Cosmic Queries – Mirror, Mirror

Are entangled particles connected by wormholes? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice answer a grab bag of questions about the Fermi Paradox, Dinosaurs v. Aliens, our cosmological horizon, and more!

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just fall in, okay? Because it's gravity.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  It's gravity, it's right, right.

• 0:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll just, you can't not fall in it. But because it has more gravity than Earth does, if you let it go, it and Earth would fall towards each other, and Earth would lose. It would eat the entire Earth systematically. Yes. It'll break apart Earth and just chew it and burp, and that's it.

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition Grab Bag. Chuck, that's your favorite category.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  Gotta love the grab bag, man. All kinds of good stuff all up in the grab bag. People just come at us with whatever they want.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You put your hand in, you don't know what you're gonna pull out.

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  That's right. It's like, it's like...

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's get right to it.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  It's StarTalk Bingo.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's all Patreon members. Five dollars a month gets you access. All right.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  Best deal in town. Here we go, let's start off with...

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Waste no time.

• 1:14Chuck Nice?

  No time, we're jumping right into it. Kate Warsaw Poland here. Lately, I've been wondering about the Fermi paradox. Do you think it could be possible we have found no advanced civilizations or have not been found because of the speed of light? Could they just be too far away? Or could it be that they have done to their planets what we are currently doing to ours, and they're just all dead?

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. So let me remind people about the Fermi paradox. Enrico Fermi, he was an Italian-American physicist, a 20th-century physicist, a brilliant guy. And he did an actual calculation on the back of an envelope, as we call it. So it wasn't some grand chalkboard calculation, just he made some estimates. And he said, "All right, I know the speed of light is fast, but let's say they have a civilization that can go maybe one-fifth the speed of light, some fraction of this, 10% the speed of light." I'm not, is that asking too much?

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  That's too much.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not too much, all right. But let's say 10% the speed of light. How long would it take you to cross the galaxy? The galaxy is a hundred thousand light years across. So if you go ten percent the speed of light, it'll take you ten times that. So it'll take you a million years. All right, that sounds long, but hang on a minute. That's not where you're first gonna go. You're gonna go from our star system to the nearby star system. Okay. Okay, and then you're gonna pitch tent, grow civilization, and now you're gonna launch again. And then, but now you're not just gonna go to one more, you're gonna go to two more. Okay. And then each of those two will go to two more each, that goes to four. Okay.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To eight, to sixteen, and so your civilization spreads out rapidly, exponentially. All right, and you'll get to nearby stars in ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years. All right, and you just have a new civilization there, and they send out two more, two more probes. What he concluded was, if any sensible assumptions you make, the whole galaxy and all available planets can be colonized within a few million years. Okay. That is short compared with the lifetime of the galaxy. That's nothing. So if it's, if it's nothing, so we're Johnny Come Latelys here.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Suppose you had an advanced civilization that started five billion years ago, at the birth of the sun, a whole other star that's been around. All right, then they could be all over the galaxy, and we don't see them. Where are they? Okay, so then everyone is saying, well, how come we don't see them? Yes, one of the reasons are, they could be just like us and destroy their own planet. Okay, they're so smart, they figured out how to destroy themselves. That's one example. Uh, another one is, space travel is just too hard. It's just hard.

• 4:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can move around to your moon. They're stupid.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God, this is hard.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one told us. Why they have to be so hard? We keep trying to go to space, and we can't. It's just too hard, okay?

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  It's so crazy.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weeping aliens across the country.

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't do it. So, um, all right. So that's what, one of the reasons, another one, uh, this is my favorite of them. Is that whatever genetic profile, whether or not they use genes, whatever is in you that wants you to colonize planets. If that's driving your entire civilization and you go this way and you get two planets and you get two planets. There'll come a time where we both want the same planet.

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Why, why, why do they have, why is their planet so much nicer than our planet? We all started at the same time. I don't understand it. Why is their planet so much better? You know what we should do? You know, I'm, no, I'm just saying, guys, what we should do? We should go over there and take that planet. We should take that planet. Okay? Now, wait a minute. Just because.

