer was "No."

- [Jason] Okay, have
to be honest, right?

- [Larry] While I'm
holding that together,

you can take out the
last three screws.

So I'm gonna stand
in the middle here

and actually just put my
head right against that.

[feet shuffling]

[phone ringing]

Oh dear, could you pull
that out of my pocket?

- [Jason] Just like in class.

Where is it?

- [Larry] It's in my
left pocket there.

[phone ringing]

- [Jason] Hello,
Larry Molnar's phone.

- I think there's the
romance of small science

making an important,
in many ways,

fundamental scientific
discovery, and doing it

at a small observatory
rather than a big one

that everyone has heard about,

one of those famous ones

that even non-scientists
know about

Behind the romance of doing
small science, however,

is simply a lot of hard
work and a lot of worry.

- [Jason] Yes.

[Jason and Larry chuckling]

My job is safe for now.

- You don't need big
telescopes necessarily,

but what you need
is perseverance,

and you also need curiosity,

the ability to ask questions
without a preconceived notion

of what you're gonna find.

For good science to
happen, you have to be open

to whatever avenue
the investigation is
going to take you.

[tranquil music]

[tranquil music continues]

[crew chattering faintly]

- [Larry] We are
here in Chaco Canyon

to see something you
can't see anywhere else,

a pictograph made by
people a thousand years ago

of a star that exploded then,

the first known exploding star.

- The flaring star is
actually the representation

of the supernova.

- Yeah, so I think they have
the moon and the exploding star

done the same way as the hand,

is just to say they're all
done by the same person

at the same time.

- [Matt] This also kind
of mimics the looking up

at the night sky or the daytime
sky, too, you're looking up.

- I think that's a
good point, yeah.

The thought that the moon
and the sun and the star

were all visible
at the same time

seems plausible
an interpretation.

I have to think, if you
saw the star explode,

in that case, more impressive
than ours predictions by far,

so bright that you can see
it in the middle of the day,

that's worth noticing,
that's worth handing down,

and I think that's what
these pictographs are about.

It's something
worth handing down.

[birds chirping]

- It's fun to think about,
a thousand years ago is

when this civilization
was thriving,

and that's when they
saw that supernova

that's depicted down below.

1000 years is the same time
it's taken for the light

from the star that Larry's
discovered to reach us.

- We're small people.

We can see what's left behind,

but can only guess at the
culture, the politics,

the personal stories of all
the people who were here then.

In astronomy, by
contrast, we see the past.

If we see the star low up,

we're gonna see what
happened a thousand years ago

with our modern cameras.

We're directly
observing the past,

and it goes on, as we
see distant galaxies,

we're seeing not just
1000 years in the past,

but a million years and a
billion years in the past.

Every slice of the
history of the universe

is actually still
observable today

in more detail than you can
get the history of this canyon.

[upbeat music]

The American
astronomical society

is probably the largest meeting

in the world each
year of astronomers.

It's a tremendously
exciting feeling

to consider the
announcement I'm gonna make.

At the same time, it's a
very nerve wracking thing

because there will
be skepticism,

and I need to be as prepared
as I can be for that.

[upbeat music]

If our star does blow up

and you go back and take a
picture of it two years later,

this is what it might look like.

There's nobody making
predictions of stars

that are going to explode.

That kind of prediction
has never been made before.

For a great claim, you
gotta have great evidence,

and you better have done
things really carefully.

Yeah.

[cars whirring]

Last Thursday, though, I came
up with another hypothesis.

There is another possibility,

merging star isn't the
only card on the table.

The idea is really relatively
simple to describe.

Perhaps the timing
is all messed up

because our pair of
stars is, in fact,

orbiting a third star.

- So if you have a star
orbiting another star

with a really big orbit,

and if they slingshot
around each other,

that star is getting
constantly closer to us.

- [Larry] It could be that
this whole last 15 years,

the star has been coming
in faster and faster

as it's coming in towards you,

and it might be 20
years before it comes in

and then goes out again.

- From the very
beginning, I have to say,

Larry did have the
third-body model in mind.

He didn't forget about it.

He actually relied on some
collaborators who checked it

and then assured him, "Oh,
no, it's not a problem."

But Larry is a careful guy,

and just before he went to
the conference in Seattle,

he thought to check those
numbers and he realized,

uh-oh, they didn't check
this one set of parameters

that actually could allow
this to be a third body.

- I don't think I'm disappointed

so much as it was exhausting

that I needed to
think about this.

You don't wanna go
and say something

you're gonna regret later

because there's some
silly alternative

that you should have been aware
of but you weren't aware of.

[cheerful music]

What's striking though is
the two different predictions

agree completely for the past.

Next year, the
third-body model says

it's going to turn around,
start going back the other way.

The merger blow-up
model says no,

it's just gonna keep
going down and down.

So we don't know today
what's gonna happen,

but it means we will know,

we will know very
soon, next summer,

when we have this
chance to observe it,

did it go this way or
did it go that way?

- [Dan] So now instead of
announcing this exciting finding

to the media, Larry's
just gonna give an update

to a bunch of astronomers about
his progress on the project.

- [Larry] Unfortunate,
having asked

to have a press conference and
having gotten them to agree

that this would be exciting,
to have to then go back

and say, "Well, I
think it's premature."

- Science is very
rarely 100% certain.

The initial results
are often tantalizing,

but not conclusive.

- It is really chasing
particular ideas as
far as they'll go

and having faith in
your own intuitions

about what are good questions

and what are not good questions.

[tranquil music]

- People think of science
as this big pile of facts.

