Exploring Science and Comedy with Larry Wilmore

Neil deGrasse Tyson studies the science of comedy with Larry Wilmore, comic co-host Eugene Mirman and cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems. Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” calls into the show and Bill Nye attempts a little comedy improv.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the Hall of the Universe. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we're featuring my interview with Larry Wilmore. He's a comedian and host of The Nightly Show on Comedy Central. And in this interview, we talk about science fiction movies, magic tricks, and of course, the intersection of science and comedy. So, let's do this.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got with me my co-host Eugene Mirman.

• 0:52Eugene Mirman?

  Hello.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professional comedian, Eugene. Welcome back.

• 0:55Eugene Mirman?

  It's good to be here.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, as a professional, that means...

• 0:57Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, I know, I like that you added "a professional astrophysicist", not just the dilly-dallying astrophysicist.

• 1:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. You're just like, you get paid to do what you're doing.

• 1:06Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:08Eugene Mirman?

  Great.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And on this topic, I didn't want to do it sort of empty-handed. Not that you and I should count as empty-handed, but in this case, we found someone with particular expertise. Professor Scott Weems, welcome. Thank you, thank you for... He is the author of a book called "Ha!"

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I pronounce it right? Yes, you did.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Subtitled "The Science of When We Laugh and Why". And so, this man, as a professional psychologist and author, knows exactly where we're coming from. So, let me just find out. The science of humor, that's a curious thing for me. And I always wondered, is a person born funny? So, Eugene, were you always a class clown?

• 1:53Eugene Mirman?

  It took a while to go from being a tragic figure to a class clown, but eventually... But I've spent years as a child working on it. So, yeah. So not always, but at the end, yes.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is your research goes, Joe Scott?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, no, I don't think people are born funny. It's like any other art. You get good by practicing, like, a lot. And there have been studies that have looked at, like, professional comedians and seeing if there's any sort of common element, and there really isn't. The only thing is, you really want to be heard, so you have to be outgoing and, like, loud. But that's the main thing that helps. Anything else, it's kind of, it's almost random.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what is laughter? Is there some chemistry going on inside of us? I'm guessing.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, laughter, if you want to look at it from like a psychological perspective, it's a way of dealing with conflict. That our brain is confused a lot, I mean, in just daily life. There's a lot of times when we, not just when we hear a setup and punchline, but just when meeting someone for the first time on a first date. This is a very common thing, to be anxious or confused. And the brain has kind of co-opted laughter, this kind of like ape-like grunt, to be a coping mechanism, I guess, for when we don't know how else to respond. It's like buying us time, I suppose.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you telling us that when humans laugh, they're ape-like grunts? It's our version of an ape-like grunt?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  It is. An ape's laugh, dogs laugh, rats laugh, yeah.

• 3:05Eugene Mirman?

  Rats laugh?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Rats laugh.

• 3:07Eugene Mirman?

  You're telling me rats get jokes?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  I'm not saying I understand rat humor, but you can actually tickle a rat and hear it laugh, yeah.

• 3:14Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can tickle a... And so it sounds like he's done this.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  I would love to do that.

• 3:19Eugene Mirman?

  It does sound like that.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the thing is, you can't hear it, and it's really, it takes some work to measure it, but...

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait! No! Don't tell me you can tickle rats and they laugh, you just can't hear it.

• 3:29Eugene Mirman?

  Do they slap their little rat knees? What are they, are they, they have the physical part, but just not the sound?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Well, I can't hear it. Rats can hear it. It's like 50 kilohertz or something like that. You probably know the physics.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you can measure the frequency of the sound they're making?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Same as like with bats.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so not that they're not making sound, it's that humans can't hear it?

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm sorry. You have to clarify that.

• 3:46Eugene Mirman?

  Do bats laugh?

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Now, we're okay now. We're good, we're good now. All right, all right. So, when you laugh, is there a chemical change within you?

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, it all comes down to dopamine, as I'm sure you...

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dopamine?

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, dopamine. That when you laugh, you get, you get...

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the happy chemical?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  It's the happy chemical.

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the brain?

• 4:04Eugene Mirman?

  Laughter is like a not-dangerous heroin.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Cocaine.

• 4:08Eugene Mirman?

  Cocaine, sorry, my bad.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stupid. Why did you know that?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Heroin's entirely different. Yeah, but it is. It's the same receptors that, with cocaine, with chocolate. Actually, a lot of different things, you get a dopamine response, and laughter's one of them, so that's why we like it so much.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's bring my interview with Larry Wilmore into this. He came by my office here at the Hayden Planetarium. And usually I ask people, you know, what kind of math and science background they might have had? And how that might have influenced their life's path? What is the genesis of who and what became that man? So let's check it out.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  I was very much interested in science growing up. I remember a teacher, Mr. Mitzi, I think was his name. He was our math teacher and he was such a character. And he made things a lot of fun. I actually was an advanced math student early on. It was one of the things I loved. I think I was taking calculus as a sophomore or something like that.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Calculus as a sophomore in high school?

• 5:05Speaker 03

  I believe so. And, but then I kinda, I lost.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, in calculus, you don't have to believe.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, or is not.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  It's true. Well, you know what? Once you get into higher math, which you know, which I never got into real high, a lot of it becomes kind of philosophical, it seems.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's, well, it's not so much philosophical. It's that there are ideas that then get represented with symbols. And it's like, what the hell did I just do?

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take this to infinity? You know, what is that?

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 5:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How does that?

