Our Burning Questions – Entropy & Immortality

Could we have reached the moon in 1700? Neil deGrasse Tyson answers the burning questions co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly’s have been saving all year about immortality, redshifting photons, altering the laws of physics, and more!

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that was a different special edition, Gary.

• 0:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, it was.

• 0:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, but I appreciate the curiosity that the two of you have maintained strongly into adulthood.

• 0:08Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, we couldn't sit on it any longer.

• 0:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 0:10Gary O'Reilly?

  We had to share.

• 0:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up, Chuck and Gary's burning questions. I believe there's an ointment for that. For me. On StarTalk Special Edition.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Special Edition, which means I got with me Gary O'Reilly. Gary?

• 0:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Hi, Neil.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Chuck, always good to have you, man. Always a pleasure. Good to be here. So you guys invented this variant.

• 0:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I use that word these days with viruses? Yeah, I was gonna say, wow, you just turned us into a viral infection. You invented this variant of special edition.

• 0:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you guys, apparently, I didn't know this.

• 0:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over the years have collected questions that had tap roots in previous shows that you want to bring back to me.

• 1:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, the sort of things we get involved in, which is such a variety, as much as it's informational, educational, and fascinating, you kind of always seem to come out of one with, oh, what if we ask that?

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:23Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's, and you know, so we're trying to scratch this itch.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:27Gary O'Reilly?

  To a certain extent. Now you've mentioned variant, I'm now scratching an itch. Yeah, there you go.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. Now, I don't know if I'll have the answers, but I'll try. Okay.

• 1:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, please do.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, stop looking at me like that.

• 1:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Please do.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nah, you know, listen, you won't have an answer. An answer. So that's what's good.

• 1:42Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know there will be an answer.

• 1:43Gary O'Reilly?

  I'll kick us off.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, who's first? Go.

• 1:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Which direction do you see human evolution taking in the future? Do we stay biological, head to a transhuman existence, or do we go totally post-biological and just become the super intelligent AI?

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we will resist, this is an opinion.

• 2:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm, of course.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we will resist merging technology with our biology.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neurologically, I think we will res- there's a lot spoken about this. Oh, I'm so disappointed. I think we'll resist it. I think you're right. Because they say, let's put the whole internet on your frontal lobe. And people were like. I have the internet in the palm of my hand without the surgery required to open up my brain and stick it there. So I'll, I'll take the 10 seconds to find the information I need, rather than the instant information that would otherwise be the case. See, I want the chip. I have evidence of this. What? Okay. I'm, we're old enough, he's not old enough, but you and I are old enough. Alright. To watch planes get ever faster over the decades. Yes. From the Wright Brothers up through the 50s. You did not see the Wright Brothers.

• 2:49Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry. I remember the Wright Brothers. I'll tell you, I remember that day on Kitty Hawk. Never thought they'd get it off the ground. I said to myself, those boys are wasting their time. They need to go back to building bicycles.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it all fields?

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what I'm saying is. Yeah, it is. You can ask the question, why did we want planes to go faster and faster? Cause we're impatient. We're impatient and we want to reduce the time you're in transit between where you are and where you're going. Yes. Okay? Then there's a point where planes just didn't get faster. In fact, they're going a little slower today than they were in the early 1970s. It's not uncommon to, you know, cross the Atlantic at 500, 550 miles an hour. Mm-hmm. In my day, it was like 600 miles an hour, 650, okay? So what's going on? Do you really need it to get there an hour faster? When you have a thousand movies you can watch, you have access to the internet, you can sleep, you can be plied with alcohol and food?

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you really need to get there fast? My point is. You're not getting any of that on Spirit Airlines. What's the menu? I know what you said is happening on Spirit Airlines, sir. So I'm saying, in that case, the speed, which sounded like a good idea, when you're otherwise wasting your time on an airplane. Yeah. Getting from A to B, the moment you were no longer wasting your time, in fact, you were being productive.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The urge to fly supersonic evaporated. And so I'm saying, I have access to the internet. You want me to have one second access to the internet or instant rather than 10 seconds? I don't know that I'm gonna go there if I gotta sit under a scalpel and you poke into my brain. So I think we will resist that. That's my opinion.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  I think you're right, but I still want the chip because first of all, there you can barely see them and they can take the four of them and put them together and just slide it in and unless Elon's doing it, then I don't want it. I do not want it if Elon is doing it.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll give you access to the internet.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  But here's the reason why I want the chip. And I don't mean for me personally. I mean for

• 4:58Gary O'Reilly?

