Cosmic Queries – New Year

Happy 2021! Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice are looking at the year ahead, reminiscing on the year past, and answering fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on the speed of light, gas giants, and more!

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.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Cosmic Queries Edition for the New Year. Chuck, nice. Co-host Chuck.

• 0:22Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, Happy New Year, buddy.

• 0:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Happy New Year 2021.

• 0:26Chuck Nice?

  2021, yay! Yeah, we made it!

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We survived. Did you have doubts?

• 0:33Chuck Nice?

  I really did, to be honest. There were many, many times during 2020 where I doubted I would see 2021.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a turbulent year on many fronts and... But I try to sort of take stock in the measures of turbulence that we experienced. And I, I look back, you know, during the Second World War. You know how turbulent those times were?

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can quantify it, I can quantify it.

• 0:58Chuck Nice?

  I, I was not there, so I...

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You weren't there, okay. But there are books, that's why we have books. You can know without being there.

• 1:06Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, that's why I have you.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Everybody else has books.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so between 1939, the beginning of the war, and 1945, 1,000 people per hour were killed.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because of that war.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  That's, um...

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per hour.

• 1:35Chuck Nice?

  That is...

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 1:36Chuck Nice?

  What, what, what a lugubrious thought, to say the least.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of the great low points of civilization was the Second World War. At a time when people thought the First World War was the war to end all wars. So, so that's one measure. Another measure, I think of the 1960s, 1968 in particular, with two assassinations, two, you know, highly significant assassinations with, with Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, who was then, you know, declared a candidate for president, right? So, it wasn't simply another politician or influential figure. He was trying to become president. And to the assassinations, there was campus unrest, there was riots in the inner cities, and...

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute. Now, are you sure that wasn't 2020?

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's my point. So you look at all this, and let me tell you something. In my circles, the way we think of 1968, oh, by the way, let's just set it straight. That deaths in Vietnam peaked in 1968. Okay, we were losing 100 servicemen a week, basically, and the Tet Offensive. This is the great sort of resistance that was put to our presence there on the Chinese New Year, where no one thought that they would be trying to fight back on a day that everyone would be celebrating. Called the Tet Offensive. All that happened in 1968, okay? And so we, oh, 68, I think, was also the melee massacre. Okay, do you remember that?

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is with, you know, so it was terrible. Ugly. Ugly, that's the better word, it's an ugly year. And I would declare it, just by my own metrics, to be the most turbulent, bloodiest year of a decade. That was the bloodiest year on American soil since the 1860s. In the Civil War itself. That's where, so that's what 1968 represented. However, all right, in my circles, what we know is that in December 1968,

• 3:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  we left Earth for the first time.

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? We went to the moon in 1968. People forget this. We left Earth and went to the frickin' moon in 1968, Apollo 8. Now, no one remembers them because they didn't park on the moon. They didn't get out.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't land. Let me tell you, it's tough to do a drive-by. Nobody. It was a drive-by. It was a drive-by. Nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody gives you credit for a drive-by. Nobody for not getting out of the car. That's right. Remember, remember when Bush flew over Katrina? Oh, okay, right, all right, right. Yeah. So, so what he, so what we did, we went to the moon, circled it a dozen, 15 times, and then came back. But in those orbits. That famous photo, taken by a Hasselblad camera, by the way. NASA was not gonna miss an opportunity. They got the best cameras available in the day. Hasselblad camera, bam, Earthrise.

• 4:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over the moon.

• 4:51Chuck Nice?

  Over the moon.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there it was. Earth, not as we see it in the schoolroom globe. I've talked about this often. You know, you go to school and there's Earth and the countries are color coded. The states are color coded, for goodness sake. All right, and there's no clouds. It's just color coded countries on this ball. And there it is, in all of its natural majesty. Afloat, adrift in space, in the darkness of space. And you see ocean and land and clouds. That picture comes back. And the astronauts got all emotional. And one who was religious read from Genesis, okay?

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and some people complained, you know, ardent atheists complained. We're using tax money to put religion in space. I'm thinking, they're the first ones having to go to moon. Let him read whatever the hell he wants.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I have, I don't care what he does, okay? He's the one that went to the moon and you didn't, okay? So it, what was written about that, because that happened at the end of December. Because they were there during Christmas, okay?

• 6:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that NASA saved 1968.

