Katy Perry’s Cosmic Curiosity

Extraterrestrials, prisms, music, scientific curiosity, the pursuit of knowledge, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson and pop music superstar Katy Perry discuss their shared love of the universe. Featuring comic co-host Sasheer Zamata and astrophysicist Charles Liu. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/katy-perrys-cosmic-curiosity/ Photo Credit: Jon Betz.

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.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Tonight we're featuring my interview with pop superstar Katy Perry. I was delighted to discover that she has deep curiosity. From the idea that we all might just be ants living in an ant farm, to her total crush on Isaac Newton. So, let's do this.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So my co-host tonight, my comedic co-host, is the one and only Sashir Zameida.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome. You all might know her as a former cast member on SNL. Now Sashir, just so you know, we don't bring on just any comedian to be my co-host. You guys have a little bit of street Greek geek cred.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Oh, street geek cred.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Street geek cred.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and I understand that you are named after an alien crystal from one of the original episodes of Star Trek.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  This is true, yeah.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, my parents are Trekkies.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  And it was, the episode was called "By Any Other Name", which is very apt.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Also joining us is my friend and colleague, Charles Liu. Charles. So he's a fellow astrophysicist, but that's not why we have him on this show. Really? Yeah.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are a fountain of knowledge on all things pop culture, as well as astrophysical. Tonight we're featuring my interview with pop star Katy Perry. She has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. She is the number one followed person on Twitter with 100 million followers, okay? She has three triple platinum albums, and her latest release is an album called Witness in 2017. I recently was invited to drop by her pad, her digs, in Los Angeles, just to hang out and chat about the universe for StarTalk. Let's check it out.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh!

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is Katie!

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Neil, hello!

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh!

• 2:27Speaker 02

  How are you?

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thanks for inviting me!

• 2:30Speaker 02

  This is-

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To your space! Oh my gosh!

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Hey, don't bark at Neil!

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they have names?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  This is Nugget.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hi Nugget, hello!

• 2:38Speaker 02

  She's barking at you just because she wants attention, just like her mother.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I used to walk dogs, when I was a kid, and I used that money to buy my first telescope.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Really?

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Hey Nugget, no barking, be a good girl. Alright, let's go outside, I am so-

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love what you've done with the place.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Excited to talk to you.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, have a seat.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My gosh!

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Um, it's called StarTalk.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, yes.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, and how long have you been doing the show?

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for many years, we first started with a grant from the National Science Foundation. And we said, "How about the people who don't know they like science?"

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or better yet, the people who are pretty sure that they don't like science.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Why don't people like science?

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't know, they might fear it, maybe they didn't do well in school.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  I think they're scared of it, maybe.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Scared of the unknown.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what we do for-

• 3:21Speaker 02

  I'm scared of the unknown, sometimes.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're in a dork-safe space with me, well this is what we're gonna do.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Amazing!

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally, totally geek out. So, of course I did some homework on you, and so, so you were homeschooled, right? I mean, you were by teachers?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  I went to Christian school, but we moved around a lot, because my parents started churches all around the country.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  And so, we would live in one space for only like a year and a half or so.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  And then we would move, so I would be taken out of different schools that were kind of pop-up schools, or like-

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there were no science teachers or math teachers that had any influence on you?

• 3:53Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Positive or negative?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  No, not in particular, I didn't, I wasn't ever good at math, I was always promised no math, there will be no math on this show!

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe by the end, you'll be good at it.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I know, and then, is math related to science?

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Math is the language of the universe.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Numbers.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you wanna go to China and speak to Chinese people, you learn Mandarin, or-

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, go to Spain, you learn Spanish.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wanna go to the universe, you learn math. It's that straightforward.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  I know that people have done this before on your show, but I just wanna go and do it once.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that's why math is so fundamental.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's kind of mysterious because we invented math out of our head, yet it applies across the universe and across time.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's completely amazing.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This thing that came out of our head even works.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To describe.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Did we invent it?

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we kind of invented it.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  As a language?

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, as a language to communicate with great precision what's going on in the natural world.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  In the natural world?

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because regular language isn't precise enough.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why regular language is good for emotions and other things that are kind of fuzzy and abstract and, you know. But when it comes time to actually measure something, you need the math.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Measure twice, cut once.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles.

• 5:11Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've heard people try to pick a fight, was math invented or discovered? So where are you in that camp?

• 5:18Charles Liu?

  It was definitely invented.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I have to agree with you.

• 5:20Charles Liu?

  Counting systems developed all around the world since prehistory. You can clearly show from petroglyphs and things like that, how the progression of mathematics and arithmetic came about even before we had language to describe it. But over time.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're saying math predates language.

• 5:37Charles Liu?

