Cosmic Queries – The Hidden Chemistry of Everything with Kate the Chemist

Is chemistry truly everywhere? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about chemistry with Kate Biberdorf, aka Kate the Chemist. Discover the chemical reactions that make our world work!

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. And today, we're gonna dip into chemistry. Chuck, you with me here Chuck?

• 0:25Chuck Nice?

  I am.

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. How you feel about chemistry Chuck?

• 0:29Chuck Nice?

  I am, I'm waiting for you to dip into it. That's about it.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 0:34Chuck Nice?

  I have to say that I had a terrible chemistry teacher. And ruined the entire experience for me.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're the walking wounded of chemistry.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  I am the walking wounded of chemistry. And I, I won't say his name, but I remember him vividly. And he would explain something and then immediately expect us to know like what the next thing is. And, you know, he would do this and everyone would sit in the classroom kind of like in this terrified state because it's terrible to feel like completely ignorant and it's worse to feel stupid. Because ignorant is one thing, but you feel stupid when somebody has an expectation of you that you're not meeting.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, are you still in therapy for this? This sounds, this sounds like you got a lot to shake.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  Right, so then, wait a minute, then, you know me.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry I asked, okay?

• 1:37Chuck Nice?

  I say what's on my mind, so he didn't like me because he asked a question and we hadn't covered it, right? And so I said to him in front of the whole class, "You do realize you have a degree in chemistry? This is high school."

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then he said, what are you, a comedian? And I said, well, as a matter of fact.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  And the rest is history.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, neither you nor I carry any kind of significant chemistry expertise. So we went out into the ether. Oh, yeah. And we found Kate the Chemist. Kate the Chemist, welcome to StarTalk.

• 2:20Kate Biberdorf?

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

• 2:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, excellent. Uh, you are perf- can I introduce the lady, please?

• 2:28Chuck Nice?

  No, I was just gonna say, I can already tell you're gonna make me like chemistry. Just the name, Kate the Chemist. I'm like, I need to hear more.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you are, you're, you're, okay, that's what we call you on the internet. But, uh, behind, you know, part the curtains, you are Professor Kate Biberdorf. And you're on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in their Department of Chemistry. So this is just way excellent. And you've written books, um, previously just for kids. But recently you have a book that came out a few months ago for grownups. So that's cool. I would have to get the title here. It's Elemental, The Hidden Chemistry of Everything. I love the title. And so Kate, let me ask you, is this finally grownups get to create a fire in the carpet in the living room?

• 3:18Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do we have now have the permission?

• 3:21Kate Biberdorf?

  That's what the book is, is I teach you how to do fireworks right in the middle of your living room.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's deep, that's cool. That's everybody's memory of the chemistry kit, uh, growing up.

• 3:31Kate Biberdorf?

  Oh, I hear that all the time. I hear all the time, the parents come up to me after these shows, because I blow stuff up for kids. And they keep asking me these questions and they're like, my little kid has this question about sunscreen. I was like, your five year old has a question about sunscreen? And they're using their kids to ask the questions. So in the book, I literally just went through and answered all their questions. It's really funny.

• 3:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I got you. Okay, cool.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  And in fairness, it could have been a very vain five year old.

• 3:54Kate Biberdorf?

  That's true. That's true.

• 3:57Chuck Nice?

  I gotta keep this tight. I have got to keep this tight. I know I'm five, but I'm thinking ahead.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what, what is Kate the Chemist Fiction Series? What is that?

• 4:07Kate Biberdorf?

  Um, there are seven books, so five fiction ones, and then there's two non-fiction ones. But the fiction series is this little 10-year-old named Kate the Chemist, and she goes around her neighborhood and solves any problems in the neighborhood using science. Um, and it was just so fun to write because for the first time ever, I could like make stuff up. Like, you can't do that in the chemistry world. You can't lie about things. And so here I could just have little kids breathing fire, and it was just an absolute blast.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So what is, what is one scenario that might be solved with chemistry? In terms of like a mystery or a problem in a book series?

• 4:42Kate Biberdorf?

  So the very first one is called Dragons Versus Unicorns, and it's the little kids' musical.

• 4:47Chuck Nice?

  Very scientific.

• 4:48Kate Biberdorf?

  It is, it is.

• 4:51Chuck Nice?

  Very scientific.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, she says she made the stuff up, and it is called fiction.

• 4:56Kate Biberdorf?

  Right.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, learn the definition of the word fiction, Chuck.

• 5:00Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, to be real, honestly, that's kind of the reason why, is they're trying to get people who might be intimidated by science. Like, some kids don't want to read a science book, but they might want to read Dragons Versus Unicorns. And so it's a way to kind of hook kids, especially little girls, and get them excited about science. Um, and in the series, little Kate goes around, and she's kind of the director of the musical. And there's all these problems, like the unicorn's horns fall off, and so she has to make glue using science to get it to stick, so it'll stay on the forehead. So there's a lot of little ways I can sneak it in there. Um, and it's just a blast. I had so much fun writing them.

• 5:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I thought you would tell me what dragon breath is made of. See?

• 5:34Kate Biberdorf?

  Sure, I can tell you. I absolutely can tell you. That's also in the book. That's also in the book. And so, um...

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 5:42Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, yeah, it is. And so what she does is, so in the very beginning, we have the little girl breathe fire. Um, it's just this big experiment, and so it was really exciting, but they wouldn't let her do it in the musical, so it's a big deal. Um, so they end, they end up using Cheetos and liquid nitrogen. So you dip the Cheetos into liquid nitrogen, give it a second, and then you can bite down on it. When you exhale, you end up breathing, it's gas, it's smoke, right? It do the condensation. But, yeah, it's a, they, they, there's a little bit of dragon breath in there.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so it's smoke dragon breath, not flame dragon?

• 6:10Kate Biberdorf?

  No, no. The editor had a little bit of a problem with that, so...

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  As a chemist, if, if, if dragons actually breathe fire, like, like Smog, right?

