Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Cosmic Queries – Death of a Black Hole About this episode What is nothing? Could a dying back hole cause the Big Bang? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about a black hole’s dying gasp, lunar eclipses, and the meaning of nothing.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck, that was a brilliant set of questions.
0:02 Chuck Nice? Ah, yes, it was.
0:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Some bordered on the philosophical.
0:05 Chuck Nice? Yep.
0:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Even the spiritual, maybe?
0:07 Chuck Nice? Yep.
0:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, I was feeling it.
0:08 Chuck Nice? And I wrote them all. I'm taking credit for every question.
0:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You were lying. You did pretty good with pronouncing people's names this round.
0:18 Chuck Nice? Um, I would give myself a C+.
0:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He's still working it. Coming up, Cosmic Queries, Grab Bag Edition on StarTalk.
0:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We got Cosmic Queries Grab Bag today. Chuck?
0:51 Chuck Nice? Hey, what's happening? Yeah, we got a grab bag.
0:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You grabbed inside the bag?
0:55 Chuck Nice? I did. It sounded...
0:59 Chuck Nice? Sometimes they let you do that.
1:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so let's go right in.
1:04 Chuck Nice? Yeah, we might as well jump right into it. This is Roger McBay, who says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. Roger from Wisconsin here, currently in Surin, Thailand." Wow. Way to go, Roger.
1:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Ooh, good food in Thailand.
1:18 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
1:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what I hear.
1:20 Chuck Nice? He says, "Why is there not a lunar eclipse every month? Is it just the distance or the wobble or something else?"
1:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Great question. That's an observant question.
1:33 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
1:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Very good. Very good. So, if you look at the path the sun takes in the sky
1:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? throughout the year.
1:42 Chuck Nice? Right.
1:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? So, the sun actually moves against the background stars. You can't see the stars, but you can kind of see them at twilight, like before sunrise, but it's not so bright that you can't see the stars. Look at the stars that are there. They come back in a month. It's a different set of stars. Because I say the sun is moving. We are orbiting the sun, so our sightline on the sun is changing. Every month, the sun is in front of a different set of stars.
2:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
2:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. That is called the ecliptic.
2:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The moon orbits in a plane that is tilted to the ecliptic.
2:21 Chuck Nice? Got you.
2:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can only get an eclipse...
2:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If both the sun and the moon are in the same place. Right. In their tilted orbits. Okay. Okay, I'm saying the sun has an orbit. I'm very pre-Copernican in this description. Okay. When they're in the same place, then earth, the sun and the moon line up. But at any other time, the moon is above the sun, below the sun, or to the side, and it's not, it's gotta be right. And it's called the ecliptic because when the sun, moon and earth line up, you get a A, a. Eclipse. Oh, gosh darn.
3:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That makes sense. Doesn't it? Yeah. We, we good here? Yeah.
3:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, you can have a full moon. Mm-hmm. But it's not crossing the ecliptic. Okay. So it's not go, it's not gonna enter our shadow. You can have a new moon and it's not crossing the ecliptic. And so it's not gonna pass in front of the sun. You need a new moon or a full moon coinciding with when they cross the ecliptic. Right. And so that doesn't happen every month. Right. Not every month. And in dune, was it dune? Okay. Where there are eclipses every day. There's something, something got, getting eclipsed all the time. I don't know what's. So it was not even interesting anymore because it was a day, kind of a daily phenomenon. It's like a sunrise at that. The sunrise, yeah.
3:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's still fun, but it's not, you're not gonna plan your life around observing it. That's the simple reason. So if the two were aligned, we would have a. If they were always in the same plane, it would happen that way. Every month, we'd have a total solar eclipse. And the difference is, not that this was in the question, a solar eclipse, you have to be on the spot on earth where moon's shadow drags across earth's surface.
4:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And if you're not in that spot, you're not going to see the eclipse.
4:25 Chuck Nice? Right.
4:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whereas, in a lunar eclipse, the moon is entering Earth's shadow in space.
4:32 Chuck Nice? Right.
4:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Anybody who can see the full moon will watch it enter Earth's shadow. The entire half of the Earth that faces the moon will see a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses are slightly, last I remember, slightly less common than solar eclipses, but everybody gets to see it.
4:49 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's cool.
4:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You don't have to travel.
4:51 Chuck Nice? You don't have to go anywhere.
4:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Very kind of the universe.
4:53 Chuck Nice? Yeah, it is. Very cool, Roger.
4:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, that's the only reason.
4:57 Chuck Nice? Eliseel.
4:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What, what, what? Spell it.
5:00 Chuck Nice? E L Y S S I E L.
5:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, I don't know how you, what you do with that.
5:06 Chuck Nice? I'm going with Eliseel.
5:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is a one-named person like Cher, like Madonna?
5:12 Chuck Nice? Yes, exactly.
5:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
5:13 Chuck Nice? Um, yeah, but it's like the more difficult version. See, Cher, Madonna, Eliseel.
5:23 Chuck Nice? Salutations from Newcastle, Australia.
5:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Ooh, love them.
5:27 Chuck Nice? Which, uh, if it is the case that a black hole explodes at the end of its life, would that explosion contain all the energy the black hole ever sucked in? Or has all that energy already escaped via hawking radiation? And I wonder if the Big Bang could have possibly been an exploding black hole of such mass that the event horizon was larger than our observable universe. And the universe as we know it is now stretching out to fill the void left by the universally large black hole. Perhaps beyond is a far larger, far older galaxy that is pulling on the mass of our observable universe.
6:09 Chuck Nice? At great enough distance would seem that, like, it would seem that the pull attributed to dark energy. Thank you. So, eh, did we get a black hole to fart us out?
6:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Was that the translation?
6:26 Chuck Nice? Basically. And then there's another galaxy that's older that is actually pulling on us, but what we're feeling is the gravity of that other galaxy, and that's why we think we have dark matter.
6:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Got it.
6:37 Chuck Nice? Okay.
6:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Couple things.
6:39 Chuck Nice? All right.
6:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, he's right?
6:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? As the black hole evaporates, it is losing mass. Yes. And the more, the smaller the black hole becomes, the faster it evaporates. Okay. Until the rate at which it evaporates goes exponential. And in Stephen Hawking's original paper where he describes this, he says, "The very last gasp of the black hole will be of such high energy, it'll be a burst of gamma rays." Gamma. Gamma rays, because the wavelength of light is the size of the black hole emitting it. Right. So the black hole gets smaller and smaller, the wavelength of light gets smaller and smaller, and that means it has higher and higher energy. Small wavelengths are higher energy.
7:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so the very last gasp would be gamma rays. But that explosion means there's nothing left. That's, that, so it's not like that's exploding and then you're filling the void with something that'll expand to fill that. No. No, that was it. That's it. That was the end of everything. It. Right. It for the black hole. Right. So. It's spent. Now, you want something outside our horizon, possibly pulling away, giving us the, the delusion that there's some mysterious force pressing outward on the universe. The reason why that's not likely, nothing wrong with the idea coming in, right? Somebody's tugging on it from the other side. All right.
8:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you're still, if that were the right explanation, it means you're still dealing with ordinary gravity. Right. Because that's ordinary gravity, it's pulling the other way. All right. And it wouldn't be a galaxy, it would be a whole other universe. Right. Pulling. All right. The reason why it's probably not true is the dark energy is greatest the larger the region of space that you're describing.
8:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So there's not, it's not obvious to me why an external force of gravity would manifest that way here.
8:48 Chuck Nice? Right, so what you're saying is there are regions where it's greater than in other regions?
8:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, it depends how big is the region that you carve, that's all. So it's a property of the vacuum.
9:00 Chuck Nice? Okay.
9:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the more vacuum you have, the more of this you have.
9:02 Chuck Nice? Okay.
9:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's how you think about it.
9:04 Chuck Nice? So.
9:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's how I should have said it.
9:06 Chuck Nice? Okay, so the more, right.
9:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, so as the universe gets bigger, this phenomenon is more significant.
9:11 Chuck Nice? Right.
9:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whereas, if there's just something else pulling on the other side and we got bigger, the gravity would be less and less because we're getting farther and farther.
9:21 Chuck Nice? Farther.
9:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so any and all ideas accepted, I mean, or considered, because we don't know what the hell dark energy is.
9:28 Chuck Nice? And you know, that's what makes this so much fun, that LCL can say this, because what I love is when our listeners like think.
9:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah.
9:39 Chuck Nice? And they come up with these like ideas, and it's real thinking, it's like, you know, scientifically based, it's really cool.
9:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
9:47 Chuck Nice? Yeah, alright, but the answer is no.
9:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, okay, alright.
9:52 Chuck Nice? Alright, here we go, this is Paradox, another one named person, this is Paradox.
9:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paradox.
10:00 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
10:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a wine called Paradox, but it has ducks on it.
10:04 Chuck Nice? Paradox?
10:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paradox.
10:06 Chuck Nice? Paradox.
10:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, I think it's a play on that.
10:08 Chuck Nice? That's very funny. I, I kind of, at first I was just like, man, I'm like, wait a minute, that's kind of cool.
10:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I see what they did there, yeah.
10:15 Chuck Nice? Paradox. Okay, here, greetings, Dr. Tyson, this is Dennis from Salisbury, Indiana, the case for taking the word hole out of black hole. They are not holes in space. It's very off putting to think of them that way. Renaming them could possibly give new perspective on them. B O S, Black Omega Star. How about that? He is upset that we call them black holes. They are not holes. And so, uh, the Black Omega Star, which sounds like a new Marvel character.
10:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It sounds like the, the blaxploitation movie that never, was never made in the 1970s.
11:01 Chuck Nice? Oh, that is right. He came from another planet.
11:06 Chuck Nice? With superpowers in his afro. Powered by radiation and disco music. He's Black Omega Star.
11:19 Chuck Nice? Black Omega Star. Something's going down at the disco. Don't worry about it, baby. Black Omega Star will be there. Hold on for a second while I pick out my radioactive afro.
11:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So now I forgot the question. Whoa, could we rename it? I'm not one to debate word definitions.
11:43 Chuck Nice? Okay.
11:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm not that guy. If, I'm not that guy.
11:48 Chuck Nice? I see.
11:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Good words are good words. If you have a good reason to think it should be different, I'll, I'll hear you out.
11:53 Chuck Nice? But see, don't they call it a black hole? Because when you look at it through a telescope, first of all, you see all the light of the universe.
12:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Forget the light. They call it a black hole because you fall in, you, you fall in.
12:05 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's true. You are falling in.
12:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In.
12:07 Chuck Nice? You're falling in.
12:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The difference is when we think of holes, we think of a two dimensional
12:11 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? surface and you fall through the hole.
12:13 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is a three dimensional hole. Any direction you approach it.
12:17 Chuck Nice? You fall in.
12:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a hole.
12:18 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that's a little freaky, but.
12:21 Chuck Nice? And by the way, when you fall in, you fall in every direction then?
12:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Every direction.
12:24 Chuck Nice? Cause you're falling into a three dimensional hole.
12:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
12:26 Chuck Nice? So you gotta be falling in every direction at the same time. If you are falling in from any direction, right? When you get inside of it.
12:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't know what you just said.
12:37 Chuck Nice? Neither do I, who cares? It just makes sense that you're falling in every direction at the same time.
12:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's just weird, so it's a little odd that it's a hole in every direction, but, so it's a three dimensional hole. I mean, that's what it is, and light doesn't come out, so it's black. I, I think it's the best named thing there ever was.
12:55 Chuck Nice? Okay, well, that ends this conversation. Like, well, there you go, uh, sorry about that, Dennis.
13:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Just think about it, because the word galaxy, you know what that comes from?
13:06 Chuck Nice? No.
13:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's Greek, Greek for galactos.
13:09 Chuck Nice? Galactos.
13:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know what galactos means?
13:11 Chuck Nice? Uh, let me see, he's the arch-nemesis of Black Omega Star.
13:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, galactos is milk. The milky way. This is how you get that.
13:21 Chuck Nice? Oh, that makes sense.
13:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's poetic and romantic, but it's still, you have to go there. You gotta like, construct what's going on.
13:29 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And in China, where milk is a less popular beverage than in Europe, they don't call it the Milky Way. They call it the Silver River.
13:38 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's lovely.
13:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's way beauti- for me, that's better.
13:40 Chuck Nice? That's even better, sorry Greeks.
13:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And by the way, we found a sugar in milk, a couple of sugars in milk. And one of them, we called it galactos.
13:51 Chuck Nice? Okay.
13:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's one of the sugars, and the other one is lactose.
13:54 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Lactose, galactose, all because of the galaxy.
13:59 Chuck Nice? Right, that's cool.
14:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Crossing our sky, anyhow, so, so I'm, I think black hole is good, but Black Omega Star, you know, that's, that's
14:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Again, it's the movie that was never written.
14:12 Chuck Nice? That's kinda wild, man, I kinda dig it.
14:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
14:14 Chuck Nice? All right, well, there you go, Dennis.
14:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We get a phone call from some Hollywood director.
14:18 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
14:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We gotta make this movie.
14:19 Chuck Nice? We gotta, yes, Black Omega Star.
14:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Radioactive Afro.
