Cosmic Queries: Super Powers

If Superman followed the laws of physics, how could he fly? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer this and other questions from our fans about super powers, from the scientifically sound, to the supremely silly.

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.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I hail from New York City, where I work at the Hayden Planetarium, serving as its director, part of the American Museum of Natural History. You're all invited. Come on by, Upper West Side of Manhattan. I got with me in studio, the one, the only Chuck Nice.

• 0:42Chuck Nice?

  And thank God for that, that he's the one and the only.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One and the only Chuck Nice?

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been thanking God for a lot of stuff lately. Has he been that busy with you?

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  You know, I try to keep him on his toes. You know? Try to keep him on his toes.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the things you thank God for. I mean, you know, given like, we have a whole universe here. You thank God because you're like, the only Chuck Nice?

• 1:04Chuck Nice?

  Well, I'm saying that facetiously. I'm not truly grateful. Other people are grateful.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Other people are grateful.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  That there's not another me.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, believe me.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we're doing another Cosmic Queries edition of StarTalk.

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. And so, is today themed?

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  Today's theme...

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Is superheroes.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Superheroes.

• 1:26Chuck Nice?

  Questions you have not seen.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got a few, and I know something about some superheroes, but I'm not like, the expert.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, the thing is, I've just been perusing these questions right now. And they're not really about the superheroes. I think the people are very thought, some of them are just ridiculous.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but I want to hear some of those too.

• 1:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'll, okay, you asked for them. But they're pretty thoughtful in that they're not really asking you about the superhero. They're asking you about the physics of the superhero with respect to real-life physics.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha, so I can totally rock that.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got that.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because every astrophysicist is also a physicist. This is how that works.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, my undergraduate degree is in physics.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  Is in physics.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to set that straight.

• 2:10Chuck Nice?

  So, you're, you know, it's...

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Me and physics go way back.

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so you gotta, you can't, you can't become an astrophysicist without becoming a regular physicist.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  That's the deal?

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much the deal. I, I, probably half of my colleagues have degrees in physics before they got the PhD in astrophysics.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even if they didn't, half their classes are all in physics.

• 2:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so now, here's my other question there. Can you be an astrophysicist without being a PhD?

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, perhaps, but, an astrophysicist, the PhD, forget that it's an education level. The PhD is demonstration that you can perform original research on the frontier of cosmic discovery.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if you can do that at the master's level, sure, I'll call you, I'll call you an astrophysicist.

• 2:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, at the master's level, the training is less refined to get to that point. So that's all.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  So you're more of a Padawan.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, uh, what's that, what is that?

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  That's a, uh, Jedi in training?

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  Excuse me, from just geeking out for a second?

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, there are people who are at the undergraduate level, or at the master's level, who have their names on research papers. But generally, they are topics that are selected by their advisors, who do have the PhDs. Who do understand where the frontier is, and how to, how to, uh, advance it.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that, that's how that plays.

• 3:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but you, you're still not an astrophysicist. You just got your name on a research paper.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got your name on a research paper, that's a start. It's a good, it's a good.

• 3:40Chuck Nice?

  That's kinda like looking through a telescope and discovering something that nobody has ever seen before, and they name it after you. You're still not an astrophysicist.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cuz you just happen to be looking at the.

• 3:49Chuck Nice?

  Dude who looked up at the right time.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, and the right place.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  And the right place. So cool!

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is no place without a time, and no time without a place.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Right on!

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about that.

• 4:00Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you, if you ever go to your friend and say, "I'll meet you at 10 o'clock." Well, where?

• 4:05Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:06Chuck Nice?

  No place without time, no time without place.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll meet, I'll meet you at Shake Shack. When? Right, I mean, there's a ti- the ti- spacetime continuum is infused throughout everything we think and do, whether or not you're actively aware of that fact.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  Apparently, I'm not, cuz I'm late for everything.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:22Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I. So I haven't seen these questions.

• 4:26Chuck Nice?

  No, you haven't.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so let's give, bring it on.

• 4:29Chuck Nice?

  Here we go, let's start.

• 4:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're not, the point is not to stump me, it's just I'm here to highlight what I know and, and, and shed some insight into the topic at hand.

• 4:40Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, yeah, so this is, and some of these questions are pretty cool. Um, I'm gonna start off with one that I like a lot from Mike Dotson, comes to us from Earth and Facebook.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because we agreed, if they don't say where they're from, you're gonna say they're from Earth.

• 4:56Chuck Nice?

  They're from Earth, so people, start telling me where you're from when you send these in, please. All right, here we go. Uh, if there was a superhero, whose power was to see the whole spectrum of light, what do you think he or she would see, and what could we learn from him or her? So that, first of all, this, this person doesn't exist in superhero land, uh, so that's what I think is cool about this, but what if your power was to see all the spectrum of light at once?

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such a person has already been created in the world of science fiction.

• 5:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Geordi on Star Trek.

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  That is correct, sir, cuz he is absolutely blind, but he uses his visor to see all the different spectrums of light.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, he has full, wide spectrum vision of the world.

• 5:43Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 5:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, it was quite a discovery in astrophysics, that there's more to the universe than just visible light detectable by your retina. It was, it was, I counted as one of the great demotions of human physiology, where you learn that this cherished sense that we have called sight

• 5:59Chuck Nice?

  Sight, right.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is actually quite feeble relative to all the things that are seeable out there in this world.

• 6:04Chuck Nice?

  So we're not seeing anything.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We ain't seeing jack, and in fact, you, you are familiar with the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, whether or not you knew that that's what they were. So ultraviolet

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  X-rays

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gamma rays Infrared, microwaves, radio waves, all of this, including visible light, are part of a continuum of electromagnetic energy.

