Cosmic Queries - Office Hours

The astrophysicist is in! Join Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice as they answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on the possibility of life in the universe, space dust, relativity, inter-galactic space war, reliable news sources and more! NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-office-hours/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. This particular edition, I'm kinda tired of naming them other things and I think maybe, Chuck, my co-host.

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Hello.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The idea came up, maybe we should call these Office Hours.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Office Hours.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm. Just to get a little academic flavor back in it.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right on.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, let's experiment with that.

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  It's Cosmic Queries.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office Hours.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  Office Hours.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, let's do that.

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, how have you?

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  Good to be here.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been in Aruba for nine days.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, my friend, I was in Aruba for nine glorious days.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're sporting a nice tan.

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  And that, thank you, I've been working on this tan for nine days and 40 years. And, uh...

• 1:04Chuck Nice?

  But I have to tell you, after nine days in Aruba, and I do not mean this in an unpatriotic way at all, I hate America.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm joking, please.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can have some beach, we got some beaches.

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  We do have some nice beaches. I've been to a few nice beaches here in the States, but I gotta tell you, that Eagle Beach, when they call it the second nicest beach in the world, they're not lying.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  The sand is just the right consistency.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can like the beach without hating America.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can like the beach without hating America.

• 1:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes, but it increases my love for the beach when I actually juxtapose it against my hate for my own country. No. Which, by the way, people do not write me, "I love this country, this is the best country on the face of the earth," even when I don't agree with what this country is doing, I still love it, okay? So, and all of you need to take a lesson from that, okay?

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do people write to you about that?

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, people write to me, like, people write, people get very upset, they feel as though somehow we're being political on this show. And, you know, I write them back because I know for a fact, whether it's you or Bill Nye. And I've met many of your colleagues that you, especially you and Bill, you are not seeking a political bent, you are not seeking to deliver a political message ever. It is always about critical thought, it is always about the truth, it is always about the science. That is what it's all, and it's always about educating people or getting people to become curious for themselves so that they go find out for themselves.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that works.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and so like, it really pisses me off when people write and say, "Oh, I like this show before you guys got all political." Just because you don't agree with the science.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so it reminds me of the moniker that Harry Truman had, they called him, "Give 'em Hell Harry."

• 2:57Chuck Nice?

  Give 'em Hell Harry, yeah.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said, "Harry, why are you always giving people hell?" And he said, "No, I just give them the truth."

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They think it's hell.

• 3:02Chuck Nice?

  Right, there you go. I like that. I just give them the truth, they think it's hell.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you got questions for me, what do you have?

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office hours are open.

• 3:10Chuck Nice?

  Office hours are now open.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  I feel like, what is it, Charlie Brown when he used to go see Lucy and see the doctor is in.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, oh, flip the sign over, okay.

• 3:19Chuck Nice?

  Flip the sign over. Alright, so yeah, we've got our queries from all across the internet and we always start with a Patreon patron question.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we are that low.

• 3:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes. No shame in this game, baby. Give us some money.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if I'll ever get over this fact, but okay.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  Give us some money.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you support the show, you get your question up first.

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  Right, you give us some money.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go to the front of the line.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  We will be your science whore.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  That was too much, Chuck. Take it down a notch. Alright, here we go. This is Kyle Yokum from Patreon who says this.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kyle Yokum, good name.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's a pretty cool name. And he spelled it phonetically for me, so, you know, which it didn't have to be.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He knows you need help. That's good.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  It's so true.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, don't F this one up, Chuck.

• 4:01Chuck Nice?

  That's right. So he goes, "My name is pronounced Kyle Yokum and I..." Oh, I should do it a different way. "My name is pronounced Kyle Yokum and I'm from Tennessee."

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tennessee, okay, you got it.

• 4:13Chuck Nice?

  He says, "It seems statistically impossible for life not to exist elsewhere in the universe, but I try to consider all the possibilities to keep an open mind. If we were able to look throughout all the visible cosmos planets by planet and found no life at all, given our current understanding of the universe, what might be our best scientific explanation for why we..."

• 4:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would be alone. That, so first, let me reaffirm the statistical unlikelihood of that before I then comment on what happens if it's true. Alright. Keep in mind that if life only began yesterday on Earth, it would have taken four and a half billion years for that to happen. Okay. That's a lot of time. A lot of time. It would make, it would be pretty clear that whatever it is we call life was hard to happen. Okay? Nature was struggling for billions of years. Right. But that's not what actually happened. We have the ingredients of life on Earth, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, other, and they're all here on Earth as they are everywhere else in the universe. Practically everywhere else in the universe. Right.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are the most common ingredients out there. One for one. Number one ingredient in the universe is hydrogen. Okay. Element in life on Earth is hydrogen. Okay. Number two in the universe is helium, but it's chemically inert, can't use it. Right. So, put that as, you can breathe it. Right. It's great for parties. Yeah, great for parties, but you don't interact with it chemically. It's good for YouTube videos. So, next in the universe is oxygen. Right. It's the next most abundant element in life on Earth. And then oxygen and the hydrogen come together as water. Right. Okay? And you will also find hydrogen and oxygen in other molecules. But we're mostly water by weight. Okay? Next is carbon. We're carbon-based life. Right. And so, carbon is next in order in life, it is next in order in the universe.

