Making Stuff, with Adam Savage

Neil deGrasse Tyson, author and inventor extraordinaire Adam Savage, and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted questions about MythBusters, the creative process, the future of engineering, movies, and much more! NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/making-stuff-with-adam-savage/ 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.

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and we're coming to you from my office at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. Co-host today, Chuck Nice. Chuck! Hey Neil, always good to be here at the cosmic crib. And who we making a sandwich with here? Ah! We've seen him before! Yes, we have. We did. The one, the only, the inimitable. Dun dun dun. Adam Savage. Yes! Welcome back! Thank you very much! This is like your third time on StarTalk. It's been too long since I've been in this office. And it's been too long. We enjoyed your last visit, and I feel like we're lifelong friends, even though we've only had a few times together. It feels like culturally, we're... Culturally, that's what it is. Yeah, we like bounce and we vent.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The cultural Venn diagram has quite the area where you two overlap. And that creates the friendship even without It does. individual time together. I see what you're doing and I think, "Oh, that's awesome." That's great. Cool, man. So we've got you on. You actually have a new book. I do! Holy cow! I'll talk about your book. What are you saying? You have a... I'll do the talking about your book. Okay, alright. Okay? Okay. That looks better, doesn't it, Chuck? That is. That's called public relations. When he talks about his book, it's bragging. It's bragging! When you talk about it, it's public relations. There you go. But enough about me. What did you think of my book? So, "Every Tool's a Hammer," great title, and this, you know,

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  my favorite picture in here is, there's a lot of interesting pictures, like you and your workshop and your... My favorite is the stuff that you dumped out of your backpack. Oh. But then neatly organized it. Oh, yeah. Which is cool. I like seeing what's in... And I like John Hodgman's comment. He said, "This is a map..." Of his brain.

• 2:04Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, I thought that was a very good comment.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  If you feel like venturing into that unknown territory, yeah.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, for some people, you don't wanna go there.

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for Adam Savage, yeah, you wanna see what's, what have, what, what drop, what's been driving him his whole life.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  That is so funny. Some people, you don't wanna go there, just, my wife left her, she journals. And it was out on.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She journals?

• 2:22Chuck Nice?

  She journals. And so the, the journal was on the bed.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you did not.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm laying on the bed and watching TV. The journal is sitting right there. She comes in the room, she goes, "Oh my God, I left my journal up." And she goes, "You didn't read it, did you?" And I went, "I don't wanna know what's going on up there. I don't want any parts of what is happening in your head."

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your wife said, "I hope you didn't read my journal." That does not bode well.

• 2:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no, what movie exists in which someone read someone else's journal and it all turned out great?

• 2:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, good point.

• 2:50Chuck Nice?

  That's so funny.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ain't no movie about that.

• 2:52Chuck Nice?

  Right. Now, I used to, my twin boys used to like sit in their bunk beds and talk every night. And my mom was like, "What are they talking about?" I'm like, "I don't know. That's their private moment. I'm not gonna listen in."

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, don't, I don't wanna know. Let them have their moments. But I wanna know what's on in his head, and so does our fanbase.

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  Now, that is so true, cuz I have their questions.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cuz this is a Cosmic Queries edition of StarTalk. And we just solicited our fanbase, questions, knowing they'd land in the lap of Adam Savage, about just making stuff.

• 3:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so Chuck, I haven't seen them. You, Chuck reviewed them just this morning?

• 3:25Chuck Nice?

  I'm actually reviewing them and, um, and.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Adam hasn't seen them, so let's see what you got.

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and these are cool. And as usual, we always start with a Patreon patron because they support us.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cuz we're that low.

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  We, well, no, we're that.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're that high.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  We're that high.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  That we have supporters.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wanna be a member of Patreon so that I could get my questions answered by somebody.

• 3:43Chuck Nice?

  Believe it or not, you can. You can actually donate to Patreon and then ask yourself a question.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how I get on that list?

• 3:49Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I will do. I'll ask myself.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  That would be funny, guys.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I'll do that.

• 3:54Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is, uh, Bike and Bird says, um, "Hey, Adam, we've all heard of examples of items or procedures getting discovered by accident." Microwaves, penicillin, even chocolate chip cookies. Through all of your different experiments, was there an outcome or product that was produced that was applied to another test? Or maybe even applications outside of the show? Um, and this is just Justin from Texas.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Did he invent anything by accident? Did you ever invent anything by accident? It was a long way, it was a long walk around the block.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a whole, off the off-ramp?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You took the clover leaf to get back on?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  I have a comment and a question, but an autobiographical story first. Um, actually.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, there's a word for that in science, it's serendipity.

• 4:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  A great word.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Uh, there was a moment, I can't think of anything we invented by accident, but I do remember we were on. A discovery. We were on Hawaii, doing, on Mythbusters, shooting Duct Tape Island. And this was the conceit, Jamie and I get stranded on a deserted island.

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jamie, your co-host from, uh, from Mythbusters.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  So Jamie Heineman and I get stranded on a deserted island and all we have is a pallet of several hundred rolls of duct tape. What do we do? That's. So we.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, so is MacGyver tuning into this episode?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More, more things to do with duct tape.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Exactly. So we made shelter, we've, we actually made traps and caught chickens. We ended up making a 21-foot-long outrigger canoe with which we were able to get past the breakwater of the North Shore of Oahu. Uh, but there was a moment when Jamie was asked to make a, a, a still for, uh, distilling, um, uh, clean water, sorry, fresh water from, from the salt water. Okay. And so he was digging into the beach to make a hole. And the procedure is you dig into the beach, you make a hole, it's gonna be a kind of a damp hole, cause it's on the beach, and you let sit in some plastic with a rock in the middle. And as water condenses from the salt water collects on the inside of the membrane you've put, you can catch it in a cup and drink fresh water.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  However, Jamie noticed that when he dug in and tasted just the water that was being filtered through the sand, that it was much less brackish and salty. And so, he got really excited about the idea that the sand of the beach itself was filtering the water.