• 5:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's colonization in a nutshell.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there you go. Now, now, listen, just because we're on planet Caucasoid and they're on planet negro. Doesn't mean that we're doing it just because of that.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So if that's the case, then the, the whole system will implode.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which kind of happened with European colonists. All right? England had colonies, France had colonies, Spain had colonies, Portuguese had, Portugal had colonies, Dutch had colonies. And you reach a point where there's not enough land to go around and they fight each other for control of that land.

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So we saw that play out on Earth's surface. Where if you have this expansionist mentality. So it could be that whatever is the urge that would want to make that happen in the first place. Has the seeds of its own unraveling.

• 6:39Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So the, the curiosity that brings you to want to branch out. And the drive, more importantly.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  Is the thing that is your undoing because that same drive caused you to lust for the very things that you want to achieve. And others, like, I don't want, I'm the only person that could have this, cuz

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  I wanna do this. Damn.

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I wouldn't call it curiosity so much as hegemony.

• 7:08Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, yeah, great word, yes.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good SAT word.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I like it.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you hegemonist? Just the need to conquer.

• 7:18Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To control. This is a, this is a thing. But, there's a third category, or fourth, I lost track.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is my favorite, you ready?

• 7:27Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They have come to Earth, and they tried to visit, and they saw all of the space debris orbiting Earth, and they said, uh-uh.

• 7:42Chuck Nice?

  They were like, uh, that's Sanford and Son planet, that's the Sanford and Son planet.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What'd you say? You saying those aliens are black, they say, mm-mm.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Look at all that junk in their front yard, nobody would've come see that. Why, well, we wanna go there?

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's that, well, I got another one, right? So, I take full credit for this one. They have visited, but they accidentally landed during Comic-Con.

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Okay, that is just-

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So nobody noticed?

• 8:16Chuck Nice?

  That is so silly, but it's so funny. They're like, listen, we kept saying, take me to your leader, people would laugh at us and go, good one, good one, and love the costume, and then they would walk away from us. What is, what's wrong with these people?

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's up, what's up with that?

• 8:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I think that one, I, I, that's the most fun one for me to think about.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  That's super cool.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or they, rather than destroy us, which is every movie wants them to do, they, they phoned home and said, on Earth, they're just like us.

• 8:49Chuck Nice?

  Right. Or nothing to see here.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the Comic-Con experience.

• 8:51Chuck Nice?

  Could be that.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah, nothing interesting.

• 8:53Chuck Nice?

  Nothing to see here, you know?

• 8:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so those are the prevailing, uh, there might be others, those are the ones I carry with me.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For its solutions to the Fermi paradox.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why they're not here.

• 9:03Chuck Nice?

  Awesome. All right, let's go to Omar Marcelino, and Omar says, um, hello, Dr. Tyson and Chuck, Omar here, originally from the boogie down Bronx.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, Bronx in the house.

• 9:17Chuck Nice?

  Living in Texas now. My son Roman, who is seven, wants to know this from you, Dr. Tyson, if you had a chance to see only one- Would you rather see dinosaurs live and roaming the planet? Or aliens?

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, what, uh, oh.

• 9:39Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens. Yeah. Because I already know about dinosaurs.

• 9:42Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 9:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I got, you know, we see them in the movies and they're pretty good. We have good bones and good archaeological. So I'm gonna have to pick aliens only because even though I love me some dinosaurs, we already have pretty good representations of them in movies. We got their fossil bones. We've got good archaeological evidence. And so I, I'm aliens, totally.

• 10:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens.

• 10:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that definitely, you know, cuz.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if it asked me to take it to our leader, I ain't taking it to the White House.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna go, I might go to Washington where the National Academy of Sciences meets.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And bring, bring him to a meeting.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  I would take him to Beyonce.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll mess with his head.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 10:36Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  This is Brendan Gambasi or Gambushe. He gave me a phonetic spelling.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Helping you out.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  Helping me out. Gambushe from Lansing, Michigan, Michigan. He says, hello, doc.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't pronounce, you, you can't pronounce Michigan.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  I got the guy's name finally right and then I messed up the state. Isn't that something? Michigan.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Michigan.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  Michigan.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay. He says, hello, Dr. Tyson. I am interested in knowing what your favorite astronomical discovery of all time is. And Lord Nice, what is your favorite thing that you've learned on StarTalk?

