Cosmic Queries: Spacetime

Unravel the fabric of spacetime when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Godfrey dive into fan-submitted questions about Einstein's theory of relativity, dark matter, the Fermi paradox, black holes, quantum physics, and more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk and I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I serve as director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City. And today's edition is the fan favorite Cosmic Queries. I've got with me Godfrey Danjima.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Hey!

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Godfrey.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  What's happening?

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me back.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Danjima, that's Nigerian.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Danjima, yes.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By a Tokyo, it sounds.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  By a Tokyo, Danjima. It's funny, can I tell you something?

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  That the Japanese pronunciations are the same as African pronunciations. Like for example, Fumi is a Japanese name and Fumi is also a Nigerian name, same spelling.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could be, if I understand correctly, that Swahili, every syllable is pronounced, just as is the case in Japanese.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  In Japanese?

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  All K's and U's and U's.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything is there, you just plow through the word and you did it right.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  There's a connection. Everybody's African, yeah. I don't know, I just made up this song. Everybody's African.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're using whether people pronounce words the same as reason for all being African, that would exclude the French.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yes, because everything's silent.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything is silent.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Ugh.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My favorite in French is the word for water. There's, there's no.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ew.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  So arrogant.

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like the lamest word there ever was. Get, get, get, put a consonant, so, get that, get that, get that word some muscle.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  If you're thirsty, I'm like, uh, uh.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  That's French thirst.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Excuse, they're still so French, even when you're thirsty. Uh, please, uh, I don't want to sound so aggressive.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So today's topic.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, is.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  It's.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space time.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Space time.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice. I like space time.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  And here we go.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of my best friends live in the fabric of space time.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's, I haven't seen any of these and it called from our social media.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Okay, here we go.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's do it. Mm-hmm.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Okay, Kyle Yokum, spelled with a C, but it's still pronounced Kyle, from Tennessee.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I've heard that name before. Is he one of our Patreon people?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  He is your Patreon patron.

• 2:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, so, so he bought his way to the top of this list.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, he's not, he's not playing. I mean, he got a lot of space time. I put money in that time.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I got a lot of money in that space. So you better.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, if you support the show, there are perks you get.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  You do.

• 2:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right on up the ladder. I mean, this is just one of them, but there's others, yeah.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  It's great. I think he deserves it. He's always at the top. Yokum, I love that last name. Yokum. Okay, ready?

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  You might.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me some Yokum.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  If Isaac Newton were alive again today, which of our more recent?

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wouldn't be able to hold my pee.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, right? That would be kinda nice.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Be gripping him like a fanboy.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, I would totally, yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, would you like touch his wig?

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, I would touch his wig, probably. No, no, I wouldn't touch it. Why, why you get me to say that?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I would be like.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Would you yell out laws of inertia, baby? Laws of iner- no, nothing?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Come on, some thug that knows about, so he's like.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm not touching his wig.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Okay, you're gonna touch his wig? Okay.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Angela Davis came forward into the present, could you, can I touch your fro? No.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She would slap you silly.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  She would slap us silly.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Even today.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  If Isaac Newton were alive again today.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Which of our more recent understandings about the universe do you think he might find most exciting? If you were to get to work with him on a particular project of your choice, what would that be and why?

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was so brilliant, I would just, I would present all the world's problems to him, no matter whether or not they were in physics. And just to get his brilliant mind to apply to it.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've just, I've, I've read his writings and you can't, the hair stands up on the back. I don't have hair there, but if I had hair, it would stand up on the back of my neck. Because he was so plugged in to the operations of nature. He had an understanding, he had a sensitivity to what we knew and did not know and where the frontier was to ask questions. There's a whole section of one of his books, one of his books, Optics, wrote in seven, written in seventeen oh four. You understood? Uh, yeah. Didn't they talk differently out there? I don't know, I'm just. So you learn how to read, you know, yeah, so the language was a little more classical. Yeah. For English, you know, at the time, yeah, not quite Shakespeare. Right. That was a hundred years earlier, but it's transitioning.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even the writing, wasn't the penmanship a little different? Penmanship is different and even the printed words are different. Right. Some words are capitalized and others are not. I do that in my Twitter stream, by the way, I capitalize certain nouns. Okay. I want to bring attention to. Like the Vs would be like Us? Oh, no, that's different. So that would, that would be, the Us would be like Vs. He's like, you'd be like Vs or whatever. In Roman times with the. Yeah. Yeah. It's annoying. Before the U was fully developed as a letter. Right. It, it took somebody to go put a butt on it?

• 5:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the evolution of language. Yes. So I would, I, I would learn how to communicate with him. That wouldn't be too hard because he's still speaking English. Okay. And so he'd be speaking recognizable English. Yes. So, so I would just show him all the problems. We have a famine issue, we got this issue. But the problem is, and I've gone through this mental exercise many times. You sit him down. Yeah. Okay, and he hears some car noises outside. He said, what's that? I said, it's a car. And he says, what's a car? Oh, it's a horse-drawn carriage without the horse. So then he says, well, what draws it? And I said, oh, an engine. And he said, well, what's an engine? Well, it uses fuel. Well, what's fuel?