• 6:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  And we explained that this was a whole episode about duct tape, and while this was really interesting, it really didn't fit within our narrative.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  But he kept insisting, and so we ended up shooting this whole sequence with Jamie, which I think we put on the web, because that was the most interesting part of that day for him, was the idea that the sand filtered the salt out. But this was a classic thing of Jamie going, "Uh, this is the thing I'm interested in," and we're saying, "No, that's not what the episode's about." He's like, "I don't care what you're saying."

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make a new episode.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I just want to talk about this thing.

• 6:42Chuck Nice?

  And now I love all my water gritty.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, just a little.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  I need just a little bit of grit in all of my water now.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  I'll drink it out of my boot, thank you.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, cool. Next question.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  That's a great story, great story, great story. Uh, this is John Cole from Facebook, who says, "Between StarTalk and the Tested YouTube channel, I am in heaven." Hello, Adam? How do you get over the maker's equivalent of writer's block?

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good one.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  This is a great question.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  Good one. John Cole, you are thinking, my friend.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so do you ever just walk into your garage and say, "I don't know what I'm gonna put together today"?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 7:22Speaker 02

  But more than that, I also hit moments where I spent a whole day assembling something and realized that I've assembled it chiral-y backwards. And that I have to take the whole...

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We want to explain what chiral-y means.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Well, chiral is left and right. Your hands are chiral.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna let Chuck explain.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry. Chuck, what is chiral?

• 7:38Chuck Nice?

  It's the, it's, it's the mirror image without the mirror.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice!

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Ooh, that was much more concise than that.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was way better than where you were going with that.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was. I was being way too wordy.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you can make something that is the mirror image of itself.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you hold them together and they're mirror images.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And our amino acids are, have one chirality, and they all have the same chirality for all life on Earth. And when we found amino acids in asteroids, we found that they were 50/50

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of both chiralities. So, we knew that it didn't care, and there wasn't one life form, because amino acids aren't alive yet, uh, that overran the other. So, our chirality is the one chirality in the whole world. And there's suspicions that if there was another life form with the other chirality of our molecules, that... You wouldn't be able to metabolize them if you ate them.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the molecules wouldn't fit together, yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  They wouldn't fit together, so it couldn't break down.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Might not even be able to taste it.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Right. Oh, that's cool.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  And they would probably be like a guy, one half of his face would be black and the other half of his face would be white.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  It's really angry and sweet.

• 8:41Chuck Nice?

  And he's right, exactly.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  But so from a standpoint of making, whenever you have two parts that are chiral, it can be a devilishly difficult assembly problem because everything looks very similar, but the order of operations is very precise.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tetris is kind of like that. Two of the pieces are mirror opposite each other.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Right. So regularly in making, you hit a spot where you've...

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw it, 3D Tetris, I was thinking. Sorry.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  So you hit a spot where you've screwed something up and you feel, I feel really dejected about it and I don't feel like moving forward. Or I don't feel like undoing the five hours of work I've just done.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  And I'm angry, I'm pissed off, I feel sad about it.

• 9:21Chuck Nice?

  That's funny, because I feel the same way whenever I put anything together from Ikea.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Chuck the table is upside down. The blisters.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Yes, totally. Ikea is absolutely ripe for that kind of screwing up.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Well, so...

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how does everything fit in a flat box anyway? Isn't there something that should not be able to fit in a flat box?

• 9:46Speaker 02

  The Ikea car.

• 9:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, sorry.

• 9:49Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  There's a line from Mary Carr, who wrote Liar's Club, wrote about what she does with writer's block. And she says, "If I can't think about what to write, I sit at my desk and I copy writers I love in longhand because my fidelity at the desk is to be writing, whether it's my own writing or not."

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow, what an exercise.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful exercise and I take that to heart in the shop. If I can't think of what to make, I organize something in my shop. A drawer, a shelf, a bin. I take something and I adjust it because...

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you do shop time, no matter what?

• 10:22Speaker 02

  I do shop time and I do so much more shop time than I ever did before because I realized it's a deep part of that whole process of prepping the shop and prepping myself for the work.

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I do a little bit something like that. I have a book called The Greatest Wits of All Time and they're phrases out of letters and correspondence from people that have extraordinary wit. And I just read it, I say, "Wow, that was an awesome..." Juxtaposition of words, phrases, or rhythm. And that just sort of rebaptizes me into a mood.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That I then say, okay, I'm ready.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  That feels fertile.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 10:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, very good. So do you ever suffer writer's block?

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I go through this exercise. I have a lot of books written by writers who like writing about writing. Also about whatever else they wrote about.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did that sentence make any sense?

• 11:08Chuck Nice?

  It sounded very meta.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  It's a lot of inception today.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would never want to write that sentence. That's only a speakable sentence. And so, and there's one sentence that I, I think I uttered this in our last recording. A sentence from The Great Gatsby. This is, this is a sentence where I knew I still have not become a great writer. And maybe never will.

• 11:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. Okay, I, I have to hear this now.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths amid the whispers, the champagne, and the stars.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  That's a great.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I can't, I read that and say, that's why I am not a novelist.

• 11:52Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he is.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  You're reminding me of one of my favorite passages from-

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Obviously, this is, uh, the, it was in front of The Great Gatsby's. His party.

