Women in Science, with Summer Ash and Emily Rice – StarTalk All-Stars

New StarTalk All-Stars hosts, astrophysicists Summer Ash and Emily Rice, share their take on “Women Crushing It Wednesday” - reclaiming a sexist hashtag by celebrating women in STEM and examining the challenges women scientists face. Chuck Nice co-hosts. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is StarTalk.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Welcome to StarTalk All-Stars. We're your hosts. I'm Summer Ash. I'm an astrophysicist at Columbia University, and I direct the Public Outreach Program for the Astronomy Department there.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  And I'm Emily Rice. I'm an astronomer at the College of Staten Island City University of New York and at the American Museum of Natural History. And today, we're going to be talking about women in science. And first, I should introduce our co-host, Chuck Nice. Thanks for being here with us.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Hey, ladies, how are you? Good to be here.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  And today, we're going to be talking about women in science. You are welcome to participate.

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, thank you. And by the way, I'm looking at myself in the camera here, and I'm looking at this sweater. I might just be a woman in science. I'm just saying, for those of you at home, that was a joke saying I have breasts. And I do. Okay. Yeah, and we're actually doing it in the form of cosmic queries. And the cosmic queries are all about, listen, women crushing it Wednesday.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  Now, I'm going to say that I'm a little embarrassed. I don't know what women crushing it Wednesday is. Now, I've heard of women crush Wednesday, which is a hashtag on Twitter. So what is women crushing it Wednesday?

• 1:24Speaker 02

  We kind of made it up. We didn't, we were not the only ones that made it up. A few other people use this.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  But we like women crushing it Wednesdays better.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  I do, too, to be honest.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  If you look up what a crush is, Merriam-Webster defines a crush. It's kind of, I don't think it's the greatest compliment, especially when you're talking about women trying to break into a male-dominated field and be treated equally and things like that. A crush is like a temporary infatuation.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  And when I saw women crush Wednesday, I was like, really? Like, that's the, you know, we got two Nobel Prizes out of 100 Nobel Prizes in physics, and that's the best you can do is a temporary infatuation? Like, no. We're gonna, we're gonna profile women crushing it.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  In their field.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, because now, that is not temporary. Because when you are crushing it, that is it.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  You have crushed it, and that's, that's the end. That's the, that's the finality of it. Like, yo, I just crushed that. It's over. Deal with it. Crushed it. You know, so there's a, there really is a very different sensibility behind the two.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Just by adding the suffix to crush.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28Chuck Nice?

  So instead of crush.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  It's subtle, but it's, it makes it much more powerful.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  It is much.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  More empowering, much less objectifying.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  And let me just.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  I think meant to be complimentary, but.

• 2:37Chuck Nice?

  And let me just say, as a feminist, I actually agree with that, you know? And notice, I didn't say, as a father of two girls. Which, by the way, stop it.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay, as a father of two girls, I believe, shut up. Because here's the thing, um, you should not have respect for women and their equality based on the fact of who you have in your family who is a woman.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:02Chuck Nice?

  Because I don't know if you know this, but if you are here on this planet, you have a family member who is a woman. All right? So that right there disqualifies that as a, a reason to respect women. The reason why you respect women is because you are, um, smart enough and evolved enough to understand that their equality is just that. That's it. That's the end of it.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Human beings.

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, they are human beings. That's where their equality lies, in the fact that they are human beings, they are a different gender, but that doesn't make them different people. Okay? The personhood of a woman is.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things to wrap your mind around.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  What's that?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Somehow the simplest things are the hardest things to wrap your mind around.

• 3:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a paradigm shift.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  And we're working on it.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  Well, good.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  I think it's going pretty well.

• 3:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, and you know, I, I say all those things because I really do believe them, uh, you know, but I don't believe them as the father of two daughters.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so anyway, hey, so we have our cosmic queries and we take them from all over the internet, and whether it's Facebook and, um, Instagram or Twitter or what have you. And, um, we always start with a Patreon question, and Patreon is a, um, a platform where you can support, start, talk financially. And by doing so, we will give you priority to the cosmic queries questions because, uh, quite frankly, we can be bought.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  And All-Star All-Access, right? Is that separate from Patreon?

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is. Thank you so much for saying that. So StarTalkAllAccess.com is where you can actually watch this podcast that we're doing right now and every podcast that we do in video form.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Video form.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  As well as exclusive, original content that you cannot see anywhere else but StarTalkAllAccess.com. So, thank you, Emily, for that. All right, so we get into our first one. It's a Patreon question. And this is from Erica Thotis, or Thoits. I'm not sure. It's either Thotis or Thoits. And Erica says this.

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  "I realize this is a bit off-topic, but I can't stop thinking about it. As a woman who's grappling with the fact that our country has just voted for a man who, at best, has a sexist view of women, I'm feeling a little bit discouraged and defeated. I sadly imagine you face sexism and setbacks while pursuing your careers as you've worked to bring due recognition to female astronomers and physicists. Where do you find the motivation to keep going when faced with such ugliness and hurt?" Wow, that was a deep way to start. Thanks for bringing us down, Chuck, with your first question.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Jump in the deep end.

• 5:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. No, but let's jump right off in the deep end. What she's saying is, now, believe it or not, there are people who believe that, and I swear to God, this was so funny. I watched a panel on C-SPAN, yes, I am that guy. I'm sorry, I'm that guy. I watched a panel on C-SPAN where they talked about there is no more sexism.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Oh, no!