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, as in the Desolation of Smog, yeah, that story.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  So Smog, you see his, um, you see his belly actually glow red, and then the inside of his throat... Becomes very hot and then boom.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It becomes radiant and it's ready to come out. Yes, okay.

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  And then there's a plume of fire from a, from a chemist's standpoint.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Kate, explain that.

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  What would be that fire? I'm serious. What, how would you justify that scientifically? Now, come on, we know, we gotta suspend disbelief. But if we could justify that scientifically, what would be that fire?

• 7:00Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, I can tell you what fire is. Fire is a combustion reaction and it's anytime you have a source of fuel, you have reacted with oxygen and then you form carbon dioxide and water. That's the traditional one. And so what you're seeing is the release of that energy exothermically being shot out. I breathe fire using cornstarch, which is a lot easier, a lot safer. But that doesn't start in my belly. I just put it in my mouth and spit it out.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're saying there's a safe way to breathe fire?

• 7:25Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, you just said that.

• 7:27Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. As opposed to the dangerous ways of breathing fire, I can do it safely.

• 7:33Kate Biberdorf?

  Uh, yeah.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, how about this? Have, I got one. I got one, I got one. Okay, so, uh, as we all know, uh, there, there are anaerobic microbes deep in our gut and they, they release methane. Normally the methane comes out the back end. But if you could somehow reverse that tube and then have it come out of your mouth and then ignite it, then you could breathe fire with methane, a gas that you produced yourself.

• 8:03Chuck Nice?

  So there you have it. Um, basically, uh, dragons have flatulent mouths.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're fart faces, is it? I, I said it for you, Chuck, fart face.

• 8:14Chuck Nice?

  There you go, thanks.

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  That was, that was the joke, so thanks.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Normally I don't steep lower than you go, but I did it.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  No, you know, you know, I'm, I, I, I'm always getting the letters.

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true. It is true.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Why are you always trying to bring Neil deGrasse Tyson down?

• 8:35Kate Biberdorf?

  That's so funny.

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, all right. So, so, you know, this is actually a Cosmic Queries edition. Because, you know, we, we hardly ever have chemists and I'm embarrassed by that because chemistry is, is, you know, some of my best friends are made of chemicals. And so we need more chemistry in this show. So Chuck, you've got, you collected questions from our Patreon members because this is a Cosmic Queries.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Kate, I'll be coming back to you about your periodic table and, you know, intermittently, because I, me and periodic table go way back, too. I got me.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  Neil's another lover of the periodic.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, don't, don't get me started on the periodic table, but, okay. All right. No, what I want to do, I want to try to, because I know the periodic table from the, through the lens of an astrophysicist. So, and, and Kate, you clearly are a chemist with your periodic table. I want to come at you with some astrochemistry. See. Oh, great. Just to see, just to see, see if you can hang with the astrochemist, all right? We're gonna try that a little later. Let's do it.

• 9:39Chuck Nice?

  The gauntlet has been.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna have to go into the octagon for this one.

• 9:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Two nerds enter, and they both leave, but just one of them with a little more respect.

• 9:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Chuck Nice?

  That's all.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  It's nerd thunderdome.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would watch that. Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. All right. So what do you got, Chuck?

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's just jump into it. Who we got here? We have the artist formerly known as James Smith. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Bieberdorff, and Chuck. Chuck, if you mess up my name, you should just give it up, buddy. Bro, I really got to read these before I go. Here's my question. Where do we find lithium on Earth? And how can we find more of it? Does it exist on other planets? I love you guys. Have a great day.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me give a handoff to Kate on this. It's the, it's the, it is made in tiny quantities in the Big Bang. Very tiny quantities, but it is made, unlike most other elements that have to wait for billions of years for stars to create them in their cores. The Big Bang itself makes a little bit of lithium. Now let me hand that over to Kate.

• 10:52Chuck Nice?

  So it's OG.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the original gangster.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  The OG. I've been here from the beginning. Don't call it a comeback.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kate, we need a column, the OG elements. We need that.

• 11:04Kate Biberdorf?

  I love it. I love it. Oh, that's really funny. I'm gonna have to pitch that. We'll see what people say of that one. Lithium is like all the, most of the other metals. We find it in oxide form a lot of times in mines. I believe lithium was discovered back in the 1800s in Sweden. And it was formed with an aluminum silicate as well. So there's a little bit of aluminum there and a little bit of silicon mixed in. So it's in the mines, just like all our other metals. We find it deep in the crust of the earth.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying it's not, it doesn't come in its own veins through the crust? It's mixed in with other elements?

• 11:38Kate Biberdorf?

  Most of them are not. I know that we do have it in oxide forms. I don't know if we can find it by itself. It's very possible, but the forms I know of it are in the oxide form. So there's an oxygen attached to it somehow, which is makes it stable. Cause otherwise it'd be extraordinarily reactive, so.

• 11:52Chuck Nice?

  Before we move on, let me ask this. So if iron is our core, do we find different?

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The core of earth.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, the core of earth, sorry. If that's our core, do we find different elements at different levels? Or is it just kinda all mixed in and then, you know? How's it work in terms of like, as you get down to like the iron? Do you find different things at different levels as you go down?

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, the heavy stuff is in the middle and the light stuff floated. That's all, it's not that complicated.

• 12:23Chuck Nice?

  Is that it?

• 12:26Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Jesus.

• 12:27Kate Biberdorf?

  It's seriously that easy.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Is it really that easy?

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Chuck, Chuck, wait. Just to be clear, we think of rocks as heavy because they like sink in the water. But the water is floating on the rocks and the rocks are floating on everything else that is heavier than they are, that went to the center of the earth. So rocks are light by comparison, yeah.

• 12:46Kate Biberdorf?

  Relatively.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's a question, Kate. How do you get, if, why didn't all the iron go to the middle of the earth? How can we have these ores of iron that come up into the crust?