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that.

• 11:22Chuck Nice?

  That's hilarious.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. So my favorite is the fact.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That the discovery that we, all life on Earth, and Earth itself owes its chemical origins to stars that have exploded after having manufactured them in its core. That exploded scattering that enrichment across the galaxy, reaching pristine gas clouds that would form a next generation of stars and planets, one of which was ours. That discovery was in 1957 in a research paper by four authors. One of them is a couple that were married. Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle. And that is the, basically, the origin of the elements.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a spiritual gift of modern astrophysics to civilization. For us to now be able to tell you, we are not just figuratively so, we are literally stardust.

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not only that, as we are alive in this universe, because we contain stardust, the universe is alive within us.

• 12:40Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is my favorite astronomical discovery.

• 12:45Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Chuck, what's your favorite thing you've learned?

• 12:48Chuck Nice?

  Well, I just learned right there. That'll do. That'll do just fine. No, everything is my favorite thing that I've learned on this.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, yes. I tell people all the time that my job is to take a master class in astrophysics with the world's foremost science communicator and like, like, who could have a better job than that? Like, that's amazing, right?

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you want a diploma or something? You're fucking for a certificate.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  You know, it'd be kind of cool if I could get a little certificate. Just Chuck is not as stupid as you think. That's what my.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very cool.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival and I support StarTalk on Patreon. Bringing the universe down to Earth. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 13:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, Chuck, let's keep this going. Right. Keep the party going. Keep the ball of wax rolling. Here we go. This is Matt Berg. He says, greetings. Wait, wait. Keep the ball of wax rolling? Yeah. What balls of wax roll? What, what? Where did that come from? I don't even what it is. What is that? It's just something that comedians used to say when they were, uh, emcee shows. All right, guys, let's keep this ball of wax rolling. And I have no idea. Wax, it's not a thing that wax does. If you put it in a ball, it does. Well, then any ball would roll. It just have to be waxed.

• 14:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, fine, go on. This is, uh, Matt Berg. He says, greetings, Dr. Tyson Lord Nice. Matt Berg here from Sheboygan Falls Middle School in Wisconsin. One main- Middle school. Middle school. Yes, sir, buddy. Uh, he says, one of the main concepts we discussed in my middle school class is the importance of basing final conclusions on scientific evidence that is gathered. A student and I were talking about the expansion of the universe, and she asked that if the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, doesn't that, in essence, in essence, make part of the universe essentially inaccessible?

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  Just as our seeing inside a black hole is impossible, thereby prohibiting us from ever gathering the needed information to make a final conclusion, especially back to the original singularity? If I understand this correctly, and this is indeed true, the fact that we are losing access to the evidence makes me feel very, very uneasy. Could you please, please make me feel better by telling me that I'm wrong? Help! Chuck, what's-

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know he had all that emotion at the end of the letter.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  It took a little liberty.

• 15:57Chuck Nice?

  A poetic license.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, three quarters of the way through that, we did not know whether that person was a student or a teacher.

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  No, we didn't.

• 16:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We didn't. I'd said, damn, if a middle school student is asking that.

• 16:08Chuck Nice?

  A middle school student was asking that.

• 16:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. Okay. So, um, everything, uh, tell me the person's name again?

• 16:14Chuck Nice?

  This is Matt Berg. Matt Berg.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Matt. Yeah, Matt, everything Matt says is correct.

• 16:21Chuck Nice?

  There you go, Matt. Sorry. Sorry, bro.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are losing, we are losing the universe as it expands beyond our horizon.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  Damn.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in the limit, if the acceleration of the expansion continues, then every single galaxy in the night sky will expand beyond our visible horizon, leaving our galaxy and the stars within it alone in our own observable universe.

• 16:51Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. We'll be an island galaxy.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An island galaxy. And as far as we would know, an island universe. Why would there be anything else? In fact, that's what we used to think. We used to think all the galaxies were just fuzzy little things within the Milky Way.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Hubble, 1926, says, whoa, these fuzzy things are flying away. They can't be within our own galaxy. They're other galaxies. So if the day that comes where all the galaxies have expanded beyond our horizon, we will return to what we thought the universe was like before Hubble.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just our own galaxy and that's it. So, yeah, it's where the galaxy is thinning out. Get over it.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. Just like your hair, Matt.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, stop.