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  And it was four men and a male host. All of them Washington people, like, they all have, like, big jobs in Washington. And they were like, "There really is no more sexism."

• 6:14Speaker 02

  That's pretty good. That's like when Obama was elected, the racism ended, right?

• 6:17Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  That was fun.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Racism, like, now we don't anymore.

• 6:21Chuck Nice?

  Hey, what are you talking about? It's done.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  So, even though this is a little bit heavy, and she says it's a little bit off-topic, it's not.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  No, it's not off-topic at all.

• 6:31Chuck Nice?

  Because when you talk about women in science...

• 6:35Speaker 02

  It's all part of the same thing, like that's the like the I think the lack of representation of women in science and other underrepresented minorities in science is really an extension of the rest of society like that's what the thing a lot of people think like oh science is this it's this fax and it's very pure pursuit and you know very noble and esoteric sometimes but um science is messy and done by people.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  And human.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  And yeah and people have prejudices and people have biases and and definitely like our society is reflected in science for better or for worse. I think we wish it weren't and I think we wish even as scientists that we could you know because we think that we're logical we're trained in certain ways and we think that we can overcome these things just by thinking about them. Right. Um but I we're we're we're showing that we can't and that we we really need to do better um to go back to the question like and that and actually it can be and it can make it harder to convince a scientist that they're being biased. Wow. Because they think yeah that's. There you go. Because they think that they're. They think that they're not and they and they also think that they're very logical people. Yeah. Right.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  And so they have a harder time of seeing the actual you know kind of mistakes that they're making.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Even when presented with evidence.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  There's been these studies showing that when you provide data.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  People become more entrenched. You rationalize it away I mean because that's what we do is we look at data and we try to make sense of certain things and we try to dismiss other things in order to understand the you know the the physical scientific data. We can do the same thing about people which is terrible like that's not what we want to do you know we want to handle dealing with people in a slightly different way. Right. Um and it's so science in that way is kind of a reflection of our society as a whole and boy this week has been tough. Ha ha. You know and it's especially I think. Like as a woman in science and having dealt with this, actually, you know, like I'll admit that I've been a little bit lucky in that, you know, I kind of didn't realize

• 8:36Speaker 02

  that that women in science and and was a special thing or like needed defending or talking about for a very long time, which was nice. I did like in high school, I was definitely one of the only girls in my like upper level physics and math classes, but damn it, I was one of the best too. So I was like, what up? Like, I don't know where everybody else is. Um, I always, um, and then, um, in kind of college, it was a nice mix of of, um, guys and dolls. I don't know, you know, women and men in my in my physics major and stuff like that. And then in grad school, I actually had an incoming class of seven, six women and one dude. And so our grad school, like the, you know, in the the higher levels were also kind of well mixed and well represented and.

• 9:21Chuck Nice?

  So when did it all, when did it all go to crap?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  And then, yeah.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  When did it all go to pot?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Like, the thing is with it with science, it tends to be like the higher you get, the the the more. More imbalance. Imbalanced it becomes. Yeah, the less the normalization happens. And so for whatever reason, there's some people call it a leaky pipeline. And the idea is that you have this pipeline from, you know, student through to professor, and that the women drop out for some reason, and the men don't drop out.

• 9:46Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Um, and so now that I'm an assistant professor, like I'm one of, I'm the only female physicist in my department. And there's a couple other female engineers and a female geologist. Um, and that's out of, you know, two dozen faculty members.

• 10:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  So that's a little bit disappointing. Um, you know, and you, but you you try to find your tribe a little bit, like you try to find people that also care about changing the representation and and I love I steal it from Shonda Rhimes, actually, normalizing it. It's not diversifying because we don't just want, you know, we we.

• 10:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  We don't want like a rainbow box of crayons, just for the sake of having a rainbow. Like, we want to normalize it. We want to have science be representative of the population as of a whole.

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Because that's actually a scientific thing. If you have a random sample of, you know. People that want to go into science, if you randomly draw from people, then science, you know, people that are scientists should represent the overall population.

• 10:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  If you don't, if you have only, for example, white males becoming scientists, you have some kind of selection bias. There are scientific words for that, and yet, people say, "Oh, but women aren't interested," and, you know, "Other people don't have the education," or something like that. And it's like, no, there's, it's a selection bias.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  You know, there's a large enough population where we should be able to randomize these things out.

• 11:08Chuck Nice?

  And so that it would be reflected in the actual field.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:11Chuck Nice?

  The field would reflect the population.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense. Summer, you have anything to...

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just want to add, like, for motivation, you know, what motivates me is that now, because of the internet, there's all these social channels and social communities. And so, even if your institution is very imbalanced with women or minorities, you can find those other people that are like you out there in those other departments. And so then, it's kind of like Emily said, you know, you find your group, and I'm motivated every day by the work that they're also trying to do to change how everything is in science and in the world in general.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  And so that, and that's a way that you can cheer each other on, and that's a way that you can also just discover that there are so many other amazing people out there. Like, I've discovered so many amazing women crushing it in science on social media, and that keeps me going.

• 12:04Chuck Nice?

  It sounds, it sounds to me like what you're both, the common thread through what you both have just said is that community is a big, big, big help in overcoming any of these challenges. Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  That's cool. Well, Erica.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, Erica, that's a great, great, great question, and a great way to start off, I don't care what anybody says. Well, let's, let's, let's get to something, um, a little, a little, a little more, a little, a little, a little easier. This is Dave Smith coming to us from Facebook, and Dave says, "I'm doing an informative speech on black holes. What's a good attention-getting tip?"

