Cosmic Queries – Science in Pop Fiction, the Sequel

Wormholes, vibranium, Game of Thrones, Batroc the Leaper, Captain Marvel, tachyons, Thanos vs Ant-Man, Star Trek, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and astrophysicist Charles Liu are back to answer more questions on the science of pop fiction. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-science-in-pop-fiction-the-sequel/ Photo Credit: StarTalk©

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I serve as the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City, and we are in my office. Ooh. Ooh. I've got with me Charles Liu, friend and colleague, and geek expertise is what he carries. Chuck Nice, as always.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is Cosmic Queries: The Science of Pop Fiction, the sequel.

• 1:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had so many questions, and Charles and I took so long answering them damn questions, that we had to spill into an entire other display

• 1:12Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of these questions and answers.

• 1:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's just get right in it.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  This is pop fiction, science of pop fiction, Infinity Wars.

• 1:21Charles Liu?

  No, no, no. Last one was Infinity War. This one is Endgame.

• 1:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, Endgame. That's right.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you get your sequels straight?

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  I really need to get my sequels straight.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right. All right, Charles, what do you have?

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Here we go. Okay, here we go. Camilo Orozco from Facebook says, "Do you think science fiction can influence real science in the development of groundbreaking technologies?"

• 1:44Charles Liu?

  All the time.

• 1:45Chuck Nice?

  Or is it that the groundbreaking technologies are actually informing the science fiction?

• 1:50Charles Liu?

  Vice versa. They're all the same.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I differ.

• 1:54Charles Liu?

  You'd really disagree?

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I won't even beg to differ. I'm just differing.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Just feel free.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not even begging.

• 1:58Charles Liu?

  I absolutely think that fiction informs science.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're wrong.

• 2:04Charles Liu?

  And let me tell you why I am convinced of this.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me tell you why you're wrong first.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no, let him, no, let him. This is great.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, this is... Chuck, who do you want here first? Can I tell him why he's wrong before he says anything?

• 2:15Charles Liu?

  Yes, go ahead, go ahead.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow, that's interesting. That's because he's saying he already knows what you're gonna say. He's basically saying, "I know what you're gonna say. I've already been there."

• 2:24Charles Liu?

  Stir than light communication.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hold on, okay.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  All right, go ahead.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. There is no doubt that the creativity of science fiction authors and their imagination of a future has influenced the look, feel, and design of technology.

• 2:45Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it is very hard for you to find a case where the fiction has triggered some spark in a scientist's mind and they make a scientific discovery because of it. You can probably come up with one or two, at most, examples of that. But the influence of technology, of imagined technology, unreal technology, no end of that. And I'm with you there.

• 3:12Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, let me hear you.

• 3:13Charles Liu?

  All right. I had the pleasure of speaking with Ray Bradbury once. This is almost 15 years ago, I think. It was on a radio show. He was the featured guest and I was fortunate enough to be on there with him for a few seconds.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What radio show was it?

• 3:26Charles Liu?

  Uh, this was one of the daytime talk shows. I don't even remember which one it is anymore.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NPR, was it?

• 3:31Charles Liu?

  Uh, it was not involved with a major. It was a different thing. It had to do with the fact that Mars.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just wondering how often you get to just hang out with Ray Bradbury. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this. Well, I was just with, hey, I was just with Ray Bradbury.

• 3:42Charles Liu?

  It was a one-shot deal. It was a tremendous pleasure and I treasured that, those few minutes, you know, for that moment. But basically, he was on because we were about to land a new rover on, onto Mars at that time.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he wrote heavily about Mars.

• 3:56Charles Liu?

  He wrote heavily about Mars. In fact, the Martian Chronicles, you know, by Ray Bradbury are some of the most important ones. And we had a conversation about how fiction informs the scientific process and the scientific process informs fiction. And he said absolutely what you said, first of all, right? That he was inspired to write money, much of the Martian Chronicles based on the scientific discoveries or the. purported discoveries of people like Percival Lowell and things like that. The canals and so on. But then, he went on to talk a little bit about how many letters he had received over the years. Where they were, they were space scientists, they were planetary scientists, they were

• 4:37Charles Liu?

  other kinds of science-based people who said, "Your Martian Chronicles inspired me to make this discovery, or inspired me to look into that and do that." And he didn't give me specific examples, but the point is, I believe that that happened.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need some examples here.

• 4:51Charles Liu?

  I will give you one specific example.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, of course, science fiction can trigger you to want to become a scientist.

• 4:56Charles Liu?

  Well, that's fine.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That has value, but don't tell me.

• 4:59Charles Liu?

  The actual discovery itself.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An actual discovery, I don't, I don't see that.

• 5:03Charles Liu?

  Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea. The Nautilus, right? Is this wonderful submarine. And the submarine.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we named the first.

• 5:12Charles Liu?

  Nuclear submarine.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is, I think, on display in Connecticut, I think. I think it's mothballed, but I think it's a museum, I think.

• 5:19Charles Liu?

  In Groton.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. With a naval base.

• 5:22Charles Liu?

  Right. What happened was that Jules Verne didn't know nuclear power, of course. But he did know, he said, "How is this wonderful submarine powered?" And Captain Nevo, Nemo, right? Tells the scientist who he rescues because he torpedoed their ship, right? How this happens, this is harnessing the power of nature itself, you know? How matter and energy can combine to propel the ship forward. He had no idea about nuclear power, and yet, a century later, we had nuclear submarines, named the Nautilus, going around.

• 6:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And ask anyone who discovered nukes, from Marie Curie, through Einstein, through the Manhattan Project.

• 6:11Charles Liu?

  Oh, here it comes.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you discover these nukes because you read?

• 6:14Charles Liu?

  Read 20,000 leagues under the sea.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The answer's gonna be no, I'm sorry.

• 6:17Charles Liu?

  But what they discovered was.

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the influence is, we named this ship after them. We named the first space shuttle, the Enterprise, after, it didn't go into orbit, but it, it didn't go into orbit, but the first mock-up space shuttle was named the Enterprise.

• 6:31Charles Liu?

  But there are many ships named Enterprise before Star Trek was called Enterprise.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, the Enterprise.

• 6:38Charles Liu?

  Space shuttle.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space shuttle was named after the Star Trek Enterprise.

• 6:41Charles Liu?

  I believe you. What I'm saying is.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know how I know that? Because we have it on display here in New York. And when it came in, piggyback on the 747.

• 6:50Charles Liu?

  Captain Spock was standing on the.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I was there at JFK when it first it did a double flyby. It was showing off.

