Cosmic Queries – Back to School Edition

What do you wish you’d learned in school? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice go back to school to answer questions about simulation theory, time dilation, white holes, the sound of space, and more!

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Chuck, co-host, always good to have you, man.

• 0:20Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure to be here. How are you?

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this one I figured, let's do an homage to going back to school.

• 0:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not? So this is the back to school edition. Not only people who are actually going back to school, but people who might, I don't know how many out there feel this way, who might look nostalgically on having been in school where your only job in life was to learn.

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, that's a thing.

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  To the two of you out there.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The two people.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  Who feel that way.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because everyone else is a fan of Alice Cooper. Schools out for summer.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Schools out forever. Yeah, those folks were learning there.

• 1:05Chuck Nice?

  He's lying because school is never out. That's what people don't...

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 1:09Chuck Nice?

  School is...

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Provided, they instill a level of curiosity in you so that you can become a lifelong learner.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  I disagree. I disagree. You are a lifelong learner, whether you want to be or not. It just depends on how you want to learn.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I've met some ossified people. They ain't learning a damn thing. So don't tell me.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Nah, yeah, well, no. It's like, no, they're learning the hard way.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the hard way.

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  Speaking of ossification. The hard way, that's all.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you got? So for this back to school edition, we're expanding our reach, going to our TikTok following and our...

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twitter following, yeah.

• 1:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they might become Patreon members one day, so we'll... We'll reach there.

• 1:58Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know what?

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give them a taste of what's otherwise behind the protected space.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Right, so if you want to, go to patreon.com/startalk, and you can support us, and then you will receive what we're doing right now as a command performance. A private show just for you, where Neil answers all of our Patreon patrons' questions.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  So, but this time, we're extending it to anybody on TikTok and Instagram.

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of our fanbase in those platforms, yes.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Everybody gets, everybody gets one free.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, plus, you're not supposed to ask for money before we did anything for them. So you gotta like, we gotta do the show, and then...

• 2:41Chuck Nice?

  You're speaking like a person who has confidence.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  I like, I like to get the money upfront.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Upfront, I got you, okay, upfront. We solicited the questions with a, it was, is there anything you wished you had learned in school or want to still learn? Was it, did we pose that question?

• 3:02Chuck Nice?

  Basically, yeah.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There we go.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Anything you wish you had learned, wanna still learn, or just maybe curious about now?

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 3:10Chuck Nice?

  So here we go. Uh, this is Travel4Real from TikTok. And Travel4Real says, uh, by the way, his name is Josh. And he says, uh, uh, is there any scientific evidence for what happens before or after this life?

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, oh, yes.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 3:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, well, in the sense that, everything we know about who you are as an individual,

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  everything emanates from the electrochemical phenomena in your brain. And we know this because people who get a series of mini-strokes, little bits of them begin to go away. The first, you know, kinetically with their muscles, but also in their mind. And, and so they slowly go away. Then whoever you remember to be there, bit by bit, is being disassembled by the loss of electrochemical functions in the brain.

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you get to a point where a person totally strokes out, and their body might even still be alive. The rest of their body, but you, you, they don't function, their, their pupils don't dilate or constrict, they, they're brain dead, basically, at that point. But the very deep part of the brain that keeps the body alive, the body is still doing what it's doing. Okay, so as far as we know, when you die, since all of the neurosynaptic phenomena cease, you enter a state of non-existence.

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is that any different from your state of non-existence that was before you were born?

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, before you were born, you know, 10 years before you're born, you're not saying, "Where am I? How come I'm not in the world?"

• 5:02Chuck Nice?

  I was. That's how I got, that's how I got here.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You snuck in the back.

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you, you don't, you're not lamenting your state of non-existence before you were born? And all evidence points that after you die, you re-enter a state of non-existence. It's that simple. And so people, by the way, there are many people who don't like that answer.

• 5:28Chuck Nice?

  No, they don't.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what science tells us, but they, they don't like the answer.

• 5:31Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They need there to be things after you die.

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  Paradise.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paradise of any kind, described in multiple religions.

• 5:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and if you're into reincarnation, you will believe you were a life form before your current one. So, so, so there, there are belief systems out there that say all kinds of things about before you're born and after you die. But if you're gonna ask a scientist, that's the answer you're gonna get. So what that tells me is, as a scientist, that I have to make this life count. Because there's not one that's after it.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  This life is more than just a read-through, which is the chili peppers way of saying it.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, a real read-through. Interesting.