They are literally given a
book and say this is science,

but in fact, science
is often grappling

with what we don't
know about the world.

- By definition, you're
pushing the limits,

you're working at the
edge of knowledge,

but it's scary out
there on the edge.

- So in conclusion,
somewhere there is a star

that right now is within
10 years of merger,

and we should find that
before it goes off.

Thanks for your attention.

[audience clapping]

- In practice, science
is an intensely human,

very personal, difficult,
challenging field.

[melancholy music]

[melancholy music continues]

- After Harvard,
Larry was invited

to go to the University of Iowa

and to be a part of the
physics department there,

and I think that he and
Cindy perhaps anticipated

this being the place

where they would live
out their academic lives.

He liked it very much.

They were well planted
in the community,

and then a couple years into it,

life broke into that department

in a way that was
really horrible.

[melancholy music]

- I got a phone call
from a girlfriend

who said, "Is Larry okay?"

And I said, "Well, what do
you mean is Larry okay?"

And she said, "There's been a
shooting in his department."

- There's been a shooting

at the University of
Iowa campus in Iowa City.

- [Reporter] An unidentified
gunman opened fire,

killing at least three people.

- First word is that the
gunman was a graduate student

upset about the
grading of a paper.

- [Reporter] Angered
at being passed over

for an academic award,
he killed a rival student

who was honored and
then shot to death

three of his professors.

The gunman then
took his own life.

[ominous music]

- Gang Lu was an
extremely bright guy.

He was, as far as I
recall, number one

at Beijing University
in physics,

and as far as I know, had never
ever not scored the highest

on any exam he ever took.

[ominous music]

There is a prize given
for the best PhD thesis

at the University of Iowa.

He did not win that prize.

[melancholy music]

[melancholy music continues]

- In the time
following the shooting,

there's a great emptiness left

where the people you've
lost are not there anymore.

[melancholy music]

[melancholy music continues]

- I just remember him being
heartbroken by the whole thing,

and that was just
a devastating thing

for that whole community.

[melancholy music]

- It was a moment that kind
of highlights the differences

between what one
person most values

and what another person values.

So it was not to him imaginable

that he could be
second in anything.

That was deep in
his self identity,

and it really brought to the
fore a different perspective

on what my self value was,

that my value has been
given to me in my faith,

so that what's important
is that I'm doing work

that is in itself meaningful,

regardless of an
award or recognition,

and that I do work with people

and I try to make that
interaction itself meaningful.

Doing the astronomy,
loving the astronomy,

but not being defined
by the astronomy.

[melancholy music]

- [Chef] When the turkey comes
out, you wanna let it sit,

absorb back all
that great juice.

The way you do it-

- [Larry] Remember how it works?

- [Guest] Work with it, with it.

- [Guest] It's always
[indistinct] on the table.

- So it's Thanksgiving,
just drove in from New York

to visit my parents
for a day or two.

I'm a writer, fiction, prose.

I'm definitely not interested
in science in the slightest.

My dad has that
sort of cornered.

You know, you come home
and see him reading a book,

it's all equations or something.

It's like totally his passion.

[mixer whirring]

- So it's always been my job
to make the mashed potatoes

because her tradition
isn't to have potatoes,

but rather to have rice.

- [Cindy] One of our vacation.

- Just the right
consistency, in my view.

Not too smooth,
but not too lumpy.

Adds a variation on the
Chinese cuisine here.

[tranquil music]

- It's been accepted
for a long time

that what are sometimes
called non-scientific factors

have an important role on
the way science develops

and changes over time.

The work that any
individual person does

is a confluence of the
institutional social forces,

as well as their own
personal biography

and beliefs, or
maybe even ideology.

- Shall I give thanks now?

- Yes.
- All right.

- Heavenly Father, we
thank you for this day

when we all gather together.

- When I first met Larry,

didn't really know
his background.

I didn't know, for example,
that he was deeply religious.

[tranquil music]

Was it surprising that
he was so religious

and yet such a good scientist?

Yes, at first it was to me.

I think, basically,
one can draw a line

and say there's certain
things that I'll accept

without question, and
everything else I will question,

and obviously, that's
what Larry does.

He's an excellent scientist
so he's able to balance that.

[tranquil music]

- When we do notice
that a scientist has

some interesting
personality feature

or an unusual background,

we say they're doing
science in spite of that,

but really, those are the things

that make the great scientists.

That's what points people
at interesting projects

and gives them the kind
of resources they need

to solve those problems.

- I think Larry is motivated

by a complex sense of
calling to be faithful,

to be faithful to
his God, to his work,

to his family, to his community.

That's at the core of who he is.

- I don't need to do
science to have value.

I can do science
for the joy of it.

I can do science because the
world's just so interesting.

I can do science because
God made an amazing universe

and I'm revealing some of his
glory by seeing what that is.

[tranquil music]

- He is deeply curious,

someone who has that
raw, just hunger

to understand the cosmos,

and I always saw that
with Professor Molnar,

even in the most
stressful situations.

- [Larry] I don't know really
whether it'll blow up or not,

and there's one side of me

that really doesn't
actually care.

What I wanna know is the truth.

What is this star about?

[cheerful music]

So we've been waiting
since last November

to get any new data whatsoever

'cause the star is
too close to the Sun.

When exactly you kick
off the new season

depends on the Moon and the
clouds and your busyness.

Dan van Noord, my first
student on this project,

having just graduated
in December,

is now working full-time
for Optec Incorporated.

And then this summer, I
have a new student, Kara,

actually specifically
transferred to Calvin

so that she could work with me.

