Explosive Science with Kate the Chemist

What are chemical reactions like in space? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice team up with Kate the Chemist to explore how cesium helps us tell time, the elusive quest for the periodic table’s “island of stability,” how AI is revolutionizing chemistry, and more!

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 0:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that show we just recorded had good chemistry.

• 0:06Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I especially like the explosions.

• 0:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or how to make one, coming up on StarTalk.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We're doing cosmic queries today. That means Chuck is in the house. Chuck.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, you got the queries.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  I do, right here.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And where'd they come from?

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Uh, they come from our people at Patreon.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  The supporters who give us money and that is why we like them.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we like them because they're curious.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's, that's right. Yes, that, that's why we like them.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So today it's gonna be all about chemistry.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Nice, we love chemistry.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know a little bit of chemistry, but not enough to do a cosmic queries on it.

• 1:05Chuck Nice?

  And I know enough to listen.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we combed the landscape for a chemist and we went to the top shelf.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Top shelf.

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kate the chemist.

• 1:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes, the McCallum 30.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the 30 year.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  The 30 year old scotch of chemists, baby, top shelf.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Top shelf chemist. Kate the chemist, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I love visiting y'all.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh. And let me get your full last name in here. I don't, does anyone in the world know this? Bieberdorff?

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, married into that.

• 1:41Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, just, just, don't blame me.

• 1:44Chuck Nice?

  That's it, that is so funny. Married into that.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay, so. Is your husband a scientist?

• 1:51Speaker 02

  He is a scientist. We met in grad school.

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. I think we talked about him on a previous thing. Did you meet at University of Texas?

• 2:00Speaker 02

  We did, yeah.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Nice, nice job.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was high.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that was, okay.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you are professor for the public understanding of science.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We need more of those professorships.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  100%.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I know in England they have several of those.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That were funded by, who was it, the, one of the Microsoft guys.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Uh, well, the one in Oxford is the Simonye one.

• 2:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Simone. Charles Simone, yeah, he's, he's, he's a, he's a Microsoft billionaire.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Okay, perfect. I understand he also used to date Martha Stewart.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he did. He dated her when he went into space.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And had her make the food for everybody on the space station at the time.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  From prison?

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The prison stint was short.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was after that. So Kate, so you're also an author.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're a host, seeking a scientist.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you find them after you seek them?

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I do, yes.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every time.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I seek one every time, at least one, sometimes two.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it works every time. Very glad to hear that. So you're at Notre Dame.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Yes, just at this job.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and, oh, it's new?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Yep, September.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, welcome.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not welcome, congratulations.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  I'll take it, yes.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I was there a few years ago, gave a public talk.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yes, they speak very highly about it.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very proud institution.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you teach classes, but they're special classes?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  So I don't teach right now, but in a couple of years I'll be teaching science communication courses. So we're gonna build a science communication minor and hopefully turn it into a major.

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  So good.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  It's so important right now.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will this be in collaboration with the communications department?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  A little bit, so it's a partnership with...

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Journalism department?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Yes, that, so the Arts and Letters Program. So both of our colleges are gonna come together and so we'll take their expertise and the actual communication, our expertise with science and kind of blend it together and I think it's gonna be really beautiful.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So badly. Because journalism is so broken.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And science might be a way to sort of stitch that, force to help stitch it back together.

• 3:56Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, I'm not even sure if journalism is as broken as we think. I, I believe that people have siloed to an extent where they can't accept whatever journalistic uh, point of view is being put forward, because they can't think critically. So they just go, what the hell, man? That's not cool what you just said there, because you know, uh, I don't agree with you. And then that, so that becomes the whole argument.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We need somebody to fix that.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Right. You know. But I think science is a way of actually bridging the gap.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:30Chuck Nice?

  Because when people learn how science works as a way of thinking, it changes their entire life.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you got the journalism department involved, very good. And they, so are you teaching scientists to be better communicators or journalists to be better scientists?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Both. That's clutch, right? We have to do both of these.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  So for the scientists.

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did that word get break, come into being? That is, I thought it was so fetch, but I'm just getting past fetch.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  It's important.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's so clutch. I love it. All right.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  It's necessary. We have to teach the scientists how to communicate, right? And that could be a number of different mediums, like podcasts, books, written, right? Journalism.

• 5:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because the science degrees don't care about that. They don't, we're not trained in talking to the public in any medium.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  We're really not. We're taught to talk to each other, right? And we're taught to write in passive voice, which I don't know if you've ever read passive voice. It's boring. It's super boring. So if you're trying to connect with the non-scientist, passive voice is not the answer.

• 5:40Chuck Nice?

  Right. You know, but both are necessary, that be able to talk to scientists, but then be able to translate to the layperson is what's really important. And for some reason, it's, I don't know, how can I put it?

• 5:55Chuck Nice?

  I don't want to say that it's, that it's counter to the way scientists are as people. Like my son is right now studying to become a molecular biologist.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 6:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When did that happen? You can tell me that.

• 6:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what he decided, you know, and he got a full ride.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you as a father and he wants to be in molecular biology? How'd that happen?

• 6:14Chuck Nice?

  That's why he wants to be in it.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He wants to go.

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  He looked at my life and was like, oh no.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need something to get.

• 6:21Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, comedy is not the way to go. But I told him, I was like, dude, that's great. You know, with your kind of personality, you would make an excellent communicator for that. And he was like. Yeah, I don't want to do that.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  I don't want to talk, I don't, I don't want to talk to people about it. I just want to do it. And I think a lot of scientists feel that way.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they just want to go in the lab.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  I just want to do it. I don't want to talk about it.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, shut up and get back to the lab.

• 6:44Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Right. Well, I mean, as scientists, we have three categories. The first thing we do is we ask a question. The little thing we do is we seek the answer. We do our research. And then the last thing is actually sharing it with the public. But that's where we drop the ball. We, we really don't do it enough. And it takes a skill. My husband is introverted. He's a great chemist. He's a great software engineer, but he would hate to do what I do. And so it takes a certain personality to get out there and put yourself out there. And you also have to have a thick skin. People will come after you for what you say.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so what, what, we are here in my office.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  We are.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the Hayden Planetarium. What brings you to New York?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm here for a spot on the Today Show and.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so we're just like, we just squeezed us in.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  We are a straight up booty call.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  You answered.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if you're on the Today, then you don't need, you're on Today Show, but then what do you, why you, what do you?