• 6:57Charles Liu?

  It was.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was like, hey, look what I got on my back here. Okay, and then it landed and then we had a whole ceremony and Leonard Nimoy was there.

• 7:04Charles Liu?

  Wow.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:05Charles Liu?

  Good for that.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My only time I met him, he died a couple of years later.

• 7:08Charles Liu?

  Wow.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, I think you're stretching here.

• 7:11Charles Liu?

  I do not think so. I believe that the people who put a nuclear.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jury, judge.

• 7:16Chuck Nice?

  You know, here's the thing. Uh, I would say that for most of what we see now in science fiction, the technology is informing what is on the screen because they get to take it to.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The next level.

• 7:33Chuck Nice?

  The next level.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  So it's like.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, there's a symbiosis for sure. Like, for example, in the, in the movie Prometheus. Very interesting pocket technologies they had. They had little, um, little birdie things that they tossed into a cave and they flew and took a.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  They scanned the whole cave.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scanned the entire cave in three dimension, it comes back.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  And it's basically a drone.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's basically mini drones that came out of their pockets. Little things like that. They had an automatic surgery, um, uh, pod. Where you'd go in and program what you wanted the surgery to be and it would conduct the surgery autonomously. So, yeah, you take what you know is possible.

• 8:10Chuck Nice?

  But then you look at something like a ray gun, which, I mean, you can go all the way back to Buck Rogers, right? Uh, and, and they had ray guns. And right now the military is working on the.

• 8:21Charles Liu?

  Ray gun.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  The equivalent of what would be a ray gun. So I don't know. I mean, it, it seems to go both ways.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Technology, we're not inventing new science for that. That's my point.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well, no.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my only point.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  So if your point is about.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  New scientific principle.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  If you're talking, if you're talking about scientific breakthrough, then I'm gonna say, yes, you're right.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. You're, you're not gonna find scientific breakthrough that is informed or, or, or inspired.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Generally not.

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  By, by science fiction and literature.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The closest we get to this, I think, is Kip Thorne, speaking of the development of the wormhole. In. Contact.

• 8:55Charles Liu?

  Hmm.

• 8:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the movie Contact, because he said he was approached by Carl Sagan. And he said, how can we justify this scientifically? And then Kip Thorne went and did a calculation. Added some extra physics that was not known before to wormhole calculations. And then there he actually published a paper inspired by Carl Sagan. Trying to get this science right in the movie Contact.

• 9:16Charles Liu?

  Wow.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that is rare, though. That's all I'm saying.

• 9:19Charles Liu?

  But it exists.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't say it didn't exist.

• 9:21Charles Liu?

  No, yes, you did.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 9:23Charles Liu?

  Didn't exist.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I did. I say it didn't exist. Go back to the videotape.

• 9:26Charles Liu?

  I am correct, my friends.

• 9:28Chuck Nice?

  We have it recorded.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So whatever. I'd rather just fight about it.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Whatever either one of you said, it's on record.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd rather just fight about what we might have said. All right, next question.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  All right, that was a fascinating discussion. I don't care if we ever got to anything or not.

• 9:44Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Let's go with Henry T. sixty-five, sixty-five from Instagram. He says this. How much stronger is vibranium than the strongest metal we have?

• 9:55Charles Liu?

  Oh, sorry.

• 9:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that is a, that's a little crazy, but then again, there's, there's some more. Is it strong enough to stop bullets point blank? Also, and here's a better question. Sorry, sorry, Henry, but it is. Also, is there anything close to the powers of a Black Panther suit? That can in fact absorb energy and redistribute it? Or use that energy as a weapon?

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I like that.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's a good question.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, energy, you can move energy from one form to another. No problem there. If you had a way to absorb the energy of a bullet in a usable way a second time. That's a very realistic future scenario for armor. Would you agree, Charles?

• 10:39Charles Liu?

  Yes, I would. I would right now.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let the record show.

• 10:42Charles Liu?

  We agree on most things.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it is true. We do agree on most things.

• 10:45Charles Liu?

  Okay, let, let me give the example of people who can wear those suits that look like old armor, like big time, very heavy metal jacket. Armor. And then they get shot by like a Van de Graaff generator, big lightning bolts and so forth. And because it is, acts like a Faraday cage, the people inside are unharmed. Right? So you can, for example, protect yourself against a lightning bolt gun or something like that, a lightning bolt weapon by wearing basically a fully. encapsulating you kind of chain mail, right?

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just has to be able to conduct electricity. And if you are covered in something that conducts electricity, the electricity cannot get inside you. It gets stuck on the outer side. It's a fascinating reality that was discovered by Michael Faraday. 150 years ago.

• 11:35Chuck Nice?

  Because when you get struck by lightning, you are the conductor. That's the problem.

• 11:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's why you're basically safe in a car that gets hit. The car is a shell, it's a metal shell.

• 11:43Charles Liu?

  Unless the car is made of fiberglass.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless it's fiberglass, and then you're toast.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  Well, so anybody who gets struck by lightning in a Corvette.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or if it's a convertible, then it...

• 11:56Charles Liu?

  That doesn't help you too.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't help you at all.

• 11:58Charles Liu?

  But, but you see, I could imagine a circumstance where in addition to the metallic conducting suit, built in are many, many, many high-efficiency capacitors.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Capacitors.

• 12:10Charles Liu?

  Right, where we wind up being able to store that energy in a quick way.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Electrically.

• 12:14Charles Liu?

  Right, but now then you need the technology to take it from the capacitors, which are essentially batteries, right, into a new generator and then be able to channel it back out as a lightning bolt.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 12:25Charles Liu?

  So there's some technology barriers there.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you lose energy in every transformation of energy.

• 12:30Charles Liu?

  So, and then your suit's gonna get really hot. So the temperature's bad, so you need air conditioning and, and then you have to have like a super nuclear powered thing.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you can put the electricity in a capacitor, why would you get hot? The capacitor wouldn't have to be hot.

• 12:44Charles Liu?

  The loss of the energy as you're turning it back into a lightning bolt.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so in the changing of the energy...

• 12:49Charles Liu?

  In the changing of the energy, you're getting, you're getting...

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you can store energy with no heat. This would chemical, like, a gallon of gasoline is room temperature, but you can blow up the room, right? So you can store energy chemically, for example.

• 13:01Charles Liu?

  The issue is the time. Can you turn it around, right? So in, in Black Panther, the movie, not the comic book by the way, which has a different definition of vibranium.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, that's the same, that's the comic book version of, I read the book.

• 13:16Charles Liu?