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so if you could see all of that, it would be a really visually noisy world.

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if I'm looking at you now, you'd be glowing with infrared at your 98.6 degrees.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd look at your cellphone, it would be glowing with, with microwaves.

• 6:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, oh, by the way. If you could see all spectrum, if you're driving the car, you'd be able to see the police, the police radar gun.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From a mile away.

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  Shooting at you from, right.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. You'd say, "Up, let me slow down. I got you."

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  And even if he had a laser radar gun, you'd be able to see.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you'd be, no matter the frequency of light.

• 7:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it would, you'd be immensely empowered to know what's going on in this world.

• 7:08Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:10Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's kinda like Predator, right? But he, no, he only was able to see his infrared.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Predator saw infrared.

• 7:15Chuck Nice?

  Infrared.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Consider the Predator, the film. Plus, in that movie, uh, so we had infrared scopes in the day.

• 7:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what you saw in the infrared scopes is what it looked like to him.

• 7:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, however, the infrared scopes are like low resolution, right? You just see these blobs.

• 7:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, blobs are moving.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. These amorphous kinda blobs.

• 7:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he was an alien and had advanced technology, he'd be able to see infrared with as much detail as you see visible light.

• 7:44Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He'd be able to see like the, the, the, the hands are a little cool, slightly cooler than the rest of the body, eh, cause it's an extremity. He'd be able to see all these details. But the best we can think of doing is give him the damn low resolution infrared scopes.

• 7:59Chuck Nice?

  And just see a bunch of blobs.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And see a bunch of blobs moving around. But, so he had infrared sight and, but, uh, it's not clear that he could see in other wavelengths. That wasn't obvious.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  So that's actually a very cool superhero to be able to see in every spectrum.

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you can see, but then, uh, for me, a hero has to do something about, you gotta, you gotta do something.

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  See, I have, I have very low expectations for my heroes.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You like the data-taking superhero?

• 8:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 8:27Chuck Nice?

  My, my superhero just shows up and tells me stuff. Like, his power is, "That's hot, don't touch it."

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, yeah, that's just, that's just a data-collecting superhero. But fine, that would have, there'd be superpowers of vision, correct?

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. All right, well, that was fascinating. Fascinating stuff, Mike Dodson. Way to go. So Matt, Eli from Earth and also Facebook wants to know this. And let's say Superman obeys the laws of physics.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, so now we are suspending a lot of disbelief now.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 9:03Chuck Nice?

  How does he fly? Could he use magnetism? Dark energy? Seamless transfer of his own mass to energy and air propulsion through his skin pores? What would be the thing to cause a humanoid form to take flight without the use of wings? Or a rocket?

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, when I was a kid and I saw Superman, you know, as a kid, you want to be a superhero, right?

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At least I did. And my favorite superhero was Mighty Mouse. And

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  Here I come to save the day.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he sang opera. And that was just cool. If I want to save women, I want to do it while singing. Singing opera and he had that, that operatic, you know, here I could, you know, it was a tenor, I guess.

• 9:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes.

• 9:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and he, and he had a big, powerful chest and he would save the damsel. And so I thought that's the kind of superhero I wanted to be. Now Mighty Mouse had a cape.

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Superman had a cape.

• 9:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So to me, I was, it was clear.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  The cape makes you fly.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Makes you fly.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was clearly the case.

• 10:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that I put on a cape and I tried jumping and I didn't jump, I measured that I didn't jump any farther wearing a cape than without a cape. So then I abandoned the idea that the cape made you fly.

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like when I was in third grade or something.

• 10:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so I, so no, capes, no.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  Capes are no.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. So what you have to rely on is his muscular strength from a planet that might have a very high surface gravity. That's really what you had to. Now, he came here as an infant, Moses style, right? Launched in a basket, arrived in a basket, didn't age at all. Uh, probably came through a wormhole so he can get here without aging.

• 10:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, um, but he grows up with the strength of what he would have had on his home planet.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So if you're that strong, then you jump, you looks, it looks like you're flying when in fact you're just jumping.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  You're just leaping.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're just leaping.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so look at how much the Hulk leaped. The Hulk can leap up. And he ain't wearing a cape.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  Bro. Yeah, exactly. Just wearing some really sexy cutoffs.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I've never looked at the Hulk and thought, you're a sexy dude, you know? I'm sorry.

• 11:17Chuck Nice?

  I don't know, man, that's kind of cool. Took off his shirt, got some cutoff jeans on. He needs some construction boots and we can talk.

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, he's the, he's the sixth village people guy, right?

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So were there five? I don't know. I've lost count. Uh, so, so he was ver- he's very strong and he can leap these great distances, almost like he's flying. So, and if you remember, uh, Superman, what's the, uh, uh, Superman Begins, I know it was Batman Begins.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  Batman Begins.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Superman, uh.

• 11:50Chuck Nice?

  His origins or?

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the movies was about his origins. Uh, when he finally sort of realizes these powers, he's jumping.

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  Right. That's how he starts off.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how he starts off.

• 12:00Chuck Nice?

  Just leaping.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And he can leap so far. And I would say if you're gonna be a Superman that's real, you have extreme strength, which you know you need to bend steel with your bare hands. And that strength would then translate into your ability to jump and to leap very far distances, looking like you're flying.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  Which is, by the way, the original, uh, um, uh, intro to Superman and the television series was able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tall buildings.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Right. So it wasn't, it never said able to fly.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tall buildings, right.