• 6:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow, so, wow, NASA saved 1968. Last night a DJ saved my life and NASA saved 1968. That's pretty cool.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so when I think of 2020, I think of...

• 6:24Chuck Nice?

  Are you gonna, is there a way that NASA saved 2020?

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 6:27Chuck Nice?

  Please? Please? Is there a way?

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, but I think space has a way of having us all look up. Oh, by the way, that image of Earthrise over the moon?

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, the most potent statement to come out of that whole era, birthed with that photo, is we went to the moon.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To explore the moon and we discovered Earth for the first time.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  That's a beautiful statement.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  And hopefully, one day, the statement will be, "I went to the moon and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Because that means that, that means that space travel will be so common.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So casual.

• 7:11Chuck Nice?

  So casual.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that, what you complain about is...

• 7:14Chuck Nice?

  Like, yeah, that, that, that, that'll be a very cool day.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, so what, what happened? So there was a total solar eclipse in the second week of December in, and that crossed the bottom part of South America. So Chile and Argentina got a piece of that. So, good for the rest of the Americas there. And, but not only that, on December 21st, the solstice, the, the December solstice.

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, the planets Jupiter and...

• 7:43Chuck Nice?

  And Saturn.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Saturn got so close, if you took off your glasses, you'd think there was one object on the sky.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  It, it is pretty wild, man.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, what's, for me, what was good about that was, the last time anyone saw something that close in the sky for those two planets was 800 years ago, the Dark Ages. Alright, or maybe the Middle Ages, I get my ages confused. But back then, that is not a time you wanted to live in. We can be sure about that.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, it was even hard on white people to be living back then.

• 8:15Chuck Nice?

  That's when you know times are rough.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's when you know.

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  That's when you know times are rough, okay.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, so you go back then, so we're talking about the year 1223 or 26, somewhere back then, these two planets got that close together on the sky. So, so, to me, that says, wow. You know, it forces you to think back in time when someone else saw the same kind of conjunction, it's called, that you are and that...

• 8:40Chuck Nice?

  There was some guy laid out on a rack being tortured.

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  And he looked up and he was just like, "Is that Jupiter and Saturn? That close together?"

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All our stereotypes are there.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody was on the rack. Everybody's on the rack.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Being tortured. "Hey, look at that. Hey, that's kinda interesting."

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, uh, so I think if it gets you to look up and there's a common thing everyone in the world can see, then I think that has value. It, if you wanna think, if we, if we can't escape our own tribal roots, if tribalism must gurgle up, maybe we can instead, uh, think of a tribe as all of the human species. Well, see, then we need an alien invasion to make that happen. Oh, you mean like COVID? Oh, yeah. So maybe if a virus came to Earth and affected everybody, maybe we would all get together and fight it in harmony. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good thought, Chuck. Clearly, there's no hope for us at all.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. This is, okay. So that was the low point for me. It wasn't even specifically COVID and the economic and social and personal damage it was causing. The, it was the, it was recognizing that we as a species did not mobilize coherently to fight a common invader. That, for me, was the testing grounds for an actual alien invasion, in case the aliens wanted to kill all humans, like they do in every science fiction movie, where bad aliens show up. Wow, man. So that's, that, I was upset by that. And I thought higher of humanity, I thought

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  we, we could aspire to higher goals, higher, higher positions of, of, of wisdom on how we would treat. So what it is, we just tribalized again. Oh, I'm an anti-masker, and I'm an anti-vaxxer, and I'm an anti-this, and you're that. And my, my favorite bit of insight to come out of that was just, or, or educational insight, is you tell someone, you know, "Oh, one state is gonna open its borders and the other is not, and, and one country and this and that, but we're all still traveling a little bit, right? What's going on?" And so, like I said, it's like designating a peeing section of the swimming pool.

• 11:18Chuck Nice?

  Guys, I'll be right back. No, you guys stay right here in the deep end. I gotta make my way down to three feet and take care of a little business.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and then I'll come back.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, and I'll see you when I... Dude, that's brilliant. That is brilliant.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I agree, and so it's insight into how futile it is to say, for one country to say, "I'm not gonna clean up this water because it's my problem, not your problem." It's everybody's problem because water travels, air travels, okay? Viruses travel, and in fact, viruses have the benefit that we invented airplanes just for it. There's no other way a virus could cross the Atlantic, okay? Virus said, "Let me get on this airplane."

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Yep. Look at that. It's amazing. It's like back in the day, so viruses have the most frequent flyer miles.

