Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Science Fiction on TV, with Bill Nye About this episode Who better to answer questions about science fiction in TV and movies than Bill Nye? Bill and Chuck Nice flip channels between “StarTrek,” “Star Wars,” “Lost in Space,” “Back to the Future” and more!
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Chuck Nice? Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:14 Bill Nye? Greetings, greetings, greetings, welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Bill Nye, here with wide world, citizen of the worldwide world Chuck Nice.
0:24 Chuck Nice? That's right.
0:25 Bill Nye? And this is a special All-Star edition, and Chuck, here's the interesting thing. I am the All-Star.
0:30 Chuck Nice? You are the All-Star.
0:31 Bill Nye? I'm the, I'm starring all-wise here. It's, it's good. No, it's really fun. I really, I really appreciate you guys including me. Now, this is a cosmic query.
0:41 Chuck Nice? Yes, it is.
0:42 Bill Nye? We have, I see you have stacks of Quirical queries.
0:45 Chuck Nice? Yes, I do, from all over the
0:47 Bill Nye? Inquiries.
0:48 Chuck Nice? interwebs, uh, Twitter.
0:50 Bill Nye? That electric thing the kids use, their, their electric machines.
0:53 Chuck Nice? I hear that thing's catching on.
0:54 Bill Nye? Uh, yeah.
0:55 Chuck Nice? Oh, I don't know what's going on with that.
0:56 Bill Nye? No, this is cool. Thank you all for sending in questions. Chuck, let's read one.
1:00 Chuck Nice? Let's get right to it, okay? And, um, this is from Dan Gomez. Dan says, "What exactly is inside of a vacuum? If not matter, then some sort of cosmic energy? The fabric of reality?"
1:18 Bill Nye? Well, there's, there's energy passes through a vacuum.
1:21 Chuck Nice? Right.
1:22 Bill Nye? So, we love that. We're talking about light, heat, all these exciting things. Uh, then you ask a good question. Uh, you know, people talk about spacetime, using it as one word, spacetime. And it's generally agreed that not only is the universe expanding, but space itself is expanding. So, most of space has what we reckon is no matter, nothing in it. So, perhaps the, any vacuum you have Is also expanding along with space, if it's away from a gravity field or away from a local gravity field.
1:56 Chuck Nice? Okay.
1:56 Bill Nye? Maybe it's expanding and we just can't, can't sense it. It's one of the rules. It's crazy. It's crazy.
2:02 Chuck Nice? It's pretty wild.
2:03 Bill Nye? It is wild. It really is profound.
2:05 Chuck Nice? Yeah, all right. Actually, Dan, very good question.
2:08 Bill Nye? Enough to sound so surprised. He's a Star Trek listener. Star talk listener. Which brings me to this next thing. This, these questions are generally about science fiction, right?
2:18 Chuck Nice? Yes, that's right.
2:19 Bill Nye? Star Trek will probably come up.
2:20 Chuck Nice? Star Trek is definitely gonna come up because this is sci-fi and scientists on TV. These are the, uh, what, what the inquiries are about. Uh, let's go to Sam, uh, THFC.
2:33 Bill Nye? All right, I have no problem with that.
2:34 Chuck Nice? I don't know what THFC means, but, um, but he's, uh, coming to us from Twitter, uh, Twitter. Twitter. I just made up a whole new social media. Look for it. Twitter, coming to a phone near you.
2:46 Bill Nye? Twitter, sweeter. So, give us a tweet from the twit.
2:51 Chuck Nice? Here's what he says. What fictional scientist?
2:54 Bill Nye? That didn't sound right. I apologize. Give us a tweet from the Twitter.
2:58 Chuck Nice? What fictional scientist do you think would, if he or her, uh, and his or her science were, were real, would benefit mankind the most? Do you have somebody that you like, uh, as a fictional scientist that you believe, if they were real, they would actually be a huge benefit to mankind?
3:19 Bill Nye? Uh, the person, the man or woman who invents a way to filter salt water and make it into fresh water.
3:25 Chuck Nice? Oh, wow.
3:26 Bill Nye? And that person may exist right now, but this is a hypothetical thing.
3:30 Chuck Nice? Wow.
3:31 Bill Nye? And it may not be one person. It may be a corporation who continually dinks around with materials to make this possible, but that would be great. If you could make seawater economically into fresh water.
3:40 Chuck Nice? So now what is the big deal of, uh, not big deal? What's the big obstacle for capturing fresh water from salt water or desalinating?
3:49 Bill Nye? E- energy. It takes energy, right?
3:50 Chuck Nice? It's too much.
3:51 Bill Nye? You either have to boil it, often in a partial vacuum, so called partial flash distillation, or, uh, you push it through a osmotic filter, a filter that filters molecules, and get the fresh water to come out the other side, but it takes a lot of pressure. That's what they do on cruise ships and submarines.
4:09 Chuck Nice? Oh, really?
4:10 Bill Nye? Yeah, so. One can't help but wonder if there isn't some trick to make that easier.
4:16 Chuck Nice? Right.
4:17 Bill Nye? One's hopeful.
4:18 Chuck Nice? And is it, is it going to be necessary one day? I mean, are we going to be in a position where we're out of fresh water?
4:24 Bill Nye? Well, yeah, people talk about it all the time, but it would enable so much. It just, it would be so cool if you could take seawater and make it into fresh water. Along the coast. Most people in the world live along coastlines. So, um, it would be really a terrific thing if you could do it economically, especially for the developing world.
4:43 Chuck Nice? Nice. I love it. So you, I mean, what's funny is that they were talking about a character, but you went with an actual scientific thing.
4:51 Bill Nye? That some humans can invent.
4:53 Chuck Nice? Actually do at some point, you know? Love it.
4:56 Bill Nye? Happen right now while we're talking starwise.
4:59 Chuck Nice? There may be somebody out there doing it as we speak. All right, here we go. Um. Wow, this person, oh, nope.
5:07 Bill Nye? You stumped yourself.
5:08 Chuck Nice? It's Kelly Klemenko.
5:10 Bill Nye? Kelly Klemenko.
5:11 Chuck Nice? Kelly Klemenko wants to know this. Doc Brown and the DeLorean.
5:16 Bill Nye? Yes, Doc Brown.
5:19 Chuck Nice? The good, the bad, and what do you think? A flux capacitor really is, or could be.
5:27 Bill Nye? Let's start with the following thing. We just did, uh, for those of you watched our talk on the TV. We just did a time travel bit where I was in one of the DeLoreans that's used, was used in the movie. There's a company in New Jersey that maintains these movie cars, Batmobiles and Green Hornet, uh, cars.
5:46 Chuck Nice? Right.
5:46 Bill Nye? And the door, so I was in it and I threw a switch and it was funny and charming. Uh, so, uh, the flux capacitor, you may recall, was running on banana peels and stuff.
5:56 Chuck Nice? Right.
5:56 Bill Nye? And then, as far as we know, you can't travel through time, but science fiction writers love that.
6:01 Chuck Nice? Yes.
6:02 Bill Nye? And can you go back in time? The big question is, can you go back in time and change history? Would you just get the the captain of the Titanic to slow down, man?
6:11 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:11 Bill Nye? Gee whiz.
6:12 Chuck Nice? See, the thing is, he would slow down. And somehow, the Titanic would still sink.