  In many ways, you can see some evidence. There are some historians that suggest this. Yeah, but the ancient Greeks are credited often with creating that level of math where you're going beyond the practical, the counting for arithmetic or geometry to build pyramids or something, and really do math as its own thing. Right? So in the same way that, say, we use language, like English, there are scientists, linguists, that study language in its own, right? The study of mathematics as its own thing is a relatively new phenomenon in human history.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So math is also, of course, is the foundation of what we think of as music.

• 6:13Charles Liu?

  Absolutely. So even if you're not formally trained in math, say if you're a great musician, you may actually know a lot of math intuitively, even though you may not write an equation down.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Simply because of the music that you have covered.

• 6:24Charles Liu?

  That's right, because you have intuitively understand it.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So with Katy Perry, she might, even though she declared math ignorance, she may have a little more sensitivity to math than she openly knows.

• 6:36Charles Liu?

  I think so.

• 6:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because my analogy to that is an outfielder in baseball. Right? So you're playing the outfield and the ball gets hit. And it's not in front of me, it's not behind me, it's off to the side somewhere. So I have to run to my side and farther away. And then I will be where the ball lands, when the ball lands there. That's a physics equation. It's a, it's a complete physics equation, but I don't, I'm not consciously doing that in my head, but some part of my body knows this. That's right. The human, the human brain is probably the greatest physics and math computer ever created on earth. Well, Katie, she has a physics reference in one of her album titles. I knew this, so I had to ask her about it, so let's check it out.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your previous album, I love the title.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Prism.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Prism.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were you thinking Prism? I mean Prism is a physics thing. It's a piece of glass that, that it's triangular and it takes white light and it breaks it into its component colors. Were you thinking that or you had another application of the word Prism?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Well, I had someone call me a prism and it, it seemed like a compliment.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would, I would take that as a compliment.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  It was a compliment.

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means you take ordinary light and break it into all of its beautiful colors. That was geeky brilliant to say that.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  And, and they called me a prism and it stuck with me because I do think that like, that's what I do sometimes is through my songs, I take in information, I digest it and then I make songs out of it and then I go and it turns into all these colors and that's why we're sitting in a rainbow right now.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, this is a beautiful space here. Yes, yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  It's a bit of a prism.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love what you've done with the place.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, so, so.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  But I didn't know that it was so science-based.

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, it's completely science-based and so white, Isaac Newton.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Secretly, I've loved science my whole life and I didn't even know it.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what happens is the different colors travel through the glass at different speeds. And they break apart from one another and they emerge on the other side in this beautiful rainbow. And you can remember the colors because it's Roy G. Biv.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Roy G. Biv? Yes, I remember that.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a beautiful thing. Isaac Newton discovered it.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Love him.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eh, not me, I love me some Isaac Newton. There's no.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  I have a crush on him and Socrates.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right? Oh, oh, wait a minute. Oh, so that accounts for? Your one phrase bio.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know nothing.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Socrates.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of Plato via Socrates.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  I didn't even know, I really didn't know that. I appreciate philosophy and science so much and spirituality of course. And the things that I don't understand, I appreciate.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  And the more I thirst for knowledge, because I'm so thirsty for, if I'm thirsty for one thing, it's knowledge, right?

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not enough people are.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  And education, and so I love educating myself and I'm such a spud and I'm so curious and that's what's got me here. But the more that I learn, the more I realize, I know nothing.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so what happens is as the area of your knowledge grows.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So too does the perimeter of your ignorance. Because that's the boundary between what is known within the circle and what is unknown outside of it. So, so every new thing you learn, you stand in a new place and see things you never even knew you didn't know.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  I know, that's the thing is like, what I thought I knew four months ago, I've changed my mind and it's not because I'm a woman. Okay? No, I know but like-

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means because you're curious.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  It's because I'm curious, Dardar.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, to be curious, this is an important thing, it's everything.

• 10:09Charles Liu?

  It's the fundamental of everything.

• 10:13Charles Liu?

  Katie is like the kind of student that I would love to have in my astronomy and physics classes. Curious, interested, it doesn't matter how formally capable she is of doing an equation or writing down a problem set or anything. I just want her in my class so that she can learn and I can learn from her too.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's another important element to that because she, she knows when she doesn't know something.

• 10:35Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's even more important.

• 10:36Charles Liu?

  Oh, there's a humility and authenticity to her curiosity, which I think is just wonderful.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's a fundamental part of science.

• 10:44Charles Liu?

  It is the most important.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't do science without it.

• 10:46Charles Liu?

  The most important thing.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what you do.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  That brings us to...

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you got something?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  I came to your show to bring you something.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got something?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  I have a game show.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you wanna play?

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's do it.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  It's called What Don't We Know?

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, alright, alright.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I'm gonna list three questions of things we may not know, and then you have to figure out what is the question we don't know.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 11:13Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so, okay.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Alright, so the questions are: How powerful is gravity? Why does gravity happen? What is influenced by gravity? Which one do we not know?

• 11:23Charles Liu?

  Uh...

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 11:25Charles Liu?

  We do not know why does gravity happen.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know why it happens.