  Well, uh, Black Panther character.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't it? It is. That's right. They're just showing off. And it's like, it's like, your, your argument is invalid because you didn't read the comic book.

• 13:25Charles Liu?

  In the actual storyline.

• 13:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actual storyline.

• 13:27Charles Liu?

  Right. One of my prized comic books in my collection is the July 1966 issue of Fantastic Four, number 52, the debut of the character, the Black Panther.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You own that?

• 13:39Charles Liu?

  Yes. Wow. It's, it's an old beat up copy, so it's not really worth anything.

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so give it to me.

• 13:46Charles Liu?

  But it's a, but it's a, it's a great value. It's really, really interesting. And, and to sort of take a look, half a century ago, what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby envisioned this amazing city and this amazing technology to be. So vibranium in the real, I'm sorry, it is, the real canon of Black Panther is not a hard metal. It's not the hardest metal known, but it has a very unique property where it can absorb any impact.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 14:14Charles Liu?

  So the hardest metal in the Marvel comic universe is adamantium, which is this invented alloy, right? But Captain America's first shield had vibranium and adamantium together in an alloy, which made it even more powerful. The claws of Wolverine.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of Wolverine.

• 14:31Charles Liu?

  Right. And so his shield was better because it had a combination of vibranium and adamantium. So it could absorb impact and be hard as a, as a striking weapon.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:41Charles Liu?

  Nice. So that's what.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. By the way, the interesting properties of something is never only is it how hard it is.

• 14:46Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, does, how does it distribute energy? Is it flexible and not break?

• 14:51Charles Liu?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does it, is it light for how strong it is? All of this matters.

• 14:56Charles Liu?

  So this is why I was very glad that vibranium was really only a small piece of the overall plot of the movie Black Panther. It's a great, great movie and the technology and the, and the pseudoscience.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you mean small piece? The whole movie began with this theft at a museum. Based on.

• 15:10Charles Liu?

  Well, the point was that the vibranium was only a plot device.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 15:14Charles Liu?

  The plot itself transcended the technology and the superheroism. Which is what made that movie so great, in my opinion.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 15:22Charles Liu?

  So, in that case, right, can you have something that distributes energy?

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Kevlar, for example.

• 15:28Charles Liu?

  Yes, for example.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Absorbs energy, but it's not metal, right?

• 15:31Charles Liu?

  And it's in bulletproof vests.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever seen Kevlar get hit by a bullet in slow motion?

• 15:35Charles Liu?

  No.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just so watch, so watch. So the bullet hits it.

• 15:38Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then waves get set up in the fabric.

• 15:41Charles Liu?

  Wonderful.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it sends the energy and distributes it.

• 15:43Charles Liu?

  Disperses it.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Disperses it, right. So, it still gets hurt. You still hurt when you get hit with a bullet.

• 15:49Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 15:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the bullet doesn't penetrate.

• 15:51Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could even break a rib, but it doesn't go inside you and mess up your organs.

• 15:55Charles Liu?

  And therein lies the problem with a hard metal like vibranium. If it's bulletproof, yes, but the energy of the bullet slug still transmits through the metal into your body to some extent.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:07Charles Liu?

  So, that distribution of energy is what's necessary. Now, can we, like in the same way as we did with the electromagnetic pulse, right, allow the grab or the capture of that kinetic energy to be redirected outward as a punch or as a force thing? That technology does not exist, to my knowledge.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yet.

• 16:29Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. God, okay, cool. Well, that was a lot, man. That was a lot. That's great. Okay. Uh, I think we all. One other thing, just about distributing energy. Yes. Have you ever put on football gear? Yes. Oh, you have. Okay, so the shoulder pads. Right. If you look, they're like layered in these sort of slats. Yes. Right? Have you ever just hit, just get somebody hit you on the shoulder? Yeah. You barely know you got touched. Yeah. It completely distributes across the entire chest area. The chest plate and everything. The chest plate and everything. So, it's really about spreading out the energy so that the literal and figurative impact on you is diminished at any single spot where it takes place.

• 17:09Charles Liu?

  At least on your shoulder.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At least on your shoulder.

• 17:11Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But your kneecaps are still exposed.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, another question.

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Daniel J. Saltzman from Instagram says, "If you could pick one superhero that Neil would be, who would you choose?"

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta go to a commercial break.

• 17:26Charles Liu?

  Of course, of course.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we'll be back with StarTalk. It's a Cosmic Queries sequel to the science of pop fiction when StarTalk returns.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  This is StarTalk.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Cosmic Queries, the science of pop fiction. And I know a little bit, but you know who knows a lot is Charles Liu. Charles, a resident geek and chief.

• 18:16Charles Liu?

  Glad to be here.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Glad to have you on this. Chuck?

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're reading questions to us.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I am.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you have?

• 18:21Chuck Nice?

  So...

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just remind you, this is a spillover from a whole other show.

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Questions we didn't get to. Okay, what do you have?

• 18:26Chuck Nice?

  This is pop fiction and game. As Chuck Liu said in the beginning of the show. Daniel J. Saltzman from Instagram said, "Hey Chuck, if you could pick one superhero that Neil would be, who would you choose?"

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  So I'll let Charles Liu go first.

• 18:43Charles Liu?

  Batroc the Leaper.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  Batroc?

• 18:46Charles Liu?

  The Leaper?

• 18:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:47Charles Liu?

  Batroc the Leaper.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that even real?

• 18:50Charles Liu?

  Yes, is one of Captain America's great enemies.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Say yes in a high pitch like idiots.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, so what?

• 18:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who in, when was that?

• 18:58Charles Liu?

  Batroc the Leaper is essentially a terrorist who

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, thank you.

• 19:02Charles Liu?

  was really, really good at savate, which is the French style of martial arts where you kick people on.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have very good leg agility.

• 19:11Charles Liu?

  That's right. That's exactly why I thought about that.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 19:13Charles Liu?

  Now, as it turns out, the character Batroc the Leaper does show up as a villain in the first Captain America movie or the second Captain America movie. Either it was the original, like, the first Avenger or the Winter Soldier. I can't remember exactly which one. But, um.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Captain America.

• 19:28Charles Liu?

  Yeah, in the Captain America movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And they completely changed the character, of course. But the bottom line is, yes, you would be the heroic version of Batroc the Leaper because your legs just, you know, remind me of like someone who would just go in and just clean house with one roundhouse after another.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With roundhouse kick.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, thank you.

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  Batroc the Leaper.

• 19:49Charles Liu?

  Batroc the Leaper.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 19:51Chuck Nice?