• 12:55Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, it has to do with attractions, right? Every single one of these atoms have protons in the center and electrons on the outside, and it just has to do with what it interacted with on its way down to the center. So if it sees a lot of oxygen, it's gonna have a reaction with that. We all know rust happens so readily here, right?

• 13:11Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 13:12Kate Biberdorf?

  Things are gonna rust out at certain points before... Exactly, yeah. So just, it's what it interacted with. That's what chemistry is all the time. What is in its environment? What's its system? What's its surroundings? What's going on around it? What can...

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  So when we find these ore deposits, they're just distracted iron.

• 13:26Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, I see that.

• 13:28Chuck Nice?

  They were on their way. They were on their way, and just like, what's that? What's that?

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that oxygen atom? Check out...

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Hey, oxygen, what's up?

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too late, bam, frozen.

• 13:40Chuck Nice?

  Aw, damn it, I missed it.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Midnight train to Georgia just left.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we gotta take a quick break. When we come back, we'll pick up our Cosmic Queries with Kate the Chemist on StarTalk.

• 14:05Speaker 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.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, Cosmic Queries with Kate the Chemist. We're talking about chemistry, something we don't do often enough, Chuck. I think that this is, you know, we do so many other things, and we gotta give some chemistry due. And so we got Kate, Kate, Professor Chemistry, Associate Professor Chemistry?

• 14:44Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, I'm instruction, yeah.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, at the University of Texas at Austin. And we're delighted to have you, Kate the Chemist. And what are your, your social media handles?

• 14:55Kate Biberdorf?

  I am at Kate the Chemist on Instagram and TikTok. I just hit 100,000 followers on TikTok, which I'm so excited about. Which I know is not a lot for you guys, but for me, that makes me very happy.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, 100,000, excuse me.

• 15:07Chuck Nice?

  100,000 is a lot for anybody.

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's for anybody.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  I just made a mental note. I gotta get on TikTok.

• 15:16Kate Biberdorf?

  Please get on TikTok. It's so fun. I really enjoy it. It's a very easy way to communicate science with other people and just give them little snippets and I'm really enjoying it. I never thought I'd say that ever, but I'm really enjoying it.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, cool. Cool. All right. So Chuck, what do you got for us?

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's just.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are still Patreon members, right?

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  All Patreon.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We changed the rule. You're the only ones who get to ask questions.

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  If you are interested in asking us a question, Patreon is the way you have to do it. It was a way for us to kind of democratize, actually, actually, just the opposite.

• 15:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the opposite.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Just the opposite of democratize. I'm sorry. It was a way for us to cull the pool.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not to democratize, to monetize. That's the word. All right. All right. Go for it, Chuck.

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, here we go. This is, this is Max Madison. He says, hey, Dr. Beberdorf, why do you think many scholars, including Isaac Newton, believed in or practiced alchemy, even as recently as the 1900s? Do you think it was for greed or was it truly for the pure pursuit of science?

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good one. Plus, Kate, I would add to that. From the alchemy I've read, there seemed to be some mysticism in there as well, at least if you go far back. So how does all that square working its way so deep into the Industrial Revolution, for example?

• 16:39Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, it's really funny because from a chemist's point of view, when we think of alchemy, it's just more of the study of chemistry before we knew what was going on. And it was just people mixing things together and trying to kind of cook here and there. And sometimes they came up with medicines that were helpful and sometimes they came up with crap that was not helpful at all. And so it just depends on kind of where you fall. And so for me, when I think of it, it just is like the chemistry before, you know, the 1900s, before we had any clue what was going on.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  So is, now with that, is Eye of Newt on the periodic chart?

• 17:08Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes, here it is.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever seen, I saw this comic once, it was vegetarian witches, right? And so it was eye of potato, head of lettuce.

• 17:24Kate Biberdorf?

  Oh my god.

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it was.

• 17:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyhow, yeah, so that's a really good answer, I like that. So what you're saying is it's the best people could do before they really knew what was going on. But then, but why is it such an insult, though? You know, when you say, ah, he's just an alchemist, and it's like, people will fight you if you call him that. But you're saying that it should not carry a stigma.

• 17:51Kate Biberdorf?

  I don't think of it, yeah, that, yeah, exactly. Like, I don't honestly think of it with a stigma. I think of it as people doing the best they could with what they had. I mean, this was pre-internet, this was before we were sharing information so easily. You know, this is just what they had, that they had available to them. So I don't, I don't think it's a negative.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't want to have to school you in this way, but we are post-internet and there are people who think Earth is flat. So don't think the internet fixes stuff, okay?

• 18:18Kate Biberdorf?

  No, no, that's not what I meant.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sound is exactly what you meant.

• 18:22Kate Biberdorf?

  No, no, no, it's not, it's the way people communicate, for scientists to tell each other and share information more readily. And that's all I mean by it. And so before we had that, it was much more difficult to actually do it. You'd have to go, well, you'd have to go to the library and you'd have to read a book and you'd have to find that very specific book. And so it's easier to find that information with the internet, that's all I'm saying, but yeah, maybe.

• 18:42Chuck Nice?

  See, she's on the internet for smart.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Internet for everybody else, we got flat-earthers, vaccine deniers, we got all the.

• 18:52Kate Biberdorf?

  No, I have a hard time with that.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  We are, we are, we are on, we are on the DAI, the dumbass internet, that's what we are on. The DAI.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what else you got Chuck? Give it to me.

• 19:07Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 19:10Chuck Nice?

  This is Elias Siametis, I think.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you spell it?

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  S I A M E T I S. So either Siametis or Siametis.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Siametis, all right, I'll give you. You got a 50% chance on that one.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  50% chance, right? And Elias, if I messed up your name, change it.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck don't play.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make my life easier.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Biberdorf, and Lord Chuck. Oh, man, look at you.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  That's so funny. He says this, and I love this. What are some fun chemistry experiments that I can do at home for my twins other than the ones in your books? Because we have done those. At what age do you think it is appropriate or beneficial to get them started?