• 11:28Charles Liu?

  Because we know that matter is influenced by gravity, and we know that gravity's power is way, way weaker.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we can measure it, but we don't know why.

• 11:37Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just is.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we're cool with that.

• 11:39Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can land stuff on Mars knowing how gravity behaves, even if we don't know what it is.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Let's see if you're right. You're right!

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good, okay.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Why does gravity happen?

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, very good.

• 11:54Charles Liu?

  Now, there are people working on that.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 11:56Charles Liu?

  Quantum gravity ideas, the grand unification, the separation of gravity.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are top, top people working on it, top people.

• 12:03Charles Liu?

  People way beyond my pay grade.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Wow. Cool. Alright, here's another one. How does time affect entropy?

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Is time constant? Why does time flow in one direction?

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The third one, we don't know why it flows in one direction.

• 12:17Charles Liu?

  I must agree. Although there are particles that travel backward in time, right? We call that antimatter.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. Well, no.

• 12:24Charles Liu?

  Okay. Let's, let's...

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Battle!

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nerdfight, nerdfight! No, we, uh, we don't know why we can move forward and back, up and down, left and right. Three spatial coordinates. We can move in any direction. The time coordinate, in which we are embedded as a prisoner of the present. We...

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have no access to what happens behind us or in front of us. We have no wa... We have no understanding of why time has an arrow.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  You're right!

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Why does time flow in one direction?

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  We don't?

• 13:04Charles Liu?

  We don't know.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we'd be the first to tell you. We have no idea.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's a fun to... It's fun to be ignorant.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the way you did that.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  No, it's gonna be, it's gonna be dumb. Ready?

• 13:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  One Direction's time ended a long time ago.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh!

• 13:21Charles Liu?

  Ooh!

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I thought it burnt, because they broke up.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Okay, next question.

• 13:29Charles Liu?

  Time was not on their side.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Which one do we not know? Why did Brangelina end? Will Game of Thrones, the show, overtake the book? And how is SpongeBob lingerie a thing?

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta go with SpongeBob.

• 13:47Charles Liu?

  SpongeBob.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lingerie.

• 13:48Charles Liu?

  SpongeBob.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Let's see.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  How's it a thing?

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it, is it really a thing?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Um, I actually don't know.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, he wears underwear, right?

• 14:06Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Well, yes, he does wear underwear, but like, I think for people, like,

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  People are wearing SpongeBob lingerie.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Probably not from Victoria's Secret, I'm guessing.

• 14:13Charles Liu?

  Oh, no.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:15Charles Liu?

  How did, how did you find out?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  He does live in a pineapple under the sea.

• 14:25Charles Liu?

  Are you ready?

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Katy Perry's curiosity might even take her to space. She officially has a seat reserved on the suborbital commercial flight. Check it out.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you buy a ticket on the Virgin Galactic flight?

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Okay, so, I bought one and I...

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, do you want to go?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Well, hold on, I bought it for my ex-husband.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  And then I took the ticket back.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Um...

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm glad.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  In the separation.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Because if not, I got people who could have done that for you.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Right? No, it's okay.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I got space people.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  I still, I still, um, I still have the ticket and I'm very curious, but the, but the point being is that...

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is brave of you and forward of you.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, but listen, I'm not gonna go, I'm not number one.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, me neither.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I'll, I'll be number, I'll be number 562.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, that's great. I'm gonna congratulate you.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  I'm a little bit anxious about it.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh, you should, why not?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Because it's the unknown!

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  And like, you know, gravity and stuff.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Just the simplicity of gravity.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to watch out because when you're, when you're in zero G.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can feel a little nausea.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you throw up in zero G, the vomit just floats around and gets in your hair.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  And splashes.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  But it holds together, right?

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can, yeah. It's actually, uh, it's called surface tension. If you get enough vomit in one area, it'll blob into one spherical ball. Undulating ball. That's good that you knew that.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Well, I just, I kind of assumed.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's good physics.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Charles, did I miss any physics in that zero G vomit?

• 16:04Charles Liu?

  Oh, no, it's good, but it's actually worse than that. The surface tension, if you're able to eject the vomit out of your body, they will form nice little spheres in the air. But if you only get it part of the way up, the surface tension will cause the vomit to stick to your face, go up, because there's no gravity stopping it. It's gonna go up your face, into your nose, over your eyes, make it hard for you to breathe, so it's a really gross thing.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Charles, have you booked a ticket on Virgin Galactic?

• 16:31Charles Liu?

  I have not. It's a little bit...

• 16:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm pretty sure you're not paid enough.

• 16:34Charles Liu?

  That is 100% true.

• 16:37Charles Liu?

  But beyond that, I think I want to...

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ticket's, it's a quarter million dollars a seat.

• 16:40Charles Liu?

  Okay, then I'm definitely not paid.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  And is this trip just going to space or are you landing somewhere?

