Ep 59: Dr. Merritt Moore, Quantum Physicist on Dancing Robots

James Thomason: 0:04

It's the Next Wave Podcast Episode 59. This week I'm here with my co-host, Dean Nelson, Brad Kirby and Dr. Laura Roman. Today we're joined by Oxford PhD, Dr. Merritt Moore, who is a quantum physicist, a professional ballerina, an astronaut in training, and who is currently doing groundbreaking work in AI and robotics. Dr. Merritt graduated magna cum laude with honors in physics from Harvard and graduated with a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics from University of Oxford. She also moonlights a second career in professional ballet, previously with the Zurich ballet, the Boston Ballet, the English National Ballet, and the Norwegian National Ballet. She was awarded Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018 and she was one of the 12 Select the candidates to go undergo rigorous astronaut selection on BBC Two

"Astronauts: 0:48

Do You Have What It Takes? Dr. Moore's background in ballet, physics and aerospace has led her to programming and dancing with robots. Her motivation is to gain expertise in robotics and AI, which will be the future of space and the future here on Earth. Invited as an Artist-in-Residence at Harvard Art Lab, Meritt began exploring movement between human dancer and industrial robotic arm right before the pandemic. And during the pandemic, she created a number of dances with robots, which became featured in time Financial Times Vogue, BBC click and more. She explores the future of AI and machine learning specifically with dance and welcomes all forms of collaboration fusing dance physics and tech merit urges that the arts and sciences should not be mutually exclusive. And she inspires young women around the world to pursue their dreams. She has been invited to be the featured speaker at the Forbes Women's Summit in New York, Princeton physics department panelists for the US Embassy women in STEM panel in London and is featured in the bestseller Good night stories for Rebel Girls merit. What a fantastic story. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 1:46

Thanks for having me. I'm very honored to be with you.

James Thomason: 1:50

And you're joining us for Dubai. Apologies for the late the late night recording session. It's far past cocktail hour.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 1:55

Now. My pleasure.

James Thomason: 1:57

So you and Laura know each other is that correct? Networked through Oxford?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 2:01

Yep, virtually, I think we've been chasing each other around the world. And so nice to be here on the podcast.

Laura Roman: 2:08

Yeah, exactly, James. So LinkedIn popped us together, and through the Oxford Network, and to the Oxford University Network. And I've just been, you know, married, watching your videos for months now, like I said, and following your research and thought it'd be so great and fun to have you on the podcast, and so lovely to finally meet you albeit still virtually but I wouldn't, you know, we kick off with this quote that Oxford actually said about you, which is that"Merritt has achieved what some would call the impossible, a career as a professional ballet dancer and as an academic quantum physicist." So there are just a lot of exciting questions for you. And let's just kick off with the first one. What brings you to Dubai?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 2:48

Well, London was shut down and Dubai was open. And on a whim look, I went to Dubai for 10 days and then ended up being here for a year. So yeah, nice kind of how this pandemic has turned out. Yeah,

James Thomason: 3:07

I've actually never been,

Dr. Merritt Moore: 3:09

Oh, you'd love it. It's fun. Right. Right. Now there's this expo. So there's like, they're featuring all the different countries. And there's a lot of activity in terms of the arts and sciences, in terms of just exhibiting.

Dean Nelson: 3:22

So you grew up in LA, is that correct?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 3:24

Yeah, I was born and raised there. And my father was a entertainment lawyer. And so I think, as a response to being in LA, grew up without a TV, no Disney, no, barely any more ways, no fashion magazines, no Barbies. So I was very isolated in LA. But once I started traveling, and did a school year abroad in Italy, when I was 15. And then I was like, "Og that's American culture!" I had to get out of the country to discover what it was.

Dean Nelson: 3:56

Well, it's just incredible to hear what you've done. But in LA, the music scene and the arts itself. So did you come back to that after leaving, or?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 4:05

No, I kind of been after I went back for a year, but then I went to college and just kept going east. By to my mom's credit when I was growing up, because we didn't have the TV. So she was like, we're gonna see two plays or two things a week. So we'd go to this weird, random like Filipino Romeo Juliet, or like, I know, Midsummer Night's dreams in the 70s, where the actors would come afterwards being like, so who are you related to? Nope? It's my mom taken us to see, you know, the production that's like, we're the only ones in the audience.

Brad Kirby: 4:45

My wife grew up without a television as well. Her mom was born raised in Taiwan. Her dad was born raised in Germany. She didn't have a TV until I think university and she's kind of similar to you. She did a degree in biology. She has a great tenant piano, Plays violin, she's extremely talented and in every artistic way, but she became an accountant, she actually just recently quit her job like three months ago, her mom, she passed away in 2016. And she's doing what she wants to do now. So, in a way I feel, there's a lot of inspirational messages from you for free, even people like her that are scared to pull together and don't think that they can go to the norms of building a career in what they love. So I understand that you actually doing start ballet until you're 13. And it was partially against your own will? And even your first physics course wasn't until your last year of high school. So maybe you can take us through your childhood a bit more.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 5:44

Yeah, it was late, when I took my first dance class. And, like 13 in dance world is like middle age, like, you're not going to make like, it's just like, you missed the like, when you're supposed to start. And so I think it was a blessing and a curse. One was, there was no pressure, right at all. Like if I was there in the dance classes, because I purely enjoyed it. There was no pressure for me to make it. It was the exact opposite where my friends were like, do you really have to go dance? Can we maybe not do that? But yeah, I first got bribed into it by my mom. I wanted to do taekwondo because she was a double black belt. And she was like, well, we have to fix your posture first, six months of ballet, and then you can do taekwondo. And once I entered the dance world, I was like, like, I'm here. Yeah, no one's taking me away from this. So did that. And then physics, I always loved math. And I loved puzzles. And I just, I knew before it even taken a physics class, I was like, I know, I'm gonna love this. I know it. And so when I took it, my senior year, when I was applying to colleges, I was like, I'm gonna do physics. And I did. I just, I loved that it was, there's so many mysteries in the universe, there's so many things we still don't know. And it's like magic, right? Like also quantum, you're just like, what is superposition? What is this entanglement? Like, what is it?? And the fact that it's also practical that we're building technology with that? Just hit all my buttons. I was like, this is cool, right?