• 17:40Chuck Nice?

  These are just the harsh realities of life, my friend.

• 17:46Chuck Nice?

  All right. This is Jesse McIntyre. And Jesse says, hey, nunchuck and Dr. Tyson. Jesse, the farm.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He called you nunchuck?

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  He called me nunchuck. I guess I'm.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nunchuck. All right.

• 17:57Chuck Nice?

  I guess I'm gotta get ready to get flung around by Bruce Lee.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're a martial arts weapon. Yeah, all right.

• 18:04Chuck Nice?

  This is Jesse the farmer from Duval, Washington here. Regarding quantum entanglement. If information is instantaneous, regardless of distance, is the bridge between the two particles possibly an Einstein Rosen bridge? Well, anyway, love the show and get learnt.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 18:26Chuck Nice?

  Boom. There you go.

• 18:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and just to bring closure to that.

• 18:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I mentioned this in another episode. I was having lunch with Brian Greene.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And author of The Elegant Universe and several other books that followed that.

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  Friend of the show.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And brilliant educator, co-founder with his wife of the World Science Festival, held annually in New York.

• 18:49Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the, what he told me was these, in the vacuum of space, we've known that there are these things called virtual particles. Because quantum physics says you can't have zero energy anywhere. That there's fluctuations in the spacetime fabric, quantum fluctuations that will always give you a little bit of energy. You'll never be pure zero. There are people who want to tap that vacuum energy and like propel themselves with it. We don't know how to do that yet, or if ever. But, point is, these virtual particles pop in and out of existence from that energy equals mc squared. Then they come back together again. Okay?

• 19:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when they pop into existence, they are quantum entangled. And then they return, no longer quantum entangled. There's been some thinking lately to suggest that these two quantum entangled particles are connected by a wormhole, such as the, the, the EP bridge that he mentioned.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a wormhole.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? It's, it's just a fancier name for a wormhole.

• 19:56Chuck Nice?

  A wormhole.

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if that's the case, and these particles are happening everywhere, it may be that wormholes are themselves the fabric that stitches the spacetime continuum.

• 20:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, look at that.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That the wormholes that connect entangled particles.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the medium of the spacetime continuum. And that's a profound new thought.

• 20:23Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my new thought for the month.

• 20:25Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing. That's crazy, by the way.

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crazy. It's crazy.

• 20:29Chuck Nice?

  It's crazy.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it had to be stitched somehow.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  It's true, right?

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's the wormholes.

• 20:37Chuck Nice?

  Amazing. That is fantastic. Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question, Jesse McIntyre. That was amazing.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, farmer, what kind of farmer is Jack? Is Washington's growing apples or grapes? One or the other?

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  Uh, true, some, uh, what is it?

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How's that for a stereotype?

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Very good Pinots, right? Or Oregon?

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, yeah.

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  Washington Pinots and, yeah.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chardonnay.

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  Chardonnay as well.

• 21:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can happen.

• 21:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, very cool. All right, my first query ever, guys. Um, he says, this one's kind of been gnawing at me. Regardless, regarding black holes. How can matter fall into the singularity or even past the event horizon at all? If someone approaching the event horizon would see for the first time the rest of the universe speed up infinitely, and black holes don't last for an infinite time due to Hawking radiation, shouldn't any matter, matter falling towards the event horizon either be instantly turned into Hawking radiation in its own timeframe? Or simply ride the event horizon down as the black hole evaporates away? Neither one of these would allow you to go to the singularity, which is something physics can't currently explain anyway.

• 21:47Chuck Nice?

  Love listening to you guys. Keep up with this incredible show.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who asked this question?

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  This is Colin Brum.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Colin Brum, Chuck gave you attitude for the end of that question.

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which physics can't explain anyway.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, there's, I see these kind of like comments sometimes where people really think.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, you up there, nobody gave you permission to give attitude to the question.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  A lot of people think that the singularity is a BS concept. They think like it's, they think it's cheating.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's the edge of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we need another theory to extend it.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's not cheating, it's just, it's our ignorance.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  There you go, right.