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's gasoline. Well, what's gasoline? Well, it's fossilized, ancient, dead, um, extinct. What's extinct? Oh. These are, none of these ideas existed in his day. Wow, but he'd be annoying.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He'd be like the eight year old kid.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's asking questions.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Right, I'd be like, shut up, Isaac. Jesus. The law of inertia, I'd push him.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd say we use chemical energy.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he says, what is chemical energy? And what is energy? Because energy was not a fully developed idea in his day. That would take another hundred years.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, conversation would be really, but he's a quick study, so I think.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give him an afternoon.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  He just kept asking you questions.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  And then it would be like, what, what is that? What, what is that? And then. What, what is that?

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He will emerge like the most brilliant person.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Once he got it.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once he got it.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  And if you said, Trump, what is Trump?

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Our top scientists have yet to figure it out.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Best laboratories in the world. So, I, I think he would be very intrigued by Einstein's relativity. General theory, because those were extensions of his theories of his, his laws of motion and gravity. So Einstein's special theory of relativity is the continuation of Newton's laws of motion.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Einstein's general theory of relativity is the continuation of Newton's laws of gravity. So he would, he would be intrigued how his ideas failed and then Isaac, and, and, am I getting these, am I?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got it right. His ideas failed and Einstein.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Einstein's picked up to take to regimes that he never even dreamt of.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  So do you think that Isaac Newton would be a hater?

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who would he?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Be like this, yo, oh, man, as they say, yo, you know the stuff you were talking about? Well, this guy took it to the next level.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  You think he'd be like, man, forget that dude, man?

• 8:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I don't.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  You don't think he'd hate a little bit?

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he said that, he wouldn't say it that way.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  There would, there had to be some.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forget this dude.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Forget that dude, oh, he'd be like, that bloke.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That bloke.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Oh goodness, I can't believe he actually took my theories.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That rough end.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Aim on him, he took my publishing.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That rough end.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  The rough, rough end.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was in dispute with, with Leibniz, who's a, a German philosopher.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mathematician who, they, they, there's a contention between the two, who invented calculus.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, Newton is not even best known for having invented calculus. That's how brilliant he was.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  That's how brilliant, just act, just.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Calculus was basically on a dare, right? Friends said, why do the planets orbit the sun in a, in this shape? And not the, this ellipse and not some other shape? He said, I don't know, I'll get back to you.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  I'll get back.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get back, he comes back like a month later, uh, here's why, well, how did you figure it out? I had to invent integral and differential calculus.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  I invented something that I couldn't pass. Thanks. Isaac, um, I, uh, what?

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Invented something that you couldn't learn.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  For, for him to see that, to see that, if he was, see, um, um, Einstein's, whatever you call it. I mean, no, but he would feel like a failure, though.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he wouldn't know, cause he was the foundation of it all. There was no industrial revolution without the intellectual muscle of Isaac Newton. So, no, no, the man was me.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  There was never any, so you said, you talked about that German philosopher, sorry for cutting you off, and they, they, they dispute each other?

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They disputed, and it's clear they came up with it independently of one another around the same time.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  That's just like Einstein around the time, Bohrs and all those guys, Madame Curie, they were all hanging out.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody's together.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Each other, right?

• 9:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, if Einstein.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Heisenberg?

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Heisenberg.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Heisenberg, sorry.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, uh, so, uh, Werner von Heisenberg.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Ooh, nice.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if there's a von.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  You have one more time, huh?

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if there's a von in there, but.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  You just put a von.

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think, I think I just put in a von, actually. I think it's just Heisenberg, yeah. It sounded like it needed a von, right?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  What if we put unts at the beginning?

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unts, von?

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever any of those mean.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  You know what my name, my name is, in German is Gottfried.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gottfried, oh yeah, okay.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Like Gottfried, it means God's gift of peace, Gottfried.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Unts, ja.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  You didn't know that, did you? Mister Neil deGrasse Tyson?

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A nine, no, nine?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Nine, nine? But they had, I thought they, cause I know when I read, I actually went, read Walter Isaacson's biography on, um, on Einstein.

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Einstein, uh huh.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  And so.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of many great biographies he's written, including of Steve Jobs, yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  It's amazing. So, I, I saw that picture they all took, it was Bohrs, um, Heisenberg.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, heavy hitters.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Madame Curie, Pierre, all of it, I say, they all hung out with each other.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They all hung out, and they discovered the modern physics.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The birth of quantum mechanics.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The birth of relativity.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. They were all haters a little bit.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  They all hated on each other.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you know what it is? It's friendly competition.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  That's true. That's true. That's true.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all it is.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Okay, next.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Next question. That was awesome.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, two com- uh, warring football teams. They don't really hate one another, really?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  No, yeah, they do.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the field, maybe, but afterwards, they're, they're having a beer.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  You sure?