  For a friend.

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  For mankind, okay?

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For all mankind.

• 5:01Chuck Nice?

  For all mankind. There are certain responses that we have that are neurochemical. There are certain things that we possess that are detrimental to who we are as a species.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The wiring of our brain.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  The wiring of our brain that come out of evolution.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so go in, fix the wiring, but get your ass back out of my head.

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  But my thing is that only the chip could actually do that on an ongoing basis.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't have to be ongoing. If you know exactly where the bad wiring is, fix the wiring and get the hell out of my head. So if I have a phobia or a

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the one where you keep doing something repeatedly?

• 5:38Chuck Nice?

  Obsessive compulsive.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I'm compulsive or a phobia, you know, one day perhaps, neuroscientists will know exactly where that spot is in the head. Go in there, nip, tuck, snip, tap, reattach, bada bing, we're good. You no longer have a phobia and you no longer have a compulsion. So that's what I'm saying. I think we will resist that. That's all.

• 5:58Gary O'Reilly?

  So you're talking about improving mental health. What if we now get to the stage where we can improve our biology and start to live that much longer and then all of a sudden you've become totally post-biological and you'll live for eternity?

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. We will figure out how to manipulate the biology so that it does not age. But you're still biological.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Gary O'Reilly?

  But do you, do you have that transhuman part where you have to have the chips and the bits and pieces and the upgrades?

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would you need that if we can? Fix your brain. That's all I'm saying.

• 6:28Gary O'Reilly?

  But does the brain control every single aspect?

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, okay, there are people with artificial hips and knees and shoulders.

• 6:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heads, shoulders, knees and toes.

• 6:37Chuck Nice?

  That's why I say I don't see the difference.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we will resist that. Next question. Chuck, is it your turn?

• 6:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. If an unobstructed photon is traveling towards the edge of the universe, but the universe is simultaneously expanding, which it is, and redshifting increases the photon's wavelength, okay? At some point, because from what I understand, the increase in the wavelength actually reduces the energy of the photon, at some point, does the photon just disappear if it just keeps going and going and going and going?

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It redshifts to infinity. So, yeah.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that happens at the horizon of the universe.

• 7:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, if we have a horizon where at that place, all the objects are receding at the speed of light.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so when the photon sort of catches up with that.

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At that point, it has redshifted to infinity and it's got nothing for you.

• 7:44Chuck Nice?

  It's got nothing for you.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So that's the end. It redshifts to infinity?

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  Ugh.

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  That's so unsatisfying.

• 7:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Now you sound like that photon.

• 7:57Gary O'Reilly?

  So, as part of the sort of StarTalk group think that we had, Alex Bacardis came up with a...

• 8:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of our producers.

• 8:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, one of our production team. If you could bend the laws of physics to your will, what would you change, if anything?

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, okay. So, in graduate school, there's a calculation you do, where you look at the gravitational constant, which was first proposed by Isaac Newton, but it would take centuries later to measure its value reliably. What is the gravitational constant? It's the thing that's in the gravity equation that tells you how to calculate how much gravitational force you get from how much mass. So, the force is proportional to the mass. How do you turn that into an equation? You have what's called a proportionality constant, the gravitational constant. You don't know this, but you've been invoking that ever since you recited the equation, E equals mc squared. All that equation says is, energy is proportional to mass.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you turn that into an equation? You need a proportionality constant, that's the C squared. The speed of light squared. So, all of these understandings of how the universe works. We have something on one side of the equation, something on the other. There's a constant there. Constant of proportionality. You make the measurement. Okay. So, one of the calculations we do is, we take the gravitational constant. And say, what happens if we change it? By a little bit? What are the consequences to the universe? It turns out, that you run the gravitational constant through your equations of a star. And if you change the gravitational constant by a little bit, increase it by a little bit.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has stupendous consequences on the luminosity of stars. The luminosity of a star is dependent on the seventh power.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the value of the gravitational constant. So if I double the value of the gravitational constant, was two to the seventh power. Okay? Two times two is four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, hundred twenty-eight, two. The luminosity of stars would grow by a factor of two hundred and fifty-six. Thereby reducing their life expectancy. All this, the universe would be much brighter. Yes. But they would burn their energy faster. And they wouldn't last long enough for planets around them to evolve into complex life. It would be devastating. That's a lesson to us all, if you wanna mess with the universe. You gotta, you know. Be prepared. Be prepared for the consequences.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  F around and find out.