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're very candid about it.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  See, and I love that, right. You can be ignorant of something and go to the edge of knowledge, but then you just say, "I'm at the edge of knowledge. We need something else here now."

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  If we step over this line, shit doesn't, I'm sorry, stuff, stuff does not work out anymore. So, we need something else. I think that's brilliant. That's one of the things I love most about every time we do this show.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just, and it's occasionally said that the singularity of a black hole is where God divided by zero.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remember, you're not supposed to divide by zero?

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  You can't divide by zero.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't divide by zero.

• 23:10Chuck Nice?

  Don't do that.

• 23:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, here's the thing. If you fall towards a black hole, you're just gonna fall in.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll stop anywhere, you just keep going. If we try to watch you fall in, that's a different story. Okay, so, but you, you and your timeframe, time is ticking just like normal for you.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, you're not held up. But as you cross the event horizon and you go down towards the center of the black hole, you will see the entire future history of the universe unfold before you.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you don't come out the other side, an interesting question is there, you will get Hawking radiated

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  while you're watching the future history of the universe play out.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That can't be comfortable.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what's worse, the spaghettification falling in, or the Hawking radiation atom by atom as you come out.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  So, yeah, so it's all about frame of reference.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  It's all about frame of reference. It's, yeah, so if you try to look at it like you're not without the frame of reference, then you're screwing the whole thing up.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, exactly. You're combining, you're cross combining frames of reference and you can't do that.

• 24:25Chuck Nice?

  Can't do that.

• 24:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't work out. You don't get a coherent understanding of what's going on.

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay.

• 24:31Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go now. This is Dre Adamanco. Dre Adamanco. He says, "A mirror shows a reflection of whatever is in front of it."

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  What does it reflect if we put a second identical mirror directly in front of it with 100% precision? We've all seen the infinite tunnel of mirrors in the public bathrooms when they're facing each other, but it's impossible to look directly at the center because the object or the person is in the way. What would we see at the center? Darkness? A void? A parallel universe? This is really bending my mind, man!

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, if, if, who is the, who asked this again?

• 25:26Chuck Nice?

  This is Dre Adamenko.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dre, if you manage to do this, it will create a rip in the space-time fabric of the universe.

• 25:36Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't recommend.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  You will destroy us all, Dre. That's what will happen.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, so, what would be there? So I, let me just think this through. I haven't thought about this before. So if they're exactly front and back, there'll be some light that comes in from the side, but that'll reflect off to the other side, okay? And it won't go in line with the mirrors. They're exactly facing each other, and there's no light in that path, then it should just be completely dark with nothing to reflect, ruining your funhouse mirror phenomenon. It just, it would just go dark. As it already is, if you look at the multiple mirror reflections, the farther in the mirror you see, the dimmer it gets.

• 26:25Chuck Nice?

  The dimmer it gets, that's right.

• 26:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct, because it has less light to...

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  To reflect back and forth.

• 26:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To reflect black all that many times.

• 26:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it gets darker and darker and darker, but in this case, there's no reason why it wouldn't just be dark right off the, right off the top.

• 26:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there's no light there.

• 26:42Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So there you have it.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I've never done the experiment, but using my knowledge of reflections and physics, that would be my answer.

• 26:49Chuck Nice?

  Super cool.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it'd be cool to see, you know.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you might do is get a two-way mirror.

• 26:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then put, they put a laser through, you know, when it comes through and you'll still get a reflection, see what happens.

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:05Chuck Nice?

  So there's your homework, okay, Trey?

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hee hee hee.

• 27:08Chuck Nice?

  Got a little homework to do, buddy, okay?

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Pieter Torunski. Mm-hmm. Torunski, thanks, so, okay. It, you know, and it's Pieter from Poland. So maybe it's just, maybe that's Polish way of saying Peter. I'm not sure.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 27:28Chuck Nice?

  I'mma call, I'mma call you Peter, boy, okay?

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, okay.

• 27:32Chuck Nice?