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Or as x approaches infinity, why? My question is, why is x approaching infinity? X might want to be careful. I don't know what's happening over there in infinity. But x might want to go the other way.

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not going to approach it at all if it's infinitely far away. Yeah, yeah, so that's where maybe that's what you're thinking. It got a little philosophical.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, once I got into the x approaches infinity, I thought, I may as well be doing comedy because this all doesn't make sense to me. But I was a theater major.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Theater major? And you dropped out. Are you another one of these famous college dropouts? Every next one of you who shows up in this office, I'm gonna have to say at the end of the day, kids, don't go to college.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to become somebody.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  I know, it's horrible when I get invited to speak at colleges. What's your advice? Don't finish.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  But it was kind of my circumstance at the time, you know, I, um... Pretty much, you know, had the opportunity to do what I wanted to do.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So something came up?

• 6:23Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not like you got bored with college?

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, opportunity.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  An opportunity came up in the business and I thought, well, let me just do this. And I thought about going back at some times, but I just started working.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what was it, what was that first gig?

• 6:35Speaker 03

  It was, uh, the Mark T. Performing Theater in Los Angeles. It was in their improvisational theater project and we.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So comedy theater?

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Kind of, but, yeah, and we wrote a play through, uh, through improvisation, but it was kind of like children's theater. But it was with legitimate theater actors. It wasn't like, uh, Groundlings type improv.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, right.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  It was like theater. And actually, I've always kind of, I've been lucky. I've known some people who've kind of been in the business and that kind of stuff. I never got any direct break from that, but it gave me the confidence to keep going.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so, and LA is the right place.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  It's one of the places, but I believe you can start anywhere. That's my firm belief.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Well, I did stand-up comedy early on also and, uh, you know, I worked all over the country and I met a lot of people who started in many different parts, you know, especially as comics. And that was in the heyday of the comedy club.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause every, yeah, every city's got comedy clubs.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  At least back then.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's always a gig.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, now they're Chuck E. Cheese's now.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the back corner.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. It's so sad now. But, uh, but science, I loved science growing up. I wanted to be an astronaut.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  When I was growing up, I followed the space program.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's in an era before they had black astronauts.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that's, cause I didn't see, to me, that was a closed door, right? I said, they're not looking for me.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, we're talking about an era where, uh, the big afros and hair, it was all about the hair.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all the astronauts.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Well, the helmet wouldn't have fit. Right, so that would have been a big issue, or I thought maybe.

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, just a bigger helmet.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be hilarious.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  I thought, maybe your brother gets an Apollo 13, you know, maybe that's how it works, you know? But, uh, yeah, space was not, as we say.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apollo 13's the one that failed, right?

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Correct, right.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Uh, and Apollo 18 was the fake one and Capricorn one, I think, or something like that, something like that.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I noticed you even have a Peabody Award.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  I do.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Congratulations on that.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  I was very honored because Walter Cronkite gave me the award and I'm, you know.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, he handed it to you, yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. And I was, as I said, a big space nerd and huge fan of Walter Cronkite.

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, because he announced us to the moon.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. And I was a big political junkie at the time, too, you know. And I'd watch Cronkite every night, so to have him give it to me, and I made a joke and kind of made him laugh, too.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what joke was it?

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I said, you know, I never imagined that I would hear Walter Cronkite say my name. I mean, in my wildest dreams, I thought, you know, I might hear something like, "Larry Wilmore was arrested yesterday." I might hear that. I said, but, you know, I always wanted to be an astronaut, so in my dreams, I thought I'd hear, "Astronaut Larry Wilmore blasted off into space yesterday."

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In his voice, yeah, because that's what would make it official.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  I said, but, or, you know, at the end of the day, it might be, "Former astronaut Larry Wilmore was arrested yesterday." But, so he laughed about it, and I thought, oh, that's cool. I mean, Walter Cronkite laughed, so that was cool. That was a great, that was a fun moment. Yeah. I love all the conspiracy theories about not going to the moon. You know what it is? I think a lot of young people don't think we were smart enough to accomplish something like that.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, they think their ancestors were just dumb idiots.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  I think so. I think, hey, we figured out the iPhone. You guys weren't smart enough to figure that out. How the hell could you go to the moon?

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Eugene, is there, is there an equation that'll give you the best joke? Is there, is there any math, mathematical kind of thinking?

• 9:44Eugene Mirman?

  Well, there is in the sense that I think that stand-up is very much the scientific method. Stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy. You go on stage, you try something. If it works, you keep it. If it fails, you switch it out and you try it again.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's the experimental method?

• 9:57Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I brought up the idea of mathematics manifesting itself in comedy with Larry Wilmore. So let's see what he says about mathematics in comedy.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Comedy is all about math, too, you know. It's all about having the correct amount of words. Jerry Seinfeld talks about this all the time. He's very precise with every word he chooses. When I did stand-up comedy, I would eliminate just the smallest of words or phrases to make the joke just perfect. There's a, there's the correct amount of words to make a joke perfect. And once it's there, it's done. You're done with that joke, move on to the next one. It's interesting, isn't it?

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I feel that way when I compose tweets.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Really?

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I have an idea.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in any given day, and I say, and I would make a good tweet.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I write down the idea, and it's too long, of course.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I gotta fit it. So now I gotta say, alright, where is the actual essence?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of what I'm trying to communicate.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  You're forced to crystallize it.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And sit in there, take that out, shorten that, pop that. And I feel almost like Michelangelo when he said, you know, you cut away everything that's not David.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And David is left.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  I compare everything I do to Michelangelo.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not to him, but just how.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  It's so funny that we have that in common.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just how he explained, not him and his talent, but.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  No, no, go for it.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Miles DeGrasse, Michelangelo, I guess.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to get innovative with the words so that the words say what they mean, and they don't have to say, it's not too many of them. So I, I'm with you on that.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I just, I do it to communicate wisdom and insight rather than a joke. But occasionally I put a joke out.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I tell you one of my tweet jokes?

