Cosmic Queries – Science Storytelling with LeVar Burton

What science concepts have we not seen in fiction? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice sit down with actor and national treasure LeVar Burton to discuss future science, storytelling, and to answer fan questions.

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. This is StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As is usual, I have as my co-host Chuck Nice.

• 0:24Chuck Nice?

  Chuck. Hey Neil.

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always good to have you Chuck.

• 0:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, come on, man. It's always, it's better for me to be here than it is for you to have me. Better for me, I'm saying.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's complicated.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that is, that's, yeah. How about this? How about this? Thanks Neil.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. There you go. I can follow that. All right. So, we, we, we have on our show today, a friend of StarTalk. He's been on StarTalk before. And anyone who's been on StarTalk before, I call them a friend because they decide to come back. So, that's evidence that they're a friend. We have the one and only LeVar Burton. LeVar, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Thank you so much Neil. It, it, it has been more than a minute and I, I was, I was wondering if it was something that I said the last time I was here that, that, that prevented this invitation from having come sooner.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  I, I think it's, I think it was, it'll be a cold day in hell before you guys see me again. It might have had something to do with that, LeVar. By the way, Neil, I just want to say before we go any further, you're saying his name wrong. It is National Treasure LeVar Burton, okay?

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I have to think about that. He's definitely National Treasure, but that takes too long.

• 1:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll come up with something better by the end of the show.

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  All right, fair enough.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  NTLB works for me, I'm just saying.

• 1:51Chuck Nice?

  NTLB. The notorious NTLB.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the last time we were together, LeVar, you fulfilled a sort of a dream of mine. Because I remember dreaming, I wish someone would read to me.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Goodnight Moon.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Goodnight Moon.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, the way we filmed it, like you showed up, had that wavy sort of dream.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, video, and then you showed up, and you read it to me, and that, that is, so many people found that so endearing, including me, that I just want to thank you for agreeing to that, and, uh, it's just part of your thing.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  It was, it was a pleasure, it was, it was an opportunity that could not be passed upon.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  And, and, and you're right, I mean, it, it did go a little viral, didn't it?

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, a little viral, I think it had room for more virality, but I'll take what it got, I'll take what it got. But of course, I posed that question to you, and you fulfilled it, because you, you have made a modern career of supporting reading. But let me get back to that in a minute, and just, just for people, just to fully introduce you, we all, the old timers, all saw you on Roots, okay? So as Kunta Kinte, and by the way, I think, Chuck, are you old enough to remember? Roots had every single black actor in the universe.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  In every way, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's what made it so.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm pretty sure.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, it was just one of those vehicles that was difficult to get white actors to play.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We could have put him in blackface, but no.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  But let me tell you, let me just say, they tried.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know Hollywood.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know Hollywood, they tried.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. I, I, you know what, I, I will say this, though, about, about Roots casting, um, because there, there were, I mean, so many luminaries. My very first day as, as, as an actor on Roots, Sisley Tyson played my mother.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Uh, Dr. Maya Angelou played my grandmother, that's, that's day one on, on set.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, there's no way to go after that, I mean, gosh, yeah, where you going after that?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  But as, as regards the, the, you know, the white characters, I thought that David Wilper, the producer of Roots, did a brilliant job of hiring all of America's, think about this, all of America's TV dads played villains in Roots.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  To lower the barrier of entry for white America to this story. Lauren Green, right?

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Chuck Connors, Chuck Connors.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are heroes.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Vic Morrow.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  White American dad heroes in...

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Papa Brady, Robert Reed, Lloyd Bridges.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this was on purpose?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  This was purposeful casting. This was intentional that Ed Asner and all of these other luminaries.

• 4:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All these lovable, leading men.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  The lovable, leading men from television who played villains in Roots.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's, that's really brilliant move.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  It is.

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and, and, and, and I think it's still big of those actors, because not all actors want to play a villain, right? They think it might mark them or mess up their career. So more power to everybody who was involved in that. So thanks for that bit of trivia for that.

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  However, just a point of trivia, all those actors stayed out of Detroit for quite some time after Roots.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  This is true. This is true. None of them went to certain metropolitan areas until the, until the mid 80s.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so after that, we found you in the, in the resurrection of the Star Trek series and Star Trek: Next Generation, as of course, Geordi. Yeah! My favorite part of you, it had nothing to do with your acting or anything, or that you were black or anything, is that you could see all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. That was the baddest ass. That was physics gangster to me.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Wasn't it just? It really was. I mean, seeing all of the electromagnetic spectrum is, is something that...

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Not many people understood.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Not many people understood. Uh, it was lost.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what the hell is electromagnetic spectrum, right? What is going on there?

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Um, but.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I thought it was scripted well because when you were given the chance to describe what you saw.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was a little bit of explanatory note in every one of those.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bits of commentary. So I thought that the scripting did a good job bringing the viewer along into you. And you saw all the stuff that nobody else could too, which was so cool. Right, and I have thought about that, though. Uh, maybe if you see too much electromagnetic spectrum, it would be too visually noisy.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For, for example, right now, if you had such vision, you would see all the microwaves darting back and forth. Uh, going into your cellphone. You would see radio waves for with carrying television. You would see so much.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and, and maybe if you see too much, you end up seeing nothing.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? I, I, I actually had to figure out what it was Jordy saw, at least to satisfy my actor's process. Right?