Brad Kirby: 7:19

I remember in grade 10, I loved physics, and I wanted to be an engineer. And then I had a really, really bad experience in grade 11. And I just turned me off. And then I almost went to school for for math. I got into the math program, and I ended up just going the Business Route. I in a way like I kind of... I don't regret it, but I still have a deep like a deep passion for math and physics.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 7:43

Yeah, it's fascinating. It's so poorly taught. In I don't think it's the teachers to blame. It's like the textbooks you're like, really? Yeah, the formula you're gonna have a sit here for like, I had to go through torture for four years, right? You like worried about ramps and pulleys and swings and you're like, you know, when rather they should teach like being like, Yo, like, the things we don't know about is like, we don't know what dark energy is dark matter, for building these quantum computers. And to understand a quantum computer like working backwards being like, you need to understand that information is stored in qubits, quantum bits, which is quantum harmonic oscillators, which then you need to know harmonic oscillator. oscillators, which means you need to understand the pendulum. Like if someone told me that told me why I should learn about the pendulum, because that would help me with quantum computers, or when all about the pendulums when they came up. But instead, I wasted four years being like, Okay, I'm just, I loved I feel like I love this. But also this is torture. And then later, looking back being like, oh, I should have paid attention to this link. I think I would ever need, I'm gonna need this on a swing. Like, why? why?

James Thomason: 8:53

I share your struggle. And I can tell right away that you're what they used to call a global thinker. See, 90% plus of the population prefers to learn in a way that is what they call concrete sequential, they learn a concrete concept, followed by another one followed by another one in a long and never ending chain of knowledge development. But some people the really weird ones, often the creative ones, they simply hate that it's very difficult for them to struggle to do that. And they need to understand the purpose of what they are doing sort of the global context of what they're learning before they learn the underlying bits of information sequentially, or just doesn't make sense to them. And so in your, in your description, I can hear that automatic resonates with me hear that automatically. And struggle with that as well throughout school. In fact, that's why I dropped out of school and just went straight into business because and doing tech because that, that was the end game anyway. And I felt like I could just learn everything I needed to do on the way so

Dr. Merritt Moore: 9:48

They give a purpose, right? Like if you're going straight. I think that's what's missing often in school and what is fulfilling in business or, if you're going into tech is like you understand the purpose and the why and so you're like, I will give 1000 hours to this, like, I will dedicate my life to this. But the problem, or a Yeah, and I think is a bit more universal. Whereas like, I think without that, why? It's like, okay, like, I'll do this one problem sheet like that

Dean Nelson: 10:16

force fed.

James Thomason: 10:17

And the point of fact, you could spend decades learning about machine learning artificial intelligence or robotics before you ever dance with the robot. Before you ever build your own dancing robot, you could be too old to dance by the time you get there. So if you cut to the chase, right,

Laura Roman: 10:30

So Merritt, I want to ask you about Oxford. So I'm thinking about when you started to, obviously your general area, atomic and laser physics, but you have that moment. For any one of us. And especially for protracted degree, like a developer that, aha, this is what I have to do. I got to study this or I will die like, what is that? What was that moment for you?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 10:51

I love being in the lab. So when I was at Harvard, I didn't really like the classroom so much. And I always heard that like, being a grad student is actually more fun than being an undergrad at Harvard. So I was like, Okay, well, then I'm going to act like a grad student, I'm just going to knock on like professor's doors and be like, Hey, can I come and hang out at your lab, because I hear it's more fun here than in the classroom. So I ended up spending like two years working in a condensed matter lab working on this peculiar what we call particle that we're investing in, which is the Majorana fermion. It's this like non-abelian anyon, it's like, its own anti-particle. Like it's the weirdest, but it's so fun to learn about. Anyway, so I was going down this rabbit hole of research doing that. But I also was like, I could spend the rest of my life doing this. But then I'll only know about this one little sector. They, for my defense, I want to broaden that and learn another field to a certain amount of detail. And so quantum optics came up, and my professor was like, the best quantum optics Professor who does research I know, is at Oxford, Professor Ian Walmsley. And so I was like, okay, but I didn't have that "Aha" this is, I think I was always kind of a little bit. It's that combination of like, not fully confident, but fearless. So it wasn't like confident, like, Oh, I've got this, it was like, I'm not sure. But I will dive in and go as far as I can. And we shall see if I like this, you know, kind of thing. And that's been throughout my life where it's

like: 12:30

competence? Not really. Like, I'm not like barging in the door being like, I've got this. There's a lot of like, oh, no, but then I do have that fearless aspect where I'm like, but I will jump, and then we will figure out if there's a parachute. And we'll figure out the parachute situation like when I'm in freefall sort of thing.

Laura Roman: 12:52

And then thinking about some of these more, I almost say, Well, this philosophical aspects of physics and quantum physics, you could make quantum entanglement. There's, like the essence of that, and this idea of interconnection. So I would imagine that parts of your life and for sure, in your career, there's been this again, this like false bifurcation, like, how can you dance and also be a physicist, so you took a year off from Harvard for professional dance, maybe you can talk a bit, what it was like this kind of imposed struggle between pursuing what some people would call a kind of conflicting careers, even just timewise; finite, you know, time, finite time in the day.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 13:35

So when I entered Harvard, I thought, okay, that's the end of dancing. But then there was all these performing opportunities. And so my sophomore year, my second year at Harvard, I just had this like, there are a couple things