14:26 Chuck Nice? All right, here we go, Sam, I'm sorry, oh man, I'm now thinking about Black Omega Star coming home from work and just This woman is just like, where you been? Oh, you got time to be out there saving the universe, but you can't be in here taking care of these kids. Black Omega star.
14:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is the home life. The home life of a superhero.
14:49 Chuck Nice? Get your ass over there to them Black Omega dishes. That's what you need to do.
14:56 Chuck Nice? All right, here we go.
14:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Get your Black Omega ass on that lawnmower and mow the lawn. Take the garbage out.
15:05 Chuck Nice? Yup. All right, here we go. This is Sam Green.
15:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Have you seen the Keem Peele skit?
15:11 Chuck Nice? On what?
15:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where they imitate me and my wife?
15:14 Chuck Nice? Yes.
15:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You have, you have seen that?
15:16 Chuck Nice? I finally did see it.
15:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
15:18 Chuck Nice? Uh, somebody showed it to me here and it was very funny where.
15:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, Jordan Peele, it plays me.
15:23 Chuck Nice? Yes.
15:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I'm looking through a telescope and
15:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? and Keegan comes in dressed like.
15:32 Chuck Nice? Like.
15:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like my wife. And said, Neil deGrasse Tyson, why don't you stop looking through that telescope and do the dishes and take the garbage out and then walk the dog? And then he said, well, in another universe, in a quantum, right? That's already happened. So are we in this universe or? He says something really cosmic and then she says, oh, okay. So when I first met them, it was at the Emmys because during, during one of our nominations, when we had, uh, when StarTalk was on NACO.
16:07 Chuck Nice? Okay.
16:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And we, we were nominated for Emmy three times.
16:10 Chuck Nice? Very nice.
16:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They were there. And so I went up to him and said, dude, my wife has a PhD in mathematical physics. So the conversation would not have gone down that way.
16:18 Chuck Nice? Yeah. And then, uh, that's when Jordan Peele went, well, actually.
16:40 Speaker 02 Hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio. I'm here with my son Ernie because we listen to StarTalk every night and support StarTalk on Patreon.
16:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
17:04 Chuck Nice? All right, this is Sam Green. He says, "Hi, Dr. Tyson. Lord nice." Uh, Sam here, living on Tulsa time.
17:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tulsa.
17:13 Chuck Nice? That's right.
17:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tulsa, Oklahoma. I rode in the, there's a, there's a river there in Tulsa.
17:18 Chuck Nice? Did not.
17:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I rode there. There's an annual festival.
17:20 Chuck Nice? Never been.
17:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, when I was, uh, rode for the University of Texas.
17:24 Chuck Nice? Oh, very nice.
17:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, beautiful town. That town has these big praying hands, I think.
17:28 Chuck Nice? Uh, they need it.
17:35 Chuck Nice? Okay, he says, he says, "My question is about spacetime and causality."
17:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
17:42 Chuck Nice? "We usually limit our models of spacetime to ones where causality is preserved. But I wonder, could spacetime behave in a sort of meiotic or metatic way to preserve itself when causality is violated? I realize in, I'm borrowing from biology here, but imagine spacetime splitting when encountering..."
18:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is that mitosis?
18:10 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
18:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? M-E-I-T-O-S-I.
18:14 Chuck Nice? That's mitosis, yes. Mitosis.
18:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mitosis. What is it? What word is that?
18:18 Chuck Nice? He said meiotic. M-E-I-O-T-I-C. Or...
18:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe he's borrowing from biology words? Because I don't know that in physics.
18:26 Chuck Nice? Yeah, and then mitotic, which maybe that is the mitosis.
18:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, okay, go on.
18:32 Chuck Nice? Uh, I don't know either one of those words either, so, uh, maybe we can look them up, guys. Uh, because, you know, maybe I'm not even saying them right, to be honest. Who knows? I don't know.
18:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? People cut you slack every time.
18:43 Chuck Nice? Well, you know, listen, it's an honor to have me mispronounce your name or a word. All right.
18:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You keep telling yourself that.
18:52 Chuck Nice? He's like, come on, man, don't, don't, don't mess, let that happen. All right, let's get back to him. He says, I'm, I'm realizing, I'm borrowing from biology here, but imagine spacetime splitting when encountering a causal mass or replicating to contain a causal characteristics. Could such a mechanism?
19:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A causal as in not causal.
19:17 Chuck Nice? Not causal. A as in not. Could such a mechanism be a way the universe maintains consistency?
19:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I like that idea. So the only way you're gonna mess up causalities is if you go back in time.
19:30 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And there, Rich Gott wrote a whole, you know, he's a friend of StarTalk.
19:35 Chuck Nice? Yes.
19:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In fact, he's a co-author of mine.
19:38 Chuck Nice? Okay.
19:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We co-authored a book together called Welcome to the Universe.
19:42 Chuck Nice? Very nice.
19:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was based on a course that we co-taught together at Princeton along with Michael Strauss, so the three of us.
19:50 Chuck Nice? Okay.
19:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it's Tyson Strauss Gott, G O T T.
19:55 Chuck Nice? Nice.
19:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Want to find that. And there were like four versions of the book. There's Welcome to the Universe, that's like textbook style. Then there's a brief Welcome to the Universe, that's like a pocket, sorry. And then there's Welcome to the Universe in 3D.
20:10 Chuck Nice? Well, you guys really milked that thing, man. I'm telling you, way to, way to, way to ride a horse.
20:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All with Princeton University Press. So Rich Gott wrote a book called Time Travel in Einstein's Universe.
20:27 Chuck Nice? Right.
20:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And there turns out there are solutions if you take a certain path around a black hole or a pair of black holes and then come back, you can come back before you left.
20:38 Chuck Nice? Oh.
20:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a, there's a solution that I don't know how to calculate.
20:42 Chuck Nice? Okay.
20:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But people who are fluent in this do. But we don't have to worry about the details of that. What we care about is the idea of it. All right. Is the universe gonna get angry? If you manage to go back in time?
20:56 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
20:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then tell yourself to not go back in time.
21:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
21:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How you, how you, how you square that?
21:03 Chuck Nice? That would be the most awesome thing. I can see why the universe could get mad at that.
21:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right. So, does the universe split? I mean, that's kind of what he's hinting here.
21:10 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that's what he said. Because at that point, what you have done, because you already.
21:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you can't let that go.
21:15 Chuck Nice? You already went.
21:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
21:16 Chuck Nice? So, when you come back and don't go again, what happened to the went? See? Because you already went. That's how you got back.
21:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
21:24 Chuck Nice? But in the movies, what happens is you always end up doing something else that puts you right back where you gotta go.
21:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or you disappear from the photo.