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  So I imagined, I imagined Jordy's vision through the visor. Um, a lot like being a lot like hearing, our hearing. You can be in a room and you can, you know, you, you can be aware of the, the, you know, the low hum of, of, of the refrigerator and you, you can hear that conversation. You can sort of defocus and, and focus on one or the other. We hear a lot of things simultaneously, but it is our brain and awareness that filters out that which we do not need to focus on in the moment. And so I imagined Jordy's vision a lot like that, that even though he had access to the entire EM spectrum,

• 7:55Speaker 02

  he could be absolutely selective in terms of what band of information he was seeing.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's brilliant and that's, and that's how, that's how it would go down for sure.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Uh, that was my, that was my thought. That was my feeling.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, very, very good work there. And so, of course, the Star Trek, um, fan base is, is huge and ever growing and loyal. And, uh, so that surely is a part of your life, just managing that side of your fame. But there's a whole other community of people to whom. Who are endeared to you for your commitment to reading. And it's not just reading, because it's reading, but reading and storytelling. So tell me something about storytelling. Other than the obvious, like, oh, we all like storytelling, but tell me more from, because you're in the middle of it. In fact, you're redefining it as we go into this next generation, when nobody is reading.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so what tactics and methods and tools are you invoking? And what's the importance of it?

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Well, there are a couple of ways to approach the answer to that question. One, in terms of tactics, I have whole hogged embraced technology as a conduit for literacy.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Because I think that the evolution of storytelling, and storytelling is as essential to humanity as is breathing oxygen, in my view, right? Storytelling contains all of our hopes, our aspirations, all that we hold dear. All of that, which has meaning to us, is contained in the stories that we tell. Yes?

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to stop you because you want to roll.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact that Chuck is silent is further evidence.

• 9:54Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, he was doing, he was so convincing and compelling. I was just like, I'm going to start reading.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, that's not the biggest compliment. The biggest compliment is, unstated there is Chuck is saying to himself, damn, I don't even have a joke for that.

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Chuck's highest compliment when somebody's talking. Okay, come on, please, continue, continue.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  So, so, given that everything that we.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Embrace as essential to who we are and this journey that we're on as human beings. Given the importance of it, we need to recognize that it is only a series of technologies that have enabled us to carry this torch for storytelling throughout the ages, throughout the history of humanity. We began with cave paintings, right? And then gathering around the fire and telling stories about the day's hunt, you know, when language became a part of how we related to one another as human beings. We then moved into the... So that gave birth to the oral tradition, oral storytelling, which gave way to the

• 11:09Speaker 02

  written word. That technology of, you know, stylus and papyrus was a sea change for how we told stories and communicated. LeVar, people don't often think about that as technology, but it is. It is technology. It's a whole invention. It's a whole invention. Gave rise to an entire industry. Exactly right. Called scribes.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  It had impact, right? And then that written technology gave way to printing. The printing press, right, was another whole advancement in technology that impacted storytelling and which then led us into the, you know, the moving picture and sound, right, of film and television, which I sort of categorize as the cool fire. We gathered around the cool fire now to share stories, right? And now we're in the digital age, and that's another advancement. So I've embraced... And when we brought Reading Rainbow back, we brought it back for the digital generation,

• 12:19Speaker 02

  right? We used television to advance reading, to cement the relationship between a child who is learning how to read and literature. I like to say that, you know, if you can take a kid who can read and make them a reader for life... Then you've done something.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Right? And that was the whole point of reading Rainbow. So the answer to your question is I have embraced technology, Neil, in the service of promoting literature and literacy because that's simply what my ancestors.

• 12:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the great tradition of that.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  It's the great tradition.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ages, right?

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 12:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 12:56Chuck Nice?

  By the way, I was gonna say just before we, because I know we're running short for this segment, but speaking of reading Rainbow, you read to Neil Goodnight Moon.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:07Chuck Nice?

  Would you please read to me the bedtime story, Go the F to Sleep?

• 13:12Speaker 02

  It would be my pleasure. Chuck.

• 13:15Chuck Nice?

  That would be awesome.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was in the kids' section and I stumbled on that book.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, wow, where was that book when I had kids real young?

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Right? Who, who, who lost their job because, because Go the F to Sleep was in the children's section? Of the bookstore? Who lost their job?

• 13:38Chuck Nice?

  That is so funny.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Because somebody should have lost their job.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a real book, people, just so you know. We got one minute left, just in this segment. LeVar, does sci-fi have any special role in storytelling relative to stories that just take place in everyday life?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I, I, I think that, that science fiction or speculative fiction, as I, as I prefer to call it, is, is absolutely relevant because it's political. Inventing the future is a radical act of political statement.