• 6:13Chuck Nice?

  That's right, that's right, right.

• 6:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have power and agency over your ambitions, your goals, where you land, where you launch from.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  This ain't no rehearsal, baby.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, that's it. The one and the only. Make it count. All right. Keep it going. Oh, by the way, there's a whole chapter in my next book on life and death, where all these topics are addressed, in case you wanna read up on them even further.

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes, if you wanna be more depressed than you are now. That's right.

• 6:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so there you go. All right, that's very cool. This is Josh, and Josh says this, okay? I'm just reading them, and I don't judge. He says-

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You kinda are, just I'm saying, but go on.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  No, it's okay.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, okay, go.

• 7:00Chuck Nice?

  You called me out.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, go, go, go, go. Go, Josh.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  What was first? Dinosaur? Or water? Or trees? And did the comet really take out the dinosaurs? Okay.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so water was around-

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  First.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, water was there from the beginning of things.

• 7:23Chuck Nice?

  In space.

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In space, water is in space, so we got, we got water. Water is a, is a comet. It's because hydrogen and oxygen are both common in the universe. So putting them together to make H2O, you got that one for free.

• 7:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next came trees. Then came dinosaurs.

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, in that order. And the cool part is, there was a time when we had trees, but no, no microbes to digest the wood.

• 7:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a tree would grow, fall over, and die. And there would be nothing for it to decompose. We are so accustomed to seeing a, a fallen tree in the forest that is crumbling back to soil.

• 8:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the presence of microbes and insects.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if it's old enough, you can take your hand and just crush it.

• 8:11Chuck Nice?

  Crush it.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crush it into dust, okay?

• 8:14Chuck Nice?

  Look how strong I am.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That did not happen. Uh, there's a point when that did not happen. All the trees accumulated, and there's an entire layer in the geologic strata called the Carboniferous Era, where all the trees and other vegetation collapsed and did not decompose.

• 8:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And out of that Carboniferous Era, we get our coal and oil.

• 8:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 8:40Chuck Nice?

  And that's why, yeah, and everybody says this. I'm glad you just said this. Out of the Carboniferous Era, we get coal and oil because fossil fuels-

• 8:52Chuck Nice?

  Uh, means buried. It doesn't mean dinosaur.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, right. Yeah, in fact, the oil, you know, we used to think that there was an ad for, for, uh, what's the, with the, the, the oil company that used a brontosaurus, who was it? Sinclair. So Sinclair had a brontosaurus, and I think one of their commercials implied that all the oil came from dead dinosaurs. But it's mostly from vegetation.

• 9:17Chuck Nice?

  From vegetation.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That never decomposed.

• 9:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the usual way, gets buried and under long times of pressure and temperature. There's a chemical change that boosts it with the kind of energy you want for an industrialized civilization.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Oh, by the way, and, and dinosaurs, they're still around. They're called birds.

• 9:35Chuck Nice?

  That's true, right?

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay. That's very, and, and, you know, uh, yeah, then, uh, that's the, I didn't see it, but I hear that's the whole big reveal in the latest Jurassic Park is that the dinosaurs have feathers.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Yeah.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that would be the trend, the, the likely link between the modern day birds and

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  they were.

• 9:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. But by the way, trees are not the oldest things around. There are other sort of vertebrate life forms that predate trees. So

• 10:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  just, so sharks are older than trees, for example.

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah. So, uh, so anyhow, it's fascinating, the history of life on earth, uh, and who came first and who didn't. Uh, here's one for you. You ready? Uh, we all don't, we all, nobody doesn't love stegosaurus, right?

• 10:24Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he looks like his own castle.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, or his own, uh, armor.

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  His own armor.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So stegosaurus, and so we are, so stegosaurus predates T-Rex.

• 10:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By how much?

• 10:41Chuck Nice?

  I don't know.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then T-Rex predates us.

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 10:46Chuck Nice?

  So stegosaurus is like the old man of the dinosaurs.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stegosaurus is the OG di-

• 10:52Chuck Nice?

  Right. OG.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we are closer in time to T-Rex than T-Rex is to the stegosaurus. I thought I'd throw that out there.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Show some respect, T-Rex.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  You don't know what you're messing with. Stegosaurus, that's kind of dope.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's totally the OG of dinosaurs.

• 11:11Chuck Nice?