• 20:05Kate Biberdorf?

  Oh, well, let's start with that one immediately. As soon as they can start talking. I think it's really important to get that inquiry in mind. Try to ask questions. And I think it's really important, too, to announce that you don't know everything. And it's okay not to know everything. As a scientist, that's what we're doing is exploring. We have, we have questions and then we're searching for answers. And so if you can kind of break down science into that right at the young age, then kids love science. It's all fun about explosions and exploration. What I would highly recommend is try elephant toothpaste. That's, that's not, well, it's in my, the kids' version is in my book, but do the big kid version. Grab 35% hydrogen peroxide from a medical supply store. Order potassium iodide off of Amazon. Don't use yeast, because yeast isn't going to do anything. But use, order potassium iodide.

• 20:49Kate Biberdorf?

  Use dish soap, make sure it's not natural dish soap. Natural dish soap doesn't have high surfactant in it, so it doesn't bubble as much. And so like Dawn dish soap is fantastic. Add some food coloring, use a big flask, an Ehrlich-Meyer flask is best, and add it right together, add potassium iodide last. It's going to shoot out the top as the hydrogen peroxide decomposes. I mean, that's just a winner.

• 21:06Chuck Nice?

  Everybody loves that. Everybody loves that. They love that. Kids love it.

• 21:10Kate Biberdorf?

  Outside, outside, it'll destroy your ceiling.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't it make a big mess?

• 21:15Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes.

• 21:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:16Kate Biberdorf?

  But there's tarts. And there's also things, like you can wash stuff outside. No big deal.

• 21:21Chuck Nice?

  Did you see the internet video where they did a a version of that where it is almost half a city block that they filled with that?

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 21:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 21:33Chuck Nice?

  It's insane. They made a set. It's like half a city block.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  As a square, a half a city block square.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 21:41Chuck Nice?

  And they just did, they filled the whole thing. It's insane.

• 21:46Kate Biberdorf?

  It is. It made me so nervous because they did one right before that where I don't think their safety was up personally. Like it got too close to them. I don't think they were wearing anything. It made me so nervous that they were gonna get just covered in this stuff, which is just not good for your skin.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that, I saw that one too, and they're running away from it in that video.

• 22:03Kate Biberdorf?

  It hits the house.

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  You, yes, I'm like, you people are insane. Yeah, okay.

• 22:09Kate Biberdorf?

  But I'm glad it was a cool video. No one got hurt, so that's all I care about.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But wait, Kate, does, does that mixture have any utility at all other than the demonstration of a geyser?

• 22:24Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, to be honest, I use it in my classroom to, to talk about either stoichiometry or catalysis. And so you can talk about how you can use another molecule to come in and break apart a certain molecule into new pieces. Because what happens is hydrogen oxide decomposes into oxygen, gas and water. And it's extremely exothermic, so it's really hot. So your students can actually feel the heat. So you can talk about it in thermodynamics, you can talk about catalysis.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, so it's very, it's very educationally helpful.

• 22:49Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, it's very educationally helpful.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instructive, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cool.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  So can you, now, and I'm gonna say, I, I just wanna stop you because I don't care if I don't know something.

• 22:59Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Chuck Nice?

  That's why I love doing this. Stoic, stoichiometry and catalysis, you sounded like you just told me I was gonna die.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry Chuck, but you have stoichiometry and catalysis.

• 23:12Kate Biberdorf?

  Oh no.

• 23:13Chuck Nice?

  You have six months to live, so I don't know what those are.

• 23:17Kate Biberdorf?

  Let me break it down.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, our stoichiometry tells us that you have the catalysis.

• 23:21Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah. Okay. So a geometry is just the chemistry version of dimensional analysis. So if you're saying like, I'm going 60 miles an hour and I have 100 miles to go. How long is it going to take me to get there? That's dimensional analysis. So it's just basic unit conversion. So a geometry is you throw molecules on top of it. So you got a little carbon dioxide, you got some methane and you just go through the math. And so you can do that with the decomposition and go through how much oxygen you would expect to produce. And it's a very fun, I say fun exercise because it uses the explosion. And catalysis, you've probably heard of catalysts before. And so that's where you just have a new molecule and it takes two other molecules and brings them together. And so it's essentially a, it's like, it's like the highway for a reaction instead of the backroads.

• 24:04Kate Biberdorf?

  So when you throw in a catalyst, it allows it to go way fast and it's on a much faster route. And it's just better, usually. Otherwise it's a bad catalyst.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  Awesome. That's great.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, good, good. All right. All right, what's next, Chuck?

• 24:17Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. This is Roman Pruckup, uh, who says, hey, hey, Dr. Tyson.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they ever say where they're from? I was like knowing where they're from.

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  No, they don't.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't say, okay.

• 24:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. I mean, guys, if you want to start, um, including that for Neil, that would be great. I will definitely include it in your question. Um, Roman Pruckup says, uh, hey, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Biberdorf, Lord nice. What is stopping us from using H instead of LI in L ion batteries? Which I believe would be a lithium ion battery, right? Uh, theoretically, they should be able to form the same connections with other elements. And H is lighter than LI. So hydrogen lighter than lithium. Is it only because H is the only S1 non-metal element? Uh, you know what? I was understanding everything he said right up until that point.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Now, now you're just showing off, Roman.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know. Wait, wait, I gotta, I gotta slip in here, get a little astrophysics. So you may remember on your periodic table, hydrogen is listed twice. Uh, sort of as a gas and as a, as a metal. Oh, do we have a live demonstration of it there? So under very high pressures, hydrogen takes on the properties of metals. And in the center of Jupiter, which is 90% hydrogen.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The hydrogen manifests as metal and it conducts electricity and it does all the things metals do and Jupiter has a ferocious magnetic field as a result of it. But everywhere else hydrogen is just like regular hydrogen. So Kate, over to you.

• 25:49Kate Biberdorf?