• 14:17Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can have a force, you can introduce a force of change on people's moods, attitudes and thoughts.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  By inventing the future.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in the flow of time from the present and the future, you can put basically messaging in there that influence how people actually make the future happen. And a very important, I hadn't thought about it that way. Because most fiction is just, oh, you know, they met in school or whatever, it's just something happening in the here and the now. And, oh, that was a nice story and let me go on to the next story. And nobody's thinking. Trajectories into how they might behave politically, culturally, economically, socially, genderly, racially in the future?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  These are all clues and cues for how we might adopt and adapt going forward.

• 15:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's, that's pretty damn awesome.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let me end the segment by saying, it's like probably the seventh time I've, I've recited this in this show, but it's got extra relevance in this moment. So LeVar, I spent some time briefly with Ray Bradbury, okay? Famous sci-fi author. And he recounted a story. A woman came up to him one time and said, you know, Mr. Bradbury, why are all your stories so apocalyptic? You know, did you really think that's going to be our future? And he said, no, no, no, no. I write that so you know to avoid it. And I said, oh, that's good.

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  That is good.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good. Well, guys, we'll take a quick break when we come back to StarTalk more with our interview with he who is a national treasure, LeVar Burton. We're working on that. And of course Chuck Nice. We'll be right back.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to earth. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, this is kind of a hybrid edition where we had a nice, long chat with LeVar Burton in the first segment, but now this is our Cosmic Queries segment.

• 16:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so many fans out there, LeVar, you know, they're out there. But before we go to the first question, as, as, as the reader in chief in the, in, in the country and in the world, is there a book you're reading right now?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Um, right now I'm reading an awful lot of short stories for my pot to prepare for my podcast. I have a podcast.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. Tell, tell, tell me about it.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  LeVar Burton Reads, um, where I.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? That's the name of your podcast?

• 17:10Speaker 02

  We, we try.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have a podcast where you read. What's the name of your podcast? LeVar, I love it.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  We, we tries to keep it simple. We tries to keep it simple.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have a podcast called Chuck Watches TV.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Wait, I would subscribe to that shit.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  I would, I would. I would love to watch.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so LeVar Burton Reads. So, so basically it's like a book club, right?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Well, not exactly. Um, because I have a book club too, for the first time.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  But that's, but maybe we can talk about that a little bit later. The podcast LeVar Burton Reads, I pick a different piece of short fiction. I'm a huge short story fan.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love short stories. That, that's what Twilight Zone was all about.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Exactly right. They were short stories. I pick a different piece of short fiction in every episode, and I read it to you. And I like to say that the only thing these stories have in common is that I love them. And I hope you will too.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice. Beautiful, beautiful.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  All of my time is taken up, my, my, my reading for pleasure time is taken up with finding stories for the podcast. We are, um, finishing recording season nine and about to start recording season 10.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, my gosh, I'm embarrassed that you've been at this for a while. Okay?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have. 12, 12 episodes to a season. Um, and, and season nine is currently, uh, available, uh, wherever you get your podcasts on.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. Well, okay, well, congratulations on that. And I'm gonna tune in, because I love me some short stories.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Particularly the ones with good twists at the end, and.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  And, and I lean heavily into speculative fiction, because it's my favorite genre, you know, when I'm reading for personal pleasure and enjoyment. So I, I lean heavily into sci-fi fantasy, um, you know, the whole speculative fiction bag, because that's what, that's what makes me happy.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and quickly, tell, how do we find your book club?

• 19:06Speaker 02

  LeVar Burton Book Club, uh, it's. At GetFable. So the technology has advanced so that I could actually conduct a book club in cyberspace, right? So I choose the books. The first book we did was Go Tell It on a Mountain by Baldwin. Then we read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, you know what's great about this? There are many people who do like to read, but how do you know what to read next?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you curate this, oh, my gosh.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  This, this, these are.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a path to enlightenment.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  And, and I'm right there in the app, having conversations, commenting, interacting with other members of the book club. It's, it's, it's perfect.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a real time thing.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a, it's a beautiful thing because it's, it's real. I'm actually having interactions with, with the fans and, and folks who are, and we're all reading the same thing at the same time and talking about it.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful thing. Okay. All right.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Super cool.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so let's get to this. Chuck, give it to me.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  Let's jump right into it. Here we go.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all answers have to be given in 10, in 15, within 15 seconds so we can get through these.

• 20:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, LeVar, you gotta go in soundbite mode.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Okay, soundbite mode. Here we go.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go.

• 20:11Chuck Nice?

  Hello, Neil, LeVar and Chuck. My wife, Maria, oh, sorry. This is David Goldberg. Hello, Neil, LeVar, Chuck. And my wife, Maria, wanted me to ask you, LeVar, how you were able to deliver all of the Star Trek techno babble in such a fluent, natural, believable way. We love you. Thanks for everything.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Love, love you too, Maria. The, the methodology was very simple. As, as, as Jordi La Forge, Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, I spoke as quickly as possible, giving the impression that I knew what I was talking about.