  So I'm gonna make you a world-crushing Hulk. But, so world-crushing Hulk is actually Banner and Hulk at the same time. So Banner is still like, he's still smart as hell.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:05Chuck Nice?

  He's like, super smart like Banner, but he's like crazy strong like the Hulk, but.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the same time.

• 20:10Chuck Nice?

  At the same time. And, but, I'm gonna give you.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's an articulate Hulk?

• 20:14Chuck Nice?

  He's an articulate Hulk, right. It's not like.

• 20:15Charles Liu?

  He wears glasses.

• 20:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he's actually wearing glasses, but.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But can I have my own skin tone? I don't wanna be green.

• 20:21Chuck Nice?

  Well, I was about to say. But with one caveat, you're gonna be black and they're gonna call you the bloke. So.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The black Hulk?

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes. The bloke. You'll be the bloke, right? And then when, and your thing is like, right before, right before you get ready to throw down, you're like, yo, back up off me sucker. Like, right? And then that, that lets them know like you're about to like crush.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  So Hulk goes Hulk smash.

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and I say.

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  And bloke goes, back off off me sucker.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. And anybody who says that, you know to not, to just go in the opposite direction.

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So most fights I wouldn't even have to have.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  No, exactly. Cause they're like, oh, yo, he about to go world-crushing on us. Right? So.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'll be the bloke.

• 21:03Chuck Nice?

  All right. There you go. All right. So let's move on. This is M Jim four from Instagram. Wow. Okay. Hey, guys. Longtime follower and fan here. I'm curious right now about photon energy and how it reacts with the human body. Captain Marvel can create an immense photon blast from her body. How much power would it take to cause serious damage from a photon blast? Can the human body harness photon energy for themselves? Okay, his name is Matt Martin from British Columbia.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I've got a, I have a cool beginning to that answer. Chuck Charles will probably come in on this. So a couple of things. Photon is any, a carrier of light energy. And light can be any wavelength. You have radio waves. We call them waves, but they're radio photons. Radio waves, let's go in order. So radio waves, microwaves, infrared, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, Roy G. Biv, that's the visible part of the spectrum. You go beyond the violet, you are ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays. This is the, all the words we have available to us to describe the breadth of the spectrum. Okay? Some of these photons go right through you. Radio waves pass right through you. Microwaves

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  mostly pass right through you. So the idea that you would capture, what effect do they have on you? None, because they pass right through you. Okay? So now we got to talk about the ones that would have an effect on you. So visible light reflects off of you. Okay? So that's depending on how light your skin is. Okay? If you're really, really pale, you reflect most of it.

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Right. And if you're Miles Davis, nobody can see you.

• 22:48Chuck Nice?

  Wesley Snipes, invisible.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you can, so you will either reflect or absorb the, the light energy. You get on to ultraviolet, now it has penetrating powers into your skin. And ultraviolet goes down to the dermis.

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  That's how you get sunburn.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get sunburn and skin cancer.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you go to X-rays. And we all know those go through you, but they'll absorb in your denser material, your bones. That's why they show up. So something gets absorbed. So you can also get cancer from too much X-ray exposure. Right on to gamma rays, which together class turn you.

• 23:23Charles Liu?

  Into the Hulk.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into the Hulk.

• 23:24Charles Liu?

  Or the bloke.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The bloke. The bloke?

• 23:28Charles Liu?

  The bloke.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bloke, I thought it was the bloke.

• 23:30Charles Liu?

  It could be bloke, it could be bulk. It should just be bulk.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought it was bloke, but no. Hey, bloke. Bloke. Yay. So, so what you'd have, you would need ways to capture the photons that might otherwise bounce off of you or go through you. And in our field, astrophysics, we exist entirely to create detectors that capture these photons. Radio waves, X-rays, gamma rays, visible, infrared, ultraviolet, that is what we do. That is all we do, is find ways to capture these photons.

• 24:02Charles Liu?

  Well, we get meteorites, too.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so then, now you want to capture them and use them again, or how much damage would they cause? You need a lot of them.

• 24:12Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we can have lasers for this. Lasers amplify photonic energy. And what you ask is, how much energy does it take to bore a hole in you? Give me a laser with that much energy where you absorb that and it'll bore a hole in you. You can just do a simple energy calculation. That's it. That's it. So, Chuck, this, it's like a bajillion photons.

• 24:34Charles Liu?

  You need a lot of photons.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need a lot of photons.

• 24:35Charles Liu?

  A typical photon.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because for example, if you walk into a dark room and turn on the light.

• 24:39Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't say, whoa, that bolt. Look at all those photons. Oh, my gosh, you know, they're knocking me down. I can't take these photons.

• 24:49Charles Liu?

  Astronomers and physicists use a unit of energy called the electron volt. It's actually energy, even though it has the word electron in it.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 24:56Charles Liu?

  Might as well.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go ahead.

• 24:57Charles Liu?

  A typical photon of visible light, like the stuff coming from lamps in your room, is a few electron volts per photon. Okay? But it requires literally a trillion such photons to get the total amount of energy that a flea uses to hop from one place to another. So, you need many, many more trillions of such photons to be focused in such a way to even affect you even more than just like a bright ray of sunshine.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What scientists?

• 25:28Chuck Nice?

  Created a system of measurement.

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In units of flea jumps.

• 25:32Chuck Nice?

  In units of flea jumps. And why?

• 25:35Charles Liu?

  It's actually a trillionth of a flea jump, if you think about it.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  That's kinda crazy.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One photon.

• 25:38Charles Liu?

  Yeah, one photon is about a trillionth of a flea jump. One visible light photon. But gamma ray photons, sometimes...

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Each one has way more energy than a visible light photon.

• 25:48Charles Liu?

  In fact, the most powerful gamma ray photons that we've ever detected have almost as much energy as a baseball.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A thrown baseball.

• 25:58Charles Liu?

  Yeah, if you throw a baseball.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's how I've heard about it.

• 26:01Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, that's a single photon?

• 26:03Charles Liu?

  It's a cosmic ray. It's basically a charged particle that has so much energy. It's gonna accelerate beyond the speed of light.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can execute a golf putt.

• 26:14Charles Liu?

  That's another good way to put it. Yeah. So these individual particles are extremely penetrative. They literally go right through the earth. And along the way, they're bashing all kinds of atoms and molecules and things like that. And those kinds of particles are the kind that supposedly create the mutations in Homo Superior that give us the X-Men.

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I didn't know that.

• 26:36Charles Liu?

  So, the...

• 26:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, X-Men are Homo Superior?