• 11:32Speaker 03

  I would love to hear it.

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you took all the veins, arteries, and capillaries from a man, tied them end to end.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would die.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, he'd probably be a homicidal maniac if you were doing something like that.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  I would agree with that completely.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that, do you call that something a comedy? What's that called?

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Um, uh, I think we could call it a logical conclusion.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  No, logical conclusion.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, there's logic in comedy then.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  No, logical conclusions are legitimate form of comedy. You set up something that sounds like it's something else, but then you take the logical conclusion.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Scott, from your studies and from what I've read, uh, they show that there's a, there's a link between humor and creativity. What is that link?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  If you have people watch like a stand-up comedy routine, or even just listening to it and, you know, on the radio, and you give them an intelligence test afterwards, they'll do better on the test.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  And it's not just linked with intelligence, there's creativity test, problems of insight, things like that. They'll do better if they've had comedy before, and the idea is that it's like a form of exercise for the brain.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So comedy makes you smarter?

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know how long the effect lasts.

• 12:42Eugene Mirman?

  Is, I think, a great way to phrase this.

• 12:46Eugene Mirman?

  I'm gonna get, I don't have business cards, but now I would like them.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I make you smarter. So, I also heard that people who laugh more die sooner. What's up with that?

• 12:55Eugene Mirman?

  I haven't heard that.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But first, is it true?

• 12:56Eugene Mirman?

  And may I recommend you saying, "No."

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're not gonna like this.

• 13:01Eugene Mirman?

  Do people who laugh a lot die?

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, people with good senses of humor, and you can test that.

• 13:07Eugene Mirman?

  I'd rather not.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  They die earlier.

• 13:11Eugene Mirman?

  How much earlier, like a week, or like years?

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, four or five years, maybe. I mean, they don't have an exact number.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a lot of life.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  It's not sure.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can you, what is the explanation? Don't just give me the results of experiments. Give me why.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Part of it is that there's good kinds of humor and there's bad. So, there's like the Rodney Dangerfield self-deprecating humor too. And this is also really common, and I think if you're Rodney Dangerfield, you can get away with that. But, a lot of people can't. And so, you can use humor in negative ways, too. And if it puts you down, or puts down other people, then that's creating stress on the body, and we know stress is bad.

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what you're saying is everybody at a comedy roast would be dying five years sooner than is their day?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, except for, I think the professionals, they probably don't internalize it like, you know, other people might.

• 13:55Eugene Mirman?

  You're saying just people who are self-deprecating in real life, who are just like, "I'm a sad person." And then those people die. That's fine.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the comedy...

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when we come back, we will pick up more of my interview with Larry Wilmore as we explore the intersection of science and comedy on StarTalk.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, featuring my interview with Larry Wilmore, host of The Nightly Show on Comedy Central. He's a comedian. And we're just talking about the intersection of science and comedy. So, what's interesting to me is, the three of us are college graduates. But what I learned interviewing Larry Wilmore is, he was yet another one of StarTalk's interview subjects.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's a college dropout? I'm just curious about something. Eugene, you're a successful comedian, stand-up comedian. You are college educated. So how is it that you became fully college educated? In a world where such success doesn't?

• 15:04Eugene Mirman?

  Well, I went to a college, I went to Hampshire College, where you can design your own major. So I majored in comedy.

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. So that's what's different there is you made the college fit you. Instead of you having to fit the college.

• 15:15Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's different.

• 15:16Eugene Mirman?

  That's sure.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's that's.

• 15:18Eugene Mirman?

  But I had a very nice time. I did a, my thesis was a one-hour stand-up act. And then I did stuff on the physiology of laughter and all sorts of things. It was all wrong, but it was, but I learned a lot.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you, so you like wrote papers on?

• 15:30Eugene Mirman?

  I wrote a whole inaccurate paper. The best part of my paper on the physiology of laughter is that I had a footnote. And when you looked at the bottom, it said, made you look.

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's funny.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Scott, is there? Um, this sounds like you can be taught comedy. You can learn, teach yourself comedy.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I mean, it is an art. So in that way, I think you're right. Practice. I mean, they say, you know, with the five P's for getting to Carnegie Hall, you practice and practice and practice, practice, practice. And that's essentially what it is.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's up to five. It used to be.

• 16:02Eugene Mirman?

  Three. I know, times are tough.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  It's five now.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  No, it's like any other art, though. You can still, like with painting, you can still study things like line and contour and form. So there's still things you can study with humor. But like, you know, you can't just read a book and all of a sudden be funny. You've got to really get in front of audiences and, you know, spend a lifetime working on it, yeah.

• 16:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So something that shows up in a lot of comedy is the unexpected. Right? What, what role does that play? Is that like essential? Is that like the biggest variable here that you want to promote in being funny?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you need surprise. If you don't have surprise, then you're just going to bore your audience. But it's kind of surprise along with this new way of thinking about something. So it has to be like a destination too. And so like the good jokes.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you mean by destination?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Well, there'll be, there'll be the setup. And then you realize you, you've got everything wrong. And then the comes the punchline and there's the, the kind of surprise, the end, the payoff.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you invested in establishing this landscape. And then landscape gets completely dissolved by the end. Because a whole new understanding has been handed to you.