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, uh, they're having a beer.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Hmm, who are you talking about?

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Cowboys or Giants?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Okay, here we go.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next one.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Steve Latham, Facebook. Steve Staffordshire, England. If the shape of the universe is hyperbolic or hyperbolic?

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hyperbolic.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Thank you. Hyperbolic, parabloid, then why doesn't the universe expand evenly?

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, as far as we know, the universe is expanding evenly. Uniformly is the right word. So, wherever you are, you will measure the same expansion rate of the universe.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what. And so, that would mean it's expanding uniformly. And so, yeah, I don't, I don't know why he thinks there's a problem there. Uh, it's a sheet. Well, the two-dimensional version is a sheet. We all pull on the edge of the sheet, and we all start pulling.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and dots on the sheet will all start expen- moving away from one another.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All at a uniform rate. And so, that's how we measure this. We see this. So, yeah, no, it's not a problem.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  You think that it was just a bad question?

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are no bad questions.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  There are no bad questions.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, but this, this is a serious question, though.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, people do, do, they do serious homework on this.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Hyperbolic, parabloid? Wow, that's nice. That sounds like a problem, like with your bladder.

• 12:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, no. No, I got, it's an ointment. Fix, fix that right up. Hyperbolic paraboloids.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Do you have hyperbolic paraboloids? We got a new salve for you. It sounded like a-

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Suppository, yeah, yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Suppository. No more hyperbolic paraboloids. Okay, here we go. Next one. This is Phil Sassay. Uh, Sass, it might be Phil Sass. I don't mean to pronounce, mispronounce his last name. Phil Sass from Georgia, USA. All right. If we decided to launch a manned exploration spacecraft, how long would it take for it to explore the entire galaxy? And how could we prep, prep it for such an undertaking?

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it depends on how fast you're going.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, if they manage to go the speed of light, they won't age, but we will. So, at the speed of light, it would take a hundred thousand years to cross the galaxy. So, we're all dead, and none of us will remember that we ever launched you anywhere. So, that's at the speed of light.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Speed of light, too, so stuff is.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Speed of light.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, let me reshape the question a little bit, because there's an interesting, um, there's a fascinating avenue that comes out of this. It turns out that if you created a robot that could use resources on the planet it lands on to replicate itself. So, to make two robots, and then send one robot off to another planet.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, let's say three robots, send off two, one stays.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then, they then make two robots.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you keep this up, you can populate the galaxy over an, what we call an evolutionary lifetime. So, over much less than the age of a star. So, over hundreds of thousands, millions of years, you can significantly populate the galaxy.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this led to what was at the time known as the Fermi paradox. Because any alien who could do that would have done that by now. And easily have populated the entire galaxy in the time the universe has been around.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he asked, where are they now?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How come they're not among us? So, I have two responses. One of them is, maybe we are they.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Oh, nice, like that.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, uh, the one I just say all the time, because it's like, it's cheap and easy, crack it, our species. So, maybe they did come and take a look and conclude there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  That's so mean.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's true.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Look at these dummies, we're out.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, we're out, we out.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Going to China, Mao.

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We out.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two minutes left on this segment.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Okay, boom. Okay, how many physicists

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does it take?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  To change a light bulb?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  That's Hunter G. Hornet. Facebook, how many physicists?

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since it's physicists um, who invented the LED.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Going forward, the physicist will never have to change the light bulb. It will burn longer than their lifespan.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Boom. Next. You get. A little smart little question, little punk.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in all fairness, so two Nobel prizes ago, or one Nobel Prize ago, the Nobel Prize in Physics was to a team, a physicist, who invented the blue light emitting diode. We had had a green and we had the red.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we never didn't have a blue. Now that we have the blue, we have RGB. You can make any color at all using LEDs. And that blew open the entire lighting market. That's why you go, you can't even get a light bulb that you need to change.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a hardware store.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Am I right?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're right. Oh, that's it.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if he asks you, how many physicists does it take? They were clever enough to remove the meaning of the question itself.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I love that. This cosmic way of destroying that dude. That was awesome, Hunter, whatever your name is. You're slick with your little jokes. Teach you a lesson.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got 20 seconds left. I don't, okay.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, ready? Okay, ready, ready, okay, ready. Does spacetime have limit or is it infinite? If we're on a spaceship going faster than light, would we stop eventually because we reached the edge and there is no more space nor time? This guy is a psycho-exo Instagram.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. Well, there's no time to answer that in this segment.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll have to wait until the next segment of Cosmic Queries on StarTalk. We'll see you in a moment.

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I got Godfrey. It's Godfrey Manchimo. What was your last name?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Manchimo.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  That's hilarious. That's why I'm Godfrey.

