Cosmic Queries – Cosmological Curiosities

What is nothing? Does nothing exist? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice explore cosmological curiosities about the end of the universe, dark matter, and more!

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are galaxies that are like sixty-five million light years away from Earth. Okay, from our galaxy. So right now, if they had a super duper telescope and they looked towards Earth sixty-five million years ago, what are they witnessing?

• 0:15Chuck Nice?

  Uh, dinosaurs, right? Oh, and they're getting killed! Yeah!

• 0:23Chuck Nice?

  It just dawned on me what that, what that timeframe was. I'm like, oh snap!

• 0:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 0:28Chuck Nice?

  The Earth is putting on a show for them.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Today, we're doing the ever-popular Cosmic Queries Edition. Chuck, good to have you, man.

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, always a pleasure to be here.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're preloaded with cosmic queries from our Patreon members. So what's the topic today?

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  We have cosmological curiosities, which, you know, that, that covers enough of it.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you, I got you. And if something I don't know, I have to call my people. I got cosmology friends. So what do you have?

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's jump into it with Danny Kaye. Danny Kaye says, he's no-

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Danny Kaye from the ether.

• 1:23Chuck Nice?

  He's Danny Kaye from the ether. He goes, "Good morning, gentlemen, uh, the court of knowledge and His Majesty, Neil deGrasse Tyson."

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude, we're gonna answer your question anyway. You didn't have to. This is-

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though you are asking that question first, I don't know, but-

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  And actually, he does put in here, he goes, "I am hailing from the Netherlands, Rotterdam. Come to thee and these humble inquiries of knowledge."

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm, Netherlands. Okay, so what does he have?

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  There he goes. He goes, "In a previous episode, there was a mention of an expanding of our universe and that there could be a point in the distant future where we would be stretched to a point where our neighboring galaxies would be too far to reach. Would this expansion also affect our solar system as well? Does it mean that our blue ball would slowly drift away from our star? And would our star dim before that time comes? And if so, would you suggest how we might be able to survive something like this?"

• 2:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're all gonna die.

• 2:26Chuck Nice?

  Very simple.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so in the vacuum of space, there's this mysterious pressure forcing an acceleration of the expanding universe. We have a word for it, but we don't know what it is. We had no business naming it, really. And it's called dark energy. And I joked that we should just, you know, dark matter, we don't know what that is either. We should just call it Fred and Wilma, you know, just two words that don't hint at anything physical, right? Because we don't really know what's causing it. But we can measure it. And so this expansion of the universe that's accelerating, that will continue to grow. And the bigger the universe

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is, the more vacuum there is, and this pressure is a property of the vacuum. So, as the universe expands, the gravity gets thinner, the gravity, what we call the gravity density gets thinner, but the, the, the dark energy continues to grow, relative to the gravity. So initially, all the galaxies will, will expand beyond our horizon. And then after that, it will start ripping apart the galaxies themselves. Because that's a stronger gravitational force holding them together, start ripping that apart. And so the solar systems will be flung

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  hither and yon. Then, it'll start ripping the planets out of their solar systems. Then, it'll start ripping moons from their host planets. Then, it'll start ripping planets apart, structurally. Then it'll start ripping apart the molecules. Then, it'll start ripping apart the atoms in the molecules. Then, it'll rip apart the nuclei of the atoms. Then, it'll reach the point where the very pixels that comprise the fabric of the universe...

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will succumb to this ripping force. And it's called the big rip because we do not know what will happen after that moment. At that moment, the universe will tear because it will no longer be able to stretch in response to that force. We call it the big rip and it will happen if nothing else is in the way. It's gonna happen in 22 billion years.

• 5:00Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you go, Timmy. Good night and you sleep well.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day, Timmy. So, so yeah, the sun will be long dead by then. Sun will give up the ghost in about five billion years. We're about halfway through the life expectancy of the sun. So the sun will be dead long before that happens. And so I wouldn't worry about it.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there you go. So that's the real answer. The real answer is, Danny, you shouldn't care.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. But I want to be around to watch that rip.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  That would be.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except I would be in the universe that was ripping. And so I would be ripping apart as well.

• 5:42Chuck Nice?

