Cosmic Queries – Becoming Entangled

How do particles get entangled? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice, answer grab-bag questions about harnessing Hawking Radiation, bad places to construct wormholes, and whether running or walking in the rain makes you wetter.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Grab Bag. Ooh, we talk about, can you keep a wormhole open for long enough to travel through it? Can you orbit a black hole and extract information from it? All that and more coming up on StarTalk.

• 0:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk, Field of Grass Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. We're doing cosmic queries today with Chuck Nice.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lord Chuck Nice, how you doing, man?

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm doing great.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what's the topic today?

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  Uh, let me see, they did not put one down here, it's a grab bag then.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grab bag.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Grab bag.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reach in the bag.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, whatever it is.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever it is.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It bites back?

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  It.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we get right in it.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No hesitation, and I might, if I don't know an answer, I'm gonna say. Don't look at me like that, just, just.

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  I was, I was about to say, I'm waiting for that to happen, so, in another explainer, you said, "I don't know." You know what, I, I just, I don't know, I don't know. And then halfway through your explanation of "I don't know," you went, "Wait a minute." And then you gave the answer.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  So thus far, in all the time that we've been doing this.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  You have never not had an answer.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let me clarify that other one.

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I realized what the answer was, I was repeating what I had heard from a colleague.

• 1:44Chuck Nice?

  I understand.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it didn't come from a deep understanding from within myself. So I don't count that as me answering a question.

• 1:52Chuck Nice?

  What are you talking about, you don't count that, you, you gave an answer.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause I'm, I'm aping comments from someone else, and that's, so it's not genuine, I'm just relaying information.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  If somebody asked me, "Do you know how aspirin works?", I'd be like, "Hell no, but do you need one?", cause I have them, okay?

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  I don't need a deep understanding of aspirin to know that I can give you one.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no, that doesn't count.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  All right, anyway, so, you know, now, now, see, I shouldn't do this because now it's, at some point, you, I'm gonna ask you a question, you'll be like, I don't know.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know, next one.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. All right, go.

• 2:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Cicero Artiphon.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cicero?

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Cicero.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that a name from like a thousand years ago?

• 2:38Chuck Nice?

  Certainly.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Emperor Cicero or something?

• 2:41Chuck Nice?

  Cicero, and Artiphon, like, really brings it home.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is badass.

• 2:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. I am Cicero Artiphon.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once you say that, there's nothing anybody can find.

• 2:54Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the end of the conversation.

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. That's right. Cicero Artiphon, prefect of the northern territories.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I don't even know what prefect is, but it sounds badass. You know it meant something, right? Okay. Prefect Cicero.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he says, hey, Dr. Tyson.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Cicero was the name of the servant of the Gladiator, who got hanged from his horse.

• 3:23Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the end. I think his name was Cicero. Oh, cool. I could be wrong. All right. I could be wrong. That'll work. All right, all right.

• 3:30Chuck Nice?

  I do not know.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you didn't see Gladiator?

• 3:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, the movie with, uh, what's his face?

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  That guy.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Russell Crowe.

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  Russell Crowe?

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  I think he's. His servant was Cicero.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think, but okay.

• 3:47Chuck Nice?

  By the way, just still a great movie.

• 3:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of the best ever.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  It's just awesome.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever, on every level.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it just really, you know, like, in terms of one of those, like, slow burn revenge movies. You can't get any better than this. Yeah. All right, he says, hi, Dr. Neil, and the lovely comic for the episode.

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Thank you. Okay, Chuck. Yeah, I'll take that. Uh, Cicero Artifon from Toronto, Canada here. How do we entangle? How do we entangle particles? It's mentioned that when we measure one particle, we instantly know the measurement of another. But how exactly do we entangle them? Is it a matter of two, of taking two particles, entangling them, placing one in a box, shipping them to a different city, and then conducting the measurement? How do we know they are entangled?

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because they are born together.

• 4:43Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, look at that.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so there's a state of existence.

• 4:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of a pocket of energy or matter. And if you create two particles out of that state, the two particles have complementary properties.

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which, when combined, equal the properties of the conjoined state.

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you separate them, they take properties of that state with them.

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  With them.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and then they go apart.

• 5:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they are quantum mechanically entangled.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's for, they're born together. You can't, right?

• 5:16Chuck Nice?

  You can't. You don't go recruit.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Recruit particles. Hey, you wanna get entangled?

• 5:21Chuck Nice?

  What you doing later, man?

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, why, yes. Uh, we're gonna get a drink and then get entangled. You know, so you, yeah, so born together, that's the deal.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the tricky part is, if you meddle with one of the particles in the slightest way.

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it just, you, you collect, what's it called? Collapsing the wave function. They're entangled because their waves overlap.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they have a common knowledge of each other.

• 5:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you, if you make any measurement at all, the, the way we say it, without declaring that we truly know what the hell is going on here.