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Well, I like talking to you. Was that the question? I think it's different.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kind of question that I.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  It's different, right? So the Today Show, you're talking to a certain audience. It's the American public, right? And they're usually people who aren't necessarily signing up for a science lesson.

• 7:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that was so nice. You just called our audience smart.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  They are smart. They're science enthusiasts, right? Wouldn't you say so?

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. So, no, very important point. Here, we already know our audience and it's a science audience. The Today Show, people tune in not expecting science.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you, you slip that in.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now they can get excited about it.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  That's the goal.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  That's the goal. So do a little fire, a little, do a little dance and maybe teach one thing. If I can teach one thing, I consider it a successful segment.

• 8:25Chuck Nice?

  Which hosts will you be with on the Today Show?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  So Al Roker, Craig Melvin, and Dylan Dreyer.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They always bring, you gotta bring in the weatherman because they, they know science.

• 8:34Chuck Nice?

  And Al is.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Always.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Al's great. He's an actual science enthusiast.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he is.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, as is Dylan. They're both meteorologists. So they have that science background. And it's very fun to do stuff with them because they ask the questions too. They're interested and they have that science background. So they want to push it just a little bit.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Which I love, right? You need, you need the buddy.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I probably, we probably did this the last time you came through, because I want to get to the questions we asked. Yeah. We have a million questions that our audience wants to ask. And they all know you. Yeah, they all know you, so, yeah. So, just a couple of fast ones here. When you were a kid, did you like burn holes in the carpet and, and, and explode the kitchen?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  It's science, mommy!

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what, what kind of, were you like girl nerd where this is, I gotta do this?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yes and no. So I was more of an athlete. I was a soccer player, so that was the true love.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, very nice.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  But I was a very, one who asked a lot of questions. So my parents would count the number of questions I would ask in a car ride, so it'd drive them nuts. My mom was more a helicopter mom, so there was no blowtorch anywhere near me. There's no chance I would have ever been able to set something on fire.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, wow, okay.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  But I was able to do stuff.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I could see this in a sitcom, the over curious kid, just, "Hey mommy, daddy, how about that?" And then the car, and then the next scene, you're just out on the street.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  I'm sure they thought about that. I am positive.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More, more kindly, they drop you at a museum somewhere and then they keep driving on.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Yes, that's perfect.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but so how did, if she's a helicopter mom, what freedoms were, did you still have to express yourself?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Okay, so this is where I really appreciate what she did when I was younger. So she made one bathroom safe. Like there were no chemicals, like, you know, like cleaning chemicals, I should say. But there was food coloring, there was shampoo, bath soap, bubble bath.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stuff that can't kill you.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Stuff that can't kill you. Put it in this, she had this big green plastic bowl and it was like, go to town. I will say the food coloring was removed after the first time.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were you green at the end of that?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Food coloring doesn't come off very easily, yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Well, if you look at my Instagram, I'll show you, I had, my face was just covered in green food coloring very recently. I had something go wrong.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just made that up. You're saying that actually happened?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  It do, oh, it happens all the time. I did this one experiment where I intentionally cover myself in soapy green bubbles. And it comes right off in the shower, just two face washes, you're good.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright. I ain't doing that.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  I am.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you are.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  I'm willing to.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why you are Kate the Kevin.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right. I like it.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, give us, give us some of our cosmic curiosity.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Let's get right to it then, shall we? This is Sean Browning and he says, hello, this is Sean Browning. I'm coming from Hood River, Oregon.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hood River, yeah.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  Why does cesium have such a violent reaction when exposed to oxygen? And what are some of its practical uses that the average person would not know about?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Okay, in the periodic table, the periodic table is kind of shaped like a U. And so cesium is in the bottom left-hand corner. And so the bottom left-hand corner is where your biggest atoms are. And so cesium is really big. And what that means is it has a very, very positively charged core, its nucleus. But its electrons are very far away. So it can barely reach the electrons. And so because it's so big and their charges are so separated, oxygen, which likes to take electrons from a neighbor. It is, exactly, yes.

• 11:49Chuck Nice?

  It loves to steal electrons.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It will steal the electrons.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a book title, The Electrons.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  The Electron Thief.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your next book, okay?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  We'll write together. That'll be fun. Yeah, so it's so, it's so big. And so that's, oxygen can come in, grab the electrons and the electrons gladly jump to oxygen because it's much, much smaller and it can reach its shore.

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  I'll see you later.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  You don't deserve me. I can do better by myself. Oxygen over there been caught me forever. Oxygen, I'm coming, honey.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  I can see it.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, there it is, there it is. Okay, so, so, so now it reaches for oxygen. What is the result of that chemical reaction? Is it exothermic, endothermic, what?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Probably exothermic would be my guess. It really depends on the situation and like where the energy levels are. It will form an ionic salt. And so it either forms cesium oxide or cesium superoxide. So just either two cesiums and one oxygen or two oxygens and one cesium. And it forms these two, two products. And they're, that in itself is quite stable. The oxides usually are.

• 12:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so what does it look, what does this, because he said violent. What does this violent reaction look like?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  So my guess is he's thinking about when you throw the Use group one metals into water. So we've seen this with sodium before, if you've Googled that.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love me some sodium and water.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh. So sodium, you can cut it with a knife?

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a metal, cut it with a knife, toss in water, it basically blows up.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely.

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but it's, but that's reacting with water.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  It is.

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or is it the dissolved oxygen that it's reacting with?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  It's the same process that's happening. It's the electrons being pulled from the group one metal.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it, alright.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then it's, it's an exothermic process, like you said, so that will ignite when you throw it in water.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm, mm hmm.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Okay, the other part of the questions you asked about, like, what are some things that people might not know about cesium?