6:19 Bill Nye? Well, that's it if you're interpretation of of time travel, but you know, on what is generally regarded as the very best of the original Star Trek series, City on the Edge of Forever.
6:30 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
6:31 Bill Nye? You go back in time and somehow Hitler takes over the world because the passivism from Edith Keaur uh keeps the United States from entering the wars.
6:41 Chuck Nice? Because Kurt actually saves her from getting hit by a car.
6:45 Bill Nye? So you're familiar and then they change and then
6:48 Chuck Nice? And that changes the outcome of everything.
6:49 Bill Nye? More modern viewers, uh, young people uh, may wonder if you can send an emissary back in time to have sex with a waitress who then turns out to be your own mother.
7:03 Chuck Nice? Right.
7:03 Bill Nye? Can you do that the way that we did in uh?
7:05 Chuck Nice? That's the Terminator. That's that's the entire premise of the Terminator.
7:08 Bill Nye? But traveling in time is quite difficult unless, like Chuck and myself, you are happy with traveling just one way.
7:17 Chuck Nice? Right.
7:17 Bill Nye? Forward, older, closer to death.
7:20 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
7:22 Bill Nye? And that's where we're going right now.
7:26 Chuck Nice? I I started off laughing, I ended up crying.
7:29 Bill Nye? Chuck's an artist. He's an artist. But it is this troubling thing. After you reach adulthood, your adulthood, heavens bill.
7:37 Chuck Nice? Yes.
7:38 Bill Nye? After you reach adulthood, your head is headed toward death.
7:41 Chuck Nice? Yes.
7:42 Bill Nye? Very troubling, but nevertheless apparently true fact as opposed to a false fact.
7:47 Chuck Nice? Well, this question took a decidedly morbid turn.
7:49 Bill Nye? Well, or either that or deal. Okay? We're only going one way. You can't go back in time. So play the hand you're dealt. All right?
7:59 Chuck Nice? There you have it.
8:00 Bill Nye? Quit pining for something that's not possible.
8:03 Chuck Nice? Yes, you're never going back to win that big game at state. Okay?
8:08 Bill Nye? Take that as a learning experience for your next big game.
8:10 Chuck Nice? That's right.
8:11 Bill Nye? Also furthermore to continue, there is a very, which I say for comedic effect. There's a very reasonable theory in physics that you could build a time machine, but you could only go back to when the machine was built.
8:23 Chuck Nice? Couldn't go any further.
8:24 Bill Nye? No. And furthermore, further back in time more. You can only, you have to travel at relativistic speeds to get there, which would be akin to falling into a black hole, which would tear you apart from its own gravity. So it's just not that easy.
8:39 Chuck Nice? God.
8:40 Bill Nye? So everybody, I don't mean to be dismissive of time travel, but don't count on it to solve your problems.
8:45 Chuck Nice? Right.
8:46 Bill Nye? Let's say you live on a planet, uh, that is, uh, where a certain species is burning so much ancient fuel that they're accelerating the rate of warming by about a factor of a million.
8:57 Chuck Nice? Hmm.
8:58 Bill Nye? Let's just say.
8:59 Chuck Nice? Let's just say.
8:59 Bill Nye? You can't pine for the day.
9:01 Chuck Nice? What kind of planet this.
9:02 Bill Nye? You can't pine for the day when you could have done something about it at the turn of a couple centuries ago. You gotta play the hand we're dealt right now and address climate change.
9:10 Chuck Nice? Right, right. Which, you know, I'd like to believe is going to happen.
9:15 Bill Nye? Yes.
9:15 Chuck Nice? But I also believe that people are stupid. And none of you listening?
9:20 Bill Nye? No, yes. No, no, no.
9:22 Chuck Nice? Hearing our voices right now, but.
9:24 Bill Nye? Other people.
9:24 Chuck Nice? There are other people who are quite frankly stupid, and they don't believe anything you just said. As a matter of fact, one of them is a senator. His name is Inhofe, and he actually wrote a book called, um, "The Biggest Hoax Ever," or something like that.
9:40 Bill Nye? You're, you're digressing a bit, Chuck, but I appreciate it.
9:43 Chuck Nice? He's a senator, Bill.
9:44 Bill Nye? I know. He gets re-elected all the time.
9:47 Chuck Nice? He represents. There's only two of them for his state.
9:50 Bill Nye? I know.
9:51 Chuck Nice? He represents half of a state.
9:53 Bill Nye? I know.
9:53 Chuck Nice? And he says it's a hoax. Guys like you who do this so they can get money. So because that's what happens when you say that the.
10:01 Bill Nye? Chuck, you're going kind of Bill Cosby on me there.
10:03 Chuck Nice? (laughing).
10:04 Bill Nye? You're in your speech pattern.
10:06 Chuck Nice? I would like to invite you over for some cappuccino, Bill.
10:09 Bill Nye? (laughing). Thank you, Doctor Huck.
10:12 Chuck Nice? All right.
10:13 Bill Nye? But this said, Chuck, your digression is worthy. It's just something to think about, you know, we. Time travel is a cool idea in science fiction, but let's keep an eye on the prize. We almost certainly cannot travel through time. We cannot go back in time and fix things.
10:28 Chuck Nice? Right.
10:29 Bill Nye? So we gotta play the hand we're dealt. Lead on.
10:32 Chuck Nice? There you go. Let's move on to another query and, and keep those very grave words in mind.
10:38 Bill Nye? Well, they're also empowering. They're also empowering.
10:40 Chuck Nice? They are empowering.
10:41 Bill Nye? Constraints are empowering.
10:43 Chuck Nice? Absolutely.
10:44 Bill Nye? You gotta solve this problem. Let's go.
10:45 Chuck Nice? Okay, here we go. Jonathan B. East, uh, at Becca Meest. I like that. From Twitter says, "If you could interview any fictional scientist."
10:55 Bill Nye? Fictional scientist.
10:56 Chuck Nice? Fictional scientist. Somebody from the movies or a book or anything like that. Who would it be and why? And, uh, he's coming to us from Indiana, the state.
11:04 Bill Nye? It's fictional.
11:05 Chuck Nice? Fictional. So like, is there any fictional character that, uh, you, uh, admire whatever they embody? The character embodies certain values?
11:14 Bill Nye? Your first cut is you'd say Mr. Spock, right? You'd, would you like to chat it up with Mr. Spock?
11:19 Chuck Nice? I have to tell you that, uh, I've often fantasized about that.
11:22 Bill Nye? Uh, but then, uh, fictional scientist, the guy who invents the time machine in the H G Wells, the time machine.
11:29 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:30 Bill Nye? That might be, how did you do that?
11:32 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that's a pretty, yeah, especially how did you do it out of bubble gum and a pinwheel?
11:37 Bill Nye? Yeah, whatever.
11:38 Chuck Nice? Basically, that's, it was a tear with a big fan on it.
11:41 Bill Nye? He oiled something and he's able to try, yeah, that would be a good couple of questions.
11:46 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:47 Bill Nye? But I will say, uh, as charming as all that is, there's some real people I'd love to know.
11:51 Chuck Nice? Ah, I was about to go there.
11:52 Bill Nye? Yeah, yeah, I mean.
11:53 Chuck Nice? I was about to say.
11:54 Bill Nye? Yeah.
11:54 Chuck Nice? Is, are there?
11:55 Bill Nye? Wouldn't like to talk to, uh...