• 12:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  You're reminding me of a line from Chandler.

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  That's, that's, that's like a perfect simile.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, he mentioned-

• 12:06Chuck Nice?

  Came and went as moths.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, as moths.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  That's beautiful. It's very elegant.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whispers, the champagne, and the stars.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Incredible. You know, I didn't come here to feel inadequate.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  And yet.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  And yet, and yet, here we are.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, so what were you saying, Adam?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  I was saying, it reminds me of this line from Chandler where his hero Marlo is sitting in a waiting room for too long. And he describes the time passing as the minutes tiptoed by their fingers to their lips.

• 12:35Chuck Nice?

  Lovely.

• 12:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so I have one. It's a quote from my father. Uh, seriously, what the hell are you still doing here?

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You haven't moved out of the basement yet?

• 12:50Chuck Nice?

  That's the talk every father has. All right.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's next for you out there, Chuck?

• 12:54Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Let's move on.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to remind people, we got Adam here because he's got a new book.

• 12:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We would have him anyway even without the book.

• 13:01Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me just make that clear.

• 13:02Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but he was made available to us by Simon and Schuster. Okay?

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For free, right? He was like in New York doing media. And I guess we count as media.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  You do?

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We do, yeah.

• 13:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can handle that. Every Tool's a Hammer: Life is What You Make It. I see what he did there.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's very cool.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, right. So Adam.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  Every Tool's a Hammer actually does sound like something Donald Trump would say, though. I'm just saying.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  You know, the phrase of mine he's grabbed is, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh. Very nice.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that a quote from you?

• 13:38Speaker 02

  That is.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he actually quoted that?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  No, he hasn't quoted that.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's just living it.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  His entire life is that.

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's just living it. Living it, okay.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  I love it. All right, let us, let's take Mitch Morris, who comes to us.

• 13:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're doing well with the words, with the names today.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  That's because they're regular names.

• 13:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Regular, yeah, regular. How racist can you get?

• 13:57Chuck Nice?

  I can get a lot more racist. I'm just letting you know. Since we're asking.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 14:05Chuck Nice?

  But you are right. That is, it's extremely, what do you call it? Presumptive of me. All right, here we go. Mitch Morris from Instagram.

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  Mitch Morris from Instagram wants to know this. What is the most important tool ever invented? That's for the both of you. What an interesting little question. Very simple little question, but very interesting.

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll answer first because I want him to bring closure to the question. So, so when I was younger, I said, "Wow, this crescent wrench is really useful." Right? Because you can adjust it. And then I discovered the...

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  Miter saw?

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. No, no, the, the...

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  Vise grip.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The vise grip.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, "Oh, I've died and gone to heaven."

• 14:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vise grip. And then, and then...

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  You got better than vise grip?

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The most important tool is money to pay somebody else.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That became the most important tool. I ain't fixing this plumbing, I'm gonna hire a plumber.

• 15:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's gonna be my toolkit for this.

• 15:11Chuck Nice?

  Capital. That might, you may have just answered the question.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  I have to say, in the circles I travel in, a crescent wrench is known as a nut corner rounder.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And the vice grips are known as the professional nut corner rounder.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  They, they can mess up, don't get me wrong, I love both of those tools.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Taking your hacks and removing the edges to it.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Until it can no longer be.

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  A nut corner rounder.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  I, I, I have to go to the simplest, I mean, one of the six simple machines, the lever. I feel like the ability to move heavy objects with, with a mechanical advantage and the lever, the lever, the lever exists before the wheel or any rollers to me.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's quoting Archimedes, who said...

• 15:55Speaker 02

  "Give me a lever and a place to stand and I can move the world."

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think he said lever, he just said, "Give me a place to stand."

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Give me a place, oh, I think he was describing the object.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, of course, but I'm saying, he, he, he, that was implicit. He doesn't, "Give me a lever and a place, just give me a place to stand and I can move the world." Beautiful.

• 16:13Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Next question.

• 16:16Chuck Nice?

  All right, good stuff.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, lever, I'll give you a lever, we can do the lever.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 16:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  Here's the next question, from Wum, Wumushap. Wum, Wumushap. Wumushap, yes. Sounds problematic.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you have a brain injury that's preventing words?

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  I think I just had a stroke.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, what, can't pronounce?

• 16:40Chuck Nice?

  Wumushap, "Hi Neil and Adam, you guys are both my heroes. Which would you say would be the more important for the future of invention? Good old fashioned mechanical know-how or advancements in material science?

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 16:55Chuck Nice?

  I.e. inventing a new type of suspension bridge that is stronger and lighter versus discovering a stronger and lighter titanium alloy."

• 17:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, okay, we don't have time to answer that.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh. Where do you go, Wumushap?

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More when we come back of the Makers Edition of Cosmic Queries.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Bringing space and science down to earth. You're listening to StarTalk.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. Adam Savage, the one and only of Mythbusters fame. And he's, he's running on his own, making stuff. He's got a new book out called Every Tools a Hammer. Life is what you make it. You see what he did there Chuck?

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  There it goes.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He, he did that. I got Chuck Nice with me.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're doing cosmic queries.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are. And before we went to break, we had a question from Woo Mu Shop, who says, "Hi Neil and Adam, you guys are both my heroes. Which would you say will be the more important for the future of invention? Good old fashioned mechanical know-how or advancements in material science?"

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Adam, go.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Uh, good old fashioned mechanical know-how. We are always going to be advancing in material science. And there will sometimes be things that we cannot replicate because we lose a technology or we forget a process. But as long as we have a deep foundation in mechanical knowledge, in making things and the, and the roots of the physics of putting stuff together, we can utilize those advances and we can adjust to the changes in the available materials as they come.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Wow, great answer.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I only kind of agree with that.