  So it's a gas. So the main difference is it's a gas and so lithium is going to be a metal. We can force it to be in the aqueous state so we can dissolve it in water, but hydrogen's a gas and so that immediately changes everything about how it would operate. One thing we always talk about is how we could eventually try to replace a gas tank in a car with hydrogen gas. And so when I say gas tank, I'm actually talking about the liquid that you pump into your tank, whereas hydrogen-

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gasoline.

• 26:13Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, thank you, thank you. That's what I'm trying to say, gasoline. Whereas hydrogen gas is an actual explosive gas and it would be really, really dangerous to put that on our car if we got into an accident because now it would be a huge explosion. Like that's unbelievably flammable and if it's stored under pressure, it's super dangerous if it gets knocked into. So that's one of the biggest hiccups is that it's a gas and it's flammable, so it's very dangerous and we have to take care of it. All lithium's flammable as well, so there's pieces to that.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  I was about to say-

• 26:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lithium bursts into flames too, doesn't it?

• 26:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. I was like, I was like, yeah, I got a feeling lithium might be in the same category since they're telling me to take my battery out of my suitcase when I'm flying.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so maybe it's just not as flammable and explosive. Is that a fair characterization?

• 26:55Kate Biberdorf?

  That's fair. And it's stored under pressure, like you said, that pressure component really changes things.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. But just to be clear, and that S1 little ditty he put at the end there, if I understand that correctly, Kate, correct me if I'm wrong, that lithium appears directly beneath hydrogen on the periodic table and everybody in a column in principle can make the same families of molecules. And this is all he was saying there, right Kate?

• 27:22Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes, that's exactly right. So both hydrogen and lithium have one electron in their very first shell, that little, that external valence spot. So in the 1S shell, hydrogen has one, in the 2S shell, hydrogen or lithium has one.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 27:37Chuck Nice?

  All right. Well, I gotta say, chemistry is a lot of fun.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm right.

• 27:42Kate Biberdorf?

  It is fun. I'm so mad at your teacher.

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, oh my gosh.

• 27:48Kate Biberdorf?

  I was ready to jump through the webcam and hug you. Like, it breaks my heart when I hear that chemistry teachers are awful. I hear it all the time. It's so sad.

• 27:57Chuck Nice?

  Kate, Kate, you're not helping me here.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, Kate, no, Chuck did need a hug in that moment. That this is true.

• 28:05Kate Biberdorf?

  He did a hug. He did.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Clearly I did, because I didn't even realize I was harboring all that.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's go to Jim Kelly, and Jim Kelly says, "Hi, Dr. Beberdorf. When I took chemistry in college, it was the late 80s. I had a lab partner who told me the story of when the chemistry in high school, he mixed some things together that caused a cloud of gas to billow forth. My vague memory was that it was green. When the teacher saw it, he yelled to the class to evacuate immediately. Luckily, no one was hurt. I don't remember what he said the cloud of glass he created was, but I'm curious, do you have any idea what chemicals would be available in a high school chemistry class that could cause this kind of event? And what, indeed, was produced? Hey Chuck, you pronounced my name Jim."

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  You know what, Jim?

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People don't have any confidence in you, Chuck.

• 29:00Chuck Nice?

  No, I know. That was wrong, Jim. That was wrong.

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jim, Chuck was having a hard day today, so I know what he did to you. So, so Kate, you know any magic green gas cloud recipes?

• 29:13Kate Biberdorf?

  Chlorine. I'm sure it's chlorine gas is what the teacher was afraid they made. So chlorine gas is yellow-green. It's not good to breathe in. It can go into your lungs. It dissolves in the water vapor that's in your lungs, and so it forms hydrochloric acid. So then you have acid in your lungs. It can burn, burn, burn.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  You're burning up from the inside?

• 29:29Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, it burns. It's terrible. It's absolutely painful.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wait, so Kate, wait. So Kate, if chlorine is a gas... And but of course, when mixed with sodium, it's just salt. Why are we, why do we fear hydrogen in a battery? If if it's gas, but then if it mixes together with something else, it's no longer a gas.

• 29:50Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, it depends on what the phase would be, right? And what it was, what its comical compound would actually be, just like you're saying. Because if it's something with hydrogen partnered with another metal, it could be something that could be right, quite reactive. So in lab, we use something called lithium aluminum hydride. And so when the hydrogen actually has that electron, instead of giving it up and forming an acid or proton, instead of when it has that electron, it can actually be quite reactive and it's very dangerous. So when we use lithium aluminum hydride in lab, you end up having to take your flask and put it in a liquid nitrogen bath. You soak it in something that's at seventy seven Calvin or negative one ninety four Celsius because it's so reactive. So that my gut instinct is I don't want a battery with that. I don't want to be anywhere near that.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, but but a little known fact that the the orange fuel tank that was the main tank of the space shuttle orbiter when it launched, it had the two solid rocket boosters on the side. And then the main tank in the middle was it had two tanks inside of it. And one of those two tanks is twice the size of the other, precisely twice the size. And the one that's twice as big had liquid hydrogen in it. And the one that was half the size had liquid oxygen in it. And you blend them together, they pick up a two to one ratio. And out comes the exhaust, which is just water. And so the so so you're saying we can't do that in a car?

• 31:11Kate Biberdorf?

  I don't think so, not safely. Have you ever been around those doers? The doers are they're the vacuum sealed containers that are you have to in order to keep something in the liquid phase. So in order to have nitrogen, if you've ever seen liquid nitrogen, it's kept in these doers. They're vacuum sealed containers because nitrogen wants to be in a gas in our environment here on earth. Same thing with hydrogen, it wants to be a gas. You'd have to use a special container, which are ridiculously heavy. So on top of the fact that things are pressurized, I just realized. In the near future.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I I asked you a stupid question because of course those tanks, they're kept refrigerated until launch. Right, so yeah, you can't do that with a car.

• 31:47Kate Biberdorf?