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 12:11Chuck Nice?

  Just like, these human beings are amazing, guys. Look at what they've done for us. That's, that's... Look at all the things they've invented to get us where we need to go.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where's a Gary Larson comic when you need one? Because that would be cool, just the Virus Express.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Wow.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I think there's, there's a saying, if someone says, "Oh, it's raining so heavily." Yeah, probably that means it will rain a little less heavily an hour from now, right? I mean, you know, if something is at its worst, pretty much it can, things can only get better. Not 100% of the time, but most of the time. In fact, this is why weird medical cures exist at all, right? So you take regular medicine, it's not working for you. You've got some intractable problem, and you get worse and worse and worse. And then you get to some bottom stage, "I can't take this anymore. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do the prescribed medicine. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna have crystals rubbed above my body when I'm sleeping, okay?"

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you start getting better, okay? Because your body, all right? At the low point, you either keep going and die, at which point you don't write the book about this new cure that you found, or you start getting better by natural causes, but you want to credit whatever you happen to have been doing while that happened. So... This is the susceptibility of our belief systems when that happens. But when things hit their worst, you think maybe they'll get better. So I can't imagine 2021 being much worse than this. And kudos to the medical professionals for coming up with a vaccine on record time.

• 13:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Record time.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and I was surprised to learn, because I'm not a medical professional. I'm looking up in the journals, and most of these vaccines for like smallpox and mumps, took decades to develop.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Decades. So it's not simply that a vaccine exists. It's that the system sped up that process. And ideally, in the future, vaccines will just be waiting on the shelf. So no matter what the thing comes in, you just tweak something real fast and bada bing, the virus doesn't stand a chance. Right, so that'd be kind of cool, the day that happens. So we need to at least celebrate how quickly this turned around.

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. I can't wait to get my vaccine. I don't care what anybody says. I'll take it publicly. You know, as a matter of fact, I wish I could take somebody's place right now.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just jump in front of the line.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  I wish I could cut the line, because I would do it in a second.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you see some of the early vaccine videos? I think the Russians had some early version, but people were concerned about the side effects. So someone is there and they're speaking to you, and they get the Russian vaccine, and halfway through, they start speaking Russian.

• 15:01Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty funny.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Halfway through the interview.

• 15:02Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was pretty funny.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  I like that.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyway, so this is ostensibly a cosmic queries.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We want to be future-leaning on this.

• 15:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you got any for me? I assume we're still honoring our Patreon supporters.

• 15:19Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, so of course, we'll call it a New Year Grab Bag for this one. And how about this? We'll start off with Gordon Vu from Patreon. Hey, Dr. Tyson and Dr. Nice. I am wondering if I'm...

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He called you Dr. Nice.

• 15:33Chuck Nice?

  He called me Dr. Nice. Gordon, you're a good man. Thank you, sir. Don't do that, though.

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  Don't do that, brother.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, in my book, you're a doctor of comedy.

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's... Oh, you got me, man. Look at that. I didn't know. That was very nice.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I bet the fanbase will agree.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you got me. That was... I'm serious. That was unexpected. Thank you.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:57Chuck Nice?

  He says, "I'm wondering if a light particle will travel forever." In space, if unhindered, does light particles obey the second law of thermodynamics? So is it in motion and continually in motion?

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so this is a question that very much concerns itself with the future, the future of a particle of light. What we'll do, we'll take a quick break, and when we come back to the New Year's edition of Cosmic Queries, we'll go straight to that question on StarTalk.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Chris Cohen from Hallworth, New Jersey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Please enjoy this episode of StarTalk Radio with your and my favorite personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. Chuck Nice, Chuck.

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  Hey, hey, Neil.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you tweet at Chuck Nice Comic, right?

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you know what's the funnest times when I follow your tweets is when you were live tweeting some important sporting event. You're just, you're all up in it.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He dropped that pass! What's wrong with him? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I can just hear you just railing on all what's going on.

• 17:32Chuck Nice?

  My favorite is when I'm following my home team, the Philadelphia Eagles, and you can hear the absolute devastating disappointment in my tweets.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The angst and anguish.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because honestly, that is the fun of being an Eagles fan, learning how to take disappointment and make it fun.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was true for the Boston Red Sox for so long, but then they started winning, and their whole raison d'etre, which was, oh, we almost get there but not, and that's what bound people together. When they started winning, it was like that got lost.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you can't say it anymore. I'm hoping to have that experience one day with the Eagles.