• 18:38Chuck Nice?

  Uh-oh.

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm agreeing 50%.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I'm, I'm into material science. It is one of the most underappreciated, unheralded branches of science in this world.

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. If you go back 50 years, hardly any, no, I'm not, I'm not bragging about this advance. I'm just citing it as a difference in our lives. You go back 50 years, hardly anything was made of plastic.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And- Almost everything is made of plastic today.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  And it's working out great.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For many things, as long as you don't have to throw it away, okay? It's working out great. The plastic is stronger, it's more reliable than other materials, and you can mold it. And just think of the things that having simple, quote, um, standard mechanical knowledge would, is, so what? Look what this material can do. There, there, there are materials now that have memory of a shape they once had.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can deform it.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  I sleep on it.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you'd like wet it, and then it goes back to the previous shape. That got nothing to do, nothing in your lab, nothing in your garage, is ready for that.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  But, but within the one is better than the other, mechanical knowledge can push humanity forward on its own, whereas material science can't necessarily.

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the good materials, you don't need the mechanical knowledge. It's built into the material itself.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Oh, I totally disagree with that.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Smackdown.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet me in the octagon.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  We actually, so, uh, as an aside, we just, I just finished a new show for the Science Channel called Savage Builds, in which I build absurd things every week. In the first episode, uh, we made a suit of Iron Man armor in 3D-printed titanium.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  And speaking of material science, I discovered that when you 3D-print titanium, you can attenuate its grain structure so that it is far stronger than normal titanium.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Cause you can give it these super tight little crystalline granules.

• 20:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get closer.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, so, but that, wait, wait, wait, except, that makes it denser.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Uh, it didn't in this case.

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It didn't, okay.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  No, it's still 45% the weight of steel and

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting, okay, okay.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  As strong or stronger.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you made it denser, you would lose some of the value of it being light.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, this stuff was amazing. We had potato-chip thin pieces, uh, they were bulletproof.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Bullets slid right off of this stuff.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wait a minute. Is this something that was already discovered?

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, GE is using 3D printed titanium in their jet engines right now.

• 21:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what if he accidentally discovered?

• 21:14Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a property that you've found for yourself.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  I was working with the...

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make armor out of.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Right. There's an amazing engineering school called the Colorado School of Mines.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, everyone knows them.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Those guys are incredible, and I worked directly with them in their additive manufacturing department.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so he just figured out a brilliant new material to make armor for knights.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  600 years late.

• 21:40Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, man.

• 21:43Chuck Nice?

  That's great.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but I can't wait to see what new material is coming down the pipe and what, how that might transform how we live. I think about that all the time.

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  Excellent question, once again, from our listening audience.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the, and just for the point of interest, we transitioned from, ooh, that's cheap, it's made of plastic, to, oh, it's made of plastic, fine, I don't have any problem, it'll last forever.

• 22:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That happened in, we're about the same age, probably, that happened in our lifetime.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  It did, it did.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, okay, just...

• 22:12Speaker 02

  I totally agree.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, I don't want to smack you down too hard, just, the octagon will decide this. Okay, does anyone know what the octagon?

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure they do, and there's a lot of UFC fans listening right now.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what the Venn diagram is.

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  Right now, there's a guy calculating an equation of kick ass right now. So, this is Mike, uh, okay, this is Mike, uh, Pumaking.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pumaking?

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Pumaking.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pump making?

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Pump making, I don't know.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Mike said, these people, I think they're just screwing with me.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think so?

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  I really do, they're like, is it chalk, we're gonna just make up names. All right, here we go. Mr. Savage, what is something that you would think will be possible to build in the future that is now considered science fiction? Ooh, very good. That's a great question.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Broom temperature superconduction?

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow, wow, you went for a big one, didn't you?

• 23:12Speaker 02

  I did, no, I'm really excited about, speaking of material science, I'm really excited about graphene and...

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It came back, it came back to me.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 23:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Material science. All right.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  So now, um.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so, so, so, so that's your, that's your answer?

• 23:25Speaker 02

  That's my answer. Room temperature superconduction is gonna be a, I, I believe it will happen in our lifetimes. And I think that, uh.

• 23:31Chuck Nice?

  And once that happens, will we actually be able to have, you know, spaceships that stop and hover?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  I don't know. Well, at least we'll be, actually, we'll probably, one of the things we'll learn a significant amount about is the, is our brains. Is whether, it's the processing power of our brains. There's a, I feel like as computers become more powerful, they're going to become a real interesting window into consciousness and sentience and what it is to think about the thinker.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I hadn't quite put, heard it put that way, but now that I have, I agree 100% because it's hard for the brain to study itself. But if we make computers that are becoming better, better approximations of our brain, now we have something we can study.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we would asymptotically come to an understanding of our brain simply by making our computers that much more complex. Possibly one day achieving consciousness themselves and becoming our overlords.

• 24:28Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how the story ends.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  I think if we ever made a machine conscious, the first thing it's gonna say to us is, "What the [bleep] did you do?"

• 24:38Chuck Nice?

  That's so true.

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next question.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  All right, cool. Good, good, good question.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries version.

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of StarTalk.

• 24:46Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well, see, now here's somebody, uh, he calls himself, or herself, the Dragon Horde of Dice.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dragon Horde of Dice.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That person's mama probably did not give that person that name.

• 25:00Chuck Nice?