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, these ingredients for life on Earth are everywhere. Right, and so the recipe for this is actually the universe itself. Universe itself. Okay. Universe itself, now. So, you have the ingredients, now you need conditions. Right. Okay? So, whatever were the conditions on the early Earth, you, we have to ask, were they unique in the galaxy or are they approximately repeated elsewhere? In our current catalogs, we, we have rising through one or two dozen planets in the Goldilocks zone of their host star. Right. As are we on Earth. Right. So, you have all the base ingredients and in the tiny little Blip of the universe we have explored in search for planets. We have found one or two dozen planets in their Goldilocks zone.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you ask, how long would it take? So you look on Earth and the evidence may and recent evidence shows we have possible signatures of life on Earth as early as 4.2 billion years ago.

• 7:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth only began four and a half billion years ago.

• 7:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but let's even pull that in because that was very recent data and maybe it'll be overturned. Before that, the best evidence puts it at 3.8 to 4 billion years. That means Earth was around for like a half a billion years, then there was life.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  Then something happened.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something happened, all by itself. There it is. Ingredients, the, the, the time.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  And the conditions.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The conditions and it's not billions of years, it's half a billion years.

• 7:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So however much challenge we have creating life in the laboratory from simple organic molecules, nature managed to do it all by itself.

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So hence the statistical unlikelihood of it. But if we go around and search every single planet in the galaxy. Which is more realistic than the whole universe.

• 7:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we gonna travel between galaxies? We don't have to do that yet.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We ain't there yet.

• 7:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But our whole galaxy still. And there's no other life? That would force us to look back to Earth and ask, was there something truly unusual? That happened on Earth? Our star is an odd.

• 8:07Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Location of our planet, the mass of our planet, the fact that there's water, the fact that none of that is. So we'd have to find something that was unusual to enable it happening here and then have it happen nowhere else.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Alien DNA.

• 8:24Chuck Nice?

  Which of course negates the entire supposition of this whole question. Right.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means it came from somewhere else.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. Right.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But no, but then if it came from aliens, we'd find the aliens.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  We have to find the aliens. Right. Yeah. That's why I said it negates the supposition of the entire question.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would, so science would then turn to wondering.

• 8:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would be sort of uniquely, it would have to be a one in a billion, well however many, no. Planets are out there, it would have to be so rare that would it happen one in that many planets?

• 8:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So let's say there's, you know, 10. Billion planet, it'd be one in ten billion chance of something happening.

• 8:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On earth.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  But, but the same thing is, like you said, all of those planets have the same building blocks.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 9:07Chuck Nice?

  That we do.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  So what could that one thing be?

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we don't, that's what I'm saying. We don't, science would have to turn to then try to answer that question.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I got you.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it would be.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  So we would just have, right. So you would have to isolate that one difference.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's very hard to come up with a strong idea about how and why something is when you only have one example of it.

• 9:27Chuck Nice?

  Right. So it's kind of like when the scientist goes into the laboratory and he's looking for the recipe for superhuman strength. And then all of a sudden, a small dog enters the laboratory and knocks over all the ingredients. And they come together in a little slurry and they start sparkling and he falls down and slips in it. And then he gets up and he's a superhero.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  That's the only. That's the one in a hundred billion thing. A hundred billion, that's the thing.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and may I add, that is how the Powerpuff Girls were made.

• 10:01Chuck Nice?

  Are you for real?

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 10:03Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so there's a.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  By the way, how do you know the Powerpuff Girls, which I love?

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Powerpuff Girls, you gotta love me some Powerpuff Girls.

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  I do not know their origin story.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you don't know the origin story?

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  I did not, but I do love the Powerpuff Girls, cause I have, I have a daughter and a younger daughter.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's the father, who's a scientist.

• 10:18Chuck Nice?

  Who's a scientist.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the lab. He's in his basement in the lab.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's trying to mix these ingredients to create the perfect children.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The perfect girls. And so he mixes together sugar, spice. And everything nice.

• 10:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as he stirs it, there's an accident in the lab and Chemical X pours into this ingredient. And then there's an explosion.

• 10:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And out come three adorable little girls.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With superpowers.

• 10:48Chuck Nice?

  I had no idea.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chemical X, the Powerpuff Girl.

• 10:50Chuck Nice?

  X is the power, oh, that's cool.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's what, that's your scenario.

• 10:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that is my scenario. That's very cool. All right. Well, there you have it, buddy. Kyle, that's a.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's just, let me just add, cause you know where he's going with that, right?

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you might ask, will there be something that will compel scientists to say, oh, God did it? Okay?

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, yes.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause this is, you know, fundamental, like.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many religions would assert that earth is the purpose of the universe and, and life on earth. Human life on earth is the object of God's affection.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where in the universe. Okay. So. I can tell you that um that I don't know how quickly anyone would start thinking that.

• 11:33Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I can say is that if life on earth were divinely created.

• 11:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And somehow we're forced to that conclusion.