• 17:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Godfrey, just Godfrey.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Manchima, you said Manchimo.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mandingo, Mandingo.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  You remember 900 billion galaxies. That's it, Manchimo? Excellent. Now.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're there.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  You ready?

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we let, there was a cliffhanger there.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Cliffhanger, yes.

• 18:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody wants to know, was there an edge to the universe? If you just kept traveling? So, uh, so here's the thing. We do not know how big the actual universe is. There is the size of the universe we see. And light from the edge of that universe has been traveling for 13.8 billion years to reach us. Now, of course, over that time, the universe has expanded. So, the actual universe is bigger than that today. It's bigger than that. But you have to ask, beyond that horizon, is there more universe to be found? We can only assume yes, but we don't know for sure.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  But is that, isn't that just?

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it could be infinite. And here's why I say infinite. Let me tell you why I say infinite. Because infinity makes people uncomfortable.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, the biblical version of i- i- infinity is eternity. Right?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  That'd be a new car.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a word, eternity. No, that's a, it's a, uh...

• 19:00Speaker 01

  The fragrance.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fragrance.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There, there are more science words.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The event horizon.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once you get close.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you are in eternal embrace.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  It's second to immortal, like immortal things. You know, that cosmic word, infinity.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so, um, and they want it big, because there's also infinitesimal, but nobody's, nobody's naming anything that.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Infinitesimal, yeah.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, nobody's naming that.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so...

• 19:32Speaker 01

  The infinitesimal.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you go out there and we, we don't know. We say infinity. Because we don't have any reason to give any other value. What am I gonna say? It's a hundred and thirty-eight mil- billion light years across. We have no reason to.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Well, just say, you have to say.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No reason to assign one number versus another, so we just say infinite until, until we have better reason.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  You have to say infinite because you can't go over there. You can't, you do everything from Earth, you can't.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe one day?

• 20:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't be such a Luddite.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Man, you're trying to go to Mars, man.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've been to Mars many times.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a person.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our robotic emissaries have.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, you got your robot over there.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there you go.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  That's a little G I Joe whatever over there, right?

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, you got it.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Saying, but you can't, that's a smart thing that astronomers say and all you guys say because I would say it too, I go, it's infinite, man.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but I say it's infinite only because I can't justify giving any other value to it. And so we just say this is infinite until we have a better.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  You're not saving your own ass by saying that?

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Be like, yo, it's infinite, then if you said, listen, it's one hundred thirty-eight billion, then they'll, they can't wait to go, you lied.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  You told me.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because I didn't say it is infinite, I said, we have no reason to think it isn't.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's different.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Ooh, I like that little Elvis thing you just did to me.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Elvis do this?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  I did, and he said, it's infinite.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, infinite.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Don't, don't forget, baby, it's infinite. Right, next question. I think this is, this is guy David Hamilton. I think this is one of the toughest things to wrap my head around. When we talk about space curving or warping, are we talking about something permeating everything we see that bends and warps?

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  So, what is it made of and does that mean on some level, space isn't truly a vacuum? He's from, uh, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, fantastico.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The world's largest radio telescope was in Puerto Rico.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  What? What part?

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Arecibo.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Arecibo?

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Increíble.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you're not gonna ask who's got it now, who's got the biggest?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Okay, who has it now?

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who has it now? China.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  What?

• 21:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if aliens are gonna talk to us and we need the most sensitive radio telescope, Chinese are gonna hear the aliens first.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  So the Chinese are gonna hear it first.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  First of all, if the aliens hear the Chinese, they're not gonna know. Chinese, Chinese is hard. Ni hao, and then it's, whoa. Aliens will be like, whoa, let's go back to Puerto Rico.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, I'm trying to learn Chinese, it's tough.

• 22:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's hard, it's hard.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Very, it's the hardest language ever.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though more people know that language than any other.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying?

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how hard could it be?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  It has to be hard.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  But you gotta be Chinese.

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1.3, oh god, don't.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  No, you gotta be, no, I'm just saying.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1.3 billion people speak Mandarin, whatever, 800 million, whatever's the number.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Man.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  That is, I'm trying to learn it.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Ni hao.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ni hao.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Ni hao ma. Ni hao ma, you say hen hao, xie xie.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Xie xie.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  And that, pu kachi, you said thank you, I said, you're welcome.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Ah, watch this. I am American, I just said that, I am American.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am American.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  There you go, ah, are you like, you did it?

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, now you put me in the middle of Chinatown, I, you know, I'll just, I'll point to the food I'm gonna buy.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Do karate moves.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Karate's Japanese, if I.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  No, karate's Japanese, kung fu.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  But I can sound like Chinese, I can literally sound like I'm speaking Chinese, cuz it's tonal, dude.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tonal.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  It's tonal, it's five tonal, it's five tones, and watch, watch this. Watch how I sound like I know Chinese, watch this. You chao ah, din chi kim chi u ah, tom chao ah, din chi gong chao ah.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So was that gibberish?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Nah, that's kung fu movies.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  That's gibberish though, it's gibberish.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a video.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of a guy speaking English gibberish.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it is, it is mind blowing. So it is what English sounds like to a non-native speaker.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  I love that. So how's it?