  I live every day in a universe that's ripping.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, no, but think about it. When you zoom in on a photo,

• 5:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That only works until you start seeing the pixels that comprise the photo. If you keep zooming in, there's no more information there. But what happens if you keep zooming in and you want to break apart the pixels themselves? What's between them?

• 6:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who knows? In between the pixels of the photo that you're zooming in on. And so this is the, this is the mystery and the uncertainty we have in 22 billion years. I have it on my calendar, by the way. As I say, October 12th, 22 billion years from now.

• 6:26Chuck Nice?

  22 billion years from now. There you go. That's very cool. I believe that's a Wednesday.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. Thank you. Chuck the savant. Yes.

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  You pick any date 22 billion years from now, I'll tell you what day it's on. All right. This is James Booth and he says, my question is about dark gravity.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  I understand.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is what most people would call dark matter. But he knows I'm calling it dark gravity because that's literally what it is. It is gravity and we have no idea what's causing it. It's not even black holes, by the way, or unilluminated matter. We have good reason to know that that's the case, but go on.

• 7:07Chuck Nice?

  He says, uh, most of the matter we experience that makes up the stars of galaxy only makes up about 5% of the content of the universe.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 7:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay. If that's the case, which you just said it is, is it possible that, given we interact with such a small percentage of the universe, we are indeed the anomaly? This really makes me feel weird.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. So it's imagine you're at night. And there's an ocean in front of you, but you don't really know it. And you turn on your light and you see these white caps. Okay, which show up nicely under moonlight. And we are the white caps of an ocean that surrounds us. So, correct. We, we are, if, if, if there were beings made of dark matter, dark energy, they would see us as a contaminant in their universe. That's right.

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, look at that.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know. I know. It's sad.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  And well, yeah, it is.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are not representative of the most common stuff in the universe, which by the way, is a violation of the Copernican principle. The Copernican principle says that we are not special in time or in place or in location. We're orbiting an average star in an average galaxy. Statistically, it says that we're average. But if we are contained within that 5% of all the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and all the ingredients that make up matter as we know it, then we are something unusual in the universe.

• 8:46Chuck Nice?

  But could we be the average inside of the unusual?

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, we are. Yes. So I was gonna complete the thought and say, given that we are unusual, we are average.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there you go.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  Very nice, very nice.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, another example of that is, you know how the school system try to corral all the smart people together? Right? Or they used to do this. They put the smart people in their own class.

• 9:11Chuck Nice?

  No, they do it still.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 9:12Chuck Nice?

  They have A, A, all the AP kids.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. So, uh, in the, in the general population, you're unusual because you're like smarter than everybody else. Then they put you in the AP class and now you are.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  And you're just average.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just average. You see, that's not.

• 9:28Chuck Nice?

  Everybody's smart. That's right. That's it. That is very cool.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else you got?

• 9:33Chuck Nice?

  A pro- a problem I did not have.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Therefore, that little bit of math was something you didn't have to think about. Is that what you're saying?

• 9:40Chuck Nice?

  Did not have to worry about.

• 9:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I remember. Okay, so I was not in the smart class in elementary school, but I was in the next class. Cause they, they, they totally ranked these classes. And I, and I remembered the kids in the smart class, they got to take French. I'm talking about sixth grade, my elementary school, before there was middle schools that would absorb a sixth grade class. They took French. And a French person, and I said, they're learning a foreign language.

• 10:05Chuck Nice?

  And learning how to smoke.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the hand in front of them.

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  Bunch of fourth graders sitting around.

• 10:16Chuck Nice?

  You speak my language and it sounds like how you say a dog pissing in my ear.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  I don't know why, but you bore me.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? Why does every French person you imitate smoke a cigarette? Why?

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I always wanted that. And that was, you know, I, I was.

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what, what they, they were deciding what you would be, what you would learn without me saying, I want to learn it. And we're not measuring my ambitions for what I could or could be in life. And this is, for me, that's, that's a travesty. Who, who have we lost in the educational system for want of an educational, uh, uh, uh, program to identify where the ambitious kids actually are versus those who scored high on a test?

• 11:08Chuck Nice?

  And more importantly, uh, not just the ambitious kids, but what are identifying their ambitions.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  Because if you identify an ambition, you automatically excite the person to learn because they're pursuing what they already like.