- A lot of profs use
research students

as sort of grunt work, and they
send you to do this or that

or fill in numbers without
really explaining to you

what you're doing.

Whereas I found Professor
Molnar is very big

on explaining the theory
of what's going on

and why it matters, which is
really unique and special.

[cheerful music]

- So what we're
looking at right now

is my extracting from
images of the night sky,

a real record of
brightness versus time.

I can click and see what
the image looks like there.

That's what beautiful
data look like.

Nice small stars, black
sky, easy to measure.

Or I can click on one
of these noisy things

and I see that's a
cloud wandering by,

and so I'm gonna have
to edit out the clouds

that came by and make
use of what remains.

I am excited to finally see

what is happening
now since November.

So while I've been
calibrating these data

from our small
telescope, looking to see

what the timing has done,
we also got approval

of observing time in June,

which is the height
of the season,

to get the spectroscopy
we need to really test,

one way or another,
for the third body.

[cheerful music]

- Apache Point Observatory
is at the elevation

of 2,700 meters, so it's
almost about 9,000 feet.

We're in the American Southwest,
which is classically known

as a very good, dark site.

The skies are clear for almost
300 nights out of the year.

[uplifting music]

- You always know that if
you get two good nights

on a big telescope, it could
be cloudy those nights,

you could lose it
all for that season

and have to wait another year,

so that's where
we hedge our bets.

We're gonna schedule similar
things at the spectroscope

in Wyoming as well.

[uplifting music]

- [Kara] So it's kind
of exciting to be
sent on my own here,

a little nerve wracking.

[car whirring]

- We bring in five
or six undergraduates

from all over the
country every summer,

and we're delighted to have
Kara from Calvin College

as part of this collection
of summer students.

It's one of life's
pleasant ironies

that we're able to host a
student of my former advisor.

A large part of where
I am in my career

is thanks to the experience
I was able to have

with Dr. Molnar, and
have him teach me

how to be an astronomer.

That's what we want
to do for Kara now.

[telescope whirring]

- [Larry] We need to understand
more details about our star.

We need to understand
are there two stars

or are there three?

We need to know how the
two stars are moving.

For that, you need spectroscopy.

- I've always found
spectroscopic observation

to be really interesting
and exciting.

All these tiny variations
in the length of the waves

can tell us so much about
these huge balls of gas

millions of light years away.

[tranquil music]

- [Larry] So the
question now will be

how do we process these data?

While both Karen and
Jason, my colleagues,

have worked with spectroscopic
data in the past,

neither of them
have actually dealt

with exactly this question.

- [Matt] 90% of science is
figuring out what to do,

and the other 10% is
actually doing it.

[tranquil music]

- [Kara] If the data is good
and we're good at analyzing it,

hopefully we'll know if there
is or isn't a third body.

- [Larry] If it's there,
there's some reasonable chance

we could already see it.

If it's not there,

I don't think we can
100% rule it out.

- [Kara] We maybe saw a
blip that could be that,

but it's so small
it could be noise.

- I'm only asking
is there a big star

that's pushing it
around and confusing me

and making me say
crazy things, right?

Or is there not a big star?

[gentle music]

[gentle music continues]

- I guess you never
know in science

if you'll get the
answer you're expecting

or something wholly unexpected,

and that's the fun
part of science,

and the fun part
of the universe is

that there's just a
lot we don't know yet.

[gentle music]

At this point, everything
hinges on that third body.

If we find it, then
that's the explanation

for what Larry's seeing,
and his expectation

of an exploding star
isn't gonna happen.

[gentle music]

Just like great
astronomers in the past,

we're trying to figure
out which model gives us

the best explanation
for what we're seeing.

[suspenseful music]

- [Dave] By the end
of the 16th century,

when you have people like
Brahe noticing things

that were wrong in the sky,

this sort of starts
a chain reaction.

His student, Kepler,

notices that some other
things don't match.

And then there's this young
Italian, Galileo Galilei,

who doesn't invent
the telescope,

but gets really good at
pointing it at the sky.

So we've got moons
going around Jupiter,

and we've got spots on the Sun,

and we've got
craters on the Moon.

- People who studied
these things realized

that if you wanted to
get a coherent structure,

you've got to move to
a new kind of world.

- What was so revolutionary
about what they were doing

was that they were making
the heavens knowable

in the same way that
the Earth was knowable.

So it was science
of a new caliber,

it was a science that said
our intellectual abilities

as humans can be applied to
things beyond our control,

like the heavenly bodies.

And instead of being other,

they became a part of
the story of who we are.

[tranquil music]

- What happens following
Tycho Brahe and Galileo

is, eventually, Isaac Newton.

- It is Newton's view of God
as infinite and invisible

that influences his
understanding of the cosmos

and of space and
time and gravitation,

and influences his perspective
that this is a domain

that we as intellectual
creatures made in
the image of God

that's open to us
for investigation.

- And that's part of the
excitement of science,

when you put together your
data for the first time

in a way that you can start
to analyze something physical

about what's going
on in the universe,

that's the preliminary look.

We see two distinct bumps.

Sometimes they blend
together, but like right now,

there's a bump on
the right side,

and as this little
bump switches sides,

that's telling us that
there's a less massive star

orbiting a more massive star.

If there were a third
star, my initial guess is

it has to be pretty
faint if it's there.

- I think it's been a
very productive evening,

even though we're very tired.

Her early numbers really
match my expectations

for a merging binary star

that's all by itself
without a third body,

and we didn't really have
that information till tonight,

so I'm very excited that that
seems to be what we're seeing.