that I think came to a head: 13:47

One was, I felt like it was now or never; Two was, I'd heard like a lot of moms or people out there being like, "Oh, I wish I hadn't quit dancing", like I was good but I didn't think I was good. And so I quit. So I had heard that a lot and I was like, I don't want that. I don't want to feel regret later on in life, that I didn't give it my all. So I just was like, I'm going to dedicate everything I've got. So I auditioned. It's hard to get rejected one time is hard to get rejected three times hard to get rejected nine times. I went to 25 auditions. And then on the 25th I got into Zurich ballet while I had a full, like course load at Harvard, like with thermodynamics, like computer science. Like it was the heart. It was very intense. And I think a lot of people are like, Oh my God, that's when we feel us. But for me, I was like, I am improving so much more in each of these auditions than 50 classes. I'm learning not only the dance moves better, because now I'm seeing people from Russia and China and Japan. Like, I'm seeing everything. But I'm also understanding going through this kind of like that sports psychology of how I cope with pressure and stress and like figuring out what I needed to do in order to get through that. And so I was reading all the sports psychology books, in addition, but it was I did not socialize at all. Like I was, yeah, I had, I had schedules out where I had every five minutes planned out. But down to detail where I was like, I'm waking up, I breathe deeply 10 breaths, I bring the foam roller and I roll out one quad, then I go to the other side, or on the other quad, I think about the three projects I most care about, I think about what I'm grateful for, I go to the bath, like I had everything written out, I was like, I brush my teeth while I listen to your audiobook and I do 25 rollaways. I like I continue to breathe deeply. I think, you know, like, when I go in have lunch than I engage I fully turn on out like I had everything written out. And obviously, I couldn't do everything. It was like my dream schedule. But what I found was one was it showed me how precious time was. Because even in my, in my delusional optimal schedule, I couldn't squeeze everything in. Like even when I had everything down to two minutes, I was like, I still can't dance eight hours a day, nor can I do it physically, like, you know, so one, it made me realize how precious time was. And so I was just like, we're gonna optimize my walk to the physics lab, I'm looking at flashcards or listening to a book or I'm visualizing dance, or I'm doing something like, I'm out of time, like Time is precious. And the second thing was just the power of habits. So I would continually try to implement everything on my dream schedule. And I would feel, you know, it wouldn't happen, I wouldn't sleep through my alarm, I would screw up like, you know, the first week and then but I would implement one thing at a time, or at least try to until it became habit. And I think now over the years like I've been able to add things to like my habits. So it's, it's sub-conscious, I don't even have to think about it.

Brad Kirby: 17:01

Have you heard of Atomic Habits?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 17:04

I think that was one of the books I read. When I was an undergrad, I was constantly listening to audiobooks, and constantly reading like sports psychology books, and that was one of them. Where I was just like, habits are so powerful. I'm just gonna make and it also went to the dance studio, where it's like, an added teacher told me that she was like, you want to be principal ballet dancer, a professional ballet dancer, then you also not just in the studio, you have to walk that way. You have to sleep that way. You You are that when you're in the studio when you're not. But to make that a habit? And then once it's a habit, then you don't have to think about it. Because there'll be a pile of bricks that you need to think about. Yeah,

Dean Nelson: 17:41

Merritt, are you Filipino?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 17:43

I'm half-Korean,

Dean Nelson: 17:45

Half-Korean. Okay, awesome. It's so inspirational to listen to the way that you think. And the creative side, like the bridge here between the left and the right brain is mind blowing for me. And also your dedication to that what you just walked through, you run out of time, and all the different things that you're actually working on, right? In your analogy of jumping out of the plane and then finding the parachute. That's not what most people do. The fact that you've able to achieve such status on so many different things. But it sounds to me like the reason you're doing that is you're so passionate about those things. Definitely. You love dance, you love physics, you love the things that you're working on, that makes you just consistently work on everything. Because it's not work. Is that correct? No. Yeah, it's definitely not work. If you gave me the opportunity to train versus watching movie, I would say train 1,000% Like, that's for sure. And also, I think it's a lot of self reflection or self analysis throughout the years to figure out, okay, what are my strengths and what are like, you know, what are the because I think what I'm trying to say is often people say, Oh, that's a flaw or you need to do it this way. And just realizing everyone's unique and different. And like actually, quote, unquote a flaw is actually someone superpower. Just twist it in a weird way, you know, like, and, and just finding that. Yeah, it's been, it's been a fun journey.

James Thomason: 19:06

The regimentation is impressive and reminds very recently, on a previous podcast, we were discussing the former Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, who was recently convicted for fraud. But during the testimony and during the admission of evidence, somehow, Elizabeth Holmes personal schedule, like one of her daily plans for herself leaked to the press and we were talking about on the podcast because it was it was so regimented, you know waking up at 4am I was exactly what you said take remember to breathe five times stretch one than the other and it's, you know, every literally every minute of the day, perfectly accounted for and it mirrors by the way, I've been fortunate enough to know a few hyper productive CEO billionaire types. Obviously, that's a really common pattern when Michael Dell his calendar was stacked minute by minute every there was no wasted time in his schedule on any given day of the week and someone let me peek at that once I was like, wow, okay, so that's how it's done. Right like you don't, you don't waste any time at all, if you're going to get something done, and I wish I could aspire to do that, I need time to think about things those those a weird thing if I don't have any downtime, I don't do any thinking. And my, my whole job is basically thinking. So the busier I get, the less I think, and the less I'm doing what I should actually should be doing. And so I actually, in my schedule, I actually have to plan downtime to sit and read something and reflect on it or to do research and so forth. And so I wonder, do you, do you also plan downtime that way? How do you not burn yourself out doing this?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 20:33

Great question. So one thing is, I think that when I am tired, like, I'll go hard, and this is also my scheduling was when I was younger, we could say things have changed now. I'm like, watching, like, making up for not having a TV. Don't worry about it. I'm like "Friends?" this is new this year, like, we're going to watch all of it. So definitely, when I was in college, what I would do is I would go hard, push myself to my limit for like two weeks. And then I'd be like, 18 hours, like a whole day, where I'm not, I'm not leaving my room, I'm staying in my pajamas, I am sleeping like I am out. Like I am barely waking, like getting out of bed. Like I'm bringing the food to the bed like I am not moving. So one is like just very much listening to my body. But I was obviously pushing myself, but it was like, to the point where I was like, Okay, I'm tired. Like, I'm too tired. And also being very, I think my self talk has always been nice in terms of like, say, I didn't achieve everything that was on that list. Like I'm never beating myself up. I'm just like, hey, like, okay, you know, not doing work so well, like, well, let's try again tomorrow. Yeah, so that self talk has been kind. So that if I'm because I can't, I wouldn't possibly do that on my list. And, and just being understanding that like, I am giving my best. And like if I don't make it, I don't make it if I give my you know, it. So in that way, I think it helps from burnout. Because it's always just kind of kind.