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Oh, you got this one, I think.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Do I?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Well, I like to say black holes don't suck.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I was thinking about.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, get out.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  For like the little, for me, it's a little double meaning because they don't suck because they're awesome.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Uh, but they also don't suck because if you actually observe them with radio telescopes, they're also blowing jets.

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  So they're, they're doing multiple types of activities.

• 13:03Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Phenomena. Um, and so that's a nice energetic thing.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Sucking stuff.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  You can happily orbit a black hole.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Like you can orbit, if you have enough energy, you can orbit a black hole as a, as a star, as a planet, as something.

• 13:16Chuck Nice?

  As another black hole.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  As long as you're outside of the danger zone.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah, if you're outside the danger zone, right, the event horizon, you can, you can go ahead and, so that's cool. And there is a perception, though, that a black hole is an all-consuming entity that no matter where you are in the universe, at some point, it's going to get you.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, people are afraid, like, the black hole, the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, they're like, we're gonna get eaten, and we're not, because you can calculate, like, a black hole will eat everything within its reach, but its reach is finite.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Pretty small.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  And/or growing at a very small rate.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  It's because it's governed by gravity, and gravity is actually the weakest of the four fundamental forces.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Throwing some physics there.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, ain't nothing wrong with throwing a little physics in there.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  I also.

• 13:55Chuck Nice?

  Take that, gravity, you weakling.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I also like the, the anecdote where you can say, if I could set my fingers and turn the sun into a black hole.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  The solar system orbits, everything would remain exactly the same. I mean, there are other reasons why we would not continue to live, but it would not be because we were eaten by the black hole.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:15Chuck Nice?

  That is fascinating.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  The event horizon of that black hole.

• 14:18Chuck Nice?

  That black hole would be.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  The mass of the sun would be tens of miles at the most.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  It's three kilometers.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  So, in other words, we would be beyond the reach of that, uh, event horizon.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Mercury would too.

• 14:28Chuck Nice?

  And therefore, Mercury would.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Gravity would stay the same.

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  Which is the closest to the sun, so we, none of the planets would get sucked in.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Nothing would change.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Everything would just orbit happily.

• 14:36Chuck Nice?

  And then we would just be orbiting a black hole, period, right? And it, wow.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Eight minutes after the sun turned into a black hole, we'd get very, very cold.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Plants might die.

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Other things might not work.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  But otherwise, yeah.

• 14:47Chuck Nice?

  We'll still make it.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Gravitationally, we'd be fine.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  I'm very positive about that, we'll, we'll just become chuds. Okay.

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Let's, uh...

• 15:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, we're doing, uh, Women Crushing It Wednesday. Questions from, uh, our Cosmic Queries audience, and this is Jay Birchfield. And Jay wants to know this. What seems to be the biggest barriers for women entering STEM fields? Do these barriers seem to be getting any smaller? So, uh, what are the biggest barriers and are there hope when it comes to the barriers that are being removed?

• 15:27Speaker 02

  I... Some people say that the... There's barriers in terms of inspiring girls to be interested in science. Like, some people think that, that girls and women just naturally aren't interested in science, which I think is totally wrong.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Um, I think, like, everybody is born naturally curious. But somehow, women and, and girls tend to get discouraged away from it more than men are, for some reason, it feels like. And maybe it's, it's a little bit of these kind of unconscious biases. It's also a little bit of, I think, self-doubt that women tend to have more than men have, where they think, "Oh, I have to be smart to be a scientist, and so I'm not that smart. I'm not gonna bother." It's also been shown that women tend to have a little bit higher expectations for themselves. Like, they think, you know, is it maybe in classes, like, "Oh, I have to get an A, or else I'm not any good at this." Um, you know, or I have to, you know, like, they, they underestimate their skills, and they kind of overestimate their expectations. Whereas a dude might...

• 16:25Chuck Nice?

  No, men overestimate everything.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And not be bothered by underperformance.

• 16:31Chuck Nice?

  No, they really aren't.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  A C student and be like, "Well, I can be a physicist and a, and a..."

• 16:35Chuck Nice?

  I can be president.

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  It's happened, people.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I wish you were a C student. It's happening. A, a woman might get a B and be like, "Oh, I'm not any good at this," or something like that, and, and switch to something that she might think is easier.

• 16:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  And then it kind of, you know, gets harder from there at, at various different levels. But I think most of the, most of the barriers are, are not actually scientific, but they're cultural.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

  So they're cultural, social barriers, psychological barriers. And do you see them, uh, the second part of the question was, do you see them, see them getting better? Is, is there any empirical evidence that we are getting better, uh, at, at inspiring women going into STEM?

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, the empirical evidence is there, right? It's the participation.

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Right, and the achievements. And, uh, you know, the participation is increasing, not uniformly across the fields and not as fast as we would like it to, but it's there.

• 17:24Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  I think one of the other things is...

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would be great.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yep. I think one of the other things is that there are like these studies that show bias in teachers. So that's gonna affect no matter what subject you're in. But teachers calling on boys more often and just the the interaction between teachers and students is not in favor sometimes of the female students. And of building their courage or building their knowledge and allowing them to participate at the same levels.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And then also, um, oh, what was the other thing I was just gonna say?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  I'll stall a little bit, like the the, you know, these things aren't meant to be, they're not necessarily, um, they're not meant to be negative. Like, I don't think people think, oh, I'm gonna...