• 11:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Duck for president. Okay. All right, next one.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. This is, let's go to, uh, hey, guys. This is Rotten Josh here from Somerville, Florida. My question, instead of the Big Bang, could the universe have formed from a big implosion? Instead of an outwards explosion? When I think of the Big Bang, I imagine exploding outward. So I was thinking, maybe it exploded inwards. And thank you for your time.

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna let's.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So no, so before we had good data on the

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the very distant future history of the universe. There was our equations that are traceable to Einstein and others, including, um, what's that dude's name? He was a Belgian priest, actually, who contributed mightily to our understanding of the Big Bang. And he, so anyhow, so, so if, under the Einstein's equations, it can sustain a collapsing universe as well as an expanding universe. So people naturally said, if we measure an expanding universe, maybe it'll one day recollaps and then start all over again.

• 12:39Chuck Nice?

  Start all over.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And that's where you get this sort of, um, these, these, the, these rhythms. By the way, the name of that Belgian priest is Georges Le Matre. Georges Le Matre.

• 12:51Chuck Nice?

  Georges Le Matre.

• 12:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Le Matre, yeah, yeah. And so he, he took Einstein's equations and said, wait a minute, this can give us an expanding universe. And if we're expanding, that means it had a beginning. If it had a beginning, that's interesting. And then a lot of religious people said, oh, a Catholic priest says that, in fact, there was a beginning. Cause before then, no one knew how to think of a beginning of the universe. It was, it was not a thought. It's not that they thought about it and said there wasn't. It's like, of course, the universe was always here. How could everything that there is have a beginning? So, we have Einstein's equations. Georges Lemaître says there's a beginning. And then everyone is jumping on that, saying, "See, Genesis is true. God's made the beginning."

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, he said, "No! This ain't got nothing to do with Genesis." Okay? So, it was a little spat between the religious folks who were reaching for this scientific result and the Catholic priest who came up with the result, who was in denial of it confirming biblical Genesis. That's all.

• 13:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. And he was Catholic. That's not... That's kind of rough, when your own people are just like, you know, nah. It's kind of like you appoint a special counsel, and he goes, "Yeah, there was no fraud in this election." And you go, "Yeah, you're fired."

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyhow, so in that scenario, until you have data to show which version of these... What variant on this equation is operating? You could have a cycling universe. And this is how old I am. When I was in graduate school, we explored all of these solutions to the equation. But we know now from data that we're on a one-way trip. The universe will never re-collapse. So, no, we're not going to have a collapsing universe. And the birth of the universe, could it have been a universe before that? That collapsed and then birthed us again? We don't know.

• 14:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be hard to have a collapsing system expand and then never re-collapse. You see what I'm saying? So...

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because whatever made it collapse should make it collapse again. And there's nothing out there that's going to make that happen. So...

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. There you go. All right. Nice question, man. Way to go.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Chris Cohen from Hallworth, New Jersey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Please enjoy this episode of StarTalk Radio with your and my favorite personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 15:39Chuck Nice?

  So this is Gao D. Haraginadoni. I'm from San Jose, California. My question regarding shyness of dark matter when interacting with other matter. If we think dark matter as a giant spider web that holds the Earth and the Sun and the gravity, why does it interact with dark matter that holds the Earth and the Moon together? Or the dark matter that holds our solar system and the Milky Way and the galaxy? With normal matter, these three spider webs would scrape and break each other. Dark matter is pretty outgoing, all over the place, holding galaxies together and whatnot, but when it comes to interacting with other dark matter, why is it so bashful? Is it because it's afraid of rejection? Or maybe it's just not interested in a three-way? Or whatever reason? I'm just curious.

• 16:24Chuck Nice?

  Please let me know. You know, I think he was trying to do a bit at the end there.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't stand up.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  Pretty sure he was trying to get a little bit at the end, you know, but I read it anyway, just to satisfy you. You got your little comedy bit in there, Gao, but yeah. Is there, is there different dark matter that's doing different things?

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so dark matter is not holding Earth together. The molecular forces are, the electromagnetic attraction forces are. Dark matter is not holding the solar system together. All the objects there is sufficient gravity to make that happen. But dark matter is holding together the galaxy. And it's holding together galaxy clusters. So, it turns out, other than through gravity, we don't interact with dark matter. So you could just walk through dark matter, you wouldn't know it and it wouldn't know it. More, more, more accurately said, you wouldn't know it and it wouldn't care. Okay? So now, not only do you not interact with dark matter, dark matter does not interact with itself.