• 20:50Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because it's just sitting there, ready to come out. It's just.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Well, memorization is another thing. It's like memorizing the phone book. There's, it's, it's, it's, it's not in response to anything. It's just information. And so that was the challenge, the memorization. The delivery, once it was up there, you know, I could spit it out. And then, you know, and then, then it dumped out of my short term and, and it was gone.

• 21:13Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I got it. Okay, so, so, but. So that implies these are two separate elements of your acting.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Yes, right. There's the memorization and then the delivery.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the rote memorization means this is natural to you.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one has to know that you forgot it two minutes later.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Nobody has to know that.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just came out like it's autonomic.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Exactly right. That's right. It flowed trippingly off the tongue, as they say.

• 21:39Chuck Nice?

  But it does have to be unlike in some cases, you can deviate just a little.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 21:47Chuck Nice?

  You cannot deviate at all with Star Trek because there is a technical bible that must remain consistent throughout every single episode.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  And sacrosanct, absolutely. You could not hem, you could not ha.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  You're the chief engineer. You have to be absolutely authoritative and demonstrative. And that's what the character required.

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome. That's just great. Okay, this is Quentin.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next one.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Here he goes. Quentin, hello. What real science concept that you have never seen in sci-fi, but you wouldn't think would be really enjoyable to watch? That's for both of you. And that's Quentin, no last name. He's like Cher. He's just a male Cher. I'm Quentin. That's it.

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quentin. Quentin, that's a good one.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you got on that, LeVar?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  I got nothing. A science fiction concept that we have yet to see depicted in science fiction.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I got one.

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Or a real science concept that you've never seen stretched out to science fiction.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Okay. We never see in science fiction movies and books, we never see people go to the bathroom in space.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  I've never seen it. I've never seen it.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, so we need the, okay, the first poop in space in a movie. There it is.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  We know it happens. We know how it happens.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the movie The Martian, he's growing poop potatoes with other people's poop, but you never see him poop.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  We never see him poop. We never see him poop. We take that leap. I'm just saying.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  Now, now I just want to see a scene in any Star Trek where they go through the automatic doors and you hear a toilet flushing in the background.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a, I got a quick one.

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  Number one, number one. I had to do a number two.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's certain constants in the laws of physics. The speed of light is a constant, the Planck's constant defines what happens in, in the small world of quantum physics. If you change the value of one of those constants, then exotic things happen in different regimes. So for example, suppose the speed of light were 60 miles an hour. Then as you drove down the street, 40, 50, 60, you start seeing relativity happen just in your own life experience. So I would like to see a science fiction movie where they change these parameters, even the quantum parameter. If Planck's constant were large, you would walk through a doorway and you would diffract through the doorway

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the way a beam of light would because it would affect you in the way it would affect subatomic particles. That would be really fun, I think.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  You have, here's another idea. I, I'm, I'm, I'm making notes because this, this, this is a great idea for a story.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you could do it with precision too, because you know the exact value of the speed of these things. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. That, that's what I do. So that's my answer to Mr. One Word Name.

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes, there you go, Quentin.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quentin, Quentin.

• 25:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, next, quick, let's keep going.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  We are moving along. This is Abhishek Makhtar, who says this. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Mr. Burton, Mr. Nice. We have all been inspired by Star Trek. Can you please tell me where the inspiration for the original series came from? Live long and prosper. Do you have any idea?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Well, I, I know that, you know, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was, you know, was a television writer. And he envisioned, Gene's own description of Star Trek was he, he wanted to create what he referred to as a wagon train to the stars. Now wagon train was a very popular, we used to have almost exclusively westerns on TV back in the early, early and mid 60s. Wagon train was a western where you, you had your, your, your wagon master and his sort of cadre, but the guest stars made up the people that were on the, the train that week. Right, so it was it was sort of a cavalcade of of of actors that were acting out scenarios

• 26:11Speaker 02

  with a core cast of of of regulars and and they were on their way west. And that was Gene's original concept to to do sort of a wagon train to the stars.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what I liked most when we interviewed Nichelle Nichols for StarTalk, what she told me and then she said, yeah, that's so completely obvious now that you tell me that, that Star Trek wasn't just simply storytelling every episode, to the extent that you could be consistent with this as a writer and as actors and everything else. The goal was that each episode had a certain dose of morality.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Yes, right, right.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was a lesson in there, take a takeaway. And that, and oh, my gosh, yes, yes, the show was moral.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  It was.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta hand them that. And and one other thing, if you didn't think, you must have thought about this, I thought about this and I realized the Enterprise, I think, I thought about this, is the first ship, the first ship portrayed in science fiction that had no destination.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Right. Oh, wow.

• 27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about that. Every other ship, oh, we're taking this to Mars, then you get out of the ship, right? Oh, let's take this ship to the moon, then we get out of the ship, right? Let's go here, and then you get, the ship was a vessel to transport you. It was not a, it was not its own vessel of exploration. And that, I think, is an underheralded fact about that series. It changed, it changed what exploration is all about.

• 27:49Chuck Nice?

  That's why children weren't allowed on the bridge, because they will be like, are we there yet?