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for old timers, they remember, was it Susan Lucci? Who had the record for never winning an Emmy Award? A daytime Emmy for her, uh, for the soap operas that she had appeared on. And so that became the thing, right? Yeah, you know, are you not gonna win an Emmy again this year? You know?

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 18:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then she won an Emmy, and then that whole, that whole shtick.

• 18:32Chuck Nice?

  And her whole career was over. Just killed her.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, we left off with a question about the fate of a particle of light. So why don't you, um, give me, who asked that again?

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  So Gordon Boo, and he says, "I'm wondering if a light particle will travel forever if left unhindered. Does a particle of light obey the second law of thermodynamics?"

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so, um, the, a particle of light, uh, if, so a photon, just call it a photon.

• 19:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, if the universe were static, okay? So if it were just stationary, not expanding, not shrinking, and it's just there. And if it were infinite, and then out comes a particle of light. That particle, that photon will travel forever unhindered and unimpeded.

• 19:25Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Travel forever, okay? It's not gaining complexity, it's not losing, it's just travel. However, we live in an expanding universe. And in an expanding universe, the photon, which also can be thought of as having a wavelength of light, as it moves through an expanding universe, that wavelength gets stretched, embedded in the fabric of the stretching universe itself.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 19:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when you stretch light, you give it longer wavelength, the, the distance between crests.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I say wave, I mean the natural thing you think of in a wave. There's, you know, there's a hill and a valley. So the distance from crest to crest, that's a full wave length. That stretches, that reduces the energy of the photon. So the photon in this universe approaches lower and lower energy. And if it started out as a blue photon? You then become a, it goes backwards, back through the spectrum, becomes a red photon, then a microwave photon, a radio photon. And then, in the very distant future, its wavelength could be miles long. You know, far out of your capacity to see with the naked eye or any of our equipment. And, and the fate of the universe just descends into this

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  a long wavelength graveyard.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Ugh. Wow.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day.

• 20:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Sorry, photon. Sorry, photon.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I gotta throw this out there. I gotta throw this out there. You may know from relativity that the faster you go, the slower time ticks for you, as seen by others who watch this. So this is relative, the relativity of time. So it travels, ticks slower and slower and slower. So the faster you go, the slower time ticks. And this just continues and continues and continues.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you hit the speed of light, time stops.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  No time. Right.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No time. For you. For you.

• 21:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll look like everything else around you is speeding up. Okay? So, the photon has no, itself has no concept of time. So if a photon is emitted by your flashlight even, and you point it out in space, okay? That photon will travel forever until it hits something.

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the moment it hits something, the photon will say to itself, "Boy, that was quick. I was just emitted by a flashlight."

• 22:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because no time elapses for that photon. So it doesn't matter how long it travels. As far as it's concerned, it was emitted and absorbed instantaneously, in the same instant.

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. That's very cool. Wow.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Freaky photons.

• 22:20Chuck Nice?

  Who knew we would get all that out of Gordon Boo's? That's amazing. All right.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, keep it coming.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Let's go to Josh, uh, Josh V. He says, "Hey, Dr. Tyson, how did StarTalk come about? And how did you get Chuck involved?"

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  I don't know if he's about to lodge a complaint or not.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is unclear. That is unclear.

• 22:50Chuck Nice?

  Right, we don't know.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  And then he says, uh, how many folks work behind the scenes to bring us these episodes? Can you give a shout out to the folks off the camera who makes StarTalk possible? And this is, uh, um, Andre Señor. So, there you go.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, wow, okay. I would do better if I had a list so that I can just rattle them off. But what I can say is, um, in fact, I'm a little disappointed in myself because I was on a podcast just recently. In fact, I was on, uh, Nagin Farsad's podcast.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and her podcast is Fake the Nation. And at the end of the podcast, she went through the list of everybody who makes that show, the producers, the writers.

• 23:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I hate when they do that.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, I know, I hate when I'm listening, but now I'm thinking, I got people, we got people who make this happen.

• 23:43Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I never read their names on the list.

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, listen, there's a reason why you're behind the scenes, okay?

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so check.

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:53Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Run some credits, run credits at the end, okay?

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And do like you do in TV, they just fly by.