21:34 Chuck Nice? Right.
21:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stephen Hawking has something called the time travel conjecture.
21:46 Chuck Nice? Okay.
21:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He, he thinks, thought, that one day we would find a law of nature that explicitly says you cannot go backwards in time.
21:56 Chuck Nice? Okay.
21:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, and so, as a conjecture, he's imagining that one day we will make such a discovery. You know what he did? He had a time travel party. Did you know about this?
22:05 Chuck Nice? I did not.
22:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hosted, he or his people hosted a party at Caltech.
22:10 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
22:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the announcement was made to all time travelers. Come back in time and meet us here, and we will greet you. And nobody.
22:27 Chuck Nice? That's funny.
22:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, another one, you know the one about the Titanic? In the, in the, in the TV series, Time Tunnel.
22:36 Chuck Nice? I don't know that.
22:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They had the same producer. So, there was a couple of shows that had the same kind of,
22:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel. It was like one hour TV shows, prime time, that were sciency, science fictiony.
22:51 Chuck Nice? Okay.
22:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? And Time Tunnel, the very first episode, they go back in time, and they're just kind of lost in time. That's the show. They try to come back and they can't. They land up in another place.
23:02 Chuck Nice? Oh, okay.
23:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, where's the first place they went?
23:05 Chuck Nice? The Titanic?
23:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was the Titanic.
23:08 Chuck Nice? Well, that was the end of the series.
23:11 Chuck Nice? Oh, well, that was nice while it lasted.
23:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so then the reveal is there as he's walking on the deck. Then he sees the lifesaver.
23:22 Chuck Nice? And it says USS Titanic?
23:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, no, it's not US. It's.
23:25 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's right, because it's not the US.
23:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's British.
23:27 Chuck Nice? British, right.
23:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, but I don't know. SS Titanic.
23:29 Chuck Nice? SS Titanic.
23:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's been hypothesized because everyone is so intrigued by the Titanic and that story.
23:36 Chuck Nice? Right.
23:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That the day time travel actually gets invented.
23:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Everyone wants to go back to the Titanic, and that's why it's saying.
23:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There wasn't enough boats for everybody because they're all time travelers.
23:52 Chuck Nice? I don't want to go back to the Titanic. I want to go back to a rowboat.
23:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A rowboat?
23:59 Chuck Nice? Sitting off to the side of the Titanic, like, and eating some popcorn, like, wow, that is messed up. Look at that, you know?
24:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who knows how that would get resolved? Either you can't go back in time, or if you do, the universe splits and prevents you from altering.
24:19 Chuck Nice? One of the timelines.
24:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One of the timelines, correct. And we're not there yet.
24:24 Chuck Nice? Right.
24:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But it's a great question.
24:25 Chuck Nice? Okay, that's super cool. Parker Man says, hello, Dr. Tyson and Sir Charles. This is Parker Man. Retired geophysicist in Ventura, California, now looking up instead of down.
24:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, nice. Tell me the name again?
24:44 Chuck Nice? Yeah, this is Parker Man.
24:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Parker Man. Shout out to you. All right. And by the way, we need more geologists to look up than down so that they will understand that it's one of our asteroids that took out the dinosaurs.
24:57 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
24:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? We have a lot of down-looking paleontologists out there. All right. I don't want to loop you in with the paleontologists, but. Earth is your place, but yeah, alright.
25:08 Chuck Nice? He says, "I recently saw a video in which Dr. Tyson said that Jupiter's orbit allows it to partially protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. If it were further out, would it protect Mars and closer in, protect Venus? Can you elaborate on why Jupiter differentially protects planets based on its orbit? Thank you."
25:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Good question.
25:31 Chuck Nice? Yeah, well.
25:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Nice question. So, we say protects Earth because we don't care if it protects Venus.
25:37 Chuck Nice? Anybody else. But the truth is, it's protecting everybody.
25:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's protecting everybody within its orbit.
25:42 Chuck Nice? Within its orbit, because it's...
25:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What would happen is...
25:44 Chuck Nice? It's like a lineman.
25:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A comet would come by and you cannot escape the gravity of Jupiter.
25:51 Chuck Nice? Gravity of Jupiter.
25:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I should say that more precisely.
25:53 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
25:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You cannot come in and out of the solar system without having felt the influence of Jupiter.
25:58 Chuck Nice? Nice.
25:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? Because the word "escape" has a very precise meaning.
26:01 Chuck Nice? That's true.
26:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Now, I don't want to say it that way.
26:03 Chuck Nice? Got you.
26:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, Jupiter is protecting Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
26:06 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
26:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Period. So, a comet comes in, and it feels Jupiter, and then it swings out the other side.
26:13 Chuck Nice? Right.
26:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It never even comes in.
26:14 Chuck Nice? Never even comes in to come towards us.
26:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct, correct. So, plus, the distances between and among the planets is exponential in units of the Earth-Sun distance. Mercury is .4, Venus is .7, Earth is 1. One distance, okay?
26:33 Chuck Nice? Of course it would be.
26:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mars is 2.5.
26:37 Chuck Nice? Oh.
26:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter is 5.
26:41 Chuck Nice? Oh.
26:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Saturn is 10.
26:44 Chuck Nice? Oh.
26:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uranus is 20. Neptune is 30.
26:54 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, but the distance is getting really big.
26:58 Chuck Nice? Really big.
26:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Very fast. That's the point of this lame exercise I'm trying to lay down. And so, all of the inner planets basically are huddled compared to where Jupiter is.
27:09 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And its ability to protect its inner children, yeah.
27:13 Chuck Nice? Cool. Is that because the... The mass of these other planets is so much bigger that they need more distance so they're not disturbing.
27:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They would clear out more distance.
27:22 Chuck Nice? Clear out more distance.
27:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They would clear out more distance.
27:24 Chuck Nice? Okay.
27:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But the formation of solar systems is still an active field because we used to think our so any other star system would look like our solar system.
27:31 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the first assumption. And I'm none of them.
27:35 Chuck Nice? Wow, that's so cool.
27:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Some of them have Jupiters as close as Mercury is.
27:39 Chuck Nice? Oh.
27:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They call hot Jupiters.
27:41 Chuck Nice? That's cool.
27:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
27:43 Chuck Nice? How you doing? I'm hot Jupiter. What's up, Saturn? That girl is ratchet, I'm telling you right now. All right, that's super cool.
27:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If you want it, put a ring on it.
27:57 Chuck Nice? All right, Parker Man, what a great question. Here we go. Freddie Abdon. Hey Neil, hey Chuck. My name is Freddie Abdon, an American living in Peria, Colombia.
28:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What's the name of the town?
28:11 Chuck Nice? Peria.
28:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't know that town.