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you are, because the ship is the there. It is the there.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  That's where we're going. We're here already.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck, time for a couple more. Come on.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. This is.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, these are all from Patreon members.

• 28:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes, they are.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Is that right?

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Do they, do they actually sound like the way Chuck is reading them? Do you do research, Chuck, on who these people are?

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he don't do, this man don't do any, no, don't even go there, okay? He can't pronounce their name.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Yo, come on, Neil, stop blowing me up, man. Don't blow up.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, put a shade on you there. Come on.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Elizabeth Flores. Oh my God, LeVar Burton is going to be on my favorite podcast? Oh no, oh yes. Mr. Burton, is there any episode from The Next Generation that you were particularly proud of that stood out to you? And actually, in terms of being moral or a great story? It's my favorite TV show of all time. I can't wait to hear what your answer is for this episode. You are a legend. Okay.

• 29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so there's that morality coming back in. Yeah, so LeVar, which episode do you think?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  In terms of morality, I think Measure of a Man, where Data was put on trial and Picard had to defend his sentience, his humanity.

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I remember that.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  I think that's an episode that really stands out to me as really brilliant, really brilliant in terms of wrapping itself around the idea of artificial intelligence. And where is the line? Where is the line between?

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was early in that dialogue, in that debate, right?

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Oh, yeah.

• 29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, I like that, okay.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  So I think Measure of a Man, I believe the episode is called, Elizabeth. Check me out, keep me honest, but I do believe.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I got it. Good, good answer there. Okay, Chuck, give me two more and we'll get them fast. Go.

• 29:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay, this is Aidan Barnett. What would it take for the human race to come together and achieve a Star Trek-esque mission centered around the prime directive of protecting and preserving civilizations without interfering? When can we even, when we can't even protect and preserve our own planet? I think it just answers your question, bro.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  I actually do, I have thought about this a lot, in fact. And I believe that a first contact with another, to us, an alien civilization, reaching out and making contact to us would be an event that had the power to get us to realize. Whoa, we really are in this together. It would cause us to get our act together right away. I do believe.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought the coronavirus would have done that.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  You would have thought.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like an invading force. I know it's not from outer space, but it's something that would attack all humans. And did we band together? No. So LeVar, no. I don't believe. Yes, I want to believe you, but I don't believe you.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  But I don't believe it would be an invading force. I believe that any, any, any race of beings intelligent enough to, to figure out, you know, light.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How to get here.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  How to get here would be evolved enough to know that violence is a primitive emotion.

• 31:16Chuck Nice?

  Unless, of course, they saw this place as a McDonald's drive-through on the way to where they're going. Okay. Cause then we're just food.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  Right?

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You don't want to be food for them, okay?

• 31:31Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, give me one last one before we take a break and go on to our last segment.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Uh, hello Neil, hello Mr. Burton. I admire all the work you have done to make science accessible to kids. Also making it cool. Uh, how can we improve? Science literacy for all? So he's, uh, that's Carrie Manberg, who's bringing in the science and the literacy tying you guys together.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So LeVar, a, a big part of what you do is to get people to read, enjoy reading, and fiction is a big part of that. But at some point, the reality of the real world matters. And there's half the books published are non-fiction. So where do you, how do you? The storytelling versus the learning of the reality. Is that a cog in this wheel of getting people to be scientifically literate?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  I believe it is because it is, it is our engagement with fiction literature that exercises our imagination. The imagination is the superpower of the human being. No other species can do what we do in our minds. And in, and life is a series of solving problems. The tool that we need most prevalent in our problem solving exercises is what?

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imaginations. Mic drop.

• 32:59Chuck Nice?

  Can't end it any better than that, man.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You're right, because if you have no imagination, you're just confronted with information and you won't know what the hell to do with it.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  You won't know what to do with it.

• 33:11Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you won't know what the hell to do with it.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Okay, you won't know what the hell to do with it.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't take words out of my sentence.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there you go. That hell belonged in that sentence, dude.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  You're right, you're right. I should've tried to clean it up.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we gotta take a quick break, but when we come back, more StarTalk with our special guest, the man who is high and exalted, LeVar Burton and Chuck, when we return on StarTalk.

• 33:42Chuck Nice?

  Hey, StarTalk fans. This next segment of our episode with the one and only LeVar Burton is sponsored by the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EUV. The everyday electric vehicle for everyday people. The all-electric Chevy Bolt EUV has so many cool features, including the ability to engage in conversations hands-free with the industry's first hands-free driving assistance technology. You can find out more at chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-euv. Now, let's get back to the show.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, which is a hybrid of conversation plus cosmic queries in this third and final segment of today's show with our special guest, LeVar Burton.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, Neil.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 34:32Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna be, I said this all show. You're saying his name wrong. It's national treasure, LeVar Burton.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here it is, here it is. If in America, we had knighthood, it would be Sir LeVar Burton.

• 34:46Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, nice, I like it.

• 34:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sounds better than national treasure. That's because that's just...

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's also a national treasure, but let's give him an American knighthood, a StarTalk knighthood.