- So if we flip to the back,

we can see our actual data
from Apache Point on the left

and WIRO in Wyoming
on the right,

and so what we're looking for-

- So it's really been quite
a rapid learning curve,

to say that in four weeks
we really understand

what we're looking at and
can draw a conclusion,

where four weeks ago it was
exciting to have brand new data

in our hands, it's all
the more satisfying now

to say we know what
the data are saying.

- To the second background here.

As we look at this chart,

the first thing we have
here is the period,

which is getting
faster and faster,

so it's an important
factor as we look at

how soon it's gonna merge,

with our predictions
of three to five years.

The key as far as figuring out

whether or not there
is a third body

is whether or not we
see that spike in green

in any of our spectra.

- And so if there were
a third star there,

we would see it
in this spectrum,

but there's nothing left here

that looks like
that, however small,

where a month ago,
the third-body model

was really the more likely model

for any reasonable
interpretation.

We can now rule it out.

We've tested the model and
therefore it's not there,

and the unlikely
model is what remains.

- Scientists are
supposed to be impartial

and not want it to turn
out one way or another way

because then you're biased,
but inside, we're like, "Yeah,

we know what we're doing.

It's this way.

I was hoping for this."

[crowd chattering indistinctly]

[bells ringing]

- [Announcer] Thank you
for celebrating Picnic Pops

with the Grand Rapids Symphony.

[upbeat music]

- [Larry] So if you
get tickets in here,

I'll just wait right here.

[cheerful music]

- Definitely Larry thought
about music as a career,

but he, I think, had an
interest in astronomy

for a bit longer than
his interest in music,

and so astronomy won out.

[cheerful music]

- Music speaks to
something deep in the soul.

[cheerful music]

It's one thing I
like, especially about
the fireworks pops,

is that it starts an hour
later than the other ones,

and so that in the second half,

you begin to see
the stars come out.

[dramatic music]

[fireworks exploding]

[dramatic music]

[gentle music]

[gentle music]

There's a hundred billion
stars in our galaxy.

Millions upon millions
of stars out there

that, in the next five years,

are gonna do nothing whatsoever.

We really shouldn't, by
coincidence, have found

the next star that
is going to blow up.

We still don't know if we're
right, but at some point,

you've gotta go out on a limb
here, make our prediction

so the larger community can
know that we could see a nova

from the get go for the
first time ever in history.

[tranquil music]

[Jason and Larry
speaking faintly]

- Nothing out of the
ordinary that I saw.

So now we have our results.

We're full steam ahead
with our prediction,

but before we can
let the world know,

Larry needs to write it up

and present it to the
astronomical community,

so that's what we're
waiting on right now.

- And right now, we're
just holding back,

kind of waiting until
Larry gets that paper out.

- It's now August 10th.

I wanna be done
by September 8th,

and we have to subtract one week

'cause I'm going to visit
my mother on Wednesday,

which, you gotta do
what you gotta do.

- [Matt] Larry is
extremely meticulous.

He takes his time to
be extremely careful.

- [Jason] I think he's
feeling, in a real way,

the tensions that
scientists can feel in terms

of their different commitments
and responsibilities.

He has a responsibility as a
scientist to get things right,

but he also has a responsibility

to share with a
broader community,

so he is feeling that pull.

[cheerful music]

- Yeah, hey guys,
out of the way.

All right, this is going in, so.

- Just as we reached the end
of our summer research period,

Kara shared with me

that she's not going
to come back this fall,

that, apparently, with
the changing value

of the Canadian dollar
in the past year,

it's not clear to her she
can afford to stay here.

That's certainly a
blow to our project.

Having had her here for a year,

she's learned a whole
lot about binary stars.

The real joy as a professor
of working with students

is to see them grow
and to share with them

the scientific project
at a deeper level.

In this case, I'm gonna have
to start from scratch again

with a student that is just
learning what's going on.

- [Dan] Not having her on the
team is gonna slow him down,

and he already needs as
much help as he can get

to make progress at a rapid
rate, so we're gonna miss her.

[cheerful music]

- Well, I made huge
progress this summer,

and then I ground to a
halt for four months.

- [Dan] That paper
still isn't out.

- I've had to recalculate
a few things as well

just to make sure it's really
fully and properly done.

The good news this
month, January, 2016,

I have released time from the
college to finish my paper.

[cheerful music]

It's an incredibly
busy semester,

so intense that I haven't
made any progress on my paper.

- He's on Larry time.

Larry's always on Larry time.

You just don't put
a timeline on it.

You just say, "It's
just Larry time,

and he'll be done
when he's done."

[Larry speaking faintly]

- He's under a lot of pressure.

He's got a lot of
teaching responsibilities,

he's a perfectionist
when it comes to writing,

so I understand it, but
still, the clock is ticking

and we really would like
to get this out there.

- It's a joke in the
physics department

that it's taking him
forever to write this paper.

It's kind of like he's
the captain of a ship

having us do all these random
jobs just to keep us busy

until he's ready for it.

[playful music]

- Well, it's now August 11th.

I've spent my entire summer
trying to finish the draft

of my paper.

So scientific advice

from my Chinese fortune
cookie manufacturer,

"Time is precious, but truth
is more precious than time."

I've been a little slow
getting my paper done,

so this is my comment
to my department chair

to just be patient.

We'll get this at
the right time.

- [Dan] It's the
engineering, too, right?

- This is what we're
looking at here.

This thing's going in today.

- It is amazing how
many details there are,

to dot all the Is,
cross all the Ts.

So it says here, "Email
the editorial office

if you have a
problem with this."

So in fact, I just
emailed them a moment ago,

and here is my
email back, 11:31,

from the office manager saying,

"I have finished the
process for you."