• 5:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The wave function collapses, and it becomes the particle, the discrete individual particles. And they're no longer entangled.

• 6:06Chuck Nice?

  That's, that's really cool.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:08Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and that entanglement, they communicate with each other instantly.

• 6:11Chuck Nice?

  Instantly.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's not even about the speed of light.

• 6:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, not even the speed of light, just instantly.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instantly.

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's, it's mysterious.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but still not a way to send information, which is...

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you can't.

• 6:22Chuck Nice?

  Can't, can't send information.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:24Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Well, why not? Yeah, that's, that's a good idea. You can't send information, so why, why wouldn't you be able to send information?

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, well, if there's a way to do it, no one's figured it out.

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, and that's the way you should say it, right?

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm a scientist.

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  Right, that's the right way to say it.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right now, the... If, if, so we want to send information. Am I sending information in a lockbox and then the box opens when you get it?

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a way. But when you send information, it's because you learn something and you want to alert your troops or alert your friends.

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At that point, you can't, you're not, you're not opening a portal through the space-time continuum to send information.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not doing that.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At that point. So, we're still thinking it through.

• 7:07Chuck Nice?

  Alright, cool.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, we have a quantum entanglement gap between the United States and China. They have, they've been quantum entangling more than we have and they have the record, the distance record for it.

• 7:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I understand.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, from orbit to Earth's surface.

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They found a way to isolate the particles that they don't get messed with.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, and then, and then...

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if it matters in the future, who has the biggest quantum entangled distance?

• 7:32Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna lose that, that, we're gonna lose it.

• 7:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we're at America. Now you know.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is.

• 7:38Chuck Nice?

  That's, listen, can't let somebody out entangle you. That's the deal. Alright, Ernesto Medina.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, where these names come from?

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  I love it. I'll tell you where they are.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ernesto.

• 7:48Chuck Nice?

  Ernesto. I am Ernesto Medina.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet my friend.

• 7:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I take it back. He goes, "Hi, everyone. Ernesto from Cuba here." So, it's like, "Ernesto, I am Ernesto from Cuba."

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do we have Cuba in there?

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he's actually...

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was in Cuba a couple of years ago.

• 8:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very much enjoyed it, yeah.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Nice. Um, he says, "Is it true that you get more wet when running in the rain than if you walk?"

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, that's a fun question.

• 8:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I've thought about that my entire life. Uh, and...

• 8:25Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. I find that oddly surprising. No. No, it's an interesting question because you would go slowly. Right. Okay. Then the rain just accumulates. Right. If you run fast and you're running into raindrops. Okay. So I can, while I did not arrive at a definitive answer, I arrived at an answer. Okay. Okay. All right. It depends how fat your head is.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what your cross-section frontal body is. Right. Okay. Because if you walk in the rain, the only part of you that's getting wet is the part that's falling directly on top of you. So your shoulders and the top of your head. Hence the umbrella. And so you get the, you, and you want to, if you have an umbrella, you want to send it away from. Away from, right. So you get that area. Right. And you look at the raindrops per minute that's hitting that area and how fast you're walking across the street. You can calculate that and get a total number of raindrops that you, that you hit if you go slowly. If you're slowly enough, you're not going to hit rain in front of you. Right. It's all just going to come through. Right, exactly. Now, if you run, rain is still going to hit you on your head and shoulders. Mm-hmm.

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for not as long, but you now you have your entire surface area of the front of your body that's running into falling raindrops. Right. Okay? Right. So you have to calculate those two. Mm-hmm. And, because the rain, let's assume it's all falling at approximately the same rate. There's gravity and air and air resistance in the right. So it's really a matter of how far are you going, how fast are you going? Right. How fat is your head and how, what is your frontal cross-sectional area? And those two operate against each other in the equations. Right. And so you, you solve the simultaneous equations and then you get, it's, it's called a, in calculus, um, it's called a, a minimization problem. Okay. Okay? And you use the tools of calculus to either minimize or maximize something. Okay.

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And typically you have two equations that are operating. In opposite ways.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's the middle of those two.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  Where they intersect.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where they intersect. Yeah, it's not, not much different from in, in, in economics.

• 10:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you have the supply.

• 10:31Chuck Nice?

  Supply and demand.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're, they're both going in different directions.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  Together, right.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the higher the price, the lower the demand.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's a point where the right price and the right demand maximize.

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  And that's your point of equilibrium.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, your point of maximum profit.

• 10:42Chuck Nice?

  Maximum profit, right. Right, so that's a.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maximum revenue, I should say, your profit.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, your profit is depending on everything, other, other factors.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much you pay your elves.

• 10:50Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Which is nothing.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing.

• 10:53Chuck Nice?

  That's right, yeah.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder if there's an elf union up in the North Pole.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Now, you know Santa Claus would never stand for that.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  You know, doggone well.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know they need a union.