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  And so the, a cesium 133, I think, is used for an atomic clock. And so what happens is you basically disturb these atoms, they give off a frequency, and you can use that frequency to, to measure time.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how, how are you exciting the atoms?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  It's a disturbance, so usually it's like a push, it's, you wanna get it to vibrate. And so it's just, you just have to move it a little bit. And that frequency is then mapped out to keep track of time, and it's so.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is it so consistent that it's, you can easily use it, you can set a clock by it?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, the duration of the second is defined by how many cycles of the cesium atom.

• 14:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so how many vibrations do you get in a second with cesium?

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like nine decimal places, I'm sorry.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, so it's, that, that's why it's an atomic clock?

• 14:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's why it's very precise.

• 14:18Chuck Nice?

  Right, because if you got nine decimal places in one second, that's pretty damn accurate.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got you, yes.

• 14:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, you, you're good for all time.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but.

• 14:25Chuck Nice?

  No pun intended. What? Chuck, stop it.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's on a roll. He's on a roll. You wanna know how precise this is?

• 14:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For that vibration?

• 14:36Chuck Nice?

  For the vibration in one second.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell us about?

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is nine billion, one hundred and ninety-two million, six hundred and thirty-one thousand, seven hundred and seventy cycles of that vibration.

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  So that vibration is.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the exact definition of a second.

• 14:51Chuck Nice?

  Of a second?

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 14:52Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, if I can add to that?

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Please.

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I may, until that was defined with that precision, the second was a predefined fraction of the year nineteen hundred.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that involved Earth's rotation around thing. The rotation of the Earth was built into the definition of the second. Why wouldn't it be?

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because of sixty seconds.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  We use that as.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour.

• 15:18Chuck Nice?

  Twenty-four hour clock.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, why wouldn't it be?

• 15:20Chuck Nice?

  Right, why wouldn't it be?

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that meant, if Earth were slowing down or speeding up.

• 15:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There'd be no way to know that.

• 15:26Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the. Mechanism that's giving you the second is changing. So you offload it onto your cesium atom. Now we say, yo, Earth.

• 15:36Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? And so since we-

• 15:38Chuck Nice?

  We don't need you, Earth.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We totally don't-

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  We don't need you.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only that, you're acting up. So since nineteen-

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  Plus you're slowing down anyway.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since nineteen seventy-two, we've had to add twenty some five, seven leap seconds.

• 15:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to account for Earth slowing down. It's all because of your cesium atom.

• 15:52Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  My cesium.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  I love it. I love it.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know any other uses, though, is there?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Not real. I mean, I'm sure there's other ones.

• 16:01Chuck Nice?

  I mean, let's be honest. That's enough.

• 16:05Chuck Nice?

  What more could you add to an element? I mean, seriously. Measuring time down to a billionth of a second. Come on.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  That's pretty neat.

• 16:13Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty damn good.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. All right.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Hello, I'm Thinky Baroque Allen, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass Tyson.

• 16:48Chuck Nice?

  This is Will, and Will says, Dr. Bebedorov, Dr. Tyson, and Dear Lord Nice. Thanks, Will, for including a title for me. Which is not real. Uh, Will from Euclid, Ohio, here.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Euclid?

• 17:03Chuck Nice?

  Euclid.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This town called Euclid?

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  There's a Euclid, Ohio. I've never heard of it until just now, but guess what? I'm glad to know that it's there. Yeah. Uh, he says, most gracious, thanks for using my question. You probably had this questionable zillion times, but I've never heard an answer to it. So here it is. We've all heard by now that the Mentos and Diet Coke thing. Okay, cool. One, what's the history and who thought of that? And two, what causes the chemical reaction that everybody puts on YouTube to make the video?

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  The soda geyser. Okay, so that went back to about 1910. It was originally done with those winter green lifesavers.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was about to say, we didn't have Mentos in 1910.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  No, we didn't. So it was originally done with a winter life, winter green lifesavers.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Winter green, yes. I remember that. Oh, apostrophe green. Lifesavers are that old?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  They are. Yeah, there are. And so they go into the soda, like a soda pop, right? And so it had that little hole in the center. And so it would make this really neat geyser and it would come out.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through the hole in the middle of the lifesaver.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Yep. But then in the 1990s, the lifesaver company changed the size of the lifesaver. The science teachers were upset and they said, all right, throw this experiment to the students. Let's figure out how to replicate this now that the lifesaver doesn't fit in there. They did a science.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some committed chemist right here.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  It's awesome though. I can totally see high school teachers just grabbing their students and grabbing all the candy, all the soda and say, all right, figure out.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Experiment.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Experiment. Exactly.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's special about the surface of a Mentos? Cause it does have a hole in it, right? And if I remember correctly, there's, they're, they're, they're solid candies, right?

• 18:38Speaker 02

  It's solid candy, but it has these nucleation sites. So these like little divots and they attract.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the surface.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  On the surface. And so it attracts the carbon dioxide in the soda. The carbon dioxide slams into each other, builds up pressure and it just shoots out the top. And then they found that Diet Coke has the best reaction because it has the highest carbonation.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I thought however, that that's not why they use Diet Coke.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Oh, please tell me then, if it's otherwise.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I didn't think that was why.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  There's part, so one part is that it doesn't have the sugar.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  And so it's not as big of a mess for parents.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a mess. Right. Diet Coke, you just hose that. But sugar, then it, the Coke evaporates and everything is gummed up. I thought that was the main reason.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  It is one of the main reasons, but if you are on a flight, I don't know if you fly commercials still, but if you're on a flight.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you think? Excuse me. I'm on the subway to get here.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Okay, perfect. So I don't know. You fancy. I don't know what you're rubbing like.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ride commercial. Okay.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  The rest of us, when we have a flight attendant go down in a plane, watch them. When somebody orders Diet Coke, just watch how they pour it. It takes way longer for all that carbonation to sink and for them to top it off. So you can actually watch it happen right on a plane ride.