• 18:11Chuck Nice?

  Well, there's not, there's not a malicious conspiracy. There's not a malicious conspiracy.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  It's unconscious bias.

• 18:17Chuck Nice?

  These things happen. But you have one more thing you want to say?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the other thing is also like what we were talking about, um, or one of the reasons that we also do the StarToilist, our science and astronomy fashion blog, is because there is, because science is dominated by men, then there's a dominant type of scientist that's pictured. And so there's, women have a spectrum, and so some women think that if they are drawn to more things that are classically girly, that they, that doesn't, there's no place for that in science.

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  And so they also hide that lack of science.

• 18:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  I'll try to change that. Yeah.

• 18:48Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Okay, we have to take a break, and we'll be back with StarTalk All-Stars right after this.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm one of your All-Star co-hosts. I'm Emily Rice.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  And I'm another All-Star co-host. I'm Summer Ash.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  And thanks Chuck for being our third co-host for this show.

• 19:08Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Without a doubt. I'm having fun.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  And you have all these cosmic queries for us about women crushing it Wednesday.

• 19:15Chuck Nice?

  Women crushing it Wednesday, and we went to the internet and asked people to give us some cosmic queries that we might be able to pose to you guys, and many of them have to do with women in STEM. And some of them just are general science questions, and the cool thing is you can speak to both of them.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  You can crush it.

• 19:34Chuck Nice?

  You can crush it. Both of them.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Crushing the cosmic queries.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  Someone must know your particular state of being, Emily, because, um...

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 19:43Chuck Nice?

  This and by that, I mean that Emily is with child. Emily is pregnant, okay? Not your state of being like, you know, anything else like.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  I was like, they can read my aura.

• 19:54Chuck Nice?

  Ah, that's right. I'm pure energy right now, Chuck.

• 19:58Chuck Nice?

  This is Randy G Sidberry from Twitter says this. Could you please tell us what a birth would be like in outer space?

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  And by that, I think he means zero G.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I'm not that kind of doctor. I don't know what a birth is gonna be like, period, actually. And I'm gonna put something, tell me, please. I'm a little bit terrified.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Does gravity, so the thing that I do know is that there's so much fluid around the baby that like they tend to be floating.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  And they don't seem to, um, to kind of care about gravity very much.

• 20:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  But that said, I don't know, because somehow they like, most of the time, they find their way out. They get head down and then they get deeper in your pelvis and then they, you know, eventually they want to come out because of the hormones that go, I'm making stuff up, honestly.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  I really don't know.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  I could tell you, I actually know the question, having three children and being there for all of it, uh, it will be so messy. Oh, my God, it'd be so messy.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  The advice that I've heard is neck up. Just, just stay neck up and let the professionals deal with everything else.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, I mean, would, would, would, do you think it would be like the same as a birth in a bathtub or a birth in a birthing tub, as they call them, where you are mutually buoyant?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Buoyant. It helps. I mean, that's how astronauts train, right? For low gravity.

• 21:21Chuck Nice?

  They go into a pool.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  If they train in the deep water.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Neutral buoyant facility.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes, right. Yeah. And let me tell you something. Here's the deal. It ain't gonna make a difference. Okay? You could be mutually buoyant and I've seen those births and the women are screaming just as much. Okay? It's not like they're just like, thank God, I'm in outer space. This is so god darn great. No, it's just like, I'm gonna kill whoever did this to me. You son of a bitch. I hate you and your mother. And you know what? I'm just taking the time to tell you, I hate your mother right now because I can and I don't care. Okay. Anyway, that's what my wife said to me. That's all.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  That left a scar, didn't it?

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, buddy.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  God, I'm scared.

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  No, actually, I wish that was the case. My wife and my mother are actually, my mother likes my wife better than me. I'm not even joking.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  That's a good sign that you married well.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes, or that I'm an awful son.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  A little bit of both, maybe.

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Who needs to choose?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I've never thought about giving birth in space. I think, like, we might have to find out eventually, right? Because that's the idea. If we start to go further and further.

• 22:31Chuck Nice?

  If we go further out.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, that's, I mean, Buzz Aldrin talks about Mars as a one-way trip.

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  And it's probably actually cheaper to figure out how to, you know, procreate and give birth on another planet instead of keep sending fresh people.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  That's true. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Lost another one.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  I don't know why these, I don't know why these people keep having sex while they're out there in space, but it's just not working out.

• 22:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, well, hey, Randy, that was a, that was a really cool question.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  That was a stumper.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  That was a stumper, but it was a really cool question. All right. Here's a personal question for both of you, and it's from Angela Marone from Instagram. And Angela says, what kind of major challenges did you personally face to get where you are today? Okay, so this is, this is your own personal story. I mean, there's no real right or wrong answer to this. It's not scientifically based, but it is experientially based. Is there anything that you can think of that, from a gender-specific standpoint, where you, you, you ran into some obstacles on your path or your journey to this point?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  I, I think I'm really lucky in that I didn't face any major challenges, but I think unfortunately, like, you know, for better or for worse, that's one of the reasons that I'm here as a scientist.

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Is because I didn't face major challenges.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  Now, that is a very good point.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  The fact that you are where you are is because you received the kind of nurturing and assistance necessary to put anybody in your position, and you were just able to do it.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  I, sometimes I kind of think that, yeah. And I mean, I, but I do know other people have overcome major challenges, and I know that they're like smarter than me and tougher than me and like, and I know, and also thinking about the fact that so many people that did face more challenges than me don't make it even though they want to, and that's gotta be fixed.