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, that being said, there's a book, series, called Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland. Written by a physicist, George Gamow. A mid-twentieth century physicist, brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant guy. Uh, he first calculated that after the big bang, you would have a cosmic microwave background. Okay? Very important calculation. Anyhow, he wrote a series, he wrote for the public, so he's after my own heart here. Alright. Uh, Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland. And each of these books, Mr. Tompkins was in a world where one of the constants of nature was different. So one of them is, the speed of light is 60 miles an hour.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's driving down the street.

• 11:15Chuck Nice?

  In the dark.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and, and he sees phenomenon that you would see only if you went very fast near the speed of light, like in a normal situation. But the speed of light's not 60 miles an hour.

• 11:25Chuck Nice?

  How creative is that?

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very creative. It's beautiful.

• 11:28Chuck Nice?

  Smart guy.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And another, so one would be kinda cool is, you know, there's something called dispersion. And it's diffraction, dispersion, refraction is what light does as it goes through a hole in the wall, or goes around a corner, or goes into another medium. If you change the value of Planck's constant, that's the constant for quantum physics, there's a value you can make it so that if you walk through a doorway, you will diffract.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll affect you macroscopically in the way it previously only affected particles. And so I thought it'd be fun to dial that up, just so I can live in the world of quantum physics, just for a day.

• 12:13Chuck Nice?

  Now that'd be cool.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying. That's, all those rules are different.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. That's a completely...

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I would do that just as an amusement park, not as a thing. I'm, I'm not messing with the laws of the universe otherwise. That's good news. Yeah, good. Thank you.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Hello, I'm Alexander Harvey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So our producer asked that question.

• 12:55Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:56Chuck Nice?

  And here's another producer, Lane.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lane.

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  We've learned on the show that your position on human evolution is that it was contingent on the extinction of dinosaurs. Is our civilization contingent on the formation of hydrocarbons over millions of years? Did the progression of human energy sources require that we utilize fossil fuels? Could we have gone from wood fire straight to electricity?

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think about that all the time.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think about... Could we have landed on the moon in the year seventeen hundred? Yeah. For example. Right. Okay. Why not? Okay, alright, so one of our other producers, Lindsay, and I co-wrote a book called To Infinity and Beyond.

• 13:37Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where we tracked what people were thinking in their day, and how far away was whatever dream they had technologically, intellectually, scientifically. In the year seventeen hundreds, I want to go to the moon. How would you do that? You don't even have a periodic table of elements yet. How do you do that? Will the material science allow it? Has physics developed? Do you have enough astronomy knowledge? Do you even know what the moon is? So, I think about that all the time. Did everything have to happen in the way it did? Because many other factors have to come together. Many other discoveries matter at the same time. So one cannot just run off by itself.

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  No, and they all build upon each other.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They all build upon each other.

• 14:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Like a sliding doors scenario where everything has to happen or at that moment if you're going through it.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  See, that's what I do. I don't agree with that. I agree that they are definitely platformed, where they build on top of each other, and they have to be made so that that can be done. But I think it's a matter of, human beings have progressed and regressed, and progressed and regressed. And if we had just progressed, I think we might have got to the moon long before the seventeen hundreds.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  You know, because when you think about it, we built the pyramids, you know, I mean, or at least aliens built the pyramids, you know? We had civilizations, great civilizations, but then we always have war, and that slams us back to a place before we started. So we take one step forward and three steps back.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or does it? Let me read for you.

• 15:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh. Uh-oh, here we go.

• 15:26Gary O'Reilly?

  He's got his phone out.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me read for you.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A passage written by Christian Huygens. Huygens! Dutch polymath.

• 15:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, he discovered what?

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saturn's rings were.

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before him, they were just like

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  blobs.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  blobs of light, right? So this is a ring system, it's rotating. Exactly. He's done a lot of brilliant things. I'll read to you from his book Cosmotheros.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Cosmotheros?

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eighteen ninety-eight.