• 34:58Chuck Nice?

  Sir LeVar Burton.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  I will, I will take the StarTalk knighthood. I think part of the point of America was no monarch.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're not to do that. Yes.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  But the StarTalk, the StarTalk knighthood?

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. There it is. And so, LaVar, we just

• 35:20Speaker 02

  That's legitimate.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just came out of a whole segment with our fanbase and your fanbase asking you questions. But this one, we're going to devote to a topic that's important to you. And so, what's the question that you have?

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Well, here's my question, and I will set it up with a feeling, a thought that I possess.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are no feelings on this show. Don't put feelings.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no feelings in science?

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you doing? There's no crying in science?

• 36:00Speaker 02

  There's no crying in astrophysics?

• 36:06Speaker 02

  It is clear, and all of the scientists, the experts, have recently come out and said that in terms of global warming and climate science, we have reached a point of no return. That human behavior, most of it in recent memory, has caused an acceleration of the warming of the atmosphere. And there is no going back. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle. So, I know that I am looking for my next vehicle to be an electric vehicle. My query, Neil, is, given the state that we're in,

• 36:50Speaker 02

  do we have enough time? I mean, they say that there are certain things that we can't roll the clock back on, but there is time to make certain changes.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Is there enough time?

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I have a simple answer for you.

• 37:04Chuck Nice?

  Well, before you answer

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're all gonna die.

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, no, no, this, this segment actually is, is, has a sponsorship with Chevrolet and Chuck may have some insights into that for you, LeVar. So Chuck, what do you have?

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  Super excited about this because as I always say or try to point out, I'm very concerned about the environment as you and LeVar are as well. And we're doing this segment in partnership with the Chevrolet Bolt EUV and

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that E, I bet that's SUV, but it has an E in it?

• 37:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's clever. Okay. I bet that stands for electric because I'm smart. I figured that out.

• 37:47Chuck Nice?

  Utility vehicle. And I was able to take a tour of this car and it's, it's some really exciting technology. So I'm, I'm, I'm really happy to talk about this.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but that'll be relevant only if, to LeVar's point, what, okay, LeVar probably has slightly more means than most people. So he could buy any car he wanted. And so, but he alone can't make this, he can't put the genie back in the bottle. But we need everyone to participate in one way or another. And so, so why is this car a part of that equation? That's what I want to know.

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  The cool thing is, you want to call it the, the electric vehicle of the people, if you want. Because what they have done is made this accessible at an entry point that many people can, can enter, enter the market.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, a price point.

• 38:44Chuck Nice?

  A price point, yeah.

• 38:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  But the truth is that, um, you can, you know, it's, this is a very accessible vehicle. And the people who normally drive electric vehicles right now, um, you know, they're pretty expensive. So

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're the expensive ones and it's wealthy people, you know, kind of showing off that they're very green. And you can't expect sort of your average person to spend big parts of their pocketbook just to lead the way in the green movement. You need corporations to meet us somewhere halfway or more than halfway, right?

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  More than halfway.

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More than halfway. Yeah.

• 39:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  So this makes sense. This is good. So this is, this is a, an, an electric SUV that

• 39:30Chuck Nice?

  Has a price point that most people can meet. And that's important.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most people who buy cars at all can meet it, should be able to meet it. Okay, but one other thing Chuck. In the early days of electric vehicles, they had a range of maybe sixty miles, a hundred miles tops. So really, they were like town cars. You'd commute with it. Nobody's going on any trips. First, how would you recharge it? You don't want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. And how are you going to go on any trip? Because you don't have the miles to do it. So what's going on here?

• 40:06Chuck Nice?

  So the great thing, I mean, this is what really impressed me. So what you're talking about is range anxiety, which is kind of a hesitancy that affects a lot of people for getting an electric car, like you said. But this car has, I would say, nearly a two hundred and fifty mile range.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's real distance.

• 40:25Chuck Nice?

  That's real distance. Yes. And with respect to what you said.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless you live in Siberia or northern Canada. If you live in any place where people live, that'll get you to any near city, for sure.

• 40:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but before then, if you live in Siberia or like far north Canada, you just strap a bunch of dogs to the EUV.

• 40:47Chuck Nice?

  And that gets you where you gotta go until you gotta actually use the battery.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can hear the dogs talking now. They'll say, you know, when we get your ass to this destination, you're putting us in the car and we're driving.