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Compared to a non-diet.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Like a, like a Mountain Dew or a Coke or anything. It just has that most carbonation. Please do. You'll see it. You'll see it.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the lower pressure in a plane, there's, there's less to press down on the CO2 anyway.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Also true.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that there's more bubbling action regardless.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will check that out. Okay.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Please do. Please do.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So that means if I have a. A soda maker machine, a carbonator, whatever those machines are called. If I, because I have, I do own one, but I have, there are three settings. There's low, medium, and high. If I go high and then repeat that three times, that's the liquid you want.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For your experiment.

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  You're also gonna blow apart your kitchen. You just made a bomb.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Thank you for saying that.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  Next. Andy here from Thousand Oaks. I've heard the human nose is an incredible chemical sensor that not only detects very faint traces of a molecule, but also tens of thousands of types of molecules. My question is, do you use this fact in the science of chemistry to aid in your work in any way? Or do you generally avoid smelling experiments due to unknown noxious effects?

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that. Remind me, because chemistry for me was a long time ago. You don't actually stick your nostril on top of the test tube.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Hundred percent accurate.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there is this.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Watting.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a thing. So that can dilute it to a level that you can know whether you should get closer.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yes. So the rule number one is do not eat anything, or smell anything, or drink anything in lab. Rule number two is, okay, we know you're gonna smell it, so let me teach you how to do it safely.

• 21:21Chuck Nice?

  Is that this?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Yep, it's wafting. You're pushing the molecules towards you.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of the molecules.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yes, true. A small portion of them. But I think part of the question is asking, like, do you ever do this? And do you ever use your nose? I did something just recently where I had to do this, where people helped me by bringing two beakers out to my, my performance stage, basically my stage table. And they weren't labeled. One had water, one had vinegar. And I immediately just stuck my nose right in there, because we can tell the difference between it. And then I was able to do the experiment without any doubt or anything. But you use it. You use your nose to protect yourself. It's a way for us to know whether or not chicken is bad or good, or anything like that. So it is a tool that you can use if you're safe about it in the chemistry lab.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there anything that smells good that will also kill you?

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  I'm sure.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or. Has that gene pool been removed from our species long ago?

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  Hilarious.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  I

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a fair question.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  It is a fair question.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I am sure there is something that smells good that will kill us. I can't think of anything off the top of my head right now. Do you have one in mind?

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but I have the opposite, which is, we know that hydrogen sulfide, okay, is especially deadly. At some level, well below the level that we can detect it. So when you smell it, you say, this is nasty, I'm going the opposite direction. It was still far from killing you. But anyone who's, but you know what, hydrogen sulfide is like rotten eggs.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  It's a fart.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fart, fart, okay.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna say rotten eggs, but fine.

• 22:51Chuck Nice?

  Everybody knows it's a fart.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a comedian, you can do a fart joke.

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  Listen, that's the first time I got in trouble in chemistry.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, what?

• 22:59Chuck Nice?

  Right, we made, we made, we had hydrogen sulfide. And we, and I took it and put it in an eyedropper and went around and putting it on people so they would smell like farts.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  You did not.

• 23:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I did.

• 23:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the teacher said, you should be a comedian.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Did you really?

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  I did, yes.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You should, you should be a comedian. That's what they said.

• 23:17Chuck Nice?

  And I wouldn't have gotten in trouble for it if I had just kept it to the doggone students, but I had to get aggressive.

• 23:24Chuck Nice?

  So, anyway.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so there's a, uh, there's a suspicion in our evolutionary past that, uh, there's a, there's an idea that hydrogen sulfide can build up in the bottom of the ocean. If the ocean, uh, oxygen cycle stops, then you have anaerobic, uh, life forms.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And hydrogen sulfide is one of the byproducts of them. And if it builds up to a big enough bubble, it'll come up. And if you're on the shore, when that happened, and you liked the smell of farts, you would go to it and just die.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you sort of didn't care, you died. If you, if you didn't like it, you went to the hills. And so the argument is this happened with some frequency in the history of our species.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That it was built into us.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I hadn't heard that before. That's interesting.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  So all the uncles that said, pull my finger, ended up dead.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Somehow, we still do that.

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We still somehow.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Evolution.

• 24:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's never the aunt that does it, it's just the uncle. So it's the guy gene that carried it forward.

• 24:33Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me some more.

• 24:34Chuck Nice?

  This is John. He says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Kate Lord Nice. John here from Arkansas. I used to teach high school chemistry, but I still struggle. All right, teacher applause. But I still struggle with electron configurations, especially in the transition metals. What is it about that section of periodic table that makes it so doggone convoluted?

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and why they call transition metals? Because the edges, they're pretty clean, we can understand them. You got the gases, the noble gases, and you got the, you know, and you go into the middle and their representation on the table is different.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And you have, and these others that are a series, then they pull those out. What's up with that?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  What's up with that? Is that one of the reasons?

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can you make that cleaner for the rest of us so we can learn it?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  I can try. So one of the reasons why transition metals are called transition metals is because they go through different color changes. And so you can actually see them transition through their oxidation states. And so maybe they're a plus two or a plus three.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can see the color change across the table?

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you could just sit there and watch your reaction go from, I'll just make up some colors, some blue to green to red, and you're watching it go through different oxidation states. And so you can actually monitor it. So inorganic chemists, which is what I do, we usually like color changes. And that's one of the reasons why we're drawn to that field, is because we work with transition metals. In high school, and also what I taught, which is general chemistry, so the first year of college chemistry, we do general trends. And so we say, if something is like this, it'll operate like this. We just try to identify trends. And so the S block and the P block, so the outside areas of the periodic table, they really follow these trends. But the middle, the D block, the transition metals, don't really follow the trends.

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It sounds like prison, are you in D block? What are you getting now?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  And so, and so that's what's hard about teaching it, especially in high school, because there are no like typical trends you can go by.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. No general rules.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  So there are general trends that you can go by. And there are certain ones that always break rules, like your jewelry metals. So copper, silver, and gold will always, they're, I'm gonna nerd out on you, but they're usually D9, but because of the way the electrons fall, they go to D10. And so they can just redistribute their electrons.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I cannot get as excited about that.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Makes them stable.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  It's an explanation of why we use these metals, right? Oh, it does.