• 11:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It does not force us to any other divine conclusion.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  Right. That would be the extent of what you could conclude.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  Because you would be able to now isolate the fact that this is indeed a creation. However, what you cannot do is infer from that creation, the intentions of that creator.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or all the tracks that people have put forth.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That according to their respective religions was divinely revealed.

• 12:13Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You must behave this way and worship on this day.

• 12:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And eat this food.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And don't eat that food. And treat each other this way.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not the other way.

• 12:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this is sort of the the packaging of modern religion, ancient religions as well as modern religions.

• 12:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are not required by the scientists who might be who might land there if in fact earth is the only place with life in the universe.

• 12:40Chuck Nice?

  Right. Well, once again, as a scientist, what you would do now is you would have to say, now I need definitive proof that I am supposed to act this way or eat.

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need other kinds of evidence.

• 12:51Chuck Nice?

  I need other evidence.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 12:53Chuck Nice?

  Now that the evidence has actually said, yes, we are, this is the one thing we are the the the ingredient X.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chemical X.

• 13:02Chuck Nice?

  Chemical X is God.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you'd have to also add the fact.

• 13:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also add the fact, and I I posted this during the Super Bowl, where if the football field is a timeline of the universe.

• 13:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where one goal line is the Big Bang and modern day is the other goal line, then the thickness, the width, the thickness of a blade of turf in a far in the far end zone equals the time from cavemen to modern day.

• 13:33Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if according to the Catholic Church, which accepts evolution, but asserts that at some point, God breathed a soul.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  He did something to.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into primates and that would make us humans distinct from other primates.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would have happened somewhere in.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  That blade of grass.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blade of grass. So my point is, if you're gonna say God created the universe and created humans in his image.

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is what one might find in Christianity, it's, it would be kinda hard to account. And we're the only life in the universe, such that, it'd be hard to say, well, what?

• 14:08Chuck Nice?

  What is all that other stuff for?

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, or what's, what? You, you got the whole rest of the timeline.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If really, all this was created for us, why do we miss out on four billion, you know, on, on thirteen billion years of cosmic history?

• 14:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why, why, why do you wait so long?

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These, these would be sensible questions that philosophers would ask.

• 14:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 14:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and then, well, yeah, and the answer would be because he hasn't, there is no time for him, and so it's no big deal, no matter how long.

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got the answer already?

• 14:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the answer is, there's no time for God. Because he is from everlasting to everlasting, therefore, time and space was, exists within him, so he does not have to worry about time or space, because all those things exist inside of him.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got your catechism hat on. Preacher, preacher man, go for it.

• 14:53Chuck Nice?

  Listen, I know all this stuff.

• 14:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it, he got the explanation.

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that, that would be the explanation, you know, so.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I would say, you can flip it and say, uh, if your religion requires that human life is the only life and is the purpose of creation.

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we do find other life, will you abandon your religion?

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  Right, now that's a very good question.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's, just flips the table.

• 15:16Chuck Nice?

  What does that do to the person who believes?

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you find an alien species smarter than we are.

• 15:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who can just completely manipulate us and put us in a zoo for their entertainment.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  They now become God?

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, depending on what powers they exhibit, if they don't have the powers that your God and your religion assert.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, you can't then directly say that they're God, or if they look really different from us.

• 15:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're not in God's image.

• 15:37Chuck Nice?

  We're not in God's image.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, and it's very, but that's funny, yeah.

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so just, I just to be fair in that.

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That rotisserie there.

• 15:44Chuck Nice?

  I got you, I got you. That's good stuff, man.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Almost a whole segment on that one.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  I know, we did. And you know what? But guess what? It was really good. I mean, because, Kyle, that's a great question. And quite frankly, I found it fascinating because.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had your preacher hat on there.

• 15:59Chuck Nice?

  And listen, these are the things that people, that people think about this stuff all the time. And to great peril, for the most part, there's a lot of people who this becomes confusing. And then that confusion leads to anger.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You only really have conflict when you are so certain of your religious beliefs.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so certain that everyone else is wrong in their religious beliefs, and then you take arms against them.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And see, I believe that that comes out of just the opposite, to be honest. It comes out of the opposite sentiment. If you know for a fact you have the truth, then you can rest easy in that truth.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you should be able to, you'd think.

• 16:36Chuck Nice?

  Right. So.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'd fear nothing. Chuck, you just ate up like the last two minutes of this. We can't even get another que. How about, why don't you tease the question? What's the next?

• 16:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so that's what we'll do. We will tease the question. And so this is what Michael Ranger from Twitter would like to know. What's the deal with space dust? Is it dust? Is it gas? Is it rocks? What's the deal?

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good question.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will get to when we come back to StarTalk Cosmic Queries Office Hours.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edition. All right, catch you in a minute.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse, host of your personal host for physicists. If you didn't otherwise know by now, I also serve as the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, which is part of the American Museum of Natural History. Chuck Nice tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic. Yes, sir. Thank you. Nice. Yes, I am. Nice.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is, this is Cosmic Queries Office Hours.

• 17:38Chuck Nice?

  Office Hours.

• 17:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're just trying to rebrand it. We'll see if that flies. We'll see what happens. Get a little sign.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  All right, put it out there.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 17:44Chuck Nice?