• 40:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes. We're riding, we're riding in the back from now on. But yeah, the great thing about your other point in charging is that right now there are forty thousand charging stations, public charging stations, that are pretty much allow you to charge on your destination to, you know, many, many places in the country. And there's an app that allows you to map your trip beforehand so that if you do have to stop and charge, it shows you where to do that.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you're not, you're not blind searching for what's out there. Right. Right, again, because that's part of the anxiety that you mentioned. Yeah. That no one has if you have a, a gas car. Yeah. So let me get back to LeVar's question then. So, um, is it too late? And so here's what people, if you read the reports, you would learn this, but most people don't. They just see headlines. Here's what happens. As you, as you, as we have warmed the earth, in part by boosting greenhouse gases and the most famed, there's several, but the most infamous among them is carbon dioxide. And that's why we loosely speak of, speak of a carbon footprint. It's not carbon specifically, it's carbon dioxide as the footprint that people want to reduce, because that would then reduce the trapping of heat.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we got that. Here's the thing. As carbon dioxide picks up in the atmosphere, the oceans see it. And the oceans have their own amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in it. But if you have more in the air than in the ocean, the carbon dioxide goes into equilibrium with the ocean. So the ocean uptakes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Not only that, as the atmosphere warms, the ocean says, hey, you can't be warm without me. I want to take some of that heat. And so the ocean becomes a repository for the carbon dioxide at heat that we are pumping into the atmosphere. The point is, if we just stopped

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  all carbon emission tomorrow, took it to zero, what'll happen is, that carbon will slowly come out of the atmosphere as plants absorb it and they grow and this sort of thing. But then the ocean says, hey, I can give you some more, okay? Because it's going to try to always be in equilibrium with that. And so this, so the ocean has been stockpiling our wrongdoings for decades. All right, so that's why they, so when they say it's the point of no return, what they really mean is, that even if we stopped, it will get worse before it gets better. Before it gets better. Right, that's right. And so, but to say no return ever, that, that's not true. No.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just, but, but so the language is a little, uh, it, it's sharper than the actual reality, but it's the kind of sharpness we need to take action. Otherwise, uh, we're going to lose whole, we're going to lose all of Florida. Chuck wouldn't mind if that happened, but. No.

• 44:01Chuck Nice?

  Not at all.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  I got, I got, I got family in Orlando, so.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  Don't worry, we'll, we'll, we'll evacuate them.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Okay, thank you.

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Special evac for LeVar's family.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  For LeVar Burton's family, and yeah.

• 44:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, so, so that's, so that's the, that's the problem. And so, and by the way, transportation is one part of the total effort that is necessary. But the fact that, that it's not just privileged people who can show off that they're green with the expense of electric cars they're buying. If everybody has access, then it can become a nat, this is directly to LeVar's concern. If, if the price point is right, then it becomes a natural economic driver of doing the right thing, rather than hitting people on the head. So if you're, if, let's say you're anti-green movement, and we probably all know people who are, maybe even relatives who came over for Thanksgiving, so.

• 44:58Chuck Nice?

  Talking to you, Uncle Jimmy.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Talking to you, I don't care.

• 45:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is Uncle Jimmy listening?

• 45:04Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, so here's the thing. You, you, so you don't have to wave your finger at Uncle Jimmy. You could say, Uncle Jimmy, you spent $10,000 more than you had to, and we're all driving this car and we saved money, how about you? And he'd look really stupid, say, I prefer to spend more money and pollute. That's not, so that doesn't play. So you make the economic solution part of the solution. And then you, then, then there's no one playing high and mighty relative to other people's morals or principles.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, every.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Well, go ahead, go ahead Chevy, go ahead Chevrolet, they, you know, because we are going to need everybody's buy-in.

• 45:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  I mean, planet, planet-wide, we're gonna need everybody's buy-in, and so having an affordable solution, you know, for regular folks.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for me, my first family car, I mean, when I was a kid, was Chevrolet. The Chevy Impala. Big ol', back when that, you know, land yacht, you know, one of those things.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  The land yacht.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fits six people across the front and the rear seats.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  The kids were playing football in the back of the car.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, pre-seat belts, seat belts weren't invented yet.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  No seat belts in sight.

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how old I am. So it would be fun, if Chevy really takes off with this, they should get, everybody get together and drive their Chevy to the levee. And... Then it's a...

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Now, now, now you lost everyone under there.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First, listen, Mr. Gray-haired man, don't be pulling rank on me.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm just saying, as, as much as, I love Don McLean as much as the next...

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  American Pie, American Pie.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Right?

• 46:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so did you have another, did you have another question?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Well, so, so what does this mean then for the far future? You know, going way down the line, okay, so we're, we're, we're going to get, I'm, I'm gonna make the assumption that we're going to get to a point where planet-wide, we have changed our mindset, which is really what's necessary. We have to just really change our mindset about what makes sense in, in automobile transportation. And clearly, the electric option is the best option going forward.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but I, I can take it another notch. If, if, if I can, if you, you know, you're, you're, you have science fiction chops, so let me take, let me take it up a notch. A little, just a little bit, a little bit, he, he did a couple things, that's all.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so...

• 47:37Speaker 02

  It's been too, it's been way too long since we've...

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I know, yeah, we're long overdue, long overdue.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Long overdue, we're long overdue.

• 47:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so here's, uh, let me tell you about something I tweeted long ago, all right? I was in, was it Charlotte, what's the city in, in? In in North Carolina, I guess Charlotte and Charlottesville mixed up. Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm I'm there and it's an airport where I had to go from a big plane to a little plane. I've told this story before, but it has extra relevance now. And in that, and I decided to have carry on, and that was a mistake because the gate for the big plane was really far from the gate and I'm just walking and walking and my arm, you know, my deltoids are in pain. And I finally get to where I'm going and I thought I'd be clever. So I got on Twitter and I said, I can't wait until the day we have wormholes.