• 11:03Chuck Nice?

  You know they need a union, but, and he would never stand for that.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're right.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're right.

• 11:07Chuck Nice?

  There are several.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause he's working them, working that asshole.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  There are several upstart elves buried in the snow. That is all I'm saying.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in global warming, we'll see their ears first.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Emerge from the, from the, from the ice.

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  You know, little pointed ears coming up out of the ice.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  That one couldn't keep his mouth shut.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what Santa sounds like?

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  That's what he sounds like in the North Pole. You know what I mean?

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where he's slave driver, yeah.

• 11:33Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, yeah. Shut your trap and get back to work.

• 11:38Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Adam Wyler. He says, you say that on Earth, we don't experience physics like the rest of the universe.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've never said that, but go on. I don't know where he. I've said exactly the opposite of that.

• 11:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, I have an entire essay titled, On Earth As It Is In The Heavens.

• 11:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an entire, in fact, it's a chapter in my Death By Black Hole book.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what this man is saying.

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Well, he.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we'll hear him out anyway.

• 12:04Chuck Nice?

  No, this is, this is, that was it. He said, he's, and he was upset.

• 12:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Earth As It Is In Heaven.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  He says, you say that on Earth, we don't experience physics like the rest of the universe. Why would things be different? That's, that's what he says.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:20Chuck Nice?

  This is Adam Wyler.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will offer Adam an answer, even though he didn't pay any attention to anything I said or wrote.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. First of all, here's the answer. Adam, get your damn facts straight.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:32Chuck Nice?

  And that's number one. No, I ain't saying nothing.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so in fact, I'm gonna have to, I have in my hand,

• 12:39Chuck Nice?

  Death by Black Hole.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all I'm gonna do is like read the first paragraph of that chapter.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna have to do my glasses.

• 12:47Chuck Nice?

  Here, let me read it, cause I don't need glasses.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't need, you didn't look like you didn't need glasses. Last time I saw you. Okay, it's chapter freaking two of this book.

• 12:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. On Earth as it is in the heavens. So now we're gonna go to page thirty-one. You ready?

• 13:04Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until Isaac Newton wrote down the universal law of gravitation, there was little reason to presume that the laws of physics on Earth were the same as everywhere else in the universe. Earth had earthly things going on, and heavens had heavenly things going on. Indeed, according to many scholars of the day, the heavens were unknowable to our feeble mortal mind. The universality of physical laws drives scientific discovery like nothing else. Gravity was just the beginning. Imagine the excitement among nineteenth century astronomers when laboratory prisms, which break light beams into a spectrum of colors, were first turned to the sun.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spectra were not only beautiful, but also contained riddles of information about the light emitting object, including its temperature and composition. Chemical elements reveal themselves by their unique patterns of light and dark bands that cut across the spectrum. To people's delight and astonishment, the chemical signatures on the sun were identical to those in the laboratory and to those in stars across the galaxy.

• 14:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow. There, in other words, it's the same no matter where you are.

• 14:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only in space,

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  but in time.

• 14:22Chuck Nice?

  But in time.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. So now, now that he's been chided, let me offer him a comment.

• 14:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A reflection on Nick. Okay?

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  We're talking to you, Adam.

• 14:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We experience macroscopic laws of physics. Okay. Newton's law of gravity, electricity, this macroscopic laws of physics. Okay. If we were really, really tiny, the world would look different to us because then we'd be experiencing the world of atoms and molecules. Right. And quantum physics Right. rules in that regime. Right. Okay? Whereas macroscopically, the laws of classical physics, here's the precise way to say it. Macroscopically, quantum physics manifests as classical physics. Gotcha. Quantum physics is everywhere, but the detailed behavior Right.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  manifests more readily on the small particles than the big particles. So, you know, we thought, oh, my gosh, the atom has electrons that orbit it? Just like the sun has planets that orbit it? Maybe it's orbiting things all the way down. Right. Just a whole other little universe. Right. No. No. No, it's not. In fact, it still holds the word orbit, but we made a new word and call it orbital. Right. Okay, so electrons move in orbitals around the nucleus. But the orbit in that phrase comes from classical physics. So, things are different when you're small, but when you're our size, no, same macroscopic. Same deal, no matter where you are. Correct. There you go. All right.

• 16:00Chuck Nice?

  Actually, Adam, thank you so much for that question because that was really cool. That was good stuff.

• 16:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 16:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it meant he didn't actually pay any attention.

• 16:07Chuck Nice?

  I mean, he was incorrect in his assertions, but still

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 16:11Chuck Nice?

  it was good.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an important thought that needs to be addressed.

• 16:14Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Hello, I'm Vicky Barok Allen, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neill Grass Tyson.

• 16:42Chuck Nice?

  Um, this is Troy. He says, hello Neil, or just Troy from Virginia.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Troy.

• 16:47Chuck Nice?