28:14 Chuck Nice? I don't either.
28:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Spell it. Maybe I do know if you pronounced it right.
28:17 Chuck Nice? P E R. E I R A. Peria.
28:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Peria.
28:23 Chuck Nice? Peria.
28:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Is it E I R A that sounds Portuguese?
28:26 Chuck Nice? E I R A.
28:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
28:28 Chuck Nice? Peria, Colombia.
28:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Portuguese, they put the E in front of the I. Yeah, okay.
28:31 Chuck Nice? Uh, where the best coffee is grown.
28:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Ooh.
28:36 Chuck Nice? That's right.
28:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Colombian coffee.
28:38 Chuck Nice? That's right, Colombian coffee.
28:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We used to get those TV commercials.
28:40 Chuck Nice? That are known as cocaine.
28:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stop.
28:44 Chuck Nice? The second law of thermodynamics says entropy must increase, yet for a surprisingly long stretch, Earth maintained extraordinary order and complexity enabling life to thrive in stark contrast to the decay and disorder we observed elsewhere in the cosmos. That should not have happened, statistically speaking. What could explain that rare pause in entropy? That bubble of low chaos?
29:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Could it point to?
29:13 Chuck Nice? Captain Kirk? What could explain? Could it point to unique initial conditions or maybe even some odd influence beyond our natural forces?
29:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Religious people who know only some physics, but not.
29:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Enough physics. Know about the second law of thermodynamics that everything proceeds to chaos. Correct. That's a, that's a, is a simplification, but basically it goes from order to disorder. Okay. And Earth goes from disorder to now we have like life. We can't get more complicated than life. Right. So they wanted to invoke that as a reason for not that physics didn't work, but that the hand of God operated. Intervened. Intervened here, reversing what would otherwise be the trend that we see everywhere else in the universe. So it was not a statement of physics not working.
30:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a statement of the handiwork of God and what is a miracle if not the suspension of the laws of physics. The proper way to say the second law of thermodynamics is. Okay. For any closed system, the system will move to disorder. Right. Inexorably. We're not a closed system. We are open to the universe. We're open to sunlight. Right. We're, we're bathed in sunlight. That is energy entering our system. Okay. Right. So if you have net energy flow into a system. Okay. Then it's not a closed system. All right. So now, but you gotta rob Peter to pay Paul.
30:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If our entropy is going down, life is, is lower entropy than what was there before. Somebody's entropy had to go up. Really? The sun. Oh, the sun is dying. Yes, it is. So that we might have life, a different kind of sun, giving up life that we might live. Oh, I see what you did there. See what I did there? I see what you did there. So the sun will die. Right. And then when the sun dies, nothing is bolstered after that. Right. And then the whole system goes to entropy. Yeah. That's, look at that. Now, a quick little aside, in our whole of the universe. Right.
31:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We have a completely enclosed sphere, glass sphere, that has water and three life forms in it. Why would you do that? That's terrible.
31:58 Chuck Nice? That is just not awful.
32:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Yes, they're they're sealed in this cavity.
32:07 Chuck Nice? Oh, my God.
32:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. And so we have three life forms. There's krill, like really tiny krill.
32:13 Chuck Nice? Like the little shrimpy things.
32:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Little shrimpy things. We have snails.
32:17 Chuck Nice? All right.
32:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And we have something like kelp.
32:20 Chuck Nice? Oh, okay, like a plant.
32:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plant, planty thing.
32:22 Chuck Nice? Plant, plant.
32:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That creates a complete ecosystem.
32:27 Chuck Nice? Mmm.
32:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So the the krill poops, the snails eat it.
32:33 Chuck Nice? The poop. Right.
32:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The thing, okay.
32:34 Chuck Nice? And then that fertilizes the kelp.
32:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Get the kelp.
32:36 Chuck Nice? And the sunlight comes in and helps the kelp.
32:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly.
32:39 Chuck Nice? And then it's all circle.
32:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you noticed it's not a completely closed system.
32:44 Chuck Nice? Right.
32:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because it's made of transparent glass.
32:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
32:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So sunlight gets in. Okay, so now, here's the story. When we were building the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the year 1999, because we opened January 1, 2000. There was a lot of construction dust. They finally moved that into place. There's construction dust. So the construction people said,
33:08 Chuck Nice? Oh, no.
33:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? we clearly have to protect this sphere of glass. Up came the tarp.
33:15 Chuck Nice? Uh, poor snailly.
33:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, the plant, yeah, I mean, it's this. So fortunately, clear heads caught it. I mean, you can't blame the construction workers. I mean, they're not astrobiologists.
33:28 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
33:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
33:29 Chuck Nice? They weren't looking at that like, guys, I know it looks like a closed system, but it isn't. Okay. We got a lot of sunlight in. We need photosynthesis for the kelp. And the two life forms actually, uh, well, they're all three life forms and they're dependent upon each other. So, yeah.
33:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I I it was I I forgot how long. It was a few days. But there you pick it up and there were a few belly up krill in there.
33:55 Chuck Nice? Oh.
33:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But they reestablished their equilibrium and they're still going.
33:59 Chuck Nice? They're still going.
33:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? After 25 years.
34:01 Chuck Nice? And that and that seemingly closed.
34:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Seemingly closed system.
34:04 Chuck Nice? Seemingly closed system.
34:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It is living off of the sun.
34:08 Chuck Nice? Nice.
34:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. So, yeah, that's how that works.
34:11 Chuck Nice? Okay, very cool. All right. I love that. That was a great little lesson in entropy. Uh, Nicholas Hayes. Hello Neil.
34:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One other thing about entropy.
34:20 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
34:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. You're alive.
34:22 Chuck Nice? Well, we hope. Sometimes.
34:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You, uh, right now you are consuming energy for being alive.
34:29 Chuck Nice? For being alive.
34:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where'd the energy come from?
34:31 Chuck Nice? Um, I'm gonna say Jesus. No, um.
34:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The way you said that, the very Southern Baptist.
34:41 Chuck Nice? Well, that's the only way. Well, no, I mean, um, I ate food.
34:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You ate food. Period. People say, they look at food and it's the calorie count, there's something bad.
34:49 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
34:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because is the energy that you're using.
34:53 Chuck Nice? Alright.
34:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you know what the word for energy is in French?
34:55 Chuck Nice? No.
34:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Calorie.
34:58 Chuck Nice? But the dough.
35:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so when you die, you stop eating.
35:06 Chuck Nice? Right. Well, there's, there's a reason why.
35:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sorry.
35:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You'll choose to stop eating.
35:14 Chuck Nice? I've seen too many corpses like, God, I am so hungry.
35:21 Chuck Nice? Hey, why don't you eat? What are you doing? Man, you're not taking care of yourself?
35:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I said it back. I'm sorry. I said it the wrong way. Um, so, but when you're dead, there's no more metabolism in you.
35:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
35:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. And you begin to decay.
35:36 Chuck Nice? Right.
35:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You become disorder.
35:39 Chuck Nice? You're, you're moving to entropy.
35:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, there it is.
35:42 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
35:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you, you, you are now a closed system.
35:46 Chuck Nice? Right.
35:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? See, as long as you got a pie hole to shove food into, you're not a closed system.
35:51 Chuck Nice? Very cool.
35:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
35:52 Chuck Nice? All right. This is Nicholas Hayes. He says, hello Neil and Chuck. My name is Nick and I'm an industrial designer in North Bend, Washington.
36:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Love him.
36:01 Chuck Nice? My question is, if I, in my super advanced starship, were traveling close to the speed of light and blew past a planet moving in the opposite direction, would it, would I appear to be traveling faster than the speed of light to anyone watching me from the planet? Or would my reference frame constantly change based on what is being passed by?
36:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, no.
36:21 Chuck Nice? Okay.
36:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Next question. No, sorry. Here's how it works. So at low speeds, you can just sort of add velocities. And you, so if you're in a car going 60 miles an hour one way, a car going 60 miles an hour another way, you will pass each other at?
36:38 Chuck Nice? 120 miles an hour.
36:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Thank you.
36:40 Chuck Nice? Yes.
36:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One hundred twenty miles an hour, okay. What's really fun is in an airplane. Where you see the ground, you know, going by slowly because it's high up, right? When another plane is coming towards you, it's the opposite direction. The relative, because you're going maybe five hundred miles an hour. And they're going five hundred miles an hour. It's passing you at a thousand miles an hour. If you want to see what like a supersonic jet would look like to you if you're just standing there. And it's, it's, it's, it's really, just check, check it out next time.
37:14 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
37:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When you're, you keep, look out the window, you will find planes coming the other way.
37:18 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
37:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And they go by fast.
37:19 Chuck Nice? Very fast. And they're pretty far away and they're still zipping by you, man.
37:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Zipping by.
37:25 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
37:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, the formula to add velocities is very simple. It's this one plus that one. And that's your relative velocity. As you go faster, that formula breaks down. And you need to use a relativity formula.
37:40 Chuck Nice? Oh.
37:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To add velocities.
37:41 Chuck Nice? Oh, please tell, because I'm, I'm not, I'm not familiar with this.
37:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You didn't know about that, okay.
37:45 Chuck Nice? I do not know.
37:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So.
37:46 Chuck Nice? This is so cool.
37:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the relativity formula, uh, it is not how fast you're going. It's how fast you're going relative to the speed of light.
37:55 Chuck Nice? Uh-huh.
37:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And that ratio is in the formula.
37:59 Chuck Nice? Oh.
37:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
38:00 Chuck Nice? Very cool.
38:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, and so when that ratio is near zero, the formula just becomes two numbers added. But as that ratio gets higher, it's a more complicated formula. It becomes a more complicated formula. And so, at, at half the speed of light and half the speed of light. You would see the other thing going maybe at two thirds the speed of light, not. Because half and half would be a full speed of light.
38:26 Chuck Nice? Right.
38:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? Going the opposite directions. So, uh, if you're going ninety-nine percent that way, ninety-nine percent this way. You'd, you'd. Invoke the formula, you're never gonna get higher than the speed of light.
38:38 Chuck Nice? Gotcha.
38:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so the answer is no.
38:40 Chuck Nice? Cause if, let's say you were going, I don't know, nine, nine tenths the speed of light. Without the formula, you'd be going much faster than the speed of light when you pass each other.
38:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct.
38:50 Chuck Nice? And you can't do that.
38:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can't do that.
38:51 Chuck Nice? So you can't violate that law.
38:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct.
38:53 Chuck Nice? And so because you can't violate that principle of physics or the, the universe, you gotta have this formula.
38:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not just a can't, it's, that's what we observe. And so this is the formula that describes what we are observing. Right.
39:06 Chuck Nice? Gotcha.
39:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The universe is not obeying our formulas.
39:08 Chuck Nice? Right, right, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, we've actually made a formula to tell us what the universe is doing.
39:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct.
39:14 Chuck Nice? I got you.
39:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's, it's an important distinction.
39:16 Chuck Nice? It is.
39:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We, I will occasionally loosely say, uh, uh, the planet is following Newton's laws.
39:23 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, Newton's laws are following the planet.
39:26 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly. That's funny.
39:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
39:27 Chuck Nice? All right, that was, oh man, what a great question, Nicholas Hayes.
39:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I, I, I can't recite it off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's a wiki page on, on adding relativistic velocities.
39:38 Chuck Nice? Relativistic velocities.
39:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Adding relativistic, you just go there. And the formula has, you know, some squares and square roots in it. It's not complicated.
39:46 Chuck Nice? It ain't crazy.
39:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not crazy.
39:48 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cause we can go crazy, if you wanna go crazy. But, so you can do it if you've had elementary arithmetic, elementary algebra, sorry.
40:20 Chuck Nice? This is John Stamm. He says, "Hi Neil and Chuck, this is John from Tampa, Florida. Uh, we describe space as being three dimensional like a cube. Is the fabric of space better described as a four dimensional or a tesseract because it is also expanding? What could happen if the universe stopped expanding? Would time or the speed of light be affected?"
40:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We do not know what of what we measure is fundamentally linked to the expanding universe. It has been suggested that the second law of thermodynamics, since we just went in and out of that. Might be a property of an expanding universe. And that if the universe slowed down and re-collapsed, maybe isolated systems achieve order rather than disorder. Or does the second law of thermodynamics pass through an expanding and a collapsing universe? Does the law of physics not change? So these are unknown questions. We make some assumptions, but they're not tested. And so we do not know.
41:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Our time dimension is not a space dimension. So it's not a tesseract.
41:35 Chuck Nice? Right.
41:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tesseract is four D, four spatial dimensions.
41:39 Chuck Nice? Right.
41:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And time is different. We need it as a coordinate, but it's not the same as the other coordinates. Because as I've said, we are a prisoner of the present forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our unknowable future. So that is not a coordinate we can move back and forth on.
42:02 Chuck Nice? Right.
42:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But X, Y, and Z, we can go forward and back, up and down, left, right. We have full access. So it's correct to say we live in four dimensions. But one of those is space. It's a very different world from one where four space dimensions exist, and then you have time on top of that. That would be the fifth dimension.
42:22 Chuck Nice? Oh, watch out.
42:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Did I tell you the ranger of the fifth dimension was a family cousin?