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's, it's like, I should understand this, but.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  But not really.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing makes any sense at all.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no accent. You don't hear, usually if there's an accent trying to speak English, but you can't understand him. It is, it is a perfect American accent, but nothing is coming out, nothing meaningful is coming out.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  That's he's speaking Trump.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Speaking Trump. That's what he's speaking.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moving his mouth, but no real.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Wrong.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wrong.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Wrong.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Total disaster. Wrong. There's some bad hombres out there. Wrong.

• 24:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I answer the question yet?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yes, you did answer the question.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was the question? I forgot the question.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was it?

• 24:32Speaker 01

  It was, he said that, that, that it's about the space curving.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the curving, curving. No, I didn't answer the question. So, no, so space. So the idea that space is curved is hard for us to see because we're embedded in the space.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So of course it's hard to see. In the same way, it's hard to know that Earth is round. Cause we're kind of in a sense embedded in the surface of that curve and we are small relative to it. If we step out of the dimensionality and look back, yeah, there's the round Earth. That's what we did when we went to the moon. There's the round Earth. You stepped out of the surface of the Earth. If we step out of the dimensionality of our universe, you would see all the curvature manifested by all the mass and the total curvature represented in the universe itself. So it's all a matter of your, your point of view.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Well, it's like a crappy relationship. You have to step out of it and say, what the hell was I doing?

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With, and sometimes you're in a crappy relationship and you don't even know. Until you, with some distance.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think it's normal until you don't, until, right, right.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. All right. That, you did. That was great.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's do it.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Okay, we're moving on, right? Here we go. This is Lucas Mesa Nova Instagram from Colombia.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Colombia. Okay.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  It said, not Colombia, Colombia.

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got it. I know how to pronounce.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  No, no, he said it right there.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's trying to make sure.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was like, it's Co- Colombia, not Columbia. Whatever. Ready?

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though I think it's named after Columbus.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Okay, no, I believe that.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, alright.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Here's a, some theories say that our universe is a three D hologram of another universe with more diven- more dimensions. How would this affect spacetime? Is there a proof of this?

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. There's no proof, but there's a very cogent argument to support it. And so, the, the idea is that the surface of an event horizon is the complete record of anything that ever have pa- having passed through it. So that it is the, sort of the ghost of all things. And so you can ask, have we passed through some other event horizon? The horizon of the universe can be thought of as kind of like an event horizon of the universe itself. And so, if that's the case, then we could be shadows

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to a higher dimension on the edge of the event horizon that they observe. And so it's been called a holographic, uh, principle.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  We're shadows.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's been suggested that that is the case.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  We might be shadows.

• 27:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  So that means?

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is very Pl- Platonic. Plato imagined a world where you're in a cave and there's a campfire. And all you can do is look in the adjacent wall and you see shadows. Your own shadow and the shadows of others. So if you only see the shadows and that is your reality,

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  then look at how much you're missing when someone else comes in and say, wait a minute, there's a campfire there and there are people with clothing on. And there's all this, but all you see and know is that wall. That is your entire existence. So could it be that everything we see and think is real is just a projection of a much more textured, higher dimensional reality? And in fact, we are, we are blind, deaf and dumb to it all.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Fantastico.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Here's another one. That was good. You answered it. It was amazing.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Ricardo Montalban would be proud.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Smiles. Everyone smiles.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Smiles.

• 28:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only if you have courantia leather.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  You broke down the Montalban. That's awesome.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you pull out the Montalban, there's no turning back.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  There's no turning back.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Boss, the plane. The plane. Yeah, the plane, the cosmic ride.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was there. I was there.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  You were there.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was there.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  You ready?

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, go.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  This guy, his interesting last name, Jeff Sostresz. Sostresz. It might, because it's like, I think it's Polish. Sostresz. I don't know. He's from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Is there anywhere in the universe where you can find a zero?

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Usually yes.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what follows in that question, the answer is probably yes. Okay? Is there, the universe is large, it's old, and stuff happens in the universe.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Where you can find a zero state of energy, perhaps where even the cosmic background radiation does not permeate. Man, these questions are something else.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would be, that would be an absolute zero. Um, we, as far as we know, the vacuum of space is a seething ocean of what we call virtual particles that are, that are predicted by quantum physics. And quantum physics has been right in every other way it's ever made a prediction. So we have high confidence that what it's saying is true. But as long as you have particles, even in the vacuum, there's going to be an energy level there and you never actually get to perfect zero energy because of the quantum. And so the quantum prevents it. We would need some higher theory of understanding of the universe that might enclose quantum physics. That will enable us to get to places that our current understanding does not.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But right now, there's no way to get to a perfect zero energy. Because every state, even the zero energy state, has a probability of having real energy.