  He says, hello Neil, hey Chuck, Troy from Virginia here. Can objects exchange dimensions with one another in a way that would be similar to thermodynamics or entropy? Ooh, damn, somebody was smoking some good weed, boy. Let me tell you.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  Can they?

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't think we command dimension.

• 17:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are prisoners within them.

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take time, for example, we are, we are a prisoner of the present.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our unknowable future.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't wield this dimension, we live it. So if one day we discover that we could detach a dimension from us.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be an interesting world.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Amazing.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you could give up like your depth instead, but keep your height and width.

• 17:44Chuck Nice?

  Are you kidding me? I'd be slipping under every door there is.

• 17:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you could and slip between the doorways.

• 17:49Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be a thing.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, you know why I'm such in trouble? Because I fell between the cracks.

• 18:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you've been so two dimensional lately.

• 18:06Chuck Nice?

  Alright, we're being silly now.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so it's a fascinating thought.

• 18:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I, I'm resistant to how real that could be.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because everything we know about the dimensions is, keeps us prisoner within them.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Now, could it be that something like dark energy could be the pressure that we're experiencing from another dimension since dark matter doesn't interact with anything that we know of?

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I could say anything I wanted about dark matter and dark energy.

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  And wouldn't make.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't make.

• 18:42Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't make one bit of.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're both completely mysterious entities. They're so mysterious that people have the urge to explain other mysterious things with.

• 18:50Chuck Nice?

  With them.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With them.

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we don't understand consciousness, must be dark energy.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  You know what it is? It's the conscious, collective consciousness of everything that's ever been in the universe.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the dark energy.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  That's the dark energy.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So it's fun headlines and good beer talk, but it's not good science. To take something that you don't know and explain it with something that you know even less about.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  That's such a great point.

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just as simple.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  And that is why I am not a scientist because.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you explain stuff all the time.

• 19:21Chuck Nice?

  Cause that is no fun.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause people like, I don't mind mysteries, but like one at a time.

• 19:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wanna stockpile mysteries and have them all be the same?

• 19:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no, okay. All right, well damn, damn, that's great. All right, thank you Troy, that was a great question. All right, here we go.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want another one from Cicero. Give me another.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  Cicero Attivan. Prefect of the northern territories.

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cicero, come back to us.

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you are done conquering far lands.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Come back with another cosmic query.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  I have returned from battle with news from the front.

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they didn't call it the front back then.

• 19:59Chuck Nice?

  No, that didn't.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a World War One term.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  That is a World War One.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With news from the, from the, from the conquered lands.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, there you go, right? And all right, here we go, this is a, this is Thomas Assurd. Thomas Assurd. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice, I am Thomas, I'm 24 years old and I'm writing from southeast Norway. My question is, could we, in theory of course, send a satellite into orbit, a black hole at a safe distance, launch a probe from said satellite and use quantum entangled particles in the satellite to probe to get any kind of data when the probe enters the event horizon? Or would it all turn to spaghetti and just be unuseful?

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Man, what kind of fanbase we have?

• 20:45Chuck Nice?

  Uh, listen.

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what, how?

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  It's a, listen, if we had the money, that's a, that's the way to do it, though. I mean, in terms of the probe, you know?

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't talk about how our people are thinking.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  They're thinking.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of brain wiring is in our people?

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  This is good.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is our people. Okay. So why does the probe have to orbit the earth if it's going to?

• 21:02Chuck Nice?

  No, no, it's orbiting the black hole.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's orbiting the black hole. I missed that.

• 21:05Chuck Nice?

  So we send the probe to the black hole.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it.

• 21:07Chuck Nice?

  It's orbiting the black hole.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  But not a, at a distance where it can, you know?

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Be sucked in.

• 21:11Chuck Nice?

  It'd be, right.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's always.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't enter the gravitational pull of the black hole.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are distances where there are no stable orbits, so you just stay outside of that.

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  Right. So then, now, what we do is we send a probe into the black hole.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Much like a probe going into a tornado.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  And we take as much information as it approaches the black hole.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  Until we can't get any information anymore. Now, here's his next question. Could we then use?

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be cool. I would do that.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would totally do that.

• 21:36Chuck Nice?

  We would totally do that. All right, that's great. Now, the next part of the question was, and I think you already answered it earlier in the show. Could we then use quantum entangled particles so that once we're in or past the event horizon, where no information would be able to escape?

• 21:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Other than by?

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Other than by?

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hawking radiation.

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  Hawking radiation.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  What we would then do is use the quantum entangled particles to receive information about what's inside the black hole, the same way as they evaporate. One particle appears on the outside, the other one goes back in. So boom.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All that's happening is your particles are coming back out.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it.

• 22:12Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it.

• 22:13Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They know, and it all, and they used to be you, and now they're just particles.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that's the information. Oh, Chuck was made of protons.

• 22:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's interesting.