  Not in Texas, no.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you guys don't even have electricity.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blood drawn, oh.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, I had, had to do it.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, alright, we gotta take another quick break. And we come back more with Kate the Chemist. As we loving it, because Chuck is learning some chemistry for the first time in his life. And so, alright, we'll be back in a moment on StarTalk.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Cosmic, where we use a dish, all about chemistry. So our first foray with a pure chemistry, uh, episode here, and I'm loving it. And we got Kate the Chemist. Anybody that's named Kate the Chemist, you gotta have him on the show, see? Because he's, no one voluntarily, just randomly calls himself the Chemist. Unless they can like, mix some stuff together and, uh, and Kate, you met your, your husband in your chemistry department, correct?

• 32:59Kate Biberdorf?

  I did, yeah. We were both getting PhDs in inorganic chemistry. We met in Welch Hall. Uh, he was behind me in our Saturday morning seminars and like, making jokes about things. And it made me laugh and just, we fell in love.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, but now, now he's in, uh, software engineering, correct?

• 33:15Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, software engineering, he's coding, um, he's quite an introvert and I'm quite an extrovert, so it's a pretty good balance, so.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Chuck, so if you have a couple where they both are completely chemically fluent, you got, they have to really stay in love their whole time, because that could get really, here honey, drink this.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. I was gonna say, yeah, that's a, that's a terrible, yeah, you don't wanna make your, your wife mad when she knows how to put together concoctions that will burn you up from the inside.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the inside. This is, this is, this is nine episodes of CSI, ready to be written, right here.

• 33:53Kate Biberdorf?

  I'd have to be very careful about it, that's for sure.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Kate, I think you only mentioned two platforms when I last asked. TikTok and, uh, was it Twitter or Instagram?

• 34:04Kate Biberdorf?

  Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. I'm at Kate the Chemist. On Twitter, I'm K with the number eight, the chemist. Someone else stole my handle there, so.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ouch.

• 34:13Kate Biberdorf?

  I know.

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, I got, we got people, we can take care of that.

• 34:16Kate Biberdorf?

  Thank you.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, call, call our people.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  I will, without a doubt.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll have it in the morning, okay?

• 34:22Kate Biberdorf?

  Thank you, guys, thank you so much.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck, give me some more.

• 34:29Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. This is Sparrow Chaos. Sparrow Chaos says, hello, astrophysicist Neil Tyson and chemist Kate Biberdorf. And Chuck, um, how does dissolving a salt molecule in water make its atoms ionize? Ooh.

• 34:50Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah. Are you ready for this? Okay, it's actually pretty simple. Um, so what they do is they form what are referred to as ion dipole interactions. And so the salt goes in and it's a, it's in a lattice. So when you think of sodium chloride, I'm sure you don't, you don't think of it in this big like cage, but that's what it looks like. So there's a sodium ion, then a chloride ion, and then a sodium and chloride and sodium chloride. And they alternate and you form this giant cage.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  It's a big box.

• 35:14Kate Biberdorf?

  It's a huge box. Exactly. Like a big cube.

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the sodium atom is boxed in by the chlorine atoms.

• 35:23Kate Biberdorf?

  They're all boxed in. They're completely surrounded in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 35:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, got it. Interesting.

• 35:27Kate Biberdorf?

  Like a cube, every other corner is a sodium and then every other corner is a chloride. And so they just rotate. It's a one to one ratio. And so they're already technically in the ion form when they're in salt because it's a sodium ion attracted to a chloride ion and that's what forms the sodium chloride. So they're already together. And so when that cube drops into the water, they form the ion dipole interactions, the ions from the salt, dipoles from the water, because water is shaped in this beautiful little point, kind of, if you will. So the oxygen's at the top and then the hydrogens are directly below it. And so this is, this forms an interaction with the salt and they come together. It's called an ion.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I gotta show off here. I gotta show off. I have to show off. It's a hundred and five degree angle. Is that correct?

• 36:10Kate Biberdorf?

  It's, might be. Um, I know it's less than 109.5 degrees because it's in the bent form. Um, but it's like.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's all I knew. I just wanted, I just had to show off that little bit of thing. That's all I knew. Okay.

• 36:20Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, that sounds right.

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  As far as I'm concerned, you're talking about FM radio.

• 36:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, 109.5.

• 36:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Classic rock all the time, 109.5.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ions.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming to you live right now.

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  All right, very.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so keep going. So now what? So it's just lives that way. That is the natural state.

• 36:49Kate Biberdorf?

  They break, they break apart. And so the ions then kind of separate by themselves. So you have sodium ion that's completely surrounded by water. And so since sodium is positive, it's going to be attracted to the oxygen negative side of water. So the O's are going to be surrounded, my missing just came out, my O's are going to be around the sodium. And then the chlorine, the chlorine on the other side is negative. And so that's going to be surrounded by the hydrogen component of the water molecule. So it's completely going to arrange. So all the ions separate out and they're completely surrounded by tons and tons of water molecules. And that's what your salt water actually is.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 37:22Kate Biberdorf?

  It's beautiful.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the whole ocean is this, is what you're saying?

• 37:25Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, plus a lot of other crap. There's plastic in there. There's coral reefs, there's fish, there's oxygen.

• 37:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And fish poop, fish poop.

• 37:33Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, yeah. Carbon dioxide these days, so.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:39Kate Biberdorf?

  I know. Sorry to go there.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Yeah, she had to bum us out. All right. All right. So Chuck, what else you have?

• 37:47Chuck Nice?

  All right. So let's, let's go from a brine to a food question. This is.

• 37:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Chuck's only chemistry word he knows.

• 37:56Chuck Nice?

  That was my only chemistry joke that I could do. You're talking about, so, okay, forget it. Carrie Manenberg says this. Hi, Dr. Kate and Dr. Tyson. This is a food chemistry question. Is it true cooking vegetables will reduce their nutritional value and denature some enzymes? Some raw veggies taste great, but when you roast a veggie like onions.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They taste even better.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  It tastes so much better.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So what does heat do to the big molecules, Kate?