11:57 Chuck Nice? Would, would you, now, would, would you rather speak to?
12:02 Bill Nye? Rosalind Franklin or?
12:03 Chuck Nice? Franklin or Albert Einstein.
12:06 Bill Nye? Oh, man.
12:07 Chuck Nice? Yeah, buddy.
12:08 Bill Nye? I'd like to talk to Rosalind. Cause she doesn't, you don't hear that much about her.
12:11 Chuck Nice? Okay.
12:11 Bill Nye? People write books now, but I would like to know what her life was like.
12:14 Chuck Nice? Sweet, sweet.
12:15 Bill Nye? She had to play, she had a tough road to hoe there. She was the only woman in the thing.
12:19 Chuck Nice? I was gonna say, when you're a female, I mean.
12:21 Bill Nye? Back in the 1950s.
12:23 Chuck Nice? It's not gonna be.
12:23 Bill Nye? For those of you who are down, not hip, not down, she took the picture that enabled Watson and Crick to envision DNA.
12:31 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:32 Bill Nye? The spiral, the, the double helix. But did she envision it first?
12:37 Chuck Nice? Hmm.
12:37 Bill Nye? Cause she looked at the picture and then the men took credit.
12:39 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:40 Bill Nye? Arguments have ensued.
12:41 Chuck Nice? Uh-huh.
12:42 Bill Nye? There've been, uh, the whole radio shows devoted to this argument. I can't resolve it right now, but it is intriguing.
12:48 Chuck Nice? And, uh, clearly still having ramifications to this day. We are probably one of the most important discoveries ever.
12:55 Bill Nye? Yeah. By the way, Darwin. And Russell discovered evolution without any knowledge of DNA. It's amazing.
13:02 Chuck Nice? That is amazing.
13:02 Bill Nye? It is amazing.
13:03 Chuck Nice? Yes.
13:03 Bill Nye? Talk about discipline, scientific method.
13:06 Chuck Nice? Just straight observation.
13:08 Bill Nye? Observing and thinking.
13:10 Chuck Nice? Exactly. Sweet!
13:11 Bill Nye? So, don't forget, if you ever read Origin of Species, Darwin did all kinds of very diligent naturalist experiments. He's a really impressive guy. I mean, I know everybody says that, but he really was quite the experimentalist as well as the observationalist naturalist.
13:28 Chuck Nice? Right. Alright, cool.
13:30 Bill Nye? Lead on.
13:31 Chuck Nice? So, there you go, there you go, there you go. Good, good question. I like that. Alright, let me move on to another query. This is Denard Springle, coming to, I like that name, coming to us from Google Plus. He says, "How much more interesting would Lost in Space have been if they'd elaborated more on Dr. Maureen Robinson's biochemical background, instead of having her be the typical housewife in space, preparing meals, tending to the garden, etc., etc.?"
14:03 Bill Nye? Well, it sounds like, from your point of view, Mr. and Ms. Springle, it would be a lot better. And notice that, uh, compare and contrast the contemporary show Lost in Space with Star Trek.
14:16 Chuck Nice? Right.
14:16 Bill Nye? Star Trek, the women were empowered. Yes, there was a lot of legs. Yes, there were a lot of
14:21 Chuck Nice? Mini skirts.
14:22 Bill Nye? A lot of nice uniforms.
14:24 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
14:24 Bill Nye? But ultimately
14:25 Chuck Nice? Green women.
14:26 Bill Nye? Green women, uh, who were strangely hot.
14:29 Chuck Nice? Yes.
14:30 Bill Nye? Uh, but ultimately, right there in the middle of the whole thing was Lieutenant Uhura.
14:34 Chuck Nice? Yes.
14:35 Bill Nye? Who was an empowered woman.
14:36 Chuck Nice? Yes, she was.
14:37 Bill Nye? Who ran things. And then you'd come across your woman Romulan, who was in charge of a ship and so on.
14:42 Chuck Nice? Right.
14:43 Bill Nye? And so
14:43 Chuck Nice? And then you go forward into the Star Trek series, you have, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
14:48 Bill Nye? No, bring, no, Chuck, take it.
14:49 Chuck Nice? Of course, there's Captain Janeway.
14:51 Bill Nye? Right there, running a whole freaking starship.
14:53 Chuck Nice? A whole starship, who became Admiral Janeway.
14:55 Bill Nye? That's right. And notice, but that shows that, like, the women's movement, at least here in the United States, uh, was reflected in science fiction.
15:04 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:05 Bill Nye? Uh, you know what I mean? That, you know what I mean?
15:08 Chuck Nice? So it's
15:09 Bill Nye? I can't hear you. I don't know why I would say such a thing, but you see that the evolution right there. And by the way, Nichelle Nichols came to the 35th anniversary of the Planetary Society, October 2015. And she told the story again, Chuck.
15:23 Chuck Nice? Um.
15:23 Bill Nye? She's told the story countless times. She was very gracious about it.
15:26 Chuck Nice? About what?
15:27 Bill Nye? Martin Luther King called her.
15:29 Chuck Nice? Yes.
15:30 Bill Nye? Apparently on the phone.
15:31 Chuck Nice? I have a dream.
15:33 Bill Nye? Yeah, and he said, you can't quit this job. She was gonna quit. She wanted to go back to Broadway or whatever she was as a big time actress, not pretending to be in the 23rd century.
15:41 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:42 Bill Nye? And he said, you can't quit this job.
15:44 Chuck Nice? As he saw the value.
15:45 Bill Nye? Yeah.
15:46 Chuck Nice? And her being on the bridge of a starship in the future.
15:50 Bill Nye? And being
15:51 Chuck Nice? As a ranking officer, a lieutenant.
15:53 Bill Nye? Who, who was responsible for all kinds of important things.
15:56 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:56 Bill Nye? And so, uh, it was a, a really a moving moment for me. It was just a few months ago and he says, wow.
16:02 Chuck Nice? You know what's funny about Lieutenant O'Hore is a lot of people say, well, she was the, she was nothing but an operator. You know, she was the, and the truth of the matter was, she was the first contact for anyone that they
16:11 Bill Nye? She was Capcom.
16:12 Chuck Nice? That's right.
16:13 Bill Nye? Oh, but really Capcom's a big job.
16:15 Chuck Nice? There you go. So.
16:16 Bill Nye? No, she was a big deal and she made decisions and she, uh, had to remain calm in some pretty stressful situations, albeit fictional ones.
16:24 Chuck Nice? Right.
16:25 Bill Nye? But it was to the point where Martin Luther King himself.
16:28 Chuck Nice? Hmm.
16:29 Bill Nye? Says, my friend, uh, Ms. Nichols, you can't quit this gig. Cause you're a role model for, uh, African American people and women especially.
16:39 Chuck Nice? I do believe you are a future.
16:41 Bill Nye? It was really, it was
16:42 Chuck Nice? Well, it makes sense.
16:43 Bill Nye? Quite a story that she told, I gotta say.
16:45 Chuck Nice? I was completely unaware of that story and that's a great.
16:48 Bill Nye? Yeah, but she's told it a lot of times, but she was very nice about it.
16:51 Chuck Nice? Nah, it's very cool. That's very cool. Then it kinda goes to show you the importance of
16:56 Bill Nye? Television.
16:57 Chuck Nice? Television, science fiction.