  Office Hours.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get one made.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. The doctor is in, and you are the good doctor. So let's move back to our queries in the form of a question that we already did.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was it?

• 17:56Chuck Nice?

  And it was from Michael Ranger, and he says, what's the deal with space dust? Is it dust? Is it rocks? What's the deal?

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was really Jerry Seinfeld.

• 18:06Chuck Nice?

  It's really Jerry Seinfeld coming to us in the form of Michael Ranger.

• 18:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So dust in the universe has a very specific meaning. So if you look at clouds between the stars, these are the things that make up some of the most beautiful photographs that you've ever seen from space, especially via the Hubble Telescope. So those gas clouds, some are slopped off from stars, others are stellar nurseries, ready to hatch newborn stars deep within. Mm-hmm. So, it's what we call it the interstellar medium. And it can be in a gaseous state. Right. With just gas atoms and gas molecules, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, this sort of thing. They can make molecules in the form of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hydrogen makes a molecule with itself, H2, we call it. Stuck-up hydrogen. Stuck-in with itself. But it's not the only one nitrogen binds with itself to make N2, oxygen. So we're not alone in this. Right. So if the gas cloud is dense enough, there'll be pockets of it, where the molecules come together and make really big molecules. Okay. Really, really, really big things. Right. And when you have a place where really, really big molecules come together, it behaves differently in the transmission of light from behind it to in front of it. Okay. It absorbs light in a way that turns the light red. And so, we call it reddening. Redding. Turns it red. It's called reddening, right? Okay, got you.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, only when it becomes large enough to do that, do we then call it dust. That's all. So when it gets, okay, I got you. So these clumps of molecules that come together, that, once they do that- They make huge, huge things, right. Once they do that- Once they do that, that's when it's dust. And you have enough of that to affect the optics of the cloud. Right. Then we call that dust. Got you. And it reddens stars behind them. And so we used to think that certain stars were only red because they were behind these gas clouds. And then we learned about this phenomenon, in the 20th century, by the way. So it's relatively modern discovery, given the history of astronomy. And so, so when we say, when I say-

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are stardust.

• 20:19Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is a figuratively and literally true thing. Because you're not gonna form stars and planets. Until these molecules, these atoms become molecules, the molecules become dust. And out of this dust cloud do you condense the planets.

• 20:32Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but now, a little bit of a loosey-goosey there.

• 20:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because typically, when you form a planet, stuff heats up again.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it can get so hot that it breaks apart all the dust molecules.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because heat will destroy big molecules.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it's, when I say we are stardust. The dust didn't stay intact before it became us. Then it would be supremely poetically true.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, um, nonetheless, the, the gas clouds that make star systems. They start out as dust. And so that's why I feel comfortable saying that. So if you wanna take me to the limit, I'll then give you that full explanation.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you just did.

• 21:14Chuck Nice?

  Right, yes. So the dust itself is, is really on a molecular level. It's not the dust that we think of when we see dust.

• 21:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's way smaller.

• 21:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's not the dust that we see like when you're on a, when a shaft of light is coming through a window in your home and you see these little part- particulates floating in the air.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be smaller than that.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  It's much smaller than that.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's molecules, it's molecules coming together. And by the way, there are ways that molecules stick together that don't involve complete up atomic, uh, uh, uh, electronic bonds.

• 21:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When two atoms come together, they're sharing or exchanging electrons.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's an electronic, uh, uh, bond. And then, when you get really big, you can have molecules attached together. Just because their shapes fit.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or just because there's something.

• 21:59Chuck Nice?

  I found you!

• 22:03Chuck Nice?

  I can't believe we fit together like this, girl! Oh!

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are other ways that you can stick molecules together.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's when that begins to happen, that's when you get.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  That's when you get the dust.

• 22:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dust phenomenon.

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's so cool.

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dust.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dust.

• 22:18Chuck Nice?

  Who knew there was so much in dust?

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, in the very early universe, before we made, before the stars made the heavy elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The earth, the universe was born with hydrogen and helium primarily.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the rest came later in stars.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the early universe, when they had gas clouds, there would not have been dust. Cause you need all those other atoms to build up and make dust.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Early universe tends to be rather dust-free.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Right. So we were much cleaner. Much cleaner back in the day, baby.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Freshly born.

• 22:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we're freshly born. Mmm. Got that new universe smell.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, very cool question, Michael Ranger. All right, let's move.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else you got?

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  Let's move on.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office hours are open.

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  Office hours are still open.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Gattano Marone wants to know this. Thanks for that name, by the way. Frickin' hate your parents.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  Uh, so he wants to know this, says, uh, "Does time expand the same way and for the same reason as space?"

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's a great question.

• 23:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, time is a coordinate.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the other coordinates are stretching out. Why can't time?

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Can't time.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we don't have evidence of this. It would've been kinda cool if that were the case.

• 23:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just don't have evidence of it. And so, what would the evidence be? When we look out to space, we see things not as they are, but as they once were.

• 23:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it takes time for light to reach us.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  That's the way my wife looks at me.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you once were.

• 23:59Chuck Nice?