• 16:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no. It's a, the first round is just gonna be above sort of the atmosphere, and you do a sort of fall down back, and you're weightless for a period of time. You're not orbiting the Earth, not in the first round.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Oh, it's just up and down?

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, up and down. Ultimately, they'll orbit the Earth, and you'll be weightless for, like, hours.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  You could do that at Six Flags.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Throw up and down.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For way less.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you throw up, it's not an issue.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. It'll go down, not all in your face.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next, pop star Katy Perry will tell us about her mild obsession with aliens when StarTalk returns.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. And we're featuring my interview with global pop superstar Katy Perry. And I asked Katy about her hit song called ET, as in extraterrestrial. Check it out. So tell me about aliens. You had a song about ET. Was it metaphor? Was it literal?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Well, it's metaphor, but that's, the thing is like I have an ant farm in there.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you know we are not an ant farm equivalent of a species

• 18:03Speaker 02

  That's why I put it there.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That found humans entertaining and said, "Let's make a place for them where they think they are free."

• 18:12Speaker 02

  That's why I put it there.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they put them on Earth.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Where they think they are free. That's why I have a song called "Chained to the Rhythm." You know, it's like, "You think you're free, but we're all chained to the rhythm, to the rhythm." You know, "Drink this one's on me, but we're all chained to the rhythm." And so when I look at ants, and I just think I'm an ant. I just think I'm a speck of sand.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We kinda are, but yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  We are, but I think also like sometimes we're that speck of sand that like accidentally gets in your mouth and is like, "I can feel that."

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's this big, but it's completely there.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  It's there. I don't like it at all. Or I do like it, or who knows? But that's what, that's what the ant farm in there represents is just that like, you know, sometimes we are chained to this idea and constructs and things that we think we should be or things that the world tells us to be. And like, how do we think for ourselves? Or can we even think for ourselves?

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if one morning you woke up and the ants catapulted themselves out of the ant farm, they thought for themselves? Would you celebrate that or would you freak out? The ants achieved consciousness. They realized they were in a matrix and that their creators

• 19:18Speaker 02

  I'm gonna cry again.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who constructed this prison that they think is a universe unto itself. Could that be us?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  I'm just gonna press Ctrl+Alt+Delete on this whole situation.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you guys have an ant farm? I didn't. Sushir?

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I have an ant farm. I carry it with me everywhere.

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, there it is. They're really

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  moving and grooving.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh!

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's Barry, there's Joe.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, don't run!

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tito, Marlin.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then they're making a little pass for themselves and just, just living and loving life.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I, I thought only kids had ant farms, but apparently. So Charles, why do you think, like, this is a thing?

• 20:10Charles Liu?

  Well, I know that some psychologists think that when you're developing as a child, you like to see how other things behave so that you can model your own behavior after them.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:22Charles Liu?

  But as we grow older, of course, we don't behave like ants, so I suspect it's more the lines of curiosity and trying to see what will happen. It's almost like watching a TV show you don't know the answer to, or watching a sporting event where you don't know who's going to win.

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 20:35Charles Liu?

  And just seeing what develops. And that itself is a fascinating thing that allows us to sort of explore behavior.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you think of my hypothesis, or the plausibility argument that I gave?

• 20:44Charles Liu?

  Well.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That we could be an ant farm of an intelligent alien species, and they establish Earth for their own entertainment to watch us, Earth.

• 20:53Charles Liu?

  Well, there are plenty of science fiction stories that suggest some similar things like this. Also...

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was wondering, how do you, are you, are you with that or not?

• 21:02Charles Liu?

  Well, the rationalist philosopher Rene Descartes suggested that we would not be able to tell the difference, whether or not we were in somebody's ant farm, or whether...

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rene Descartes of Cartesian coordinates.

• 21:12Charles Liu?

  That's the one. I think therefore I am.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That one too.

• 21:15Charles Liu?

  That guy.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that guy.

• 21:17Charles Liu?

  So, when we're thinking about whether or not we are in some sort of other creation, the only thing that matters to us when we're in it is, are the rules consistent? Right? If I drop something 10,000 times, will it always fall in the way I predicted? Or will on the 10,001st time, suddenly it flies off into space? That inconsistency is the thing that will tip us off to suggest that there's something non-natural going on.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Like the glitch in the matrix.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, like that glitch with the black cat.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Comes twice.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I asked Katy Perry what she would do if aliens ever visited us here on Earth. Maybe they are observing us, but maybe one day they just want to come down and chill. I just had to find out what she thought about. Check it out. So would you, if an alien came, would you want to sing to it or talk to it?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Um, only if it would want to talk and sing to me. Not sing to me, but just like, I think it would be more like, I would just listen. I would just, I would just try and...

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are the first person ever to say that.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Why?

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's beautiful.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Just listen.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In an encounter to an alien, you would listen. Oh my gosh.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody says that. They want to do all the talking. And I'm, I, I, I agree with you. If they got here on a spaceship, they're gonna have more to say than we do, for sure.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Oh, hello. We can only go to like, what? Thirty-five thousand feet without costumes?