• 38:30Kate Biberdorf?

  It depends on what the molecule is. So they're completely right that with your proteins, they are gonna do nature. So they go from the crumpled up position. So they're kind of like on top of each other, the fetal position, and then they open up to more of a starfish when you, when they apply the heat. So that's gonna change their structure.

• 38:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Kate, what happens when some heat slaps on to some, some big vegetable molecules? Or, or vitamins, vitamins, I guess, is the nutritional part of this?

• 38:53Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah. Well, so the molecules for vitamins are either gonna be fat soluble or water soluble. So it depends on how you're cooking them. So if you have a lot of oil in there, then the vitamins will dissolve in your oil or your fat. And so that will be pulled out. And depending on if you eat that liquid that's around there, it's very possible that it will dissolve out of there.

• 39:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Okay. So if you knew in advance whether it's water soluble or, or, or, or oil soluble, you might cook your vegetables differently to avoid that?

• 39:19Kate Biberdorf?

  Perhaps. But in general, the idea is just to minimize the amount of oil. You don't want that stuff in your body anyway. You don't want any of those fats. You wanna minimize it because it's not good for your arteries.

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. But I bet what he talking about, when you roast onions, you're not, you're putting them neither in oil nor water. You're just slapping those puppies on the grill right next to your T-bone. So how about if it's just pure heat and you get those little brown marks on your, on your onions? Caramelization. Yeah, the caramelization. Exactly.

• 39:44Kate Biberdorf?

  Exactly.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd love me some of that. Yeah.

• 39:47Kate Biberdorf?

  And so caramelization is when you have your sugars. And so that can be either your com- complex carbohydrates, or your starches, or those could be your simple sugars, which are actually sugars. And so when you go through caramelization, you're breaking down the sugars, you're breaking them into smaller molecules. Um, so you are changing their chemical composition, but I, I don't think necessarily that's making it better or worse for you, for onions specifically. I'm more, for me, I'm more worried about cooking your veggies in a lot of oil or fat.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So it may be that, well, okay, but sure, surely there's some molecules that don't like the heat and it'll, it'll just bust them and break them apart, right?

• 40:22Kate Biberdorf?

  That's, that's different, though. That's talking about if you had too much heat. So if you had too much heat, then your molecules are gonna completely decompose, like actually break apart instead of breaking into smaller molecules. So it's like whether or not it's breaking into more of its elemental states, or whether or not it's breaking into smaller molecules that are still tasty and aromatic and give things a smell.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Still of themselves. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So that's, is that the difference between, uh, decomposing and biodegrading?

• 40:48Kate Biberdorf?

  Well, that depends too. So biodegrading is gonna be something that usually happens outside, right? So you have like your, um, what am I trying to think of? So like six-pack rings, um, those need to be biodegradable. And so that's when sunlight hits it. So high-energy UV radiation will hit it, um, and do trigger some kind of chemical reactions as well. But those are usually photosensitive chemicals.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 41:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  Checking that out.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 41:11Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 41:12Kate Biberdorf?

  Similar, but very similar.

• 41:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Kate Biberdorf?

  It's just different types of energy.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Speaking of water soluble, uh, who, who knew? Who would have, who would have known that the wicked witch of the West was water soluble?

• 41:24Kate Biberdorf?

  (laughing)

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, that's, that's just an interesting little fact. Uh, we, we need some chemists to work on that, I think. I think they gotta get to, get some top people trying to figure that one out. What kind of life form is she where that occurs? Right, right. All right, Chuck, keep them coming.

• 41:41Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is, uh, Brady Fiter. And Brady Fiter says, hello all from Los Alamos, California.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  My question is, in the world of chemistry, is there ever any thought to the possibility that new chemistry might someday be discovered in the way that the physical world is grappling with the ideas of dark matter or dark energy, or in the same realm of possibilities, uh, like a chemical world that sort of exists, maybe in the quantum realm?

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. So Chuck, we, this is a, this is a, a movie trailer ready to happen. In a world.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  (laughing)

• 42:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a world. Yeah, I, I love that question. So, so Kate, are we living in the entire one and only chemistry universe that?

• 42:29Kate Biberdorf?

  I refuse to, yeah.

• 42:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go, can you imagine a whole other chemical realm that is apart and distinct from everything we're doing now?

• 42:39Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes, and I think it would be ignorant to say that we know everything now for chemistry. I mean, we can't figure out how the electron moves across or new, from the nucleus. Like it, it teleports from one side of the atom to the other. We can't figure that out. So to claim that we know exactly what's going on is just gibberish. But I do think we know a lot more than we did 100 years ago. So we've made a lot of progress. I really wish I was gonna be alive like two or 300 years from now, because I think that's when the chemistry's gonna be just like, ah, beautiful.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, that's like a chef does it. Kiss your fingers and pop up your hand.

• 43:11Chuck Nice?

  We're back to cooking with you. That's great.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but, but, but wait a minute. So in physics, there are entire branches of physics that were discovered, right? So relativity was a branch of physics and quantum physics, a branch of physics. So is there a branch of chemistry you can imagine waiting to be discovered?

• 43:30Kate Biberdorf?

  Oh, man, that is such a good question. Yes.

• 43:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just extending the question from our guy, yeah.

• 43:37Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah, I honestly, I can't put a name to it, but 100% because I think, I just think we don't know everything right now. I think there's so much more to figure out. We have a decent understanding of the atom, but we still can't see it. Our microscopes are getting better and better and better, but we're just, it's not perfect yet. And so I think that we're so close to learning a lot, like we're right on the cusp. So hopefully we'll get it.

• 43:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So right now we're playing with atoms, but, and they're doing stuff we just accept.

• 44:02Kate Biberdorf?

  Yeah.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We haven't gotten in it to say, hey, I saw you do that and now I understand it. We just kind of, we agree with each other. This is what it does and we make stuff out of it and move on.