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, they just fly by.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, start, so it's a great question. Thank you for thinking about this because you know there are people behind the scenes. So, StarTalk was an idea that came about about 12 years ago, actually. And Helen Matzos, who's a co-executive producer with me, and there's a third fellow named David Gamble, who's no longer part of the organization. But the three of us applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation on the grounds that we think we can create a radio program that can bring science to the public and have sponsors want to support it.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were already radio programs that dealt with science, but they're like on NPR, right? And so every quarter, you gotta beg for money. And so why do you have to do that? Oh, because the science is good for you, but not good for marketing, okay? So we were living with this expectation that you could not sell science. But I said to myself, I've seen people react when I talk to them about science and cool things and black holes, and I know this. But not only that, there's science everywhere. So maybe let's fold in some fun celebrity guests, real celebrities, like authentic people that everybody knows of, and talk about the way science has touched their lives. So instead of a journalist interviewing a scientist,

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  let's have a scientist interview folks pulled in from random places. That scientist would meet, and then bring the other. And I know from my life, trying to educate, is that if you make people smile, not make them smile, that sounds like it's a force. But if they enjoy the moment, they're more likely to remember what happened in that moment. So we said to ourselves, we want to combine celebrities with comedians. And I will have the steering wheel on this conversation. And I will also have dials to dial up or down the comedian, and up or down the... And we can deliver a persistently reliable combination

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of content with gravity and content with levity. And that would then become the DNA of StarTalk. We thought we'd become commercially viable in three years. There's a three-year grant. But it would take an extra two years. And so we got an extension grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which is very big into science and the public. And in the fifth year, we finally drew in enough money from advertisers to pay all of what we have. So we have producers, we have writers. What the writers do is they come up, they say, "Okay, we have this guest, why don't we talk about this?" And so, no, they're not scripting words that are coming out of your or my mouth, but it was their idea to have the topics that we identify.

• 26:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for example, we just posted, at the end of last year, we posted an interview with Olivia Munn, okay? I knew of her as an actress, but I didn't know her whole profile, and the work she did in X-Men, and she's a geek herself. So we got researchers who established all of that, and they prepared those notes for me. And I drive the bus, and I know which way to turn, from the notes that we have a team of writers do for us, and researchers. So, there's that. Then there are people who maintain the internet. We have someone, the name is Jeff Simons, who is the cultivator of the Patreon community, alright? And he also writes the fan page for StarTalk, telling you what's coming up, what just happened,

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  what to look forward to. So the whole fan interactive dimension of that is covered there. We have someone else who posts to Twitter, and to Instagram, and to Facebook. And we only recently opened up TikTok. So, StarTalk's TikTok is primarily me, but we're gonna find ways that others can contribute to that, who are part of the family. So, all told, there's about 15 people behind the scenes. And I have not only Chuck as a comedian, but we have three or four other comedians that are kinda out in the wings. If Chuck can't make it, because he's got a day job... Chuck, do you have a day job? Yes, I work at Payless Shoes. Okay.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They went out of business, I think. That's why, okay? Exactly. Maybe they didn't, I don't know, but the one across my street... That's why I said that, because they went out of business. So, Chuck, we can't have Chuck every minute of his life, so we have some other comedians, and you've seen them, and you've heard them. And we love them all. Eugene Mirman was an early comedian in this, but then he moved out of town, up to Boston, and... We tapped into the Eugene Mirman's Comedy Festival, which gave us access to other comedians. And so, and the very first comedian for StarTalk was Lynn Coplitz. And, and so, so that's what we've been, and over that time, of course, the landscape has changed, where terrestrial radio, which is where we began,

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  then gave way to podcasts. And then we had a stint on Sirius XM. And so now we have our YouTube channel with more than a million followers. So the radio show concept is grown into, of course, we video all of our radio shows now so that you can consume them in both media. So, so that's, that's the total structure of this. And the one closest to what you're experiencing now is Lindsay Walker. Lindsay's behind the scenes. One day, maybe we should take a family picture. And then we'll put it up and have little, you know, face identify everybody. So there's not only Lindsay Walker, but we also have Lucy Wong, who does some of the sort of normal StarTalks,

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  but then she does all the rest of the StarTalk Sports Editions. So we got people all plugged in to the operations of the StarTalk Enterprise. And so it's, it's an entire community. And I'm, I was embarrassed that I have never read that list. And so what I might do, here's what I'll do. I'm gonna...