• 15:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. "The vices of men are no hindrance to their being the glory of the planet they inhabit." Deeply religious, all the scientists back then were religious, okay? So it's folded in here, but watch how he says it. "Besides, the vices of men themselves are of excellent use." These are the vices that you said regress us.

• 16:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are they not?

• 16:17Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 16:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent use and are not permitted and allowed in the world without wise design. For since it has so pleased God to order the earth and everything in it as we see it is, for it's nonsense to say it happened against his will or knowledge, we must not think that those different opinions and that various multiplicity of minds were placed in different men to no end or purpose, but that this mixture of bad men with good and the consequence of such a mixture as misfortunes, wars, afflictions, poverty, and the like, were given to us for this very good end,

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  for exercising our wits and sharpening our inventions by forcing us to provide for our own necessary defense against our enemies.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Saturn notwithstanding, that guy's an idiot.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what he goes on.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure he does.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He talks about poverty, what role that plays.

• 17:22Chuck Nice?

  But he's taking kind of a fatalistic view.

• 17:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  It's a bit more like, his thing is kind of like, you know, we're here because we're meant to be. And I, I don't, I don't.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, he's, he's right in a lot of ways here, especially since I wrote a whole book on this, okay?

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Accessory to war. The unspoken alliance of astrophysics and the military. What's going on when we're at war? Innovation happens.

• 17:48Chuck Nice?

  Always.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The I don't wanna die driver.

• 17:50Chuck Nice?

  Always.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The I don't wanna die gene.

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  And I'm cool with that.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And well, it's just, I'm just.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm saying your book is smarter than that guy because.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not value judging.

• 17:59Chuck Nice?

  Because self-preservation will always outstrip anything.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's saying, he's saying that you would only need self-preservation when you have a-holes trying to not preserve you.

• 18:12Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Yeah, when a-holes try to kill you, you, you, you kick in the high gear.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You kick in high gear. So if we go from burning wood, I don't see us going to the moon without a whole middle piece there where our capacity to generate energy gets greater and greater and greater. And there's a lot written about consumption of energy.

• 18:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the historical record where people say, oh, America's used so much energy per capita and we have to reduce that. However, again, I'm just observing this. I'm not value judging it.

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The history of the world, the greatest civilizations, the ones that were most powerful, however you measure that, were the ones that consumed the greatest amount of energy.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  The most energy.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per person.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  Always.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per capita.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you can't rule the world unless you're using up a bunch of energy.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Figure out how to, how to use the energy.

• 18:58Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Be it human capital, chemical, uh, energy, whatever.

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I think we needed ways to develop enough energy in the system to create elements of society that are high consumers of energy, like our transportation system.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about that. Our, our, our airplanes, rockets. You don't have that unless you command energy.

• 19:23Chuck Nice?

  And you're absolutely right. My only caveat, I will say, because I do not disagree with anything you just said. I don't necessarily disagree with Heiben Flyben, uh, but.

• 19:36Gary O'Reilly?

  You've been desperate to say that.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  But my caveat is that if our chief goal were one of enlightenment, we would constantly be seeking a higher level with or without the threat of destruction, the threat of war. Uh, we would be training ourselves, and this is part of who we are as human beings, we'd be training ourselves to constantly want to advance.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except, I think the urge to be enlightened is not as strong as the urge to not die.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, I agree with that.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:14Chuck Nice?

  So my point is, if we cult, if that were our chief uh, uh, goal was to cultivate that, we would be able to burge in that.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The species would have to rethink itself.

• 20:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:24Chuck Nice?

  And that's, that's my point.

• 20:25Gary O'Reilly?

  That's such a bad thing, because were we to chase enlightenment to innovate rather than create a thousand year war, wouldn't that serve humanity better?

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  Also, when you think about war, think about this. War is very rarely a large swath of a population saying, "Let's go do this." It's normally a few people making the decision that a bunch of other people are gonna go and fight and die.

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but they're convincing you that they should do that.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's part of the problem here. Uh, he just goes on here and says, "Tis the fear of poverty and misery that we are beholden for all our arts, for that natural knowledge which was the product of laborious industry, and which makes us that we cannot but admire the power and wisdom of, of the Creator." Again, he's going back to, the Creator putting the bad people and the bad things around us, okay? "Which otherwise we might have passed by with the same indifference as beasts." And if men were to lead their whole lives in an undisturbed, continued peace, in no fear of poverty, no danger of war, I don't doubt they would live little better than the, than brutes.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without all knowledge or enjoyment of these advantages that made our lives pass on with pleasure and profit.