• 12:33Chuck Nice?

  Able to leap tall buildings. So, so basically, it's, it's, i- i- if he were to obey the laws of physics, he's never flying. He'd never be floating in air, just kinda like, just chilling.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. They got that in the later ones, but if you, if, if it's a Superman and the laws of physics combined, yeah, you'd, you'd, he'd be a, a, a great leaper.

• 12:49Chuck Nice?

  He's just a hell of a long jumper.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hell of a long jumper, exactly.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  All right, there, there you have it, man. That makes sense. Okay. All right, let's move on to Victoria Hewie, coming to us from Earth. Um, okay, okay. Theoretically, Dr. Tyson, do you think a superhero with the power of inter-universal travel could ever be truly possible? Or would the probability of the laws of physics in other universes being different from ours prevent that from ever happening? Could somebody do it?

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Awesome question. So in the multiverse concept.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Which by the way, in Thor, that is what happens. It is the inter-universal travel. Cause Thor opens, from his world, opens up a portal.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. His world, I think his world is in our universe. He's just, the portal gets you from his world to our part of the world.

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so there you go.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't, isn't that world sectors and we're one of those sectors?

• 13:44Chuck Nice?

  I think it is. I think you're right. You're right. There's six sectors and we're one of them.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're one of them. And so, this is easy access from one sector to another.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  So that's a wormhole.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a wormhole. It's essentially a wormhole.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  But this would be an inter-universal portal from the multiverse.

• 13:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in the multiverse, it's, it's prescribed by the fact that these are fluctuations in the quantum, early quantum universe, alright? And quantum physics is, is a fascinating understanding of the structure of matter on the smallest scales.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, there's, there's particles that pop in and out of existence. I mean, it's a stunning reality that exists at those scales. Now, the whole universe doesn't do that unless the entire universe were the size of an atom. Then when you pop particles in and out of existence, you're actually popping universes in and out of existence.

• 14:32Chuck Nice?

  Whoa. Now see, man, now I wish I had some marijuana, cause that is awesome what you just said, man. I should be high right now. That would be so cool.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's my question.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  Because that would mean that-

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. Here's my question.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That fact is so profound. Will the marijuana add to it or subtract?

• 14:54Chuck Nice?

  No, marijuana is definitely gonna add to that.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause when I think of marijuana, I think of something that adds depth to something that doesn't otherwise have it.

• 15:06Chuck Nice?

  That is also true.

• 15:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what I'm saying. But now I'm handing you depth on a silver platter.

• 15:11Chuck Nice?

  Now, what it can also do is augment the depth that is already resident.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I hadn't thought about the augment.

• 15:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes. So, you know, it can work both ways. It can make you look at something and go, whoa, when you shouldn't be doing that at all.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:24Chuck Nice?

  You know what I mean? Just like, oh my god, you put coffee in that coffee cup? Oh my god, dude, that is so friggin' awesome. You mean, it's a container completely devoted to just one liquid? Oh my god, coffee cup. Whoa. See, or it could take something that is already mind blowing and then just cause you to get even deeper into that.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  Like the fact that popping in and out of the multiverse on a quantum physics level would mean that we are the atom that's popping in and out.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, the whole universe is the atom.

• 16:06Chuck Nice?

  The whole universe is the atom that's popping. See, that is awesome.

• 16:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so here you have it. So now, it turns out, our understanding of quantum physics tells us that if you pop a new universe out of this,

• 16:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the laws of physics will likely be slightly different.

• 16:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this ensemble of other universes are, could be dangerous to visit.

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crossing from one universe to the other. And clearly, the person who wrote that question understands this.

• 16:32Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, Victoria.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You would have to be a superhero who had law of physics resistant molecules that you were composed of.

• 16:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe there are certain configurations of matter and energy that transcend even the multiverse itself.

• 16:50Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 16:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you'd make a superhero out of this super substance. So that it could visit different universes and save people in all the different universes. But none, no one of us could do that.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you could fall into a pile of goo.

• 17:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, just by, just by popping out.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just by popping in, because the, the, the forces that bond your molecules manifest differently from one, one universe to another. So there would be, it would be an excuse to invent a new kind of substance out of which you would make this new kind of superhero.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  And this new kind of superhero would actually be a new kind of physics too, because just like quantum physics is different, he would be the quantum physics of the multiverse. Cause he's different.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, he'd be different, yeah. But, but what's interesting is if you can make everything out of stuff that's different, then it wouldn't matter what universe you were in.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you'd have to know how to interact with the stuff that isn't different. That's the, that's the fun part.

• 17:47Chuck Nice?

  See, this is why we need marijuana, man, this will tell you right now.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got just a, like, less than a minute. What, what, what do you got?

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, thirty seconds.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what do you have?

• 17:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here you go. Hello, Dr. Tyson. What's the deal with Thor's hammer?

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there's a story there.

• 18:06Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, but the, the, the clock does not provide time to contain it.

• 18:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well, should we do a cliffhanger? Yeah.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the story about Thor's hammer.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break. When we come back, I'm, Chuck and I return, and we're talking about superheroes in cosmic queries.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk.

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio, you're Dr. Tyson. I work at the American Museum of Natural History.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you do.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you have, you gotta come by sometime.

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  I passed, that's there two weeks.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever brought any one of your nine kids? No?

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well, my wife did that. However, my son did ask me to go to-

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you didn't say, "No, you don't have nine kids."

• 18:55Chuck Nice?

  I'm the old, dirty bastard of StarTalk.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how many kids you have?