16:58 Bill Nye? Fiction. And by the way, the thing about Star Trek, as a Trekkie.
17:01 Chuck Nice? Yes.
17:02 Bill Nye? It's an optimistic view of the future through science. It is not an apocalyptic view of the future. It is not, science is bad and leads to disaster. It's science is good and leads to all material needs. Being taken care of and any conflict we have is when we encounter new cultures who are not totally hip to.
17:23 Chuck Nice? Right. They don't get it the way we do.
17:25 Bill Nye? Well, they haven't had a chance. Yeah.
17:26 Chuck Nice? There you go. All right. Super cool.
17:39 Bill Nye? I'm Jasmine Wilson and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
17:52 Chuck Nice? Alright, here we go. This is, uh, Corre Killabitch.
17:57 Bill Nye? Oh heavens. Chuck, you gotta edit before you read.
18:00 Chuck Nice? Corre Killabitch who said on Instagram, "How far are we from force fields and inertial dampers?"
18:06 Bill Nye? So let me just say, in the, in the biggest picture, you live in a force field. Gravity is a force field. And it's can be thought of as a field and recently it was proven that it also apparently travels in waves. Gravity does. And so this was predicted or very reasonable to physicists and now we had an instrument that measured that. But I think I know what, at which you drive. And plus, we also have dampers, inertial dampers. The old, the British term was dampener, but in American English, the middle syllable got dropped. And this is a shock absorber in a car. And it, a damper generally means something that goes at the rate.
18:46 Bill Nye? The faster you move the car axle, the more damping you get, the more damping retard, retarding force you get.
18:53 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:54 Bill Nye? It's a little bit out of your mathematical experience for most people, but it's out of your every, it is out of your everyday experience. And you know this when you, um, when you try to bounce a car up and down, which you can do, you can make the, with the cars in park, everybody perfectly safe. Push it up and down, you'll find the faster you try to make it go, the more difficult it is. Now with that said.
19:15 Chuck Nice? Just flip your switch on your lowrider. That's all.
19:17 Bill Nye? Oh yeah, with you, for our lowrider listeners, the many StarTalk lowrider listeners that are out there. I'm sure there are a few of you. Thank you for your good work.
19:26 Chuck Nice? That's right.
19:27 Bill Nye? Now, but I think what she's driving at is tractor beam.
19:31 Chuck Nice? You know it.
19:31 Bill Nye? In fact, I heard a pundit, I believe on Meet the Press.
19:37 Bill Nye? Use the term tractor beam talking about the current presidential election.
19:42 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
19:42 Bill Nye? A tractor beam is so far not a real thing.
19:46 Chuck Nice? Of course.
19:46 Bill Nye? Wouldn't it be great instead of a tugboat having to throw a line out to the barge it's towing, you could just do it with some sort of electromagnetic beam with the accompanying sound effect that would bring the barge up the river or through deep space easily. So it's a cool idea. I don't know. I think we're pretty far away from that.
20:07 Chuck Nice? Okay.
20:08 Bill Nye? So I think we're pretty far away.
20:09 Chuck Nice? Pretty far away.
20:10 Bill Nye? We do have force fields.
20:11 Chuck Nice? We do have force fields?
20:12 Bill Nye? We're living in one. You may rub your hair in a balloon and feel your hair stand on end on your forearm. And then you also
20:22 Bill Nye? uh may get a beam of light that pushes the spacecraft through space.
20:27 Chuck Nice? Ah, I wonder.
20:28 Bill Nye? From the Planetary Society, for example.
20:31 Chuck Nice? Hmm, sounds vaguely familiar to me.
20:34 Bill Nye? Planetary.org, consider joining. Yes, so you were saying.
20:38 Chuck Nice? Light sailing.
20:38 Bill Nye? Give me another query.
20:40 Chuck Nice? Novel idea, light sailing.
20:42 Bill Nye? No, it is cool. It was really good and we're gonna fly again. This was scheduled for September, but it will probably ship, ship, slip to November.
20:50 Chuck Nice? Uh huh.
20:51 Bill Nye? Be a ride on the Falcon Heavy.
20:53 Chuck Nice? Oh.
20:53 Bill Nye? SpaceX rocket with 27 engines instead of nine.
20:57 Chuck Nice? Nice.
20:58 Bill Nye? Be cool.
20:58 Chuck Nice? All right, man. Well, good luck, good luck, uh, for the next flight. Here we go. Walter Vinci wants to know this in sci-fi. If one were to have a laser gun capable of producing a visible shot, what would the effects on the shooter, the target, and those in the vicinity be?
21:21 Bill Nye? So, uh.
21:22 Chuck Nice? So he's basically talking about a phaser or?
21:25 Bill Nye? Well, there are laser weapons.
21:27 Chuck Nice? Okay.
21:27 Bill Nye? We had a laser weapon flying around on a 747. And the idea is the momentum, what you're talking like the recoil from a conventional bullet type gun, shotgun, whatever, is very small with a laser because all you're doing is reacting the photon pressure. But what the deal is, is you're sending heat at the target.
21:50 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
21:50 Bill Nye? And so the heat can damage the target in a new way. That's not momentum. It's not recoil. It's burning stuff up.
21:57 Chuck Nice? Burning stuff up.
21:58 Bill Nye? And then if you tune it, you can have a mazer, a microwave beam that messes up the enemy's radar.
22:05 Chuck Nice? Right.
22:06 Bill Nye? That's a, not that anybody would spend tax dollars doing that in our
22:11 Chuck Nice? Oh, sure, no.
22:12 Bill Nye? peaceful way of life, but I've heard of it.
22:14 Chuck Nice? And wouldn't make the pew sound? I mean, would it?
22:17 Bill Nye? I hope so.
22:17 Chuck Nice? Would we ever make a laser?
22:18 Bill Nye? You know how we produce that pew sound?
22:20 Chuck Nice? Oh.
22:21 Bill Nye? They got a guy wire, you know what I mean? A real long wire that holds up an antenna.
22:25 Chuck Nice? Right.
22:26 Bill Nye? And tapped it.
22:27 Chuck Nice? Okay, and that's the
22:29 Bill Nye? Pew, pew.
22:30 Chuck Nice? Going in.
22:30 Bill Nye? And it's a, so it's a conventional mechanical resonance, just like a violin or guitar string.
22:35 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
22:35 Bill Nye? It has a certain tightness. Very cool.
22:38 Chuck Nice? Nice. All right.
22:40 Bill Nye? Pew, pew. And we all know that's the sound of blasters.
22:44 Chuck Nice? That's a blaster.
22:45 Bill Nye? Gotta say, saw the new Star Wars movie?
22:49 Chuck Nice? Speaking of pew.
22:50 Bill Nye? Yeah, that, the, the, um, stormtrooper armor.
22:54 Chuck Nice? Yes.
22:55 Bill Nye? It's not very good.
22:56 Chuck Nice? No, it isn't.
22:56 Bill Nye? People burn right through it.
22:58 Chuck Nice? Well, yeah, I, you know, I, I don't know why they, uh, you would think it would be somewhat protective, but every stormtrooper that gets hit by a blaster goes down and goes down pretty easily, too.
23:07 Bill Nye? Yeah.
23:08 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
23:08 Bill Nye? Yeah, it's, it's bad.
23:09 Chuck Nice? All right, here we go.