• 17:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if it did, you would have concentrations of dark matter. But just think about it, if you have two hot marshmallows and they meet in the, at night, okay, over the fire.

• 17:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What'll they do?

• 17:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, they'll get it on because they're both hot. So, I mean, that sounds like the recipe for marshmallow love if I ever heard it. Two, two hot marshmallows.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was not my intent for you to take it down that path.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two hot marshmallows, they, they'll stick.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  They stick to each other.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are forces within the marshmallow, material forces, that when it sees other marshmallows, that they'll stick. Okay?

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we, we, our matter knows how to do this. All right? It's how you get planets. It's how you get stars.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark matter does not stick to us, so it's not with the marshmallow, or with the planet, or with the star, and it doesn't stick to itself. So dark matter does not make concentrations. So as far as we know and understand the behavior of dark matter, we're not, there's no, you don't expect to see dark matter planets, or dark matter galaxies.

• 18:37Chuck Nice?

  Dark matter is the Unabomber. It's just.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Lone, it's a lone wolf.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's lone.

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  It's out there by itself.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By itself.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  And it does not care.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there it is. Unabomber, that's a stretch, I think, but okay.

• 18:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know, it was, it was kind of a hermit, right? He didn't care about anybody. I mean, listen, I don't know.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a morbid stretch, I might add, but.

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  It was a morbid stretch.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But anyhow, so, so, yeah, it's just, the fun, the interesting part is that it doesn't even interact with itself physically, only through the force of gravity.

• 19:09Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So watch, so watch. You have a forming solar system, and two bits of matter know this, and they fall towards each other and stick. All right?

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now watch.

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have bits of, of dark matter, all right, and they fall towards each other, and they pass through each other.

• 19:27Chuck Nice?

  Pass through each other.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and, and they'll just, they'll just lock. There it is.

• 19:32Chuck Nice?

  Very rude.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 19:33Chuck Nice?

  Very rude.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very. There you have it.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Oh, very cool. Uh, well, that, that's a great question, man.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're getting through these, Chuck.

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  We're getting through them. We're, people have made note that sometimes we take and luxuriate.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  In our question answers.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, we're making progress here.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  Yep. So this is Bob Dan and Bob Dan says this, "Hi, this is Bob is from the USA. If space in the universe is expanding, then why aren't we being stretched thin and ripped apart atom by atom? And what am I missing here? I mean, wouldn't the expansion apply at every level, right down to the subatomic? And how is this current expansion different from the so-called big rip you talk about? And here's what I want to know, Bob Dan, why do you have such a damn attitude?

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gave me the attitude.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  I'm just reading the way it's written.

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you, you are imbuing this boy's question with attitude.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay. I mean, it's just, I don't know, the way it sounds.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I could have read it peacefully and calmly, I'm sure. Okay.

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, yeah, so the expansion of the universe, depending on the rate and where, where it's happening, it will not overcome the, the gravitational forces that are, and the electromagnetic forces that are otherwise binding solar systems and objects together. The expansion of the universe has to be way stronger before that happens. So in other words, yes, you're stretching space, but I'm holding on to myself within the stretching space until the force of the stretching space exceeds that of my gravity, or exceeds that of the electromagnetic force, then it'll pull you apart.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  So the fundamental forces of the universe right now are greater than the ripping forces that are acting upon it?

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. So you got it. So the gravity, if you've got a tight gravity system, it's, it's, you're not pulling that apart with your expanding universe, yet.

• 21:38Chuck Nice?

  Cool. Very cool. Well, I'm sorry for giving you so much attitude. I read the question. It's a good question, man.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What sentence had the most attitude there? Read it to me.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay. And how is this current expansion different from the so-called big rip?

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I would read that, "Oh, and how is this current expansion different from the so-called big rip?" See?

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  See, that's why you're an astrophysicist and I have problems with my, um, my, my phone carrier.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next question. What do you have?

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying, I get on the phone with them and they're just like, sir, you cannot talk to me that way. And I will not have.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Click, right, they can hang up on your ass.

• 22:23Chuck Nice?

  They can hang up on you now.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You use profanity, they'll just hang up.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  They can hang up on you now, then they're, and it's totally fine, you know?