James Thomason: 22:06

That's a way of saying you have to you have to get kind of good at failing, right? I mean, you have to psychologically be able to deal with that without tearing yourself up.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 22:12

Yeah. Or just really viewing it as lesson. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

James Thomason: 22:16

And, by the way, we have a couple things in common in that way. One is I didn't own a television until I was 24 years old. As a child, my mom did have a TV and I only watched PBS because that was the only channel that would come in over the air. We couldn't afford cable TV or anything like that. So consequently, I thought that the world was run by Muppets, and I was not wrong, it turned out to actually be that way in adulthood. The second is the repeated failure thing. Like in our business, I know Dean's business, my business. We pitch investors, we audition for capital quite often. And you do hundreds of these auditions and raising a single round of capital. Right? So and the frequent answer is no. And not only, by the way you were on, was it Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent recently?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 22:55

America's Got Talent. Yeah,

James Thomason: 22:56

That kind of like, you know, disinterested judge at the sideline or the one that's harsh on you. That's a real thing, too, in the in the cattle market. So I definitely feel that. But it's fascinating how you've been able to push these two, I mean, a lot of people would say completely different careers and merge them literally into the same thing where you're actually applying your left brain your scientific work, your, to actually exercise your right brain and dance with this robot. And anyone who hasn't seen this, you should find merit on Twitter, and she's got video after video and it is so cool. Looking what she's able to do. So definitely, definitely check that out. Thank you

Brad Kirby: 23:31

Is the term you use for that constructive interference? Right after your your PhD, after you finished

Dr. Merritt Moore: 23:35

Yeah. your thesis in 2017 I think you entered a film festival, right?

Is the science film festival: 23:45

Symbiosis competition.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 23:48

Yeah, yeah,

Brad Kirby: 23:49

You recall that?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 23:50

Yeah. Sorry. I'm like, one of my strategies is just like, do a lot of things. So I'm like, which was it?

Brad Kirby: 23:58

So it was a video called Duality.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 24:00

Yeah, that was a fun one. I got to combine the dance and physics concepts.

Brad Kirby: 24:06

Was that one of the first times you combine the two?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 24:08

So there were two things actually right. Finishing up my PhD. One was there's a competition called"Dance your PhD". That's for like STEM subjects. And so I got to dance about my quantum lab experiment, my quantum optics experiment, which was, so I create my thesis. And what I worked on in the lab was creating pairs of entangled photons, particles of light. And how we did that is you shine a very strong laser beam into a nonlinear crystal. And then there's this quantum interaction that occurs and you get pairs of entangled photons coming out. And the process is called parametric downconversion, spontaneous parametric down conversion. And I was like, oh, okay, so we got these two entangled photons. We're going to call it "En-Tangoed". We're in the process of creating the piece I realized like I was like, also one of those photons created like in the beginning of the crystal in the middle and the end, because the dispersion in that crystal is going to be different and affect the photon differently at the output. And so it just made me visualize what was happening when I had spent four years writing out the equation probably a gazillion times. Like I've written out that equation, but never thought about it, about what it actually was. And it gave me so much insight, and helped me actually solve one of the problems that was preventing me from getting the results that I needed in the experiment. And I was just like, that's how Einstein right Einstein visualized itself as a photon on a light beam. And that's how we came up with special relativity. Like forcing myself to like visualize spontaneous parametric downconversion as a duet, like made me then think about like the dispersion in the crystal in a way that I hadn't done when I was just looking at the formula that's like a bunch of Greek letters like on like, epsilon because you know like,

Brad Kirby: 26:02

And then you just really shattered the saying "It takes two to tango" and really, it, only takes one to Tango now.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 26:11

Badaboom!

Brad Kirby: 26:19

Brad joke.

Laura Roman: 26:19

I want to ask you about in when the choreography again we were talking a bit about this remember warming up just a breath of music that you use the choreography of jazz to Kanye like and then when you watch these dancing vignettes, there's so much emotion that comes like it seems like the robots emoting. So how, how do you do that? How do you It's so perfect. It's like five seconds more, it would feel like it was overkill; five seconds last you would still be wanting more. So how do you get that balance of time and the duet right and then get the robot isn't like he's really marrying you? It is really mirroring you and emoting the way it does.

James Thomason: 26:52

See it's that convincing, right? Yeah. Robot. This is not this is not an elegant robot from the future. This is an arm you know, you have to see this.

Laura Roman: 27:07

It's a robotic arm. Yeah.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 27:09

On Instagram that Physics on Pointe.

Laura Roman: 27:16

Notes for sure of your contact here. How do you achieve that?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 27:19

Especially the beginning ones that 15 seconds? Well, one thing is it would take me to seven to eight hours to program it, to choreograph it to video it so just for 15 seconds. So it's like getting the timing right to the music like took a lot. And then I would often mess up and it was me alone in this video. So it's like hitting the camera and then the robot and then the music and then thing and then I forget the choreo. And then how would you repeat that often? When I first got introduced the arm, I was just curious, like, Could one dance with it? And then especially and then during this pandemic, I was, it was a combination of a Can I try different styles with it to was I am very passionate about trying to encourage girls in STEM, but not just girls but like people who are creative into STEM. Like I think that unfortunately, there's this barrier where like in the textbook, it's like, you need to memorize the pendulum formula. And then you memorize this, and everyone who's creative is like, Okay, I'm out peace. Whereas I think well I'm trying to be like, Hey, you can be creative, have fun and work with technology and STEM. So I was playing around with like tik tok type of video style dancing and tried salsa tried Michael Jackson try ballet tried hip hop like it was one it was fun for me because having been in a ballet. I was just performing previously with Norwegian National Ballet La Bayadere and Swan Lake which are these three and a half hour long ballets? I was i i needed a little Billy Eilish in my life like, yes, we need to change it up. So that has been really fun and, and a surprise as well in terms of how can I make this thing that has no arms has no legs, but look as though it's it's dancing with me and has the emotion and that connection, which has been lots of fun. I cannot wait to show what you're doing to my daughter because my daughter's a dancer. She's a competitive dancer. She has been since she could walk basically she did get in at the earliest possible moment when you're in quotes supposed to. She dances 30-40 hours a week in addition to going to school full time. All different styles jazz, hip hop, ballet. I have as a father tried many different ways to interest her in science and technology at everything from buying her chemical experiments to miniature robot arms to telescopes or whatever and she you know, just it's been a real struggle.