• 21:50Chuck Nice?

  I disagree.

• 21:51Gary O'Reilly?

  I disagree with that.

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he's saying we'll be, we're complacent because we have it all. That's basically if it weren't, if it weren't for a-holes messing things up.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God put a-holes on her so everyone else can make life better.

• 22:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Basically saying God gives you lemons, make lemonade.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And that's, that's the best invention of God there ever was, lemonade.

• 22:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. So, why are we discussing?

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me another question.

• 22:14Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, why are we discussing energies?

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 22:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Data centers, AI plus Bitcoin mining. Energy consumption.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 22:23Gary O'Reilly?

  It's huge. I mean, this is not just a single nation, this is a global phenomenon. So, how are they going to be powered in the future? Is the answer nuclear? Is it solar? Is it wind? Is it burn more wood, burn more gas, burn more oil?

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no shortage of energy.

• 22:40Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, but these guys, they can't keep burning up energy like a

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, they can.

• 22:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Like a small nation.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to be clear. There are some who walk among us who want to demonize the consumption of energy. And I'm saying, fine, on the assumption that the energy you're demonizing, that the production or utility of that energy somehow badly affects the environment. But solar power, wind power, hydroelectric, there's, there's no shortage of other ways to generate as much energy as you want. You drive through the southwest of the United States, the Sahara, any desert, there are no solar panels there, there's just sand, there's not even plants, there's

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  just sand that gets hot and re-radiates the sun's energy at night. Not serving anybody at all.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying if you're gonna need energy to mine Bitcoin or whatever else you there are ways to produce energy that doesn't mess up the environment.

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I don't care how much energy it is. Because we're getting more energy than we'll ever use. Coming down every second from the sun.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  And believe it or not, there's energy beneath us. All I've got to do is drill a hole down and you can actually pull energy from the earth itself.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in Iceland, they have tubes on the mountainside that go down into obviously the lava into the very hot uh layers beneath the crust.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They cycle water down there, it gets hot.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  And steams, brings them back up.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they send the water down into town. They actually have to cool down the water before it gets to your shower because you get scalded.

• 24:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:21Gary O'Reilly?

  But we're not gonna produce massive data centers.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't care.

• 24:26Gary O'Reilly?

  And they're gonna need energy.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine.

• 24:28Chuck Nice?

  And we have it. I mean Neil's saying we have the all the energy that we need.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 24:32Chuck Nice?

  And I've been saying this for years, I don't care what anybody says. Okay.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And or just use nukes.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  The sun itself is enough energy for any and everything we need. I don't care what anybody has told you. Just because we haven't made the necessary strides to harness that power doesn't mean that that power is not available.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, nor does it mean that we shouldn't think of using things that invoke a lot of it. I don't have a problem with energy.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I, no issues.

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  And this is what I was saying.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you could nukes, you would want to use fusion, not fission. Fission has byproducts you have to dispose of.

• 25:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Aren't there newer ones coming out sort of modular, smaller?

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The direction we want to take in the future is fusion. Where there's no, uh, no unpleasant byproducts.

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Gary O'Reilly?

  That would be good.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, she's turning hydrogen into helium.

• 25:15Chuck Nice?

  Helium.

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all that happens there.

• 25:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so.

• 25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, next.

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. In wave particle duality, we know that photons can kick out electrons showing that they are both particles. Right? We also know that the double split experiment shows that electrons create wave interference that interferes with itself. So it's a wave, okay? So electrons are waves and particles just like photons. But anybody who's ever used a battery knows how we use electrons for, you know, anything. Uh, as a particle, alright? How do we use electrons as a wave? Is there anything we do that says we take the wave part

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  of the electron and we use that instead of the particle?

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or as a particle. Yes. Yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Is that the answer? Is that it? All right, all right. Uh, so, uh, let me take a backdoor into your question. Okay. All right. So imagine a wave. Right. It's like, it has an up and a down. Up and a down. Trough and a crest. We call that a sinusoid, but it's up and down, looking from a sine wave. All right. I had a sinusoid infection once. It was terrible. All right. So that's a wave. So if you're using light that has this wavelength, and you want to take a photo of anything that has detail that's smaller than that wavelength, you ain't getting it. Right. Okay? Yes.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That light of this wavelength cannot resolve any detail smaller than its own wavelength. Okay, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay? Right. So, how do electron microscopes work? Aha. Okay, well, let's look at wavelengths. We get, in order of reducing wavelengths, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Let's make the wavelength smaller, then we get what? On the other side of violet. Indigo. No, X-rays, right? Or gamma, or something. Other side of violet. It's beyond violet. Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet. Dude. Ah, sorry. Dude. Who's co-host sorry?