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  We're gonna run credits.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna have a show where, or at least part of a show, I'm gonna devote at least five or 10 minutes to just introducing each one of them. And they all come on and say hi to everybody. And that way you get to see the StarTalk family. We'll do a, do a show just of that.

• 30:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm, I'm just gonna say...

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, oh, where did we find Chuck? He was, he was panhandling on the street. Tell a joke for $5.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  Neil met me on the subway. I was like, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of the subway. I mean you no disrespect.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My favorite joke from the homeless subway comedian, have you seen him? My favorite joke of his was, "I'm so broke, I can't even pay attention."

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Right. Yeah, so my guy, so that guy is on the B train.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you already know what train the dude's on.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  That guy's on the B train. The six train dude is just like, "What's the best nation in the world? A donation. Hello, hello."

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's good.

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Well.

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I figure if they can make me laugh, you know, I don't mind giving them a couple of dollars. I mean, if I pay to see a comedian at a comedy club, if he doesn't happen to have access to a comedy club.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or his comedy club is the captive audience of a subway train.

• 31:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't mind slipping him a couple of dollars.

• 31:41Chuck Nice?

  I hate all competition. I don't care where it comes from. You ain't getting my money. No. My brother, uh-uh, man, nah, uh-uh. You have people thinking they can get a show for the price of a doggone subway ride? Nah, uh-uh, no.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like what you say, you hate the competition, but no matter what it, where it comes from.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  No, we don't like it.

• 32:06Chuck Nice?

  I don't care where it comes from, we don't like it.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So give me, give me another fast one before we take a break.

• 32:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's a tough one. Here we go fast. Here it is. John Jacobson, "What would the impact be to the current theories in cosmology if the speed of light at the beginning of the universe was faster than it is observed to be now and even slower in the distant future?"

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I like that. I like it so much, we have to take a break. And we'll come back. So when we come back, we will find out the implications of a change in the speed of light on StarTalk.

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  Hey, we'd like to give a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons. Christina Magistrani, Torin Wallen Green, and Eric Huffman. Guys, thank you. No, seriously, thank you so much for your support. Without you, we couldn't do this show. And for anyone listening who would like their very own Patreon shout out, please go to patreon.com/stargtorkradio and support us.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. Cosmic Queries, the New Year's edition. We're trying to think of the future, trying to leave the past behind us.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water under the bridge.

• 33:38Chuck Nice?

  Please.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, a question was, what would be different if the speed of light were not constant? So, let me, let me make a very stark statement here, okay? First, we have never measured the speed of light to be anything different than it is in the laboratory, okay? Now, because when we look out in space, we look back in time, we have ways of measuring the speed of light in those locations.

• 34:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back in time. So, so we can make measurements that apply at a different place at a different time. When we measure the speed of light there and then, it's the same value that we get on my, in my laboratory.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  I believe that's why they call it a constant.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A constant.

• 34:39Chuck Nice?

  That would be the C in M equals.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck figured that one out, okay? The constant to end all constants. And so you might say, well, how do we measure the speed of light? Way back, there's several ways, but let me tell you an interesting one. It's called the fine structure constant. This is a ratio of other constants that tells us how the energy separates in the levels of atoms. And so the separation of those energy levels, if a light enters or exits the atom, that affects the spectrum. Okay, so if the fine structure constant were different in the early universe than it is today, or any of those constants,

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  then, then the spectral features of atomic elements in the early universe would look different from how they do today. Wow. But they are exactly the same. Carbon, in the first few moments of the universe, is leaving the same spectral signature as it does today. And that spectral signature has the speed of light built into it for it to give us what it is we see. That is amazing. It is, it is, it's amazing. It's, it's, it's, it was not obvious. And by the way, this is, we're not just assuming the speed of light was the same, but we, we, we have, we intermittently posed the question. All right.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And consider that Isaac Newton wondered, you know, my, my law of gravity is bustin' ass, right? It's got the earth around, the moon around the earth and earth around the sun, Jupiter's moons going around Jupiter. It's a badass theory of gravity. Newton's theory of gravity. Then he said, but does it apply beyond Neptune, the last known planet that they had? Does it apply to other stars? So this was an open question, until we could measure the speed of binary stars elsewhere in the galaxy. And they were following Newton's laws. Then we measured galaxies and we find out they were following Newton's laws. So, so when you add all this together,

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  yes, these things are constant not only in place but in time. And only in time but in place. So, so that's my first comment in response to that question. My second is, so fundamental is our understanding of the universe invoking the fact, the observed fact that the speed of light does not change, that if somehow the speed of light started changing up on us, um, to say, how would it affect cosmology? It affects everything. Everything. I don't, we'd have to like start science all over again. That's how, that's how, that's how significant such a fact would be.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's my answer. You know, it's not, oh, we'll have to rethink this, but not that. No, everything.