She hit the submit button,

[all laughing]

She stole our thunder.

Here is my acknowledgement.

It has been received.

I have a name-

- By the way, the star
has already exploded.

- [Dan] Yeah, exactly.

[upbeat music]

- Welcome to our
Friday morning briefing

here at the 229th meeting

of the American
Astronomical Society.

So in case this is your first
press conference at the AAS,

I'm gonna introduce the
topic and the speakers,

and then we'll start on
the left, go to the right.

- In my presentation today,
I have two of the elements

that, to me, make
science exciting,

a very specific prediction
that can be tested

and a big explosion.

- In 2022, we might be able to
witness an explosive creation

of a new star.

- [Interviewer]
Professor Larry Molnar,

as he tells this his
story, professor?

- [Reporter] That prediction
has launched Larry

into the International
spotlight of science news.

[reporter speaking French]

[reporter speaking
foreign language]

- [Rick] The "National
Geographic," "Washington Post,"

the "Telegraph," "Russia Today."

- La boom star.

A German outlet quoting
a French outlet,

quoting this English term.

[upbeat music]

- I have to say, I'm
not surprised at all.

I saw this coming years
ago at that seminar

when you first announced it.

I said, "This is
going to be huge.

This will be world news."

- So yesterday evening, I
walked my dog around the block

as I do twice a
day all the time,

and three quarters
way around the block,

a man came out
down his driveway,

who I've never spoken to before,
and said, "Are you Larry?"

- Word gets around.

- Told me, "Really
cool coverage,"

so I am literally being
stopped on the street there.

[car whirring]

[footsteps thudding]

Good morning.

- [Representative] Good
morning, come on in.

Are you here for an interview?

- [Larry] Yes, I'm Larry Molnar.

- [Representative]
Okay, follow me.

- [Staff Member] And
after that, [indistinct].

- [Interviewee] I wanna thank

a lot of the news organizations.

- Oh, I think I get nervous
to begin with, yes. [laughs]

- [Interviewee] They
looked at that nonsense

that was released

by maybe the intelligence
agencies, who knows?

But maybe the
intelligence agencies,

which would be a tremendous.

- Just a little focus
on something else here.

Hello?

Yes, this is Larry.

- [Interviewer] Now,
you've been quite vague

about when this happens.

How much more information
do you think you can get

as we get closer to this?

- Now, if you look
through the records,

there's been
predictions in the media

of binary stars merging

in the next a 100,000 years,

or in the next million years.

I would call those vague.

I'm saying in the next five
years, give or take one.

So it's really a little
unnerving to be that specific.

- Larry's been
getting some pushback

from the astronomical community

about whether his hypothesis
is plausible at all.

One guy who really doubts
it is this guy Tylenda

who's done work in this area.

[reporter speaking
foreign language]

[reporter speaking
foreign language]

- The main reason for
which I am rather skeptical

of their conclusion that
this system is going to merge

in a few years is
that it was found

in a very small sample of stars.

There is a Polish proverb,

searching for a
needle in a hay stack.

- To understand why Tylenda's
opinion matters so much,

you have to go back
to Larry's work

with what he calls
his Rosetta Stone,

the star V1309 Sco.

- V1309 Sco was a star
that exploded back in 2008.

Nobody saw it happen, but
Tylenda was able to go back

and use some archival data

to get a glimpse
of how it happened.

- [Matt] Tylenda
was able to show

that V1309 Sco was a binary star

that went through
this death spiral,

and it's on the basis
of Tylenda's pattern

that Larry's saying,
"Oh, this KIC star

is gonna go through the same
motions, the same death spiral,

and eventually explode."

- Another person
that made a comment

about our work was Ondrej
Pejcha, a Czech astronomer

who was studying the actual
explosion of V1309 Sco,

trying to model what
was going on there.

He's able to make some headway

in understanding the explosion
that occurred in 2008.

However, Pejcha decided that
it won't work for our star.

- Yeah, I admit that
I'm actually skeptical

that the two stars will merge.

I still think that there
are other explanations

for what is observed that
are potentially more likely.

[gentle music]

- [Reporter] But
if they're lucky?

- If they're lucky, but it
would be extraordinarily luck,

extraordinary, incredible luck.

- Well, yes, I could be wrong.

We'll see that very soon.

And if I'm wrong, I'm gonna
be very publicly wrong.

- So the stakes are
getting higher here,

but he's no stranger to
taking risks, that's for sure.

Larry's a person who
will act out of principle

and takes risks if he
thinks they're justified.

[bus whirring]

- I still remember the shooting.

It was November 1st, so
the day after Halloween,

there was nothing that could
be done about the shooting.

The motivation and
whatnot was so unrelated

to anything anyone could guess.

Where with the flooding in
'93, it seemed quite clear

that there was something that
I, in particular, could do

that others either
weren't equipped

or weren't interested in doing.

- [Reporter] Now, Iowa has
seen its share of flooding

over the years, but
nothing of the magnitude

of the flood of '93,
water everywhere,

and that water spread
higher and farther

than in any past flooding.

- The flooding in Iowa

was a really big
piece of our history.

- It affected my neighborhood.

The effect to me was actually

to ask the question that
summer how was the dam managed

and were we doing
the best we could?

- And Larry, in his usual
very comprehensive way,

very careful way, looked
at this issue of flooding

and the dam.

- It certainly illustrates
the way I think about science,

which is we have models,
models make predictions,

and we test those predictions.

In 1993, they said that that
flood was a 500-year flood.

It would never happen again.