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Ultraviolet. Okay? What comes after ultraviolet? X-rays. X-rays. Okay? Really small wavelengths. Okay. Okay? More energy, smaller wavelength. Yes, not only is it higher energy, smaller wavelength, but if you use that light to take photos, you can see things really, really tiny. In that, okay. So what you do is, you heat up electrons until their wave equivalent is?

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  X-rays. Oh snap! And then you beam the electrons to the- And then you can take pictures of- Of- Of the stuff, is that that wavelength? Of the hairs on the edges of insects. So that's why they call it an electron microscope. That's why. Because the wave particle duality is being exploited for that- For that technology, yes. So I didn't realize, so that you, I call, you heat up the electrons- Yeah, it was a way to do it, yeah. You incite them to the point where they get to that wavelength. Yes, that's their wavelength. There it is. They have the energy level where that their corresponding energy is X-rays. You beam it in- Who the hell thought, that's brilliant! This is science! That's amazing! That's why any electron microscope you've ever seen in any book, that's some detailed stuff.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. You've seen it. Yeah. Like bugs and- Oh yeah. And, and, and cell fibers and things. Right, scary little critters. I know, aren't they? Yeah. And, and, and that doesn't work with visible light. Exactly. The wavelength is too large. That's great. Yeah. Okay, well, there you go. That's an example, and- No, that's a great example. Mm-hmm, alright.

• 29:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Ready for the next one?

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next one!

• 29:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so-

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are good questions, you're all good, good people.

• 29:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Doing our best. Reason we haven't encountered alien life forms now is maybe that these alien life forms are billions and billions of years old and have gone from a biological to an artificial intelligence and are living for eternity and therefore we can't see, touch, feel. Is that likely as a possibility?

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why wouldn't you be able to see, touch, or feel something just because it lives for eternity?

• 29:59Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, if it's, if it's gone to an artificial intelligence and exists in a virtual capacity, if I'm thinking it correctly.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in, using our feeble 21st century vocabulary-

• 30:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saying it might exist in some-

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A computer state, so some memory state.

• 30:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's just happy existing on its own planet.

• 30:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Forever.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 30:22Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's why we haven't had any.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's living in its own matrix. Where it wants to go to the beach, it goes to the beach. What's that movie, Total Recall? Okay, everybody's just living there and they're just machines humming, okay? By the way, that was a recurring theme in the Netflix series Black Mirror.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  I did, I loved.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Consciousnesses have been uploaded into just this bank of computers.

• 30:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Who was the British guy that was behind all of that?

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  I forget his name.

• 30:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, heavens above. Anyway, moving on.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  He's brilliant.

• 30:52Gary O'Reilly?

  So I'm just wondering, you know, if a civilization, a race, an alien life form has been in existence over billions and billions of years, surely it's evolved into something absolutely superior.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They've learned to ditch their biology.

• 31:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And pick on, so we could visit a planet where it's just these humming.

• 31:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Data centers and that's where millions of people are living out their lives.

• 31:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such as in The Matrix. Okay.

• 31:17Gary O'Reilly?

  That's plausible.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, okay.

• 31:19Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. I'll keep an eye out for humming data centers.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I wonder how would it ever make a discovery?

• 31:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, at that point.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying, cause I still get to go to the beach and pore over the shells and rocks. And I might discover a life form that my consciousness in the box will never know, see, or even think.

• 31:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, if they're really super intelligent, they'll have probably worked a way out.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know how that would be if they're not the ones doing the discovery.

• 31:44Gary O'Reilly?

  We're doing 21st century thinking and they're doing billions and billions of years.

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'd have to have some version of itself that's still exploring.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out there. So then we might see their hardware emissary.

• 31:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting, cause that's most likely what we'll do once we leave.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we have.

• 31:58Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, why wouldn't they want to leave and go to, cause if you're not bound by the corporeal, then you can now get into a ship.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bound by the corporeal.