• 17:01Eugene Mirman?

  You think you're thinking one way and then something turns and you see everything that you've just heard in a new way.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's formulaic in a sense.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Kind of, yeah. I mean, we think of surprises by itself funny, but that's, that's like just hiding behind a door and then yelling boo. Like that's not.

• 17:14Eugene Mirman?

  Every, it would be great if every story ended with just someone going boo.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  It's not really the good laugh. There's always something that, there has to be some meaning behind it.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, another thing I noticed is, if you're at a table with a complete stranger and you both laugh at the same joke, you've got some sense of communality there. Some sense of real community. That's an interesting... Do they study sort of the anthropology of laughter in this regard?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's a very social thing, humor. I mean, like comedians, they perform in front of audiences. They wouldn't do well if it was like an empty room. It kind of falls flat. You can't tell a joke that way. And it turns out that the more people you have in a room, the better the laughter will be. So it's contagious, literally contagious. And the closer you pack people in, the more they'll laugh too. And alcohol helps too. So if you get them crowded and give them alcohol, studies show that.

• 18:04Eugene Mirman?

  But if it was like too many people who were too drunk, it would be bad. There is like a probably perfect amount. You wouldn't actually want like a thousand people in a hundred square foot room drunk out of their mouths.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  I'd love to see that study and look for where that drop off is.

• 18:16Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, it's about, yeah.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So in math, we call it a maximization problem.

• 18:21Eugene Mirman?

  That's what I would love to do for drinking and comedy.

• 18:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I've learned as an educator, that if people smile, if people laugh, they're more eager to... If that was the consequence of something I just taught, they want to learn more. They associate a good feeling with it rather than a bad one. And to this day, I've realized, and I was going to tweet this, I haven't gotten around to it yet, only in a university environment, is it okay for you to say, "I'm going to go to a room and have someone lecture to me." Any other day of your life, you will never say that. And if you tell someone, "I'm going to lecture you," it is a bad thing. It is something you want to avoid. And so, my sense of it is, a lecture that has humor, is not, doesn't

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  have the stigma of the lecture, and then people might want more of it. And so I'm just saying, I've had people come back for more. When I folded it with things that are funny, and I personally, I think the universe is hilarious. Personally.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  And there's a science behind that too. It's actually like fifteen percent, I think, give or take. That retention on a test will be better, about fifteen percent, if you've incorporated jokes to help people study the material better. So if you can put jokes into your lessons, people will retain it better. But it has to be related to the material. It can't just be, and then we, let me tell you, a knockoff joke is a break. That doesn't help it. But if it's related to the stuff, then it helps.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and the universe is frickin hilarious. I'm, that's just what I've found. Just all the ways, interesting ways to die, you know.

• 19:50Eugene Mirman?

  What's the third best way?

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The third best way to die?

• 19:53Eugene Mirman?

  I know the first, black hole. Second, probably just falling. And then what's the third?

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Should write a book on that.

• 20:00Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We get back to my, uh, clip.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  You flustered Larry Wilmore.

• 20:11Eugene Mirman?

  Fair enough.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are featuring my interview with Larry Wilmore here. So I don't know if you know, but Larry Wilmore is trying to actually include more scientists on his show. In fact, I was on his show once, and I was delighted. And in my interview, we talked about what his efforts are to make science more of the talk show conversation. So, let's check it out.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  You're one of our most popular guests, I have to say.

• 20:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does that mean? I've been on once.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  No, you were, people were so excited that you were on our show. I think they were let down that I was there.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Exactly. Finally, finally, here's the brother we wanted in late night. What's this other brother doing? No, you were such a popular guest.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you also had my, my good friend who recently moved to town, Bill Nye.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Because he's Bill Nye.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  He's the science guy.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The science guy. He's the real deal.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so it's good that you had him on. I mean, not everyone, I mean, I, I think of talk shows where they never think to have a scientist on. And that's not, what does that mean? You know, is science not enough in pop culture to even go there, to think about it, to at least infuse it? Even if just to have fun, you know, and you have fun, we talked about

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crazy conspiracy people and it's not like you can't have fun with science.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  I agree. I think people just don't know how funny protons are. Or, uh, or molecules. Molecules are hilarious. I mean, alien life has always been a source of comedy.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Oh, now there's a question. What is the deal with Pluto right now? Is it a planet or not?

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just get over it.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  It's not.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the deal. No, it's not.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  But didn't it come back to be a planet?

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, there was a straw poll among Pluto fans.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how do you think they're gonna vote? They're gonna vote, yeah, make it a planet again.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  But why is there so much hatering at Pluto? Why can't it be a planet anymore?

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, cause-

• 21:53Speaker 03

  What did it do?

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I, so every Pluto lover I know is, I noticed that they're missing some information.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they don't, it's not there.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  That it wasn't actually a planet?

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, so, do you know that our moon is five times the mass of Pluto?

• 22:07Speaker 03

  So you're hating on the planet because it's small?

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our moon.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  That's what you're saying?

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's just the beginning. That's not, that's not even the best reason why.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  You know, size really doesn't matter.

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just, I'm just starting out with that.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  For you to say that size matters, come on.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, in the universe, size matters?