  No, but, uh, I think it's, I think her name is Kate, cause it says, uh, at Kate Nader.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  So, there you go. Hey, for Adam, since I know you do cosplay, what is the most complex mechanical prop costume you've ever tried to build? Like a prop or costume that had no moving parts or could collapse, expand, uh, or something that you may have tried to just recreate?

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you make Transformers proud, ever?

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, no, I have not done a Transformers costume. Um, a few years ago, I've, I've been obsessed with armor, uh, since 1981 when I went and saw Excalibur with my dad.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love Excalibur.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  John Borman's film is an amazing.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I learned, disturbingly.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. I know the fact you're about to tell me. Go ahead.

• 25:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really? No, no, no, maybe not.

• 25:48Chuck Nice?

  I don't know the fact, please.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, I'm having a private conversation with my man here. Okay. So Excalibur, from the early 1980s, John Borman. An early film that had Patrick Stewart in it.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liam Neeson is in it.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Gabriel Byrne.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so is Helen Mirren.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Helen, oh, she's so beautiful in that movie.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the King Arthur story told, so.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Much later, I realized, I think half the reason why I liked the movie was because of the soundtrack.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's very powerful Wagnerian, and that which is not Wagnerian comes from Carmina Barana. Very emotional, energetic music that you're just feeling every scene. Then I thought to myself, maybe the movie's not so good, but the music was amazing and that completely compensated for it.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  I've watched it recently, it's still super campy and still really impressively great.

• 26:42Chuck Nice?

  But did you watch it on mute?

• 26:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With subtitles and mute, try that next time.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  I did not apply a control, Chuck.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what's your answer?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  So I've been obsessed with armor since then, and I actually, when I was a junior in high school in 1984, I went to, I built a suit of armor out of roofing aluminum with my dad and wore it to school on Halloween and passed out of heat exhaustion in third period. This is all up, just up north at Sleepy Hollow High School.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hence your Twitter handle, "Don't Try This."

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At home.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  A few years ago, I called up Terry English, who's the master armorer that built all the armor for Excalibur. He lives in the southern tip of England in Cornwall. And I went to his studio a couple summers ago and spent 10 days embedded with him as his assistant while he and I manufactured me a suit of King Arthur's armor from Excalibur.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were an apprentice?

• 27:35Speaker 02

  I was an apprentice, and he made me my lifetime goal suit of armor of Arthur's armor from Excalibur.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty intense.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  It was so intense, it was amazing. He lives in this incredible sort of overgrown shop in Cornwall, he's...

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he is you in England?

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 27:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. There's only room for one per continent, I think, I don't know.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  That was by far my favorite mechanical prop construction. Okay.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it was not, it was not electronic or anything.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was just mechanical.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Hammering aluminum all day long.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you have chain mail and everything?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's, yup, absolutely. Oh, man.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's pretty wild, man. That, hey, congratulations on that.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you still, and you still have it?

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, I wear it every chance I get.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How'd you get it through TSA?

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Um, I actually, I, when I, I.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever they were known back then.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  No, I made, I actually, uh, took it to New Zealand last year to make a little film with Peter Jackson about it, where a demon tears my arm off. We called it A Farewell to Arms.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, things are getting weird real quickly here.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  When I carried the armor with me, I was thinking, this is, this is priceless to me. I can't really insure this. So I, I checked it as luggage with a GPS transceiver in my luggage, so I could monitor it being loaded onto my plane.

• 28:49Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty wild.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  I felt if the airline was gonna tell me they couldn't find it, I wanted to know that I could find it.

• 28:54Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you something.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plane goes down, they can't find the black box, but he found, he found the plane.

• 28:58Chuck Nice?

  Found the suit of armor. We found the suit of armor.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know where anybody else is.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  I have no idea why all these people are dead, but we do have an awesome suit of armor right now.

• 29:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dang, dude.

• 29:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow, man, that's, that's pretty wild.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're far weirder than I ever extrapolated for you. Yes.

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  Wait, you and Peter Jackson are making home movies?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Occasionally, yeah.

• 29:24Chuck Nice?

  What's going on?

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for those who didn't know, the, um, the Lord of the Rings series was mostly filmed in New Zealand.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  That's correct. By Peter Jackson, and Peter Jackson was inspired to, one of the key inspirations for him in making Lord of the Rings was Excalibur.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm not the only one who likes Excalibur? It's my top five movies.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Important film.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the other four are really weird, not that, but that's in there. That's.

• 29:46Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  I, I can't say it's one of my favorite.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 29:50Chuck Nice?

  I'm, I'm not cool enough.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 29:51Chuck Nice?

  I need help. Here we go, uh, this.

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, one other thing?

• 29:55Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These five movies are like the only five movies I've ever, not only seen a zillion times, but sat through the directors. Um, narration. Narration. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:07Chuck Nice?

  Director's commentary?

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Director's commentary. Because you have to like the movie so much.

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  That you'll suffer through.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't even need to watch this next ver- next iteration of it. And hear somebody just talk through it.

• 30:16Chuck Nice?

  Yep. Nice.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was.

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  Well, you've also seen it that many times.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's part of it. That's, that's how you earn the director's cut at that point.

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  All right, now I gotta know, what are the other four movies?

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, I do too. Really?

• 30:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cuz if that's, if that's part of the top five.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's the top five.

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  And that means there's four other movies that made it to director's cut.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Number one, The Matrix.

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I, that's, I'll give you that.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Number two, All That Jazz.

• 30:38Chuck Nice?

  With Bob Fosse?