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  Old, dirty Chuck Nice with nine children. I have three.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three kids, okay, sorry, I exaggerated.

• 19:04Chuck Nice?

  Which, by the way, I, I am gonna come by the planetarium. My son, uh, wants to go.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And their ages are what?

• 19:09Chuck Nice?

  I have a fifteen-year-old daughter who doesn't want any part of me whatsoever.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  Uh, I have a nine-year-old son, who we do everything together.

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's still a good age.

• 19:18Chuck Nice?

  That's still great. And I have a two-year-old, because I'm an idiot.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  That's why, stupid penis, hate you. Hate you.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sometimes.

• 19:33Chuck Nice?

  I can't stay mad at you.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what were we talking? Oh, uh, we, we left off with a cosmic query. What was it?

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, which I thought was a really simple little, uh, cosmic query, but, um-

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, what's up with Thor's hammer?

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, uh, and this is Dietrich Iswig, uh, Kaya, is, uh, just coming to us from Earth.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From Earth, okay.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  And, once again, here's the question. Hello, Dr. Tyson, what's the deal with Thor's hammer?

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so here's the deal, all right? I'm watching Thor, the movie.

• 20:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and I don't, I don't go back to the, like, earliest comic books, so- Though I don't count myself as a comic book expert, but I do enjoy some good movies. Yeah. Superheroes. So I'm watching this, the, the Thor movie. Okay. Right. The, the first of the, the, the movies. And there's a scene where one of the characters describes the hammer as being forged in the ashes of a dying star. Wow. And I said, yes, I can calculate this. Now, there are many different kinds of dying stars. Right. But the Thor's hammer is very heavy and only Thor can pick it up. Right. So let me go to the kind of dying star that's really heavy. Okay. And that would be a neutron star. Right. Which is made of dense pack neutrons. So I said, well, how big is Thor's hammer?

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a friend of mine who has a replica of Thor's hammer gave it to me and I measured the size of the hammer. And I said, okay, if we make a hammer out of neutron star matter. Okay. I can calculate how much that would weigh. Awesome. It would weigh as much as a herd of three billion elephants. Wow. Three billion. Plus or minus. I have to, I, I tweeted this. I would go back and check my tweet. And your average. It's a number about, it might've been thirty billion, but it's, it's heavy. Right. And then I realized that's why even the Hulk couldn't pick it up. Right.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause what, there's nothing the Hulk can't do. Can't pick this up. Cause it weighs as much as a herd of three billion elephants. Right. And again, the exact number is in my tweet. Um, you go back like a few months, it's there, like a year, it's there. Alright, so. I, so I tweeted that and I said, and I have a picture of my hand holding the. Your friend's replica. Right. And I said, Thor lent me his hammer to do some experiments and here's the picture. At its current density forged in this, in the, out of the ashes of a dying star, bada bing, here's how much it weighs. And people said, oh my gosh, mind blown. Oh my gosh. That is pretty mind blowing. Wait, wait, so now watch, wait. Then, couple of months later, someone comes in and says,

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am an expert on Thor and Norse legends.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you did not do the right calculation.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, what? And he said, so this person is a professor of physics.

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Norse god specialist.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  He gets laid a lot.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I, so I got nothing on him there. I got, all I did was see the damn movie, alright, I, okay, he's a Norse god specialist. Forgive me, I forgot his name, but he's out there. And he came back and said, no, you didn't do the calcu- it's made of some ethereal stuff. And he made some estimate about how much the density and how much it would weigh. And the Thor's we- hammer would weigh about six pounds. And I said, no, that ain't right. No, I like my answer better, even if it's wrong.

• 23:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, that does not sound cool. Weighs about six pounds, but I suppose that what he's saying is because he's a god and there you have to be worthy, only the person worthy to rule Asgard can lift the hammer.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But my wrong answer was way cooler.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it is way cooler, cuz six pounds, how much does Thor's hammer weigh? Six pounds? That sucks!

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, exactly.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  That's just a suck ass answer.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I conceded, I, I, and I said, thank you, but still.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, neutron, dying neutron star, that's cool.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, a neutron star is the remnant of a star that has just exploded as a supernova.

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's the ashes of a dying star for you.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but he was saying it's some, it's some mythical substance that it's made of.

• 23:46Chuck Nice?

  Alright, and six pounds.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  That's the.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever, it's some other, again, the right numbers are in the tweet. Cuz I, I'm not doing calculations in front of you right now, but when I did the tweet, I did the calculation.

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cuz you got me on the spot here, I don't, I'm not.

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  Well, who knew that Dietrich, uh, would come up with a super cool question, so simply put, what's up with Thor's?

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, cuz there's a whole story behind, there's a backstory.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My calculation, I was shown to be wrong, and it was by a physicist, Norse expert.

• 24:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, what does he know? Spend all that time studying Norse gods, please. Alright, thanks for ruining it, Dr. Norse God.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what day of the week is named after Thor?

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I don't know. Thursday?

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thor's Day. It's true. It's actually true. Yes, of course. Thor's Day. And Thor is like, wields the lightning bolt, as does Jupiter? And Zeus. They're corresponding, yeah, they're corresponding jobs, uh, uh, gods. And so, in the romance languages, what is Thursday?

• 24:40Chuck Nice?

  I don't know.

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't you know any romance languages?

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  No, cuz I only speak English. I don't eat, I don't speak Spanish, French, Italian.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's named after Jupiter. So they're corresponding gods. It's just in English, we got the Norse gods, and in the romance languages, they got the, the Roman gods.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  Nice. Okay.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cuz it's the romance.

• 24:58Chuck Nice?