• 37:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, maybe biology probably wouldn't be different, I would suspect. Uh, but chemistry, we'd have to understand. The fine structure constant would have been different. What would chemistry look like back then compared to now? Molecules would be different, okay? Because the energy levels, the energy levels of atoms, of energy levels of electrons in atoms are what dictate how strongly molecules are held together.

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my God.

• 38:01Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so thank you for making the very clear point that, uh, speed of light uses the symbol c because it is the mother of all constants.

• 38:12Chuck Nice?

  Ah, very nice.

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  B equals m c squared.

• 38:18Chuck Nice?

  C?

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 38:21Chuck Nice?

  All right, that sounds so cool, man. All right, let's go to, mm, mm, Yulina Nowak. I think it's Yulina, Yulina, okay. I hope that's your name.

• 38:38Chuck Nice?

  Uh, from Facebook.

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We should take up a collection, we should take Patreon money and take up a collection to give Chuck pronunciation lessons.

• 38:45Chuck Nice?

  No, no, see, here's what people don't understand. People send, people send me all kinds of stuff. They're like, hey, this will help you with names and hey, this will help you pronounce. And here's what you're failing to realize. I don't care. Okay.

• 39:04Chuck Nice?

  If you want your name pronounced correctly, send me the phonetic pronunciation of your name along with your name. Otherwise, just have fun listening to me struggle as I try to figure out what the hell your name is. So.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so what's the next one?

• 39:24Chuck Nice?

  She says, or he says, uh, what would the advantages?

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who was, who was the person?

• 39:30Chuck Nice?

  Yulina, I think, Yulina Nowak. Uh, what would the advantages, uh, or disadvantages of living on a gas giant?

• 39:42Chuck Nice?

  Cheers from Poland!

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, uh, excellent.

• 39:46Chuck Nice?

  Would there be any advantages of living on a gas giant?

• 39:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So my recent book was just translated into Polish, and I just did an interview on Polish television.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  Nice!

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Regarding that, yeah, yeah. They spoke, they spoke English to me, I don't know Polish. You know, apologizing that their English wasn't good, I say, "Dude, I don't know any Polish at all, so don't apologize to me for whatever it is you're doing in English, okay?"

• 40:07Chuck Nice?

  And guess what? And, and, and this is what lets you know you're American, okay? You go to any nation in the world and you try to speak their language, and they look at you like, "Look at how you butcher my language."

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They tell you that in English.

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  Right, they tell you that in English. "Look at how you butcher my language." You come to America and you can only say five words, alright? But you're just like, "Please, you two, tell me how train?" "You, please to tell me how train?" "Food?" And we go, "Oh my god, your English is so good!"

• 40:48Chuck Nice?

  "Where'd you learn to speak English? It's so good!"

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we know we can't speak their language, that's why we know.

• 40:53Chuck Nice?

  And that's what it is, right.

• 40:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, now I forgot the damn question.

• 40:58Chuck Nice?

  So, the gas giant, are there any advantages?

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, so there are two ways you can think about that question. One of them is, maybe we could live on a moon that is orbiting a gas giant.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  Ooh!

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Because there are moons, we know moons that have atmospheres. There are moons that have water around Jupiter and around Saturn. So, liquid water, by the way, that's way outside the Goldilocks zone, if you're orbiting Jupiter. Way outside the comfort zone where Earth is, where we can sustain liquid water, not too close. You evaporate, and not too far, you freeze.

• 41:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out there, it's freezing, but this is an energy source, which is this sort of symphony of tidal forces among the moons and of the main planet that, that, that stresses the physical object that is the moon. And when you squeeze it and unsqueeze it, and squeeze and unsqueeze, you're actually pumping energy into it, much the same way. When you, if you play racquetball, you say, "Let's warm up the ball."

• 41:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By hitting it multiple times. You deform the ball, the ball recovers its shape. And every time you do that, you're pumping energy into it, and you literally warm the ball. That's what's happening to Europa. That's what's happening to Io. These are moons in the outer planets. And in fact, Io has raging volcanoes from energy that have been pumped in by this process. So, we have sources of energy.