It seemed quite clear to
us that it would happen

in the next 10 to 15 years.

Area here where it
meets the river.

That led us to work very hard

to try and get them
to change those plans,

knowing that it
would happen again

and hoping that they would
do better the next time.

Concrete.

- Well, astronomers don't
necessarily have that

on their job description,

that they're helping people
in the local community.

- Along the way, his faculty
chair approached him and said,

"Larry, I think you maybe need
to refocus on your own work

and not mess around
with this stuff here."

- He spent a lot of
his personal time

on the issue of flooding.

- The time lost to working
on these other issues

had a serious negative
impact in his career

because, in the end, he
did not receive tenure.

[gentle music]

- Not getting tenure ends
your life at that university.

You have to leave, you're
told you're not good enough.

The irony in this case
is that Larry was right

about the flood and if
they'd listened to him,

they could have saved
themselves a lot of damage.

- 2008 was even more
devastating than 1993.

People lost their homes in
a broader area than in 1993.

- Larry's neighborhood,
when he lived there

had approximately 135 homes.

There were only about 65 left.

- I know, it was very dramatic.

So this is where our
house used to be.

- It's hard to recognize even.

I mean, I see the corners,
so I know it must be here.

- Yeah, yeah.

So 'cause Larsons were there,

but there's so many trees here,

as though it had not been here.

- [Larry] No house, yeah.

- Yeah, so I think the
house was right here.

- [Larry] Wow.

- Yeah, the house
was right here.

[melancholy music]

[gentle music]

- [Matt] Larry's the kind
of person who's gonna do

what he feels called to do,

even if it means
sacrifice on his part.

He wasn't setting
himself up for success

according to how academics
work and how research works.

- He will chase
the unusual thing,

and I think that,
in part, accounts

for what is happening right now.

[gentle music]

- Serendipity, they often say,

comes to the
prepared mind, right?

We were open to this and
willing to follow it up.

[Larry and student
speaking faintly]

It's because of our focus on
the undergraduate students

and our willingness to
try something unlikely,

and our perseverance to
try it for four years

that we can come to this point.

In a sense, it's
serendipity, but in a sense,

this is exactly the kind of
place where that can happen.

[gentle music]

- There we go, we have
more selections of pop.

Over this past summer, we
analyzed some of the data

since September, and we
have added some new dots

to our plot, which
as you can see,

those little red dots follow
almost perfectly our line

that we had plotted from
our paper in September.

- So there's a real tension here

because Larry's
getting this pushback

about what his predictions are,
but he keeps taking the data

and it's all lining up just
like he says it's gonna happen.

- So question one,
are we still on track?

Yes, right?

Because it was very
publicly put out there.

- [Dave] I think it takes
a good deal of courage

to step out there in
front of other scientists

who are going to do everything

to essentially shoot
it full of holes

and to still go forward.

- Ideally, you want as risky
a prediction as possible

because that will
teach you the most

about the thing you're
trying to study.

In practice, it's very hard
to be a professional scientist

and make high-risk predictions.

Most predictions fail,

so if you make a really risky
prediction that then fails,

you lose everything.

- [Larry] I feel a lot
of pressure right now,

just the fact that there are
these a couple other groups

that have said,
"This doesn't work."

I want to get word out there
that that's not correct.

- [Matt] One of the issues
is that his prediction

seems to be based
on just dumb luck.

He doesn't have a theory

for why the star
would be doing this.

If he had a theory, it would've
helped to build the case

and to understand what's
gonna happen next.

[gentle music]

- I've learned tons about,
quote, unquote, "real science,"

what it's like to
be on the front line

in terms of this is
an abstract thing

that we don't understand

and we're right up against it.

Like, we're actively
exploring avenues

and finding things that
work and don't work.

- I don't understand.
- Yes.

- It's...
- I don't either.

- I mean...

- So you may theoretically
have a disagreement

because you as humans just
don't know the answer.

The star does know the answer
and the star will tell us.

- [Student] My brain hurts.

- Well, because
it's been so hard,

nobody's been able to
get a decent structure,

the interior of
the contact binary,

and they've been trying
this since the 1970s.

- Like it or not,
Larry's prediction is
based on an analogy,

and that's pretty unsatisfying

from a scientific point of view.

He thinks that his star
looks like another star

that happened to behave
in some interesting way.

But usually you don't wanna
just point to a pattern,

you want an underlying
explanation for it.

[gentle music]

- One of the interesting things

about the history of astronomy

is that you can just
talk about observations

of things you see in the sky,

and you can come up with
good mathematical predictions

based on totally
incorrect knowledge.

So for instance, you can predict

where the planets are
going to be on the sky,

assuming that the Earth is
the center of the universe,

and that works perfectly well,

but to get to sort
of a mature science,

you also want to be able
to answer why questions.

Why do the planets move in
these particular patterns?

- Newton gave us a
universal law of gravitation

and said, "Look, it's not just

that we can use our
intellectual capabilities

to understand and
evaluate the heavens,

but they're all governed
by the same few laws,"

and that was really a
change of worldview.

- [Owen] For the first time,

you began to look at
the heavens physically,

rather than geometrically.

- [Matthew] Newton's vision
of inert matter pulled on

by the force of
universal gravity

described by mathematical laws

explains in a satisfying
way all the things

that were known
up to that point.

So then the question becomes,

could it be extended
to new things?

Can Newton's cosmology
help us understand

something we have not yet seen?

And then your predictions have

some sort of metaphysical
meat behind them.

We're moving from just
being able to predict

where something is
going to be on the sky

based on observation to
tying those predictions

into a larger cosmology.