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He took me there. He went to Pluto. I mean, I thought, I should have warned him before the interview. You don't take me to Pluto. I'm done with Pluto, just so you know. Coming up on StarTalk, we hear Larry Wilmore had to say about geek credentials. And StarTalk continues.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With that, on StarTalk.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're featuring my interview with Larry Wilmore, comedian, and anytime I interview somebody, no matter who they are, hewn from pop culture, I wanna know if they have some hidden geek credentials. Almost everybody does. They just don't admit to it in any other interview because they, they don't get any street cred for doing so. But on StarTalk, that's where the street cred is found. So, I had to, I checked with Larry Wilmore to see what is he at. Let's check it out. Do you count yourself a member of the geek community?

• 23:39Speaker 03

  I am, but in different ways that might surprise you.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, give me an example.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Like, I'm a magician. I do sleight of hand magic. Magicians do know how to, uh, demythologize and demystify in the same way that, uh, someone of your

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A scientist would.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Yes, because you have information that most people don't have.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, on purpose.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Withheld from.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you, and, and, and in fact, that's one of the famous edicts from Arthur C. Clarke.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any sufficiently advanced technology.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is indistinguishable from magic.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. And a lot of, a lot of early magic was technology and a lot of, uh, techniques that magicians, uh, used in the early days, even from things like mirrors or

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Magic's good. I mean, that's, that's an important, that's a really important geek cred.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  Exact, thank you very much.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally there.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I always, uh, to prove it, uh-

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carry a deck of cards?

• 24:28Speaker 03

  I always, always have a deck of cards. I think this, this proves the geek cred.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it, is it a legit deck?

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's an old deck. It's all beaten up.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what any magician would say, "Yeah, it's a regular deck."

• 24:36Speaker 03

  It is, yeah. But, yeah, I always have these, you know, I'm always, uh, like, maybe practicing that kind of stuff.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, that's nice. That's good, that's good. Let me show you the one I did. I got one here, okay? So, I learned how to cut with one hand.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A knife. I'm sorry, I can't do that.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Yep. Very good. Oh, very good. That's called a Charlier cut, by the way.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charlier?

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Uh huh, that's what it's called. I'll show you a different version of that, too. I don't know if the camera can see me there.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they got you covered from here.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  See, if you cover like that, you know, that's the, uh, six of hearts, and you lift like that, see, it becomes the, uh, joker. I don't know how it's done, you know?

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, wait, the joker!

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm sorry, what happened? Something happened there. But that joker, when you take it back and you just spin it around, that becomes a six, so I don't know. Cards just change like that.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's just on you. You have no, you don't even understand it!

• 25:22Speaker 03

  I don't know how it works, so there you go. Another way to cut, all that kind of stuff. Here's a, here's a fun way to cut, Tim. That's a good one-handed cut.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, yeah, that's what they do at the poker table.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because those are the guys that flip the chips.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't want to do this stuff at the poker table, though. It's just, how are you gonna get shot?

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in that last clip, we hinted at what magicians and scientists have in common. We have an understanding of a phenomenon that often a person looking on does not. Except it's the scientist educator's duty to explain what's going on, and it is the magician's duty to hold it a secret. And so, this is just a fascinating distinction between the two. But in both cases, you can get people to laugh and enjoy science. Science demos are one of the most popular things in a college curriculum, be they in the physics class or in chemistry class. You know, watching chemicals change color and all of this. You know, Larry, in my interview, asked me if I had a favorite scientist. Now, I thought everyone in the universe knew who my favorite scientist was, because it's

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  easy, it's an easy answer for me, but apparently, he didn't know. So, let's check out what he said.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Okay, pound for pound, who are you taking, pound for pound? Smartness. You're in a room, you get to learn from one of these people. Newton?

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Newton.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Einstein?

• 26:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Newton.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Newton, that's it.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're done here.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're done.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. But I'll still hear you out.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  You realize this is my hand, this isn't actually Newton's.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will hear you out, nonetheless, go.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  I was just gonna say, Newton, Einstein, or, um, I don't know, who would you put?

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Da Vinci could go on that list, Leonardo.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Galileo?

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they're all good, they're all good people.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. Da Vinci? You put on that list?

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if it's a list where you want me to decide from, I would put him in that list.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Ptolomeu?

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm still picking Newton. I'm still picking Isaac Newton.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just read what he wrote. Your hair stands up on the back of your neck. He was connected.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, he was the smart one.

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To the universe.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Huh?

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He invented calculus.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  He's pretty smart.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  You gotta have a lot of free time in your hands to invent something like calculus, by the way, I'm just putting that out there. I don't know if he had much of a social life.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he didn't. In fact, all evidence shows he died a virgin, actually, so.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Really?

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you figured that one out, too?

• 27:42Speaker 03

  When you're inventing calculus, it takes up a lot of your time, I hear.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, when StarTalk continues, Larry Wilmore and I geek out on Star Wars versus Star Trek on StarTalk.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk is back. Okay, Eugene Mirman, Scott Williams. Scott with the book. I love saying that. Did you come up with the title? My wife came up with it. I have to give her that. I wish I could say I did. That's a great title, just talking about the science of laughter and comedy. And we're featuring my interview with Larry Wilmore. And we, you know, we had to have our geek moments. Once I learned he was a geek, we had to go where geeks go. And one of those places is Star Wars versus Star Trek. And if you get into Star Trek, is it Kirk or Picard? We had to, yes, we went there. Let's find out how it resolves.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  I was a huge Star Trek fan.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Trek.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, Star Trek fan. And Star Wars, when it came out. First three, I should say.

• 29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  The original, well, the only.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Very excited about the new one, though. I do a Lando impression, by the way. It shows you how geeked I am.