• 24:26Chuck Nice?

  Right. I was gonna say that the real problem is those who face the challenges and go, to hell with this. Yeah, this is just too much, man. I can't, you know what I mean?

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's fair. I mean, because some of the challenges are just, you know, I grew like, grew up with like a house and enough food and and things like that. And that's something that, you know, a lot of people don't have. And it actually frightens me on a day to day basis, like what we could be missing, because not everybody is taken care of, not everybody has the same opportunities, like what geniuses are not even living, you know, out of infancy or something like that, because, you know, we don't take care of everybody kind of equally across the planet.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there is a price to be paid by human capital, uh, inhuman capital,

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  uh, by disparity. Disparity exacts a price upon all societies, so.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and science is a product of society.

• 25:22Chuck Nice?

  And Summer, do you have a, uh, an actual?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  I, I have a, quite a similar story to Emily, I think, in the sense that I was really fortunate to have amazing women mentors at every step, almost.

• 25:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Um, even though we were collectively still the minority at every point, as far as gender minority. Um, so, I, first of all, I'm raised by a single mother. I'm an only child. Uh, she's, she's not in technical science fields at all, but she supported me the entire time through my pursuit of it. Um, one of my mentors in college was the only tenured female engineering professor in the department. Uh, I actually, so I came through engineering, so I have a little winding road story, but I worked in aerospace engineering and my boss was a woman.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  She was one of the few women. Uh, grad school, my advisor was a woman also. And that was, that was kind of random. Like, in my particular experience, I didn't get to choose that person. I chose a project and that turned out to be run by one of the women who had been there since she was in undergrad.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  So it was kind of amazing. Um. And then I think personally, which may have slightly been affected by gender. When I was in grad schools, when I had like a major depressive episode. And that was my first encounter with depression.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  And I do think that there was being the minority in the group and also just not being confident enough to seek out help at various stages. And also share that information in the academic environment that I was in.

• 26:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Sort of kept me back, made that take a bigger, made me take a bigger hit due to that.

• 27:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah. All right. Well, you know, I love the fact that what you both kind of focused on is that when you get, when you get the proper push and assistance, it makes things easier. And I say this to everybody, nobody gets anywhere without help.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 27:21Chuck Nice?

  And that's all there is to it.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:23Chuck Nice?

  And so the more help that is available for anyone.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:26Chuck Nice?

  The better you're gonna do at anything. So, you know, and just think of it this way. When you look at the NFL and the NBA, you would be so shocked to find how many players have a family member, father, uncle, somebody who played professional, that professional sport.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Ah, interesting.

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and everybody thinks like, these guys are just natural phenoms, they came out of nowhere.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  You have to recognize.

• 27:51Chuck Nice?

  And you gotta recognize, no, that guy had somebody mentoring him from the time he was three years old, put a basketball in his hand, a football in his hand. Look at the Manning brothers. I mean, there's actually three of them, but only two count.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I always think about that poor third one, yeah. He's a mature and salesman or something.

• 28:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but the fact is, they're the son of Archie Manning.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so, you know, the help thing is a very big thing, is what I'm saying, so that's.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Also, that's a really good lesson too for science in general. Like, science, you know, you hear the myths of the lone genius and that kind of a thing, but science is a, is a community and team effort and group effort. And you can't get anywhere, and especially in grad school. So I used to work on a program that helped post-bac students sort of get prepared for grad school. And the thing that you really have to drill into them is that you need to ask for help.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  And it's good to ask for help.

• 28:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  And you should identify resources outside yourself. You can't do it alone.

• 28:46Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Also, knowing that even the grad school is a thing, like the grad school is something where you keep going to school, but you get paid to do it. And, and so like.

• 28:55Chuck Nice?

  Say that again now?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. You don't get paid very much.

• 28:58Chuck Nice?

  I believe Chuck Nice might be going back to grad school.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's not, you know, it's not like, you know, law school and med school are kind of more popular. You have to pay for those and it's a huge amount of money. But graduate school, especially in the sciences, is generally paid for. You, you know, you work, but you're working as teaching or doing research or something like that. You're not paid a huge amount of money.

• 29:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, but still.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  You're generally paid enough to live on and that's...

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  And you're going to school.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you're going to school to get a PhD or to get a master's degree. And this is something that, because it's a relatively small amount of the population that does it, it's not very well known that it's even a path.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  And so if you don't already have a scientist in your life, you might not even know that it's a thing that you can do. You don't, you also don't have to go to grad school and only become a professor. You can go to grad school and then, you know, you can get a PhD in physics and even, you know, then work in finance or become an astronaut or, you know, work in fashion, all, all kinds of things.

• 29:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, because, right, wow.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  That is, um, who knew? Yeah, I'm making it rain, bitches. I'm going to grad school. Ah, okay.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  And I think the interesting thing about that too is actually it counters the leaky pipeline example, because I like to think of it more, it's not that you're losing these people, but you are for some reasons, the pipeline is not encouraging them to go on, but some of them are making these alternative choices, which we shouldn't even call alternative, because the idea is that...