  Romance.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They get the Roman gods.

• 25:02Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. I thought it was because, you know, when you have that accent, chicks just dig ya. I think that's why they called it the romance, you know? Anytime you speak like, you know, you, look, I go to a girl and I go, hey, how are you? Then, you know, she's like, yeah, whatever. But if I go, how are you? Then it's all of a sudden, I'm cool. How are you?

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How are you?

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, where are you from? You know, that's.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But all I'm saying is that romance comes from Rome. That's all. Okay? The fact that we attach, uh, sex and dating to it, that's another layer on top of.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  That would be, that would be my problem.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Alright, let's go to Ben Croft, coming to us from Earth.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay, Dr. Tyson, in your opinion, who would be the most scientifically accurate and believable superhero with superhuman abilities in relation to real-world physics? And counterpoint the most unbelievable and inaccurate, and why?

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 26:01Chuck Nice?

  And he is coming to us from Br- Brisbane, A- Australia.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool. So I think the most reachable superhero that's out there is Batman. Because he uses real devices on his utility belt.

• 26:14Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's nothing there that you say, oh, that can't happen, or he couldn't have done that, or, you know, yeah, he's got some, some special materials, but that's okay, because his company makes really.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  He's a billionaire.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's a billionaire.

• 26:26Chuck Nice?

  And his company is working for the government, developing experimental technologies for the military.

• 26:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so for me, he's the most realistic superhero. And Robin as well, that he's just an acrobat in tights. Okay, alright, so.

• 26:41Chuck Nice?

  At least, that's their cover.

• 26:48Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you know, we know the deal. Hanging around with that young boy all the time, putting him in underwear.

• 26:55Chuck Nice?

  Living at your house, your big billionaire mansion. We know the deal. We know the deal.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes, that's my young ward. Oh, is that what you call him?

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, your young ward. Oh, okay. Okay, child services won't be called because you're a billionaire and you have a young ward, okay? Let me do that. I am up on charges.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I swear, I've never thought about it that way. Nor did I ever think that Bert and Ernie were a gay couple, you know, there's, you know, there's a whole, or the Tinky Winky was the gay one out of the, you know, there's a whole, there's a whole literature on.

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  On, on who, what, right, exactly. Who and what might be gay.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who and what might be. So, I even forgot what I was talking about.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  So, you were saying that he's the most realistic, realistic as Batman.

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's more real than Iron Man, because the energy source that Iron Man is drawing from, to concentrate that much energy in one place, you would basically vaporize everything it was touching, so.

• 27:56Chuck Nice?

  And, and the other thing too, is when you think about Tony Stark having this power source inside his chest.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 28:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let's be honest, let's just hook him up to a city and forget it, because that's amazing. Why is this guy flying around in a suit instead of powering New York for free?

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But go ahead. Right, so you can't concentrate energy. Anything that you've ever used that has a lot of energy going on with it gets very hot very quickly. That's what energy does. If you fire a gun enough times, the gun gets warm. It can't even get too hot to touch. Too hot to touch, yeah. Right, right. And cannons in the old days, in fact, they used cannons firing cannonballs. And the fact that the cannon kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter to discover and come to an understanding of how heat worked. A physicist would say, you know, can we, while you're fighting this war, can we come in here and measure? Measure, right, measure. And they thought there was a substance called caloric, which was a fluid that would be heat. And if you put caloric from one thing to the other, then that thing would be at a higher temperature.

• 28:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so there were early ideas where we were intellectually sort of machinating how this would work. So, so Tony Stark, while I think he could wipe the floor with Batman. Right. Uh, if I had to be one of those, I'd definitely be Tony Stark. Yeah, because you're both billionaires. So, hey, why not, right? Well, no, well, no, no, they're both billionaires. That's what I'm saying. Right, right, yeah, they're both, yeah, pick one, pick the billionaire. Billionaire you want to be. Right, right. And so, uh, definitely, but it's the energy, the concentration of energy is not, it's not real, right? So, so there you go. Now, the least, uh. Least believable. Least believable, I'd say Hulk, the Hulk, come on now. Is that because he's made from gamma radiation?

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so first of all, gamma rays can, will, will kill you. But let's hold that detail aside for the moment. All right, now, next, it would mess with your DNA, okay? So, we get that, and so here he is turning green. All right, so let's even allow that. He increases in mass and then decreases in mass. Like, where does that, if you, if you want to do that, you're converting energy into mass and back again. You, he would explode wherever he was, the city, whatever. So, you can't just get bigger unless he has the same mass. And if he is, then he's less dense. Uh-huh. In the state of Hulk than he is as Bruce Banner.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  So he's just ki- but he'd be very kinda like Marshmallow.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like Marshmallow or like or or or or what's the balloon you play with at the beach?

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  A belief beach ball.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beach ball.

• 30:25Chuck Nice?

  He'd be like a beach ball.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He'd be like a beach ball.

• 30:27Chuck Nice?

  Right. Unless maybe that he could just like seven minute abs perhaps?

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could be the. So so the Hulk and and and why is he so angry so much? You know, that's.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's he's anger management.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  But see, that's Banner's repressed anger.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 30:45Chuck Nice?

  So it isn't necessarily that the Hulk is.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the manifestation.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  Right. It's that he is really Banner's the anger angry guy.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  He's the guy with the psychological problems and then the Hulk is his.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's an extreme Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But at least Mr. Hyde, no. Yeah.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Mr. Hyde.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mr. Hyde didn't didn't have more mass as in his state.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  Right. He was just.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Changed psychologically. Right.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So so I would say the Hulk. Well, everybody else, you know, there's some plausible thing radioactive spider. You know, okay, I'm there. You come from another planet.