• 29:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 29:10Speaker 03

  I do a Lando. I only say one phrasing. How you doing, Chewbacca? There you go.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  So impressions are kind of a geeky thing that I do, too. I do a lot of impressions.

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it helps you in the comedy club, too.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't have an impression, you need a place to go.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Doesn't really help you in the bar scene, but it helps you in the comedy.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your bar is.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Hey, how you doing?

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Want to imitate Chewbacca?

• 29:35Speaker 03

  My Lando charisma.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so then I have to ask you. So Kirk or Picard?

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Kirk? It's not even close.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, me too.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Are you kidding me?

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love me some Picard. Don't get me wrong. The man, the actor, but if I had to be one of those, yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  It's Kirk.

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what's your main reason for that?

• 29:56Speaker 03

  Well. There's so many things, I mean.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Top of the list, give me one.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  It's too eighties, you know, first of all, it's, there's something just not right about it. Star Trek was its purest in the sixties and Kirk just represented. Just this, uh, first of all, he's the purest American version of that western id, you know.

• 30:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, you're getting all psycho philosophical.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  Yes, you know, of just.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My, my main reason was that he actually got into fights.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Yes, well, that's what it is. It's a western.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would have, he would fight.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He is the damn captain of the ship.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Because.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's, he's fighting aliens.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Correct, because the original Star Trek is a space western. That's exactly what it is.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Picard, I don't think he ever laid a fist on anybody.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  It got very philosophical. It got a bit, a bit too erudite.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Erudite.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  But what beats this? Spock, but we must find the way to go. I mean, come on.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Damn it. Damn it, Jim. All that stuff is great.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My favorite moment, my second reason why I'd wanna be Spock and a, um, there's one of the episodes.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Spock is your favorite?

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, uh, Kirk.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Kirk, go.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My second reason, very close second for why I wanna be Kirk. First is that he gets into his own fights.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and he can kick some butt if he has to.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Second, there was a, an episode, forgive me, I don't remember the name of the episode, any Star Trek fan would know the name. Like, there's a Klingon vessel out the front window and they, and.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Roll down the window, say, could you move?

• 31:28Speaker 03

  On screen or, or on window.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the screen, you're right. And so, out the dashboard, you know.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  They had that side dash too, so you didn't have to roll down the whole window, you just did that side of it. So you would know what I'm talking about.

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know, yeah, they don't have those anymore, the little triangle window.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  I love those things.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gone, gone. So, plus you can angle it. I like angling the geometry that where the wind come in.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  For people who are smokers, they could just do that kind of thing, right?

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  I'm just making that up.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For geometry lovers.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, uh, so there's a scene where the Klingon vessel is threatening the ship.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the ship that like, it's, it's shields don't work.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, but they, then, and they're gonna say, we're gonna destroy the ship.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and so Kirk says.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He makes something up. He says, "Uh, we have, uh, if, if, if you destroy the ship, it will explode, we will self-destruct and take you with us with a special code that I will type into the computer now." And Spock knows he's, he's full of [BLEEP], right? And Spock says, Spock says, "Jim, this is, this is no time for a game of chess." And he said, "Spock, it's not chess, it's poker."

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was it.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the bluff. It's the bluff. That's Kirk.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  He's the only one that defeated the Kobayashi Maru.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Because he cheated.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But celebrate the cheaters.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the genre, highly successful genre of science fiction, obviously it's based on science at some level, but also I think the best of the science fiction has some dose of comedy. And the comedy kind of gives you access to, sort of the humanity of the characters, of the storylines.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  I think comedy is an important part probably of all entertainment or literature.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or storytelling.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, storytelling involves comedy a lot just because it keeps people engaged. I mean, The Martian is a great example of that, just because...

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Martian the book by Andy Weir. As you know, the book became a film, The Martian, and that lone astronaut left behind on Mars is Matt Damon, and so he's cracking joke one-liners all the time. He has, he has confrontations with hopeless situations. He must tap his scientific ingenuity to survive them physically, but it is rife with humor, which you get the sense he invokes to survive it emotionally. Now, it just so happens, through our crack team of internet connectors, uh, we have Andy Weir on video right now live. Uh, can you get, do you guys have him live? Let's bring him up.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so Andy Weir, the author of The Martian. Andy! Hi, how you doing? Andy Weir!

• 34:28Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the Hall of the Universe.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I don't know if you know this, but I actually, I sent you a copy of the book and a fan letter to you, like, back before it had published and stuff.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I gotta check my... He's calling me out, like, on national television.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  This is when, this is when, this is when no one had ever heard of it, and I'm sure you get piles and piles of this stuff, so I didn't really expect a response. But I know this sounds like I'm kissing ass, but when I was writing the book, whenever I was tempted to use hand-wavy physics or take a shortcut and not be accurate, I honestly, I thought to myself, "What if Neil deGrasse Tyson reads this?"

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm honored that I would give you such anxieties writing this story. Now, not everyone would have necessarily thought to put as much humor in it as you have. And so, so my question is, how did you come up with the idea that comedy would be what will be necessary to keep this guy alive on the surface?

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Well, it was kind of necessary because, you know, he's alone on Mars, and so a first-person narrative was pretty much critical. Otherwise, it'd be really boring. And then, also, there's a lot of science that I wanted to explain to the reader and not assume the reader already knew. And I didn't want it to read like a Wikipedia article. So, you've got to be funny. You've got to throw jokes in there and one-liners. So, basically, the whole book, he has this gallows humor, right? Where he's like, "Well, I'm probably gonna die today."