• 42:17Chuck Nice?

  So, wait a minute. So, the gravity of the big planet, the Jaskaiant...

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Jaskaiant, yes.

• 42:24Chuck Nice?

  The Jaskaiant is causing the moon, or the other body, to undulate in such a way that it creates heat?

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 42:37Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep in its interior. And so, on Europa, which may have a kilometer-deep layer of ice, because it's sitting outside of the Goldilocks zone.

• 42:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep inside, there's evidence that there's an ocean of liquid water that might have more water than all the oceans of Earth.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is...

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what you do is, you move to one of these moons, and maybe introduce an atmosphere, or go to one that already has an atmosphere. Titan, one of the moons, the largest moon of Saturn, one of the largest moons in the whole solar system, has a thick atmosphere, except it's an atmosphere of methane, which is the gas that comes out of your stove.

• 43:16Chuck Nice?

  And your butt.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, and your butt. Thank you for that physiological addition to my comment.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  I just want to make a contribution.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for your scientific addition. You're correct, scientific addition, yes. Methane is the product of bacteria that metabolizes in the absence of oxygen. And your entire gut, intestines right on through, there's no oxygen there, so there's anaerobic, non-oxygen thriving bacteria, and so one of their byproducts is methane. So, yes, in camp, when they wanted to light your fart on fire, there's science behind that.

• 43:59Chuck Nice?

  Come on, baby, light my...

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And those of you who are old timers with StarTalk, Chuck, you and I talked about this, was it five years ago? We talked about a new, a new talent that Superman-

• 44:14Chuck Nice?

  Superman!

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could exploit.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you-

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he's a superhuman in every way, then he would have super farts.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  One of my-

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And-

• 44:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that's the case, he could, you know, he would, remember how he can blow on something and freeze it? Well, if he lights one of his farts, you can ignite an entire village.

• 44:31Chuck Nice?

  That's my favorite, probably to this day, still my favorite conversation we have ever had on StarTalk.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that one?

• 44:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, hands down. I, I cried the entire time.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You did cry, because we were trying to imagine Superman dropping his drawers.

• 44:49Chuck Nice?

  Well, because I was seeing him in, like, with the flap and the buttons on the back, and you pull the flap down, and you look back, oh god.

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  It's amazing, it's awesome.

• 45:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's science, that's what it is.

• 45:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh god, if only they taught science like this in school, kids, it'd be the best. Kids would never, ever get turned off.

• 45:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so now why did we start talking about methane?

• 45:18Chuck Nice?

  So we talked about the Titan, Titan's atmospheres, methane.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and methane is only flammable if it's in the presence of oxygen. So, so people worried that the spacecraft would ignite the entire atmosphere of Titan, because we landed there. Uh, Europe had a probe that landed there called Huygens, and, um, but no, not a problem. But anyhow, so you can live in a moon that orbits one of these planets, provided it's been warmed by this tidal force, because we need a source of energy for our own metabolism, and we have to figure out, you know, is it plant life, is it animal life? Maybe these oceans in Europa have fishes swimming in them? Alright, so you can go ice fishing there, that could be fun. So, so that's a new opening of the Goldilocks zone that we previously hadn't considered when we were restricting our search

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  for just that golden distance from the host star. So, as, in terms of the gas giant itself- Without a surface to walk on and with the, um, plus the, and if you did have a surface, the gravity is very high. So I can't think of, I can't, I cannot endorse many urges to live in the atmosphere of a gas giant because most of their mass is in the form of gas.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. Look at that. That's amazing.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So Chuck, I think we have to end it there. That went fast.

• 46:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh God, that was like nothing to.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some, some fun questions just to begin the new year. And so Chuck, a happy and healthy new year for you and your family.

• 46:45Chuck Nice?

  Thank you. Same to you, my friend.

• 46:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I'm just trying to keep the universe, bring the universe, we're trying to bring the universe down to earth for whoever will listen.

• 46:55Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 46:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding all of you happy new year, happy 2021. May it be better for you than it ever was for any of us in 2020.

• 47:07Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something. If your 2021 is worse than 2020, just give up.

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. It's time to give up on that.

• 47:14Chuck Nice?

  It's time to give up on life.

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Move to another planet.

• 47:16Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. It's like, well, I'm out of here.

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm out. All right. Uh, this has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, New Year's Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.