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quantum physics requires it.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Hmm. Nah.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, quantum physics, everything bows to quantum physics.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Always.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the end of the day.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, invisible math, man.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Invis- where you get this from, invisible math? There's math that can describe invisible things?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  That's what I mean.

• 30:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the math itself is not invisible.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  I like calling it math.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where are you getting this? No, I'm not accepting. Invisible, man. I'm not accepting it.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Matemáticas de invisiblemente. No, no, nothing.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not going there.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  No, you don't like to call it invisible math?

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  I love to call it invisible.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's not there.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Well, I call it, it's invisible to me because I don't want to see it.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because you look the other way.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, that's why I call it invisible math. Because I suck at it.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the fun part, here's the fun part.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  I suck at it.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We observe weird stuff happening in the lab.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for people who hate math, this must freak them out. So we have scientists of the day saying, hmm. Let's attach math to this to make it easier. So we can bring, bring some understanding to it. So the mathematics of quantum physics is an extraordinary achievement of the human mind.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  It's, it's, yeah, that's another brain that you, that's something, I don't have that.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but maybe you did and you, it still has to be found.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  You think that I could bring that out, I can get good at quantum physics?

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Mathematics?

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can all always get better.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  No, I think.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether or not we can become great at anything, we can always become better at it.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  You're naturally good at math. I don't think, I think it's a natural knack. It is. There's people I knew in grade school, like some, some guys I knew and girls that would just do, they didn't even study. They didn't even study, I had to use the teacher's example and flip the page over to do a math.

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To look at the, at the answer in the back of the book.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  My friends were just certain guys, they were just naturally good at it. You know that, come on, you're naturally good at math.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd, I spent a lot of time at home reading books on math.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does that mean I'm naturally good? Does that mean I'm naturally curious and I happen to apply that curiosity to math? And therefore got higher grades in math than you did. What were you doing when you went home after school?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  I was confused.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  So I just kept watching cartoons, man. You know what I mean? And there's stuff that you were reading, you were probably reading.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was reading.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Theoretical stuff about mathematics.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was reading math, yeah, I was reading.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  You naturally have an inclination for that because you were naturally gifted for math. That's what it is.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Curiosity and childhood that I, that never left me.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Guess what I would? I watch comedies, man.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I so do, I love, I love.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  You love comedy too, you're a funny guy. But I continued my funniness in that way comedian. You funny guy, but astrophysicist. Because you're amazing at math and invisible math. Because you see the invisibility of. Okay.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You made your case.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Are you ready?

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's the next question?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nicholas Lambert, Facebook. Why is dark matter presumed to exist when modified Newtonian dynamics is able to account for most of the missing mass? Have physicists forgotten the principle of Occam's razor?

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Occam's razor.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Occam's, I'm sorry.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Occam's razor when we come back to StarTalk. We'll see you in a moment.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. I got Godfrey.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yo.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Free the comedian. Tweet, tweeting at Godfrey comedian.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Do you do Instagram?

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm, I'm, yeah, you got Instagram?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  I'm comedian, I'm comedian Godfrey Instagram.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, what, someone else was Godfrey comedian Instagram?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I, I, I did that and I don't know how to get into that. I, I didn't, I messed myself up.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I didn't know, I don't know how to get into that old account. So I had to go comedian Godfrey.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, all right.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  I'm stupid.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Media and Godfrey Instagram.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I got Instagram, but I'm, I'm not yet live on it. I'm gonna be, I got a whole lot of stuff I want to post.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  I'm sure you're not worried about it.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  I'm putting you on my Instagram though.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So we got questions here. Someone asked about.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark matter and modified Newtonian gravity as a solution in Occam's razor.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Occam's razor, there was like, I think it was Earl of Occam.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  British fellow. I think he was British. Who uttered the following words. Multiplicity ought not be posited.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without simplicity.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is, what he means is, I think I got that quote right. What he means is, if you have an explanation for something.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is long and complicated.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And someone else has a really simple explanation.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all. Okay? So, for example, let's take, uh, epilepsy.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before we understood epilepsy, there you are writhing on the ground and so people had an argument for it. Well, the creator of the universe.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, has a nemesis called the devil. And that devil has occupied the body of this particular person because of the things this person has done.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Or the brain is misfiring in its neurosynapses. Okay? So, this, this is what we're contending with.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So, there you have it. So, uh, in the movie The Exorcist. It's like, this is the 21st century, uh, the 20th century, I think. Um, we got this one? All right. So, um, the, the notion there is, there is a modify, you, if you modify Newton's equations of gravity, then you don't need to posit dark matter to explain things in the universe. And it would mean that our understanding of gravity was flawed in this way, where when we corrected it, we wouldn't need to invoke this magical mystical thing called dark matter. And so, it turns out, you can, can modify Newton's laws of gravity to explain some

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of the places where dark matter was otherwise invoked. There are other places where it fails completely. And we have no way around that. We don't, with the modify, you can't modify Newton's gravity in the same way to account for it. And so, that's why we all haven't jumped on the bandwagon, adding terms to Newton's equations of gravity. That's why.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Awesome. Awesome. I'm gonna keep going.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I like that one.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Here we go. Adrian Gray Martson from California.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  California.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  We currently can go. We can, wait, I'm sorry, we currently can only go forward in time with regards to black hole tricknology. Given.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tricknology.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Tricknology, whoa.