Brad Kirby: 30:00

She probably doesn't trust anything you give her.

James Thomason: 30:03

Well, yeah. And she's she's innately good at it. Like when she actually sits down and cracks a textbook and learns how to do math. I mean, she's automatically good at knowing her parents her DNA, which she should be, but her interest isn't there. And so maybe this will be the spark that turns her a little bit to engage the other side of her brain, because so far, it's been a total total failure on my part to her but you know, she's so such a kinetic child. I mean, we knew that when she was a baby, she was just going to she was going to be moving. And I cannot wait to show this to her.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 30:30

Yeah, certainly. I mean, my dad, every time I got into a ballet company, I'd be like, Dad, dad, I got into a ballet company. He's like, I know, I heard the bad news, like totally sympathizes with you with just like, dancing again, like, I thought you were because you were studying physics at Harvard? Like...

Brad Kirby: 30:50

Some people just also just aren't. That's not something they're interested.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 30:55

You know, it's like you finding but I think the problem with STEM is it comes off as like, so bored. But yeah, certainly, I like if I was going to teach, I've always kind of thought like, if I was going to be a professor at a university, or teach, if I was going to teach dance somewhere, I'd be like, Let's do dance like technology, like dance and AI, dance and motion capture, dance and robotics, dance in like VR. Like, that's the future. And it's a fun way to learn about tech. Happy to talk to your daughter anytime. Oh, that's a fantastic offer. I may take you up on that. I mean, my pleasure. I'd love it.

Brad Kirby: 31:29

You had a conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson. And he was he brought up his brother bass saying that his brother never picked up on tech. And it just never was never a thing. I found it pretty interesting. That conversation, he was talking about this specific subject.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 31:44

Amazing talking to Neil de Grasse Tyson. So we had started this over the pandemic's Sci-Art Party, which is on Instagram, Sciart Party and you had Neil deGrasse Tyson came to speak with us about art and science. So did astronaut Chris Hadfield and he came and played guitar for us. It was, that was amazing. But hearing about the two, yeah, the combination of art and science, I think is a topic that is, I think we all in our guts feel like it is possible like it is. But you know, there haven't been very many examples. So I think it's just like working on that. For sure.

Brad Kirby: 32:23

You mentioned Chris Hadfield. So What year do you think you'll dance on the moon? Oh, what's your prediction to yourself? Because it's gonna happen, right?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 32:31

I I'm like, maybe for me, it's a little late. I it's always I'm always a little like, yeah, hopefully soon, hopefully soon.

James Thomason: 32:41

If I could dance on the moon I could leap as high as Baryshnikov that would be amazing.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 32:47

Yeah, yeah.

James Thomason: 32:49

I bring that up, because your project is called the Baryshnibot. Is that right?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 32:52

Oh, the robots got lots of names. So Baryshnibot for like Baryshnikov. Robot Dineiro. Fred AIstare we've Botman and Robin, very creative. Take it away. Sir. It's been lots of fun.

Dean Nelson: 33:11

So I have a question for you about I'm gonna go back. You mentioned something about I think it was America's Got Talent. When you were there. Just tell us about the experience. Because you danced in front of the judges, right?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 33:21

Yeah. So I've been dancing with the robot in my room, like doing these 15 second videos, and then I get a call from America's Got Talent, saying, hey, like, can we get you to LA? And I'm in Dubai. And I was like, okay, so it's the first time live doing a full minute and a half piece with the robot in front of the judges and the lighting. And you know, it's intense. It's America's Got Talent. But also, I mean, hilarious, because we did all these skits behind the scene where they had another big robot was like zoom by and they had my robot like, check it out. And that's great. But yeah, I know, is performing in front of them and got the four yeses, it's not aired and their complaint wass that it didn't have eyes, that I can.

Dean Nelson: 34:15

Who complained to complain about not having enough.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 34:17

Simon Cowell.

Dean Nelson: 34:18

Simon Cowell. All right, I gotta get I gotta give you a parallel. I got my daughter was an X factor. Right? And when she was 15, I think it was and she went up and sang. And same thing where Simon when he starts given given her a hard time she had this little thing on her ankle, like a flower. He goes, what is that? And she goes, that's an artistic style. Right? She was um if Madonna could do it. Why can't I? We're like whoa, talk back to Simon and Simon said "You're an only child, aren't you?" Right, anyway, so many goes back and tells you Oh, where are the eyes?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 34:51

Where are the eyes???

James Thomason: 34:52

And you spent hundreds of hours programming this thing? And you were saying eight hours for 15 seconds earlier. Right? So you spent hundreds of hours programming this thing and then coreo graphing yourself.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 35:06

And I was rehearsing like, in Dubai. So I headed out on the balcony for a long time, like rehearsing on the grass. And then one of the neighbors said, this music I get like one is,

Dean Nelson: 35:19

was, is it Kanye? No. Okay.

Laura Roman: 35:24

I was thinking about going back to training and use of time and having such mastery in these disparate, connected well connected areas. I'm not going to digress too much into this, you know, go training is a figure skater and the Olympics are on And we talked a bit about this in the warm up to the show, but I know at one point, with my own training, as a 12 year old, you know, skip school, I had a tutor for junior high school, you have a coach, you're on the ice at 5am, etc. It's very intense physically, which you know, there's a lot as especially skating, most of it is core, we do the jumps by having a really tight core. So you've got these really young girls who have got this whole program and prove your point, every moment is factored out. And I personally, professionally really value that training, which spilled over into academics and then professional business life. In my case, I had a terrible ankle break, and had and that's what stopped the sport. But my where I'm going with this is a little bit about the insights of dance I'd love to know more about because with figure skating, it's actually got quite a dark side. So you've got these 10 year old girls who are learning how to stare each other down from these terrible stage mothers who are hanging around the rink all day long. And then I'm burn one case, I came to the locker room and the mother one of my competitors got a hold of my figure skates, and she was banging the blades together to mess up the edges, I mean terrible things and you're like 10-11-12 years old. But the point is that where I'm going with this to abstract it back to a macro question message is that you learn to be you know, thick skin mentally tough as dance like that. Is it quite as it's got this kind of dark draconian side? We've got these ballerinas staring each other down before taking the stage or? No,