  He says, hey, Dr. Tyson, what's up, Chuck? Uh, my question concerns the shape of the universe. If we know that the universe is ever expanding, does that mean it has an edge? If the Big Bang happened in all places at once, does maybe then the universe keep expanding more like a ball? So without a clear edge? If so, would that ball be in some higher dimension? Thanks and love the show, Peter or Pieter from Poland.

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so excellent question. So first of all, uh, with the universe, when we give, speak of its size, it's to the, our horizon and that's fourteen billion light years away. Now, that edge is today farther away than that because it's been expanding for fourteen billion years.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since then, okay? So if you look at the actual diameter of the full universe, it's not an observable diameter, but you can calculate it. Last I checked, it was something like ninety-two, ninety-four billion miles in diameter, right? The universe today.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beyond the horizon, there's no reason to think there isn't more universe.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  More universe.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just like a ship at sea. There's probably more ocean just beyond your horizon, okay? Eventually you hit land, great, but until then, you're not saying, all I can see is the entire ocean. No one is saying that, all right? So now, the question was, uh, what's outside of that? The expansion? Well, we don't know for sure, but the multiverse. Which is what you get for free when you bring quantum physics to general relativity at Einstein. You get a multiverse that's pumping out universes. And there are different levels of multiverse, but the simplest is that it's outside of our horizon. There are other bubbles of universes.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that doesn't require a higher dimension to embed them. It's just, just imagine, uh, how would you do this? Um, a, uh, a big rubber, expanding rubber sheet, but you have these circles that you draw and each circle in that circle is an expanding circle. That's a universe. Right. And then another universe over here. So the spacetime would enclose, enclose multiple universes that are expanding. That can happen too. Right. Um, but there are higher level multiverses that require embedding in higher dimensions. And you can do that. You can have infinite universes that don't overlap. Right. Yeah. You know how to do that? Did I tell you how to do that? You watch Rick and Morty?

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's how you do that. No, no. So let's take it, uh, take it down a few dimensions. So let's say the universe is a flat sheet of paper. Okay. Okay. Two dimensions instead of three spatial dimensions. Make that sheet of paper infinitely large. Right. Okay. Now take another sheet of paper, put it above it and make that infinitely large. We have two infinite sheets of paper that do not intersect. Right. They don't touch each other. They never touch. So, because they're embedded in a higher dimension, they're two dimensional. They are literally parallel universes. Oh, there you go. So we take our universe and embedded in a higher dimension, we could be infinite, sitting

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  right next to another infinite universe and never the twang would meet. Wow. That being said, there are people who are looking for universes that go bump in the night. Is there a signature in our universe in this direction that looks a little different from this direction? Is this bruised in any way? Hmm. All right? Did we get knocked by another universe passing through, passing by? There are people who have looked, they haven't found any anomalous features in the edge of our signatures, so. Super cool. Yeah, yeah.

• 31:39Chuck Nice?

  You just gotta love this stuff, man. What the hell is wrong with people? Chuck, it's not love this.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay, this is Zach Stein. He says, hello, this is Zach. I'm a first time caller from Kentucky.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, first time caller.

• 32:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long time listener.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  First time caller. Okay. He says, how does scale pertain to the multiverse and quantum theory? If the rules of physics could change in a different universe, could this be factored into changes in scale? We already see this in quantum mechanics. Could the same thing happen as we move up in scale in any other direction?

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so scale? I don't know if I fully understand the question, but I can tell you this. When we figured out planets going around stars, we said, that's cool. Okay. Then we would later learn about atoms that have electrons. And they say, well, we've been down that road before. We got planets going around stars. But electrons going around nucleus.

• 32:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is that, is it that all the way down? Is it that all the way up? Is this things orbiting other things? It turns out, no, it's not. It's very, very different. That's why we don't say electrons orbit. We say they move in orbitals. We borrowed the word and added an AL at the end. So electrons exist in orbitals, not orbits. So it's not scalable in that sense. You don't, it's just not just a big version of something little or little version of something big. Plus, there are other issues, right? So Chuck, if you had to scratch your head, because you got a head itch, show me how you do that. Just do it. Okay, there it is. Scratch your head.

• 33:32Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 33:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You did that like a monkey does it, you know?

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Pinky finger. I thought I was being dainty.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you have lice? Just let me know.