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I wonder if you are opening up a new variation in a genre here?

• 36:07Speaker 04

  I don't know. I mean, every genre has comedic versions of it, right? I mean, there are comedy-action films. This is a comedy-survival story. You can throw comedy into anything.

• 36:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, so now, it's one thing to say, "Let me put in a joke." It's another thing to be able to do that in the first place. Not everyone has that much comedy contained within them to give to a story such as what you wrote.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  Well, you're the first person who's ever told me I'm full of comedy.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Andy, heartfelt congratulations from all of us at StarTalk to your success. So, StarTalk audience, give it up for Andy Weir.

• 36:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break, but when StarTalk continues, we're gonna take your questions on the physics of science fiction. Check us out.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk is back. And right now, we're gonna feature our recurring segment called Cosmic Queries, where we actually take questions solicited from our fanbase. And in this particular case, the topic is the physics of science fiction. And Eugene, you've got, you've, you've, you've...

• 37:38Eugene Mirman?

  I have a few questions.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I've not seen these?

• 37:40Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, it's not about whether they, if I don't know the answer, I'll just say I don't know. But I haven't seen them.

• 37:46Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I will be surprised.

• 37:49Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, get ready.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm ready. Bring it on, yeah, all right.

• 37:54Eugene Mirman?

  Nathan Noble from Seattle, Washington asks, "The story of Ender's Game uses a device called an Ansible to communicate instantaneously across far galactic reaches. With the speed of light being a limiting factor for the travel of information as we know it, are there theories for faster-than-light or instantaneous communication?"

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, completely. Oh, yeah. Next, next question.

• 38:17Eugene Mirman?

  No details?

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a yes/no question. So, one, you can open a wormhole.

• 38:22Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can travel through the fabric of space and time, crossing vast distances in much less time than it would take light to cover those same distances. Another way, which would be really cool, is if you can quantum entangle objects at vast distances. And quantum entanglement, we can do this with particles, and it's a, it's a quantum physics phenomenon, where one particle is quantum entangled with another, so that they're sharing information simultaneously.

• 38:53Eugene Mirman?

  What's the difference between that and dating?

• 38:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Entang...

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if this one, if you change the information on this one, the information on the other one changes instantaneously, no matter its distance. So it is in fact communicating at faster than the speed of light. Problem is, right now, we can only do it for like, particles.

• 39:11Eugene Mirman?

  Quantum entangling is a thing that people...

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a particle thing, right.

• 39:13Eugene Mirman?

  And it's been done, it's...

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah, oh yeah. We got, we got particle entanglement. That's not the issue. The issue is, since you are a collection of particles?

• 39:21Eugene Mirman?

  Yes.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many, many particles?

• 39:23Eugene Mirman?

  Agreed.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get all those particles to quantum entangle coherently?

• 39:28Eugene Mirman?

  Right.

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With some other set of macroscopically assembled...

• 39:31Eugene Mirman?

  Another Eugene somewhere else.

• 39:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another Eugene somewhere else. We don't know how to do that.

• 39:35Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, well, I have some suggestions.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 39:40Eugene Mirman?

  Brian, uh, Zayak, from Encino, California, asks, "Please explain the difference between warp drive on Star Trek and hyperspace in Star Wars."

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 39:51Eugene Mirman?

  Ooh.

• 39:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I don't know if I'm qualified for that.

• 39:55Eugene Mirman?

  I would say if you're not, then who is?

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because for, uh, for a while, I thought I really had the warp drive...

• 40:02Eugene Mirman?

  But what's hyperspace? Because I think warp drive might be...

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, hyperspace, it's just they're, they go faster than light. That, that's all.

• 40:07Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, really?

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Eugene Mirman?

  So that is sort of explaining it.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but they don't, they don't, yep, okay.

• 40:11Eugene Mirman?

  Through magic.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In hyper, in the hyperspace jump, there's no discussion of the warping of space. And they're, they're talking about Star Wars, right?

• 40:20Eugene Mirman?

  They're talking about both.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:22Eugene Mirman?

  They're asking, "How does the warp drive on Star Trek work? And then, how does hyperspace work?"

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But hyperspace, which was first introduced in Star Wars.

• 40:28Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Wars makes no attempt to respect known laws of physics. So as far as they're concerned, they just went faster than light. And there's not this attendant conversation about the warping of space.

• 40:40Eugene Mirman?

  Are you saying the force is somehow made up?

• 40:47Eugene Mirman?

  Alright.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 40:51Eugene Mirman?

  Fair enough.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, uh, Larry Wilmore had a question for me. Let's find out.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  So let me ask you this, um, Mars.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mars.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Is there a possibility that there could have been, I don't mean microbial life, but I mean actual intelligent like human life on Mars at one time? I, gone, gone now, I say yes, gone now.

• 41:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now extinct.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  Now extinct. I mean, could Mars have been inhabitable for a variety of reasons? Maybe the atmosphere is different, it's all broken down now, all that kinda stuff?

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I think about that often.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  And some people think life on Earth may have started on Mars and...

• 41:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that they'd get panspermia, it's called.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Meteorites coming over.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, stowaway microbes.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  See, I know a little bit about this.

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stuck in a thing, coming across the planets.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Starts here, spawns there. So, here's the interesting thing about civilization. Um, on Earth, if all humans left Earth today, you can ask, how long would you have to wait? Before there wasn't a trace of our existence here?

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 41:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to wait until the continents subducted, bringing entire cities with them into the lower levels of our, the Earth's crust.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in, in those zones, it's so hot, everything melts back and it gets spewed out of a volcano again.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  What's the timeframe?