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  I'mma listen.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's, we're, time to listen.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  It's time to sit and listen, and they might be coming anyways because it's like, you ain't been listening.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  You've been messing up.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what would you do if aliens visited?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  I think I would listen too. That's a good point.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. She's got a point there.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to know what they have going on in their...

• 23:08Charles Liu?

  I, on the other hand, would explain to them everything about humanity.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  That's, that's a thing about humans, I think, that we want to explain everything away and just put our points, like, at the forefront.

• 23:21Charles Liu?

  Yeah, regardless of what anybody else says or thinks.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And that would be like, human-splaining.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, human-splaining. Mmm, okay.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And then, when we try to colonize other areas that don't belong to us, it's human-spreading.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Human-spreading, oh. Big thing lately on the New York City subways.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Yes, a lot of that happening.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And every time I'm sitting there with my legs all like that, I said, nope, people looking at me and they, you know.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  You got clothes that make room.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if men wore skirts, they'd be a little more conscious of spreading their...

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I don't even, are you sure?

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  They'd still let it hang out.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I don't think there's any concern about that.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Charles, if they came across the galaxy and they landed, what do you think the first thing they'd say to us?

• 24:06Charles Liu?

  Oh, in a more serious vein, the first thing they would say to us is either, "Give us your women and children in precious metals," "or, 'We're here and we're not gonna hurt you.'" One of the first two things that they're gonna try to communicate. But, I don't think they're gonna be-

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but wait, wait, wait. But, we've learned from all the history of science fiction films, that the first thing they'll say is, "Take us to your leader."

• 24:30Charles Liu?

  Yeah, you know...

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're about to think that one through.

• 24:35Charles Liu?

  I don't know if I wanna take 'em to my leader.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Actually, please take them.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, of course, we've been trying to, not so much communicate with aliens, but listen for signals, radio signals, that they might have been sending. We haven't heard anything yet.

• 24:56Charles Liu?

  Not yet.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what's your, what's your, what's your call on that?

• 24:59Charles Liu?

  Well, there's one-

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

• 25:03Charles Liu?

  There are, there's one school of thought that simply says that life is so rare in the universe, that they're so far away technologically, the chances of our contacting each other are essentially zero, just by random chance. The, that's sort of expressed by something called the Fermi paradox. Enrico Fermi, who said something, said, he was asked-

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physicist, mid-century.

• 25:23Charles Liu?

  Yeah, who actually helped to create the atomic bomb. Nobel Prize winner. And he was once asked, "What do you think about the possibility of extraterrestrial life?" And he answered, "Well, where are they? Why haven't we seen them yet? Surely, with our technology and telescopes, we would've seen evidence of some sort of life out there." So, the other hypothesis is that they're hiding. They don't want us to find them. Either they are running the ant farm, or they're just not even in the sphere of our understanding, that they don't even wanna bother with us.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the alternate idea might be just as terrifying, that maybe we are alone-

• 25:59Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -in the universe.

• 26:00Charles Liu?

  I would rather not be.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, nor I, nor I. Well, I wanted to find out-

• 26:05Speaker 01

  I would like to be alone.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I need space.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have more of my interview with pop star Katy Perry when StarTalk returns.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're discovering the deep curiosity within pop superstar Katy Perry. Katy had an unusual question for me about the science of musical notes. Check it out.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Aren't there notes that can make you do things? Well, like they can break glass?

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if a high enough frequency of note, that's right.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  And also poop your pants.

• 26:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  That's what they call the brown note. It's real.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't heard that one.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  You hadn't?

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know if it's real. I want you to be the one to tell me if it's real.

• 26:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If such a note exists, I bet it's a low-frequency note.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That...

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Makes you just drop your bowels.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That just gets through you and jiggles your inner body.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Your gut.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, speaking of your gut, speaking of your gut.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Your second brain?

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This cosmic perspective that I think about all the time. It's what the world looks like from above, looking down.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The cosmic perspective doesn't only come from the universe, it can also come from biology. So, deep inside your gut, one centimeter of your lower colon lives and works more bacteria than there are humans who have ever been born. And we want to think that we're in charge? Just... You know what you are to a bacterium? You're just a vessel of dark anaerobic fecal matter to a bacterium.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. Neil just called me a vessel of anaerobic... I'm basically poop.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, have you ever heard of this brown note?

• 28:07Charles Liu?

  Yes, I have. It's also known as the disco dump.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it real? Like I said, I didn't know, but I would imagine it has to be low-frequency. So you wouldn't even hear it, you would just feel it?

• 28:19Charles Liu?

  Yes, it was hypothesized to exist, and some people played with it and thought, you know, maybe you can make your bowels jiggle and things like that. Maybe like nine or 10 times per second kind of sound, very, very low, beyond...

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So nine hertz?

• 28:32Charles Liu?