• 30:23Speaker 02

  There's just this huge range of careers.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  There's a lot of options at every level.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  People with astronomy PhDs that work for like Etsy and Stitch Fix and Netflix and GitHub and, you know, all kinds of software companies and all kinds of internet companies and things like that. And so you can really do all kinds of different things with a science PhD.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's amazing. That's great stuff. Well, there you go, kids. Stay in school.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  For a long, long time.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  For a long, long time. All right, here we go. This is Benjamin Needle coming to us from Instagram. This is off topic, but I just want to get your, your opinions on this. What is the best and possibly simplest way to refute a climate change denial argument? I know you both... passionate about climate change and he came to us from Austin, Texas and climate change is going to be a very, very crucial and serious subject, more so than it has ever been because of the particular administration that is about to take place or take hold here in America. So with that in mind, is there anything that you that you kind of have a go to when it comes to climate science and climate deniers?

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Climate science is just another aspect of science and man. If you don't believe in science, like then you don't believe why your cellphone works or why your computer works. Like it's and 99% of scientists, of climate scientists in particular, this is people that, you know, have gone to school for 10 plus years, studied these, the, these very intricate detailed things.

• 31:54Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, that's all they do is climate. It's, it's not like, right, that's their focus. It's not like you're an astrophysicist and dabbling in climate science. These guys, their concentration is the climate of the planet Earth and sometimes other planets.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and yeah, and other planets as well. That's the, also the thing is that, you know, in order to understand Earth, we can also understand Venus, we can understand Mars and all, everything kind of fits in together. You know, it's still, it's science and so it's not a set, you know, we don't have an answer, but we have a very good idea of what's going to happen. And if I were a climate scientist, I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night. And it's even, you know, sometimes difficult as an astrophysicist because they're like, oh yeah, this is like the best case scenario is, you know, rising ocean levels, rising temperatures, like, you know, extreme wind pattern or extreme weather patterns, like soon, like within a century. And it's like, it's amazing to

• 32:51Speaker 02

  talk to them because they're like, yes, absolutely. They have no doubt whatsoever.

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  And this is 99% of them say the same thing.

• 32:58Chuck Nice?

  And, and the funny thing is that what people don't understand about climate change is that, and by the way, I, I implore everyone to stop calling it climate change and start calling it. Human caused or man made climate change.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:17Chuck Nice?

  Because we keep calling it climate change as if this stuff is just happening.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Right. Well, it has happened, and this is one of their arguments is that, oh, number one, we don't know what happened in the past. Well, we do know what happened in the past. It's a lot coarser than the data that we have now, but we know what happened in the past.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  And number two, what happened in the past was these tiny little changes, you know, big enough to cause ice ages and a lot of different climates. The earth has been a very different place for the, you know, even the last several million years, let alone billions of years. But these are very small changes over long periods of time.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And then you put the, you know, the last 100 years on the same graph and it shoots up.

• 33:59Chuck Nice?

  It goes off the charts.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  And it's terrifying. But that's, you know, you can't even, you know, some people don't even understand charts. And so, you know.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Getting this stuff across is, it's admittedly a complicated thing. And so there are a lot of details to get across. And there's a lot of, when something is so complicated, I think people tend to like, they want to believe what they want to believe. And so they want to believe that it's going to be okay, or that it's not caused by us, or, you know, that it's not as bad as, as these crazy people are making it out to be. But no, it's terrible. It's, it's only going to get worse unless we fix things sooner rather than later. And it's real.

• 34:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  And it's frightening.

• 34:37Chuck Nice?

  It is. Someone, do you have anything? I thought, I saw you looking.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just wanted to add also, like, the thing, a lot of times, people are talking, when they say that climate change isn't real, they're talking about weather. And weather is a short term local phenomenon. And climate is longer time scales, larger geographic scales.

• 34:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  And so they're also looking, it's like looking at a graph for just a tiny little portion instead of a big, huge trend that you're seeing.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Right. And, yeah. And so, and guess what? It's kind of like finding out, like, just because you don't think it's real, doesn't mean it doesn't mean you are real.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay? Because it believes in you.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Science is real. We have to take a break, but we'll be back with StarTalk All-Stars right after this.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm your All-Star host, Summer Ash.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  And I'm Emily Rice.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  And we're also joined by Chuck Nice.

• 35:30Chuck Nice?

  I am here, thank you. It's good to be here. We are doing our Cosmic Queries and we're gonna jump right back into it because we have we've got some really cool questions about women crushing it Wednesday.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Even if it's not Wednesday.

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  Even if it's not Wednesday.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  It's Wednesday somewhere in the solar system.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Define Wednesday.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  It's Wednesday on Uranus for like six more months.

• 35:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, so there you have it.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  And also, women crush it every day.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:58Chuck Nice?

  There you go, alright. So, um, this is Reed126 and he says, or she says, because I can't tell from Reed.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Dog, actually.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  What is the possible way, what is the best possible way of increasing science literacy for the general public? It seems people still do not believe in many scientifically settled facts. So, uh, what is the best way to increase science literacy for the general public? Because I think, once you increase science literacy, you will automatically increase the appeal and the number of women going into science.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so, yeah. One of the things that is discouraging people from going into science, maybe, is that they think science is hard, but science isn't actually that hard. It's hard in a different way than what we're used to, I think, and that's the thing. I think it's just making science more a part of like our larger culture.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say, too. Yeah, that the portrayal of science should infuse more things that we consume every day.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  So, more shows can have scientists as characters and still not be a show that's about scientists.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  About scientists, yeah.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's true.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Not naming names.

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  You're absolute. You can have those too, but you can have just scientist, uh, science is a career option. So, more shows can have, you know, they can be character-based storytelling series, but they can also have characters that are geologists, or, you know, even Ross was an anthropologist.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:33Chuck Nice?