• 32:08Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, I heard that and I liked it. Keep her, I keep her.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bound by the corporeal.

• 32:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Well done, sir.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, well done. Well played.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  You can get into a ship and still be tethered to your planet there, still be on the ship. Two and then say, let's go.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both places.

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Let's go both places. Let's go to a black hole. Let's see what the event horizon is.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're still back on the planet.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  And you're still back on the planet. Let's fall into this black hole.

• 32:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Part of you dies, but you're still alive.

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, that part is right.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I like this. This is good.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. I mean, that's, if, if I could put myself into a context, that's what I would. That's the only reason I would want to keep living.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Didn't have probes that went beyond their planet. They would be ossified in the moment that they stopped doing that. This is what I would claim.

• 32:53Chuck Nice?

  See, that sounds like hell to me. Could you imagine being stuck in 2024 for eternity?

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if you go far enough back, when civilization didn't change by very much, you'd live your whole life with no expectation of living differently tomorrow than you did today.

• 33:11Chuck Nice?

  Damn, wow.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas today, everybody expects tomorrow's gonna be different.

• 33:16Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so back then, as far as they're concerned, all of eternity would be like that.

• 33:20Chuck Nice?

  Doesn't everybody think tomorrow's gonna be worse? You know what?

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  That makes a lot of sense why people want to go to heaven. Because if you, if your life changes very little.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need some escape from that.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  You, right. And it's like, okay.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If life is changing daily, you got something to look forward to.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  See, you want a rainbow.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is something to look forward to.

• 33:42Chuck Nice?

  You want, you want, you want the pot of gold? Yes, exactly. Wow. As Patton Oswalt says, they want sky cake.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, it's the best description of heaven I've ever heard. I don't care about my life down here. When I die, I'm getting sky cake.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've heard that routine.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  Hilarious.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  Hilarious. I'm sorry. Anyway.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  Uh, let's go to Alex P. Here we go. You said that there is a time when we will achieve exit velocity from death. Staying on the Gary Steen. How does the notion of human immortality gel with the concept of entropy? Ooh, look at that. Do the laws of thermodynamics forbid humans from ever living forever?

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you would never live forever if you were a closed system. Entropy would take its toll. Right. But, life on earth is not a closed system. No, it isn't. It is open to energy sources beyond itself. Called the sun. Called the sun. It's that simple. Exactly. This is one of the early attempts to out argue the physics by fundamentalist creationist. They would say, "Well, you say things always decay to disorder by the second law of thermodynamics, and look at us. We are more complex than ever before." And it's just, you should pause before you try to argue physics with a physicist. If your foundational knowledge is from a book written 4,000 years ago. You just have to pause for a moment. Okay?

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The entropy issue takes place only in closed systems. Right. Okay? We have a three-species sphere downstairs, living in a vat of water. That is completely sealed. We have kelp, we have krill, and we have snails. And they have been living off each other for 25 years. Since January 1st, 2000, that's 25 years ago, we've had, they've been kicking it downstairs. Okay? One of them eats the poop of the other, da-da-da-da, okay? It's symbiosis. Okay? So, yes, they're symbiotically, uh... Entangled. Entangled. Now, watch. When the construction was happening?

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. The construction folks said, "Well, this looks pretty important and fragile. Let's protect it." Oh, they put... And they put a tarp over it!

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's great. When good deeds go wrong. Oh, and so we caught it early, but, you know, there were a couple of belly-up krill. Of course. But, basically, they thought that this was its own thing, its own world. It kind of looks that way because it's a sealed sphere. All right, it's not its own world. It requires energy from the outside, just as we do here on Earth.

• 36:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Great example.

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you want to live forever, you will do so at the expense of some energy somewhere else on your planet or in the solar system. Cool.

• 36:41Gary O'Reilly?

  If you want to live forever, don't let anyone put a tarp over you.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the lesson of the day.

• 36:48Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and maybe don't let them do that in any case. That's great. One more question, time for one more.

• 36:55Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, science fiction sometimes has stories of humans interacting with aliens and trying to find a universal commonality from mathematics or the laws of physics to bridge the inevitable communication gap that would arise between two massively different cultures. Are there any good examples of this you haven't heard in fiction? Or any that you were impressed by the authors that they came up with? This question from Brian.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I have an example.