  Yeah, something like that. But that was completely debunked.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, OK.

• 28:36Charles Liu?

  Yeah, Mythbusters, actually, so.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  So it's all a bunch of crap?

• 28:41Charles Liu?

  It's a load of it alright. Yes, no, but the, the things that cause us to have bowel movements are so complicated. Just a single note won't do it. There's a lot going on.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need a symphony of notes.

• 28:54Charles Liu?

  Pretty much, yeah.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, uh, do you, do you agree with me? We agree on so many things, it's almost pointless for me to ask, but just to verify for my own satisfaction. Uh, I think a cosmic perspective doesn't have to only come from the universe.

• 29:10Charles Liu?

  Absolutely.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just a sense of what is our relationship to things outside of ourselves.

• 29:15Charles Liu?

  Right. Uh, the realization that we are both as wonderful and as simple as every star in the sky, or every flower in the field, or every bacterium in your gut. Right? Whether we're important or not important, it's kind of like what Katy was talking about, that grain of sand. You can notice it on your tongue, but I don't think of it as so much a grain of sand as a grain of sugar. Or a grain of salt, where we can have flavor or sweetness. That just comes from that realization that despite our simplicity and our smallness, in our humility, we can still achieve a lot of joy, a lot of enlightenment, and a lot of cool life.

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  That's beautiful.

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful?

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Katy Perry had another quirky cosmic query for me. Let's check it out.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Why are there 7 billion people? And why do each one of us have our own fingerprint?

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even twins have different fingerprints.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Why?

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who are otherwise genetically identical.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Why?

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you rather we were all the same?

• 30:24Speaker 02

  No, I'm, I'm just asking why.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is that more odd to you than the fact that we all have different personalities? We have different talent.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  But personalities can be based on

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On what you learn.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Environment, nurture, and not just nature.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  So, I thought about it the other day, and it like kind of made me spin. It's just like, we all have different fingerprints. Okay, I get it. Grand design.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, it's an intriguing fact, but here's something that may relate.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most people who could be born will never be born, will never even exist. So the fact that-

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Like sperm.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, one gets in-

• 31:05Speaker 02

  I mean, it's science.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rest don't.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  So where do they go?

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're part of the number of human beings that will never, ever be born. So the few of us-

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Well, is that because there's not enough souls? There's already so many people in the world, though.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be something if you ran out of souls. What would a soulless person look like?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Do you believe you have a soul?

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what a soul is. I know there's what- here's something that freaks me out every day. Every morning I wake up and I say, "How is it that every morning I wake up as me and not as someone else?"

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have that same feeling sometimes. It's like, it's- this is weird being me. What is it like being you?

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's what I'm saying. It's like, why am I me every day?

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Why?

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How does that happen?

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Again?

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have these electrochemicals in our head, and somehow that's me. And I'm me every day, as far as I know.

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As far as- now, I wonder if I woke up as a different person each day, would I know it?

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I don't- I can't know that, too. I'm gonna have to unsubscribe right there. That's- that's where the spiral starts. Because I don't even know. I don't even know.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If tomorrow I woke up as you-

• 32:15Speaker 02

  I just wanna pour this water all over my head.

• 32:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you woke up as me-

• 32:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How would we know?

• 32:22Speaker 02

  I'm not doing it.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I wake up as you, I will know all your friends.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  I'm not doing it.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will-

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Should we just, like, chest bump?

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So-

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, you're blowing my mind.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next, we tackle more of pop star Katy Perry's pure cosmic curiosity when StarTalk returns.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with pop superstar Katy Perry. And she had an intriguing question for me about the very nature of the universe. Check it out.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Are we living in a simulation? Tell me right now, please.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Tell us on the record.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hate to break it to you. Hate to.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to know?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, what does that mean?

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'll tell you, all right? You've played video games before.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yes, that's what it means.

• 33:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you, any game come to mind?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Super Mario Brothers.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Super Mario Brothers, okay. Mario runs around, jumps.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he pushes buttons.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he'll, and he'll jump off a cliff, but then scurry and come back to the, to the, all right? So he doesn't fall?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were in that game and you were a scientist, you would start asking yourself, well, what are the laws of physics in my world? And I decode all the laws that are operating there.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  You mean you get all the cheat codes?

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that makes you better at it. So there you are.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you warp tunnels that way.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. So there you are, and that's your world. Why is that any different from this world? Where I'm a scientist trying to figure out how this world works? And so I cannot guarantee for you that we are not in a simulated universe. I just can't.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Call, call, call, call, call.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't guarantee that.

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So both y'all, if you found out tomorrow that we're living in a simulation, how would that change your life?

• 34:38Speaker 01

  I guess it wouldn't.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, for me, it'd be no different.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  We would just be still in the simulation?

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you'd still be in the simulation. Charles?

• 34:46Charles Liu?