• 31:22Chuck Nice?

  Easy enough.

• 31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, easy enough. Don't have to explain that.

• 31:25Chuck Nice?

  Nothing to explain.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  It's just like like, uh, that Saturday Night Live skit, we're from France. What were they called? The Coneheads?

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Coneheads.

• 31:34Chuck Nice?

  We're from France and that was it.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was it. Explain everything.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Everything.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything. And who's the rock guy? That's a little weird.

• 31:40Chuck Nice?

  That's the Thing from the Fantastic Four.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a little weird. And who's?

• 31:43Chuck Nice?

  He is also like the Hulk in that some weird experimentation turns him into that.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. But then he would change. He has to change himself molecularly.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  But he can't do that. See, that's the coolest thing about the Thing. He's just stuck like that nasty rock looking.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reminding me how he becomes rock?

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  I forgot how it actually happened, but he got caught in this.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I know. No, I know. But in in some kind of, uh, uh.

• 32:06Chuck Nice?

  Same radiation thing.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. Okay. So so now the stretchy people. That's a little weird.

• 32:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So that's that's, uh, what's his face? Uh, Plastic Man?

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plastic Man. Yeah, I.

• 32:18Chuck Nice?

  And Elastoman.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, okay, okay. I don't know. But I'd still put the Hulk at the top of the unbelievable list.

• 32:25Chuck Nice?

  He's unbelievable.

• 32:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but he's still fun.

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  The most believable.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, yeah.

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  I'm with you on the Batman thing too. I think that's why he's able to beat Superman is because.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That has not been established yet.

• 32:35Chuck Nice?

  I think it has.

• 32:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The movie's not out yet.

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  Well, but it's been done before in the comic books and in the animated series.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 32:42Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Batman wins, and the reason why he wins? He's a job creator. He's a billionaire. And that's, really, that's the answer. He's a billionaire.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:51Chuck Nice?

  You know? All right.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Maybe we can fit one more in before the break. What do you got?

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Uh, this is from Elijah Claude, and Elijah wants to know this. Uh, the reason why the Flash is one of the most powerful heroes is because of his speed. I he, I E. He uses speed force, which apparently surpasses the cosmic speed limit of light.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  Seeing that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more spacetime bends for you. Could he speed his? Wait, could speed itself be considered a force?

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, however, if he's actually going faster than light, which I didn't know, but let's assume that's true for the sake of this answer.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  For the sake of the thing.

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would be moving back in time. So the cool thing about it is, if he wants to go someplace so fast to stop something from happening.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  He would just go back in time?

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The act of going faster than light takes him back in time, so he's there before the person even thought to do so.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, snap!

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh!

• 33:46Chuck Nice?

  He's the Minority Report of superheroes! Oh, that was cool, man.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so that would be the true way to stop the crime.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you see it happening, and you go so fast, you catch it before it happened, and, and, and you'd be the precog, right?

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Minority Report.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  In Minority Report, yeah.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that would be, that would be cool. So, so, but otherwise, the bending of spacetime is what, uh, gravity does that. If he's just going fast, he's, he's

• 34:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In his own little, yeah, he can go be, he can go back in time, but he's not affecting everybody around him the way a gravity field would.

• 34:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that'd be cool.

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  That would be cool.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. We gotta take a break, and when we come back, more StarTalk. Cosmic Currys Edition, superheroes.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, StarTalk Radio, Cosmic Currys Edition. Chuck, where do all these questions come from? Chuck Nice is my co-host here.

• 34:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I am, and we're getting them from all over. Facebook, Twitter.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Facebook, we're StarTalk Radio on Facebook.

• 34:51Chuck Nice?

  And then, uh...

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twitter is at StarTalk Radio, yeah?

• 34:53Chuck Nice?

  And people have actually sent some via to the starTalk.net to, uh...

• 35:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So everywhere, yeah.

• 35:03Chuck Nice?

  All over.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole social media presence. Okay, cool.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. And you're StarChuck, StarChuck.

• 35:09Chuck Nice?

  StarChuck.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarChuck Nice.

• 35:11Chuck Nice?

  StarChuck Nice.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're Chuck Nice Comic on Twitter.

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  On Twitter.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I, anyone cares about my tweets, it's just Neil Tyson, at Neil Tyson.

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  At Neil Tyson.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're on Instagram too?

• 35:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm on Instagram, I don't even use it, but I do, I'm on there, at Chuck Nice Comic. Everything is at Chuck Nice, it's Chuck Nice Comic.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, all right.

• 35:30Chuck Nice?

  I changed it all to Chuck Nice Comic.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  So...

• 35:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so what's the next question? Superheroes, bring it on. And in this, in this segment, if we don't get through all the questions, we go into lightning round with like five minutes left, so.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where I soundbite all answers.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Um, all right, you know, we, we had a break and you asked about how, I told you how stupid some of these questions were. And you said, "Go ahead, because you don't get to see the questions."

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't, yeah.

• 35:58Chuck Nice?

  So you were like, you were like, "No, give me, give me a stupid question."

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me what you're calling a stupid question.

• 36:03Chuck Nice?

  You are not calling a stupid question.

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it's deep, and you don't know why it's deep.

• 36:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 36:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that possible?

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  That is very possible.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  But not for this question. Here we go. Uh, Greig, first of all, what a name, I like the name, Greig Lord.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Greig.

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  Greig.

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As in the composer?

• 36:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Greig Lord.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edvard Greig.