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bob Fosse, yeah, well, it's his movie, yeah, yeah.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  That's a good one.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Roy Scheider. That Roy Scheider sort of playing Bob Fosse, okay? Three, The Conversation. Ah, such a good movie. Oh, man.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  Ah, man, now lost.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Francis Ford Coppola.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  Coppola is The Conversation.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Conversation. Oh, my God. Uh, four, it's a toss up between. Oh, wait, Conversation, that's with the man and the woman? Yes.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That movie.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  That movie.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the man and the woman.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right, go ahead, go ahead.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Conversation, uh, and then, I, there's probably a toss up here, but the, um, West Side Story. Amazing.

• 31:15Chuck Nice?

  That's great.

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  West Side Story, and, uh, and then Ex Colber, I think it's fifth out of those five. I, look, I say there's at least nine films in my top five.

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow, you're nine films in my top five.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good. The top five lists actually can go quantum and we can fit lots of. You're getting another dimension on it.

• 31:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. You've got timelines on your, on your.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so those five are so unlike each other.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  And there's, what an eclectic mix you have.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's really weird, but I totally, so I used to dance, okay, so hence the Bob Fosse. Have you done Dancing with the Stars? No, that's, that's, that's so cliche. I know it is, but I suddenly want to see you on the show. When I was dancing, no one was publishing my books. No one was publishing my books. I don't need to dance anymore. Okay, so, so, Chuck. Do you love Strictly? I'm serious. Do you love Strictly Ballroom? I'm dancing for nobody, okay? My people have come a long way.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Copy that. Okay. Okay? All right, so, so, uh, there's that, and I, I wrote a, a column for a magazine under the pen name of Merlin. So I have extra interest in the Merlin Arthurian legends, and I have the Mallory book in vellum, you know, so, there's that. Matrix, of course, is the ma- Matrix one, of course, it's not two or three. Absolutely perfect. Matrix has to be there. There are two other movies? And The Conversation was just so. So well done.

• 32:36Chuck Nice?

  Amazing.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and there are no explosions, there's no chase scenes.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a story well done. And so, so there I am.

• 32:46Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are my five.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  Now, but listen, so there you go, people. Now you know what you're doing. Uh, Netflix and Chill with Neil's List.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a weird list.

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  What a weird list on Netflix and Chill, right?

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And West Side Story is New York. It's, it's the city. It's, I'm half Puerto Rican. Um, my mother's name is Trinita Malia Fidiciano Tyson. Okay, that's her name.

• 33:09Chuck Nice?

  West Side Story is such a masterpiece.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's a masterpiece.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  A masterpiece.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Masterpiece, masterpiece. And while I don't know how to compose music.

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I ever could, I'm imagining that I could compose the music that we hear in West Side Story.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where I'm thinking that's what I would reach for. And...

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  That would be your North Star.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was my, that'd be my North Star. I like, he's beautiful. I love Adam. All right, more when we come back of the Makers Edition of Cosmic Queries.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Unlocking the secrets of your world and everything orbiting around it. This is StarTalk.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back for our third and final segment, and I don't want this, this show to end.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  It's a good show.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maker Cosmic Queries Edition with Adam Savage, who makes stuff. Every tool's a hammer. Life is what you make it. And this is, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a window into your brain.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, there's some organized shelves.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I like the fact that you have photos in it. Thanks.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, thank your publisher for agreeing to, they don't always agree to put pictures in their books.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  No, they did. I threw tons into the manuscript and after we were, after we had the manuscript approved, they said, okay, so you're responsible for all the permissions for those photos.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, publishers are such wimps when it comes to that. Oh, man, don't get me started. Yeah, so, so definitely. So, next question, what was that?

• 34:58Speaker 02

  All right, so this was, uh, Lane from Minnesota who said, "As a builder, I remember failed projects more than the successes. Is it true?"

• 35:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tell me about failures relative to successes.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Well, and we talk about this a lot these days. Failure is a really popular word. And Silicon Valley says, you know, "Build fast and break things." We talk about educating kids, we talk about teaching them how to fail. And I have a particular take on this because I think failure is a fine word.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, a version of that from the 90s or 80s, which, which was shocking when we first heard it was, "If it ain't broke, break it."

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Break it. Yes.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that way, you might invent something better than the thing you had before. And just because it worked doesn't mean that's the best version of what it could be.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you just end up with a lot of broken shit. That's what, if you're not creative.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  There's always broken shit.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't heed that advice if you're not creative. All right, so go ahead.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  But we don't really mean failure. Um, wrong turns on the path to get to a success are not failures, they're simply iterations. And I, I, I'm here.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's not a euphemism or anything like that.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  No, my, my, for me.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Smells like one.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  What I want to preach is that both science and art are iterative processes that include tons of wrong turns, and the wrong turns aren't outliers, they're part of that process. And we go up the path and we're like, okay, this isn't the path. So let's go back to the fork and continue down another path and see if that's the path. And so, yes, I also remember my failures more than my successes because that's where I learned. The failures are the, the failures, the wrong turns I took to get to the right turns are the, are the places that I learned the most about myself and about how to build things and about how to recover from those moments.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what they say about rocket launch failures? That they're not failures, they're just experiments rich in data.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  But this is right in the movies is always the guy who says, "My experiment was a failure." No scientist says that.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, we don't. If he's well-designed, a negative result is actually useful information to you.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Publishable information.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  We, we don't.

• 37:01Chuck Nice?

  You have to say that when somebody else is paying for what you do.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but all of ours, I was just reading an article the other day about how journals, publishing journals, don't highlight no results.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't value it in the publishing.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  They don't value it in the publishing.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, and we should.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  And we should.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a problem.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  That's true. I've never thought of that, but yeah, there is a great deal of value.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It tells you what not to do.

• 37:23Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. It tells the next person, "Look, this is what I did. It didn't work out, and now I don't have to waste time going down that."