• 26:38Charles Liu?

  That's what they call themselves.

• 26:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that.

• 26:40Charles Liu?

  Because they are evolved.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying they are Homo different.

• 26:45Charles Liu?

  Nowadays, we say that.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't go value judge that flames come out of your eyeballs.

• 26:49Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just gonna call you different.

• 26:50Charles Liu?

  Well, you and I agree with that. But back at the time, in the comic books, okay? When the first X-Men... I am, I'm sorry, but it's true. Back when the original comic, The X-Men, came out in the 1960s, Charles Xavier said, "You children..."

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The illustrator, the story... Oh, Xavier, of course, of course.

• 27:11Charles Liu?

  Stan Lee and Jack Kirby helped create these characters. But the... Charles Xavier tells...

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking about Jean-Luc Picard?

• 27:17Charles Liu?

  Yes, right. But that time, yeah. A similar bald individual. Tells his X-Men, right? Which at that time were the Beast, Marvel Girl, and Cyclops and the Angel. Say, "You are Homo Superior. And you have to help all of humanity because you are superior to the others because of your mutations." And the first villain they fight is Magneto, who is also a villain. And so the...

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But how do you get the gamma ray reference in that?

• 27:45Chuck Nice?

  The gamma radiation.

• 27:46Charles Liu?

  Created them because, yes, the, the energy came through and.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so to, to kill with light is a very hard thing.

• 27:54Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And lasers, even powerful lasers are, are, you know, you need, the, the weight of the laser that could do damage to you as a weapon is huge.

• 28:04Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not, it's not.

• 28:06Charles Liu?

  The Fantastic Four was created because they were bombarded by cosmic rays.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know we have.

• 28:10Charles Liu?

  They were not mutants, but then they were mutated by this kind of radiation.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the military, of course, as others do, have non-lethal weapons.

• 28:18Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, for crowd control.

• 28:20Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one of them is a microwave.

• 28:22Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beam.

• 28:23Charles Liu?

  And so.

• 28:24Chuck Nice?

  Gets you real hot.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what happens is there's a crowd developing and you don't, you want to disperse the crowd, you say, please disperse, and then they get angrier, you just whip out the microwave.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Zap them.

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just put a microwave beam in there and it penetrates into the dermis, it heats it up, and they want to escape the beam.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  They run.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they, and they run.

• 28:39Charles Liu?

  But it's not the microwaves that are hurting them, it's the microwaves causing the heat, causing the water molecules in your skin to get hot.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that turned into heat.

• 28:50Charles Liu?

  That's you.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're responding to the heat.

• 28:51Chuck Nice?

  You're responding to the heat.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 28:53Charles Liu?

  So.

• 28:53Chuck Nice?

  So could you just hold up?

• 28:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a technicality, but it's a very important distinction.

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  Could you just hold up a burrito?

• 28:58Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right in front of you.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Right in front of you.

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, no, wait, right here first, right down here first, and then everywhere else.

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  I got my burrito.

• 29:07Charles Liu?

  No, that would work, but, uh, so the, the bottom line to the question is that using photonic energy to blast people, it would require a huge amount.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right, that was good, that was good. All right, here's, um.

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another one.

• 29:20Chuck Nice?

  This is Kevin, Kevin Kalikamaka, who says, what kind of star system would create the differences in the length of seasons throughout the history of Game of Thrones?

• 29:30Charles Liu?

  Oh, problem is, of course, the Game of Thrones seasons change widely, right?

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's okay, you can, you can do that.

• 29:38Charles Liu?

  Entire generations can go by, but not only that, it's also unpredictable, right? You can't say, oh, well, the, you, we can see the seasons growing longer, the winter's growing longer, and then they grow shorter, and then they grow longer, and predictable periods. And so there has to be something that's injecting some chaotic or stochastic process into the thing.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we've got chaotic systems in the universe.

• 29:59Charles Liu?

  So my hypothesis is the solar system, in which the Game of Thrones planet must exist. Has other like rogue planets and moons and so forth that are going in such crazy things that it will cause the orbit and the orbital tilt of the these of that planet.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you just have two bodies, a planet and a star, it's just gonna have an orbit.

• 30:20Chuck Nice?

  You have an orbit.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And like Charles is saying, if you throw in some other interesting objects that have rival strength of gravity that the planet has, then you can tug on the planet in interesting ways, chaotically.

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And therefore put into effect a non periodic.

• 30:38Charles Liu?

  That's exactly correct.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Set of seasons.

• 30:40Charles Liu?

  So our seasons on Earth are caused because our Earth is spinning as it's tilted.

• 30:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:44Charles Liu?

  So you can imagine that one of these chaotic items comes by and it causes a tilt to go just a little bit further. That just increases your winter by decades.

• 30:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:53Charles Liu?

  But then another one comes by later and tilts it back a little bit and causes that summer to be much longer as a result. You know, things like that. So you can really.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Like the Malankovits.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, sorry. The Malkovich.

• 31:05Chuck Nice?

  Malankovits.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So you would have to be in such a way that you're only affecting the tilt because if you start affecting the orbit as well, then the distance to the host star changes.

• 31:16Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that would be manifest in the storytelling.

• 31:18Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not.

• 31:19Charles Liu?

  You would totally see that.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 31:20Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 31:21Charles Liu?

  So it's a tilt issue, I'm pretty sure.

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  So it's really just the tilt of the planet.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would have to be if you want to affect the seasons.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  But there would have to be some erratic other, there would have to be other erratic bodies that are affecting the.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is not hard. A three body system is chaotic.

• 31:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two body is deterministic, three bodies is chaotic.

• 31:40Charles Liu?

  For this, you're gonna need five or six.

• 31:41Chuck Nice?

  Five or six bodies. So Neil, looking on the internet, this is something that's about, that's going viral. Ant-Man will kill Thanos by going into his butt and then expanding so that he explodes from the inside out.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back to the normal size.

• 31:57Chuck Nice?

  Right, right. Or he could be a giant now, so he could actually expand to.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, first.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First, that's nasty. Because if Thanos is as powerful and as evil as he is.

• 32:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's gonna have powerful evil poop. Okay, so I would not want to find myself in that environment.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But second, I wouldn't think. Second, why not put something else in there that expands? Why does it have to be your own self?

• 32:21Charles Liu?

  I'll bet you Thanos has quantum butt armor that would prevent that from happening.

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Just saying, just saying.

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quantum, quantum butt protector. Quantum butt panels. I don't know, I'm just saying, if you just want to go in and expand and kill them, you don't have to be the person to do that. Send some other quantum thing in there to do it.