• 36:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes, so Greig wants to know this. When Superman farts, is the gas or the wind more lethal?

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  Cause he has super breath, you know what I mean, where he can freeze things, so.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:40Chuck Nice?

  So would his super farts be the same way?

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so I, I think he eats regular food.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and so if he eats regular food, then the anaerobic digestion of that food that occurs in one's lower intestine.

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would be creating the, you know, the, the, the smelly gases that are associated with the, the effluences of the human orifices. So, uh, well, well, cause they're human, but so would Superman have, would it be extra potent, one might ask?

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see why not, because here's what's interesting. Here, here's something Superman would be cool if he could do this. You know, his breath can freeze things.

• 37:26Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've seen that, but I've never seen his breath turn things on fire.

• 37:30Chuck Nice?

  No, it hasn't.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas.

• 37:31Chuck Nice?

  His eyes do that.

• 37:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The methane, well, cause he, he focuses a laser.

• 37:34Chuck Nice?

  Laser.

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The methane that comes out, out of, uh, out of, uh, butt effluences, methane is actually flammable.

• 37:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's the gas that is in the stove. If you have gas typically in, in the city, you'll have, uh, methane coming out of your stove.

• 37:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, that, that lights, okay. So.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  If he could look at his own butt, he could light his own fart.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what I'm saying, exactly, so he can use his laser to light the fart and turn it into a flamethrower.

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just inventing, I mean, you asked me, the question was.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would just kinda look funny, right? He's got, gonna birth him, he pulls down his drawers.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm just, if, if it's flammable, for him, it would be more flammable, right?

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever it is in human, it's super in him. Chuck, you're tearing up here.

• 38:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that image is crazy, but it's right. He does super things. Chuck is crying.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You asked the question. I'm just saying, there's physics in everything. That's all I'm saying.

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  I can't tell you how sorry I am.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God. Oh, my God. Well, Greig. Oh, dude, you were too funny. Thank you. Who knew we would get all of that? I said it was a stupid question. I take that back. I.

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we discover a new power for Superman.

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  I will never get that image out of my head. Every time I see Superman, I'm gonna wait for him to pull down his pants. Look at his butt and turn his ass into a flamethrower.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing. Oh, God. Okay. All right, let's compose.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what's next?

• 39:46Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 39:49Chuck Nice?

  This one's from.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just him pulling down his drawers.

• 39:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I know. That's what got me. Just, oh, God, or having like one of those little button flaps on his leotard. That'd be even better. All right, here we go. All right, this is from Drew Del Fonte. Who wants to know this? If you, Dr. Tyson, had superpowers and could travel through space with no problems, where would you travel first? In other words, you can fly through space like Superman. Okay, so you don't need oxygen and all that. And for what reason, my guess is that, and this is what I love about it, you would travel to a black hole to study it. This is what he's saying he thinks you would do. Now, what would you do?

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, uh, black holes are very cool, but what, rather than study a black hole, I would study phenomena in the universe that are, that are sort of transitory. So I'd want to be right up, if I had protective shield around me, I'd want to observe and study exactly what a star does before it explodes its guts to smithereens in the form of a supernova.

• 40:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to beat it, because we can see supernovae from across the universe.

• 40:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how bright they are.

• 41:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they wreak havoc on their environments. And, and that star, before it exploded, I want to see the state of matter and then, and structure that it had.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it. Imagine what you must be instance before you explode with enough energy to be seen across the universe.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That pre-state that you're in, to me, would be immensely fascinating.

• 41:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 41:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I would do. I'd watch a supernova explode.

• 41:27Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 41:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I would know that the ingredients within that supernova are the very atoms that comprise life as we know it. And I'd watch the carbon and the nitrogen and the oxygen and the silicon all scatter out into the galaxy. And I'd say to myself, there goes the birth ingredients of the next generation of stars.

• 41:47Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That's kind of cool.

• 41:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Chuck Nice?

  So you're basically there for cosmic sex.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. It's how stars make other stars.

• 41:57Chuck Nice?

  And sweetheart, that's how stars are born. Okay. All right. That was cool, man. Yeah. So not a black hole, but actually something just as cool.

• 42:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 42:09Chuck Nice?

  Which is the supernova.

• 42:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, and if you want two for one, there's some supernova that our data, our calculations suggest leave a black hole in it as a remnant. So then you get two for one on that one.

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  Ah, nice. Hmm, that's a threesome. Okay. So, um, here's the deal from Jerry James. Jerry James says, Superman coming to us from Earth and Facebook. Jerry James says, Superman absorbs radiation from the sun like a solar battery and converts it into his powers. This is what he's saying, not me. If he never used his powers, wouldn't that radiation build up inside of him, causing him to admit dangerous radiation to everyone around him? By the way, if he is doing that, wouldn't he just be a radioactive person?

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And he had a very high temperature. As I said earlier, you can't store energy in an unlimited way without you getting hot. It's just how, it's how nature manifests itself. So, yeah. So, no, no, he'd be very hot and you'd know he was coming from long, and just carry a Geiger counter.

• 43:10Chuck Nice?

  That's his breathalyzer.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is right, yeah. So, no, I don't see, I don't see that happening. Plus, our, the claim was our star somehow nourished his energy.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we know how to take all the energy from our sun, you know.

• 43:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Solar panels and things.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's not gonna absorb it faster or better than a solar panel will, so I'm not, I'm not, I'm not there on that one.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 43:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 43:35Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Alright.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Benny steals with, with his bare hands, I'm good with that. But flying and blue pantyhose, I'm good with that. But that, but, but taking energy from the sun, no.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no, no, okay.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in a million years.