• 37:32Speaker 02

  And the scientific inquiry that is equally as important as some brand-new fact.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no. That makes a lot of sense.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, Chuck has a new hero of the recent months who may have been responsible for setting us down the wrong path. Because his, his, his mantra was, "Failure is not an option." This was from Apollo 13, and this is Gene Krantz. And so, "Failure is not an option," and then that became America. "We're not gonna fail." And then we lost track of the value of failure.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  We lost track. The most surprising thing I learned from doing Mythbusters for 13 years was what, how surprisingly creative the scientific discipline is, and how it mirrors the creative discipline. To me, conducting and building experimental methodologies is every bit as creatively satisfying as making a sculpture, painting a painting, or writing a book.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I agree 100%.

• 38:23Chuck Nice?

  But I think it's better when you call it a wrong turn, the way you put it that way. Because if you think about it, just from the, from a standpoint, everybody can identify.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A driver's standpoint.

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  Driver's standpoint. When you make a wrong turn, how many times have you done that and discovered something that you really like?

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, there's a botanical garden over here.

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  You know, that process is the soul of stand-up comedy.

• 38:48Chuck Nice?

  Oh, absolutely, yeah.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Right? Iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate. Every joke, every joke.

• 38:51Chuck Nice?

  Even, listen, it's the same process even when the joke works.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:56Chuck Nice?

  You go back and you try to crack it open and see, "How can I make this even better?"

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it works, break it.

• 39:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no, absolutely, yeah.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  Super cool. Wow, Lane, what a great question. You're a hero, Lane. That's what you are. You are. All right, this is Chris Goes to the Park. Thank you, Chris.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Thanks, Chris. He says, hey, Adam, are there any inventions your team created on Mythbusters that you have kept or that you might still use today? P.S. Loved your show growing up. It inspired me to study engineering. Now I'm an engineer.

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 39:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  That's always amazing to hear. There's nothing that we kept from the public on Mythbusters, except for one thing.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Cary, Grant and Tori were-

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, I didn't understand the question. You mean, is there something you made on Mythbusters that the public never saw?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Or no, or an invention that we- Something we came up with or that we discovered on Mythbusters that we have somehow kept from the public.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not how I read the question.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, he meant, but I like that.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's even better.

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  Is there anything that you invented or came up that you were like, wow, this is so good, I'm actually gonna put it to use in my life?

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's how I, that's how I read it.

• 40:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Wow. Yes, I mean, really, it was the more the process of telling the stories on Mythbusters.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but wait, that's not as interesting a question as the one you thought it was.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  No, I was gonna say. All right.

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's assume it was the question you thought it was.

• 40:17Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, which is-

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Cary, Cary Grant and Tori were testing the explosive- Cary, sorry, my co-hosts on Mythbusters, Cary Byron, Tori Bileche and Grant Imahara. They were testing a story that involved a commonly available, commonly available material that is as close to a description as I'm going to get, and its explosive properties. And what they determined with this use case scenario was so spectacularly terrifyingly explosive that we agreed to destroy the footage of the explanation and never tell how we got to that.

• 40:52Chuck Nice?

  And I thank you for that.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no. Bomb squads the world over know what we figured out on our, on our own.

• 40:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  And are thankful that we've decided not to put that in the episode.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  So, yeah, it's like-

• 41:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but our engineer Ben just found it on YouTube.

• 41:06Chuck Nice?

  Right. Did you know if you took cotton balls and chewing gum, you could actually bring down the World Trade Center? Like, what? Yeah, no, that's crazy. Yeah, so, um-

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the answer is yes, you did make something.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  So you quarantined that information-

• 41:20Speaker 02

  We did.

• 41:20Chuck Nice?

  And just sit to hell with it.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  The world doesn't need it. It will not be better for this bit of knowledge.

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  All right, now, just between us, what was the, what was the, what were the materials?

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just between you and us.

• 41:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, just between us, just what were the materials?

• 41:34Chuck Nice?

  All right, I don't want to know, to be honest, because I can't be trusted. All right, this is Ringamilly, who says, "How do you create new things that haven't before been thought of?" In other words, what is your process for creative discovery?

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 41:53Chuck Nice?

  You know, is there any process that says, "You know what? Boom."

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know if there's, I don't know if it's reasonable to think about something as, "I want to make something that's never been thought of." I don't think we have the choice to sequester an invention, or a build, or something creative, into a category before it's been made. And everything we made is based on everything that we've seen. So, just as, is it Newton that said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants?"

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Just as Newton says that, we all do. It's called culture.

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I see farther than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants who have come before me.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  And that is one of the greatest descriptions of culture that anyone's ever penned. That's exactly what's happening. When I was, you know...

• 42:36Chuck Nice?

  Especially now.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  When I was 17, I saw Alien. It took me five years to get the aesthetic of H.R. Giger out of my system. I had to recapitulate the aesthetics that he was doing, because I found it so powerful, until I kind of understood it. That recapitulation...

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that person is what to the movie?

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, H.R. Giger designed the Alien monster.

• 42:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said it like, "Well, but we all have beer with H.R. Giger."

• 42:56Speaker 02

  No, I'm sorry. H.R. Giger is this crazy German, who designed all of the creatures and alien technology from the original movie Alien, with Ridley Scott's first science fiction film.

• 43:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course, with Sigourney Weaver.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, that's one of my top five films. An amazing film. I mean, it's a Gothic horror film, not a science fiction movie, but...