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know the question, if it's AI, and you have the, will the AI hang up on you? Or will it crush you back?

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  And that's what I'll say from now on. I was just trying to figure out if you were AI. Don't hang up. Don't hang up. Just wanted to make sure you weren't AI.

• 22:46Chuck Nice?

  Um, anyway, this is Michael Rivera. Michael Rivera says, hello, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. Michael here from Las Vegas. My question is, would it be possible for humans to artificially create a black hole with significant mass? In order to further study the mysteries of how black holes work and what they do? If so, how dangerous would this be? This artificial black hole made here on Earth at a sustainable size? And would there be any way of containing it? This guy, Michael, I have a feeling is trying to make a black hole in his basement or something.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basement people, I worry about them.

• 23:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, I grew up in an apartment. We don't have any basement projects, you know? Hidden from the parents.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  That's funny. Neil, don't make me come in here. I feel like I hear a black hole being built. What's going on?

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hold that sound.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um, yeah, you wouldn't know how to contain a black hole. It's like, Chuck, pass me that black hole. Chuck, where'd you go?

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  That's funny, Chuck. Chuck?

• 23:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neil.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's funny.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so you can't, you can't, we don't know how to manipulate a black hole. And so maybe someday we could like bunch up spacetime? And make a little container out of, I don't know. I, I, I don't know. So, yeah, this would be a really bad idea. Because a black hole is a voracious eater. So let's say you had a black hole on your desk and it fell to the floor. It would start eating Earth. And it would just fall through Earth, eating anything that, any part of Earth that was near it. And it would continue to do this until the entire Earth was inside the black hole. You know how big an Earth mass black hole is?

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About the size of a plum.

• 24:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's, that's crazy.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that, that, that's a sad day for Earth.

• 24:46Chuck Nice?

  That's a sad day.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so your black hole eating Earth would become the size of a plum.

• 24:52Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the entire Earth fitting inside the black hole.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  Entire Earth inside the black hole, right, yeah. Look at that. Ah, man, that's so cool.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's scary, too.

• 25:01Chuck Nice?

  All of Earth's crunched down into a, something smaller than the size of my fist. That's, it's very difficult to really conceive when you think about it.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because you're limited to your five biological senses. And the universe is, repeat with me, under no obligation to make sense to you.

• 25:20Chuck Nice?

  There you go. And guess what? It does a very good job of that.

• 25:29Chuck Nice?

  It's winning in that battle, as far as I'm concerned. All right, this is Captain James Riley. Captain James Riley does not.

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got a lot of his questions.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Captain Riley. Yeah. Uh, he says, why do galaxies form a web or a sponge-shaped structure? It seems that on small scales, gravity forms spheres and discs. So I'm a little confused.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, good question.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, the large-scale structure of the universe is not with galaxies equally spread. It's not with galaxies all in tidy spheres, although some galaxy clusters are. For example, the Coma Cluster of galaxies. This is a cluster of galaxies that lines up with the stars in the constellation called Coma. Okay? A Coma Bernisi, so it's the hair of Bernice. Okay? So, yeah, if you look at, on constellation maps from, like, centuries ago when they used to draw this stuff, it's just somebody's hair.

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  Right. Not to be confused with the comb-over galaxy.

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  Commonly, commonly seen in boardrooms around America.

• 26:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Come over.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Come over galaxies.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the coma cluster, that's a nicely spherical cluster of galaxies, and in fact, that's the first galaxy cluster where dark matter was discovered. Because you looked at all the, the speeds of the, of the, and there's a certain amount of mass, gravity required to keep all of them in this, in this ball. Whole galaxies now, thousands of galaxies, I think like maybe eight hundred, forgot the exact number, but it's around a thousand galaxies. And, uh, many, many hundreds. And so, you calculate that up, and you find out that it needs like ten times that much mass to keep the galaxies contained? If you add up the mass of every galaxy, it doesn't add up to the gravity needed to contain them.