  Who knew that? I did not know that. That's a long time. That's a long time.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know what upset me?

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we did more calculations with the stability of Saturn's rings, which is just a swarm of particles in orbit, not entirely stable, that there was some talk that Saturn's rings were only around for maybe 50 million years, at most 100 million years. So there's a chance that if the dinosaurs had a telescope and they looked up at Saturn, they would see no ring at all.

• 11:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And that would be sad. That'd be sad for me if I was a dinosaur, because I love Saturn.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. It was probably sadder for T-Rex because his arms are too short to try and use a telescope.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Arms are too short for everything.

• 11:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's just like, you know, God, why can't I get this?

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  All right. Yeah, that's okay. Very cool, very cool, very cool. Let's go to Lenscape via TikTok. Oh, all right. Lenscape just wants to jump into like a whole bath of goodness all at once.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's do that.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Neil, are we living in a simulation?

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am not as convinced as other people are. And again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but in my book, I give an argument. I call it the inanity defense for why we're not a simulation.

• 12:45Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because every computer we've ever programmed to do any task at all is vastly more logical than we have ever been. Vastly more sensible, vastly more traceable in the causes and effects of what it does. So if we're a simulation, someone would have to program the computer.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For its characters to make completely irrational, stupid decisions that we make every day of our lives. And who would do that? That's all I'm saying. So I'm thinking a simulated universe, all of its life forms would be way more logical and rational than any evidence humans have ever given for behaving that way. So that's where I'm coming from here. I call it the inanity defense.

• 13:36Chuck Nice?

  Right. But here's the thing. The inanity is far more interesting. So if you're a designer, why wouldn't you do that?

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you wouldn't need to do it to this depth. I mean, you could throw in a few irrational players, right? And everybody's got to deal with them. But the extent, the breadth and the depth of which it appears, clearly no computer was involved. That's all I gotta say.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay. I got you. Yeah, okay. It's like, there's crazy and then there's us.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, thank you.

• 14:10Chuck Nice?

  That's basically what it comes down to.

• 14:16Chuck Nice?

  No computer could be this crazy.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They can't. They got silicon chips that have, you know, logical circuitry.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, very cool.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me another one.

• 14:28Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. This is Seth Pasquale says this, 25. Seth Pasquale's 25. What sound does space make if you were to float around in it?

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 14:41Chuck Nice?

  So in other words, what would you hear if you're in the nothingness of space?

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. And we will get to that when we come back from our break.

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. First segment over. When we come back, more Cosmic Queries Back to School Edition. Everything you thought you should have learned in school or you wanted to learn in school.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With StarTalk with Karen.

• 15:09Speaker 02

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

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, Cosmic Queries. So, we left off with a question. Chuck, what was it? And who asked it?

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  Uh, yes, this was SethPascal25, and he says, "What sound does space make if you were to float around in it? What do you hear if you're just out in the nothingness of space?"

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll hear Darth Vader.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a bad Darth Vader, sorry. You'll hear nothing. There's no medium to communicate sound from any place in space to your ears. So, what you'll begin to hear are things inside your body.

• 16:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I was in the quietest place on Earth, and it is a room at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. And every bit of sound that would be exterior to the room doesn't get in, and any sound that you make gets completely deadened against the walls. You're not even standing on a floor. You're standing on a mesh that is equidistant between a ceiling and a floor, and then the floor below you, which is also made of specially-designed acoustic materials. So, I'm standing in there, and you don't hear anything. You don't hear anything. I started hearing blood pumping through my ear canal.

• 16:52Chuck Nice?

  Mmm, wow.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  Now, are you sure you weren't having a stroke?

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I hope not.

• 16:58Chuck Nice?

  Being from New York and for the first time hearing absolutely nothing, your brain just couldn't take it.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your body freaked out.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  Your brain started to explode or implode.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, at the end of the day, allow me to say, there is no such thing as the sound of silence. Other than blood moving within your skull.

• 17:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man. Simon and Garfunkel hates you right there.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Oh, well. There you go. So you hear yourself. That's the sound of silence, which is

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing.

• 17:27Chuck Nice?

  Nothing.

• 17:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Chuck Nice?

  Nothing.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another way to say it is the sound of silence is the sound of things that were always making noise that you never noticed before.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about that?