23:11 Bill Nye? Another fiction problem that I can't really, no one, I wasn't consulted.
23:16 Chuck Nice? Okay, do you think, okay, this is from, uh, A U T.
23:20 Bill Nye? A U.
23:21 Chuck Nice? A U T K D. Mm-hmm. Do you think something such as the death of the planet Krypton could ever happen to Earth?
23:32 Bill Nye? No.
23:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
23:34 Bill Nye? Any other question? Just exploding planets don't.
23:37 Chuck Nice? That doesn't happen.
23:38 Bill Nye? With that said, the Earth's moon apparently was created by a pretty big thing hitting the proto-Earth.
23:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
23:47 Bill Nye? The Earth in its early days.
23:49 Chuck Nice? Earth wasn't fully formed the way it is right now.
23:52 Bill Nye? So it did destroy a planet, but maybe it formed a new planet and a moon. But that's not the same as the way it's depicted in Superman where stuff just blows up.
24:01 Chuck Nice? Yes, it just blows and that's it and completely falls apart.
24:06 Bill Nye? Yeah, so I, I don't see any way for that to happen. Stars.
24:10 Chuck Nice? Ah.
24:10 Bill Nye? They, they do that. They supernova.
24:13 Chuck Nice? They do both, right?
24:14 Bill Nye? Supernovae.
24:14 Chuck Nice? They blow up and they implode, right?
24:16 Bill Nye? Yeah, they do all that. But this, we're talking about a planet and so. If you like to worry about things, that's, I wouldn't put that up high.
24:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
24:23 Bill Nye? I'd put climate change way up higher.
24:25 Chuck Nice? Way up higher than, than, than, than Krypton like death?
24:27 Bill Nye? Yes, yes.
24:28 Chuck Nice? Okay, gotcha. So no need to put any kids inside of a little, uh, escape pod or?
24:34 Bill Nye? Probably not.
24:35 Chuck Nice? You know, send them off to a distant galaxy.
24:37 Bill Nye? To improve the, the, the environment we have. Much better.
24:40 Chuck Nice? So.
24:41 Bill Nye? Make an Incluso pod.
24:43 Chuck Nice? There you go. So I guess there's an Incluso pod.
24:47 Bill Nye? Rather than an, yeah.
24:49 Chuck Nice? Pardon me?
24:50 Bill Nye? A Stay on Earth pod.
24:51 Chuck Nice? Yeah, uh, which is called Earth.
24:54 Bill Nye? Yes.
24:54 Chuck Nice? So we should probably take care of this place.
24:56 Bill Nye? Should.
24:57 Chuck Nice? Here we go. Uh, yes, this is Scott.
25:01 Bill Nye? That's his title? That's pretty good.
25:02 Chuck Nice? Yes, this is Scott.
25:04 Bill Nye? Yes, this is Scott. What's your query?
25:05 Chuck Nice? Here's what, yes, this is Scott wants to know. Thoughts on our country's education system, particularly as it pertains to the scientific ignorance of the average US citizen? Could I have some of that from you, Mr. Nye?
25:17 Bill Nye? Well, we got, we have a big concern. So, for example, I was at the science teacher convention.
25:23 Chuck Nice? Okay.
25:24 Bill Nye? And one of the fights that the Science Teachers Association fights is this current opposition to Common Core standards.
25:32 Chuck Nice? Yes, I hear that's a big, big deal.
25:35 Bill Nye? No, it's, you wouldn't think it would be. Why not have a set of ideas that we agree everybody should know? Everybody should learn the alphabet.
25:45 Chuck Nice? Right.
25:45 Bill Nye? For example.
25:46 Chuck Nice? Right.
25:46 Bill Nye? It'd be hard to read and conduct your life without memorizing the order of the letters.
25:51 Chuck Nice? Kinda.
25:52 Bill Nye? Yeah.
25:52 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
25:53 Bill Nye? So, uh, along that line, there's some other things. We want people to know about certain plays and certain poems and certain pieces of art.
26:03 Chuck Nice? Right.
26:04 Bill Nye? We also want people to know certain facts and discoveries in the process of science and the process of science. But, right now,
26:14 Bill Nye? uh, so, so then educators around the US got together and came up with this Common Core of standards.
26:20 Chuck Nice? Right.
26:21 Bill Nye? C-O-R-E of standards. But then, it came to be, uh, opposed by certain states who don't want to teach evolution.
26:30 Chuck Nice? Ah, okay, now see.
26:33 Bill Nye? And this is being, this, the Common Core is being opposed in the name of states' rights.
26:37 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:38 Bill Nye? But it's being opposed, really, by people who are not aware of the fundamental idea in all of biology.
26:44 Chuck Nice? See, I have to tell you that, uh, they're quite insidious, the way they make their argument, because they never let you know that there's an actual opposition to something so specific as evolution.
26:57 Bill Nye? Um, it's states' rights.
26:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah, states' rights. They never broach the issue of evolution in the fight for Common Core. And I've always, oh, the fight against Common Core. And I've always wondered, why is it, uh, that it's just, you know, one particular, uh, a group of people who are always decrying Common Core? And then I thought-
27:18 Bill Nye? First, everybody thought it was a great idea.
27:20 Chuck Nice? Yes.
27:20 Bill Nye? Conservatives and progressives.
27:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:22 Bill Nye? But then, when people realized that if you had science teachers, including the basic idea in all of life science- Evolution, they started to like totally freak. And so, there's a basic idea in geology, plate tectonics.
27:36 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:36 Bill Nye? Right? There's a basic idea in physics, energy can either be created or destroyed.
27:42 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:42 Bill Nye? Okay, and so, we love that. So, there's a basic idea in life science, that, uh, things change as they reproduce, which we call the process of evolution.
27:53 Chuck Nice? Evolution, right.
27:54 Bill Nye? My goodness, people.
27:55 Chuck Nice? Wow, I, you know what, I, this is why I love co-hosting these shows. Because, certain things just pop up on these shows.
28:03 Bill Nye? Oh, yes.
28:04 Chuck Nice? Never realize.
28:05 Bill Nye? This is my little business.
28:05 Chuck Nice? This is it, man.
28:07 Bill Nye? This is why we answer these queries.
28:08 Chuck Nice? Exactly, and this is super cool, because that's the real deal. The real deal is, it's evolution.
28:14 Bill Nye? They don't wanna.
28:15 Chuck Nice? The big problem is evolution.
28:16 Bill Nye? They're afraid of it. There are some people who are empow- uh, Neil.
28:21 Chuck Nice? Right.
28:22 Bill Nye? Tyson.
28:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
28:22 Bill Nye? Myself, you, I presume.
28:24 Chuck Nice? Yes.
28:25 Bill Nye? Are excited and empowered by the idea that we don't have all the answers.
28:29 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
28:30 Bill Nye? Other people are deeply troubled.
28:33 Chuck Nice? Never understood.
28:33 Bill Nye? They want all the answers, everything spelled out, right now, we wanna know everything there is to know about the universe, right now. And when you challenge that, uh, they get, they get unsettled.
28:43 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
28:44 Bill Nye? And that's, I consider that entirely my fault, as a science educator. Instead of getting people excited about it, they just grow up afraid of it.
28:51 Chuck Nice? Don't blame yourself. You know, that's, wow, so there you have it. Hey, listen, this is, uh, yes, this is Scott, thank you for that question, that was, uh, that was quite enlightening.