• 26:50Chuck Nice?

  I used to be in D9, but now I'm in D10.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  It's the inorganic flaring. We talk about our d-orbitals and where our electrons are. And so I just love that part. And it's just where your electrons sitting, they move around to be stable. If you have, let's say you have five orbitals, there's five d-orbitals. If you have two electrons in each one.

• 27:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Five d-orbitals.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  You all knew it?

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We totally knew that.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  If you have two electrons in each one, that provides stability. But if you have two, two, two, two, and then one, it's less stable. And so what it does is it takes another electron and move it over here to provide stability. And so these specific atoms like copper and silver and gold will do that just naturally. And that's why it can be confusing for high school students, because you don't usually teach these exceptions.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for grownups.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  And for grownups, yeah, for everybody. True. But he's a high school teacher.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, yeah. There it is. Okay. Cool. Because in astrophysics, nine out of 10 atoms in the universe is hydrogen.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's nothing easier than the hydrogen energy levels.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we don't even have to think about orbitals. There's just, there's just a layer, there's just, there's just levels. And the electron moves back and forth. But when you have all of these electron clouds, it gets way more

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Really complicated.

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Realistically described, but complicated. Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  It's, it's really hard, because you have to figure out how the orbitals are actually gonna overlap. Are they gonna be complementary? Will it be bonding, non-binding, antibonding? There's all these different categories.

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are molecules in space, and we have to, but then they're sort of astrochemists at that level.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can I can do most of my astrophysics completely ignoring that. It turns out.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Well, that's kind of interesting.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, not to, not to say that.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  No, you're making me tired. We have to leave right now.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was, that was not meant as a, as, yeah, okay. Chuck, what else you have?

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Mihir Date, I think. Uh, Mihir says this, "Hey, Kate, Neil, Chuck, uh, there are books on complex topics like quantum physics for babies. How effective do you think these books are? Should graduate level science topics be introduced formally at the elementary level in an engaging and understandable way? The cool experiments seen in school provide mon- momentary excitement, but they don't leave a lasting impact. Books, however, might. By high school age, the kids' ship has already sailed. Grab their attention while you can, I say."

• 29:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tell us about your books first.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Okay, I have seven children's books. Five of them are about a little Kate, the chemist. She's 10 years old, run around the neighborhood in these signs.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was this a shell?

• 29:17Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was this a plant?

• 29:18Speaker 02

  No, I didn't.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your mother, her mother. Mom, thanks, Mom.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  It's Teresa.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  So, go ahead.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I have five, five fiction books. I have two nonfiction books and I have one for adults. It's called It's Elemental. So, I just write to try to share science with the general public and try to make it fun.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, are the kids' books doing what you want them to do?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, definitely, because they're, the two nonfiction books are, each have 25 experiments that you can do at home with materials you probably already have in your craft drawer. And so, what I want them to do is for parents to pick up that book and use it over spring break and do science experiments with their kids.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That works.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  That's what I want.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, and it seems to me, yes, I think an experiment can be lasting, not, contrary to the claim of the question. An experiment, yes, it comes and goes.

• 30:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it can trigger curiosity.

• 30:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That whether or not you fully understood the chemical reactions that made it happen, you just don't forget it.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, and so I think educators overvalue the lesson plan relative to the inspiration.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  I think so too. And research actually supports what you're saying too. But it also is that you can have a connection with the scientist. So if you show up one time and do an explosion, okay, fine, maybe you'll spark the interest. But if you keep going back and you form a connection with the students and you form that bond, that's when you can actually make a difference.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  And so showing up really does have value.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  But can I push back on the quantum, what is it, quantum physics for babies, please?

• 30:53Chuck Nice?

  Quantum physics for babies.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's another one.

• 30:55Chuck Nice?

  How effective do you think?

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's astrophysics for babies.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  But what?

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a series of these books.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  But what do they mean by babies? They're not talking about actual babies.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  They're board books that you can flip through. And so they're really small, but I think those are primarily for the parents who can't read another book about the cow goes moo. And so it's intellectually stimulating for the parents. They can be better parents. But at the end of the day, exposing kids to all this vocabulary is just good. So that when they get to the science class, they've been exposed, they're not hearing the word molecule for the first time.

• 31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  They already have a general understanding of what it is. Maybe, maybe.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  Hunter here from Columbus, Georgia. We saw Neil a few weeks ago.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was just there, gave a public talk in Columbus, Georgia.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  I wanted to ask Kate a question about the periodic table. If the island of stability is real, what kind of properties do you think we might be able to expect from atoms in it?

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  So were you talking about the island of stability, Neil? Or they just wanted to point out that they saw you a couple of weeks ago.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is something that I think is really interesting because as a chemist, I'm familiar with the band of stability, but the island of stability is a little bit outside of my reach. So can I do band and then I throw to you for island?

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure, unless they're the same thing and we just call them something different.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  It could be.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your band of stability?

• 32:06Speaker 02

  So the band of stability basically?

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is another boy band name.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the band of stability. Actually, that would be Coldplay.

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:15Chuck Nice?

  Kate got it.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  The band of stability is all about figuring out what ratio of neutrons to protons makes an atom most stable. And so if you have 20 protons or fewer, the ratio is one to one. If you have more than 20 protons, that number alters a little bit. And so for chemistry, specifically atoms, you have 1.5 neutrons to every one proton. That gives you your most stable atom. So that's how I think about it. Where does the island of stability come in? Is that an extension?