• 27:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that was a guy named Fritz Wiki, in the 1930s, 1936 I think it was, where, uh, he's a Caltech, Swiss-born Caltech astrophysicist who, who, who discovered this, that it's, and it's the longest unsolved problem in modern astrophysics. The dark matter problem, birthed with his observations. Anyhow, there are some galaxy clusters that are nice spherically shaped. Others, you see these filaments. It's as though you had a sponge and you cut it, and you looked at the cross-section where there's some concentrations of sponge, but mostly there are these sort of bridges between concentrations. That's what the universe looks like. The inside cross-section of a sponge. Here's the problem.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you look at how fast the galaxy is moving, along one filament, and look at the size of the filament, the universe is not old enough for the galaxy to have crossed that filament.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't have structures that represent what the galaxies really want to do if they had enough time.

• 28:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's what's going on here.

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 28:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so that, so you have systems that are not gravitationally, um, settled in what they should look, the coma cluster is, alright, and it's a term we use for this, I forgot it, what is it, it's, um, uh, a relaxed cluster is one where, okay, we got this, everybody's orbiting just the way they should, and...

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  Take a chill, baby.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With this chill, that's exactly, and they could cross the size of the cluster in the time the universe has been around, so that how you know everybody's, everybody's settled into their routines, a- any structures bigger than that, they've not had time to settle, and so, and they may never settle, given how long it takes and given how fast the galaxies are moving through space, so, yeah, that, that's how and why we get that.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Very cool.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  Uh, this is Lou Perrault, Lou Perrault says this.

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Perrault, is that a silent T or are you, are you s-

• 29:51Chuck Nice?

  A U L T.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh Perrault, okay, okay.

• 29:53Chuck Nice?

  Perrault, okay, Lou Perrault, he says, uh, hi Neil, hi Chuck, my name is Lou and I'm writing from the seven islands, septiles, he says-

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where are those islands?

• 30:04Chuck Nice?

  In Quebec.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quebec has islands?

• 30:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's where I'm, hey, listen, you got me. I thought it was, you know?

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but we're Americans, so we don't, we don't know.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we, what do we know about the French speaking province of Canada?

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not, we're bad, we're the worst in the world in geography.

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  Well, geography, that's for sure.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know our own damn states, right.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  Well, some of them we don't want to know, let's be honest, let's, come on, I know we're 50 states, but we kinda should be about 40, okay, let's, let's, come on, seriously, alright.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  My question is, is it possible to see past by looking in the see the past by looking into deep space? And if so, which direction do we have to look? And also, is it possible to see the earth by sending a telescope multiple light years away?

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so only if you can travel faster than light, can you see your own past?

• 31:18Chuck Nice?

  Own.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can't do that. But would but so I know what he's saying, but I wanted to lead up to that. So clearly, he knows that the farther out you look, the farther back in time you see.

• 31:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Right.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are galaxies that are like 65 million light years away from earth. Okay, from our galaxy. So right now, if they had a super duper telescope and they look towards earth, what do they see?

• 31:48Chuck Nice?

  If they're seeing us however many light years ago.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  65 million years ago, what are they witnessing?

• 31:53Chuck Nice?

  Uh, dinosaurs, right? Oh, and they're getting killed. Yeah.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  It just dawned on me with that with that timeframe. Oh, snap.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 32:07Chuck Nice?

  So the earth is putting on a show for them.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the galaxy that's 65 million light years away is witnessing the extinction of the dinosaurs because that light is only now just reaching them. Okay.

• 32:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So but we can't see our own past. That it doesn't work. So um, so yeah, but if you put if you send a telescope out there, you know, let's say 1000 light years away, and then come back. It will be seeing whatever happened here a thousand years ago.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. That's what's that simple.

• 32:43Chuck Nice?

  So, so yeah, that's it. So, and then what you'd have to be like you say is faster than the speed of light. So that you could go place it and come back and have it be like, yo.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wave.

• 32:53Chuck Nice?

  Yo, what's up? What's up? It's me.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. But once you go faster than light, then all bets are off. And then you can do all kinds of paradoxy things. Paradoxical things.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cool. All right. Uh, this is Connor Home. He says, hi, if the big rip does occur. A lot of big rip questions today. People got it on their mind, man.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, because no one wants to be.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  Torn asunder by the universe itself.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one wants to get, no one wants a new one torn into them. Okay.

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 33:32Chuck Nice?

  I'm the universe, boy. I will tear you a new one. That's what I will do. You keep it, you say another word. Say another word. I dare you.

• 33:44Chuck Nice?

  What's what I'm the universe. You know who you're talking to?

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  Tear you a new one.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you, what did he ask him?