It's not just that
it's going to be

where we think it's going to be,

but we know how
the universe works

such that that prediction
is going to come true.

[suspenseful music]

- In the past six
months, my understanding

of how contact binaries
work has matured greatly,

and the key to that has
been one new discovery.

So we go through, then
we also have to address

what other people have
said, skeptical of us.

The discovery in
a massive data set

that was studied by
the Polish astronomer.

They have a table of 104 objects
that we wanna talk about.

He'd looked at a million
stars to find close binaries,

and he found 20,000
close binaries,

and then he looked
at those 20,000

and he found 100, which
were changing their orbits.

I took those and plotted
them in a way he didn't plot,

and was able to throw
away 90% of them

and find just seven
that are left.

They're doing something new.

- By analyzing data

that was supposed to be
refuting his predictions,

he was actually able to
identify a lead on more stars

that could possibly
explode in the future.

[gentle music]

- [Matt] So we don't
know what's gonna happen

with the KIC star,

but the addition of these
seven stars gives Larry a basis

for building a theory
and understanding

how to look for
this kind of star.

- All the targets
are really exciting

'cause maybe they're
merging star's very much

like V1309 Sco, maybe
even more like V1309 Sco

than our star is.

But they're really faint,

and they're in a really
crowded part of the sky,

and especially, they're entering
the southern hemisphere.

- We can't do much more

without follow-up
data on those systems.

The problem is they're all
fairly dim and fairly southern,

and so we have
collaborators elsewhere

who are gonna help us with that.

- My name is Maja Vuckovic.

I'm a professor at the
University of Valparaiso,

which is not in the United
States, it's in Chile.

When I met Larry a
year ago on a workshop,

he started to explain to me
about this group of stars.

And so then I was like,

"Well, we should just
follow these stars."

These stars happen to be
in the southern hemisphere,

so not reachable from the north.

- [Larry] And
probably next summer,

a trip to Chile
would be involved

to take some data

and really know what's
going on with those stars.

- [Matt] This is a
really exciting time
for Larry's project.

The observations are continuing
to confirm his prediction.

He's got a growing
number of collaborators.

The other thing that's
interesting is that

I think we're entering
this sort of a golden age

of observational
astronomy for the public.

We had this solar eclipse,
which much of the nation saw,

and really captured
the popular imagination

for what things are
doing in the sky.

[gentle music]

Larry's discovery,
if this star goes

into the red nova phase in 2022,

it'll be right in the
middle of that golden age.

[gentle music]

[people chattering indistinctly]

[gentle music]

- I have not always known I
wanted to be an astronomer.

I didn't grow up in a
wealthy family, necessarily,

so I didn't really have a
chance to go to college.

Right after high school,
I actually joined
the Marine Corps,

and it was actually while
I was in Afghanistan

that I saw the lunar eclipse

when I was out there in 2011.

And then I saw the lunar
eclipse again six months later,

and something kind of clicked

in my head of, yeah, this
is something worth pursuing.

This is something I wanna do.

[gentle music]

[suspenseful music]

I first heard about
Larry's prediction

shortly after his
paper had come out.

Dr. Welsh, my advisor,
brought it up to me,

and he asked if, "Hey,

is this something
you'd wanna work on?"

And I said, "Yeah, you know,

it's something that
would help me."

Should be a quick
project, one summer, done.

[suspenseful music]

[suspenseful music continues]

- Because it was such
an interesting project

that lured us in
and said let's see

if we can make it a
little bit better.

We can get, grab this data that
Larry didn't have access to

and see if it helps.

- If we could get a better idea

of when they were gonna
merge and outburst,

then we would know when to
point our telescopes up there

and look for this explosion.

So we were pretty excited
for this to happen.

- But much to our surprise,
when we got the Vulcan data,

it didn't fit, it didn't work.

[suspenseful music]

[hand knocking]

- [Matt] Hey, I hear
you have a game changer.

- We do.

- [Matt] So do you
think it's real?

I mean, do you think
this one is right?

- The question here is about
our very first data point

at the left, they
don't place it there.

They place it an hour later.

How do they get something
an hour different

from what we get?

- Yeah, that's a
huge difference.

I mean, and it's pretty obvious

that your model
depends pretty heavily

on the positioning
of that point.

- That's right, and they
agree with every other point,

so it all comes
down to that one.

Question is is their
offset the right one

or is our offset the right one?

[suspenseful music]

- As an undergraduate,

someone who hadn't
even officially moved

into the graduate program yet,

disagreeing with a
professional astronomer

who had been doing
this work for years,

I doubted myself a lot.

Are we doing something wrong?

Did we make a mistake or a
typo somewhere along the way,

and we double and
triple checked our data.

Everything that I have learned
about how to collect data,

the physics of the
stars, trust in that

to not just trust
someone else's prediction

that I'm the wrong one,
but to trust the science,

and we were certain
that we had this right.

[suspenseful music]

[suspenseful music continues]

[suspenseful music continues]

- Turns out the time we used,

we'd have the star
below the horizon,

so whatever is the
cause of it all,

it's clear that our
number cannot be right.

[melancholy music]

- [Matt] The problem here is

that Larry and Dan
were using a mix

of their own data
with other data,

and when they put
that all together,

they thought that a
certain model would work,

but it turns out that the
old data was mistaken.

The model Larry was using
can't fit all of the data.

[melancholy music]

So it seems pretty clear that
you're gonna want to have

a go-to statement to refer
people to it when people ask.

- Absolutely, and that'll, yeah,

and to think that
through a little bit.

- You can be as
careful as you want,

but implicit in every
scientific prediction

is the conditional statement,

assuming our data are reliable.