  But as I once was. Thank you, baby.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  Please don't ever see me as I am now.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it means if there's anything.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was affected by time being compressed in the past. Okay. Relative to today. It would manifest in the physical phenomenon that we observe. Okay. Okay, so maybe things would happen faster. Right. If time is compressed. Okay. So one second today is stretched out, one second back then is tight. Right. If you want to. Put it that way. Yeah, I want to put it that way. That way. So you look back then, no, things are not happening faster. Right. Things are not, everything is still working then the way it works now. Okay. The closest we've gotten to this is a research paper that I happen to be co-author on. Woo! Lead author of whom ended up getting the Nobel Prize. What? Which was a piece of a much larger research project. Hmm.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, that he did. His name is Brian Schmidt. So he headed a team that discovered that the universe was expanding faster than it should have. Mm-hmm. That it shouldn't be, and that was the, the co-discovery of dark energy. Right. Accelerating universe. Accelerating universe. And this paper was early work that all came together in his big project to study what exploding stars are doing nearby and far away. So what we have in that paper, the very first measurement ever, is an exploding star far away. Mm-hmm. And an exploding star nearby. Okay. They should, according to other, uh, other, for other reasons, be exactly the same in how fast they get bright? And how fast they become dim again. Okay. Star blew up. Right. You can measure this.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. It was just a regular star, got bright, then it started getting dimmer again. Okay. We know what that should look like. And, cause we've modeled it, okay? So now, we look at the one far away and it doesn't match. We say, how come it doesn't match? Oh my gosh, is it a different kind of exploding star? Then you invoke Einstein's general theory of relativity to show that since that light has been traveling long ago, the universe has expanded. Mm-hmm. So that time intervals of when stuff happened has been stretched out over that time. In the time it took to reach us. Mm-hmm.

• 26:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you take that, what we call light curve, invoke Einstein's relativity on it. It stretches to what it needs to be and then it matches exactly the nearby exploding star. In other words, the universe really is expanding. Okay. And the ticks on a clock get stretched out while it is moving through the expanding universe. Wow. Holy crap.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Wow. Okay. That's insane. That's what's throwing down. So that's what's going down. But the event itself, we have no reason to presume it happened at any different rate than nearby. Right. Everything we understand about an expanding universe says this is what will happen to that signal en route. Right, and that's why you need relativity to apply to that. Otherwise you have no handle on the universe. You wouldn't be able to say, right. Right. Wow. Be mysterious things going on. Exactly. Right. Oh my god, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, we were quite proud of that result. The first time, now it's just a routine thing. What an understatement. You know, we were quite proud of it.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but now it's a routine thing. I mean, you just say, oh, the light curve doesn't fit. Um, let's see what it needs to be for being at that distance. And then it, you do that and then it fits exactly. Fits perfectly. Every single time. Just fits exactly. Wow. That, that is really. No, you could, you could assert that time was different then. Uh-huh. And it didn't change en route here. Okay? Okay. But I would then say, I would say, uh, because the universe is expanding, we expect that to happen. Okay. So, and when it does happen, we're not then looking for other explanations. Gotcha. If we did that in science, you'd be. Well, yeah, you'd never do, you'd never go from any place you are. You'd go any place, you know, right, right.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stay right there, just looking for other different things that it could be. And it could be when what you have is a perfectly fine explanation. And this is already working. Works experimentally and theoretically. Right. Generally, when you have that agreement, you move on. Right. Yeah. Wow. Man, that was a great question. Okay. Hey, Getano, Getano Marone, that was a really. I want you to apologize to Getano's mother. I'm, I'm sorry, Mr. Getano Marone.

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because you have a simple boring name, doesn't mean everyone else has to. So you have to, so you don't mess up reading their names.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, Mrs. Marone, your scion is quite profound and we appreciate their question. All right, let's get to Jet Kusanji.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where, do they say where they did it?

• 28:59Chuck Nice?

  It's tweeting tweeting to us from at the fury, at, wait, at Jet the fury.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the fury, okay.

• 29:05Chuck Nice?

  The fury, how cool is that? Do you think if in the past scientists weren't always portrayed as evil? The public would be less anti-science?

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 29:18Chuck Nice?

  And I mean, like in the movies and television, the scientist is always the bad guy.

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  I should have saved that for the lightning round, I guess.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so first of all, the scientists were not, I don't think that's the biggest problem with the portrayal of scientists historically.

• 29:36Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there were maybe a third of those scientists were not evil.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were co-opted by an evil genius.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or an evil, a, a, a ne'er-do-good-doer.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, ne'er-do-weller.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ne'er-do-weller, thank you.

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for example, in, in the old Superman television series.

• 29:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was always some scientist that was helping the criminal do their work, but was, didn't really want to.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  That's true. A lot of times the scientist was an unwilling participant.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unwilling participant.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was even the case in Back to the Future.

• 30:09Chuck Nice?

  That is true, yes.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The, the, the, the Libyan terrorist wanted Doc to make a bomb out of the plutonium.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  Right. And he just wanted the money for his research, so he double-crossed them.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. So, as any good scientist should do, if you're, if you're given money to make a bomb by terrorists, right?

• 30:25Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, who else did that is of course, um, Iron Man.