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  He's not half the man he used to be. Damn particles, Chuck.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, um, yeah, so it's an interesting idea. We'd love to have an orbital thing, just to get close up data. You gotta watch out, though, because if it gets too deep in there, we saw this correctly done in.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  Interstellar.

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interstellar. Where if you get too close, your timeframe is so different.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So different. You, you, your data come back more slowly. So I live a year, and you get 10 minutes of data you sent me.

• 22:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because for you, it's a long time.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for me, up in the orbit, I don't, I'm not getting the data rate that would be useful to me.

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can ask, isn't this a good use of telescopes? Where?

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do I have to get all up on the black hole?

• 23:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Distance away and get a really big telescope and get all the data.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  And just get as much data as you want, right? Okay, there you go.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Um, all right, here we go. This is our old friend Alejandro Reynoso.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's from Monterrey.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  From Monterrey, Mexico.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Monterrey with one R.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and he says, hello.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you stop that?

• 23:35Chuck Nice?

  Or should I say, hola?

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is not, would you stop?

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:44Chuck Nice?

  There he goes. What is your favorite discovery or invention that happened in your particular lifetime?

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  So, there you go.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I swear, he probably just has like a Brooklyn accent or something.

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  That'd be great. Hey, how you doing? I'm Alejandro Reynoso. Hey, how you doing, huh? What's going on? Listen, you know what, I would, I would, I would, well, well, but I'm late and my mom, she makes a great sauce. You know what I'm saying? Now, the gravy's amazing. That's what I'm saying, you know what I mean? Well, listen, we're going home, we're gonna have some gabagool and a taco.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so in my lifetime.

• 24:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's some discoveries that just slowly accumulate.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And don't represent the work of a lone scientist burning the midnight oil. And these other categories of discoveries never make headlines. Because they just sort of leaked into our awareness and understanding.

• 24:51Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the body of work of dozens and sometimes hundreds of scientists. In my lifetime.

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is how old I am. We learned.

• 25:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, and we're, though we haven't checked every galaxy, everyone we've ever checked has a supermassive black hole in its center.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Enough so that we're gonna say every mass, every big galaxy has a supermassive. That's a discovery in my lifetime, A. B, in, in my professional life.

• 25:16Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This stuff when I was like five, I don't care about it, okay?

• 25:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, but I was born a year after. The discovery that the heavy elements that populate the universe and including life on Earth, including us, derive from stars that manufacture them in the crucibles that are their cores and then exploded, scattered that enrichment across the galaxy to enable nascent star systems to have the right ingredients to make planets and some planets make.

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  I don't know, people.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just spitballing here.

• 25:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People, yeah. So that happened the year before I was born.

• 25:58Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I've existed in this world only in the era where we've known the origin of the chemical elements. Okay, let's keep going. So discovered black holes, supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.

• 26:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've also tightened our understanding of the age of the universe. When I was in graduate school, the uncertainty to that number was a factor of two.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was a camp that said, oh, the universe is 10 billion years old. Other camps says 20 billion years old. And that's a factor of two. That's embarrassing.

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  That's terrible.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't know how old you are to a factor of two.

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's bad news.

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's bad. Go home.

• 26:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we, it, we knew a factor of two is better than a factor of 100.

• 26:40Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And so for many of us, we were fine. We were in the right ballpark.

• 26:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So over time, that has narrowed to it's not 10 billion years, it's not 20 billion, it's 13.8.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And there's some uncertainty there still.

• 26:56Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's not a factor of two uncertainty.

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So questions that were of paramount significance and meaning in my lifetime have become just simple knowledge that everyone carries and we're asking other questions about the universe.

• 27:11Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you had asked me in the 1980s, what's the most pressing question? It was the value of the Hubble constant and the age of the universe. And now nobody's asking that question. Not, not in any, not in the way we were asking it back then.

• 27:22Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I would, I would put those very high up.

• 27:26Chuck Nice?

  That's great. Okay.

• 27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 27:28Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool. Um, let's go to.

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  Uh, this is Isaac Huerta. And Isaac says, "Hey Neil, I appreciate everything you do. You continue to inspire and motivate me to educate myself and others. I was wondering, with black holes having an infinite density, what happens to the particles' activity, the particles' activity, living inside of it and their particle lifespans?" So...

• 27:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't answer that. We have no freaking idea.

• 27:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah!

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, so let me say it scientifically accurately.

• 28:02Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You ready?

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All our knowledge of matter, motion, energy, and physics tells us that when mass collapses on itself...

• 28:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that it collapses smaller than what would become its own event horizon.

• 28:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thereby turning into a black hole. There is no known force to prevent the collapse to infinite density in zero volume. Einstein said, "There's gotta be something to prevent that." Something's gotta, something's gotta save us from ourselves in this. We don't know what that is. We got top people working on it. These are the string theorists.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The top people who think about the singularity. That's called the singularity. Who think about it at the center. And maybe there's a loophole. Is it just a mathematical singularity rather than a real, physical singularity?