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. Far more profound.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  So in other words, you need to Miyagi this and listen to yourself a little closer. Okay.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one other thing, there's a saying attributed to Nietzsche.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this I quote in the book, too. Damn, my life just is the book.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  No, right now it is.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's those who were dancing were deemed insane by those who could not hear the music.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just think about, if you watch people behind a glass screen dancing and you can't hear the music, they're crazy people.

• 18:14Chuck Nice?

  They look insane, right?

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They look insane. They're jumping up and down, flailing their arms and legs. So I think there's a lot in that quote in terms of what is the reality that you experience versus that of others? And what is it that you define as that which is objectively true? And always think twice before you pass judgment of what you see others doing. Maybe it's because they hear the music and you do not.

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Zalmarion from TikTok. Zalmarion says, "How old do you think our star really is? Is it possible that it's older than we think? Is it, okay, I mean, is it lying about its age? I mean,

• 19:05Chuck Nice?

  is our soul, our star going like, you know?

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun is telling us how old it is. And Chuck, right, it could be lying. I don't know. Issues with stars, but if they have social issues that where this matters.

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  Most stars, most stars, lie about their age.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all, all the evidence we have tells us that our star is about four and a half to 4.6 billion years old, slightly older than Earth-moon system itself. So, and we expect it to live another five billion years in good health.

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before it expands and then engulfs the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and Earth, vaporizing the oceans and then the atmosphere, and then all life as we know it. So, have a nice day.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  There you go. And that's our show, people. Sleep well, sleep well.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Alright, that's very cool. So, now, how old is the Earth of the...

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  4.5...

• 20:06Chuck Nice?

  Five, yeah.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  4.55 billion years.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  We all, everything kind of coalesced in that time, right?

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So, you can ask, what are the chances of that being wrong? I suppose there's a chance, but it has so much supporting evidence that we're on to the next questions, no longer even judging whether those estimates are, are false any further, because they're so successful. That's right.

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  Got it. There you go. Alright, here's Lil Toenail.

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That's the name of a user? Okay.

• 20:36Chuck Nice?

  That's Lil Toenail from TikTok.

• 20:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 20:40Chuck Nice?

  You gotta love that. Okay, here's the deal. Lil Toenail says, "I cannot wrap my head around time dilation. Can you please explain it to me?" And I'm like, who knew Lil Toenail had a head?

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, fine. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel for that one. I don't know.

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm just saying, something, something going on with that foot.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the foot is doing that thing, yeah. What's the big toe thinking?

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  What is the big toe thinking? If Lil Toenail is worried about time dilation, oh, what the hell is big toe?

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, here's the thing. We have two coordinates that define us, where we are in space and where we are in time. You can, if you were sit your butt in one place, you are moving forward in time, but you're stationary in space.

• 21:32Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? If you are a speed of light...

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are moving forward in space, but you're stationary in time.

• 21:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time does not tick for light.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you are anything in between those two extremes, there'll be a combination of your space changing and your time changing. The rate at which time ticks.

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because both of those matter to figure out where everything is and where it's going in the universe. So you can think of it as two axes, a space axis and a time axis. And light moves along the, uh, the space axis, okay? And you, if, again, if you, if you are sitting there not moving at all, you move perfectly along the time axis. You can find other places in that chart where space and time are moving at various rates relative to each other.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the GPS satellites, for example, they are in a different place. They're farther away from Earth's gravity. So their space-time diagram means time ticks more slowly for them than it does for us.

• 22:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when they tell you what time it is, we have to pre-correct it with an Einsteinian equation so that the time you get on Earth's surface matches what everybody else is using.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  It's amazing.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's completely amazing. That's right.

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  So cool.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is real.

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  That is so cool! So trippy!

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Einstein didn't even get the Nobel Prize for that. He got it from much lesser work. Had they totally done his Nobel Prize some, some justice, he would have had like eight Nobel Prizes.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Cause I mean, yes, figuring out that time ticks more slowly.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 23:21Chuck Nice?

  Is, you know, I mean, that's beyond mind-blowing. That is beyond, that is a tectonic perspective shift on the entire universe itself!

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it is. Einstein changed the cosmic perspective.

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  God!

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  It's just amazing.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  I feel so stupid right now!

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No!

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  All right. Oh, man, I just love, I love that so much. I could never get enough of that.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, don't confuse being stupid and not knowing with being curious and eager to find out.

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  Uh, can I be both and?