Dr. Merritt Moore: 36:58

Ya, for for sure. So I think this also connects to the burnout question, which is, I think what really helped was having the two passions. In a weird way. I think having the physics is what helped me become a professional ballet dancer. And having the dance helped me be a physicist because it gave me one, just such appreciation. So if I was studying physics all day, like, if I could get into the studio with the live music and the dancing like I was there, like I was 100% there. Whereas I could see a lot of dancers who have started at super young ages, been in that studio their entire lives all day, every day. And there's a lot of weird manipulation, there's a lot of stuff that goes on, there's a lot of criticism, there's a lot of there's the mirror, you're in front of the mirror all the time. So then you start doing this self like criticism. But I think I was able to bypass that a little bit was because when I was there, I was just so appreciative to be there. I was like, I don't have time for these negative thoughts. Like, I'm here, like, right? Whereas I think often people are there and then they don't want to be in the studio anymore. But they're forcing themselves and then they get injured it like there's a like a lot of stuff like that wears. And then vice versa, I be dancing so much. I'd have been bleeding toes, I'd be so sore. I'd be like oh my god. Like, I just want to sit in the library and read my physics book. Like, then I had so much appreciation and joy to do that. I was like, my toes aren't bleeding. You know, I'm like, this is where I want to be. So I think the two passions one really helped me in terms of missing, kind of skimming along the side, like, away from, I wasn't going through the trenches, like somehow I was like, kind of on the side of it. Like, I see it. And when I was in the company for a year, it was tough. Like, man, I've never been yelled at like that ever in my life. And it was kind of a running joke. Like, those are director who was like "Fat elephant, like move to the left." And whether we'd be like a bunch of girls and be like, me, like, Are you the fat elephant today? Because I was that yesterday? Or is it was like no, no, I was without Rhino. Like, okay. It was, it was like, You be it was so manipulative. Oh, my God, some of the company. Yeah, some of it but many of the companies really lovely. But some of it's like, are we real? Now?

Dean Nelson: 39:23

I have to say as I just observe you and listen to what you're talking about the mental health, the whole fact that bounced off next. Okay, I didn't get that. Oh, I can do another one. You know, I think it really does have a lot of the ties back into the auditions and these things too. I just remember my daughter did acting for a long time and so hundreds of Nos until you get a Yes. Right. And you get to the point of it's like, oh, okay, well, that's another note. There's having a bad day. It wasn't a mess. It's okay. that mental health is very applicable. Right that the I think the attitude and the approach to things and I had a video that just came up. I don't know if you've seen this one where the guy is about a glass of water. And he says, How heavy is this glass? And the students are saying, Oh, it's six ounces? Nope, eight ounces. No 12 ounces he goes, it's actually how long you hold on to it. Because it gets worse and harder over time. And he goes, if you think about the stuff that you're worried about, if you hold on to them forever, it starts to ache. And then you get frozen, right? Because you're right. And so when you put the glass down, you're letting go and I just listened to what you said. And you you just epitomized there, you know, you're the epitome of of that analogy. That oh, Yep. Great. And in the end of it, I mean, you've achieved so much already at such a young age. It's incredible. And on two different spectrums. It's, it's fascinating to me, is there any advice you would give to people on that?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 40:48

On the note of failure, I would give a huge credit to my mom, because she was really there. And she was like, Man, I'm so proud of you, like, obviously, when you do well, but she's like, I am most proud of you, when you fail, and you get back up, she was like, because that one achievement, or like that little participation award, like or whatever, like, a, she's like, you're not going to remember it, no one's gonna remember it later, like later on. But that strength that you build from failing and getting back up, like, you do it one time you build it up, you build it up, she's like, that's gonna be your superpower later on in life, because then nothing can keep you down. Like that rebound is is like, what you should be most proud of. And I really took it to heart. And that's why they, they didn't want me to dance and dance, like in a company. But they, my parents loved the fact that I was auditioning and failing and getting back up and going again. So they really encourage they're like, "Do it!" But then when I got into a company, they're like, Oh, no. What did we do? Oh, man, I thought I was taking the year off. Like, what if she won't come back?

James Thomason: 41:59

Audience pay attention? Because I'm going to ask a question. And it's going to be like flipping a switch. And this happened. One point earlier in the podcast, we flipped from artistic to technical, it's gonna be fun again. So I'm gonna ask you now, watch this. Tell us about the robots? Who makes the robots? How do you program them? And what what languages and tools are you using to do that?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 42:18

Yeah, so this robot that I'm using is Universal Robotics, I am eternally grateful to them, thank you so much Universal Robots, because they have kindly lent me the robot. And then it's used for industry, it's an industrial arm, it looks like an iPad. And you can just key you can just program in on the pad, like, the position that you want. And you can either do it like with the coordinates, or you can actually physically move the robot where you want it. And then it stores the location, and you have access to the time that it takes to get to the next point. And then you just like, program, the sequence of it. And so that's what I've been using for most of my social media videos, because the attention span is like 15 seconds. So I need everything pre-programmed, and very set. And now I just got new equipment, Nordbow Robotics with their mimic technology. So that's like instantaneous interaction. It makes me very happy to play with new tech. So probably after this, even though it's midnight, I might play.

James Thomason: 43:27

So this new tech, the robot looks at you and then it seems to mimic your your movement is that how the new

Dr. Merritt Moore: 43:32

I can have it in my hand. So what you use is a tech right HTC Vive is what you use in VR, like the handset of a VR set, but you have it in your hand. And then the robot next to you mimics what you're doing. But at the moment, all the coordinates are like upside down. So currently, my videos have been like looking at this. But what is not doing what my like device is doing. But hopefully soon in the next couple of days, it will start to do what I'm trying to get it to do at the moment. I just have like minute long as of me like just where the thing is just not working.

James Thomason: 44:14

If I understood correctly, in the in the previous mode of programming the robot, you have sort of two ways you have the iPad like touchpad where you can manually key in where you want to go in the timings between. But you can in the other way, you can also move the robot physically, and then sort of record the steps sequences one by one to sort of, you know, really get a feel for it for lack of a better term. Between the two of those what's your preferred way of training the robot?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 44:40

It's been interesting. So one is sometimes I have a vision of where I want the robot to be or I've choreographed first, and then I set it to the robot. Or the second way is where I put the robot in like a random position, a sequence of random positions to the music. And then I create the dance on top of that. So it's just like a fun way to kind of play creatively and see what works best, or not even bust but like what's different, cuz I need to change it up sometimes. So sometimes I inspire it, sometimes it inspires me.