• 43:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My issue with it was that the alien still had, like, a mouth, a jaw, teeth.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he had a mouth in a mouth. I mean, that's pretty creative.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I'm just thinking, most life forms on earth do not have a mouth and teeth. Like trees and worms and butterflies and this sort of thing. So I, if you're gonna have a complete alien, you should be more creative than even that. Like the Blob, 1958 Steve McQueen movie.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, it got no bones.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 43:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's terrifying. What was it? It was a blob.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  It was a blob.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was completely terrifying, and it would eat your blood, suck your blood. And you know when the blob first landed, you know what color it was? It was transparent. It only turned red after it ate its first victim.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Whoa. Yes! You didn't know that! I did not know that. We didn't know that! Why didn't you tell him? I know that!

• 44:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, and it could come through the vents into the thing. So, that's, to me, that's creativity.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  So I, I don't think that you can say to yourself, "I want to think of something that's never been thought." I think you have to just keep on thinking, "What do I, what do I want that doesn't exist? What do I want to make extant that, that I can't obtain or I can't get?"

• 44:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so your urges are guiding your creativity?

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, there you go.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And that, actually, that's what this book is to me. It's a permission slip to everyone to follow those weird urges. I call them secret thrills.

• 44:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you shouldn't title it "Follow Your Weird Urges"?

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd be a bestseller overnight.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  The publisher rejected that subtitle.

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They rejected that title.

• 44:51Chuck Nice?

  Is it too late to change that title? Because that's a damn good title.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just remove the cover, right, right.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Follow Your Weird Urges.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can draw it on the, on the.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  I know what I'm signing in your book, Neil.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so we have to go into lightning round now.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we have a few minutes left.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need from you soundbite answers.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Great.

• 45:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, are you ready?

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, go.

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Olivia Waits from Instagram. She wants to know, "How long does it take to usually come up with a truly new idea?"

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Ah, that is impossible to quantify.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 45:22Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Canis Slicker says.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I mean, ask, what's the longest and shortest time it took you to come up with a new idea?

• 45:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  It's impossible to quantify the range between one minute and seventeen hours.

• 45:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good.

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  There you go, I'll accept that.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pull that one out of his ass.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, we were looking for two days.

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wrong answer.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, go.

• 45:45Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  Canassalikker. What, oh, that doesn't even sound, I think somebody made, never mind. What is your most unique, out of left field inspiration that has ever happened to you or even surprised you? That is weird. Where did you find inspiration in a place that you never thought you would?

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Oh, wow, I'm gonna need time to think about that one. I don't have a soundbite answer for that one.

• 46:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have till the end of the show, okay, next question.

• 46:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Julie.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, let me reword that question. Maybe it's the same question. Among all your sources of inspiration, what has been the most fertile?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Reading, actually, always, reading about the first experiment of something that was discovered. Reading Fizhau's speed of light experiment is so thrilling.

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good, good.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  Wow, what a great answer. Even better question. Sorry.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fizhau was in Doppler Fizhau. It's a, in late nineteenth century, early.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  He calculated the speed of light with the clockwork and mirrors.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there we go. Next.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  There we go. This is Juliek from NB says, or fromd, says, if you had unlimited resources and time, what would you build?

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I'd build a spaceship and I'd go to the moon and then I'd go to Mars.

• 47:01Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  With unlimited resources of material, yeah, totally, I would start some interplanetary exploration.

• 47:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful, love it.

• 47:06Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 47:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this office, I love that answer.

• 47:09Chuck Nice?

  Alright, last question?

• 47:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  That's it?

• 47:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think we have time.

• 47:12Chuck Nice?

  There we go.

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Final reflections, Chuck, give me your final reflection.

• 47:16Chuck Nice?

  I am going to now pursue my weird urges.

• 47:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weird urges, there you go.

• 47:20Chuck Nice?

  And I am really happy that I have.

• 47:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want it legal, go for it.

• 47:23Chuck Nice?

  I am happy I have permission to do so.

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Adam, you got this book, presumably there's still stuff in you that's not in this book, otherwise buy the book and then we don't have to ever watch you again. Right, Chuck?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I helped some stack.

• 47:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me something that's not in the book that we should carry with us.

• 47:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  That all human beings really want to do is tell each other stories. And it's how, that's both science and art, it's how we understand the universe.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if the story you're telling is how to build something.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 47:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, I like it. Very nice. So what I'd like to think, if I can add to an earlier question about creativity, to have a thought, to see what everyone else has seen and think what no one else has thought, that's a commonly invoked definition of genius. But maybe it's not genius that we're honoring there. Maybe it's hard work, where you have a lot of dangling thoughts within you, because you've read a lot of books, you've seen a lot of movies, you've spoken to a lot of people, you've done a lot of tinkering, and they're sitting there waiting in your head,

• 48:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  and then you walk amid all of these dangling parts. And you say, "Give me two bits of that, one part of that, one part of this", because they're available to you to draw from. And out of that comes a brand-new idea, a brand-new object, a brand-new concept. So I think the people who are cited as the great inventors and geniuses of the world are simply those who have more bits and pieces in their lives waiting to be assembled into something new.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Hmm. I totally agree. Very nice.

• 49:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's beautiful that you agree with me. Because I pull that from the cosmic perspective. Adam, thanks for being on StarTalk. Chuck, as always.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Always a pleasure.

• 49:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're my man, dude.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  A pleasure, gentlemen.

• 49:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to, possibly even watching, this episode of StarTalk featuring Adam Savage, formerly of Mythbusters, and now he's just making stuff, and he's got a Science Channel program that I can't wait to catch. Give me the name of it again?

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Savage Builds.

• 49:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Savage Builds?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 49:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sounds angry.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  May tw- June 12th.

• 49:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 49:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Summer 2019 on the Science Channel. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.