• 44:13Kate Biberdorf?

  We haven't found an experiment to break down our theories yet, but I think it's coming.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Okay.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  Hopeful, very hopeful. Okay, here we go. This is Kevin Ho. Kevin says, hello, Dr. Tyson and Dr. Bieber Dorf. When we hear the word chemist, we often think of some mad scientist working in an underground lab with lots of different beakers and flask boiling away. Do either of you know any mad or maybe just kind of crazy scientist in your field?

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kate, other than yourself.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need not implicate yourself in this question. You have immunity, diplomatic immunity here. So, yeah, is it possible to know a lot of chemistry and be diabolical? So that you end up doing things nefarious?

• 45:07Kate Biberdorf?

  For sure, 100%. We've heard some really sad stories about people who've taken their own lives because they know enough and they do it in kind of horrendous ways. So I don't like that. I don't like that side. But I do think that chemists in general are quite fun. We usually use our skills for good. So a lot of us, you'll find a lot of chemists in elementary schools.

• 45:31Kate Biberdorf?

  But we're, you know, we're out there trying to promote science, make scientists look good. I want to show that anybody can be a scientist. It doesn't matter who you are, what you look like. Honestly, anybody can be a scientist. If you have a question, technically you are a scientist, so.

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 45:44Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Okay, and can you be a scientist if you're not simultaneously wearing a lab coat?

• 45:51Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes.

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the question.

• 45:52Kate Biberdorf?

  But you're in the kitchen. If you're in the kitchen, you're cooking, so you do it every night, 100%.

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cooking is chemistry. If there's anything, if it's anything, it's chemistry. Chemistry and thermodynamics as well.

• 46:02Kate Biberdorf?

  Yes.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck, let's go into a fast lightning round. So Kate, you have to answer in fewer than five words what your questions are. Give it to me.

• 46:09Kate Biberdorf?

  Okay.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 46:10Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Uh, this is Gerald Johnson. Gerald Johnson from Seattle. He says, I have reached a specific, a scientific plateau, has, have we reached a scientific plateau or has science, discovery, invention just slowed down compared to the days of old? Kind of what you were just talking about.

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So yes or no, Kate?

• 46:31Kate Biberdorf?

  No, we haven't reached the end of that. We just got vaccines. No.

• 46:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:39Chuck Nice?

  She's like, I just got a booster shot. What's your problem? No.

• 46:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's possible that, I mean, a lot of advances happen on the frontiers of journals and doesn't always make it into the newspapers. And then, and then there are, Kate, what are they called? Who bring chemistry into popular products that, uh, just, uh, engineering chemists, you know, kept, chemical engineers, right? Who then do interesting things with it. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I, I have to disagree with the person as well. I'm, I'm on Kate's side with this. Okay, keep going. And we took more than five words to do it.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  Friedrich Johansson says this, uh, hello, doctors and lords. Team, team.

• 47:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you, don't get too accustomed to that, Chuck. We gotta.

• 47:23Chuck Nice?

  You know what? I gotta tell you, at first I was like, oh God, I can't believe this is stupid. But now I'm kind of like, I like the sound. Anyway, uh. Team Seas is the initiative to get funds to remove plastic from the oceans. Is there some plausible chemistry as a means of removing plastic? And more importantly, microplastic from our seas?

• 47:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Kate, you got like a microbe that would have to include biochemistry, right? Some microbes that would munch on plastic and either, you know, return it to its base ingredients. And die. Return it to, or Chuck, it'll eat the plastic and then it'll become super microbes.

• 48:02Kate Biberdorf?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, yeah, that would be careful what we wish for here. So Kate, what's the future of chemists helping the oceans? I'll give you more than five words because we're gonna end on this question. I'm gonna give you more than five words, go.

• 48:15Kate Biberdorf?

  I would, I would say I agree with your answer on that. The only thing I'd be concerned of is any waste that would then be produced in that reaction. So if they're producing methane or producing something else, that could be bad for our environment. I do think MOFs could be the answer, so metal organic framework. So they're like those cages we discussed before. So they would essentially trap the plastic, if you will, and then you'd be able to kind of filter that whole thing out in general. So that might be a future, but it's a long way for that one.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, so this is a, it's an incarceration system where you.

• 48:42Kate Biberdorf?

  Mm hmm, exactly.

• 48:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I don't like the sound of that. I don't know about that because you know what's gonna happen. Now all the black plastic is all locked up. The white plastic's still roaming the ocean just as free as they ever was.

• 48:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means it's time to end the show.

• 49:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Chuck, we can never reel Chuck back when he goes on that. Kate, it's been a delight to have you. We know we're gonna want you back. And my one little sort of, I have more, but I would throw out a periodic table tidbit. So we astrophysicists discovered an element on the sun before we discovered it here on Earth. Do you know which element that is?

• 49:26Kate Biberdorf?

  I thought, I wanna say, oh God, it's either gonna be hydrogen or helium. Helium.

• 49:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, you got it. So Helios, so we named it after the Greek sun god Helios. And so that was a rare case where we had better data from the universe than we did, than we can produce here on Earth. So, oh yeah. And so, so that's my one little, and I guess I helped.

• 49:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Kate, we're all gonna look for your book so that finally adults can blow stuff up the way you did as kids. Tell me the name of the book again and where can we find it?

• 50:00Kate Biberdorf?

  It's Elemental: The Hidden Chemistry of Everything, and it's sold anywhere books are sold.

• 50:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anywhere books are sold. That's the answer now. Yeah, that's how that goes. All right. Well, thanks for being a cherished guest on StarTalk, and I assure you, this is your first and it won't be your last, provided you agree. Provided you survive, Chuck.

• 50:18Kate Biberdorf?

  I'll be back.

• 50:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll think you'll be back. All right, Chuck. Always good to have you as my co-host here. All right, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, as always. Keep looking out.