29:01 Bill Nye? It's really good.
29:02 Chuck Nice? Yeah, alright, let's move on, uh, let's get to, uh, Spenny46.
29:07 Bill Nye? Spenny.
29:08 Chuck Nice? Spenny! Spenny wants to know this, in order to achieve warp speed.
29:12 Bill Nye? Oh, yeah.
29:13 Chuck Nice? Like in Star Trek.
29:14 Bill Nye? The way you do.
29:14 Chuck Nice? Yeah, you know the way you do in Star Trek, right? You know?
29:16 Bill Nye? Sure.
29:17 Chuck Nice? Number one, engage. That's how you achieve it, by the way, Spenny, number one, engage. Um, what would the ship have to be made out of? So, uh.
29:28 Bill Nye? Well, it generally agreed that you'd start with some sort of unobtanium.
29:34 Bill Nye? And build out from there. Keep in mind, there is no evidence that you can actually travel at warp speed. It's a science fiction device to enable, uh, interactions between people. You know, what makes any good story is what's happening between people. Yes, there can be Andorians, and Romulans, and Klingons, there can be Xenonians, and, um...
29:59 Bill Nye? So on, but they're really any science fiction story has to do with us humans interacting.
30:04 Chuck Nice? Right.
30:05 Bill Nye? And yeah, there's some issues about what's possible technologically in the future or the past. But it's really about what people are doing to each other. So. Uh.
30:16 Bill Nye? There's no, there's no evidence that there really is a warp drive and I don't know what the ship would be made of.
30:21 Chuck Nice? Yeah. Okay. There you have it.
30:22 Bill Nye? Be really strong.
30:23 Chuck Nice? It would be because you're warping space to travel through it, which means whatever it is, is getting stretched out through space.
30:31 Bill Nye? Sure it is.
30:31 Chuck Nice? Showing up someplace else.
30:32 Bill Nye? Artificial gravity and everybody speaks English when you get there.
30:35 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
30:39 Bill Nye? That's key. Big time.
30:41 Chuck Nice? That's awesome. Yes. How did that happen? Here we are halfway across the galaxy, but yet somehow these guys speak English.
30:48 Bill Nye? It's crazy.
30:49 Chuck Nice? Oh, man.
30:49 Bill Nye? Unexpected.
30:50 Chuck Nice? Ah, yes.
30:50 Bill Nye? Well, it's a remarkable example of Hodgkin's laws of parallel planetary development. Boy, I am, I'm an old geek.
30:58 Chuck Nice? I love it.
30:59 Bill Nye? Take it, take it.
31:00 Chuck Nice? Love it. Here we go. Here we go. Oh my God. Hmm. Uh. Here we go from Ethan Bottoms. Ethan says, Bill, what's your favorite sci-fi technology? And what would be its real life equivalent?
31:20 Bill Nye? Uh, two things.
31:21 Chuck Nice? Things.
31:21 Bill Nye? First of all, I'd love to have a transporter.
31:23 Chuck Nice? Oh God, so would I.
31:26 Bill Nye? But people have done analysis on the information theory involved and taking a few trillion cells and putting them back together.
31:33 Chuck Nice? Reassembling them.
31:34 Bill Nye? Huge amount of energy required, but the other one that we'd all like is subspace radio.
31:39 Chuck Nice? Right.
31:39 Bill Nye? Where no matter where the other person is, no matter how fast he or she is traveling, no matter what's going on, you can talk to him or her.
31:46 Chuck Nice? Yes.
31:46 Bill Nye? We've almost got it.
31:48 Chuck Nice? For real.
31:49 Bill Nye? I mean, you had, take out your mobile phone, you can talk to pretty much anybody in the world. Once in a while.
31:53 Chuck Nice? It's true.
31:54 Bill Nye? The uh, transmission is not as good as it might be. Once in a while it's breaking up. Once in a while you have to move near the window.
32:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
32:01 Bill Nye? Once in a while the phone goes dead.
32:02 Chuck Nice? In my own apartment for no reason.
32:03 Bill Nye? Yes. Your data costs more than your voice and so on, but we're getting close where you can talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime. Now, you can fly on planes. Six miles above the earth.
32:17 Chuck Nice? Yes.
32:17 Bill Nye? And be on the internet. Communicating, taking care of things. It's not going to be long before. People will be able to talk routinely. I'm sure there'll be phone booths on planes again. Do you know if you remember the radio phones that were 10 bucks a minute or something?
32:34 Chuck Nice? No.
32:34 Bill Nye? Airplanes.
32:35 Chuck Nice? Ah.
32:36 Bill Nye? But this, uh, this will come back around. We'll have the equivalent of subspace radio.
32:40 Chuck Nice? Right. Okay. So subspace radio, uh, that's a-
32:43 Bill Nye? That's what I'd like.
32:44 Chuck Nice? Be nice.
32:45 Bill Nye? Yeah. Be nice, like you, Chuck.
32:47 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like what we did there.
32:51 Bill Nye? That's brilliant.
32:51 Chuck Nice? It's very cool.
32:52 Bill Nye? No one's ever thought of it before.
33:05 Chuck Nice? Here, Kaylee, uh, Kaylee.
33:07 Bill Nye? Who else could sell, say Kaylee, except you?
33:10 Chuck Nice? Hehehe.
33:10 Bill Nye? Besides you.
33:11 Chuck Nice? Who else could butcher the name Kaylee?
33:13 Bill Nye? Yeah, take it.
33:14 Chuck Nice? Better than you, Chuck. Here we go. Kaylee Bush wants to know this. In many science fiction movies, hypersleep is used by astronauts.
33:21 Bill Nye? Hypersleep.
33:21 Chuck Nice? Hypersleep is used by astronauts on long voyages to make their trips seem shorter. Is hypersleep possible? If so, would it be a valid method to keep future astronauts sane during long trips in space?
33:34 Bill Nye? A couple of things about that.
33:36 Chuck Nice? Okay.
33:36 Bill Nye? We, you may have met, uh, a bear. Or squirrels. These kids hibernate.
33:43 Chuck Nice? They do a little something called hibernation.
33:44 Bill Nye? Yeah, and so it's very reasonable. They're mammals.
33:47 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
33:47 Bill Nye? We're mammals. It's very reasonable that you could figure out how they do it.
33:51 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:51 Bill Nye? And, uh, then you would enable astronauts to do that. It's not, I don't think it's to entertain, to keep astronauts from going crazy so much as to keep astronauts from aging too much, right? You go on these long trips and then, uh, it seems reasonable to do that. However, with that said, Mark Kelly.
34:13 Chuck Nice? Yes.
34:13 Bill Nye? Just finished a, almost a year in space, 340 days in space, and he remarked- You know, you could go two years. I could go two years.
34:21 Chuck Nice? Right.
34:21 Bill Nye? Uh, astronauts are anything but bored.
34:24 Chuck Nice? Right.
34:24 Bill Nye? They have, if anything, too much to do.
34:26 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that's what he's.
34:27 Bill Nye? To keep the things going, yeah.
34:28 Chuck Nice? One of the things he said is that there's so much to do. There's so many things all day long that he's doing that he doesn't think about it like, like that.
34:36 Bill Nye? He doesn't, he doesn't run out of mental stuff to do. So, uh, this is a great question, but very reasonable to, to enable astronauts to make this long journey without having to eat as much.
34:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
34:48 Bill Nye? And process the waste as much.
34:50 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
34:50 Bill Nye? Having as much time, seriously, in sleep cycles. Uh, it's very reasonable to have people in suspended animation. And in science fiction movies, what you generally do
35:00 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
35:01 Bill Nye? is have the people in suspended animation kill each other or die.
35:04 Chuck Nice? Yeah, or wait, one of the chambers malfunctions.
35:07 Bill Nye? That's right.
35:08 Chuck Nice? And when they get to wherever they're going, it's a corpse.
35:11 Bill Nye? Yeah, yeah.
35:11 Chuck Nice? A dried up corpse.
35:12 Bill Nye? Yeah, and he didn't even know it, or she, because they were, he or she was asleep during this traumatic, uh, time. But this is, uh, it's a fine idea in science fiction, but it goes way back because we observe bears.
35:25 Chuck Nice? Right.
35:25 Bill Nye? Who hibernate. Why couldn't we do that? With the right hormones or berry and bark diet?
35:32 Chuck Nice? Yes.
35:34 Bill Nye? It's a good question.
35:35 Chuck Nice? There you go. Good question. Oh, wait, way to go, Kaylee. Uh, Ethan, the cool guy, Smith.
35:40 Bill Nye? That's quite a claim.
35:41 Chuck Nice? What a claim. Yes, he says, "Why does it seem that with every new generation, there is a new level of both scientific acceptance and scientific ignorance?" Which is a wonderful question, especially when you're thinking about science fiction. I mean, he's absolutely right. When you think back from the time of Galileo till now, Jesus, man, the leaps and bounds we've made, but yet when you look at where we are right now, you can't believe the people are such idiots that they believe some of the things they believe.
36:14 Bill Nye? For example.
36:14 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
36:15 Bill Nye? Give me an example.
36:16 Chuck Nice? Like, like, for example, that, um, human activity may, uh, be creating uh, climate change that is deleterious to the entire ecosystem of this planet upon which we live.
36:29 Bill Nye? And denying that.
36:30 Chuck Nice? And denying that.
36:31 Bill Nye? Yes, with the face of evidence.
36:32 Chuck Nice? Right.
36:33 Bill Nye? Or denying that, uh, organisms change through the process of evolution.
36:36 Chuck Nice? How about that?
36:37 Bill Nye? Yes, or.
36:38 Chuck Nice? Even though we have clear, clear evidence.
36:40 Bill Nye? Fundamental idea in life science. So, uh, you're asking a great question. I think people. There's an expression, I think, in almost every culture, the good old days.
36:50 Chuck Nice? Good old days.
36:51 Bill Nye? People have a way, we, I think it's a survival mechanism, we have a way of suppressing the really traumatic times.
36:57 Chuck Nice? Yes.
36:57 Bill Nye? And embracing the happy times.
36:59 Chuck Nice? Right.
36:59 Bill Nye? And these are the good old days, and so the ultimate manifestation of that is, if only things were the way they were when I understood everything.
37:08 Chuck Nice? Uh-huh.
37:08 Bill Nye? Now, uh, it gets away from me as these changes around us are happening in technology, culture, uh, the speed of things, but you gotta get over, and it's back to this deal that I talk about all the time. Some people are greatly troubled by change.
37:24 Chuck Nice? Yes.
37:24 Bill Nye? Other people accept it as part of the excitement of being alive.
37:27 Chuck Nice? Right.
37:28 Bill Nye? So, uh, this is a great question, but we are working very hard here at StarTalk to empower the world's citizens to know science.
37:37 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
37:38 Bill Nye? And that planetary society to know the cosmos and our place within it. That's why we want to know the cosmos and realize that we don't know everything. And pursue truth in nature, to find out nature's rules so that we know where we fit in, in the great scheme of things.
37:55 Chuck Nice? Yes.
37:56 Bill Nye? Where did we come from? Are we alone? These are deep questions, answers with science. Some people think it's cool, other people are troubled. And the troubled people are the ones living in the past.
38:06 Chuck Nice? There you have it.
38:07 Bill Nye? So far.
38:08 Chuck Nice? Hey, uh, I have to say that, um, um, that was a very cool question, Ethan Cool Guy Smith.
38:15 Bill Nye? Thank you, Ethan Smith, the cool guy.
38:19 Bill Nye? Lead on.
38:19 Chuck Nice? Here we go. Uh, BTU, oh one oh five.
38:24 Bill Nye? British Thermal Unit, oh one oh five, yes.
38:26 Chuck Nice? One oh five, wants to know this. The professor on Gilligan's Island always seemed to be using seawater and coconuts to power gadgets like radios. First of all, is that feasible?
38:38 Bill Nye? Uh, depends. If you have enough dissimilar metals, by the classics you might be familiar with are copper and zinc.
38:47 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
38:47 Bill Nye? Then you can make a battery. But I don't know that you can power a coconut radio.
38:52 Chuck Nice? Right, I was gonna say.
38:53 Bill Nye? But I remind you, a lot of the stuff that hap-
38:55 Chuck Nice? I think the coconut was there just for, uh, aesthetics.
38:56 Bill Nye? Give it the tropical island feel.
38:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly.
38:59 Bill Nye? I remind you, a lot of the stuff the professor did on Gilligan's Island was not real.
39:05 Bill Nye? And so this enabled the, it enabled the plot to be advanced and you'll notice generally in Gilligan's Island, he'd get it almost working.
39:14 Chuck Nice? Yes.
39:15 Bill Nye? For a few seconds.
39:16 Chuck Nice? Seconds and then.
39:17 Bill Nye? Ah, and then doggone it. And so, uh, with that said, changing the subject to a more recent, more desperate situation on Lost.
39:28 Chuck Nice? Ah.
39:29 Bill Nye? What I say as a, I was a pretty good Boy Scout.
39:32 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:33 Bill Nye? Get off the island. What's wrong with you people?
39:36 Chuck Nice? Cause all they cared about was what was happening on the island.
39:39 Bill Nye? That's just gotta say, when I watched the, the, um, was it the Blair Witch Project?
39:44 Chuck Nice? Yes.
39:45 Bill Nye? Get out of the woods. What's wrong with you? We lost the map. Follow the stream, you clowns.
39:52 Chuck Nice? There you go.
39:53 Bill Nye? I had no sympathy for those people. Maybe somebody will kill them and we can move on. Yes.
39:59 Bill Nye? Oh, Bill, Bill, you're so harsh. I'm just telling you, these are, through the process of science, you would find a way. You would find a way to get off the, out of the woods, off the island.
40:12 Chuck Nice? That's.
40:12 Bill Nye? Especially, how long was that on? Five years?
40:15 Chuck Nice? Yes.
40:15 Bill Nye? Three and a half years?
40:16 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
40:17 Bill Nye? Somebody would get something done, people.
40:19 Chuck Nice? All right, there you have it, uh, BTU. Uh, the professor was a fraud.
40:24 Bill Nye? Not a, he was a fictional character.
40:26 Chuck Nice? Fictional character. Uh, I think he never had anything that worked because he was secretly doing something with Ginger.
40:32 Bill Nye? So I don't need to know Chuck.
40:34 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
40:35 Bill Nye? But are you Ginger or Mary Ann?