  I'd have to think about it the same way that Keanu Reeves or Neo thought about it in The Matrix, right? Do you want to take this pill or that pill? And the decision will affect how you live your life, and it's totally okay one way or the other.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  I mean, it kind of feels like we are in a simulation. Like, when we're sleeping, it's like you're putting the game on pause, or like turning the game off or something. You have rich parents, like cheat codes.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  And everyone thinks that men are running the whole game. But women really built the thing.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is secret.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a foundational knowledge. Well, that brings us to the part of the show called Cosmic Queries.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tonight we took questions about cosmic queries that we may have always wondered, but have never asked. And I got Charles Lu here to help me out. So, Sashir, do you have questions for us?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I got questions for you.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We haven't seen these before, called from our fanbase on the internet.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Question one is from Amadou Bago from Sao Paulo, Brazil. If there are a huge amount of star constellations when we look at the night sky, why do we see a lot of black regions?

• 36:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 36:05Charles Liu?

  Well, do you want to get into the old burst paradox thing?

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, just go straight up here.

• 36:10Charles Liu?

  There are just a whole lot of stars, but the universe is even bigger than you can imagine. And so, even if you look in every direction, there's still a lot of empty space.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If a bumblebee were the size of a star, if there were four bumblebees scattered into the United States, that would be about the right average distance between stars in our galaxy. So, the galaxy is a whole lot of nothing.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Really?

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I thought there was more out there.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no. I hate to bring the news to you.

• 36:41Charles Liu?

  There is more, it's just really far away.

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Matter and particles and stuff you care about, there's hardly any of it in the universe. Where you have planets and stuff, this is an extraordinary concentration of matter. And our brains are extraordinary expressions of biochemistry.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 37:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next one.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Question two. Paul Cooksley from New Zealand. I know this is probably an easy question for you, but why hasn't the gravity of the gas giants pulled all of the matter into a smaller solid planet?

• 37:16Charles Liu?

  Good question.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this would be Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the gas giants in the solar system. And they got strong gravity, so why didn't just pull us all into a ball, Charles?

• 37:26Charles Liu?

  As it turns out, there is a safe distance from objects where you can go beyond which you will not be sucked in or pulled together into a single ball.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As they say, there's no such thing as gravity, Earth just sucks.

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's geek humor, by the way.

• 37:43Charles Liu?

  Yeah, so just as we have not fallen into the sun because of our orbit around it, it gives us enough distance to keep it away from the gravitational potential of the sun itself. The same is true with all the gas giant planets.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And black holes as well. That's why we're all not just falling into a black hole. Yeah, yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Because they're far away.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but far enough away, we have speeds that prevent that. You get close enough, you're hosed. But beyond certain critical distances, we good.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Thank goodness.

• 38:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We good. Let's go to lightning round. Ooh. Soundbite answers, okay, let's go. Charles, can you give a soundbite answer?

• 38:14Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As can I, let's do this.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Anna Bacon from Aurora, Nebraska asks, "My childhood question sounds so simple, but how did Uranus get sideways?"

• 38:25Charles Liu?

  It got hit by something, we don't know what.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I would have called it Uranus.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Excuse you.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Uranus until like you're eight years old, and then after that...

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Is it really pronounced Uranus?

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, Uranus. It's Greek from Uranus, who was a god, Uranus. But Uranus, that's no.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  You didn't even answer the question, you just...

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I know, I know.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  The whole time.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I agree with Charles, something hit it after it formed, and we don't know what. Something early in the solar system, likely.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Early in the formation of the solar system.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  So something hit Uranus.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, okay. And you watch out for the asteroids around Uranus. Yeah, yeah, okay. It's an old joke, it's a geek joke.

• 39:08Charles Liu?

  And the Klingons.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Klingons, okay. Okay. All right. Up next, I discuss science and beliefs with pop star Katy Perry when StarTalk returns.

• 39:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We've been featuring my interview with super pop star Katy Perry. And it turns out, she's a real supporter of science. Check it out.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  You know, there was a science march and things like that.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tweeted about the science march.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  I retweeted it.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, but still, that meant it mattered to you. The tweet was, "Science predates..."

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Ideology.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ideology, yes. So, thank you for that.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The struggle continues.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  But, you know, belief systems are amazing and things that you should believe... Like, believing in something is important. And I believe in God. I believe in higher consciousness. But with science, you know, sometimes people dismiss it.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's how it goes. The people who dismiss God, okay?

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't speak for all of them. Many of them are angered because some people who believe in God

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  will use their scripture as a science textbook. They're gonna say, "It says it here. The universe was created in six days. Now, put it in the science classroom." It says here, "The universe is 5,000, 6,000 years old. Put it in the science classroom." Then, there's a problem. Because actual data on the actual universe don't agree with that. So, that's where you have the conflict. Most religious people perfectly embrace science.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's most, all right? There's a small minority that are pretty well organized and loud. And so, they kind of overrepresent it in the news. But, no. And even Galileo. Can I tell you a quote from Galileo?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Please.