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. So, okay. So I can only tell you how I have come to learn it, and we can maybe dovetail with what you described. Above a certain atomic number, the nucleus is so large, and every one of them are unstable. You can ask, well, what makes a stable element? Is it stable forever? Or just for a few years? Or a few minutes? Right? So there might be some practical definition of what we call stable. But for our purposes, all those big atoms do not live for long. And the ones we're discovering, you know, 101, 102, 103, which is the limit of the table when I was in school, and 103 was Lorentium, I think it was, or still is.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Still is.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It turns out that the calculations for the stability of the nucleus, when you go beyond the ones we're currently discovering, into the 120s, 130s, somewhere in there, and I forgot the exact range, somewhere in there is an island of stable, very heavy elements.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 33:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you have to get past the unstable ones. Typically, you make another element by cramming protons and/or neutrons into a pre-existing

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Californium. You slam Californium into a different other one.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly. You're slamming unstable elements into other unstable elements, see if another unstable element shows up. And some of them live for a thousandth of a second.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  So if you slam Californium into Alabamaium, you definitely gonna come up with something unstable. Alabama, I tell you, I can't believe they came over here like they did.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alabamaium.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Oh, you got me with that one.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liberals, I tell you. It'll be the color purple.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so this has been described in physics as an island of stability, which we are all just, our appetite is wedded for it because if you have a new element that is stable, what are you gonna do with it? What, how, what properties does it have? And that all happens in the, on the chemical side, not the physics side.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  So with the island of stability, then are we saying that it's, because I know like organecian or whatever lasts for less than a second, right? So are we saying?

• 35:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Organecian, so that's the 118.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  118, that's the highest one we know about.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The highest numbered one, yeah.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  So I guess what I'm curious about is then would these atoms then stay around for, are we talking seconds? Are we talking years?

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My, again, my understanding is that they're permanently stable. But what it would mean is your, your rules either have a new manifestation in those heavier nuclei, or somehow that rule shows up again.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we're all, I can't wait till we get there.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Right. I'm really intrigued by that because I'm curious if it's just like relative stability, where it's last maybe a second still?

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instead of a thousandth of a second.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you couldn't still have a water in your hand.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  That's what I'm curious about.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, as am I.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As am I.

• 36:17Chuck Nice?

  This is Jessica. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice and Dr. Kate. This is Jess from Toronto and Dubai. Well, la di da, Jessica.

• 36:26Chuck Nice?

  Anyway.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  Let the people show off where they been.

• 36:34Chuck Nice?

  Listen, you got it. I haven't been to Dubai, so I'm gonna give it to you. I'm probably the only person here who hasn't been to Dubai.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  I haven't been to Dubai.

• 36:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been several times.

• 36:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, we knew that. Well, la di da.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  So, in space, where there's no oxygen and gravity is minimal, how do chemical reactions, especially combustion, change at the atomic level? Could studying these reactions in a vacuum reveal new insights into quantum effects like wave function behavior in molecule bonding or energy transfer? And quantum mechanics says everything is probabilistic. Is there a tiny chance my candle would light just to mess with me? Thank you, Neil, and I love you. And by the way, that's the different kind of probabilistic, so go ahead.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we should separate into two areas. What are you doing with no air? But you have two molecules that might perhaps know about each other's existence quantum mechanically, through entanglement, maybe that was a little bit in there. The other one is just in zero G. And zero G combustion is fun. Tell us about that.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Well, what's interesting about in zero G is that all of our reactions behave like gas phase reactions because we don't have gravity, right? And so we are, we get to kind of do stuff that we couldn't do on Earth. We can do it up in space because you can move things around, they expand more. Like a pencil would never float around here on Earth. It would stay at the bottom of a beaker, right? Same thing, whereas if you're trying to do that reaction. Well, I'm just, I'm just trying to give a solid because if I give just a random molecule, people might not know, but you could visualize a pencil in a beaker, right?

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A pencil molecule.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  A pencil molecule, yes. It's staying at the bottom of a beaker. We know where it's gonna sit. It's gonna be at the bottom, it will have interactions.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole time.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, the whole time. But when we go to space, now it moves around. So we have solids that essentially get to behave like a gas. And so the chemistry is just different and you get to look at it. My question is, do we have combustion reactions outside of Earth and outside of the International Space Station? I mean, do we, we have to have oxygen to have combustion.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, so I guess what I was really referring to, which was accurately portrayed in the movie Gravity, okay? There was a small fire that began. And they just let it go and it extinguished itself.

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because normally on Earth where there's one G, the heated gas rises.

• 38:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bringing fresh oxygen in to continue the combustion.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  Create, yes.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here it's just it ate up the oxygen, no more oxygen in town. And the CO2, whatever the byproducts can't feed the flame and it snuffed it out.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can't burn a candle in zero G is the point. Unless you have a gentle breeze.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Right, you have to have something moving more oxygen molecules that way.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into it.

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  That's so cool.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so that means.

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that.

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you didn't know that?

• 39:27Chuck Nice?

  I love that.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which way?

• 39:28Chuck Nice?

  That is so, you cannot be romantic in space.

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so anything that combusts, it assumes that it's just moving through the material to burn the whole thing, right? A piece of paper burns the whole, and it's, and we take it for granted. It's relying on hotter gases being less dense and rising.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so do you ever try to think about those experiments?

• 39:54Speaker 02

  I have not really thought about it because all of my chemistry happens on Earth. And I'm terrified of leaving Earth and so that's usually where I stop.

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chemistry I do is on Earth, okay? No, but if we needed you for space to consult.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  I'd say call someone else.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nope.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  There, it's not happening.

• 40:12Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  I don't do that, that scares me.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wouldn't go to space?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  No, no, I don't know why that's my line, it just scares me, I don't want to.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're flying in a plane, you're like, oh, halfway there.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  You're strapped to a rocket, I don't, I don't know.

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in a plane you still have one G, right, okay, all right.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  What I think about though is how you could do different experiments in space. Like you can do the experiments of a womb because you can kind of replicate that and how the baby moves around with not zero gravity, but they have that vibe, right? They're able to float around, so you can do those type of experiments in space. That's what I think about.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay, and so there's some reactions. What's a reaction that could only happen in zero G?

• 40:51Speaker 02

  I'm curious, well, not only, but there's certain ways you could do it. Cause I could think about taking two different like solutions and have the drops come and collide with each other that you wouldn't be able to do on Earth.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  And create these mini reactions right there as they're floating.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just what have that unfold right in front of you?

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  So solid rockets, could you do it inside like, what's in the solid rockets?

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's solid fuel.