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I'm not giving you that. I have more confidence in you.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, good.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is, uh, Mediero Ma- uh, oh, Matty Rose Madden, okay. Matty Rose Madden from TikTok. Okay, check this out.

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  You, you get in the middle of, uh, perhaps a spousal argument here, Neil.

• 24:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-oh, uh-oh, okay.

• 24:27Chuck Nice?

  Just letting you know right now.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 24:30Chuck Nice?

  Do we live in or on the earth? My husband says that we live in the earth because of the atmosphere. I say we live on the earth because the earth's atmosphere is on the earth.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right, what do we, what have we got here? I mean?

• 24:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna settle this, all right.

• 24:53Chuck Nice?

  You must bring peace to this home.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, you ready? Okay, before 1970, if you, no, before 1968, if you said, "Draw Earth."

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People would draw a globe and, and they would draw oceans and they draw the continents.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody drew clouds.

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take a look at any old image of Earth, there are no clouds on it. Not even Star Trek, which should have known better. There, um, you know, how, how does it begin? Uh, space, the final frontier, these are the voyages, and you see that, it, it's, and you see Earth in the background? There's no clouds on it. So, no one thought about our atmosphere as something fundamental to the identity of Earth. Until 1968, with Apollo 8, went to the moon, looked back, took a picture of the Earth, and there it was. As only nature intended you to see it.

• 25:50Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With oceans, land. Clouds. Yes. Do you realize, after 1968, that was December 68, there was legislation to create and was ultimately signed a year and a half later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. Right. Before then, no one had connected the oceans and the air before. Atmos, yep. Hadn't been done yet. Mm-hmm. There were atmosphere people and there were ocean people. And you had land people. And then you had people studying lights. And so there were the geologists and the bi... Now we find that life is thriving throughout the Earth, on rocks, in, down through the crust of the Earth. And that oceans interact with the sur...

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  with our land masses, changing their shapes. And, and, and the, where does the ocean, where does the atmosphere get its water? For the way, gets it from the ocean. This is an entire system. So, since then, nobody draws Earth without clouds. So, I declare, by authority vested in me, by the universe, and most specifically by the cosmic perspective, that if someone wants to say that living on Earth's surface beneath 15 pounds per square inch of atmospheric mass, if they want to say we live in the Earth, I'm all for it.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, whoa. Otherwise, you'd have to say Earth does not include the atmosphere, and I'm not prepared to do that. Oh. So, we do live... But I think I justified it, right? I didn't just say, we have my opinion. No. No, just to fight about it. Here's why it makes sense. And by the way, Earth's atmosphere is so thin. Earth's atmosphere is to Earth as the skin of an apple is to the apples.

• 27:49Chuck Nice?

  That's just terrible.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:50Chuck Nice?

  I mean, the way we treat the atmosphere, that's why I say it's terrible.

• 27:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, right, right. You think it's, you think you're in the bottom of a large ocean? No, you're at the bottom of a really skinny, skinny thing, and just because you're little, that it looks big.

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But when you're big, it looks little.

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  So we live in Earth, people.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Earth.

• 28:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, which makes sense because this is a spaceship hurling through space.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  So we would, you wouldn't travel on a spaceship, you'd travel in a spaceship.

• 28:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, correct, as, as George Carlin clearly noted, where he gets, you might be getting on the plane, he's getting in the plane.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  I didn't, I never heard that.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never heard that? Oh, that's, that's in his airplane segment, yeah.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I like it. All right, okay, look at that. Sorry, Matty Rose Madden, you're gonna be mad when you hear this, but...

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I got, wait, wait, I got another one. So do you live in a city or on a city?

• 28:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, see, I live in a city.

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you see, the city has a grid, and you, you're standing on the grid of the city, right? You're in three dimensions. If you were flat and you crossed the border of the city, you'd be in the city. But you stand up above the city, you're on the city.

• 29:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well, I'm, I'm down to be on the city.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you think of that?

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  I'm on the town, baby. I'm all about it. I'm all about it. All right, that sounds good.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me one more.

• 29:09Chuck Nice?

  How about, uh, it's Sasha2020 from TikTok says this, okay, um, are there time machines? Now, specifically, I, I'm taking this question seriously because I've heard you speak to this. Um, and then she's, and then a second question. Do you think people will be able to time travel?

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  So they're two separate questions.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got, and I can answer both when we come back from the break.