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, for that, millions of years.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Millions of years is not that long.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now watch.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mars is not as geologically active as Earth.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  Now.

• 42:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, but you have to go way, way far back.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Millions of years.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, billions, billions.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Oh, so now you're getting into billions.

• 42:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Billions, billions, billions. So, I think it's unlikely on Mars. We would, we would see settlements along the riverbanks that are now completely dry. There'd be, if, why would you lose a city but still have the dried riverbed that's there? That does, that, that doesn't play.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? If you're gonna...

• 42:45Speaker 03

  But we were relating it to what's here, though.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, well, how else can you do it? I mean, there's an alien city that evaporates when they're done with it? I mean, I don't...

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know.

• 42:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Evaporating cities.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, self-destruct. That's cool.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  It's cool, but not likely.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not, cool but not likely, precisely. When we come back, we're gonna find out what Bill Nye's take is on comedy and see what kinda comedy mojo he carries with him. On StarTalk.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  We're back on StarTalk. We've been talking about the science of comedy. The science of comedy. And one of my best friends, Bill Nye, moved from Seattle to LA and now lives in New York. And he's a friend of StarTalk. And every show, we try to catch up with him to see what he's up to. And he... Did you know he got a start as a stand-up comedian?

• 43:50Speaker 02

  I did.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  You knew that?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  Did you know that, Bill Nye?

• 43:53Speaker 02

  I did know that.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. As a stand-up comedian, and so he's got the timing, so he knows how to work a crowd, how to be in front of an audience. And recently, he worked with some comedy improv folk. And he produced something called Sharing Science Through Comedy. Let's check it out.

• 44:17Speaker 05

  So we're now gonna play a traditional fabulous classic improvisational game called Tap Out. We'll start with Jonathan.

• 44:25Speaker 06

  I'm a very simple man. I work at this ice cream place, and nothing wows me, because I'm bored.

• 44:33Speaker 06

  So here's your swirl. Chocolate, vanilles.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  My favorite. You're bored with ice cream? It's very exciting. It's got, um... It's got cold. And we wouldn't have things this cold if we're without our fundamental understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. That doesn't excite you?

• 44:54Speaker 06

  Yawn?

• 44:55Speaker 05

  But the ice cream is made of the same stuff that you and I are. The ice cream is made of the ancient stardust from exploding stars. You and I are made of the dust of the cosmos. And yet, we are able to understand it and enjoy vanilla-chocolate swirls at the same time.

• 45:15Speaker 06

  Wow. That's a good ice cream flavor, dust of the cosmos.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  See, you're more into it than you realize.

• 45:25Speaker 05

  Uh, what's hap- what's happening there?

• 45:28Speaker 07

  Christopher, just relax so that I can read your aura. Very in touch with the universe. I can... Now stop, don't touch your aura.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  You're not the first person to tell me that.

• 45:45Speaker 07

  Touch your aura, you'll go blind, Bill. Alright.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  So, can I ask you where we should look for the next supernova?

• 45:53Speaker 07

  Okay, give me just one second.

• 45:57Speaker 05

  God, that'd be cool.

• 45:58Speaker 07

  That way.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  You know, uh, that guess is every bit as good as the best astrophysicist's guess. Nicely done.

• 46:09Speaker 07

  Thank you, thank you so much.

• 46:14Speaker 06

  Look here, Mr. Travel Agent, we're just a couple of creationists and we just wanna go somewhere nice and warm.

• 46:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Do you wanna go to a warm place where people embrace the idea of creation or creationism? Or do you want your minds expanded and understand the scientific truth?

• 46:30Speaker 07

  Oh, no, no, no, I don't think we want that.

• 46:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 07

  I don't think we want our minds expanded at all.

• 46:33Speaker 06

  No.

• 46:33Speaker 07

  No, no, no.

• 46:34Speaker 06

  We like two things: God and heaven.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  How about, um, Jamaica?

• 46:44Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 46:46Speaker 05

  It's warm and beautiful there. And you can see layer after layer after layer of limestone from ancient seas 300, 350 million years old. And you could look at the fossils and infer, along with rubidium strontium dating, how old the world is. And you could have your whole evolutionary view brought into focus.

• 47:10Speaker 07

  Do they have a buffet?

• 47:15Speaker 05

  Maybe, hey, you guys, give a hand for Carrie and Jonathan.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  We have proven beyond a shadow, which is also a scientific phenomenon, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the hypothesis that science can be funny. Thank you very much.

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So presumably, you guys have a favorite joke. And I want to know it before we close the show. Eugene. I don't think you do.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scott, favorite joke?

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Um, so a dog walks in a telegraph office and says he wants to send a message. The guy says, "Sure, what's your message?" He goes, "Yeah, it's a woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof woof woof." And the operator pauses and goes, "You know, that's only nine woofs. You can send a tenth woof for free." And the dog says, "Yeah, but that would make no sense."

• 48:15Speaker 02

  "I'm the scientist, I get a pass."

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you have to explain what a telegraph office is to anyone under 50.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  I love the fact that when I tell that joke, people always bring up the telegraph. And they don't address that like it's a dog talking. Which is like a whole other science point, yeah.

• 48:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're out of time and possibly out of jokes. So guys, thanks for being on StarTalk. Scott, Eugene, you've been watching StarTalk from the Hall of the Universe of the American Museum of Natural History. And I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal natural physicist. And it is my duty and pleasure and honor to bid you to keep looking up.