• 48:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That way all gates will be adjacent to each other. Okay, so I thought I'm being clever, right? I'm being being geek. I'm feeding the geek soul with that tweet. And then I got out geeked. Cause this old, the geek spectrum, as you know, Jordy, Jordy, excuse me. As you know, LeVar goes the full, there is no limit to the geek spectrum, okay? So someone, someone tweeted back and said, Dr. Tyson, the day we have wormholes, you won't need airplanes. And I said, oh.

• 49:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, I just got smoked on that one. So here's my point. The the day we have total access and manipulation of of access to and manipulation of wormholes, the entire transportation grid is rendered obsolete. So your refrigerator has a door to the produce shelf at the grocery store. You just pop it open, I need some, and you bring it in and you automatically charge, you close the door and there it is. Think Monsters, Inc. Remember they took home, the Monsters took home doors. They opened the door and the kid's closet is on the other side of the door.

• 49:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What no one said in that movie, and I went out screaming to everybody, this movie is about wormholes, okay?

• 49:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 49:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what this is about.

• 49:58Chuck Nice?

  Well, now, now, no kid wants wormholes.

• 50:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 50:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The monster will show up. So, so LeVar, I'm thinking, let's take it to the very distant future. You don't even need transporters because you're not beaming energy through space. You're just opening a portal, stepping through, coming out the other side. And that would be, if that's the future of transportation, imagine how much real estate is returned to the people. The amount of, LeVar, you live in LA. What, is the 405 12 fricking lanes, not including off-ramps and on-ramps? How much real estate, how much room is just roads and cars and pollution and all of this? So.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Infrastructure that will not be necessary in the far future.

• 50:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in the same way, today, we don't have horse stalls to put the cabs that you would be taking when you came back. No, so that's my vision of the future. And so that's even beyond the electric vehicles. But we gotta go, we gotta do electric before we get there because, because I don't know when the hell we're gonna have wormholes, but I know we got electric cars. I know we got electric cars. So Chuck, any, any final, final remarks on that?

• 51:17Chuck Nice?

  It's funny that you were talking about technology and the EUV because one of the things I was impressed with is the fact that, one, they have, you know, hands-free driving with Super Cruise. So that's kind of futuristic, right?

• 51:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's futuristic.

• 51:34Chuck Nice?

  It allows you to kind of, you know, you can engage in a conversation without being distracted by the road. The car's kind of watching things for you.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  I think it's really, it's, it's interesting because I see us heading in that direction. You said you won't be distracted by the road. And I mean, one of my pet peeves in Los Angeles is people driving their phones.

• 51:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, right.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  And, and, and, and, you know, they're just, their attention is split. So I really think that our saving grace is autonomous driving vehicles so that we don't need to be concerned with. What's going on on the road, the car will make those decisions for us.

• 52:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it'll save not only the driver, but whoever the driver might end up hitting for not having paid attention.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  That, the other traffic on the road as well.

• 52:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, right. And my favorite bumper sticker ever, which I saw in Los Angeles, was caution, driver applying makeup.

• 52:32Chuck Nice?

  Right, and that was me, that was me, by the way.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  And that was you, Chuck.

• 52:37Chuck Nice?

  I don't know how you got behind me, I don't know how you got behind me. But that's why I look good, that's why I look so good. Let me just say this, guys, always pay attention while driving when you're using Super Cruise for compatible roads and do not use handheld devices.

• 52:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what we're saying.

• 52:51Chuck Nice?

  No matter what we're saying, okay? And viewchevrolet.com/electric/super-dash-cruise for compatible roads, which is, I mean, that's really kind of cool. But that, that's the part where everything else you guys were talking about.

• 53:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, very good. Well, guys, we gotta land this plane or park this car. LeVar, it's always good to see you, dude.

• 53:11Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, man, you did it again. Sir LeVar.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  What did I do?

• 53:14Chuck Nice?

  It's good to see you.

• 53:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sir, it's a StarTalk sir. Sir LeVar, no, it's been great to see you. And it's not often enough, but I do, I do track you on Twitter. You're, you have the like the kindest, gentlest Twitter stream and, and people still get pissed off.

• 53:34Chuck Nice?

  Unless you, unless you come for me. If you come for me, if you come for me, you better bring a fire.

• 53:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ahhh.

• 53:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I love it.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Cause, cause Kunta don't.

• 53:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kunta don't play.

• 53:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 53:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kunta cut off half your foot and keep running, whatever. I thought I remembered a scene like that. Anyhow, good, so we had it, LeVar, don't be such a stranger next time. Chuck, always good to have you as my co-host.

• 54:02Chuck Nice?

  And Neil, let me say to everybody before we go, if you're ready to make the electric future part of your present and check out the Chevrolet Bolt EUV at chevrolet.com/electric. And take the virtual tour if you can, that's, just saying.

• 54:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist, as always, keep looking up.