• 29:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. We're done with our second segment of Cosmic Queries Back to School Edition. Stuff you wanted to learn in school and didn't, or wanna put back in the curriculum so others can, how about that? Uh, when we come back, more of Cosmic Queries.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Cosmic Aquarius, back to school edition. Reaching out beyond our Patreon core supporters to others who might enjoy this and become a supporter as well. And Chuck, you left off someone, who was it that asked the question?

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  It's Sasha2020.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Sasha2020.

• 30:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, she asked a compound question, but it's two separate questions. But are there time, are there, um, are there time machines? And do you think people will be able to one day time travel? So there you go.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm old enough, perhaps you Chuck, too. No, you're not, I just remembered how old you are. I'm old enough to remember there was a TV show called Time Tunnel. Where, it was in 1970s. And the scientist invented this tunnel and you walk in, you can travel back in time. Clearly, something goes wrong, otherwise it wouldn't be a TV show. So they get lost in time and they bouncing back in different time. So the pilot episode, guess where they went?

• 30:55Chuck Nice?

  Camden, New Jersey.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he, he, they went back to the Titanic.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and for a while there, people, it might be because of that show, people were interviewed. Where would you go, want to go the most? It's, I want to go back to the Titanic. So, we have evidence that at some point, time machines are invented. Because all of those people went back to the time Titanic. And they were too heavy for the Titanic and that's what sunk it.

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  And it sunk the Titanic.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what sunk the Titanic. All of the time travelers who went back to the Titanic to see it sink. That's what actually sunk the Titanic. So, so the real question is, if their time, oh, Stephen Hawking held a party. Okay, for all time travelers of the future. And he said, if you're a time traveler, we will expect you to show up right in front of me. And if he summons you, that you gotta show up, right? Cause it's Stephen Hawking.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  That's Stephen Hawking.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's sitting there in his wheelchair and everybody's around and they got an open summon and nobody appears. So, that could mean... That a time machine will never be invented in the future. Or it's invented, but there's a law of physics that prevents you from going back in time, just because of the risks involved.

• 32:10Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The risks. Now, in The Terminator, what did he do?

• 32:14Chuck Nice?

  Um, well, he basically had to save his son. Wait.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, no. He had to, he had to make sure the leader of the, Chuck, what, what country are you? Are you American? Are you?

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He had to, he had to make sure the person who led the revolution against the machine is never born. He has to make sure he never exists.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  Oh, The Terminator. I thought you meant the guy that was sent back to, to help Sarah Connor. Yeah, but you're talking about The Terminator itself. He went back to kill John Connor before he was born.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. And, and so doing, you kill the mother.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And so this is so violent, though. It's so violent.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All you have to do is prevent the mother from meeting the man who she had sex with to-

• 32:59Chuck Nice?

  To make John Connor.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To create John. That's all you have to do. You don't have to kill everybody.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  But that's what made Terminator so great. The guy that he sent back to protect her ended up being John Connor's dad.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  So if The Terminator never went back to kill John Connor, John Connor would have never been born in the first place because The Terminator was really like the Tinder for John Connor and Sarah Connor.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So The Terminator is a time idiot, right?

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  Basically.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He did not figure that out.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  He made them, he made that happen.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, point is, there could be some, as Hawking suggested, a time travel conjecture that says you can't travel back in time, but if you do, you'll have no access to any world line that you ever touched.

• 33:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if you, if you somehow trip up your grandmother, then your grand, your mother is never born, or your father's never born, and then you're never born. And then you would not have been alive to go back to trip, trip them up. So, and The Terminator version of that is you kill everybody, right?

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyhow, uh, so yeah, no, we think no.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We think no, no, no time machine. Oh, wait, wait. By the way, in the, in the science march, by the way, if scientists have to march- That you should be worried. You should be worried.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Am I right here, Chuck?

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, without a doubt, right?

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If nerds are go on the march.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something's seriously wrong with with society. Okay?

• 34:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, when nerds run amok, society has gone really in a toilet.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what I said, but fine. Run amok. So one of them held a poster that said, an chant, what do we want? Time machine. When do we want it? It doesn't matter.

• 34:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  That's funny. Okay.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 34:51Chuck Nice?

  I like that. All right, here we go. This is hayverse.x from Instagram.

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hayverse, spell that.

• 34:58Chuck Nice?

  H A Y B E R S E. Hayverse.

• 35:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hayverse, wow, okay.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, like the universe, but just hayverse.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, yeah.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  So it says, this is a good one. As quickly and succinctly as possible, please explain quantum physics in a simple way.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can do. So this from TikTok?