40:36 Chuck Nice? Uh, you know, I gotta tell the truth, I'm more of a Mary Ann.
40:39 Bill Nye? I'm total Mary Ann.
40:40 Chuck Nice? I'm a Mary Ann guy.
40:41 Bill Nye? I am.
40:42 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
40:42 Bill Nye? I'm sympathetic to the Ginger thing.
40:43 Chuck Nice? I'm sympathetic to the Ginger too, but you know, that was a little, that looked a little high maintenance and.
40:47 Bill Nye? It did. A lot of work.
40:48 Chuck Nice? Honestly, a lot of work going in there.
40:50 Bill Nye? Yeah.
40:51 Chuck Nice? And, and, and didn't, you know, didn't look like it would be worth it. Whereas Mary Ann.
40:54 Bill Nye? That's it. She was accessible.
40:56 Chuck Nice? Yeah. And also felt like when it, you know, when, when my pursuits were achieved, that I may wanna spend some time with Mary Ann.
41:04 Bill Nye? Uh, yeah. So everybody, if you're not familiar with this, these references, a lot of the reason young men watch television is to look at women. And if you look at the cover of any ma, I, I walk by here in New York, you walk by newsstands continually.
41:21 Chuck Nice? All the time.
41:22 Bill Nye? So many of the magazines feature women rather than.
41:25 Chuck Nice? On the cover, not men.
41:26 Bill Nye? No problem with that. I gotta say, if it ain't broke. So on this show, Gilligan's Island. Uh, we can all ask ourselves, which of these contrasting personalities would you prefer?
41:36 Chuck Nice? Right.
41:36 Bill Nye? And I think this is a good moment Chuck, with that important digression resolved.
41:40 Chuck Nice? Yes.
41:40 Bill Nye? To get at last to the lightning round.
41:43 Chuck Nice? Ah, yes, and that is where we will speed things up and take as many questions as we can in the remaining time. So let us move on and say from, ooh, um, ooh, Seba Films wants to know this. Hi Bill, are you happy?
42:03 Bill Nye? I'm happy because you're at, you're sending questions or queries to StarTalk.
42:09 Chuck Nice? There you go. That was simple enough. We're off to a, uh, very good start. Um, uh, this is from Andres Gamma O7. Andres Gamma O7 wants to know this. In Star Trek, are you really, when you're teleported to another place, are you really being teleported or is it a copy of you?
42:29 Bill Nye? Oh no, you're really being teleported.
42:30 Chuck Nice? Right.
42:30 Bill Nye? I've seen it.
42:35 Chuck Nice? Easy enough. Uh, Jay Shipka wants to know this. Is it, is it possible to convert sound waves into an energy source?
42:45 Bill Nye? Energy source?
42:46 Chuck Nice? Yes.
42:46 Bill Nye? Has to be really loud. Uh, think about how little energy it takes to make a big cymbal crash. I mean, really compared to something else. You know, if you have stereo speakers, they might be a hundred watts. Just think how loud that gets. So yeah, we turn electrical energy into sound all the time.
43:04 Chuck Nice? Wow, there you go.
43:05 Bill Nye? Doing it right now. It's a radio podcast.
43:08 Chuck Nice? Yes, there's your answer, Jay Shipka. It's happening right before you. You're soaking it.
43:13 Bill Nye? He wants to go the other way. He wants to take some.
43:15 Chuck Nice? Yeah, he wants to take some. Like a sonic boom.
43:17 Bill Nye? Moderation.
43:18 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm. Okay, here we go. Uh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Uh.
43:23 Bill Nye? It's still ringing.
43:24 Chuck Nice? Alphabetize wants to know this. What are the chances of humanity recovering after a catastrophic extinction event? The subject of many, many movies.
43:34 Bill Nye? They're pretty good. Humans are said to be extinction proof. That is to say, there's so many us living on so many continents that even in a.
43:43 Chuck Nice? It's gonna be a remnant.
43:44 Bill Nye? Somebody will be around and they'll be doing it. They'll be making more humans. I'm just, if you're like to worry about things, that one, I'd set that one aside.
43:52 Chuck Nice? Okay, there you go. Uh.
43:56 Chuck Nice? Benjamin and Luria. Benjamin and Luria. That's, uh, he wants to know this. Could Rick's portal gun from Rick and Morty ever exist? In other words, could we ever have a means of creating a dimensional portal?
44:09 Bill Nye? Oh, yeah, it's easy enough.
44:12 Bill Nye? No. You think you feel better? No. But it's good. It's, it enables the plot.
44:22 Chuck Nice? Okay. Um, DJ Pure Logic wants to know this. Will humanity survive long enough to achieve a type two or three civilization?
44:32 Bill Nye? We'll see, won't we? If we can live on pure energy and become electrovores. It's not gonna happen this weekend.
44:38 Chuck Nice? Right.
44:39 Bill Nye? Climate change is gonna be a problem before then. These are great questions, maybe something worth achieving. But bear in mind, the type one, two, and three civilizations are human constructs. Who knows if there are any of them and what they think of us?
44:53 Chuck Nice? Very nice. Chris Showdrom.
44:58 Bill Nye? Last name.
44:58 Chuck Nice? Showdrom.
45:00 Bill Nye? Showdrom.
45:01 Chuck Nice? Showdrom. Chris Showdrom wants to know this. What did you learn today, Bill?
45:05 Bill Nye? Uh, I learned how Chuck feels about climate change. She's concerned. He's got three kids.
45:10 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I, I, I have to tell you, I just, oh, God, I'm not gonna get back on my little thing here because, yeah, I'm very concerned. Um, Adam Bomb Baby wants to know this. If you could show one thing, be it a photograph, a painting, or a piece of music, a book, or a movie, or something completely different to an intelligent species from somewhere outside of our solar system, what would it be and why?
45:33 Bill Nye? Uh, that's a great question.
45:34 Chuck Nice? That is a great question.
45:36 Bill Nye? And if it's one thing?
45:38 Chuck Nice? One thing that you could show them, would it, would it be art? Would it be literature? Would it be a photograph? Would it be, you know, a mathematical equation, uh?
45:47 Bill Nye? I might show him a rocket. I might show him a spacecraft.
45:49 Chuck Nice? Okay.
45:50 Bill Nye? But, phew, that's a tough one.
45:52 Chuck Nice? That's a tough one.
45:53 Bill Nye? It's a tough one.
45:54 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
45:54 Bill Nye? I think I might, I might show him.
45:57 Chuck Nice? I would just give him the internet and say, have at it.
46:00 Bill Nye? Have at it.
46:03 Bill Nye? One thing.
46:04 Chuck Nice? Just one thing, it's the internet, here you go. Alright, so this is Davy Jones from San Bernardino, California. Wants to know, what's your opinion on how science is overall depicted in Futurama? And Professor Farnsworth, a great scientist or the greatest scientist on TV?
46:19 Bill Nye? It's just, it's just fun, you guys, just fun. Don't put, don't put too much voracious, true facts. There aren't that many facts in Futurama. With that said, Chuck, we've come to the end of our show.
46:32 Chuck Nice? We have indeed.
46:33 Bill Nye? Cosmic Queries on StarTalk. It's been my worldwide citizen of the world, Chuck Nice.
46:38 Chuck Nice? Yes.
46:39 Bill Nye? And I've been your host, Bill Nye. Please keep looking up.
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