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have an itch in your head.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you responded within a fraction of a second. Okay?

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were, if things just scaled and you were the size of a galaxy.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just say, just make it bigger. If you're the size of a galaxy and your head itched.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd have to send the signal from your head to your finger, to your brain, to your fingertip, and then move your fingertip to scratch your head.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Okay?

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That can't happen any faster than the speed of light. Exactly. So the galaxy's 100,000 light-years across. So the signal to get to your fingertip and then come back and scratch your head would take 200,000 years to scratch your head. Right. That's not particularly helpful. Yes. If you gotta itch. Yeah. It's not very efficient. Right, right, right, right. So, so we're thinking big creatures that if they existed, itching is not a thing. Okay? So my point is, things just don't scale the way you might want them to. Otherwise, it would make for a very easy nesting doll universe, all the way down and all the way up. So, that being said, it is possible for other universes

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to have slightly different laws of physics. Yes, that is possible. And that would change everything. And if you come upon such a universe, do not knock on its door. Yeah. Send in something else, okay? Send in a gerbil or something, I don't know. Nobody likes rats. Send in a rat. Hell. And find out what happens to the rat. All right? If it collapses into a pile of goo or explodes with his guts all over, or it, you know, comes back with three eyeballs, you know, I don't know. Depending on the laws of physics, many, very many things can be different. Wow. There you go. That's very cool. Well, and by the way, in the Cosmic Queries book,

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  book, okay? That's one of the installments of the StarTalk book series in collaboration with National Geographic. Okay. In that book, there's an entire chapter, there's an entire chapter on how the universe will die. And it has all the ways, and it describes how the multiverse gives us all these different combinations of size, laws of physics, and the like. So it's a, it's a fun read. So check it out. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. Mm-hmm. All right. Let's go to Renee's scurp.

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  Rene says hello. Hypothetically speaking, could you walk on the rings of Saturn? Again, hypothetically. If you were to land on Jupiter or a gas giant, would you just fall straight to the core? Can't wait to hear the answer. Thanks, Rene.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so here's what'll happen. Saturn's rings are not a thing. There's just like countless particles orbiting Saturn. Okay, so you can't take your car and drive on Saturn's rings like it's a racetrack. Okay, and it's not a surface. And all the gravity points towards Jupiter. So no, you cannot walk on Saturn, not even hypothetically. Can you walk on Saturn's rings?

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Not even hypothetically, dang.

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not even hypothetically, sorry about that.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  So disappointing.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you want to land on Jupiter or Saturn. You get to the outer surface, but it's gaseous. And you keep falling, and you keep falling, and you keep falling. Until you and the surrounding gasses have the same density.

• 37:28Chuck Nice?

  Right. Oh, just like in your own water.

• 37:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, you finally, you'll get to a place under pressure.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  Under pressure.

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you'll just be buoyant there.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, when I, the little bit of scuba diving I've done, if you want to get to a certain depth, you have to wear weights.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Add weights.

• 37:46Chuck Nice?

  You gotta have weights.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 37:47Chuck Nice?

  Just for that reason, you know?

• 37:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You scuba dived before?

• 37:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, wow.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I enjoy, I enjoy it immensely. Uh, it's a lot.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what's scuba stand for?

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, you would do this to me.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude.

• 38:01Chuck Nice?

  I know it's an acronym, hold on.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude.

• 38:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, no. You got me, man. Subway, oh, shit.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 38:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, crap, crap, crap, crap. I can't remember.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Self-contained underwater bre-

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  Breathing apparatus.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 38:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, go on it. Got me, got me.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, just to, just to atone, what does laser stand for?

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  Aw, man, I can't believe you did this to me.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just trying to help, I'm trying to give you just safe face here.

• 38:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, um, light amplified, stimulated emission. Wait, what's the R?

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  Stimulated emission, what's the R? Damn it, I'm losing my mind.

• 38:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation.

• 38:55Chuck Nice?

  Radiation, okay, I should have known that.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, you're 0 for 2, you need one out of here, okay. What is, what does AM stand for? In, AM and PM, AM.

• 39:07Chuck Nice?