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  That is correct. He denounced.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, he, they wanted him to make a bomb.

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm making a bomb, get out of here.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  Right, and then he made a suit.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Escaped with it.

• 30:37Chuck Nice?

  That was a little bit more for self-preservation. He needed that suit to get out of there, you know? But then even after that, he was like, I don't want to make weapons anymore.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Chuck Nice?

  I want to do something good with this power source I discovered.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So, so, um, so my issue with the portrayal of scientists is not that they were.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More than half the time shown as evil or evil geniuses. Okay. It's that they were never shown to be completely human in all emotional dimensions. That is true. They're very one dimensional characters. And it was like, Doc, is the world gonna end or not? And you go behind the lab table and they got the lab coat on and the wire hair. And they say, well, it, it, uh, the, the interaction of the thing, whatever. Give me it in English, Doc. Right. And then someone else translated, and that's all you see, the doc? That's all you see? That's all you see, right. That's all you see. You come in and you leave. Right. The first, the first attempt to flesh out doctors that I know of and that I have seen was in CSI. Okay.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which portrayed scientifically literate, trained people. Uh huh. As beautiful people you might want to be. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, and they were all hot. They're good looking. Good looking. A, they're smart. Right. B. Right. They have fully fleshed out characters. They fall in love. Right. They have jealousy. They have kids. They're married. Right. They divorce. Then they become real people, like any other character that storytellers have been sharing with us. Nice. That, I, for me, was the transition that was most important. Right. And now make them evil or happy. Who cares? And that, well, now, now you see more developed scientific characters in everything. Everything. Everything, yes.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Well, that's cool, man. Yes. That's very, very cool. Well, there you go. Out of time in that segment. At the Jet Fury, there's a question, so. Yeah, alright. There's your answer. When we come back, we'll do more of the, uh, Office Hours segment of Cosmic Queries on StarTalk.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, Neil deGrasse Tyson here. This is the Office Hours edition, which is just what we've called, you know. Cosmic Queries, Pupery. Pupery. Galactic gumbo. Gumbo, that was a good one. Galactic gumbo.

• 33:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe we should take a fan vote to see what.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Want to call it.

• 33:06Chuck Nice?

  It's not a bad idea.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kind of lean into the gumbo, but office hours is so natural and so quaint. And I used to hold office hours when I was like teaching. So it's just, you're there, you know, and it's like, it's like selling lemonade.

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not chasing after people.

• 33:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just there.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You either show up or you don't.

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  Wait, you, you, I didn't know you taught.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what, what, what?

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course I did.

• 33:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 33:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I taught for years and years.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  That's gotta be weird. There are people out there who is like, that guy used to be my teacher.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. Yeah, they're out there.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a, there's a larger set that were out there for classes that I TA for. I was a teaching assistant.

• 33:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  While I'm, while you're a graduate student.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's thousands of students from that era.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then afterwards, uh, then I teach. You know, I taught, uh, intro astronomy and some advanced.

• 33:56Chuck Nice?

  You must've been very good. And I'll tell you why. Because with the notoriety that you now hold.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is fame for, for doing bad things, by the way.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  No, it's not.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it is. Notoriety comes from notorious.

• 34:08Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From notorious. I'm just telling you.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  According to three.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vocabulary word.

• 34:12Chuck Nice?

  Separate sources.

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  You are the second famous scientist of all time from three different separate sources. You're the, you're the second most famous scientist in all of scientific history. Okay, the first, but, and, and it is.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would list like Copernicus and Newton and Galileo.

• 34:31Chuck Nice?

  That's because you're a scientist.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Darwin and, and Einstein and Feynman.

• 34:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, but see.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stephen Hawking and.

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  See, you.

• 34:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Democritus.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  We're talking about America though here, man. See, you, all those people you just mentioned, you gotta read.

• 34:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To know about them.

• 34:48Chuck Nice?

  You gotta read. So in a random sample, I gotta tell you, in a random.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just look at TV.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  So also too, in a random sampling, what's going to happen is whatever's the first person that pops into your head is who you're going to say.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, of course.

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so I understand what you're saying. Like, oh, Einstein, clearly, I get it.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  But no, if you just were to stop somebody on the street, the first thing that's gonna pop into their head is the person that they're most familiar with.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most in their face.

• 35:12Chuck Nice?

  Right. And so according to the, to the surveys, it's, um, Carl Sagan.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:17Chuck Nice?

  You, and then Stephen Hawking.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 35:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, good for Carl Sagan. The boy's been dead for twenty years.

• 35:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, he's still, he's still.

• 35:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keeping it going.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  But you know what? It goes to show you the power of media, though.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:28Chuck Nice?

  Because most people know Carl Sagan because they know him from seeing him on television and seeing him on The Tonight Show.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Having seen him billions and millions of times.

• 35:36Chuck Nice?

  And billions, billions.

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  So, what I'm saying is you have to-

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To immortalize the turtleneck.

• 35:43Chuck Nice?

  That's true. Nobody wore it better.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:46Chuck Nice?

  Um, but what I'm saying is you have to have been a really great teacher. And the reason is, with being as notable as you are, there, there would be a plethora of people on the internet going, "Yeah, I had that guy as a teacher."