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Instagram.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instagram, oh.

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if it's TikTok and he's saying, explain it quickly and simply, that's a TikTok virus that he's got there.

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, right.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything's got to be fast and and so all I can say is as you look to smaller and smaller things in the universe, whole other laws that dictate what they do and how they do it kick in. And so quantum physics is the theory of the small that describes atoms, molecules, subatomic particles. And if you get larger and larger, those laws still apply, but they get averaged out. And we get what's called classical physics. So we needed to understand atoms and molecules, and there is no information technology.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The creation, storage and retrieval of information. There is no IT without an exploitation of the quantum. So it's not just some idle curiosity from boneheaded, you know, pointy headed physicists. It's a fundamental part of what we consider modern civilization.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  What are you doing, Gluan? Your laws don't apply to me.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go, let's, uh, let's do a lightning round.

• 36:36Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 36:37Chuck Nice?

  Lightning it up.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lightning round, I, I answer in sound bites. Okay, go.

• 36:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Nico DuK7 says this from Instagram. Uh, why I see, why do I see myself inverted when I look in the mirror?

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hope you're not inverted, but you're, you're swapped left and right. If you're upside down in a mirror.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  If you're upside down, buddy. The reason is, is because you're in an alternate universe.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, actually, there's a curvature you can give to the mirror where you are in fact upside down. So the beauty mirrors, if you back up away from them, you'll see yourself upside down in them. So, so if, yeah, if you're, if you're upside down in a mirror, you have a, it's a funhouse mirror. But otherwise you are reflected left and right, but not top to bottom. Because what, what's actually happening is you are being reflected through a line that goes through the center of your body. So your nose gets reflected to the other side of your nose. Your cheeks go to the other side and everything starts here and moves through the mirror and shows up on the other side.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So reflection is not what you think it is. It's not just simply let's swap left and right. You're actually recreating yourself through the mirror with these reflections. So that's why.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. And by the way, that reflection has a whole life of its own. And when you walk away from that mirror, it walks away to go do stuff that you don't even know anything about.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'll get blamed for it, right?

• 38:06Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 38:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 38:08Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Srivasta? Haras, okay, whatever.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I want to hear the person's last name.

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Harashar, Harsharaj. Harsharaj, Harsharaj. H A R S H A R J. Harsharaj.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Harsharaj, okay.

• 38:29Chuck Nice?

  Harsharaj.

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That wasn't that hard, was it Chuck?

• 38:31Chuck Nice?

  No, it wasn't, it wasn't. Srivasta Harsharaj says this.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From where?

• 38:37Chuck Nice?

  From Instagram. And this is all it says, maybe you'll get it. Time travel paradoxes?

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the funny thing about paradoxes is that there aren't any. The paradox is a paradox to you because you haven't really calculated it correctly. The time travel paradox is, I send you off and you're moving at a high speed and I see that your time is ticking slowly. Whereas you don't know that because it's just your clock and your heart rate and as far as you're concerned, everything is normal. But you see me on Earth receding away from you with my time ticking slowly.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how can we both see each other's time ticking slowly? Okay, that's called, it's called a twin paradox, if you want to. You send off a twin, how does that twin you sent off become younger than you when they look back at you and time is moving more slowly for you as well? It's because when you come back, you lose that effect. So I can send you away, but when you slow down, turn around and come back,

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that changes your relationship to me in the universe. You're the one that's accelerating, not I, in this. And the one who's accelerating will feel the effects of the, of, of, of the time dilation relative to me. And so, but if you just kept going, I would think your time had slowed down forever, just as you would think my time had slowed down. So it's a matter of, do you slow down, turn around and come back? And to do so, you decelerated and accelerated and that changes the game.

• 40:17Chuck Nice?

  There you have it. All right. That was a, that was a very good explanation.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That wasn't very, very soundbitey, but well, I'll keep trying.

• 40:24Chuck Nice?

  No, that was a very good explanation, no.

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's keep trying.

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  That's how it goes. All right, here's another one. This is Anton.

• 40:32Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh. Anthony Svena says this. Uh, from Instagram. Please explain nuclear energy. Uh, quickly and well.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. I love it. No room for me to mess up here, right? Right, right?