• 37:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Brian, our IT specialist.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our IT guy, okay, I got this. Very good. Forgive me for not remembering on the spot who came up with this, but it was not a science fiction author, it was like a philosopher, physicist, mathematician.

• 37:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Sure.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he said, here's what you do. If you want to communicate with aliens and you want them to know that we are smart.

• 37:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? You just make a triangle.

• 37:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? As big as you can on Earth. Okay?

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, you make a square off of each side of the triangle.

• 38:01Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And the triangle has side A, B, C. These are really crappy squares there, okay?

• 38:10Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm not judging.

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you have it. Now you make channels here with like fuel or something and ignite it when Earth is at night. Alien will see this and say, we got some smart people down there. Do you know why? Okay? What is the area of a square?

• 38:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, it depends on the size of the square.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, if a square of side C was the area.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Triangle.

• 38:38Chuck Nice?

  It's, uh, I'm trying to remember my stupid.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the area of a rectangle is what?

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  It's, oh, God.

• 38:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's height times the width.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a square.

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  That's what I say, side one, side two.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That times side two.

• 38:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so in a square, it's, so this C was the same as there. So the area of this square is C times C.

• 38:57Chuck Nice?

  C times C, C squared.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  C squared. You got that? Okay.

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the area of this?

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. A plus, A bear, A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

• 39:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the area of this square? What's the area of this square?

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  That's A squared.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A squared.

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. A squared. And the area of this one?

• 39:16Chuck Nice?

  B squared.

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  B squared.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. If you draw this, it means you know about the Pythagorean theorem.

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that the squares of the sides of a triangle are not just an abstract concept, they're actual squares.

• 39:32Chuck Nice?

  That's crazy. Okay.

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You light this on fire at night, the aliens will know you've been hanging out with Pythagoras.

• 39:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Only if the aliens studied geometry.

• 39:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Wouldn't it be funny if we got some dumbass aliens?

• 39:48Chuck Nice?

  I failed, I failed geometry, man. I told you it was gonna come in handy at some point.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you, you.

• 39:53Chuck Nice?

  You said math didn't make a difference after school.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm saying, we all learn the Pythagorean theorem just by looking at a triangle, and we're told that A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

• 40:06Gary O'Reilly?

  So, but if they were aliens, they'd just look at that, and they, maybe if they were coneheads, they'd like the idea that it was a triangle.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That as well.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Or maybe they like Doritos in there.

• 40:16Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, as a kid, I, the first science museum I ever attended was the Boston Museum of Science.

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then a lot of hands-on exhibits, as good science museums will.

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they had this on the wall.

• 40:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know what it was? So you would rotate it. So it would be sitting there like this, and there'd be, this flat squares against the wall, and this had liquid in it. Just a thin square volume, okay? It's had liquid in it. Oh, that's brilliant. And so when you turn it, you turn it, this liquid fills the other two squares. And this then filled completely these other two squares. And we're saying a squared plus b squared equals c squared. That's really cool, man. That's a great exhibit. That's some good shit. Yeah. That's some brilliant educators thinking about it. That's very good. And so I was just duly reminded by, by our producer Alex P. That Gauss, brilliant German mathematician.

• 41:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Obviously.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Proposed this as a way to possibly come, to show aliens. Right. That we're not still living in the caves. Yeah, because it's so intentional. That's amazing. Yes.

• 41:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, and so simply, simplistic.

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so simple, that's why.

• 41:28Gary O'Reilly?

  That's the genius of the simplicity.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not gonna say, you're not gonna write an English sentence. Right. Or even some other symbols might.

• 41:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Throw people off. We can throw our best equation, but they might have other symbols for equations. Wouldn't make a difference. Whereas a triangle and a square. They get it. We got it. Wow, look at that. Okay.

• 41:43Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. There you go. That's your answer, Brian.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been Chuck and Gary's Burning Questions. StarTalk Special Edition. Thank you, I enjoy that, we should do that more often. Yeah, that was fun.

• 41:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe you can ask us some next time.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe, yeah, I will, I will.

• 41:54Gary O'Reilly?

  The answers will be interesting.

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're done here. StarTalk Special Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson, thanks Chuck, Gary.

• 42:03Gary O'Reilly?

  You're welcome.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary Chuck.

• 42:04Gary O'Reilly?

  The same thing.

• 42:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until next time, keep looking up.