  Um, AM stands for staticky radio.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you win, okay, we'll let you out of that one.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm trying to help you out here, AM and PM, you know what AM stands for?

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  I don't really know, I'm terrible at these.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You use it every day.

• 39:29Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  AM and PM.

• 39:31Chuck Nice?

  I do, so after midnight and, I don't know, post-morning, I don't know.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe we'll do one with abbreviations, we'll do a, we'll do an explainer one day.

• 39:45Chuck Nice?

  We should, because let me tell you something, I use all this stuff. Here's the problem, I read these things, you know, and then I just forget. It's, you know why? Cause you never, you never say them.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but plus you need, plus you need context to understand. Once I teach you AM and PM, you'll never forget it.

• 40:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I promise.

• 40:03Chuck Nice?

  Alright, I'm not gonna look it up, and I don't do Google, when, see, when I don't know something, I don't do the whole like, let me run to Google, I'm like, okay, I gotta look it up and I gotta read it. You know, but like, laser, I've, you know, I'll read that a million times and I still won't remember it. And scuba, when I first scuba dived, I had to, of course, look up, you know, that's the first thing they make you learn.

• 40:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:24Chuck Nice?

  Before they, before you ever put the tank on and go into the pool, which is where you learn is the pool, but, yeah, you gotta learn, so. But I'm interested for AMP, and I'm not gonna look it up.

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll do it, there's AMPM, there's AM and FM, XM.

• 40:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, XM radio, those all stand for things, so.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let's do it, we'll do that at the winner, that'll be fun, that's a fun one.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did we, did I finish answering that question?

• 40:49Chuck Nice?

  Um, yeah, you did, because basically, the answer is no. You can't walk on the rings of Saturn, and no.

• 40:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'll sink.

• 40:57Chuck Nice?

  You cannot fall to the center of a gas giant. You're gonna at some point reach a place of buoyancy, and you're gonna be stuck there.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there is a place, we think Jupiter has a solid core, very far down.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  Right. Uh. But you'll be crushed before you get there.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, was it a solid core, or a six? Yeah, yeah, you're long dead.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  You're long dead before you ever reach it.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, is it a solid, there's a, there's like an earth mass of solid stuff.

• 41:20Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the center of Jupiter, yeah.

• 41:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I did not know that.

• 41:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  Jupiter is that big that inside, it's pregnant with a little earth. That's awesome.

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a Tootsie, Tootsie Roll.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Tootsie Pop.

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:36Chuck Nice?

  That's great.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And last question, one more, real quick.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go, let me find one that.

• 41:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quick one.

• 41:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay. All right, here we go, this is Bruce Ryan. Bruce Ryan says this, what's up, gents? Bruce Ryan here from Alexandria, Virginia. Suppose there was a small black hole with an event horizon the size of a basketball floating in front of you. What would happen if you put your hand through that event horizon? Would it suck your entire body through? Or would you just lose your hand or something?

• 42:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ew, ew.

• 42:09Chuck Nice?

  Kinda wild in a way, I like that question, yeah.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ew. I don't know if it'll just bite off your hand, or if you'll fall into it. What I do know is that if you let go of it, okay?

• 42:22Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, that, that basketball-sized black hole would have more mass than the entire earth.

• 42:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what would really happen is you'll fall in. You'll just fall in, okay? Because its gravity would just pull you in.

• 42:34Chuck Nice?

  Gravity is right, right.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll just, you can't not fall in it. But, because it has more gravity than earth does, if you let it go, it and earth would fall towards each other, and earth would lose. It would eat the entire earth systematically.

• 42:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. It'll break apart earth and just chew it and burp, and that's it.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, I'm telling you right now, this earth, ooh, child, this earth is delicious. I don't know who sent out for earth, but I'm telling you right now, you need to call Uber Eats and get some of this earth. Saturn, Saturn. Have you had this earth too?

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, the black hole wouldn't have to lick its fingers because it is all going straight down the hole. It's just going straight down the hole, right. It's just going straight down the hole. It's not even finger-licking good. It's just, it's like swallow good. There you go. That's all the time we got, Chuck. Oh, man, that was fun. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, Grab Bag, that was. All right, always good to have you here. Always a pleasure. Checking this out. This is, uh, StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.