  Was that?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  On Friends, Ross did.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  That's true, he was, yeah, yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can have females.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  I think Museum of Natural History.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know, it's funny, that was one of the reasons why I love Star Trek. Everybody on Star Trek is a scientist. There is not like, somebody who isn't.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:49Chuck Nice?

  Every single person is a scientist on Star Trek.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Or engineer.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  They're all.

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Or an engineer, or, but they're all, they're all scientists, that's why they're on that ship, you know, which is kinda cool, you know, but.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  They're also shown to be more than just a scientist.

• 38:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Which I think is also one of the things, is that scientists can be multi-dimensional.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  So like Picard, you know, has all of these history books and loves studying Shakespeare.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  Well, he's an anthropologist.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, exactly. And Riker is a musician.

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  And even Data, the android, plays music and tries to explore all these other things about humanity, so.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  But he's not a real boy.

• 38:29Chuck Nice?

  Hey, those are, that's great, I love that answer, that's what it's about, okay, cool. Well, thanks, Reid, uh, very good question. Let's stay on the same kind of topic, and this is both personal and your opinion, so you can opine and you can actually answer it for your own life.

• 38:48Chuck Nice?

  Manarius, I believe that's the name, it's just Manarius from Instagram, says, um, what do you think is the most influential book, movie, or show that inspires young women to become more interested in STEM? And then she says, especially astronomy, but, um, is there, do you, do you have a particular piece of literature, or do you, is there some particular movie or television show, some art, uh, you know, uh, that, that actually you think is inspiring for women?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Well, I think there's two different questions there, it's like, what, if we are trying to identify, what do we think the best thing is, or we're trying to identify things that inspire us?

• 39:31Chuck Nice?

  Both, yeah, both.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  I think, at least for our generation, this is dating us a little bit, but. I hear from a lot of people, I didn't actually watch it growing up because I was into My Little Ponies instead of, but you know, a lot of people say Carl Sagan and Cosmos. And I think one of the great things about Carl Sagan is that he, you know, addressed like humanity in this very like big picture way. And I think that was, you know, fairly inclusive even for him being a white dude. And a lot of that resonated with a lot of people. And of course, now we have the new generation of Cosmos that Neil Tyson hosted. And kind of a lot more pop culture science stuff that is hopefully getting people interested in science.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Even maybe, maybe even the Big Bang Theory, for all its stereotypes of the, the different characters on there, you know, they, they show like, I don't know, a handful of, you know, they have the scientist and the engineer and the theoretician and the experiment.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  They have neuroscientists and a biologist.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Biologists and neuroscientists and, you know, at least it's, it's getting a little bit.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  At least there's a representation, right?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  It's on primetime TV. I mean, I know TV is not a thing so much anymore, but it's just the fact that it exists is something.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Yes. And please, I make all my money from TV. Please. Just don't say that.

• 40:49Chuck Nice?

  No, it's cool. That's great. Um, well, here's, here's, I gotta move on to this next question. This is kind of a, this is a, this is for both of your experience in life. This is Sweet Juney, who says, "My four-year-old daughter wants to ask me, my four-year-old daughter asked me, "How can I become an astrophysicist for real, not pretend?" How cool is that?

• 41:16Speaker 02

  I just want to take a minute to imagine a four-year-old pretending to be an astrophysicist.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  And also just asking that question.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  And it's cool. I just see her, four-year-old daughter, sitting around doing a Neil deGrasse Tyson impression, just like, yeah, let's do this.

• 41:32Chuck Nice?

  Then she says, "Further, I'd like to grasp on how to help her follow up the path that she is interested in.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  "What does an education for an astrophysicist look like?" So what, what, what, what path can she expect to walk?

• 41:50Speaker 02

  That, we, so we've touched on it a little bit. The nice thing is that not everybody takes this path. And so, I mean, I definitely decided, didn't decide what I wanted to do when I was four, thank goodness. I think I would be like, I don't know, a puppy. Like still, but um, the, you definitely have to at some point in your life, learn physics and learn math. And so the kind of earlier the better, you don't necessarily have to start when you're four, but you know, by the time you get to say, middle school and high school, you want to take as many math classes as you can, you want to take as many physics and chemistry and computer science classes as you can. My goodness, by the time, she's four now, in 15 years, who even knows what there might be.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  What classes and learning things will be available.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Programming languages and things like that. And then you want to go to college. And in college, you want to major in physics or math or computer science or, you know, not all colleges even have astrophysics as a major.

• 42:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  But that can be okay. And then you want to go to graduate school. So graduate school, we touched on before, and graduate school is this kind of post undergrad, um, school, work hybrid, where you do research, you might even teach classes, you earn a higher degree, a master's degree or a PhD. And that's kind of the, the professional qualification that you typically need to be an astrophysicist.

• 43:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  People call you doctor. And then you say, but not that kind of doctor.

• 43:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  And you don't put it, you can put it on your magazine subscriptions, don't put it in your frequent flyer profile, because that's for other reasons.

• 43:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're doctors. Yeah, they want to, they want to know, like, they want to be able to, if there's a medical emergency, I mean.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  They want to be able to call on you.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Pretty well trained.

• 43:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  But it's also useful to know if there's medical doctors on the roster.

• 43:33Chuck Nice?

  So it's the whole, that whole scene, is there a doctor in the house?

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  That whole.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Is there a doctor on the plane?

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Is there a doctor?