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the jury's still out on that. But we got top people working on it.

• 29:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, great question.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because how can anything have zero volume and infinite density?

• 29:05Chuck Nice?

  How could...

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, they're related, of course.

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  Right, but still.

• 29:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Chuck Nice?

  It's, believe me, you asking the wrong guy here.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but there was a day you could say, "How could the universe have had a beginning?" But it clearly always was. There's a lot of how, grumbling, "How could something have happened?" And then sure enough, that's what it is.

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. How can particles pop out of, pop into existence?

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  How could that even, that can't happen?

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  You just can't have things pop out of nothing?

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 29:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that was Cicero.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So for me, I never say that anything can't ever happen. I'll just say, "We have not yet discovered whether it can."

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right.

• 29:57Chuck Nice?

  So, this is Fabio Later.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, Fabio.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  That's Fabio.

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fabio, like the dude in the...

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  With the hair?

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the hair.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  In a romance novel?

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a romance novel, Fabio, romance novel.

• 30:09Chuck Nice?

  Uh, he says...

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fabio's fabulous.

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  Fabio, fabulous Fabio. He says, "Greetings, Dr. Tyson, hailing from Puyallup, Washington." Puyallup, Washington, okay.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's probably not how you pronounce it.

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure it isn't, but I...

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Puyallup?

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  Puyallup.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is so...

• 30:27Chuck Nice?

  Puyallup.

• 30:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't believe that's how you pronounce that, but go on.

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure it's not how you pronounce it, but I've never heard of anything Puyallup in Washington.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 30:36Chuck Nice?

  First of all, I've only been to Washington State twice.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  And both times, it didn't make a difference where I was, it looked exactly the same.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, it's very different on the sides of the mountains.

• 30:47Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're a leeward side.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Plus the side that's east of the mountain range, they want to join Idaho.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, they're crazy.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they want to, like, because they're politically...

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly, they're more politically aligned.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. The other ones are all hippies.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hippie dippies, right, right.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  Hippa dippies.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:04Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so here we go. He says, "Greetings, Dr. Tyson, hailing from, you know, whatever." And he says, "The paradigm of time has always fascinated me, especially in regards to how it will shift or evolve after humanity explores the solar system and beyond. How do you think our understanding of time will change on different planets when drifting between stars thanks to time?" So, I think what he's saying is, when we, and how very optimistic of him, when we seed the cosmos with our presence, and we know that time is different in different places,

• 31:43Chuck Nice?

  what will our concept of time be when we're all trying to be in contact with one another in these disparate places?

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I think you added stuff to his question.

• 31:53Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's what he's saying.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 31:55Chuck Nice?

  That's...

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um, there is the flow of time...

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which changes depending on how fast you're moving and how strong is the gravity field you're in.

• 32:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we are orbiting the sun in an earth-gravity field, our time ticks at a particular rate. GPS satellites orbit high up.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're in a lower gravity field.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their time ticks at a different rate from ours.

• 32:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when it sends us the time, we have to correct it for Einstein's general theory of relativity.

• 32:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. A lot of people don't know that. We're just pulling time out of the sky.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  Super cool, man.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's too... Einstein was a badass.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he was.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is what that is.

• 32:31Chuck Nice?

  Because it's real time and it's not moving at the same rate.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the same rate, but it's so... It's no less authentic.

• 32:35Chuck Nice?

  And it's no less authentic. It's the, it's the actual time.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actual time.

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  In both places.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In both places.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Gosh.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  So crazy.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's crazy. Okay. So now, what you're gonna have to do is, if you have people living in different gravitational wells, like a, like a, like a well is a, uh, we think of gravitational wells, you're at the bottom of a, of a, of a... You are, you have descended into a gravitational well where to escape, you have to climb back out of it using energy to do so.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we think of it as a well. So, if we have people living on different mass planets, in different gravitational environments, traveling at different speeds around their host planet.

• 33:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The, the measurement of time will be different for all of them.

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  All of them. Right.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Uh, so, you, you'd have to be careful if you were planning an event that would, supposed to happen simultaneously for every one, any one particular viewer. And there's no such thing as simultaneity.

• 33:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it happened all the same time for you, happened in a different order for someone else.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Depending on their speed relative to you. So...

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  So you have to call them and say, "All right, let's synchronize our watches."

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then, it'll take a thousand years or whatever for that message to get back.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So synchronization will become something much less useful.

• 33:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know how else to say it.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it, it, it just won't be in order that people want to consider because it's not happening.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not happening.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  It's not happening.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not happening.

• 34:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You cannot do things together if you're separated by light, light years of time.

• 34:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 34:17Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 34:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 34:18Chuck Nice?

  There you go. It's a cool, cool... I, I, I know why he says that.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have a weird off-ramp to this.