James Thomason: 45:20

It reminds me of listening to other artists, for example, who do stop motion filmmaking. They're posing all the characters on the set, and then, you know, one frame at a time, you know, a slow and incredibly excruciating process to generate a few seconds of footage. And then they do that day after day after day, produce a whole film. So it's almost like that. But even more complicated, because you have, you know, you have technology in the mix,

Dr. Merritt Moore: 45:46

And then a human and music that

James Thomason: 45:48

a human on top of that, and, yeah, that's really interesting.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 45:52

But there are different ways, I think, that are fun to explore.

James Thomason: 45:55

Where did are you gonna go from here? What's next?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 45:58

So next are bigger performances. So you just got confirmed to perform in Germany or cloud festival, in end of March, have an another performance big Well, potentially, in Abu Dhabi, and Boston Ballet is commissioning. So with four robots and four dancers, so that will be fun, that's going to be because I danced with them. And then to bring the robots there with one of the best ballet companies in the world. That's super exciting.

James Thomason: 46:28

That's what I was gonna I was wondering if you were going to go full production with multiple robots, multiple dancers full stage, that'd be incredible.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 46:35

So right now, yeah, I'm working on now for robot dances with four robots, because previously, I've just had one. And then also a combination of like, looking at new robotics and new tech. One, because I think artistically is very creative and fun. And number two, it's, it's a fun way to learn about robotics. Like, it's a much more fun way than like, starting with a textbook. So Einstein had this quote, like, play is the highest form of research, like, we're gonna take that to heart, let's play.

Dean Nelson: 47:09

I have a question, if there were no barriers, and you had the ability to go do something that you've always wanted to do with all these things that you're working on? Because we have a little reach through the podcast, what would you want to do? Who would you want to do with it? Where would you want to do it.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 47:23

I would definitely want to do it in space. Like I want to go, like, I really want to go to the moon. That's where I'd love to go. And that's so part of the reason also to learn robotics. For me, the motivation is like, I do believe robotics is going to be the future, you know, in outer space and on Earth. And so, for me, I'm building up my technical expertise in understanding these robotics, because I'd love to go up to you.

Dean Nelson: 47:51

We got to call Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson, and see if we might be able to get something going. So yeah. All right.

Brad Kirby: 47:59

Well, you know Branson.

Dean Nelson: 48:01

listeners, I've met Branson yes, I have done so I will see what your builders speak. He would love this, by the way he would he would eat this up. Yep.

James Thomason: 48:12

I think Elon would do.

Dean Nelson: 48:14

Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Actually, all of them would. I mean, this is so cool. It's just first off, you've got a physicist who's a ballerina who wants to go to space. What else do you want? Give me a break. Take her to space.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 48:27

Whoever comes first, I'll go.

Dean Nelson: 48:31

Oh, we could do a bidding war. Hey, let's get this going. Like get billionaires bidding? Yes, yes. Oh, by the way, what I heard from James is that you got the pattern that the next thing for you is to be a billionaire. So this is how billionaires actually think, is that correct?

James Thomason: 48:44

It is actually I would just say, I think you were the most interesting woman in the world.

Dean Nelson: 48:47

Honestly, this is so frickin cool.

Brad Kirby: 48:51

I came across a really cool in a nerdy way. Math Equation, it actually is drawing out Einstein. That's called the Fourier series. So complex Fourier series can effectively map out anything like any 3d Object via like a number of vectors. And so I'm curious about the image rendering side of things, right, you're talking about HTC Vive. And as you get more and more call it limbs even on the on the robotics, you pretty much emulate anything, right? I mean, we've talked about this on the podcast before about artificial general intelligence, but more on the cognitive side, the robotic side, I think, it's still a ways to go because of that the emulation of it is so

Dr. Merritt Moore: 49:33

But I would love to use AI. Like, I started this project where I go into motion capture, I dance around and then that data is taken and put into AI and then AI machine choreographs new movement based off my data, and then map that onto the robot and then have the robot dancing and then I learned from the robot so it's this like meta, like weird thing where it's like, learned from who, but that I think would be super fun. Interesting, also a way of fusing different styles together. So like these GANs - Generative Adversarial Networks, like, right now you can combine images, so like a bird and a cloud and water, and then it spits out some mixture. But it's like, what would the choreography look like if you have like flamencoo and hip hop and ballet, and then had that going out and then have the robot dance that way? And then I learned in that way, wooh! Sorry, that's not where you're going with this. But I got to kind of,

Brad Kirby: 50:29

No it is for sure, 100%. It's, it's just it's interesting, because we work in like the world of the tech side of things like the world of image rendering. And you think about just even file types, right? Like vector files versus so an SVG file versus like a JPEG, for example, right? So SVG files a vector file, that effectively you can scale, it doesn't work on on a pixel basis, whereas the other ones work on pixelation. So increasing or decreasing, it will, it'll lose its resolution. So the the mathematics behind it get into a complex number theory, like the square root of negative one, which you're probably familiar with as a quantum physicist. So I find it very interesting, because it's actually practical. If you actually apply this in practice, because this is probably what is being used in some software today. But you don't need to know that necessarily. I just find it beyond fascinating, the actual mathematics behind it. We haven't broken down, like, for your trend analysis is kind of like breaking it down in terms of like sins and cosines. And yes, I haven't done tha yet. Yeah, I mean, sure.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 51:35

Future. Days, really,

Brad Kirby: 51:36

Technically, in reality, things don't break down into, like cosine and sins right. Why I think everything when I'm doing my dance to Michael Jackson, yeah. We haven't gone that far yet.

Unknown: 51:53

In the analysis.

Brad Kirby: 51:55

far as you know, two rods, and one is one is one degree and one is negative one degree and you put them together, right? Like, you don't see there's no cosine of the sin of the wave. But if you actually apply it out to infinity, then yeah, yeah. And I know that part doesn't really probably interest you at all. Oh, I know. It's all fun. I just haven't explored that yet.