• 32:46Chuck Nice?

  Right, to do it. By the way, you can look at Thanos, you know he does Kegels.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  Titanium of my butt cheeks will kill ya. That's what I'm gonna do.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are imitating Eddie Murphy, imitating

• 32:58Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mr. T in Eddie Murphy's movie.

• 33:02Chuck Nice?

  Very, very good, that's exactly it.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for one last question in this segment.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 33:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I gotta go, I'm gonna leave Chuck, Chuck, I gotta leave you with Charles for the third and final segment.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I got places to go, people to see.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  Parents are leaving. Party, party!

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want you on your best behavior.

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh my gosh.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last question, go.

• 33:20Chuck Nice?

  Alright, last, last question, okay. This is Atlas.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last question, what I can help Charles even though he doesn't need my help.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I can pretend I can help him. Okay, go.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  I need your help. This is Atlas, how can pop fiction make science more comprehensible to the audiences?

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 33:37Chuck Nice?

  Now, this man is thinking about the good of awe with respect to pop fiction and science.

• 33:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to hear your answer too, because we're both scientists but also educators and we care about

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  imparting knowledge, wisdom, insight into an audience that is science-based. So, for me, it's, you can't require of a story to teach science. I think it can get pedantic and no one's gonna read it. But what you can do is tell a story that's so compelling regarding some scientific idea, that when you come out of that, you say, "I want to learn more about that idea", and you become a self-starter, self-learner, because you just have to learn more. For me, that is the best kind of pop culture scientific force that you can invoke. Charles?

• 34:26Charles Liu?

  I have two. Sides of that same coin you described. First, I do believe you can have real legitimate science presented in a movie. So you can do that, but what you do is you show what real science does and in real ways. But then the second part is, you have to be able to distinguish between what is actual known science and what is science fiction. If you can tell or communicate to audiences, real science does this, and this is now we're going to the quantum realm, which is fake science, or highly speculative, then people can tell the difference between what is scientific and non-scientific.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not gonna make a movie where we say, okay, here we're making stuff up.

• 35:05Charles Liu?

  Why not?

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the previous 10 minutes, we weren't.

• 35:07Charles Liu?

  Actually, you can do that. And in fact, there are some movies who have done that very well.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such as?

• 35:12Charles Liu?

  Well.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See? None.

• 35:15Charles Liu?

  That's not right. Why don't we talk about that some other time?

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you can talk about it after I leave. We gotta end this segment, but I gotta run, but I will leave you in really, really good hands with my friend and colleague, Charles Liu. And he's got his co-host, Chuck Nice.

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Hey, we'd like to give a big StarTalk shout-out to the following Patreon patrons who help us as we make our journey through the cosmos. Adam Jacoby, James Isham, and Patrick Cooney. Thanks a lot, guys, for your support. And if I said your name wrong, help out some thematic spelling, please.

• 36:21Charles Liu?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Charles Liu. You can call me Chuck if you'd like. And I am sitting in, filling in as a guest host for this. Brief segment for the wonderful Neil deGrasse Tyson. And with me, of course, is Chuck Nice.

• 36:36Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 36:37Charles Liu?

  Always a pleasure to work with you.

• 36:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, now we can have some fun. Neil's gone.

• 36:43Charles Liu?

  OK, we are wrapping up our episode of the sequel of Pop Fiction.

• 36:50Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Pop science and pop fiction. We are Cosmic Queries.

• 36:54Charles Liu?

  Let's do it.

• 36:55Chuck Nice?

  And here we go. This is Alex Atanasio wants to know this from Facebook.

• 37:01Charles Liu?

  All right, Alex.

• 37:01Chuck Nice?

  Our time travel plot device is just lazy writing.

• 37:06Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 37:09Chuck Nice?

  Now, come on now.

• 37:10Charles Liu?

  They really are.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  Are you? No, seriously. Come on, Chuck. Don't you think the time travel captures the imagination?

• 37:16Charles Liu?

  It does, and it's very exciting. But the problem really is that you can do anything you want the moment you time travel. Right? So it is lazy writing. Now, there are some exceptions where the time travel actually is core or key to the story. I think, for example, of The Terminator.

• 37:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 37:34Charles Liu?

  Where the whole point of the creation of the storyline comes from the travel time and everything gets knit in nicely.

• 37:40Chuck Nice?

  Everything's a paradox.

• 37:41Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 37:41Chuck Nice?

  It's the whole thing's a paradox.

• 37:42Charles Liu?

  But if you use time-

• 37:43Chuck Nice?

  It's well done. It's actually well done.

• 37:45Charles Liu?

  But using time travel to say, oh, look, they've destroyed everything. And then, oh, we can repair everything.

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:50Charles Liu?

  That is lazy.

• 37:51Chuck Nice?

  We'll go back in time and repair.

• 37:52Charles Liu?

  Right. But you know what? If you don't take it too seriously, you're OK. So, for example, there is a TV show called DC Legends of Tomorrow. And they're like, almost like an old-style entertaining TV show where they don't take themselves too seriously. They do time travel, but they do silly things like unicorns ripping people's hearts out, you know, things like that. So by not taking themselves too seriously and doing these time travel anomalies in a lighthearted way, then it becomes part, again, sort of like Terminator, but in a funny way, where it becomes part of the joy of the story as opposed to like, just come on, man, you can do better than just flip everything back in time.

• 38:31Chuck Nice?

  All right, your favorite time travel anything?

• 38:34Charles Liu?

  My favorite time travel anything?

• 38:36Chuck Nice?

  Anything time travel.

• 38:37Charles Liu?

  Holy moly.

• 38:39Chuck Nice?

  I'll give you mine.

• 38:39Charles Liu?

  OK, go ahead.

• 38:40Chuck Nice?

  Mine? Homer Simpson and the Toastel.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  Homer Simpson on the toaster, man.

• 38:48Charles Liu?

  Oh my gosh.

• 38:48Chuck Nice?

  You can't, I'm sorry, it's...

• 38:50Charles Liu?

  That, that is a true classic.

• 38:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:52Charles Liu?

  You know, I am again showing my sort of bias to the past and the classic, but I think the best time travel story has to be the time machine.

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  H.G. Wells.

• 39:01Charles Liu?

  H.G. Wells, yeah. Because the way that he talks about both going into the, you know, the, the future and then to the end of the world and things like that. He's using that time travel as a way to imagine things, as opposed to a plot device to fix things.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:17Charles Liu?

  I think that's a really, really great way to sort of put time travel on the proper map of things.

• 39:22Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 39:22Charles Liu?