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. There's a limit to how big a life form can be. Because if it has an itch and it wants to scratch it, if they're really, really, really big, let's say the size of our galaxy, it'll take them like a hundred thousand years just to scratch it.

• 34:39Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, that's a long time to itch. I'm telling you right now.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's certain physical limits to how much witty repartee you're gonna have with somebody in another place.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Across the galaxy. All right.

• 34:54Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right, here we go. Me, I'm gonna jump around here. Oh, guess what? There's another question, and I normally don't repeat questions.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean from the same person?

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 35:07Chuck Nice?

  And guess who it is?

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's that from?

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  Cicero.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I told you.

• 35:11Chuck Nice?

  Cicero Artivan.

• 35:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He heard me.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he sent back a second question, okay.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  And he sent a second one. He says, hello, Dr. Tyson. If I were to construct a wormhole, how cautious would I need to be? What could happen if we were to open it in the wrong location? If the other end leads to the vacuum of space, or if it's close to a black hole? Would everything be drawn into the black hole from my wormhole? Could the vacuum of space pull everything surrounding the other side of the wormhole?

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through the wormhole?

• 35:42Chuck Nice?

  Through the wormhole.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  I should definitely lose the battle at that point.

• 35:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do you guys think about war? Maybe he's just a peaceful guy eating, eating, you know, a bowl of fruit.

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  Not the, not with the name Cicero. Cicero is the name of a conqueror. Cicero Artivan. Fetch me my horse.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And my armor.

• 36:07Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 36:11Chuck Nice?

  Anyway.

• 36:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are exactly the things someone would say.

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  All right, so if you open a wormhole and you could place it, would you have to be careful? If you can place the wormhole anywhere, that's the whole point.

• 36:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think if you can go through the wormhole, so can other matter, and so could energy and anything else while the portal is open.

• 36:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see anything preventing things from, you could even be pulled through the wormhole. If there's a strong gravity, so yeah, you gotta know what the other end of the wormhole is.

• 36:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta know in advance where you're stepping.

• 36:47Chuck Nice?

  Don't wanna end up in the toilet of the galaxy.

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 36:50Chuck Nice?

  Which is that black hole in the middle.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or anybody's toilet. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm just thinking.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, yeah, if you can go through, so can other things. So, so be careful where your wormhole opens first. Second, we currently know of no way to, in a sustained form, keep a wormhole open, preventing it from collapsing.

• 37:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we need a negative gravity substance to pull the fabric of spacetime apart. And all, everything we know that substance does is pull it together with the force of gravity.

• 37:28Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 37:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this has to be, we need a negative substance. And that might sound like, that's crazy talk.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Negative substance gravity, but how different is that? From the people who stood flat-footed on Earth, looked up and said, "I wanna go to the moon."

• 37:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if a future person says, "Well, you need rocket fuel." What's that?

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's this mythical substance that can launch you from Earth into space to the moon. People look at you like you're crazy.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  That's right, yeah. And, and then you ponder that for a while, until somebody comes along and says, "We go to the moon because we choose to. We go to the moon and do this, that, and the other thing. Not because it's easy, but because it's hard."

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't say this, that, and the other thing.

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  I know, I put that in there.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good, though. That's what he should've said, probably.

• 38:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good old JFK.

• 38:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man. Alright, I guess we should do lightning round, cuz we don't have a rock.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lightning round, go.

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  Lightning round, here we go. This is Christine Tolman. She says, "Hi Neil, I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. I'm a teacher. What are some good books about the nature of the universe for very young readers?" Okay? Oh, there's one about a young, uh, black kid in Bronx.

• 38:42Chuck Nice?

  That's a good one.

• 38:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a call, there's a book called Look Up With Me.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is for, you're just barely learning how to read.

• 38:49Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's a, that's a bio kids book about me. I didn't write it though, but I think I wrote the foreword to it.

• 38:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a preface or something. And it's, it's, it's got pictures and it shows me learning how to become a scientist at age nine. So it's very early on, but it's intended, it's a picture book. It's a picture book, which by the way, was briefly banned in Pennsylvania.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your frickin' home state.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because in there, they tell the story of when I was on the roof using my telescope as a, like, I was 13 years old, 14, and then the cops come. Cause someone else called the cops, cause they see this bazooka looking thing sticking over the roof of my apartment building.

• 39:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they said, must up to be no good.

• 39:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they come and I showed them Saturn and that usually wins them over.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta do that before they, before they gonna pull the trigger.

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, yeah. Especially here in New York.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that one for sure. And then of my best selling book, the Astrophysics For People In A Hurry, there's a version of that written for tweens.

• 39:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Age seven to 12.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's called Astrophysics For Young People In A Hurry.

• 39:55Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's co-written with Gregory Moan. He, he's, he's really good in transitioning from a adult book to a kid's book. So there it is. Okay, next.