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Given what little we know about dark matter and dark energy being our physics opposite. Do you think our future insights and education on all things dark will grant the option to move backwards in time?

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Ooh, all things dark.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and black hole techno- what is it? Black hole tech.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  It's black hole tricknology.

• 37:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tricknology, okay, so it turns out. Uh, if you, you can warp the fabric of space and time, by the way, I have been told this. I have not double-checked the math.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are people whose math in other cases I trust implicitly. Uh, so that there's a configuration of curved spacetime. Where if you go around a black hole in a particular trajectory.

• 37:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And come back around another one, you can actually go back in your own spacetime. And so effectively go backwards in time.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's, it's still a little bit mysterious to me, okay, I got people who do this. I'm not the one who does it.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, as a colleague of mine, Jay Richard Gott the third, who I actually am co-author on in a book that was just released.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Princeton University Press.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  There it is. What's the title?

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The title is Welcome to the Universe.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An astrophysical tour.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Ow!

• 38:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just at a local bookstore near you.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get it.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, so in there, he talks about these solutions to Einstein's equations where you go back in time. But they involve very exotic trajectories. The point is, the bigger point of the, of the question is, we've got dark matter. We don't know anything about it. Dark energy, we don't know anything about it. And who knows what else we don't know anything about.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's kind of the fun part of not knowing about something, not even knowing that you don't know about something.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so with all of this, could it be that once all of that's figured out, we can have access to the past? I can't rule that out. I will not rule that out. Almost everything we've discovered that came about from profound ignorance has transformed civilization.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about the discovery of electricity.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Phew.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What it has done.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the probably the greatest thing to ever happen. The civilization.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  I can't even imagine not having.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imagine.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I can't even imagine not plugging stuff.

• 39:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plugging stuff and flicking a switch.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Flicking a switch.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Don't know how it works, don't care, it's here.

• 39:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not even and it's and we've made it into something that's not even only about light. Movies and.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Movies, just.

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ev- everything, everything, okay. So, this is harnessing something that previously we ran away from. Or didn't understand, so, so I look forward to a future. Where dark matter and dark energy. Come to be understood. But then. That only puts us in a new place to stand. Possibly observing. New unknowns. That today are yet to be dreamt of.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Alright. I like that.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe access to our past. Lurk lurks among those unknowns.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Hey. I like that, next.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Here we go. I like this one, I think. Gonzo, God, oh no, Gonzalo. Martin, Facebook, from Chile. Land of the stars.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be Gonzalo. Martin?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Yes. Martin, how you know him, you know him?

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Did I say Martin?

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said Martin. Martin, it's it.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Martin.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We were in South America.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Martin. I just, I don't even want to be American. It's Martin. Martin, I'm sorry.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he says land of the stars?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  He said land of the stars.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My entire.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Ayayas.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the data that went into my PhD thesis was obtained in the Andes Mountains of Chile.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Wow, that's deep.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Ow!

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Outside of the town of La Serena.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Fantastico.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wish I could say it that good, you say it that good, I'm not even gonna try.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Spanish, it was my, I studied Spanish in college.

• 40:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fantastico.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Fantastico.

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, see, that's better, that's, I can't do that, I can't even.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  You do the whole universe thing smooth, like, do your, do your title of your book, go ahead.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the universe.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  See what I'm saying, like my.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, yeah, no, no, okay.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Fantastico.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Okay, ready?

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, go.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  If sound won't travel through space, how does the sound of celestial bodies? Whoa, whoa, wait. If sound won't travel through space, how does the sound of celestial bodies can be listened?

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To, yes.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  I guess they just said.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, um, it's because we are not

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  consistent with our vocabulary. We are, we play Lucy Goosey with our words.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when we say, let's listen for aliens who are send us radio waves, it means we're pulling out a radio telescope trying to detect electromagnetic waves, light, sent by them from another place in the galaxy that has now trapped, and this signal has traveled through the vacuum of space. We can then turn that electromagnetic signal into sound if you want, but that doesn't mean they're making sounds. They're making electromagnetic energy. And so we have the unfortunate word radio because radio became not only the name for the light waves, it became the name of the object that brought you radio waves turned into sounds.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we hear, we hear the word radio and we think sound. The astrophysicist hears the word radio waves and we think radio wave light. So, so we've been sloppy. I feel, I feel bad. We're sloppy. No sound moves through space in the vacuum of space, period.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Period. Even if we say that we're listening.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Sound, well, with sound waves.