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  He [bleeped]. I'm sorry. Oh, my God, I'm sorry. He, he freaking sucked.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  You understand me?

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would've come-

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  There's no way-

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd come back in your face.

• 36:11Chuck Nice?

  There's no way you could be as ever-present as you are in this, with the media presence that you have, and have been a bad teacher, because it would be too many opportunities for people to go on social media, to go on all different kinds of platforms, and say, "Oh, I had that dude as a teacher. He sucked." And not one, and that's not out there at all.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's not.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  So you had to be great.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, that's, thanks for those, uh, brilliant deductions. But I'm still saying notorious means you are famous for doing something bad.

• 36:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I know what those come from. Well, thank you for patronizing me.

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, I mean, notoriety comes from notorious.

• 36:46Chuck Nice?

  Notorious, correct. Yeah. No, you're right. Uh, but no. So, uh, that's great. You used to be a teacher.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, probably, there're probably five or six thousand students out there who were my former students.

• 36:57Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I graded their homework and their exams and everything. Oh, yeah.

• 37:00Chuck Nice?

  That is so [bleeped].

• 37:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know you didn't know this.

• 37:03Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that. I wonder if, I wonder if these people, like, kept their papers now. It's like, "I got an A+ from Neil deGrasse Tyson."

• 37:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know that I signed them, though, right? You know?

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I guess so, 'cause I, yeah, my, see, my teacher signed mine, but it was with a note that said, "Please come and see me."

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See me.

• 37:19Chuck Nice?

  This is crab apple. Yes. Something must be done about your son.

• 37:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go to the principal immediately.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you have, office hours, what do you have?

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go, here we go. Jessica Schaffner, from Facebook, and Jessica says this, "How can the average consumer of news know which sources are the most reliable? Taking it a step further, how can we find sources that are unbiased and reliable?" So now, the only reason I ask that is because, as a scientist, I know that you have a, um, a discipline, as I'll call it, uh, for all information, because I know all scientists do, so...

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good word.

• 38:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so, so, all right, uh, there's no way escaping this.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you want to be, if you want to be insulated from complete charlatans out there.

• 38:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Creating websites that are either outright fake.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Websites they think are true, but if you knew anything about the physical universe, you would know that they were not. So there's no other way around this. Science literacy is an inoculation against the claims made by others, where they would be exploiting your ignorance of the laws of nature.

• 38:42Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Against you in their favor.

• 38:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so, so your education, your base of education matters here.

• 38:53Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But of course, many people, the catch-22 is, you want to get educated from the internet.

• 38:58Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Okay, so, so, uh, in the days when you learn via books, there were editors at publishing houses, and publishing houses had integrity, and they had, um...

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Standards.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Standards.

• 39:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you had to get through a copy editor, a content editor, a final editor, the editor-in-chief.

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of my early writings had these kinds of filters, and I would take, on my purpose, we'd take it to colleagues of mine, who would give it a fresh look, because I'm writing about science, if it's their expertise and I'm stepping a little bit out of my expertise, they might have insights that I don't have. So you have to recognize the possibility that you could be wrong.

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all times.

• 39:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only then, do you then seek out... Uh, supporting or conflicting information that you then have to sift through. All right. So, I would say, short of curricula in the school system, having a new branch called, "How to be Internet savvy." Right. That's something we need. Right. Which is not there. School system still views us as empty vessels where they pry open your head and pour in information. Mm-hmm. And then they stitch it back up and say, "Now, go, go forth." Go forth. Go forth. So, Young Frankenstein.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Frankenstein. Frankenstein.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never gets old, I'm sorry. That's right.

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Frankenstein. So, uh, what am I saying? You keep, how, how am I supposed to? I'm sorry. Instead of stitching your head up, instead of you go forth. Go forth. Right. Okay, so, so in there, the curriculum has to have added elements that, that basically is a, is a BS detector. Right. A baloney sandwich detector. There you go. So, in there, you invoke, you say, "All right, um, does this website have something to gain by having me read their content? Are they trying to sell me something? Are they, uh, that? Um, generally, people who are highly educated are sort of less susceptible to things that would exploit ignorance.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because when you're educated, you have less ignorance. Right. That's why the- There's a wider base from which to work. Exactly. Have a wider base of information from which to work. You're a little better protected. So, if you're gonna choose a website, I would lean towards, I would lean towards .edu websites. Ah. Many universities. Nice. Whole courses are online. Look at that. Whole courses are online now. Ew. On all manner of topics. That's good stuff. Okay? And, now, I don't know if you can be a .edu, obviously which stands for education, site, and then not be an educational institution. All right. I don't know, but check. Track institutions.

• 41:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially the big ones, UC Berkeley, MIT.

• 41:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, just the University of California system, the, um, you know, University of Minnesota, University of Chicago. These huge places tend to have a lot of courses and a lot of professors who are eager to put their stuff online.

• 42:13Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I've brushed up on many a topic just by looking at somebody's course curriculum.

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That they were teaching. So.

• 42:20Chuck Nice?

  Great. That's a great, I've never even considered.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be content. Then stay with the EDU, then look at political commentary there.