• 40:05Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:05Chuck Nice?

  This is Will Holland. He says, hey there, Will from Kentucky here. What's the coolest thing from sci-fi movies or books that you think will actually become a reality in the future? Thank you.

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 40:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. I think the entire movie, The Matrix.

• 40:20Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 40:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you know you're not just imagining all of this?

• 40:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you even know that? You don't.

• 40:29Chuck Nice?

  You don't.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever been living in a dream that was so weird? Have you ever been?

• 40:36Chuck Nice?

  You sound a little like Morpheus right there. You really actually uh.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Morpheus. So, I kinda like the themes covered in The Matrix.

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The distinction between your brain's reality and an objective reality and who's in control. Those were fun.

• 40:52Chuck Nice?

  We're moving towards that.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And, and in Star Trek, I think we will have wormholes before we'll have transporters. Just think about it. Wormholes will render transporters obsolete.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you don't need them.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't have to particle beam you and send you somewhere. Just step through like, like Rick and Mort- like Rick and Morty.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  So that's a recurring theme in the Star Trek series, that they're always in search of a stable wormhole.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, do they know?

• 41:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they do, then you, then if you can master them, then it's a wormhole transporter.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just step through. Like a dude who, who, uh, from the Marvel, no, no, from, yeah, Marvel, uh, Doctor Strange. And I've said this before, I gotta say it again. Okay? Doctor Strange can open a portal, which is basically a wormhole, to another place. So too can Rick and Morty, specifically.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. The difference is.

• 41:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doctor Strange uses magic and Rick uses actual science.

• 41:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  That's the only difference.

• 41:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another one.

• 41:50Chuck Nice?

  There we go.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last one, this might be the last one.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  This is Jared Rice. He says, hello, brainiacs. Yeah, Chuck, that includes you too.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, is that a compliment or insult?

• 41:58Chuck Nice?

  I don't know.

• 41:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a, okay.

• 42:00Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna, wow, Jared, I'm gonna take it as a compliment.

• 42:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:03Chuck Nice?

  Uh, this is Jared from Fontina, California. I've always wondered, can rocky inner planets have rings like Saturn? And would those rings impact the tide bulges?

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 42:15Chuck Nice?

  What a nice question. Way to go there, Jared. I like it.

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 42:21Chuck Nice?

  So, not a gas giant.

• 42:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, all four gas giants have rings.

• 42:25Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only one of them is it particularly spectacular, and that is Saturn.

• 42:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Calculations that I've seen recently suggest that in the time of the dinosaurs.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saturn might not have had any rings at all.

• 42:37Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the ring that we see would not have been visible. And that the dynamics of ring systems might be finite, lasting thousands or millions or tens of millions of years, but not a forever thing.

• 42:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. We certainly had a ring when the moon formed.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Right. Earth, Earth had a ring.

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. We certainly had a ring when the moon formed. But what do you think happened to all the particles?

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  They got sucked up. Uh, well, wait. They, they became the moon.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They became the moon.

• 43:08Chuck Nice?

  They became the moon.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Okay. If you have something there, ready to grab whatever is moving by, okay? They're all gonna see the gravity of this new, and if you have slightly more, the thing of how the moon formed, it's a big ring of particles, of, of, of rocks, okay, from the collision of Thea with Earth in the early solar system. And if there's a slightly bigger rock than others, it has slightly more gravity than everybody else.

• 43:32Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it'll get a few extra particles than you are. Now it has even more gravity.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get even more particles.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The runaway process. You heard the joke, there's no such thing as gravity, Earth sucks, right?

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, so in orbit, the moon would have sucked up all the particles.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So now, if you look at Saturn, Saturn's ring has gaps in it.

• 43:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gaps.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, when we had a good enough resolution to see inside the gaps, there's satellites that cleared out those gaps.

• 44:01Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:02Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tiny satellite.

• 44:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they're like, like little moons.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little, little, well, yeah, that's what I meant. Moons that vacuumed up just their, what's their radius.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  Little part of the ring.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So we have a big moon relative to our size, and that would have just taken the ring out. So you're not gonna, I don't think you're gonna get a fully sustained ring.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  You have it.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Boom!

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Chuck.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  That was funny.

• 44:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries Grab Bag.

• 44:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we got some new names in it. We got a conqueror of the world.

• 44:30Chuck Nice?

  Cicero.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ernesto.

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  Ernesto.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, from Cuba.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  From, from Cuba. And of course, Alejandro Renoso.

• 44:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been a Cosmic Queries Star Talk. Of course, featuring questions from our Patreon members. By the way, the Patreon members not only hear this, they get their own private Command performance. Command performance Q and A. That's right. That's behind the lockbox. Does not go out to the public. Does not go out. So if you enjoy this, you can become a Patreon member. There's even more of it behind the wall. Absolutely. All right. So that's a wrap, Chuck. All right. All right. We out. We are out. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up.