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sound can't travel through, sound needs a medium to vibrate.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To transmit itself from one place to another. That's right.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  So, so like, for example, let's say a comedy club. You need a, a, a, a particular building for sound to travel, right? Is that how microphones work?

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't know what you're talking about.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I thought I had it. You said your sound needs a medium to travel through.

• 43:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Air is a medium. It travels through the air. Air vibrates.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Okay, so what did you just say? I just got confused.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, air propagates sound.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but light does not need a medium to propagate through. One of the great discoveries of the 20th century, that this is not necessary. It can travel through the vacuum of space, which is why this, the sign on every broadcast door that says on the air.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  On the air, right.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're on space.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The radio waves don't need air.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is technically on the air, but the air is not carrying it. If you're in the moon, it could still, you could still broadcast your TV and radio and, and there's no air. You'd have to say on the vacuum of space.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Got you. Okay, I guess I was confused.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's just a weird thing, but yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  It's a weird thing.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but in comedy club, you speak, it goes through the microphone. It comes, it gets converted into electrical signals, comes out through speakers. Some people hear you directly through the air. Other people hear you through the speakers through the air.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, we gotta do lightning round.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three minutes left. Okay.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Three minutes left. Okay, okay, here we go. Oh, if, if we built a time machine, what's the best way to log time? Isn't it the same as Earth years?

• 44:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, if you have access to your timeline, there is no logging of time. Because time is a permanent fixture in your life.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Okay. Bam.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  How would you explain?

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The same way when you're looking at a map.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not logging distance, because the whole map is just right there.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Boom.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just see New York to California. It's just all there.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not logging distance from New York to California while you're looking at a map. Any more than you would need to log time, looking at your entire timeline of your life.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Boom.

• 44:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hit it.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Uh, Theodore Smith, how would you explain spacetime to a non-scientist? Or an atomist who is generally bad, but fascinated by physics?

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say, sir, that, is it a sir?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's his, what's his name?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Uh, Theodore Smith.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Theodore Teddy Smith. Teddy, if.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Teddy, you have never been at a place unless it was at a time. And you've never been at a, at a time unless you were at a place.

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Recognizing that fact, you will understand that space and time are forever intertwined with one another. You've never said, "I'll meet you 10 o'clock tomorrow." Where? Or, "I'll meet you at the corner of Hollywood and Vine." When? We know intuitively that space and time are conjoined, even if you don't think actively about it. Space and time were always together, like beans and rice.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 45:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just took Einstein to show us.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 45:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a fundamental property of the cosmos.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 46:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's do it.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, this is, uh, this is Kyle, uh, Sakial, Sakial. Where in the known universe would you experience extreme time dilation?

• 46:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ooh, several places. Near the surface of a bla- near the event horizon of a black hole. Extreme time dilation there. Near the surface of a black hole. Your time will go so slowly for you that the entire future history of the universe unfolds before your eyes. That is perhaps the most serious time dilation that exists. So, avoid black holes. One more. You know, one, we got time for one more.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Chris Couples, oh, here we go. Lord Couples, at Lord Couples Twitter. Could gravitational bleeding from other dimensions be what we call dark matter?

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is my favorite explanation for what dark matter could be. But I'm told, I've had this conversation with folks. It's unlikely, only because it would have to bleed in a higher dimension out of the other universe. And if you bleed in a higher dimension, it drops off much faster than 1 over r squared. Gravity drops off as 1 over r squared, it would drop off as 1 over r cubed. So that means to feel it in another universe, it would have to be really, really, really, really strong in the adjacent universe for, while it's dropping off as 1 over the distance cubed, for you to feel it in the adjacent universe. So, if that were the case, then dark matter would just be ordinary matter harassing matter in our universe. Be ordinary matter in a parallel universe harassing us.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Harassing us.

• 47:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd have no other way to account for that, to explain.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, just harassing.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  With?

• 47:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Harassing.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's bothering. Bothering. It's, "I got my planet, I got my star, I got my gravity."

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Being a dick.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now there's more gravity I gotta now mess with. I don't know where it's coming from, what it's about, why you messing with me this way?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Why you messing with me? Punching the face on harassing me matter.

• 47:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I could find you, if I could.

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah! Godfrey, we gotta call this, we gotta, we gotta land this plane. Uh, you- Awesome. Godfrey, thanks for being on StarTalk. Thank you, I hope I come back and get it- I'm glad you slipped us into your schedule, you're, you're on your way to California? I'm on my way to California. You've got some gigs that you'll talk about in another time? Another time. Alright. Yes! In another space-time. Another space-time! Fantastical. Fantastical. There you go. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, this has been StarTalk, and as always, I bid you to keep looking.