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  Connor says, if the big rip does occur, what would be the immediate results of tearing of the fabric of space? Time. Would these tears, tears be black holes? Or would they simply just be voids of nothingness? What is nothing? How could nothing come out of something?

• 34:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh, what, what would these voids be? Wow. That's freaking crazy.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  I love this Connor.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so my, my, my simple answer is we have no idea. Okay, the state of the universe post big rip is a complete mystery.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and what we don't know is, is there's some law of physics that will manifest at that time? Think about that. You know, when do we discover new laws of physics? When we step where we had never previously stepped? When we look where we'd never previously looked? When we bring a new kind of apparatus, a new kind of detector that we'd never had before? Then we see the universe behaving in waves we've never seen before, sends us back to the drawing board to say, is this understandable with previously known physics? Or do we have to invent new physics?

• 35:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Einstein said to himself, I don't think we'll ever have a black hole, even though his own damn equations predicted it, because a black hole in his equations have infinite density occupying zero volume in the center of the black hole. And he said, surely there's some new law of physics that's gonna show up and save us from ourselves, save us from this mathematical craziness that where God divides by zero.

• 35:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So what happens in the big rip? What would it look like? We do not know. And I'd like to know before that day happens so that we can like protect ourselves, if that's possible at all? We don't know. And he's wondering if it rips, does nothing show up? Okay? Something we call nothing.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  Something we call nothing.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but then what is nothing?

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  What is?

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I think we have a whole explainer on nothing.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  We did do a.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, let me tap some of that.

• 36:12Chuck Nice?

  And what we, what we got out of that was, there is no nothing.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, that's because, you know, is, is air nothing? Well, you can see through it, but we know there's air there, right? So clearly it's not nothing. So now take away the air. So what's left? Is that nothing? Well, it's still space. Well, it's empty space, nothing. And we know from quantum physics that empty space is a seething soup of what we call virtual particles popping in and out of existence. And so, so, and this is what we call the vacuum energy. You just Google that, vacuum energy.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an energy in the vacuum of space that quantum physics puts there. And we thought, hey, that could be the dark energy. In the vacuum of space. So you do the calculation for how much dark energy we measure. Then you do the calculation for how much, how much pressure is coming in from these uh, virtual particles popping in and out of existence. And we are off by 100 orders of magnitude.

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  Geez.

• 37:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is the biggest mismatch between an observation and a theory that has ever occurred. This is further evidence that we have no clue what dark energy is. Okay.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there it is now. And could we imagine a place where there's not even these virtual particles? Okay, but then you can't have quantum physics.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all right, so now we have a place where there's not only not, nothing. There's not even the laws of physics.

• 38:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. So could you exist in that nothing? Because you only exist because they're like molecules hold you together and, you know, and light and energy and electro, you only exist because the laws of physics.

• 38:22Chuck Nice?

  Of the something.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Allow you to.

• 38:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the best nothing, if the rip gets you there, if you step through that rip, maybe that nothing does not even contain the fabric of empty space.

• 38:40Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the laws of physics tell us what the fabric of empty space does. So if you take away not only the empty space, but the laws of physics that would describe it, then that's as good a nothing as I can imagine.

• 38:58Chuck Nice?

  Right. And that nothing exists inside of a bond.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  I've been there. I've been there. Been there. Tell you.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The bond nothing. Okay.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  It's the bond nothing. It's a nothing bond.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, we have a couple of minutes left. I think I'm gonna allow you to give me one question, even though you're a cheap-ass comedian not paying your Patreon dues.

• 39:34Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it.

• 39:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so I was watching this thing on, listening to NPR, and they were doing this thing about energy and all the different forms of energy. And then they, for some reason, played a clip from what I know is one of your, and my favorite movies, The Matrix.

• 40:04Chuck Nice?

  And they played the clip about how the AI, basically after a singularity, saw us as a form of energy to be used as little batteries. So my question to you is, do we put out enough energy that if I, if something were an AI would say, you know what, I need to put them to work?

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And line us up head to toe?

• 40:32Chuck Nice?

  And that's right, and line us, right. So that we would become little batteries as opposed to just taking us and literally putting us to work by subjugating us all and making us do their will.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I'm just trying to think, if they put you and me in a battery socket, I say, no Chuck, we gotta be head to toe, right?