  I will also mention one more, because this is pop fiction, right?

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:26Charles Liu?

  There is a time travel story in Star Trek: Voyager.

• 39:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Charles Liu?

  Okay. Where the story isn't that important because of course the time travel, you know, gets all resolved by silly goofy things and so on. So it comes back. But what happens is the timeline gets changed and of course the Star Trek Voyager people save the timeline. And then there's a person from the future who comes and says, "You've saved the timeline, thank you." And so the captain, Kathryn Janeway, asks, "By the way, you're from the future. Do you know whether or not we get back home safely in time? You know, safely? Do we get back to Earth?"

• 40:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:02Charles Liu?

  And the future time traveler says, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. That would violate the temporal prime directive." And it was like the ultimate irony because always in Star Trek, there was throwing around the prime directive. "We can't give you this, we can't do this for you because it's the prime directive."

• 40:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:18Charles Liu?

  But now they are the victims of a prime directive. I thought that that was a very nice way to sort of use the time travel lazy plot device as a sort of one way to squeeze in that little kind of cool storytelling piece.

• 40:33Chuck Nice?

  That is a cool little storytelling element.

• 40:35Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  And I believe Janeway's answer to him was, "What a dip."

• 40:41Charles Liu?

  That's probably what she would have said.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 40:43Charles Liu?

  Yeah, okay.

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  Cool, cool, cool, cool. Kerry Hoshin from Facebook wants to know this. Have any of you been asked to appear on or work with any of the current sci-fi movies or television shows? If, if, if so, which one? And if not, which one would you want to make a cameo appearance?

• 41:04Charles Liu?

  Well, now, we know that our friend Neil does a whole bunch of these things. So, you know, the answer is yes, just go on to IMDb or some other

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  Right, and you'll see all the

• 41:12Charles Liu?

  thing, you'll see all the things that he's done.

• 41:14Chuck Nice?

  Myriad of things he's been on.

• 41:15Charles Liu?

  Now, what would you like to do? Chuck, what would you like to be on? What sci-fi TV show, movie, whatever, would you like to do?

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, there's only two.

• 41:23Charles Liu?

  Really?

• 41:23Chuck Nice?

  It's only two and it's, and it's, and I hope that it can happen in some way before I die.

• 41:29Charles Liu?

  Oh, which ones?

• 41:30Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Star Trek.

• 41:32Charles Liu?

  Uh huh.

• 41:32Chuck Nice?

  And Star Wars.

• 41:33Charles Liu?

  Ah.

• 41:34Chuck Nice?

  So, anything in Star Wars and anything in Star Trek.

• 41:37Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  As long as I have a speaking line.

• 41:39Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  I just want a speaking line.

• 41:41Charles Liu?

  But, but like a real role, like, would you like?

• 41:43Chuck Nice?

  I want a role.

• 41:44Charles Liu?

  Yeah, you want, you want a role. Like, would you play, would you play Lando Calrissian, for example? Would you play Han Solo? Would you play Princess Leia, you know?

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  And now you just settled it for me, it's totally Leia. And I'm Jabba the Hutt Leia too. I'm wearing that little outfit.

• 41:58Charles Liu?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 41:59Chuck Nice?

  I'm laying up on Jabba with that little chain collar around my neck, you know?

• 42:03Charles Liu?

  That's so nineteen eighty.

• 42:04Chuck Nice?

  Soon as Hans comes in, I'm just like, Hans!

• 42:07Charles Liu?

  That's so eighties. But it's true, it's true. There's, there's some, some attraction to that.

• 42:10Chuck Nice?

  But no, what I would, my, my, the other, the other stipulation I would make is that I would like very much to be me. I don't want to be in prosthetics.

• 42:19Charles Liu?

  Ah, so you don't want to be painted?

• 42:21Chuck Nice?

  I don't want to be, yeah, I don't want to be painted and I don't want to be an alien. I want to be me because I want to be able to say, look dude, that's me! Dude, I'm a Star Wars, that's me, look, look!

• 42:30Charles Liu?

  I would rather be painted, quite frankly. I do want to be an alien and the reason I want to do it is because then I can be shown as someone who is not me.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:39Charles Liu?

  The, the, the science fiction of it all is where you can really put aside the anchor to reality. And so, I would like to play an alien with a significant role. With two heads.

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 42:52Charles Liu?

  Okay, I don't know exactly what show would allow me to do that. But I would like to have some sort of CGI or makeup thing where I have two heads. And I can talk at the same time.

• 43:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:01Charles Liu?

  With both heads. And then we can either sing together.

• 43:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:04Charles Liu?

  Or talk to one another.

• 43:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:05Charles Liu?

  Or otherwise interact in ways that people with one head ordinarily don't. Right, right now, up to now, sci-fi.

• 43:11Chuck Nice?

  Maybe one of your heads is your internal conversation.

• 43:14Charles Liu?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:15Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't that be cool?

• 43:15Charles Liu?

  That would be a comedic thing, whatever. I'd be like, yes, I would be wise. No, I wouldn't, you dork head. Right?

• 43:22Chuck Nice?

  Super cool.

• 43:23Charles Liu?

  That's what I would like to see.

• 43:24Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 43:24Charles Liu?

  Myself doing someday.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  All right, cool, cool, cool, man. All right, great question, Terry.

• 43:28Charles Liu?

  Yeah, wonderful.

• 43:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's go with Marco Witt. Who says, in several programs like The Flash.

• 43:34Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  They mentioned tachyons.

• 43:35Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 43:36Chuck Nice?

  Or tachyon drives in Star Trek.

• 43:38Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 43:38Chuck Nice?

  Uh, or they link them to time travel.

• 43:40Charles Liu?

  Yes, they do.

• 43:41Chuck Nice?

  Um.

• 43:44Chuck Nice?

  Although it's theoretical.

• 43:45Charles Liu?

  Yep.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  Could it possibly work and how would it work?

• 43:48Charles Liu?

  Okay. Tachyons were invented, uh, decades ago.

• 43:52Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:53Charles Liu?

  To try to think of ways that the universe could exist where you have faster than light travel.

• 43:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:00Charles Liu?

  But tachyons are things that can only move faster than the speed of light.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:05Charles Liu?

  Whereas with our regular matter.

• 44:06Chuck Nice?

  They would have to, in order to move faster than light, they would have to exist faster than light.

• 44:11Charles Liu?