42:29 Chuck Nice? Who?
42:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The ranger. His name was Renee Denight. Was Renee Denight.
42:33 Chuck Nice? Oh, really?
42:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. And every time the fifth dimension came through New York, we got tickets.
42:37 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's very cool.
42:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I was a little kid, but we, the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they performed.
42:41 Chuck Nice? The fifth dimension is huge.
42:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Huge.
42:43 Chuck Nice? They were huge. They were worldwide. And the moon is in the seventh house. And Jupiter aligns with Mars. And peace. I don't know the rest.
42:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Will guide the planets. And love. I don't know how to sing. Love will steer the stars.
43:00 Chuck Nice? This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
43:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fifth dimension.
43:04 Chuck Nice? Yep. All right.
43:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fifth dimension.
43:06 Chuck Nice? Yep. All right. That was for all you Aquarians out there. We know how needy you are. All right, this is Marcus. Gustafsson.
43:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Gustafsson.
43:18 Chuck Nice? Gustafsson.
43:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is it two Fs?
43:19 Chuck Nice? Yep, no, one F.
43:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One F.
43:21 Chuck Nice? Gustafsson.
43:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Gustafsson, okay.
43:22 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
43:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or is it two S's?
43:24 Chuck Nice? Yes.
43:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, two, yeah, there you go.
43:25 Chuck Nice? Gustafsson.
43:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I got the wrong double there, good.
43:27 Chuck Nice? He says, hello everyone, Mark is here from Sweden.
43:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You think? That's right, Gustafsson.
43:35 Chuck Nice? He says, I have a question about the value of scientific understanding.
43:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Love it, love it.
43:42 Chuck Nice? I've always valued gaining knowledge about the universe after following, after and following StarTalk for years and reading books on the subject that I find my life has gained something for doing so. But, I have a difficult-
43:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Notice he didn't say he read my books.
44:00 Chuck Nice? No.
44:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He just said he read books, to let the record show.
44:03 Chuck Nice? Okay, yeah, I'm sure you're in there somewhere. In his choices. He says, but, I have had a difficult time exactly pinpointing what. I believe I have gained scientific literacy, which comes with a different perspective on how to know what is true and the value of quantifying my ignorance as well as getting humbled. What would you say are some more important things a person gains from scientific understanding, aside from knowledge alone? Well, brother, you just named two huge-
44:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Huge.
44:39 Chuck Nice? Huge things to learn.
44:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so here it is. The number one thing is, the number one feature of science literacy?
44:47 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
44:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It empowers you to know when someone else is full of shit.
44:52 Chuck Nice? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's empowerment. If someone says, oh, I have these crystals, rub them and you're there. If you understand crystals and you understand medicine, you understand, you're not gonna buy the crystal from the person.
45:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
45:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right? You are a victim of charlatans. Which implies the person selling to you knows better. Or you're the victim of other people who themselves are victims. So he wants more out of this. Ain't that enough?
45:23 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I mean, and by the way, quant, you know, quantifying your ignorance is a huge.
45:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Huge.
45:28 Chuck Nice? Self-awareness that most people never ever get.
45:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where I thought he was going with the question was.
45:33 Chuck Nice? What?
45:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There are things that we can measure, but don't understand.
45:37 Chuck Nice? Okay.
45:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We, we measure dark matter.
45:39 Chuck Nice? Right.
45:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We don't know what's causing it. We measure dark energy. We don't know what's causing it. We know we're alive. We don't know how we got from organic molecules to self-replicating life.
45:48 Chuck Nice? Right.
45:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We, we don't know. Just because you can measure it doesn't mean you understand it. In fact, my favorite example here is. Once telescopes and cameras became, once cameras, once film became sensitive enough. If you look at any old photo, like from the 1920s, 1930s. Somebody's blurred in it. Cause you have, the camera wasn't sensitive enough to light. The film wasn't sensitive.
46:15 Chuck Nice? And you need long exposures for everything.
46:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They say, hold there, hold your position.
46:20 Chuck Nice? Right.
46:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? And there's always some, especially if it's a kid and a family photo, the kid is blurred.
46:26 Chuck Nice? Right.
46:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was very hard to get astro-worthy photographs. Because the image is very dim. When we did, we knew that when you take starlight and pass it through a prism. You get important information about the light. Chemical composition, well, there's features in the light. We didn't know. There's features in the light. There're bright lines and dark lines. It's a spectrum. In the 1910s and 20s. We started taking spectra of stars. Knowing that one day, that's going to be important. Even though we don't understand it.
47:02 Chuck Nice? Right.
47:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? Even though we don't really know what's going on.
47:06 Chuck Nice? Super cool.
47:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so huge data sets came down the pipe.
47:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And we have laboratory counterparts to the spectrum. So we think that's hydrogen. Oh, so we think that's carbon. We think because it's over here and we see it there.
47:24 Chuck Nice? Right.
47:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And.
47:26 Chuck Nice? That's, I mean, unbelievable.
47:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, it's amazing.
47:29 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
47:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's amazing.
47:30 Chuck Nice? So great.
47:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And we, and finally, the 1920s come along. Quantum physics gets developed. We understand the fricking atom, what electrons are doing, what they do to light. If white light passes through it, or any color light passes through it. And all the data we had been collecting and not understanding what the hell it was telling us became the foundations for our understanding of stellar evolution. And it's one of the great triumphs of 20th century astrophysics.
47:57 Chuck Nice? Wow. Yeah, man, that is very, very cool.
48:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
48:02 Chuck Nice? All right, this is Alejandro Guardado.
48:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a different Alejandro.
48:08 Chuck Nice? It is.
48:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We had Alejandro.
48:11 Chuck Nice? Reyno.
48:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Reyno also.
48:13 Chuck Nice? That's right. Alejandro Reyno.
48:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Reyno also, and this one is.
48:17 Chuck Nice? Alejandro Guardado.
48:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Guardado, okay. He coming in from where?
48:22 Chuck Nice? Alejandro from Washington State.
48:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? At least the other Alejandro was from Monterrey, Mexico.
48:36 Chuck Nice? Yes, Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.
48:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wasn't he from Mexico?
48:39 Chuck Nice? Yes, he was from Mexico.
48:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, he was from Mexico. Okay, so maybe it's just Alex is they call.
48:45 Chuck Nice? You can call me Alex, though. Hey, guys.
48:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What you doing? Can I join?
48:53 Chuck Nice? Got a question for you dudes.
48:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The uncoolest person in the room. You go from the, the, the, uh, the, the most, the most interesting man in the world to.
49:06 Chuck Nice? Right. Hey, call me Alex.
49:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, Alejandro from Washington State.
49:12 Chuck Nice? From Washington State, he says, "I'm a new Patreon member."
49:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, nice. Well, welcome.
49:17 Chuck Nice? Thanks, buddy.
49:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I gotta do my voice. Welcome to the universe.
49:20 Chuck Nice? There you go. You've been officially birthed into our family, bro.
49:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By the way, I think you do get a lower voice than me, but you don't sustain it.
49:27 Chuck Nice? I can't.
49:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You have that whiskey voice.
49:29 Chuck Nice? That's why I can't sustain it.
49:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
49:31 Chuck Nice? Because I'm drunk right now.
49:35 Chuck Nice? He says, "My question is, what are good ways to wrap your head around partial or even complete vacuums, for example, space?" I'm still trying to wrap my head around fans not working in space and...
49:51 Chuck Nice? And I'm wondering...
49:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a weird thought.
49:53 Chuck Nice? Yes, why don't fans work in space? And I'm wondering why these...
49:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The rotor's spinning and I can't...
50:00 Chuck Nice? Oh, so, still hot. I don't understand how I'm hot and it's only like three degrees Kelvin in here. Anyway, he says, "I'm wondering why these things work the way they do." What is the vacuum of space? I mean, that's a very weird, like...
50:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a deeper question there.
50:20 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
50:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it's, "What is nothing?"
50:22 Chuck Nice? What is nothing? Yeah.
50:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The best vacuum we've ever created was in the detector, was it? Of the Large Hadron Collider.
50:31 Chuck Nice? Oh, cool.
50:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you don't want those particles hitting stuff they don't want them to hit.
50:34 Chuck Nice? That's right. No, you gotta suck everything out of there, man.
50:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And one of the problems is material. I did this when I was in college. I worked at Bell Labs for one summer. And we explored different vacuums because we were testing for superconducting materials. And you want a very sort of pristine environment for that. But anyhow, so, so you can, we have a cavity and you suck out all the gas until the pump can't pump out any more out. He said, "That's pretty good." Here's what you do next. You heat the walls. They're gas particles that got stuck in the texture of the surface of the cavity. You heat the walls, they all jump out. You see the pressure go back up just by heating
51:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? it. Then you suck that out. Now you cool it down, and then you have a way better vacuum than you otherwise would have. But still, the particles left over there. So, we do okay with our vacuums. You leave our atmosphere, very far between the planets, that's an even better vacuum. You go outside the solar system, between the stars, that's an even better vacuum. You go outside the galaxy, between the galaxies, that's an even better vacuum. And last I ran the numbers on that, that vacuum has one particle every cubic meter.
52:02 Chuck Nice? That's correct. And you're talking one particle?
52:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, one particle per cubic meter. So, leave your fan at home. That's the lesson here. But if you take away that particle, then what is that? Is there nothing there? No, there is still something there. The laws of physics are still there. If you want a place where there's nothing, shouldn't you be removing the laws of physics as well?
52:33 Chuck Nice? Now, now we're talking like, we're, we're outside of Matrix stuff now.
52:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, let me not even get there yet.
52:41 Chuck Nice? That's not even a loading program anymore.
52:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let's not even get there yet. Now, there's no particles there.
52:47 Chuck Nice? Okay.
52:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There is light passing through it, the cosmic microwave background, visiting the region.
52:54 Chuck Nice? Right.
52:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. And there's something called virtual particles popping in and out of existence. Quantum physics dictates this. And so, there's a vacuum of no regular particles, but other stuff is happening. And through that volume is the fabric of space and time. So, a real place, a real vacuum should have not only no particles.
53:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It should have no virtual particles. It should not even have a spacetime continuum. And if it doesn't even have that, maybe that's how you get rid of the laws of physics. You took away the spacetime.
53:35 Chuck Nice? Oh.
53:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe laws of physics are part of spacetime. So, yeah, this is the kind of stuff you like over beer, you know, you.
53:44 Chuck Nice? Yeah, but make sure it's a zero calorie beer.
53:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, I know I said beer because you would have said weed, right? That's a weed conversation. I don't, I never smoked, so I don't, I don't, I can't relate to what that might be.
53:58 Chuck Nice? That is definitely a weed conversation, man.
54:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And by the way, and I forgot which one of my two Merlin books, uh, they just got republished one last year and one is coming out in a few days, actually. The, someone asked Merlin that very, Merlin was my pen name for a column that I wrote for like 10 years.
54:18 Chuck Nice? Right.
54:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And people asked, the public asks, so I'm very comfortable in this Q and A environment. Just in case, I don't know, you didn't know that.
54:26 Chuck Nice? Well, you know, I, we've been working together for a little while now, so I figured that out.
54:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so one of the questions was what, what's the best vacuum? And so Merlin is my pen name, goes through all the various vacuums.
54:41 Chuck Nice? Oh, really?
54:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And how many particles per cubic, you know, meter, you know, there's a lot, and then the less and less and less. And so it's in there, it's very cleanly described.
54:49 Chuck Nice? Very nice.
54:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
54:50 Chuck Nice? All right.
54:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That all the time we have.
54:52 Chuck Nice? Oh, my gosh.
54:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And all these were asked by Patreon members.
54:55 Chuck Nice? That's right. Thank you all the Patreon people.
54:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
54:58 Chuck Nice? We, we love our Patreon supporters and you can go to patreon.com and, and, and join the StarTalk family for, uh, for as little as $5 a month. Uh, you too can save a comedian.
55:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You need puppy eyes?
55:19 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I know.
55:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You gotta be looking through a gate or something.
55:23 Chuck Nice? Yeah, we need a chain link fence right here and I'm just like, alright.
55:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that's not where the money goes to. It goes to experiments that we conduct to try to-
55:33 Chuck Nice? It allows us to expand the show.
55:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Expand the show in ways that are not quite commercially viable yet.
55:40 Chuck Nice? Right.
55:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And work on it and get people's input and so, yeah.
55:43 Chuck Nice? And we appreciate you is the point.
55:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's right, and we got StarTalk Plus channel now on YouTube.
55:49 Chuck Nice? Yes, because of Patreon.
55:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
55:51 Chuck Nice? Because StarTalk Plus makes no money at all.
55:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not yet. We're working on it.
55:55 Chuck Nice? Well, yeah, I mean-
55:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're working on what works in there. Yeah, we're working on it. Okay, that's it Chuck.
56:01 Chuck Nice? Yeah, man.
56:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Another episode.
56:02 Chuck Nice? A grab bag, baby.
56:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? StarTalk Grab Bag.
56:05 Chuck Nice? That's right.
56:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, so this has been yet another episode of Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition. Chuck, always good to have you.
56:12 Chuck Nice? Always a pleasure.
56:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always bidding you to keep looking up.
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