• 42:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look at the political science classes, because they'll be more likely to compare and contrast.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rather than to try to get you to do one thing or another.

• 42:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you might say, oh, but wait a minute, uh, academia is a bastion of liberal.

• 42:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever. You might say that, but don't confuse, don't confuse knowing what is true. With that which happens to be true conflicting with your political philosophy.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are two different issues.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 42:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so just I want to make that clear.

• 42:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we gotta go, we gotta go lightning round.

• 43:00Chuck Nice?

  Lightning round, let's do it.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what do you have?

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, next after dot coms, I mean, dot, uh, EDUs would be dot orgs.

• 43:07Chuck Nice?

  Dot org, right.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Museums are dot orgs, for example.

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And things like that. Okay, let's find out. Let's go.

• 43:13Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go, lightning round. Uh, Kerry Bailey coming us to, uh, from Twitter says. How ill-prepared is Earth for an intergalactic space war such as in The Avengers?

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm pissed off that, you know, uh, in my day superheroes would stop the criminals in the street.

• 43:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make your life safer.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, they're all just fighting each other.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't, and why do they got to come to Earth to fight each other? Fight some other damn planet.

• 43:44Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, that's because we have a better special effects now. That's why, that's why that happened. Back in the day, they had to just fight in the street, but now we can knock down whole buildings.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's why they always come to New York. Why are you fighting in my city?

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never see The Avengers fight in Iowa.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  Cause they ain't nothing to knock down.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They destroyed four cornfields.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  This is crazy.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like.

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but yeah, have you have you fight on some other damn planet.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or do it in the Mojave Desert, but stay out of my streets.

• 44:15Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 44:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  New York, alright. So, no, we're not prepared. Direct them to the fighting zones.

• 44:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fight somewhere in Siberian tundra, whatever.

• 44:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, we're not prepared for this. No.

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go.

• 44:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  Anthony Fisher from Facebook would like to know if you could ask an ET, an extraterrestrial intelligence, just three questions. What would they be?

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One, please help us, save us from ourselves.

• 44:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's question one.

• 44:45Chuck Nice?

  Question one.

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Question two, I would pull out a periodic table of elements and a few other pictographic aspects of our scientific discovery.

• 44:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And say, how does this match with what you guys have found in this universe?

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if they speak any language, it's gonna be science and math, not French or English. Even though the Bible was written in English.

• 45:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, your point of communication is gonna need to be something mathematical or scientific.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Contrary to what was part of the story message in the film Arrival.

• 45:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They needed an anthropological linguist. It's like, no, that ain't how that would go down.

• 45:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. They flew here in a spaceship that's floating over your thing.

• 45:30Chuck Nice?

  Right. It ain't hieroglyphics.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ain't gonna be hieroglyphics. Right, right. There's some science at work there.

• 45:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's get that, let's get that figured out. Third question might be, have they figured out the origin of life and the origin of the, you know, what was around before the universe?

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh, nice.

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are our biggest outstanding questions. That's what I would do.

• 45:50Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then I'd take them to lunch.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give them a beer.

• 45:55Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, what if you are lunch?

• 45:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take them to a bar and see what more they're, what more they'll divulge under the influence.

• 46:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for like, one last question. Okay, go.

• 46:05Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Deityan, VX9, wants to know this.

• 46:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. What future tech will look like magic to us today? Good question, dude. So, I can't answer that, but what I will answer is, let us take your smartphone. Okay. Okay, today's smartphone. Right. Was magic 11 years ago. That's pretty true, yeah. Okay, that's why, what? Oh my gosh. Yeah. You could do that? What? You could find grandma's house? What? You could what? It's got GPS in it? Porn right in my hand? What? What? Oh my god. You got, you'd have all of Beethoven's symphonies right there, the entire, every religious text in the world, right there. Right. If it takes up too much space, just delete it, right?

• 46:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People, I, I, I think about what I would show Isaac Newton and what would make his head explode. Mm-hmm. So, that is, I think, the best example that we have today, that in our own lifetimes would have been viewed as magic. Just complete outright magic. There you go. Another one is, have you seen the extremely thin, uh, flat but curved panel TV? Oh god, yes. It's like, like, a sixteenth of an inch. Oh god, they're beautiful. You look behind, you say, where's this guy, how you doing this? Television. Where's the house?

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, 10 years ago, that would have been magic. As we're lifting 100-pound flat panels, trying to connect them onto. Right. Mounting brackets, right? So, so I like thinking what today was magic 10 years ago, and there's a lot. So, yeah, I just, I think, uh, investments in sci-tech will keep that going. And on my deathbed, one of the things I will regret was not being alive just another 10 years more to see what the next thing. The next thing will be. What the next thing will be. Nice. Chuck, we gotta call it a quits here. Alright. Alright, Chuck, nice. Always good to have you, man. Always a pleasure, thank you. Alright, thanks for coming back from Aruba, your vacation of nine days. Didn't wanna do it. Next time you're gonna, you're gonna call in your next, your next thing.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm in Aruba, I ain't coming back, so deal with it. Honey, I'm never coming home. You've been watching, perhaps, but more likely listening to StarTalk Cosmic Queries Office Hours Edition. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, until next time, keep looking up.