- [Larry] Right, right, right.

- It's always there
as a qualifier.

That point, for whatever reason,

whoever's fault it might be,

that point turned out
not to be reliable,

which undid the
whole prediction.

- Bottom line is,
therefore, the time we used

can't be the correct time.

The half day off has
to be the correct time.

The premise for what's unique
about this star is gone.

The prediction made
by this data point

just has randomly
followed what we predicted

for the last five years,
but for no good reason,

other than to lead us astray.

[gentle music]

- What's really frustrating
is that it's something

that really we
couldn't even control.

It's such an unlikely
source of error.

We had no reason to think

that that number
could have been wrong.

[melancholy music]

[snow rustling]

- We're going to
the annual meeting

of the Michigan Space
Grant Consortium

where we'll be presenting our
final word on our KIC star,

and I guess it'll be
the first public venue

to hear us speak
on the end of that,

but also exciting new
prospects for the future.

- So since the basis of
our model has changed,

our prediction is
no longer founded.

While it's disappointing

that there won't be a major
explosion in the next few years,

we have a second story that
we're very excited about.

- Yeah, so now we're
gonna begin the new story.

During our research, we
studied the OGLE survey of

about a million stars,
and we found seven

out of a million in this
survey with a rare long period

and a large negative
period derivative,

and so our question was-

- It was important to me

that we get a really good,
clear message this morning

as we're sort of wrapping
up that stage of,

it's not the KIC star
that's going to blow up,

but that we had a second
story where we really feel

we are understanding
the whole process now.

- Our surveys, and
maybe we might even find

the next stage three object.

[audience clapping]

- You know, we all had hopes
for a great demonstration

of the predictive power
of physical science,

so I was deflated

in the sense of the
excitement of the expectation.

It was in my calendar, you know,

watch out for the press release,

watch out for the observation.

And yet this is a terrific
example of how science works

and how science is
supposed to work.

- I'm glad to answer that
and I think your readers

will be interested to
know what's the update,

since they're wondering
what's happening.

This is how science
is supposed to work.

That is self-correcting.

If there's an error,
we will find it

and know when we're wrong.

[people chattering indistinctly]

- It's a disappointment,

but the way that it has
been discussed and handled

and processed has
been a huge testament

to what science should be
in terms of it's motivated

by a genuine desire to
understand the universe

and how it works.

And that's one thing that
inspires me about Molnar,

it's about finding the truth,

and he always tells us that,

and so I think
that's really cool.

[gentle music]

- [Matt] So Larry's
prediction didn't pan out,

but what he learned along the
way might actually be bigger

because the theory
could lead him

to lots of those kinds of stars,

and he's just starting to
look at these first seven.

[gentle music]

- This week, we will be
observing the targets

that my colleague Larry found.

In the case that Larry
is right, we will confirm

that these stars are definitely
getting closer together

and that maybe eventually
they will hug each other.

- So seven targets
that we're looking at

in the most crowded
part of the Milky Way,

this part here in Sagittarius,
which is the direction

towards the center
of our galaxy.

A place that we can see well,

if you're in the southern
hemisphere, straight overhead.

[uplifting music]

[uplifting music continues]

[paper rustling]

- [Maja] So here it says DSS
2 has a filter that is red.

- Though I was not in Chile, I
did lose quite a lot of sleep

over these last nine nights,

and I've seen enough
of the data to know

they are capable of
answering our question.

- The seven stars, it turns out,

are tracking just
as Larry predicts.

So he has seven live candidates
to go on and keep searching.

[gentle music]

- You fall off the bike, you
gotta get back on the bike.

I wanna make clear to
people that I am moving on

and that I'm moving on making
progress on emerging stars.

Long-term project.

- He was showing me
his latest research,

and I was actually
quite impressed

and interested in what
he has done recently.

- With Sean Matt.

- The new direction
is pretty exciting.

Larry has determined the ways

in which we might look for
stars which will be merging

in the near future.

- He was able to map out
how the whole population

of these binaries evolve

in relatively simple
and uncomplicated ways.

Now he's got a group of about
seven stars, and actually,

in the future, more
objects like this

can be identified.

They are so far away,
and [indistinct].

- I can see a path forward.

I can see how to scale this up.

It's probably gonna take 10
years to actually achieve,

but at that point,
we should be back

where we were two years ago,

with the candidate
that's gonna merge,

except we'll know that it
is, indeed, going to merge.

[suspenseful music]

[gentle music]

So what is the
nature of science?

Anybody tell me how
does science work?

It's a mystery.

Yeah, it is, in many ways.

What I like about
science is it's a place

where you can ask
cool questions, right?

There's this amazing
universe around us,

and we get to say how
does it work like that?

[suspenseful music]

- [Matthew] A failure
in science is a failure

to relinquish an idea

in the face of facts
that contradict it.

Science succeeds by getting
closer and closer to the truth

of what's actually
happening in the real world.

[melancholy music]

- [Elise] There's a
necessary epistemic humility,

a humility about
what we can know

and the limitations
of human knowledge

and human investigation.

- [Matthew] But our desire
to wonder how do things work

and what does this tell
us about who we are

and what our place
in the universe is,

this is what people do.

[gentle music]

- Do I think other
people are catching on

that I'm making progress?

Not yet.

In a sense, that's part
of the excitement as well.

In the next decade, I
should have the prediction

of the next one
that will blow up.

It may not be as near,
may not be as exciting,

but to actually
eventually get back to

can I predict the next
one that will blow up,

that is my long-term goal still.

Harder to get there,
but more sure.

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