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So. Um, energy is has something that it is an entity that has the capacity to do work. Okay, that's basically the definition of energy. You can store the energy to do work later. Okay, and that's why you have like if you have a hot pack. If you have a hot pack and it's just room temperature until you sprain your knee. And then at the at the softball game, they they slap it on the ground and shake it and bake it. I mean, shake it and jiggle it that releases chemical energy that had been bound into the molecules themselves.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's that's chemical energy. Well, inside the nucleus, there's also energy. If you break apart some nuclei, it'll release energy. And that's all nuclear energy is, the energy contained in a nucleus. As opposed to a chemical energy, which is the energy contained in the molecules.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Right. So there you go.

• 41:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's simple. It's really not that complicated.

• 41:56Chuck Nice?

  That's right. That's it. That's it. Uh, that's really, I mean, that's.

• 42:01Chuck Nice?

  Hey, quickly and well, that was it. Quickly and well, baby. All right, here we go. Uh, this is Laurie. Uh, 260 2279 at Instagram says, does every star belong to a galaxy? Or are there also lonely stars?

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we have a word for them called vagabond stars.

• 42:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they're vagabond stars. Um, could there also be vagabond planets? We think some planets, when they're trying to form in their star system, get ejected. And then they wander through space, basically homeless. Right, but many. Planets have interior heat like we do. So if you have a source of heat, you might be able to still sustain life, even though you're not near any stars at all. So that's an interesting sidelight about vagabond planets. But vagabond stars? Uh, sure. In fact, one of my early research projects was on that very topic. They're called intergalactic supernovae. So these were stars that would be kicked out of their host galaxy and then explode. And you'd see them exploding far away from their brethren.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they had no business being that far out. So as far as we know, yes, there are, there could be very many as well.

• 43:16Chuck Nice?

  I don't need y'all anyway. I've been kicked out of better galaxies than this.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you sound like you've actually had to say that in real life at one point. That came out so smoothly and quickly.

• 43:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that was, all I could say was well rehearsed.

• 43:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been kicked out of better joints.

• 43:36Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Shane Vinnie, and Shane Vinnie says this. Could the Big Bang or Big Bang type events occur regularly?

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We think in the multiverse, yes. That we're just one of multiple bangs that are happening all the time. So regularly on that scale, yes. There's nothing stopping it because of what the, the powers of the multiverse actually are. They're a universe birthing machine. And so, uh, yeah. But in terms of our own universe, not so much. No, we don't think that's what's going on.

• 44:15Chuck Nice?

  And then he says, or she says, uh, or they say, white holes, maybe?

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  White holes for what? Does this follow on to that?

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes. So could, could the Big Bang, what? I, I'm not sure what a white.

• 44:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, we thought, okay, for a while, you know, when white holes got discovered, they're like the mathematical opposite of a black hole.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. You know what it's like? You know what it's like? So if I say, what's three squared? What would you tell me?

• 44:45Chuck Nice?

  Uh, six, nine.

• 44:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's try that again. Chuck?

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fifth grade math.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's three squared? Three times three?

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Uh, nine.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now I say, what's the square root of nine?

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Well, three.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three, of course, but it's also negative three.

• 45:06Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 45:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because negative three times negative three is also nine.

• 45:09Chuck Nice?

  Also nine.

• 45:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you do the equations for a black hole, there's a second solution. And so it's like the opposite solution to a black hole. Black holes eat everything, white holes emit everything. So we calculated what these should look like in the universe. Looked around and we didn't find a lick of them.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but it would be cool if white holes were birthing universes, but we have no real evidence of that.

• 45:31Chuck Nice?

  No, what white holes do is they use black holes to do all their work.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  And then they might colonize the universe, but...

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  Do not write, people. That was funny. That was fu- I'll give a damn. Dude, you better not write, and I'm serious. They're called jokes.

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'll say, I say, everyone, Chuck still has, he's got, he's got a black thing going on inside of him. He can't shake it. I can't shake it. We had, we had a show on, on contagious diseases, and we talked about the black plague. And Chuck said, why everything bad gotta be black?

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  That's right. It gotta be the black plague.

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing gets by Chuck. All right, so we need you to highlight that in almost every case. Chuck, we gotta call it quits. We got through a lot of questions there.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Wow, we did.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good. We, do that again.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, thank you all from TikTok and Instagram, the rest of our, our, our fan platforms. And we're happy to serve you, and thanks for sending in your questions. Chuck, always good to have you, man.

• 46:42Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 46:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking out.