• 41:17Chuck Nice?

  No, no it isn't.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it is.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  It's a combination of.

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, the solid rocket boosters?

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can go in there and like bang on the fuel. It's, it's solid. That's why it's called solid rocket.

• 41:27Chuck Nice?

  That's why they're called solid rockets.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but generally there's another tank that can be.

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm talking about, that.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, that tank.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That has hydrogen and oxygen.

• 41:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liquified, which is way denser than air.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and then you take the hydrogen, oxygen, and so now, take us from there. I got a tank twice as big, holding liquid hydrogen and half that side, holding liquid oxygen. And you gotta keep it really cold, cause they're liquefied.

• 41:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's why, if you ever see the launch, you ever see, you ever see slow mo rocket launches from Florida?

• 41:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see this chunks of ice falling off the.

• 42:02Chuck Nice?

  Off the rocket when they take off.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Florida is a moist environment and the rocket is cold and it just, all the moisture gathers on it. If you do that in a desert, you're not gonna have condensation freezing on it.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:14Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so tell me what's happening when you combine, cause in the subject of space, you have liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen. And I just wave my hands and say, yes, it makes water and there's energy. But take me into that.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  So a traditional combustion reaction, traditional, not what you're talking about, has a source of fuel that has carbon associated with it. You treat it with oxygen, you produce water and carbon dioxide. What's really neat about.

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would give you energy.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it releases energy, it's exothermic.

• 42:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's anything that burns, basically.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Anything that burns.

• 42:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything organic that burns.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. That's why it turns black when it's done, cause it lays bare the carbon.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, okay.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Perfect. But when you remove the carbon, you can have a combustion reaction that's much cleaner. And so that's when you, what you're talking about, so you have hydrogen plus oxygen will give us water.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll still be combustion.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Still be combustion.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but that, that more cleaner kind, so that the exhaust of that rocket is?

• 43:08Speaker 02

  Water.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water.

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  We did it.

• 43:12Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  It's very neat.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you think in quantum physics, two molecules can see each other before they make contact?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  See each other?

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a way that they say, I want to get a little closer to you.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  I mean, I always.

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the music.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  In my mind, all chemistry is driven around the rearranging of atoms, and that's all driven by electrons, either electron repulsion or attraction. So that's how I think about interactions is where are the electrons? Are they attracted to each other?

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would be cool is if two entangled particles made an entangled molecule.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Wouldn't that be weird?

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, that.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  It would be wild.

• 43:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that would be weird. One molecule, one quantum molecule with its bits separated.

• 43:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  That'd be so weird.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be weird, but they have to be identical. So maybe hydrogen, it makes a molecule H2. A lot of oxygen, nitrogen. We breathe O2 and N2. So they're quantum entangled to make one molecule. That's a sci fi story right there.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  It is.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  It could be really weird.

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  Super cool.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  That is very cool.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Alyssa Feld.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you're Kate the Earth chemist, so that's not a future book coming at you.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  No, thank you.

• 44:26Chuck Nice?

  Alyssa Feldhaus says this, hello Alyssa from Rocket City Huntsville. My daughters Amelia and Olivia just love you. My question is, what is the biggest, most impressive kid friendly experiment I can do with a four and an eight year old that will keep them interested in science for years to come? We love a good bang and aren't afraid of getting dirty.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's, that's, that's full carte blanche there.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  That's a loaded one because four year olds getting with a bang, it makes me nervous, but um, I think if you have adults involved, you could do the exploding paint can experiment, which is really fun.

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sounds good.

• 45:08Chuck Nice?

  You know, hey, with a four year old or an adult.

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, the way she said, yeah, everybody knows the exploding paint can.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  I picture it that they could help you set it up and then the adult would actually trigger the reaction. So it's very simple. You just need a paint can, empty, never had paint in it before. Put about an inch of baking soda at the bottom. Take a cup, plastic cup, fill it with vinegar, food coloring if that's your flavor. And then nestle the cup into the baking soda.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into the vinegar.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Into the vinegar, yep, in the liquid. And then you can put the cup of vinegar into the baking soda. So like nestle it in like a sandcastle. Then you're gonna put the lid on the paint can, use a mallet to hammer it shut. You want it completely shut, no place for gas to escape. Now get the kids out of there. They can go far away, put their safety goggles on. Then adults also with safety goggles on.

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always safety goggles.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, shake it up, but keep your head back because what will happen is a neutralization reaction. You'll release carbon dioxide, just like we were talking about earlier with the Mentos and Diet Coke. Yep, exactly. And then the lid flies up. It's really colorful. It's cute.

• 46:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, wait a minute, but you gotta sit it down afterwards, right? You can't hold that thing.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, you should put it down. Yeah, good point.

• 46:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how do you know when it's about to blow up?

• 46:12Speaker 02

  It happens very fast. So what I do is I go shake, shake, shake, and I slam it down on the table. Then I step back and then I move on to my next one. And while I'm shaking my second one, the first one goes off.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Okay, so why doesn't, so I thought paint can lids were stronger than that. You know, I think paint can lids are tight, especially if you mallet it shut, but apparently not.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Not enough.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's no match for CO2.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Exactly, because it's not secured, it's not locked in.

• 46:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not clamped.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  It's not clamped, exactly. So if you have all those CO2 molecules coming in going pop, pop, pop in that lid, it will shoot it straight up in the air. It's very fun.

• 46:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  I love that one.

• 46:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that happens in seconds?

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the only reason why you put it in a small plastic cup is to keep it separate long enough to hit the lid.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 46:55Chuck Nice?

  Because otherwise, it will escape. All the expanding gas will escape before you get a chance to mallet it down.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 47:02Chuck Nice?

  So when you nestle it in like that, you keep everything separate, you mallet it down, now you mix it, bang.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  And you throw it up first, so the liquid's gonna go up and then it all slams down at one time. And so when you shake it, it actually really nicely distributes the vinegar all over. It grabs that baking soda and then you get the cool acid-based neutralization reaction.

• 47:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Very fun. But keep your head back. Keep your head back because you could get hit in the face.