  They could only exist faster. They could not slow down, for example, and become photons would travel at the speed of light. Or other particles in our universe, which always travel slower than the speed of light. In fact, this is one of the traumatic experiences of my youth. Well, it's not that bad. But what happened was in high school. Uh, there was a, a, um, scientist, a, a, an astrophysics, a theoretical researcher. Who came to our high school and gave an after-school talk. And we're talking about relativity and things like that. And, and then I actually raised my hand in the Q and A session and asked him. Uh, do you think that the existence of tachyons, and he just said, they don't. No, it's not happening.

• 44:49Chuck Nice?

  Damn.

• 44:50Charles Liu?

  I'm like, oh, no, I've been crushed. You know, that kind of thing. Well, I wasn't crushed, but he was just basically trying to say, shut that down right now because it is completely fictional. Right?

• 44:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:00Charles Liu?

  So, in the sense that tachyons do travel fast in the speed of light, and you can try to think of it as a way to get through the time barrier or whatnot. Sure, go ahead and do it like fictionally. But you and I have already discussed in the past few minutes that we think, or at least I think, I hope you think, maybe you think too, that time travel is a lazy plot device.

• 45:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:24Charles Liu?

  Right? So, we don't need those tachyons to travel in time. They're put in there so that the Flash can go back and forth and do goofy things like Flashpoint, or you know, change things, or have Aobard Thon live like six or seven times, even though he gets killed eight or nine times. You know, goofy things like that.

• 45:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Charles Liu?

  So, that's my opinion. Lay off the tachyons, folks.

• 45:42Chuck Nice?

  Lay off the tachyons. All right, cool, there you go. Hey, listen, that's a sobering thought, but still fun to think about when you consider them for science fiction.

• 45:51Charles Liu?

  The possibilities are tremendous, right? Imagine if you're having a science fiction environment where there are creatures that can only travel fast in the speed of light.

• 45:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:57Charles Liu?

  Their definition of time and causality are completely different from ours.

• 46:01Chuck Nice?

  Right, absolutely.

• 46:02Charles Liu?

  And so, we have a really neat dichotomy that is barrier. The barrier is indeed the speed of light.

• 46:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:07Charles Liu?

  Right? And so, I think that would be a fun thing to explore in that aspect of things. So, whether it's possible or not is highly not, but whether it's a fun thing to play with and to think about, sure, definitely.

• 46:20Chuck Nice?

  Excellent.

• 46:20Charles Liu?

  Absolutely.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Dustin Parmley.

• 46:24Charles Liu?

  Hmm.

• 46:25Chuck Nice?

  Dustin says this.

• 46:26Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Is there something you're just tired of seeing Hollywood get wrong? Something that they just can't seem to get right over and over and over?

• 46:40Charles Liu?

  Oh, no, where can I start?

• 46:42Chuck Nice?

  P.S. My eight-year-old daughter and I love listening to you guys.

• 46:46Charles Liu?

  Oh, wonderful, wonderful.

• 46:47Chuck Nice?

  So, wow.

• 46:48Charles Liu?

  Chuck, I gotta let you start.

• 46:49Chuck Nice?

  What's the thing? Is there a trope, a particular trope, that you just hate, and it happens over and over again?

• 46:55Charles Liu?

  Yes, and there are numerous ones that I hate all the time, but... I want to hear your ideas first.

• 47:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 47:02Charles Liu?

  Because you like live the tropes, right? As a comedian, thinking deeply about scientific issues, right? You're always wondering, what do people look at if you say something? And they're like, oh, that's so true, like, oh, yeah, you know? That, you have that insight. Talk to me.

• 47:18Chuck Nice?

  Um, for me, when it comes to science fiction, it's, um, the fact that, um, when superpowers are given, they're normally given by some catastrophic accident that ends up creating, it ends up creating someone with these incredible powers. And like, if you really, if you just look at the laws of physics, catastrophic events are called catastrophic events for a reason. Right? It's, it's very unlikely that anything good would ever come out. So like, a blast of radiation, that's the one that I hate the most. Radiation, radiation is never going to lead to anything good for human beings. That's all there is to it. So.

• 48:02Charles Liu?

  You will die.

• 48:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you're gonna die. That's the end of it. Right, you're gonna die. Okay. So, but that's the one I hate the most, is that somehow we take radiation and it turns into superpowers.

• 48:13Charles Liu?

  Yeah, yep. I, I, that's a, that's one of my ones that I don't like either.

• 48:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay, good.

• 48:18Charles Liu?

  But, but I think you've expressed it much better than I could have. Uh, I think I will just, uh, give one trope, which I think is so stupid.

• 48:25Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 48:25Charles Liu?

  Okay. It's the damsel in distress.

• 48:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh, good one.

• 48:30Charles Liu?

  That the hero has to come and save because, oh, the person is so helpless.

• 48:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:34Charles Liu?

  The superheroes must be the ones to save them. That bothers the crap out of me.

• 48:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:39Charles Liu?

  You know, I just can't, um, and these days it does.

• 48:41Chuck Nice?

  You know, there was a Spider-Man that tried to deal with that. Which Spider-Man movie? I forget which one. But anyway, the whole idea was like, all of New York kind of rises up along with Spider-Man. Cause the idea is like, we're all in this.

• 48:51Charles Liu?

  That's right. That's right.

• 48:52Chuck Nice?

  You know, we're, okay.

• 48:53Charles Liu?

  Right. The, the rest of us sit around and, and like, oh, we're just so helpless. And you have to have this hero to come in. I like stories when the hero, or the heroism, heroism is part of the story writing as opposed to the overall, like, the, the, the whole point, right?

• 49:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:10Charles Liu?

  Creature is created and now they're here to save the world.

• 49:13Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 49:13Charles Liu?

  Anyway, so I want to thank everybody for listening to us today. I think we're gonna wrap up. Chuck, what a pleasure to hang out with you and to do this.

• 49:20Chuck Nice?

  Chuck, are you kidding me? It's always a pleasure.

• 49:22Charles Liu?

  Okay, and now you have to channel Neil for a second. Neil, it was great to be with you earlier in this episode. Charles, I am always honored to be in your presence. Well done, sir.

• 49:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. I don't know if that was like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Worf.

• 49:38Charles Liu?

  Worf deGrasse Tyson.

• 49:39Chuck Nice?

  Worf deGrasse Tyson.

• 49:40Charles Liu?

  There you go, there you go. All right. We will have our honor back, brother.

• 49:45Charles Liu?

  And with that, we're gonna wrap up this episode of StarTalk. I'm Charles Liu, you can call me Chuck, and here's Chuck Nice.

• 49:52Chuck Nice?

  You can call me Charles.

• 49:53Charles Liu?

  All right. As Neil would say, keep looking up.