• 43:49Chuck Nice?

  Alright. Okay, Jennifer Anderson, not Aniston, but Jennifer Anderson.

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just realized, we're being filmed for this cosmic query.

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 43:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess we post that on Facebook.

• 43:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do. I just realized my head has been turned away from the camera the entire show.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there we go.

• 44:06Chuck Nice?

  Well, alright.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go for it.

• 44:07Chuck Nice?

  Alright, Jennifer Anderson wants to know this. In Doctor Who, the TARDIS uses a s- a star frozen at the point of becoming a black hole as its means for time travel, the har- the I-harmony. Could you send a ship to a black hole and be able to travel time and interact with events? Or would it just get sucked in and only observed all the events that the black hole had eaten?

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah, so it turns out that if you have a rotating black hole, there's a trajectory through it where you could possibly come out the other side. And, uh, before when you left. And so there are these trajectories in specially configured black holes, so sure.

• 44:51Chuck Nice?

  So theoretically, yes.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's right. You can, yes, if that's how they explain time travel in the TARDIS.

• 44:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The time and relative dimensions in space, that, did you know that?

• 45:02Chuck Nice?

  That would work out.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was an acronym. Uh, so, uh, yeah, in principle, yeah, black holes are where you would be doing this.

• 45:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, even if it's impossible, even if it's impossible, if it, if it were possible at all, you'd need the black hole.

• 45:13Chuck Nice?

  You'd need the black hole, if it were possible at all.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you'd have to do it.

• 45:16Chuck Nice?

  That's how you would have to do it.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  But if you've ever, uh, listened to the great courses, uh, you would know that you would be spaghettified before that even happened.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the great, I gave one of my lectures on that, yeah.

• 45:26Chuck Nice?

  I know, I listened to it.

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You listened to it, the great course, well, thank you.

• 45:28Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I think we, we are in the lightning round, where I get my bell.

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There we go, okay. Lightning round. All my answers will be sound bites. Go.

• 45:37Chuck Nice?

  Orlando Alonso from Facebook and Earth wants to know, could Magneto control the core of the Earth?

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question.

• 45:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but, just because something's made of metal doesn't mean Magneto can control it because not all metal is magnetic.

• 45:51Chuck Nice?

  Ooh. There you go. Great answer.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 45:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice. All right. Could Lois Lane have Superman's baby? Uh, because there, we are aliens, all right?

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well, okay.

• 46:03Chuck Nice?

  And would the baby kick through her womb?

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bustin', bustin' out.

• 46:08Chuck Nice?

  That was funny.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good. I would say Superman looks so humanoid.

• 46:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That there's gotta be sufficient overlap there to try a cross-species baby.

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, he looks so humanoid.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he's so much like us that.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So I'd, I'd give it that. And yeah, watch out, the baby could kick out like the alien. Like an alien.

• 46:29Chuck Nice?

  All right. That was from Fernando Felipe Leviat, by the way.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been messing with the, there we go. Okay, go.

• 46:35Chuck Nice?

  All right. Here's the next one. If you, Dr. Tyson, could have a-

• 46:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Back up to the Superman. If Spock could be half Vulcan, half human?

• 46:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then Lois Lane can have a half super, half human baby.

• 46:48Chuck Nice?

  Kryptonian baby.

• 46:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, good.

• 46:49Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 46:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  Uh, C. Sean Smith wants to know this. If you, Dr. Tyson, could have one superpower, what would it be and why?

• 46:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd like to read people's minds. Those are, because then you know in advance if they're gonna commit a crime. Or if they wanna commit a crime and you can keep, keep tabs on them. Uh, you wanna know if someone likes you. You know, it was, would've been really useful in middle school. That would've been told the best thing ever. Uh, to have, just to read, read minds.

• 47:11Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay. Good.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  All right. Mark Cervantes wants to know this.

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cervantes.

• 47:16Chuck Nice?

  Cervantes.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 47:17Chuck Nice?

  Wants to know this. Could super, could Superman fly to Uranus? And if so, what would he find?

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would find asteroids on Uranus.

• 47:28Chuck Nice?

  You gave it right back to him. Okay. All right, here's the deal. Juan Herrera wants to know this. Dr. Tyson, if we only use 10% of our brains, is there any way possible that we could develop telekinetic powers like Professor X? And reach the full potential of our brain?

• 47:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact is- The idea that we use 10% of our brain. Right. Was never true. It is a misquote from what actually was said by the actual neuroscientist 100 years ago. Who said. Right. The brain is so complex, we only know what 10% of it is used for. Boom. And that became. We only use 10% of our brain. Gotcha. So this, all this stuff with Professor X and what's that, what's that, uh, the movie? Oh, with the girl. With the good, uh, Lucy. Lucy. Lucy, this is a fiction based on a misinterpretation of someone who's just trying to say how much we don't yet know about the brain. There you go. And why presume that extra brain power means you can move stuff?

• 48:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why does this mean you can figure stuff out? Right, exactly. You're just smarter. You're just smarter. I can't move stuff. I just read faster. Yeah, you read faster, you'll invent solutions to problems. So I don't know where people got this telekinetic stuff. Yeah. I want to move something, I'll reach out and touch it, okay? There you go. So the answer is no. No, so that's all the time we got, Chuck. Oh, man. This was fun. Chuck, thanks for having me, Chuck, thanks for being on Start Talk. As always. Oh, my gosh. Uh, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. You've been listening to Start Talk Radio. And as always, I bid you to keep looking it up.