• 47:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, see, I'm gonna let my kid do that.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  How old's your kid?

• 47:28Chuck Nice?

  This is the money maker. I don't care how old the kid is. It don't matter. Can't have a paint can blown up in this. Like, sorry, baby, this is what pays. This is what pays the mortgage. So you shake that can and put it down as quickly as possible.

• 47:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you can't overstate the need for goggles.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For all your, all your experiments.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I usually wear goggles, a lab coat and gloves. It is a little overkill sometimes, but I like to set a good example. It would break my heart if a kid got injured doing something they watched me do.

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got you, got you, all right.

• 48:00Chuck Nice?

  Hello, Dr. Tyson and Dr. Beaver Dorf and Lord Nice. James from Denmark here. What would you say are the most promising developments in applied chemistry today?

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 48:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you claim material scientist in your community?

• 48:20Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  I do, yeah.

• 48:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's chemistry.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  It's chemistry.

• 48:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all chemistry.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  And it's usually a branch of inorganic chemistry as well. So I definitely do.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Baileywick.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Yes, that's my favorite.

• 48:30Chuck Nice?

  Those guys are awesome.

• 48:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's on the horizon there?

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Oh, there's so many different things right now. One of the things I'm really interested in is how we are bonding with AI. And we're kind of trying to use it to, to help us. And so one thing that I just read is that they asked Microsoft AI, you know, um, what could we do to replace lithium in our, our lithium ion batteries?

• 48:48Chuck Nice?

  Good problem.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  It took a week, but it came up with an answer. And so now we are able to use.

• 48:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hamster's in a hamster wheel.

• 48:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, AI, for that brilliance.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Exactly, but so now we have an answer. We can use it and go troubleshoot and see if that will work. And so what I'm really interested right now is how those two worlds are kind of merging together. And how we can use that to do better research, more effective research. And so that's, that's what's happening right now. And I am really excited about that.

• 49:14Chuck Nice?

  That's what AI is best at.

• 49:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so AI guided explorations.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Which I think is fascinating.

• 49:19Chuck Nice?

  Looking at molecules is easy for AI. It's like, you know.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Well, it has a lot of information that it can pull together.

• 49:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It ingests everything.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  And it can think in terms of, I use the term think. It can think in terms of future combinations that we could never even get to. We would not have time to get to it because it can calculate them all at once.

• 49:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aren't there books that have all the chemical potentials of all reactions or?

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Oh, are you talking about the CRC?

• 49:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, CRC.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  I have one, it's a huge book. What is that? Oh, what does that stand for?

• 49:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cambridge Rubber Company.

• 49:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not a consolidated rubber company.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Is that true?

• 49:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are these compilations of all these properties that have been discovered piecemeal and assembled into these volumes. Okay. Any scientist, we have a CRC on our shelves. Whoever that company was, they decided to compile all the information you could ever want in science. Very cool. You know what I did? I found at auction a CRC from my birth year.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 50:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I bought it so that that is a that is a slice in time of what we knew about the chemistry, the physics, the bio. It is all science in there, including math.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 50:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so so here's the point. It's a thousand pages. It would take me a lifetime to read through it, but AI could ingest it. In two. And come up with new chemicals. Two minutes. Couldn't it?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Right. It's the best of both worlds, right?

• 50:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You list, is the word chemical potential? What is the the how the likelihood that two atoms will come together? What do you what's the?

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Well, atoms or electrons, because potential is usually electrons. Yeah, usually potential when we're talking about that.

• 50:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, activation potentials or whatever.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  Sure, activation energies.

• 50:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So energies. So they know it. So the book has it. Right. But you're not going to sit there and read thousands of things and come up with a new molecule. Let it do it. But let it do it.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 51:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  While you out on the beach sipping a pina colada. And then you get a notification on your phone. I found that new. You've been looking for. And then you say, AI, write the paper.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  It's like the best grad student you could have. Yeah.

• 51:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's so funny. All right. It's been said, primarily because it's basically true, that there is no understanding of chemistry without physics. And there's no understanding of biology without chemistry. And so I come to the table as a physicist. So when I look at the world, I see the interaction of matter, motion and energy. The biologist sees the interaction of all life. Yet the chemist is situated between those two.

• 51:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because to go from inorganic molecules to self-replicating life, there's some complex chemistry involved. In fact, biology is the most complex form of chemistry we know. But it's not only that, it's everything around us. Everything is made of atoms and molecules. And we take it so much for granted that somebody at some point in our past thought about that. What those atoms would do when they were brought together to make a solid object, to make a liquid object, to make rocket fuel, to make those ice packs that you shake and put on your injury.

• 52:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of them turns cold, the other turns hot. A chemist was in the middle of that. So I don't think we spent enough time paused in reflection of what role chemistry and the chemists who were behind it all have done for civilization. And that's a cosmic perspective. I think that's all the time we have.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 53:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kate, you gotta come back more often.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I love this.

• 53:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  It's so fun talking to you.

• 53:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And your podcast is?

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Seeking a Scientist.

• 53:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seeking a Scientist. And that's with NPR?

• 53:15Speaker 02

  It's with NPR, yeah. Out of KCR, it's out of Kansas City.

• 53:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. And you interview other scientists?

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you engage them with their expertise and you bring your chemistry patina to it.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Perhaps, yes. I definitely try to bring the science communicator out of the people I interview.

• 53:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because not all of them would necessarily be communicators.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And do kind of like what you and I do, where we feed off each other and kind of fact-check a little bit.

• 53:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Fact-checking is fun.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Have the same kind of conversation. And so it's just, it's really nice to feature scientists that might not normally get featured. And I love that.

• 53:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. Kate Biberdorf. Well, thanks for stepping through. And congratulations on your new gig at University of Notre Dame. Yeah, the Fighting Irish. Fighting Irish. Yeah, there it is. All right, we'll look to, and try to come back some more often.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  I will. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's always fun talking to you guys.

• 54:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. All right. Chuck, always gonna have you, man. Always a pleasure. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, the chemist edition. Until next time, as always, keep looking up.