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Like, me, oh, but I'm an astrophysicist. Like, I'm not helping that guy have a heart attack over there, sorry.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Well, I recently booked a flight on Virgin Atlantic, and one of the options for my, um, title was bareness.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  [laughing]

• 43:52Speaker 01

  I almost wanted to put that.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  You should have done it.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  I think that's how they know who's like, bagged a rob or something like that.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  So I wanted to add, you know, she's only four at this point. And so I think one of the great things, what science is, is science is asking questions and finding answers, and then asking more questions.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  So just help your daughter answer her questions. Like, support her, um, in inquiry and curiosity. And then help her try and find the resources that will help her answer those questions, whether that's a person, or a book, or, or whatever. But just sort of, uh...

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Encourage the interest.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Encourage the interest.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  And the exploration.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  And also, what we were talking about earlier, you know, don't let her get discouraged if she gets a B or a C in a class. You know, help her figure out then what the resources she needs in order to do better. But, you know, throughout that entire academic career, you know, she doesn't have to be perfect. Nobody is perfect.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Or even if she decides that she, you know, that she doesn't want to be an astrophysicist, but she's still super interested in space. Actually, these are the students that I try to encourage even more because I want my lawyers and my doctors and my, um, you know, bridge engineers and everybody, like, I want everybody to have an interest. Journalists and fashion designers. I want everybody to know about space and care about space so that it permeates kind of everyday life. If we only have astrophysicists that are the people about, who care about space, like, you know, we might lose our funding or, you know, the public doesn't care about what we're doing. We don't have our TV shows anymore, or something like that. And so I want everybody, like, you know, if, even if you're interested in space, you don't necessarily have to become an astrophysicist. You can, like, do some other career

• 45:35Speaker 02

  and still share your love for space and incorporate space and astronomy into that career.

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  Cool. All right. Well, that was a good question. All right. Way to go, sweet Junie. Uh, let's move on to, ooh. Oh. I swear, these people, they, they give me these names just to mess with me. I swear they do. All right. This is, uh, Saba Ahadiz. Ahadiz Saba Ahadiz, who says, "What is in the black hole? And if all the matter of everything that goes into a black hole never comes back, where did it actually go? What will happen if we actually get in a black hole to, to see what would we see?" Okay? So, what's, what, what happens? What is in the black hole?

• 46:25Chuck Nice?

  I mean, what happens to the stuff when it goes in the black hole?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Can I give the scientific answer?

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  We don't know.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I think that part A, we don't know.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  I love to be able to answer things like that.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  We also don't know. And part C, we don't know.

• 46:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay. And guess what? If that's what it is, that's what it is.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  To some extent it is. I mean, we have lots of different theories, but because black holes eat everything and take in everything, including light, and light is basically our messenger, as astronomers.

• 46:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  So we get all our information from light, so we have no information coming out of the black hole. We have information from very near to it.

• 47:02Chuck Nice?

  Going in and from the event horizon.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And we don't have information coming out. So then we'd have to turn to theoretical physics and mathematics.

• 47:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  For predicting Einstein, basically, with relativity, what spacetime is doing, and what is happening to mass and energy in those regions.

• 47:19Chuck Nice?

  And which is funny, because just because of what people don't understand is that theoretical physics is based on mathematical models. And those mathematical models are predictive of something that could actually happen in the physical world under the right circumstances. Now, with that in mind, more than a hundred years ago, Einstein told us about gravity waves through his mathematical models, and there was-

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Gravitational.

• 47:41Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, gravity's a different thing.

• 47:43Chuck Nice?

  That's a different, right, gravity was a different, but we, he had no way, we now know that he was right, but he would have had no way of knowing that he was actually right, because he's got these models that he put out, right?

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what models are. They make predictions, and then we go observe to see if we can verify those predictions. And that's what makes a successful model.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  And sometimes there's this like leapfrog between like when we can predict something, and when we can actually have the technology to find it.

• 48:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  And sometimes that can take, you know, a couple years, sometimes that can take decades.

• 48:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Or centuries. When we can, yes, centuries maybe even.

• 48:17Chuck Nice?

  So are there any mathematical models right now that are the pervasive, accepted belief on what is happening in a black hole? I mean, or are we at a place now where it's just like, yeah, well, you know, we really don't have the, we don't have the information to do that?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of different models.

• 48:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Or there's a lot of people working on this problem, and some of them are going at it the same way, and some of them are coming at it completely different ways.

• 48:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  So I, I don't know that I really know what those models say, but I mean, in theory, it's just one of those crazy things about the universe, this whole idea like that the universe is expanding, but it's actually the fabric of spacetime that's expanding. So there's things that are separate from our intuition. And what we want to be able to conceive and picture.

• 49:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  So this whole idea of a singularity is basically infinite density, infinitely small.

• 49:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Which makes no physical sense.

• 49:14Chuck Nice?

  Makes no physical sense whatsoever.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Makes no physical sense, but that's what the math tells us.

• 49:17Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Wow, that is exciting. God, God, I love doing this show, man.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Black holes don't suck.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  Black holes don't suck, baby. Awesome, awesome. Well, that's, I guess we're out of time. I can't ask any more questions. There you have it.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  You've been listening to StarTalk All-Stars. Thanks to Chuck Nice for co-hosting with us.

• 49:40Chuck Nice?

  Such a pleasure.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  I'm Emily Rice.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  I'm Summer Ash.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  And keep asking questions.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  And black holes don't suck, but Hubble got you.