• 40:55Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. You see the AI keep coming around and flipping us over?

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put it in a long way.

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  Now, doesn't this go on the spring side? The feet go on the spring side, right?

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what AI sounds like.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an exasperated AI.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly, that's my AI that sounds like Chris Tucker. Say, man, does the feet go on the spring side? Okay, anyway.

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so this energy described in The Matrix.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Draw is drawn from the human body. So you can look at our metabolism. All right. If you're a calorie counter, you'll know that there's something called your basal metabolism. So this is the energy you burn pay or play. Okay. Just for existing.

• 41:43Chuck Nice?

  Just for existing.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And for some people, it's maybe fifteen hundred calories a day. For me, it's more like I'm bigger. So for average, I'm a little bigger than average. So I'm like two thousand calories a day. Is my basal average. Okay. So now, do you realize that the food calorie is written with a capital C? You may not have noticed that. There's a reason for that. Because a physics calorie is written with a lowercase c.

• 42:15Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because a food calorie, one food calorie, equals a thousand physics calories.

• 42:23Chuck Nice?

  Ah, okay.

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when I say I burn two thousand calories a day, it's two thousand food calories, it's two million physics calories. And what is a physics calorie? It's the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one cubic centimeter of water. One degree Celsius. That is one calorie.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  That's one calorie.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. So, once you have all these calories, it's a rate at which you're burning energy. We have a unit of measure for that. It's called watts. Okay? Watts. And so when you do the math on this, the average person

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is operating anywhere between fifty and a hundred watts.

• 43:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's like a light bulb, you know, like an eighty watt light bulb. Okay, there's that eighty watt consumes energy at a rate. So do we. We we we radiate that. Okay, or we consume that much energy, our circulation and everything else. So what the what the what the machines did, the computers did in the matrix, is line us all up and draw the eighty watts of power from every person at all times.

• 43:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's very inefficient.

• 43:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the answer is yes, that's how they did the movie. However. It's extremely inefficient.

• 43:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know why?

• 43:57Chuck Nice?

  Because I don't wanna power a city off a light bulb.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, if you get enough of us, I use light bulb as an example of something that uses that much.

• 44:06Chuck Nice?

  I know, I know.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, no, here's why it's inefficient, okay? Um, you're, you're burning 2,000 calories a day as long as what is happening?

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  As long as I'm living and breathing.

• 44:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. Yeah, well, yes, but more fundamental than that, well, equally as fundamental as that.

• 44:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How long can you keep burning 2,000 calories a day?

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  Uh, if that's, I thought you said that was my base.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's your base.

• 44:38Chuck Nice?

  I gotta be eating something to.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 44:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 44:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where do you think that?

• 44:43Chuck Nice?

  I gotta eat something to burn it.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When do you think those calories came? From the food you're eating. So, in order for all of the matrix people, the people in the pods, to be feeding 80 watts of power to the matrix, the matrix has to feed them.

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's a lot of, that's eight billion mouths.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what I'm saying is, if the matrix is feeding you.

• 45:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  2,000 calories a day, so that it can then pull your 80 watts off of you, why, why use the middleman?

• 45:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just burn the, burn the food calories that you're feeding the people. In fact, every time energy changes from one form to another, it's not 100% efficient. You lose some energy to heat, all the time. So, you look at the energy in a gallon of gasoline, okay? And that gets burned to drive the car? I forgot the number, 80% of that energy goes into heat, does not go into moving your car forward.

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 45:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So, this is a fundamental feature of thermodynamics in the universe. So, they were being inefficient, so this is their weak point in the, in their storytelling. And I will give them a hall pass because they did everything else so brilliantly. But that one was just plain stupid. Because the, the, the machines, the computers just would have used the food that they're feeding them and get their energy off of that and leave the people out of it.

• 46:18Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then they wouldn't have had a movie.

• 46:21Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, that's a, that's a problem.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that makes things difficult, doesn't it?

• 46:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Then there's no movie. So, there you go.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. That, that's all the time we have, Chuck.

• 46:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This was Cosmic.

• 46:39Chuck Nice?

  Cosmological curiosity.

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries, cosmological curiosities. I got it. I, I got the tongue twister. All right, Chuck, always good to have you here.

• 46:48Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 46:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, Cosmology Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always. Keep looking out.