Dean Nelson: 52:18

I have two suggestions for you. You need to go talk to Boston Dynamics. Because they're robots in the dancing. Everything else. I could just see. I mean, you see those viral videos, right? Yeah, they can do that with those robots and doing like hip hop, dance something. Just imagine what those robots could do with your ballet and your expertise in it, right? I could just see your choreography, the whole thing. Now imagine that and you have the physical world. But you also take this into the metaverse, and your entire world is based on you and the interaction of those things, right? The robots inside of a of the metaverse To me this is art. This is like the things that can actually go in and and by the way, we've had a whole bunch of conversation about entities and this all this aspect. Your art itself should also be associated with some kind of NFT bigger should build a coin. Don't you? The Merritt coin.

Brad Kirby: 53:14

because original coin coin versus the coin. All right. All right. Metaverse and NFT's, I just want to make sure we separate those two things right like that.

Dean Nelson: 53:25

For sure real Metaverse is a place that your is virtual, but you're gonna have NF T's instead of the metaverse those are gonna be associated with things like like Merritt, right, and her art. Oh, I'm ready. Okay, I'm ready. All right, there's a whole nother techies are the crack and crack pipe in the metaverse.

Brad Kirby: 53:45

could disappear perfectly. I think NFT's could disappear in the metaverse would still survive. I'll put it that way. They're not they're not like a necessary. And this is coming from a finance enter as a purist, or as a purist at all. Fairly, I'm fairly anti-NFT, as James knows, because of how it's built technically, if you break it down it'd a bunch of dog shit right now, but I do think there's room for it. By the way. I think that's fairly accepted. There are some use cases for example, we had Rashad from super well, like that's a legitimate use case like that is pure that's real. It's happening on chain. It's not, you know, protesting I just thinking.

Dean Nelson: 54:25

I just think that art and the whole blockchain thing is coupling and that is going to become a very, very interesting world. And Merritt, you are right in the middle of this from creating things. And you're using technology, right? They'd be able to have the creators receive something for that creation, I think is the future.

Brad Kirby: 54:45

Yeah. And that's because decentralization and yet you know, the proliferation of the edge these kind of 3d renderings are going to be they're going to need to live at the edge of the network for people to view them right. Think about doing a live performance for like a million people today. Because that that, that probably wouldn't be supported with our current infrastructure that needs to be built. That is where I definitely see that happening. And that is art that has value. In the digital world,

James Thomason: 55:13

How many NF T's look like eight bit Nintendo graphics versus what she's doing? And if they can sell a banana on a piece of duct tape at Art Basel for $150,000, and then eat the banana, I think there actually is a play for this, right? You choreograph for performance, and there's an NFT ownership. I love that idea. I think Boston Dynamics would be all over that, too. They would love to get in and again.

Dean Nelson: 55:32

Totally, I mean, this is so creative. And so it's the merging of robotics and humans and that whole ability to save combos, how do they interact? And Laura said, at the emote, like, you're able to get things to come out of what looks like a fixed machine that isn't normal. It's it's beautiful. Really, it's art. It's beautiful. Back to your 2017 performance. Didn't the famous DJ, kind of copy that and didn't Paul Van Dyck put out a version of it?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 56:01

Oh, well, he asked to use a Yeah, he did ask. I think he paid like you would be shocked. I was like, this might pay for a taxi ride. You know?

Brad Kirby: 56:19

3 million views on YouTube.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 56:21

So I was say shame on. I'm sorry, but I'm going out him. I'm like, Shame on him for artists and treating in other art, like, just not Yeah, supporting another artist. I definitely felt us but at the same time, I was like, yes, you know, so.

Brad Kirby: 56:39

But I kind of gathered that that might be the case without, because I saw him live like I was, like, 15 years ago, and he got in a car accident. And he was trying to use it as like, an excuse. And 3 million views on YouTube. James, what does that translate to an ad revenue?

James Thomason: 57:00

Almost nothing? Yeah, surprisingly, yeah, almost nothing like yeah, like maybe, maybe two taxi rides. Okay.

Brad Kirby: 57:07

Thought was a little bit more than that. But anyways, nonetheless, it felt like it was just your video, exact video that you submitted to a film. But that is something that you could have property rights over. Because an NFT is just metadata and owning that data to that video, or a file or like an image is really what the concept of an NFT is. It's about the ownership, right? So that's the promise. That's the That's the promise. And

Dean Nelson: 57:35

The key and this I think Merritt, the takeaway is that there is technology that's going to be able to compensate the artists in the future here that are not compensated in the way they should be compensated, right, whether it's music, or dance, or painting or anything, right, it's still is a thing that has value, as Brad was saying, they'll have an association with a unique ID that can actually now be non fungible, it can be enforced, the future is really cool. And again, looking at what you're doing and how the stuffs gonna merge together. That's why I talked about the metaverse and others of you certainly could have reached to so many people, you're just gonna be able to touch a lot of people in that right. And it's so interesting. With what you're doing. We're right at the end of our hour, where can the audience go to see your performances and learn more about you? Where are the best places?

Dr. Merritt Moore: 58:20

Instagram, physicsonpointe with an E at the end, and Twitter, and LinkedIn? And I'm sort of on tik tok, I think I have like, definitely not you're gonna blow 400,000 And maybe like, four followers 40. We just learned, there are a lot of platforms out there, and not so much time.

James Thomason: 58:48

Well, it was wonderful meeting you. This is a fascinating discussion. And I just can't wait to see what you do next, especially as you scale into these full choreography, multi robot choreography, and multi dancer choreography and performances, that's going to be amazing. So I hope you'll come back. Give us an update in the future. But this was fantastic. Thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 59:06

Thank you. I really am honored to be here with you guys. And it's been really fun discussion and thank you for the questions.

Dean Nelson: 59:12

And we'll see you on the moon.

Dr. Merritt Moore: 59:13

Yeah, that's next let's go.

James Thomason: 59:22

Well, folks, if you enjoy podcasts, such as this one where we bring you the most interesting women in the world, probably literally, please do give us a thumbs up a like star depending on your platform. It does help us grow the audience. We are sponsored by Infrastructure Masons who is uniting builders of the digital age. Learn how you can participate by going on the web to imasons.org. That's iMasons dot ORG and by EDJX building a new edge computing platform for all the things visit us on the web at edjx.io That's edjx.io.