• 41:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love me some Galileo.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  I want to know about Galileo.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Galileo, he said, "The Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was a religious man. But he had his telescope and he saw that he was getting different answers. So, he decided not to use the Bible as a science textbook. He used it for his own spiritual fulfillment.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I also now have a crush on Galileo.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, do you have a science crush on, son?

• 41:39Charles Liu?

  Well, Katie may now love Galileo. I actually named one of my sons Galileo.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 41:47Charles Liu?

  But never mind that. Actually, my favorite, probably my favorite science crush has got to be Madame Marie Curie.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 41:56Charles Liu?

  Marie Curie's...

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two-time winner of the Nobel Prize. In science, yes.

• 42:00Charles Liu?

  And Marie Curie's younger daughter Eve wrote a beautiful biography of her. And the story is so sweet and so touching. I just feel like this is a woman that was not only just a great scientist, but a great human being, and I just love her from afar for it.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. You got a celebrity science crush?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  George Washington Carver, is that right?

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, nice, good one. Good one.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Made a lot of good products.

• 42:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, good one.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  That I use and consume.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To this day.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  To this day, yeah.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, nice. So I have one, I think. I think Hypatia.

• 42:38Charles Liu?

  Ah, yes.

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hypatia. Way back, she made a lot of progress in our understanding of orbits and geometry, but at a time when women were not really supposed to be acting that way. And so it was a challenge getting that out and having her full intellect embraced and realized by the community at the time. But to have the courage to come out and be that and do that in spite of the resistance and the pressures against it. So it's the will to speak the truth. It is the fact that you have the truth to speak in the first place and to advance our understanding of the physical universe.

• 43:16Charles Liu?

  An excellent choice.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Well, as I was wrapping up my conversation with Katie, she shared some of her own sort of personal cosmic perspective with me. Check it out.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Look, I believe in something much bigger than me. I wrote a song on this record called "Bigger Than Me", and even if it's just a feeling, it's a constant reminder that it's just not me that's here. I don't know if it's the God that is like old and has a long beard and sits on the throne, but I think it's...

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A force of some kind.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  It's a force, yeah. It's like, even if you do believe in the Big Bang or whatever the Big Bang was, what was before the Big Bang?

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know. We've got top people working on it.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Oh, do we?

• 43:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Okay, great.

• 43:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a frontier. It's like frontier that moves.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Exactly. But actually, I'm sure whatever that is, if it's God or consciousness, it's just like, kind of like LOLing at all of us, going like, "What is it?" And he's like, "Just live your life." Like, stop trying to figure out who I am. Try and figure out who you are.

• 44:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is weird that we spend so much time trying to figure out the universe. That's an interesting fact.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Well, we're curious.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you have any parting thoughts?

• 44:27Speaker 01

  I agree with Katy that we do spend a lot of time trying to think of, you know, "Why does this work?" "And how does this affect this and that and that?" Like, when we're talking about the bacteria that lives in our bowels...

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta bring that up again.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  That comes out of Uranus.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  They're... I don't know if they know what we're going through, you know, like...

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Like, their life is just being there. And we're kind of living like that on Earth. So, yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's interesting to think about how we're a smaller part of a really big thing.

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles?

• 45:07Charles Liu?

  Katy Perry is down to earth and yet thinks amongst the stars. That kind of energy, regardless of your formal training, whether you're a scientist or not, you are a scientist.

• 45:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, Charles.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  You have a crush on her.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A point we've made incessantly in this episode is the value of curiosity. When I think of K through 12 education, even college, how do we define being educated? They test you on how much you know.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think at any time do they test your depths of curiosity.

• 45:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, for me, coming out of school, if you are not curious, your education has ended. But if you remain curious, you will continue to learn for the rest of your life. You know, when I think of curiosity, I think of something that we've had since childhood. But often, that gets lost. It gets lost while you're in school. There's some point where the majesty of the natural world and learning about it somehow becomes a chore. School, for whatever mysterious reasons, beat that out of you.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They leave us thinking that to be educated is to know stuff rather than to be curious about what you do not know.

• 46:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that concerns me. Because you will spend many more years not in school after you've graduated than you ever would have spent in school. Is school the end of education? We know these people. They come out from the front door on the last day of school, and they toss their notes into the air, and they say, "No more school." What is that? If that's how your students feel on the last day of school, the school system

• 47:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  has not done justice to that generation.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I think, what happens in the last week? You get exams. They test you.

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last week of your senior year of college, last week of your senior year of high school, you are tested.

• 47:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we think of that as the beginning of the end of your education. But if you are curious, as we know we all were as children, if you retain that curiosity through that last week of school, then that last week of school is not the beginning of the end of your education. It is the end of the beginning of a life of learning. And that is a cosmic perspective.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been watching StarTalk. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I want to thank Sajid Zamata.

• 48:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles Liu.

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Katy Perry. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.